“He taught me how,” I finished.

“Born to it and still, both a’ you know what it means. Don’t take it for granted.”

“No, we both know what it means,” I confirmed.

Or Dad knew. And he’d taught me.

Deke was silent. This stretched and I let it.

Deke ended it.

“One album, Jussy. You say you like what you do but, baby, you haven’t explained to me what it is you’re gonna be doin’.”

This was noted conversationally. I felt no tension in the cab, heard none in his words.

He wasn’t asking to gather information, assess if our paths would down the road divide.

He was just asking.

“I write songs,” I answered. “Sometimes, if I like the artist, I produce. It’s rare, though, that I go in to do that. Produce, I mean. It takes a lot of time and,” I rubbed my thumb along the side of his hand, “until recently, I wasn’t big on staying in one place for very long.”

“Yeah,” he murmured, amusement and approval in his tone.

That was when I fell silent.

Deke didn’t fall into it with me.

“One album, babe.”

I looked to him. “What?”

“It’s been a while. When you gonna do another one?”

When my hand squeezed his that time, it was involuntary.

“I don’t record anymore,” I shared.

He shot a glance at me.

“Say again?” he asked the road when his eyes went back to it.

I looked back to the road too. “I don’t record. Like I said, I just write. And sometimes produce.”

“You don’t record.”

The way he said that made me turn my head his way again.

“No, Deke. Not anymore.”

There was no pause before he asked his next, but when he asked, he asked gently.

“You wanna tell me why?”

I looked back out the windshield. “It wasn’t for me.”

“What wasn’t?” he asked. “Parts of it or the whole thing?”

A wise question.

“Parts of it. I…” I hesitated then noted, “You read up on me.”

“I did.”

“So you know the story.”

“Read it but didn’t think it was the whole story, Jussy, seein’ as you’re young and you got amazing talent. Thought there were more chapters to be written.”

“I lost my drummer to an overdose,” I announced. “He was Dad’s drummer before he went on the road with me. So he was family. And I was the leader of the band then. That means I didn’t take care of one of my boys. I didn’t look out for him.”

Before Deke could put his two cents in, I went on hurriedly.

“I know it wasn’t my fault. I get that, really. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a part of me that feels I hold some responsibility. And, well…that happening shook me.”

It was then his hand tightened what seemed like involuntarily in mine.

But I gave him more.

“And the schedule, Deke, it’s insane. On the road. On a bus. On a plane. In a car. In a hotel room. Up early for press. Interview after interview trying to answer the same questions that are asked over and over again, doing it in different ways, trying to seem engaged. Dog-tired by sound check. Amping for the performance to be so jazzed at the end you can’t sleep. Booze all over the place. Drugs easy to get. Everything. Illegal. Prescription. And everybody wants to be your friend because you can get them backstage or get them introductions to the people who’ll make their dreams come true or they can just take off with all the shit folks shower on you for no reason, just because you can sing and you have a famous last name. You’re open to being used, open to shit that is seriously unhealthy for you, finding yourself needing it just to get through the day, doing your best to deny that, turn your back on it and keep going.”

I looked to him, took a breath, but I wasn’t done.

“All that happens and if you’re lucky, it grows. Then you need to build a wall to stay behind, to keep away from all that shit, to stay safe. And suddenly, you’re behind that wall. What I do, Deke, it isn’t about being behind a wall. It isn’t about keeping myself shielded from the people who love the stories I tell. It’s about us being two halves of a whole. I love what I do and I’d be happy doing it just for me. But they love what I do too and it’s indescribable how amazing it is that what I give is something they want to take. It isn’t like there would be no me without them, yet it is. We’re one. You remove yourself from part of that, you’re missing something crucial to the process. No one can live without their other half.”

I watched as he lifted my hand but he stopped in mid-air. I didn’t know what he intended to do and it seemed for a moment that he didn’t know either.

He decided and I had to turn to him when he lifted my hand farther up, pulled me closer, and pressed it to his chest.

I felt that hit me in the throat in a way I liked.

And with that warmth right there, I kept sharing.

“The more success you get, the more there’s a need for that wall. Then you start needing that wall reinforced until you’re so far away from your other half, it’s like they don’t exist.”

“Your dad had to have that wall, baby,” he noted softly.

“He did,” I told him. “That’s why he always toured. He might take a break for a few months but only to plan the next tour, record the next album. He was always on the road because he needed those times when he could tear down that wall. Be onstage with his fans a sea of faces in front of him, singing right along with him. There is no greater beauty in a song than thousands of voices singing it. I know it might piss some people off when artists onstage turn the microphone to the audience. But I can say there is nothing a songwriter can experience in the art more beautiful than shutting your mouth and hearing your work sung to you by thousands of voices. Knowing something that came from your soul is embedded in someone else’s.”