The guilt finally subsides. Mom is a wild woman with the morals of a pirate, but I trust her judgment. “Okay.”
She squeezes my hand. “Encourage her. Don’t push. Leave the door open. When she hums, record it. When she draws, get out of the way. You boys are loud. She doesn’t need volume. She needs air.”
“She doesn’t want to sing.”
“She doesn’t want to be watched while she sings,” Mom corrects. “Not yet anyway.”
The door opens. Lou returns with a tray balanced on one hand and a paper bag in the other. “Cream and sugar,” she says, handing Mom a cup. “Black for you.” She passes me mine and sets a cinnamon roll on a napkin for the room.
“Good girl,” Mom says, already peeling a spiral.
Lou slides back onto the bench beside me. Her thigh touches mine and then doesn’t; she adjusts so she has her own space. Smart. I start the loop so she can hear what we caught. She hums that line under her breath without meaning to and then catches herself again.
“You’re allowed.”
She smiles without teeth. “Okay.”
“I’m going to go flirt with the copier and find the chili recipe I left in the desk in ninety-nine,” Mom announces, and floats down the hall, fanning herself with a session sheet.
“I love your mom,” Lou says.
“Funny. Me too.”
Lou takes out her phone and opens a notes app. We go over some details for the album, and then she asks for a title.
“Not yet. The songs will tell us the title.”
She nods, satisfied by that answer. She looks at the piano, then at me. “Show me your left hand again.”
I play the chorus we don’t have words for. She hums one measure and stops, thinking.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. It just fits.”
“It fits because you make it fit.”
She shakes her head and reaches for her coffee. “Don’t romanticize me. Too much pressure.”
“Noted.”
We get a verse. We get a bridge that will probably die by afternoon and we’re both okay with that. We get a beat that’s more heartbeat than drum loop. We save often because we’re not fools.
“Give me one clean hum. We’ll call it a guide, not a vocal.”
“Okay,” she says, and steps to the ribbon. I lower it to her height and ask if she wants the lights down. She nods. I dim the room and hit record. She hums the line once, breath steady, pitch true. I name the track and lock it so I can’t mess it up later. She exhales like she just did something reckless and survived.
Mom returns with a cracked folder and triumph. “Found it,” she says. “Also found my old laminates and a photo of Salem with hair down to his shoulders.”
“He’ll pay to destroy it.”
“Too bad,” she says, tucking it back like a card shark.
Lou checks the clock. “I can stay till two. Then I need to send emails and work on a thousand other things.”
“Two is perfect. Quincy wants a demo tonight.”
We run the song twice more. Lou’s hum locks tighter each pass. I color a harmony under her line that makes her look at me like I’ve complimented her without words. I have. She hears it. She might not know music formally, but some part of her brain does.
