Chapter Eleven
Jacob arrived at the community college forty minutes early, too restless to remain in his apartment until the appointed time. The campus was alive with mid-afternoon activity--students hurrying between classes, lounging on the quad, studying at outdoor tables. He felt out of place among them, too old to be a student, too young to be a professor, his scarred face drawing the usual quick glances before eyes slid away.
Rather than heading directly to the practice room, he took a seat at the campus coffee shop, a bright space with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a small garden. He ordered a simple black coffee and found a back corner table. His guitar case rested against his leg as he sipped his coffee, watching the ebb and flow of students.
Almost unconsciously, his hands reached for the case. He removed his guitar and positioned it on his lap, not to perform but simply to feel the familiar weight of it, to ground himself in routine before venturing into the unknown territory of this new collaboration.
His fingers began moving across the strings, idly at first, then with more purpose as a particular melody took shape. It was one of the songs he'd marked the night before--what he called "The Father Song," though its actual title was "Watching You Fly." He played softly, barely audible above the coffee shop chatter, working through the bridge that had always given him trouble, finding a new approach that seemed to resolve the tension more naturally.
"That's beautiful."
Jacob looked up, startled to find Lydia standing beside his table. She was dressed simply in jeans and a gray sweater, her hair pulled back in a casual ponytail, looking more like a graduate student than a rock star. Only the quality of her boots--handcrafted Italian leather--hinted at her actual status.
"You're early," he said, immediately feeling foolish for stating the obvious.
"So are you." She smiled slightly, gesturing to the empty chair across from him. "May I?"
Jacob nodded, setting his guitar aside. "I was just working through a song I thought might fit your voice."
"Don't stop on my account," Lydia said, settling into the chair. "What's the tune called?"
"'Watching You Fly,'" Jacob replied. "But I always think of it as 'The Father Song.'"
"Why is that?"
Jacob hesitated, unused to explaining the origins of his compositions to anyone other than an audience at arm's length. He took a breath and explained, his voice perfectly unemotional, as if stating facts to clarify a technical point.
"I never knew my parents. I was abandoned as an infant." He didn't mention the subsequent journey through foster care and group homes, the series of temporary attachments broken almost as soon as they formed. "So, sometimes I watch families when I'm out and about. Trying to understand them."
Lydia's expression remained neutral, though her eyes held a new attentiveness.
"I was at the park last summer," Jacob continued. "There was a father with his little girl, maybe six years old. The quality of her trust in her father was breathtaking--absolute and unconditional. The dad watched her on the monkey bars and daring slides and on the swings where she went so very high." His voice softened slightly, the only sign that the memory had affected him. "He never interfered, just kept her in his sight, ready if she needed him but giving her space to be brave."
Jacob reached for his coffee, using the moment to regain his emotional distance. "The song is about the daughter's memories of that day, of making her daddy proud. About how that kind of loving shapes a person forever after."
He didn't notice Lydia's reaction to the story--the way her fingers had tightened around her cup, the slight change in her breathing. Jacob simply pushed the handwritten score across the table toward her, positioning his guitar again.
"The verses are from the daughter's perspective as a child," he explained, slipping into the more comfortable territory of musical structure. "The chorus shifts to her as an adult, recognizing how those moments crafted her confidence."
Jacob began to play, the melody gentle but with an underlying strength. The first time through, he sang it himself, his voice carrying the story of a small girl's adventure on the playground, her father's watchful presence, the exhilaration of being both protected and free.
As he reached the chorus a second time, Lydia joined in, her voice blending with his in perfect harmony. Jacob glanced up, surprised by the richness of their combined sound--her trained soprano complementing his rougher baritone in ways he hadn't anticipated.
It was only then that he noticed the tears streaming down her face.
Jacob stopped playing abruptly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."
"No," Lydia interrupted, wiping quickly at her cheeks. "Please don't stop. It's perfect." She took a shaky breath. "It's just that my father... he was a lot like that. Always there, always watching, never hovering." She smiled through her tears. "He passed away three years ago. Cancer."
Understanding dawned on Jacob. "I didn't know. I wouldn't have chosen this song first if..."
