He Kissed His Muse. I Wrote Every Song. novel · Chapter 6 of 24
Chapter 6: Gus Knows the Chorus
By Thursday the twins had taken over the Charleston kitchen.
Grandfather's cook, a stout woman who had fed me through every childhood illness, had given Gus a wooden spoon and Birdie a bowl of flour and walked out of the room, saying it was the only way to keep her sanity.
The two old dogs lay under the table with their chins on their paws and let it happen.
There was flour on the floor, on the dogs, and on the back of Birdie's yellow raincoat.
I was standing at the sink with my sleeves rolled up when I heard the singing.
It was a small, off-key, happy voice.
Gus was stirring his bowl with the spoon, and he was singing the chorus of "Porch Light."
It was one of the eleven Songbird songs that had reached number one.
I wrote it the winter the twins were born, on a legal pad, in the dark, with one of them asleep on my chest.
"Where did you learn that one?" I asked.
"Daddy sings it," Gus said, without looking up. "In the car. He says it's his best one."
"Does he?"
"Yeah. He says a lady wrote it in her heart."
I turned back to the sink so that he wouldn't see my face.
Birdie did not look up from her flour.
"Mommy," she said.
"Yes, love."
"Why did Daddy kiss the lady?"
The spoon stopped.
Gus looked up at me, and so did the dogs.
I dried my hands slowly.
I had spent five days thinking about what to say to this question, and every version I'd rehearsed was a lie of some kind.
I sat down on the floor between them, in the flour, with my back against a cabinet.
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