Page 78 of A Song for Another Woman

I don't sing the lyrics. I hum the melody and let the guitar speak where words would make the room too crowded.

Emmy looks down. Her free hand drifts, just for a second, to the front of her sweater.

Something in me catches. The sweater hangs loose, but not loose enough. Or maybe I know her body too well. Maybe I know her silhouette even after months of distance, punishment, and repair that may never be enough. There's a softness there I don't remember, a carefulness in how she stands, and a guarded way she holds herself, as if some part of her is tender and not meant for the room.

My fingers stumble again. I don't understand what I'm seeing. I only know that my chest goes tight with a fear I can't name, and Emmy's hand drops as soon as my eyes catch there. She squares her shoulders.

I look away first. For once in my life, I learn quickly enough.

The next song is one of the love letters, the raw one. The one I recorded in the cabin with my hands split open from porch boards, the one Duke called career suicide and Cy called finally telling the truth.

I don't sing it like a man trying to be believed. I sing it because she's standing in the Whippoorwill, in the room where we began, and I'd sing it if she turned around and walked out before the bridge.

The town disappears by degrees. Not really. I can still hear the glasses, the old air unit, and someone's quiet sniff near the wall. But the room narrows to Emmy's eyes and the old neon laying blue across her cheek. She looks at me like she's standing at the edge of something she doesn't trust, as if her heart has stepped forward without permission and the rest of her is deciding whether to follow it.

I finish with the song I never released. The first line comes out almost too quiet for the mic to catch. It's a song about a man who built four houses and missed the home; a song about marble floors and a dogwood tree; a song about a woman whose voice came through midnight radio and taught him how to tell the truth.

By the last chorus, my eyes burn so hard the lights blur. I don't close them. I've spent too much of this marriage not looking where I should.

The final chord rings out. For a moment, nobody moves. Then the applause comes, soft at first, then fuller. Not the roar I used to chase. Something warmer, with mercy in it.

I slide the guitar strap over my head and set the Martin in its stand with both hands. My palms are damp and my knees feel untrustworthy.

I step off the stage. The crowd parts without making a show of it. A shoulder turns, a chair scrapes back, and someone looks down into their drink like beer has suddenly gotten fascinating.

Emmy waits at the end of the bar. Up close, she's even more real: tired eyes, brave chin, one hand tucked into the fold of her sweater.

All the grand gestures are behind me. The house, the songs, this room, and every public brick I could lay down without asking her to step over it. Now there's only me: a man in a dive bar with sore hands, a wrecked voice, and nothing left to offer but the truth.

I stop in front of her. "Emmy," I say.

Her eyes shine, but they don't break. She looks around the room once, then back at me. "Can we go somewhere else?"

I can barely get enough air to nod.

Chapter Twenty

EMMY

Cade nods like the movement costs him.

For one second, the Whippoorwill keeps pretending not to watch us. Glasses clink, a chair scrapes, and someone near the door laughs too loudly at nothing, giving the rest of the room permission to breathe again. Cade doesn’t look at them. He looks at me like if he blinks too hard, I might turn into one more empty place he has to sing toward.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice rough from the set. “Anywhere.”

I tighten my hand around the strap of my purse and make myself glance around. Hal is behind the bar with his towel bunched in one fist. Cy has his shoulder against the back wall, still as a fence post. Pop sits near the end of the bar, his eyes on the floor because apparently everyone in Harmony Ridge decided tonight was the night to develop manners.

It should help. It doesn’t.

Tomorrow, somebody will tell somebody. They’ll swear they won’t, but they will. Maybe it’ll stay local, or maybe it won’t. Maybe some girl in the corner who didn’t lift her phone tonight will remember she has a cousin with a gossip account by breakfast. I’ve spent enough time being watched while my marriage bled.

“Not here,” I say quietly. “It’s nice, Cade. What you’ve done for this place. I mean that. But I can’t do this with half the county trying to act like they’re not listening.”

His throat moves. “Okay.”

“And I’m not interested in becoming a blind item by morning.”

A flicker crosses his face. Not surprise, but recognition. Shame, maybe.