The bars and clubs were where she’d lost her life, and sometimes she needed to go back so she could remind herself that the druggedout party girl eager to debase herself with any man who caught her eye no longer existed. Still, it was a dangerous practice. The dim lights, the clink of ice cubes, the enticing smell of liquor. Fortunately, this wasn’t much of a bar, and the cheesy instrumental version of “Start Me Up” grated so badly that she wasn’t tempted to linger. Whoever recorded shit like that should be thrown in jail.

Her cell vibrated in her pocket. She checked the caller ID and quickly answered. “Mark!”

“God, April, I need you so much….”

April returned to the cottage a little before midnight. In the old days, the party would have just been starting. Now all she wanted to do was sleep. But as she stepped out of the car, she heard music coming from the backyard. A lone guitar and that familiar raspy baritone.

“When you are alone at night,
Do you ever think about me, darling,
Like I think about you?”

The rasp had more gravel now, and he held the words further back in his throat, as if he couldn’t bear letting them go. She went inside the cottage and set down her purse. For a moment, she stood where she was, eyes closed, listening, trying to hold herself back. Then, she did as she always had and followed the music.

He sat facing the dark pond. Instead of a lawn chair with its metal arms, he’d dragged out an armless straight-back kitchen chair. A chunky candle sat on a saucer in the grass not far from his feet so he could see to jot down a lyric on the pad of paper lying next to it.

“Baby, if you ever knew
The heartache that you’ve put me through,
You’ d cry,
Cry like I do.”

The years slipped away. He curled over the guitar just as she remembered—stroking, persuading, inflaming. Candlelight flickered off a pair of reading glasses lying on top of his notebook pad. The wild, long-haired, rock-and-roll rebel of her youth had turned into an elder statesman. She could have—should have—gone back inside, but the music was too sweet.

“Do you ever wish for rain
So you don’t feel alone again?
Do you ever wish the sun away?”

He saw her, but he didn’t stop. Instead, he played to her as he used to, and the music rippled over her skin like warm, healing oil. When the last chord finally drifted into the darkness, he let his hand fall to his knee. “What do you think?”