“But you have gifts as a singer and songwriter that you can’t ignore. You saw the crowds at your shows in Florida. You saw how people reacted to what you were doing….” Morgan’s voice was edged with irritation.
“Even if that’s true, it doesn’t matter. Who would take care of my family? You and I are different, and what does that mean for us in the long run? Do we stay together with the knowledge that we’ll lead mostly separate lives, where we can only see each other every now and then? And if so, for how long? A year? Five years? Forever? Long-distance relationships work when they’re temporary, but with us, it would never change. I’m stuck here, maybe permanently, but you have your whole life in front of you, and the world is waiting for you. And, most importantly, is that the kind of relationship that you want? One where we barely see each other? You’re only twenty-one….”
“So you’re breaking up with me? You just want to end it?” As she asked, I could hear the crack in her voice, could see the tears beginning to form in her eyes.
“It was never meant to be,” I said, hating myself and hating the truth and feeling as though I was letting the best part of me die. “Your life is going to change, but mine can’t. And that’s inevitably going to change things between us—even though I do love you, even though I know I’ll never forget the week we had together.”
For the first time since I’d known her, Morgan seemed at a loss.
“You’re wrong,” she finally bit out, swiping angrily at a tear that had spilled onto her cheek. “And you don’t even want to try.”
But I could tell that she was thinking about my aunt and Paige and the farm and understood what I’d said. She crossed her arms and stared out over the water, unseeing. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the piece of paper I’d scribbled on that morning.
“I know I have no right to ask anything of you,” I said. “But please take our song and make it famous, okay?”
She reluctantly took the paper and glanced at it, while blinking back the tears that kept threatening to overflow.
There’s a place that I know
Where only you and I can go
Far from the darkness of the past
Where love can bloom at last
Hold on to Dreamland
Forever, not just today
Someday Dreamland will be ours
Hold fast, don’t fall away
In my mind we’re living there
In that place we’re meant to share
No more talk of what we owe
Just what our hearts already know
In Dreamland, down in Dreamland
Hold fast, don’t fall away…
She didn’t finish but slipped the page into her purse, and for a long moment we simply stood together in the small town I knew I’d never escape, a place too small for Morgan’s future. I put my arm around her, watching as an osprey took flight over the lapping waves. Its simple grace reminded me of Morgan paddling through waterways in a place that already seemed far, far away.
After a while, we made our way back to the truck and drove to the Greenville airport. A handful of cars idled in front of the small terminal, unloading passengers, their hazard lights flashing. I pulled the truck in behind them and reached for her bag. Morgan slipped the tote over her shoulder as I rolled her luggage to the entrance.
My stomach was in knots as I buried my face in her hair. I reminded myself that I had spoken the truth. No matter what plans we made or how hard we both wanted things to work between us, Morgan would leave me behind someday. She was destined for great things, and she’d eventually find someone with a life more in sync with hers, something I knew I could never offer her.
Still, I understood that I’d hurt her deeply. I could feel it in the way she clung to me, in the finality with which she pressed her body against my own. I knew that I would never love another woman in the same way I loved her. But love, I realized, wasn’t always enough.
When we separated, Morgan met my eyes.
“I’m still going to call you,” she said with a catch in her voice. “Even though I’m furious at you.”
“All right,” I said, my voice hoarse.
She reached for her bag and adjusted the tote strap on her shoulder, then forced a brave smile before heading into the terminal. I watched the electronic doors open and shut as she passed through them and, shoving my hands into my pockets, I started back toward the truck, aching for her, and for me. As I slid behind the wheel, I recalled what Paige had once said about love and pain being two sides of the same coin and finally understood exactly what she meant.
Turning in to traffic, I tried to picture Paige and my aunt as I’d last seen them, feeling a heaviness settle in my chest. As much as I loved them, I knew that somehow they’d also become my prison.
Though Morgan and I stayed in touch, the calls and texts diminished over time. In the end, it had more to do with her than with me. In the weeks following Morgan’s move to Nashville, I’d struggled to manage the farm while overseeing Paige’s and Aunt Angie’s recovery. By late autumn our life had settled a bit, but by contrast, events overtook Morgan’s life like a boulder gathering speed and power as it rolled downhill. The changes that followed the igniting of her music career left me stunned; it reached the point that when I left a voicemail, she sometimes couldn’t return my call for two or three days. It was fine, I told myself—as I’d told her, I didn’t think we should try to make the long-distance thing work, since it would inevitably come to an end. Instead, when we finally connected—often while she was in airports or between meetings, or during recording breaks—I would listen with interest and pride as she relayed the latest developments in her meteoric professional rise.
Even in her wildest dreams, she couldn’t have planned the path her career had taken. Upon arriving in Nashville, she’d spent time in a recording studio and, with demos in hand, met with the handful of managers she’d mentioned to me, all of whom showed mild to moderate interest. At the casual encouragement of one of those managers (“Why not?”), she’d posted the video of her performance at my show to her social-media accounts. It had been edited exceptionally well by her friends, intercutting footage from her recording the song at the studio with scenes from Bobby T’s and clips of Morgan dancing on TikTok. Interest in the song sparked among some key influencers—including a few admiring stars with huge followings—erupting into an inferno. Within weeks, it was viewed tens of millions of times online, and she quickly released another video, in which she performed “Dreamland.” Naturally, her social-media following exploded, as well, and she was soon being courted by the most prominent managers and recording labels in the industry. “The new Taylor Swift” was how she was often described, drawing comparisons to female megastars like Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, and Ariana Grande.
The manager with whom she ultimately signed was admittedly a marketing genius, and he built on the early momentum, immediately packaging Morgan in a way that made her seem like an already established star. She started getting play on the radio, and a formal publicity campaign was launched that took her from city to city, with appearances on talk shows in New York and Los Angeles. Her face appeared regularly in stories about celebrities, and by the time she performed on Saturday Night Live in November—where she was introduced as a global phenom—it seemed to me as though everyone in the world had heard of her. Somehow, between all of that, she managed to find time to begin recording an album. Produced by huge hitmakers, it featured songs written by her as well as collaborations with the hottest hip-hop, pop, and R&B stars in the business.
Originally, she told me, there’d been discussions of her going on tour and opening for one major act or another, but when she released a third song on social media after her appearance on Saturday Night Live and in advance of her debut album drop, the song went to number one on the charts. Now there was talk of others opening for her solo tour next autumn, which was already at thirty cities in North America and counting.
She was caught up in a cyclone, so it wasn’t surprising that we were in touch less frequently. And whenever the ache of missing her became too great, I reminded myself of what I’d said on our last day together.
As for me, I hired an aide to help with my aunt after her release from the hospital; she not only helped Aunt Angie around the house but shuttled her to and from her physical-therapy appointments. The paralysis on her left side had been slow to improve; it wasn’t until Halloween that she was confident enough to finally send the aide on her way. She still limped, her left arm remained weak, and her smile was crooked, but she was back to running the office full-time and even got around the rest of the farm with the help of a four-wheeler. The farm, more than Paige or me, remained the center of her life.