Page 32 of A Song for Another Woman

“I need a voice between 8 and midnight.”

“No.”

“I haven’t asked yet.”

“You were about to.”

“I was.” His eyes crinkle, but they’re sad too. “And I’m asking anyway. Come back behind the mic, Emmy. Not forever if you don’t want. A week. A night. Hell, come yell at me through the glass and make me feel young.”

The room goes too quiet.

Radio. The word alone opens something I’ve kept boarded up for years. A little booth washed in blue light. Headphones warm over my ears. My hand on the fader. The clock ticking toward midnight. A road crew calling from three counties over. A woman in a kitchen whispering that she couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to wake the kids.

Then Cade, proud at first. Then Cade getting bigger. Then interviews, industry rules, conflict-of-interest talk, and Duke’s careful explanation that it just looked cleaner if Emmy stepped back. Just for now. Just while Cade’s career found its footing.

His footing became a mountain. Mine disappeared.

“I can’t,” I say.

Pop nods like he expected it. “Because of him?”

I shake my head, but the lie has no strength. “Because I don’t know if I remember how.”

Pop’s face softens. “That’s not something you forget.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” he says. “Best voice I ever had.”

My laugh is brittle. “Pop.”

“I’m old, not sentimental. No conflict now. No manager telling anybody what’s clean. No label caring whether your voice touches his records. Just you and a microphone, if you want it.”

If I want it.

Wanting feels dangerous. Wanting is how you hand someone a map to hurt you. I wanted a house with a porch and a nook over the kitchen. I wanted a husband who came home. I wanted to be seen without having to stand in a spotlight beside another woman.

“I can’t say yes,” I whisper.

Pop nods once. No pressure. No disappointment dressed up as patience. “Then don’t.”

I look up.

“Just don’t say no to yourself because somebody else taught you to.” He puts his hat back on. “I’ll be at the station. Door still sticks. Coffee still awful.”

Then he leaves.

That night, I lie on June’s couch on the same blue-flowered pillow. Pipes knock. A car passes by, revving the engine. Somewhere down the street, a dog barks twice.

My phone is still face down. My ring's still on. Nothing's fixed.

But my mind won’t go quiet. It starts shaping the day without permission, the way it used to at midnight when the county went dark and lonely people reached for the radio.

Well, friends, if you ever wondered whether you can hit rock bottom in borrowed sweatpants, I’m here to tell you the answer is yes. Good news is, the coffee’s decent and nobody lets you skip lunch.

I almost smile. Then I go still, because I hear the pause after it. The place where I’d let the line breathe. The soft turn toward the next song. The way I’d lower my voice, not for drama, but because people leaned in when you trusted them with quiet.

My marriage may be broken. My name may be on every rack between here and Nashville. I may not know what comes next or who I am when no one is calling me Cade Tyler’s wife. But there is a voice inside me, worn down and waiting.