Chapter Twenty-Three

A wedding, a loss.  I find myself lady of the house in a fancy neighborhood in Birmingham—so how come my daughter's living in Cleveland? Something's got to give...

Songs in this episode:

• Dream Girl, unreleased 4 track demo from about 1984
• Rode Hard from The Sugar Tree

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Chapter twenty three I was dressed in a form fitting charcoal pinstripe dress, something a lawyer might wear, or a real estate agent. My hair was subtly colored a bit redder than natural and I'd attempted to smooth it into waves that brushed my shoulders. I wore a lavender cardigan with a spiky lavender flower pinned over the breast. I had never worn lavender or any color in the purple family in my life. My mother hated purple. Was it ironic that I was wearing purple this day of all days? I'd come to Pittsburgh to watch my father get married. It had been less than a year since my mother passed away. But my brothers and I accepted how our dad did an honorable, impossible thing looking after her for years, and he deserved some joy. On my arm, or slightly behind me, in a sharp business suit was Charles. I'd kept Charles as far away from my family as I could. He was prone to saying embarrassing things about my talent and his money and how those two things made him better than everyone else. I'd never known anyone so full of themselves. What made it worse was the thrill I occasionally got from being with an asshole. The entire population of the senior living facility came to pay their respects to my dad and his bride, Lois, like they were the king and queen of the place. Their love story gave hope to the other residents. Many also in their mid-70s and beyond. The romance might find them again too. I was happy to see my father happy, even though Lois, widowed, childless, retired schoolteacher, Episcopalian, i.e. Catholicism Light, added a generic quality to our family we might never recover from. Like when The Who tried replacing drummer Keith Moon with Kenny Jones. As much as Lois was a fine woman who went out of her way to fit into our band, she was no Keith Moon, our unique and irreplaceable mother. I was trying to give Birmingham a chance, thinking it might even be refreshing to not be in Nashville with its constant reminders of whatever I felt was lacking in my career. Even with a new record out, kind support from local writers and other musicians in town, a publishing deal in Nashville, I couldn't help but weigh myself against anyone I encountered in a social setting. If they said I'm recording, I'd think when will I make another record? If the other person had holds on a few songs, I'd conclude that no one would ever record one of mine. If someone said they'd been writing with so and so, I'd think why won't you write with me? But felt embarrassed asking them to write with me. If they wanted to, wouldn't they ask me first? I hated this part of myself in Nashville, the needy, never satisfied part. Charles didn't have a particular affinity for the city he lived in, or the South in general. He was a Midwesterner who relocated for a job. His neighborhood, way up in the hills, away from downtown, felt isolated, the impressive homes, safely insulated from the rest of the world by massive yards, fences, giant trees and ravines. Maybe I held some fantasy of being lady of the house, a throwback to my suburban sixties youth, where I'd get to redecorate the place, my design choices eradicating every trace of Charles' previous wife. I'd continue writing and recording, making more and better progress as an artist, without constantly worrying about money. No way would I spend my time stockpiling groceries from Costco and working out in the finished basement. So what was I doing running on the treadmill in the basement? Watching Good Morning America while James the Cat prowled around Charles Kidd's abandoned sports equipment, yearbooks and volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Poor James the Cat. Charles had relegated him to the basement, a spacious, clean, climate controlled room, at least. It was carpeted, and there was always fresh food and water and a clean litter box for him. But he was alone. It felt wrong to sequester a cat like that. How could I have agreed to this? I'd been ambivalent about keeping a pet, but loved Hazel's love for James. James circled me on the treadmill and cried to be let out so he could explore the rest of the house. What are we gonna do, buddy? I asked him. Hazel had moved north in time to start eleventh grade at Shaker Heights High School. A decent school. That was an improvement, but it all felt wrong. I hoped she would soon be accepted to a college she loved, and then maybe all of this would make sense. I'd rented out the main part of our house in Nashville and kept the attic for those days when I needed to be in town to co-write or as an escape hatch. After the cake and champagne toasts and goodbyes to my father and Lois, their happiness a shield against the obvious question why the fuck is Amy living in Alabama? Hazel joined Charles and me and his BMW to drive her back to Cleveland, where she was performing that night at the grog shop just down the road from her dad and stepmother's house in Shaker Heights. It was exciting that she'd join our friends Yola Tango to sing an X song in front of a sold-out crowd to benefit John Kerry's presidential campaign. We were walking along a street in Cleveland Heights to sound check when my phone rang. It was a New Orleans number, which felt strange. Who would be calling me from New Orleans on a Saturday night? It was a friend of my friend Kelly calling to let me know that Kelly had been found dead that morning. A fatal mix of drink and drugs. I crumpled to the sidewalk. Kelly was the most fun alive person I knew. She couldn't be dead. She loved music above all else, had hosted me and my bands in New Orleans and then Boston for years, lived with Hazel and me in Brooklyn briefly before returning to her beloved New Orleans to open the circle bar. Kelly dead was a crime against nature. My daughter won the band's admiration and respect from the crowd. For a little while, parental pride buffered my state of shock at the news of Kelly's death. Charles was uncomfortable in the rock club, stiff and closed-lipped, until Hazel had gone home to her dad's and he and I checked into a hotel near downtown Cleveland. Then he berated me all night. What kind of person was I with friends who died from drugs? What kind of life was I leading my brilliant daughter towards on and on until we both finally fell asleep exhausted? I decided for the twentieth time I must leave him. But I'd moved my books, my clothes, my music stuff into his house. My daughter was residing in another state back in Birmingham. I got in the car, the one he gave me without discussion, and drove to New Orleans to stay with my old boyfriend Robert Michael and his wife Candice. They made me feel loved and supported. They were musicians, artists, friends of Kelly's too. They understood what had been lost. At the funeral, there was food and music and the vivid green of Eunice, a Cajun town I knew all about from Kelly's stories. I bought a crawfish pie from the place she'd buy them when she lived with me in Hazel and would fly back to New York from Louisiana with a cooler full of pies on dry ice to stick in our freezer in Brooklyn until that moment when a party just had to happen. Driving back north, I didn't know where to go. My daughter was in Cleveland, my house was in Nashville. Then my phone rang. Charles. When are you coming back to Birmingham?