“Then stay there longer,” her mother said firmly. “Call your producers. Postpone. If you can’t produce well under this kind of pressure, with this kind of deadline, then drop the deadline.”
“Mom. I was lucky to land Creed and Sonny. If they decide I’m an unreliable one-hit wonder, trust me, they have other people lined up begging them to produce them.”
“Well, you know what, honey? There are other producers out there, too.”
Maybe. But Creed and Sonny were the best, and everyone knew it, too. It would make an enormous difference to the potential success of her next album to have them behind her, as opposed to a lesser-known producer. And her songs would be better, too. Creed and Sonny knew how to respect what she was trying to do, her own artistic integrity, and yet catch what would enhance that music, make it stronger, more impactful, more compelling to the listener. A producer who could do all that, who could really do all that and do it superbly, was very hard to find.
Still…she gazed out over that beautiful valley. Her fingers eased off the grip exerciser and she ran them instead over the grain of the rock. Took a deep breath of the scent of pines. Spotted a dark head among the roses, heard maybe the faintest distant rumble of a bass call over the fields.
“The thing is, Mama,” she said slowly, reluctantly. “I don’t think I can keep this place here. I think I’m being a bad person, not to give it back.”
“Why is that, honey?”
Layla tried to stay discreet, but maybe she ended up telling her perceptive mom more than she realized, as she explained—about the Rosiers, and Matt, and Colette Delatour, and this valley. How it was the heart of a family. How it was his heart. And that heart wasn’t hers to take. Wasn’t hers to steal. It was only hers if it was given.
“It was given,” her mother said. Her voice had tightened a little. “It’s a heritage that came to you through your father, clearly.”
“No, but…by the person it belongs to.” How to explain? That her having part of this valley left this worry in Matt’s heart, and he couldn’t trust her, he couldn’t entirely let his guard down, because her owning this land made him feel so vulnerable in who he was.
“That’s not the way the law works, Layla. The person it belongs to did give it to you. Everything else is someone else’s delusions.”
Layla frowned. It wasn’t like her mother not to understand her.
Except, of course, when they were talking about men. Her mother had never approved of Layla giving anything up for a man.
Divorced with a two-year-old, her cheerful, determined mother had been glad of her career and of her parents’ support, perhaps, and never inclined to depend on a man again.
“Mama. It matters to him more than it does to me.”
“A few acres of land matter more to him than your music does to you? Than being able to write songs again?”
Layla rubbed her fingers over the rock uneasily.
“Don’t give yourself up for a man, sweetie. Don’t do that. Your heart and your dreams and your success are not less important than his.”
She flexed her fingers one by one into her palm, until her whole fist had tightened. “It’s not like that, Mama. It’s who he is.”
Flat silence on the other end. Her mother didn’t have to say a word.
Layla scrubbed her hand over her jeans now, retracting it from the rock. Jeans she could take with her, wherever she went. A rock stayed in the valley. “I can write my music anywhere.”
“Clearly you can’t, Layla. That’s what you’ve been telling me for the past six months.”
Layla spread her fingers on her knee and stared at them. “I always used to be able to.”
“Maybe you’ve been wandering too long, and you need to take root,” her mother said.
Suddenly, inexplicably, Layla’s eyes filled with tears. It was that word root. It made her want to sink and sink long reaching strands of her soul down into the ground and go as deep as she could. It made her want to come down out of those high winds, battering her kite. It made her want Matthieu. Just to press herself up against that big body and close her eyes while his arms folded around her, until the world was all gone.
“Mama, you’re not helping.”
“Just because I don’t agree with a choice you want to make doesn’t mean I’m not helping, sweetheart. Remember when you wanted to tattoo your first boyfriend’s name on your arm when you were thirteen? Do you remember his name now?”
That was a low blow. “We only went out a few weeks!” Then the “boyfriend” had started wanting to get too hot and heavy, and Layla had not felt in the least ready, and she’d stopped seeing him and written one of her early experiments in heart-broken lyrics. A song that sounded absolutely ridiculous to her now.