You’re not a real mother
I found someone to take my place
Let her take everything over
Till I forgot the love I wanted to create
I only have myself to blame, myself to blame, myself to blame.
I sing the whole song: three verses, a chorus in between, a bridge, then the shift in the final chorus that changes the meaning of the song. It’s the most vulnerable, personal thing I’ve written in years.
“Holy shit!” Andrew shouts, raising the bottle of wine over his head. The only light in the room comes from the flames in the fireplace. I breathe in the smoke, as unhealthy as cigarettes, though no one ever acts like sitting next to a wood-burning fire is some kind of personal failing.
“I think we’ve got a hit on our hands,” Andrew says excitedly.
I bristle at the wordwe.
I’ll thank him in the liner notes. He’ll be thrilled to see his name in print. (That reminds me: I should ask for his last name.) Maybe some exec will notice it and it’ll help his career. Once I’m back on top, I can introduce him to people. But not now. Now he’s kissing me, singing the final words of my new song into my mouth.
Imposter all my life
Never belonged anywhere
Imposter all my life
Wandered round everywhere
Imposter all my life
Someday, I’m gonna get there
Baby, I can take you there.
Does Andrew think I’ve been singing tohimall these nights, thathe’sthe person I want to bring with me? Does he think I’m calling himbaby?
For years, all these unfinished lyrics, these fits and starts in my notebook—all my attempts to explain what it feels like to be me, why I am the way I am—I’ve been writing it all for an audience of one.
Doesn’t Andrew know I’m singing to my kid?
The Bartender
The bartender guesses it was only a matter of time before someone from that place made a scene. It’s not actually much worse than the crap the summer people get up to. Every year, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, the bar transforms from local haunt to millionaires’ hot spot, though his tips don’t increase nearly as much as they should. In fact, most locals are far more generous tippers than most of the summer people. After all, they know him. They know his son. They know what kind of car he drives and when the trim on his house needs to be touched up.
He’d suspected that the center’s clients might make their way to his bar from time to time, looking for a fix of whatever it is that got them sent there in the first place, or whatever they could find that was closest to it. He imagined one or another of them might find their way to one of his barstools, looking for a sympathetic ear to listen to their troubles.
The thought is nearly enough to make him laugh out loud. People like that, living such sheltered lives, didn’t havereal problems, butrich-people problems. He’d like to be a fly on the wall during their therapy, whining about what drove them to drink and drug. He’d like to bring their stories back to his own AA meetings—seven years sober—to share. It’d be good for a few laughs. What does rock bottom look like when you’re one ofthem? Barfing Cristal all over the dash of your Lamborghini?
Of course, his patrons took out their phones, snapped pictures, recorded video. He supposes he could have told them to stop, insisted that even people like that are entitled to their privacy, but why should he? It was a free country, this was a public place, and the people from the center were making a scene.
The police will ask him for details later, and he’ll tell the truth. He hadn’t interacted with the folks from the center, hadn’t served them drinks or food, hadn’t been close enough to see if they were on something, and certainly had no way of knowing if they’d come to the bar looking to score.
Later, he’ll wonder whether he should’ve called the cops after they stormed out. Inside the warm, crowded bar, he forgot just how cold it was out there. Maybe he should have been alarmed, more concerned for a stranger’s well-being.
Maybe if he had, things would have ended differently.
42Lord Edward
Tonight, we’re on the floor in Amelia’s cottage. I lean back against the bed and look at her: her hazel-green eyes, the gap between her teeth, her wavy brown hair. So different from Harper and yet, the only other person on the planet who’s ever really spokentome, instead of speaking around me, about me, or for me.
