Page 23 of Night Songs

I told her it was a birthmark. The trunk started at my belly button and followed up my chest, where its branches fanned out like a tree, with the tips grazing my collarbone. A mark like this was the sign of a trauma that happened to the mother during pregnancy. An experience so harrowing that it left a mark on the baby in her belly like a scar.

I told her when my mama was nine months pregnant, she was hit by a truck while crossing the road and landed in a black gum tree. She didn’t survive, but somehow, cushioned by her body and the branches of that tree, I lived through it.

My daddy had left town months before, and he was never found, but his family took me in. Apparently my mother’s people had wanted me, too, but they weren’t exactly respected in the town. I didn’t tell Hess that every woman in my mama’s family, as far back as anyone could remember, had died at the age of 33 of some tragic accident. I knew she’d think I was crazy.

Instead, I told her I went to live in a small wooden house with my grandparents, aunt, uncle, and their three boys. My aunt had always wanted a girl, which was why they fought so hard for me. But soon after I came, she got pregnant again, this time with a girl, and I became dead weight.

I wasn’t the kind of girl she wanted anyway—the kind who liked to stay at home and help with the cooking and gossip. I did what they asked, but I much preferred exploring the woods and writing songs by myself. When they found out I could sing, they started renting me out for things like people’s parties and church stuff, and they treated me a little better. But I was more mule than daughter.

I’d been plotting my escape for years when fate stepped in and forced my hand. Of course, I couldn’t tell her why I’d had to leave in the middle of the night in the dead of winter. That was a story I was taking to my grave.

Hess listened quietly the whole time I was speaking and never asked a question, or interrupted with her own story. When I was done, she heldme a little harder against her, and I put my cheek to her chest. I didn’t cry or anything, because this was just my life. But it felt good to rest my head against a body that cared for me; I could feel it like a force radiating from her skin.

I wanted to be somehow closer to her, inside her in a way, and I worried I might do something that would scare her off. I brought my head up and gently pushed away from her with a little splash to make a game of it. Something hard to read crossed her face, but then she splashed me in turn, and the moment passed.

As we floated on our backs, that old country tune “The Prisoner’s Song” fluttered down and beat its wings in my head:

Oh, please meet me tonight in the moonlight

Please meet me tonight all alone

Hess came in on the next verse:

For I have a sad story to tell you

And then our voices came together in harmony, gliding across the water and wrapping us in its sound:

It’s a story that’s never been told

The tingle of the lake lingered in my skin as I flipped bologna sandwiches and restocked glasses that night at Darlene’s Indigo Lounge. The place was a tiny, narrow honky-tonk around the corner from the Ryman, and just being close to the Opry gave it a bit of magic.

Hess sat at the end of the bar in her regular spot, reading a novel. She had this ability to block out all noise around her, creating a bell of serenityin the middle of the roughness. I refilled her Coca-Cola and tried to catch her eye, but she didn’t look up.

“I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” moaned from the jukebox for the eighth time in a row, and I watched as one of the regulars stared sorrowfully into his whiskey glass. It was a great song, but someone needed to put this guy out of his misery. The real music would be starting any moment, and I gazed longingly at the little stage. I’d asked Darlene a dozen times now if she’d let Hess and me play just one song up there, but she always said no without explanation.

I heard Darlene curse and slam the phone down in the back. She came out and asked Ronnie, the bartender, about his friend’s band in a clipped voice. They sometimes filled in when someone flaked. The Opry had just let out, and people were starting to stream in, their voices rising above the wail of Hank Williams.

Ronnie told her the lead singer’s wife had just had a baby, and he didn’t think he would come. He started to name off alternatives, but I stepped between them and looked Darlene square in the eye.

“Let us play, Leenie. It’ll take anyone else half an hour to get here. Look at all these people. You’ve got no other choice.”

She eyed me. “I’d rather go up there and shake my fanny than let you do that. I told you—this place ain’t your big break.”

“Please. Just one song. If they hate us, you can shoo us off with the broom. I’ll babysit your kids for free on Sunday. I’ll goddamn do anything, just let us sing!”

She thought about it for a moment, taking in the growing herd pushing toward the bar. Live music acted as a gentle drug for this crowd, and she wouldn’t be able to hold them off for much longer.

“Fine. One song. You got thirty seconds to be up on that stage. Don’t get yourselves killed.”

Hess had been listening, and without a word exchanged, she ran out of the bar. I unknotted my apron and plunged my fingertips into a glass of water sitting in the sink and tried to smooth my hair down. Ronnie pouredme a shot of apple pie shine, and I threw it back. Hess returned with a guitar in each hand: her beautiful new Gibson and her old Kay I’d been using with its swirl of dark wood.

We fought our way through the roil of bodies with our guitars held above our heads like soldiers crossing a river with rifles. When we finally made it to the small platform, we elbowed a few out of the way, climbed up to the stage, and got into position.

Hess and I locked eyes, and I wondered if I looked as scared as I felt, as if I was about to face a firing squad. But Hess looked ready for battle, and it lit the warrior fire in me, too. With her by my side, I could do anything.

We strummed a few bars of the song’s intro, and no one paid attention. Then I came in solo for the first verse I’d written all those weeks ago:

She sat in the room, watchin’ the tree,