I smile, remembering how captivated I was when my dad, of all people, showed me that video for the first time. He told me to keep an eye on them. That with chops and a hook like that, they were going to be huge.
“And I knew what I wanted to do.”
“And the rest is history,” Miranda says with a smile.
I smile back. “Maybe let’s wait a few decades before we put the bow on my career.”
They chuckle, and we wrap up the interview with only a few more questions.
When the interview formally ends, the dynamic becomes more casual and comfortable.
“Between us,” Miranda says, “are you sick of tour life yet? Grandpa always told us that he’d have kept playing forever if he never had to tour again.”
I cock my head to the side. “Really? I didn’t realize that. He toured well into his sixties, didn’t he?”
Annie nods. “Yeah, but he hated it. He signed a predatory contract early in his career, so touring was the only way he made money. But it was hard on him. He was constantly missing birthdays and anniversaries. He performed on Christmas more times than he could count. It got lonely.”
“Why didn’t the rest of the family go on tour with him?” I ask.
Miranda gives me a look that screams,Come on.
“Our grandma never wanted the kids exposed to tour life because there was so much… vice, as I’m sure you know. And in those days, even headliners didn’t get their own buses, so it was hard to shelter a family from it.”
Annie grimaces. “Our momma said she knew how to identify drugs before she even knew addition and subtraction. Musicians were always coming into the house or into the dressing rooms after shows and leaving their paraphernalia lying around. So Grandma had to sit the kids down and teach them what to stay away from, because heaven knows those musicians didn’t care what influence they were having on the kids.”
Just like that, a memory hits me—standing in the Green Room after one of my momma’s shows. She was cussing out her manager for having drugs that looked like gummy bears. The man had left the bag lying around on a table, and Nora had grabbed it and thrown a small handful into her mouth.
I’d tried to grab the bag from Nora and started crying that I wanted gummy bears, and that’s when Momma spun around—fear and horror on her face—and ran over to Nora, screaming, “Spit them out! Spit them out!”
Nora was crying as she spit them into Momma’s hands. Momma wrapped Nora up in her arms and sobbed as she held out her arms for me to run into, because I was crying now, too. She clutched the bag of gummy bears tightly in her fist and cried, “Never, ever eat something on tour that didn’t come from me.”
“Or Daddy!” I yelled.
A sob tore from her throat as she wrapped us tighter in her arms and cried, “No. Only from me.”
I want to cry just thinking about my mom’s fear and sorrow.
As brutal as the memory is, though, another memory fills out the scene, making it hurt even worse: my dad’s face.
He was standing behind my mom, and when those words burst from her mouth and he saw the bag, shock hit him like a tidal wave. He stumbled backward, his legs bumping into the couch. He stayed there, half sitting on the arm of the couch, looking dazed.
And ashamed.
Was that the night he tucked us into bed on the bus and told us he’d never let anything bad happen to us again? Was that the night I heard him cry during our bedtime song and tell us how sorry he was?
And was it the next day that Momma announced that Daddy wouldn’t be home for a few weeks?
Was that the day she canceled her tour?
Was that the day my mom chose her family—not over music, but over a life that could endanger a child?
Miranda and Annie keep talking, and I have to shake my head—shake off the memory—to keep from crying at the shame and fear I remember on my parents’ faces.
It’s the same fear Miranda and Annie’s grandmother felt day in and day out.
I can’t believe I forgot.
We walk over to the bus door, then down the stairs and out into the cloudy late-winter day. It’s unseasonably cold, and my suede blazer isn’t cutting it against the chill.
