Mom gives me the smallest nod behind her. I hear the chord change she means, and I take it. Lou hums the turn back with a little smile like she knew I would.
We play the loop. I stack a soft drum pattern with brushes, nothing that would scare the melody. The room holds its breath in the way rooms do when a song is being careful.
Lou hums one more answer and then covers her mouth with her hand like she’s broken a rule. “That’s all I’ve got.”
“It’s enough.” I save the session and typeLocketin the name before Mom can see it and pitch something worse.
Lou flips through session logs. “Your mom’s notes are wild. ‘Turn it down, you fools’ is written four times. And underlined.”
“She was talking to Salem.”
“He liked loud,” Mom says.
“Likes,” I say, and she waves a hand.
“Likes.”
Lou runs her finger down a column. “This one says ‘two in the morning, the boys fell asleep here, leave them.’”
Mom sighs, fond. “We slept on this floor between takes. We woke up with lines in our faces from the rug.”
Lou sets a photo on the piano. It’s all of us in the live room, small and tired and proud. Mom behind the board, hair bigger, eyes the same. I look like a kid trying to stand like a man.
“Here.” Mom pulls a stack of cue sheets from a drawer. “You can steal my shorthand. TT means take. SB is sound better. HF is have fun, which I had to write because you all forget.”
Lou grins and copies the key into her notebook. “HF. Got it.”
I print the loop to a new track and bounce a rough stem so I can push it to my phone later. She hands me three Polaroids. “Use these for the room tone. Joking. But look.”
They’re of the same corner ten years apart. Different amps. Same scuff on the baseboard. It steadies me. Feels like home over time.
“I’m going to grab coffee,” Lou says. “You want anything?”
I grunt. “Black.”
“Cream and sugar,” Mom says. “And something sweet if the day loves me.”
“Got it,” Lou says. She takes her tote and is out the door with a wave.
The room settles differently without her. I lean back on the bench. “What do you think?”
“About her?” Mom grins. “I invited her to crawl through paper like a raccoon. That’s approval in my house.”
“I mean, us spending time with Troy’s ex.” I keep my voice even.
Mom snorts. “Baby, after all the men I went through, I’m sure some of them were brothers. I’m not here to preach about shoulds. I spent a lot of time on my knees in this life, so I can’t tell other people what to do about that kind of thing.” She pats my cheek when I blush. “Don’t faint.”
“I’m not fainting.” My cheeks are burning like lava, but I’m not fainting.
Her laughter dies down. “No one leaves a happy home, Houston. If she’s with you boys now and not with him, that’s probably on him somehow. You know how Troy is. I love my boys, but after what he pulled with the family business, that tells me what he thinks of his family and what kind of person he truly is. He made his choices. I can’t say I feel a lick of judgment when it comes to you three and Lou.”
“I feel responsible.”
“You are responsible. For your work. For how you treat people. For not drinking your lunch. You are not responsible for your brother being a fool.”
“Even if the press says otherwise?”
“Let the press write fan fiction. That’s all they do anyway,” she says. “Deliver something good. That’s the only answer that pays.”
