Page 11 of Willow in the Wind

It was bizarre. He hadn’t cried about it in years. Decades.

But it was as though his sorrow expanded in his chest, growing dark, pulling him back into that time.

“Where did you meet her?” Colton asked. He wanted more of the story.

“Athens,” James said with a laugh.

Colton looked taken aback. “Athens! Was she Greek?”

“American,” James said.

Colton’s smile was crooked. “I can see how you feel about her.”

“It was all a long time ago,” James assured him. He wanted to get back to the questions he’d scheduled for the interview. He wanted to get out of Athens in 2001 and back to Greenwich Village in 2021.

“Can I ask you something?” Colton asked.

Ugh,James thought.

“Do you know where she is now?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t a part of you want to find out? Doesn’t a part of you want to tell her how important she was to your story?” Colton asked. “I mean, I wrote this entire album about Cynthia. I think when she hears it, she’ll know how much she meant to me. She’ll know it’s all about her. And who knows? Will she tell her husband? Will they have a laugh about it? Or will she appear on my doorstep one day and saylet’s try again?” Colton barked with laughter, but his eyes were dark and shadowy.

“I don’t know if I need to know where she is,” James offered.

Colton snapped his fingers. “You should look her up! What with the internet, you can learn anything. You can hire private detectives. You can find anyone.”

James wasn’t sure he liked how easy it was to find someone. He liked his privacy. He assumed she did, too.

James left the meeting and walked immediately to the coffee shop where he planned to meet Taylor and her “specialsomebody.” Colton’s stories buzzed around his head, making it feel heavy, weighted. He couldn’t believe he’d told him about his first love. How juvenile he felt.

Taylor was already at the coffee shop when James arrived. He was twenty-five minutes early, hoping to make notes about the interview, and they gave one another startled smiles.

“Surprise!” Taylor said with a laugh, getting up to hug him.

James hugged her back and sat down. He looked at the empty chair beside her, upon which hung a black sweater that didn’t belong to Taylor.

The boyfriend emerged from the bathroom a minute later.

He was every father’s nightmare.

Long, greasy hair cascaded down his broad shoulders; his eyes were enormous but slightly buzzed out, as though he’d smoked weed recently and planned to do so again soon. He was tall and gangly, and when he shook James’s hand, his grip was loose.

Taylor was so effusive. “Dad, this is Aiden. He’s like you. He loves music. But he’s more into playing it, obviously.”

James told himself to play it cool. He’d been around people like Aiden all his life. It was just that all those gangly, greasy musicians had seemedcoolto James, whereas this one was dating his daughter. He wanted him to have a 401K. He wanted him to pay rent on time.

“What kind of music do you play, Aiden?” James asked.

“It’s rock, man,” Aiden said. “Heavily influenced by the metal of the late nineties.”

A shiver ran down James’s spine. He imagined his daughter at a metal show, waving her beautiful hair around as that sound assaulted her eardrums. He imagined himself storming through the door and dragging her out of there.

“That’s cool,” James said.

“Aiden has read a lot of your articles,” Taylor explained. “He loved the one you did on Metallica.”

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