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For the next ten days, Charlie spent every waking moment gazing at the miracle of Molly until he had to go back to work. To help me care for Molly I had the indefatigable Willa Mae, Molly’s sisters, and her two grandmothers, who had flown out to the West Coast to meet their new granddaughter as soon as they heard the news. In between cooing over the baby, our mothers told us how relieved they were that the birth had gone well. When they had given birth to us in the 1940s, women routinely went to hospitals. At the end of a weeklong stay, the new mother was sent home with bottles and instructions on how to make formula for her tightly wrapped little bundle of joy. Our mothers had considered themselves “modern” women because they’d had access to good medical
care in a germ-free environment. Our choosing to give birth in the manner of their mothers’ generation had caused them some consternation. However, it didn’t bother my grandmother. When my mother told her that I was planning to deliver her great-grandchild at home and breastfeed her, my grandmother’s response was, “So vot’s so un-yuzhull?”

In the early seventies, few hospitals offered a birthing environment that combined medical resources with the social benefits of home birth. Today many hospitals offer birthing rooms with a homelike environment and enough room for doctors, nurses, equipment, a father or other birth partner, and older siblings. Ironically, more women are having babies at home in the twenty-first century because they can’t afford to go to a hospital.

I became pregnant again in the summer of 1973 and continued being a homebody, alternately working as a singer and songwriter. That pregnancy was less challenging physically than my pregnancy with Molly, but it seemed to last a lot longer—especially toward the end. During those months I wrote the songs for my album
Wrap Around Joy
with David Palmer, then Lou Adler produced the album and assembled some of the finest musicians in L.A. to record the tracks.
“Jazzman,”
featuring Tom Scott on saxophone, would emerge as the most popular song from that album, reaching #1 on November 9, 1974.

Charlie was twenty-seven and I thirty-two when our son, Levi Benjamin Larkey, arrived on April 23, 1974, in the customary headfirst presentation. After that our kitchen reverted permanently to its conventional use, and so did my body. Levi would be my last child.

T
he year 1972 started off on a high note after Molly’s arrival. Then, on March 14, I attained the highest pinnacle of success to which a recording artist and songwriter could aspire: I was awarded four Grammys for my work on
Tapestry
. I didn’t accept the awards in person because the ceremony was in New York and I wanted to stay in California with my new baby. Along with his own Grammys, Lou accepted mine. With
Tapestry
now a multiplatinum-selling album that had wildly exceeded my teenage dreams, I didn’t know what to do with my success. I didn’t want the problems that came with being famous, and I didn’t want my private life to be public. I just wanted to do what I’d been doing as a wife and mother before the success of
Tapestry
. I made clothes for everyone in the family, tended our small garden, and occasionally went out for sushi lunch in Little Tokyo with my friend Stephanie. I taught at the Integral Yoga Institute and attended cooking classes at The Source. I continued to embarrass my Goffin daughters by bringing their vitamins to school. And I continued to bring home health food instead of the Cokes, Pepsis, and potato chips that Sherry
wanted. When I said for the umpteenth time that health food was better for her, Sherry retaliated by saying, in a perfect imitation of my voice, “It’s nutritious!”

Charlie was home a lot that year. When he wasn’t playing with Jo Mama or helping care for Molly, he was in his studio practicing. He was determined not to miss the important moments of Molly’s first year. When we were invited to dinner, a party, or some other social event to which neither of us was interested in going, Charlie was usually the one who said no on behalf of both of us. I didn’t mind. Charlie was better than I at saying no.

I also continued to write and record songs. Because I was breastfeeding, I brought Molly with me to the studio. I had a bassinet that looked like a rectangular wicker basket, which I kept near the piano when I was recording. When I was working in the booth the bassinet was on a bench near the console. Molly didn’t seem to mind the noise and the activity. When she was ready to sleep, she slept. When she was awake she looked at the lights and the people and kicked her feet in the air with what looked like pure pleasure. When Charlie was in the studio he held her whenever he wasn’t recording. She cooed at him and made adorable baby faces at whoever else picked her up until she was ready for what only her mama could then provide. These lines from my song
“Goodbye Don’t Mean I’m Gone”
described my life in 1972.

But it’s all I can do to be a mother

(My baby’s in one hand, I’ve a pen in the other)

In a song called
“Weekdays”
I articulated the struggle by many women of my generation to balance feminist goals with traditional wife- and motherhood. The woman in that song was a character I created along with others in the
Fantasy
album.

Weekday mornings

Coffee smell in the air

After you’ve gone and the children have left for school

I’m alone and I think about all the plans we made

I think about all the dreams I had

And I wonder if I’m a fool

Weekday midday

I’ve got the marketing done

Plenty to do but nothing to tax my mind

That’s all right—it’s a habit

Heaven knows I can always watch the daytime shows

And I wonder which story’s mine

She loved a man she knew little about

After so many years of trying

So many years of doing without

Oh, but what’s the use of crying

Weekday evenings

We sit and I realize

You’ve dreamed, too, and I kind of understand

I’ve been with you and you need me to take care of you

But we’ll work it out so I’m a person, too

And we’ll help each other out the best that we can

’Cause I’m your woman and you’re my man

After
Tapestry
I would write and record six more albums for Ode:
Music
,
Rhymes and Reasons
,
Fantasy
,
Wrap Around Joy
,
Thoroughbred
, and
Really Rosie
.

