Page 45 of Night Songs

Hess sat up on her forearms. “Lou, you have money in the bank. You could buy a little cabin in the woods.”

Hess’s family had cut her off a year prior. They’d been trying to set her up for years with eligible Nashville bachelors, and she finally told them she had no interest in getting married. She had this heap of money she was entitled to, but she’d only get it once she’d gotten hitched. Until then, it would just sit in a vault somewhere, collecting dust. She now relied on me and Clayton for whatever she needed.

“I don’t even know how to get to it.” The truth was Clayton controlled all of that; I had no idea how much I had in my own name. Anything I needed, he bought.

When I’d first started making royalties, he said he’d handle it for me, so I wouldn’t go off and spend it like some of the people he knew who came from nothing. That way, when I needed it, it would be there.

“So you don’t like the idea.”

“No, that’s not it.”

“I’d like us to have a place where we can go and be a real couple. Not just Clayton’s house, with him always around, making all the decisions. A place where we can do whatever we want.”

“That does sound nice.”

“And maybe we can adopt a few children. Clayton would legally be their father, but we’d raise them ourselves and he wouldn’t have to do anything. I could live at the cabin with the children while you were touring, and when you were off, you could be with us.”

I could tell this idea had been percolating inside of her for a while. She didn’t come up with wild, impulsive plans like I did. She really wanted this.

She smiled and continued, “I have this vision, of you and me sitting on the porch in rocking chairs, listening to the kids playing in the house and watching the sun go down.”

I gave her a half smile. “I didn’t know you wanted a family so badly.”

“I just think it would be fun to teach them what we know and have something to love and care for. After a while, you get bored of just taking care of your own needs.”

Back then, I had no interest in taking care of children. I’d done it as a child myself. My aunt had so many kids that when a new one came along, the older ones were expected to feed them and wipe their butts and make sure they didn’t cry too hard when my uncle was hungover. I knew how much time it took and how tired and hollowed you could feel while doing it. I only had ten years left, and I didn’t want to spend it spooning slop into a baby’s mouth.

I also wasn’t keen on getting tied to one place and always feeling the pull back, as if my work was something taking me away from my real life. I wanted to live in the moment, to truly feel free. Or as free as you could be in this world.

I looked at Hess lying on her stomach, her naked butt gleaming in the sun. With each year, she’d become even more goddess-like, and at twenty-three, she could not have been more beautiful or self-possessed. I loved her more now than I ever had.

What I’m saying is: I’d have given her whatever she wanted if that was all that was at stake.

But she was imagining a future that couldn’t be. She saw us growing old together on a porch in the woods with a pile of kids to love like we hadn’t been loved. This would only ever be a fantasy. I’d be gone before it’d barely started, leaving her all alone after she’d spent her best years building a life around me. I couldn’t do that to her.

“It’s a lovely dream, but what about when I’m gone? Are you gonna raise them all by yourself?”

Her brow furrowed and she smiled slightly, as if I’d told a strange joke. “And where are you going, exactly?”

“Hess, I’ll be dead in ten years.”

The furrow deepened, and she sat up. “What are you talking about?”

My throat felt thick, and I sensed the first stirrings of anger. “You know perfectly well. I told you, I’m gonna die when I’m 33.”

Her face smoothed, and I swear she almost laughed. “Oh, darling. Do you really believe in that curse?” She reached out and stroked my head like a child. “Baby, that’s nothing but superstition.”

My heart dropped. She didn’t think it was real. Maybe she’dneverthought it was real. All this time, I thought I was truly being seen, and she was just humoring me. The betrayal stung like a chestful of buckshot.

How could I explain it to her now? She hadn’t grown up in the country, communing with the land and its spirits. She couldn’t know the strangeness that lurked there.

“Just think about it, okay?” she said, lying back down in the grass.

I nodded, afraid of what I might say if I spoke. I listened to the screech of the insects in the grass, and I heard the wordsten yearswhispering through their sound.

Ten years.

Ten years left.