Page 42 of Night Songs

There aft she was no longer fair

There was only my voice and the twang of my guitar, and I could feel the richness of the sound in that room, the notes oiled to a high, smooth shine. It traveled out and stroked the ears of each person, like the building itself was an instrument, created for just this purpose.

I watched them close their eyes as the song took them over. The force of their feeling filled my spirit, my body lifting a few inches above the stage, hovering there beneath the stained glass and the beaming faces of the congregation.

Looking back, I realize I hadn’tmade itin that moment. No.

I hadrisen.

13lulabelle

1972

TEN YEARS LEFT

The next few years were a blur.

We went on tour for the album, hitting all the Southern cities. Then it was time to make another one. The cycle repeated over and over. Album, tour. Album, tour. The only way to mark time was the changing of the seasons out the window.

Clayton curated every part of my life, and it was a beautiful one. I wanted for nothing.

He hired Hess as a fake assistant for me, and she left Mom’s and moved into the house. A room was set up for her in my wing, but she never touched that bed. We lived perpetually a few feet from one another. At any moment of the day, I could reach out and feel her warm skin against my palm.

She stayed up with me when I couldn’t stand to sleep, afraid of wasting precious moments. The music that came to me at night were strange, slanted tunes. Hess called them my night songs, and I had a whole drawer of them. I encouraged her to keep working on her music career, but she struggled to write songs on her own, and over time, that dream seemed to recede into the background for her.

We also stopped calling ourselves sisters, and no one asked questions. I no longer worried that someone would find me and lock me up.

Now that I was Clayton’s wife, it was like everything I’d ever said and done had been wiped clean.

One morning during the recording of our fourth album, I awoke with the wordsten yearsfloating in my mind, as if they’d drifted in from somewhere else.

I realized it was my birthday. Therealbirthday that belonged to the demon child, that no one in this life knew about.

Ten years.

I have just ten years left.

I was usually good at pushing the thoughts away; I was so busy that it was easy to forget about everything else but the chaos of the moment.

But that morning, those two words refused to leave.

Hess stirred next to me, sensing my distress, and I told her I was fine when she asked. She was always watching me, looking for something she could make better. An uneasy feeling crept in, and I retreated downstairs to see if food would help.

Clayton was sitting at the breakfast table, fresh as a daisy in his starched suit, and he grimaced slightly when he saw my sorry state. Hair askew, bags under my eyes, still in the men’s pajamas I liked to sleep in.

I sat down and the cook, Annie, served me a butter pecan diet shake in a fancy glass. I swear to God, that stuff tasted like sweet mud. I eyed Clayton’s eggs and bacon across the table with murderous jealousy. He was trying to get ahead of my metabolism, convinced it’d never keep up with my eating habits now that I wasgetting older. Twenty-three, and already an old crone.

When I first moved in, Annie made me these incredible feasts that I scarfed down like a mad king. She loved it—cooks love to see people eat their food. Then Clayton put his foot down. I’m sure he knew Hess wassneaking Krystal burgers into the house at night, but I figured he’d stay quiet until my measurements changed. Then the real smackdown would come. My hillbilly scrawn was part of my look, and I couldn’t risk losing it.

“We’ve talked about this,” he said, gesturing at my disheveled appearance.

“But no one is here ’cept for you and Annie, and she don’t mind.” I looked over at Annie, who gave me the smallest wink.

“It’s ‘ex-cept’ and ‘doesn’t mind.’ AndI domind. As should you. If you’re not going to respect yourself, how can you expect anyone else to?”

I huffed, feeling too edgy for one of his lectures.

“We do not get to choose how we come into this world, but we choose how we present ourselves. Anyone can become a person of status if they put in the effort. Honestly, show some class.”