He Kissed His Muse. I Wrote Every Song. novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Gate

Colt arrives at the estate gate in front of the staff and learns his wife is an Averill, Linnea gives him ten minutes with the twins in the room, and he says his mother filed without him and Sonya has been telling him Songbird can never be named.

Colt arrived at the gate a little before noon, still wearing his tuxedo from the night before.

He had flown through the night on a charter and driven out from the airport in a rental car with the engine still ticking.

I watched him from the front steps.

The tie was gone and his collar was open.

He had not shaved, and there were dark marks under his eyes.

He was still wearing his wedding ring.

I hated that I noticed.

The gardeners had stopped working along the drive, and two of the housekeepers stood in the doorway pretending to polish the brass.

Colt stood at the iron bars and looked at the house, the oaks, the columns, the guard at the gatehouse.

"Lin," he said, loudly enough for all of them to hear. "What is this place?"

I walked down to the gate and stopped on my side of it.

"It's my grandfather's house."

"Your grandfather is dead. You told me that the night we met. You told me your whole family was gone."

"I told you they were dead to me," I said. "You never asked me which kind."

He opened his mouth and shut it again.

I had known him for seven years, and in all that time I had never once seen him without something to say.

"Averill," he said slowly. "The Averills own Lantern. They own my label."

"They do."

"You're an Averill."

"I was one before I was a Hargis. I'd like to be one again by Friday."

Behind me, a housekeeper dropped a polishing cloth.

Colt took a step back from the bars.

"I filed nothing," he said. "I want you to hear that first. I did not sign any paper."

"The paper says you did not know about the trip."

"I didn't know you'd gone until the plane was in the air. Lin, please. The kids."

"Ten minutes," I said.

His face changed.

"Ten minutes in the library," I said. "With the door open and me in the room. If either of them says they want to stop, you stop."

"They're my kids."

"Then you'll be glad of ten minutes."

I nodded to the guard, and the gate swung open.

Colt walked up the drive beside me and did not say another word.

Gus was already waiting on the library rug with his fox.

He looked up when his father came in, and then he looked at me, to see if he was allowed.

I nodded.

"Daddy!"

He ran into Colt's legs and held on with both arms.

Colt knelt down and put his face in his son's hair.

I looked away.

Birdie did not run.

She sat in the window seat in her yellow raincoat with her arms crossed, and she stared at a spot on the carpet an inch to the left of her father's shoe.

"Birdie Bug," Colt said.

"I'm not talking," Birdie said. "I'm cross."

"That's fair."

"I'm very cross."

"I'd be cross too."

She glanced up at him, one quick look, and then back down at the carpet.

I thought, absurdly, that I was proud of her.

Gus held up the fox.

"My fox got to ride on an airplane," he said. "A real one. With a bathroom."

"Did he behave?"

"He ate a cookie in the seat."

"That's a serious crime."

Gus laughed.

It was a bright, ordinary sound, and my chest hurt at it.

"Daddy," Gus said, with his cheek against his father's lapel. "Are you still our daddy?"

Colt closed his eyes.

"Every day," he said. "Every day, forever. Nothing I did last night changes that, buddy. Nothing."

"Okay," Gus said, and went back to the fox.

Colt looked up at me over his son's head.

He did not ask me for anything.

I stood by the door with my arms folded and watched the clock on the mantel.

When the ten minutes were over, I said so.

Birdie slid off the window seat without looking at him and went to stand beside me.

She took the hem of my cardigan between two fingers.

Colt saw it, and he stayed on his knees a moment longer.

Then he got up.

I walked him back down the drive myself.

At the gate he turned to face me, with the iron bars open between us and the whole house pretending not to listen.

"I didn't know about the custody paper," he said. "Mom did that on her own. I swear to you, I found out on the plane."

"All right."

"And Lin, Sonya told me something yesterday. I need to ask you about it."

"Ask."

"She said Songbird signed a contract that says her name can never be spoken. That she gave up the right to ever be named, in writing, for good."

I stared at him.

I had written that contract with a lawyer at a kitchen table, one line at a time.

It said nothing of the kind.

"Who showed you that?" I said.

"Sonya did," Colt said. "Six years ago, the week I signed."

He looked at me, and he was not acting.

"Lin," he said, "if that isn't true, then who's been lying to me all this time?"

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