This isn’t casual humming. This is composition.
“Lily,” I whisper, but she’s already drifting toward sleep, the melody fading as her breathing deepens.
I sit in the darkness listening to the silence she left behind, wondering how my ten-year-old daughter can create something so fully formed while I can’t string together three chords without my chest seizing with panic.
The melody lingers in my head as I slip out of her room and down the hallway to my own bedroom. It follows me through my nighttime routine—brushing teeth, washing face, changing into pajamas worn soft from too many washings. Even after I turn off the lights and settle under the covers, I can hear it playing in the space between sleeping and waking.
Lily inherited more than my stubborn streak and her father’s dark eyes. She carries music in her bones the way some people carry stories or prayers. And unlike her mother, she’s not afraid to let it out.
Tomorrow, I’ll ask her about the song.
Tomorrow, I’ll listen to whatever she’s writing in that notebook and try to understand how she makes creating look so effortless.
Tomorrow, I’ll figure out how to be the kind of mother who nurtures gifts instead of hiding from them.
But tonight, I lie in the dark listening to my daughter’s melody echo through the house and wonder if some talents skipgenerations for a reason. Maybe Lily can do what I couldn’t. Maybe she can take the music I buried and turn it into something beautiful.
Maybe that’s enough.
The melody follows me into sleep, where it weaves through dreams of stages I’ll never stand on and songs I’ll never write. In the dreams, I’m not afraid of the music. In the dreams, guitar strings don’t feel like barbed wire against my fingertips.
In the dreams, I remember what it felt like to believe that songs could save everything, even the people who write them.
darian
. . .
The knockon my door comes at six-thirty, just as I’m tuning the Martin for the third time in an hour. I set the guitar aside and find Benny standing in the hallway, smiling.
“You planning to hide up here all week?” He leans against the doorframe, with his hands in his pockets. “Because I’ve got a better idea.”
“I’m not hiding.” The lie comes easily. I’ve spent three days in this apartment, leaving only for food and coffee, and doing my best to avoid all things in life. I can only liken my feelings toward something I loved so much to a bad breakup.
No, I still love it; music doesn’t love me right now.
“Right. That’s why you’ve been playing the same chord progression for two hours.” Benny smirks and then motions toward something in my apartment. I turn and can only guess my aforementioned chord progression echoes down to his shop through the floor vent.
“Look,” he says with a sigh. “Ever since Levi and Zara gave me the bits and pieces of what went down, I’ve listened to your stuff. You’re too good of a songwriter to sit around feeling sorry for yourself.”
While I appreciate the sentiment, I say nothing because my throat feels tight.
“There’s a songwriter’s round tonight at The Songbird. You should go.”
The Songbird . . . I remember it from my first day here. It’s the place with the chalkboard outside advertising open mic nights. Well, there are many places with chalkboard signs, but this one stood out because of the name. Growing up in the city, it’s very rare to hear a bird singing.
Benny’s intentions are good, but my head isn’t there yet.
“I’m not ready for?—”
“To sit in the audience and listen?” Benny cuts me off before I can finish the excuse. “Nobody’s asking you to perform, son. Just go. See what Nashville sounds like when it’s not trying to impress anyone.”
I consider this, running my thumb along the guitar’s headstock. He’s right. I can go and listen. There’s no harm in hearing what others have written, but knowing my heart . . . My soul, I’d want more. “What’s a songwriter’s round?” I ask before I can change my mind.
“Four writers, four stools, one microphone that gets passed around. They take turns playing songs—some finished, some not. Sometimes they’ll collaborate on the spot. It’s raw. Honest. The kind of music that remembers why it exists.”
Something in his voice makes me look up.
“You know what the difference is between Los Angeles and Nashville?” he continues. “In LA, everyone’s performing for the person who might change their life. Here, people play for the song itself. Like the music matters more than the career.”
