I loved singing words I had written alone and hearing them come back through other people’s voices.
Savannah was not fake.
She was me at full volume.
I moved through the opening songs easily.
The crowd sang.
I laughed when someone near the front held up a sign that read:
APPOINT ME TO TURTLE GOVERNMENT
By the third song, there were six.
During a guitar change, I leaned toward the microphone.
“I leave town for four days.”
The arena erupted.
“That’s all I’m saying.”
More screaming.
Someone lifted a stuffed turtle wearing a tiny suit.
I looked toward the wings.
Rachel stood there with both hands over her face.
I smiled.
Then the band started the next song.
Halfway through the set cameHard Winter.
The song Ellie had mentioned at dinner.
The one that had helped her through a year she had never explained.
I had written it in a hotel room eight years ago, long before I knew what it might mean to someone sitting beside the ocean in Florida.
The first chord rang out.
The crowd cheered.
I stood beneath a single white spotlight.
For one second, I saw Ellie at the café.
Her elbows on the table.
Her voice casual because the truth beneath it was not.
That song got me through a rough winter.
She had known the song.
