I set two places, cracked open two cold bottles of beer, and put them next to the plates just as Morgan set down a huge platter of fried noodles garnished with limes and hard-boiled eggs.
“Wow,” I said. “Kinda puts my chicken dinner to shame.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, taking a seat across from me. “This is the easiest dish in the world, although it really hits the spot.” She raised her own bottle of beer. “To family,” she said.
We clinked bottles and took sips before digging into our fragrant plates of food. I think Morgan knew I needed a distraction from thinking about my aunt or Paige, so she regaled me with stories of her family trips to Manila and her grandma’s attempts to teach her how to cook. “I wasn’t a very good student,” she said, laughing. “Once I caused a small fire while I was trying to use the wok, but I did learn one or two things.” She popped a shrimp into her mouth and washed it down with another sip of beer. “My grandma finally told my dad that it was a good thing I was smart, because no one would marry me for my cooking.”
I leaned across the table and kissed her. “I love your cooking,” I said. “And everything else about you.”
Morgan went on to tell me about her last day with her friends at the Don CeSar. While she admitted that my sudden departure put a bit of a damper on their last afternoon, what made it worse was a group of guys who monopolized the chaise longues next to theirs at the pool and spent the entire time badgering them to meet up later.
“It was irritating. All we wanted was a peaceful last afternoon together in the sun.”
“Did you end up going out on your last night?”
“We did, and thank God we didn’t run into those guys. But we weren’t out late. Everyone was kinda tired. It was a big week for all of us.”
“Fun though, right?”
“I can’t speak for them, but I was living in dreamland.”
I smiled. “How did your parents react to you leaving again as soon as you got home?”
She made a face. “I didn’t tell them until after I booked the flights, and while they weren’t thrilled, they didn’t try to stop me. I should mention, though, that as soon as I got home, my mom sat me down and tried again to convince me to take that music-teaching job in Chicago instead of going to Nashville.”
I made sympathetic noises as I stood and cleared the table. Together, we did the dishes, by now in practiced rhythm. As I put the last of them away, she nodded in the direction of the porch. “Let’s sit outside for a while. I want to help you keep tinkering with that song you started.”
We settled ourselves in the rockers then, absorbing the smells and budding scenery of the late-spring evening. The air was balmy, and the stars were scattered in the sky like handfuls of loose crystal. From the small creek beyond the barn, I heard the night chorus of frogs and crickets. The moon lent the landscape a silver sheen.
“It’s beautiful here,” Morgan breathed, taking it all in. “And”—she interrupted herself with a laugh—“I was going to say it’s quiet, but it’s not. The sounds are just different than back home. Or even in Florida, for that matter.”
“It’s called living in the boondocks.”
“It’s not that bad. I was able to get an Uber in Greenville, after all, and it was a real car and everything.” She leaned her head back against the rocker. “Earlier, when I was listening to you working on the song, my thoughts kept returning to our week together. I know you’re channeling a lot of stress and worry right now about your sister and your aunt, but when you’re writing a ballad, the song needs to come from a memory of happiness or it’s not going to work. Sadness is powerful, but it has to be earned, you know? So I was thinking the first line of the song could be something like this…” She drew a deep breath, then sang the opening few bars: “There’s a place that I know, where only you and I can go…”
I instantly knew she was right. “Anything else?”
“It’s your song, not mine. But since you asked…” She grinned, arching an eyebrow. “I think the opening should be more complex, instrumentally speaking. Like orchestral, even. A big romantic sound.”
I reached for my guitar. “Since you think this should be a song about us, right?”
“Why not?” she asked. “And we should probably get going on it, since I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“So soon?”