"It's exactly the right song," Lydia insisted. "That's the point of music, isn't it? To connect, to make us feel something real." She reached for the score, studying it more closely. "The bridge--that's where you were when I walked up--it needs something. A lift."
Just like that, they shifted from emotional moment to technical collaboration, Lydia's training allowing her to articulate what Jacob had been struggling with. He adjusted the chord progression as she suggested, finding the resolution that had eluded him.
"Try it now," she urged.
Jacob played the revised bridge, and this time it flowed perfectly into the final chorus. Lydia joined again, her voice steady now despite the lingering moisture in her eyes. Several students at nearby tables had stopped their conversations to listen, drawn by the unexpected private concert in their midst.
As the final notes faded, Jacob felt an unfamiliar sensation--not just satisfaction with a well-constructed song, but connection through it. Lydia wasn't just singing his melody; she was inhabiting the story, bringing to it her own history, her own understanding of a father's love.
"That's the one," she said quietly. "That's the first single."
Jacob blinked, surprised by her certainty. "We haven't even looked at the others yet."
"We will," Lydia assured him. "But this one," she tapped the score, "this is special. This is what I meant about authenticity. It's specific enough to be true but universal enough that anyone who hears it will find their own story in it."
A small crowd had gathered around their table, drawn by the impromptu performance. Sensing Jacob's growing discomfort with the attention, Lydia gathered her things and stood.
"Maybe we should head to the practice room," she suggested. "More privacy there."
Jacob nodded gratefully, carefully returning his guitar to its case. As they made their way across campus, Lydia walking slightly ahead to deflect attention from his scarred face--a courtesy he noticed and appreciated--she glanced back at him.
"You know what's remarkable about that song, Jacob? It's written from a place of longing, not bitterness. Most people who grew up without parents would write about absence, about what was missing. You wrote about what could be, what should be."
Jacob had never considered this aspect of his composition process, had never analyzed why he wrote what he did. "I just write what I see," he said simply.
"That's why your songs feel true," Lydia replied. "Even when they're imagined."
They reached the practice room, a modest space with a piano, sound equipment, and blessed privacy. As Jacob set up his materials, arranging notebooks and sheets of music on the piano bench, he realized something had shifted between them. The tears Lydia had shed over his song had created a different kind of trust--not just artistic respect but emotional understanding.
"I brought about twenty songs I thought might work for you," Jacob said, gesturing to the carefully organized stack. "Different themes, different styles. Some finished, some still need work."
Lydia nodded, but her attention remained on "The Father Song." "We'll get to all of them. But first, can we work through this one again? I have some ideas for the arrangement--maybe a subtle string section under the final chorus, and the bridge could use a piano counterpoint."
For the next three hours, they lost themselves in the work, in the delicate process of taking a personal creation and shaping it for a wider audience without losing its essence. By the time they finally moved on to the second song, "The Father Song" had been transformed--still recognizably Jacob's composition but now carrying Lydia's influence as well, her musical sensibility enhancing rather than overshadowing his intent.
As they worked, Jacob found himself thinking about the little girl in the park, about how she would never know that her afternoon of play had inspired a song that might soon be heard by thousands. About how observation could become art, and art could become connection. About how his private act of witnessing others' lives was, perhaps, its own form of participation in the human experience.
"Hey," Lydia said, noticing his momentary distraction. "Where'd you go?"
Jacob shook his head slightly. "Just thinking about how songs find their way to where they need to be."
Lydia smiled. "Like they have lives of their own, independent of us?"
"Something like that."
"Well, this one" she tapped the score of "The Father Song" with genuine affection, "found me exactly when I needed it. Thank you for that, Jacob."
For once, Jacob didn't deflect the gratitude, didn't minimize his contribution. He simply nodded, acknowledging the gift given and received, the unexpected bridge built between his solitary observations and another person's lived experience.
They returned to their work, the practice room filled with song born from Jacob's years of watching the world from the outside, now finding their way in.
Chapter Twelve
Lydia slid the keycard into her hotel room door, riding a creative high unlike anything she'd experienced in years. The three hours with Jacob had flown by, each song he shared revealing new depths to his talent. By the end of their session, they'd worked through five compositions, each one striking a different emotional chord, each one feeling more right for her solo project than anything Arclight had recorded in their last two albums.