Each of the six albums after
Tapestry
went either gold or platinum.
Music
sold over two million. All were extraordinarily successful
by any standard short of the one established by
Tapestry
. People often ask me if I was disappointed when subsequent albums didn’t do as well. Some are skeptical when I say no. But I never expected
Tapestry
to achieve the success it did, and I saw no reason to expect that level of success to continue. I was just glad I could keep writing, recording, and making a good living while enjoying a normal life. The meaning of “normal” was open to interpretation, but in 1972, the year I turned thirty, my life felt pretty normal to me.

M
y definition of a normal life continued in 1973 with my caring for Molly, being supportive of Charlie, chauffeuring two increasingly busy schoolchildren around, and writing and recording new songs. Charlie’s definition of a normal life included playing in three bands, none of which was Jo Mama. That band had broken up. One of Charlie’s bands featured David Foster on piano and William Smith—“Smitty”—on organ. Another featured Dave Palmer, with Danny Douma on guitar, John Ware on drums, and, at one point, Michael McDonald on vocals and keyboards (yes,
that
Michael McDonald). But the band that would become Charlie’s main gig was the David T. Walker band, featuring David T. on guitar, Clarence McDonald on keyboards, Harvey Mason on drums, Charlie on bass, and Ms. Bobbye Hall, a petite woman who made big sounds with percussion instruments.

As a fellow musician I understood why Charlie enjoyed playing with David T.’s band. They were such superb players that I hired them to play on my
Fantasy
album. Rather than being a collection of songs in random order, that album had a connecting story and a predetermined sequence, and I had written every song with
the specific intention of singing it myself. Just before
Fantasy
was released in 1973, Charlie and Lou suggested I promote it by going on tour with the David T. Walker band as my rhythm section.

Promoting an album had never been sufficient inducement to get me to go on tour, but what interested me was the chance to share with an audience how much fun I’d had writing and recording it.

Lou sealed the deal when he said, “Not only will you be playing with David T.’s band, you’ll be playing with everyone’s dream horn section.”

He was referring to George Bohanon on trombone and euphonium, Dick Hyde, also called “Slyde,” on trombone, Oscar Brashear on trumpet, Gene Goe on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Tom Scott and Mike Altschul on saxophone.

Though the
Fantasy
tour didn’t last as long as the 1971 tour, it, too, was successful. More than one hundred thousand people attended our free concert in Central Park.

And though record sales never approached the level of
Tapestry
, the
Fantasy
album was critically well received. I enjoyed that tour very much, but as soon as we got home I readily slipped into my comfort zone of domesticity. Charlie took a different direction. I had always respected his dedication to music, but he was now taking it to another level. He played so many late-night club gigs that I rarely saw him.

It was probably just as well that I had come up through the ranks of the music business without having to play late-night club gigs, because I’m not a late-night person. I’m an inveterate diurnal. I’m one of those really inconsiderate early-morning people that nocturnal people hate. Never giving a thought to whether someone might be sleeping in the next room, I rattle the cereal box, clink the spoon while stirring my tea, and yell at the top of my lungs to a dawdling child, “Hurry up or you’ll miss your bus!”
Nocturnals enjoy watching the sun come up only when they’re making their way home after having been out all night. I prefer to watch the sun rise after I’ve slept for eight hours.

And that was the problem. Charlie and I still cared for each other, but we were spending almost no time together. Our disparate schedules continued through 1974 and part of 1975. Some couples are able to preserve their emotional connection from different cities or on different shifts, but our overlapping hours were simply not enough. We tried marriage counseling, discussions, therapy, and other options without success until we felt that we had exhausted all possibilities available at the time.

Sadly, “at the time” was all we had. With tremendous sorrow on both our parts, we separated, then divorced. But we remained united in our resolve to be the best possible parenting team for our children. Charlie was a devoted father and a considerate coparent. Indeed, he would provide stability for our kids when my life choices were less than stable. Our shared commitment to our children’s well-being and mutual respect for each other’s rules even when we disagreed gave our kids a solid foundation. Had they tried to play us against each other, they wouldn’t have been successful. Grounded in their well-being, Charlie and I navigated cooperatively what is often treacherous territory for divorced parents and their children.

Even after our lives diverged to include other partners, Charlie and I remained friends. Periodically we wondered if we might have tried harder to work through our problems and, in so doing, perhaps could have stayed together. We’ll never know, but we’re grateful for our shared history of love, respect, children, grandchildren, friendship, and music. We had the chance to make music together again in 2001 when Charlie played on
“An Uncommon Love”
and
“Oh No Not My Baby”
for my
Love Makes the World
album. Written with Gerry and recorded with Charlie, “Oh No Not My Baby” could have been subtitled “Husband Reunion.”

I could not have predicted in 1975 that Charlie’s and my relationship would turn out to be an unconventional success story. All I could see then was another failure. After Charlie and I divorced I lost my center. Sometimes I felt as if I were floating away like the red balloon in the movie
Le Ballon rouge
. After Charlie moved out I found it too heartbreaking to stay in the house on Appian Way with the memories it held of our life together. Thankfully I could afford to move. My Goffin daughters didn’t want to leave the Canyon, but when I found a house on Encinal Beach in Trancas they were okay with that. Plus we had cool neighbors. Cheech Marin lived next door. His partner in comedy, Tommy Chong, lived just across the Pacific Coast Highway. Louise and Sherry knew two of Tommy’s daughters, Rae Dawn and Robbi, from school in Laurel Canyon. Neil Young lived in a cottage nearby on Broad Beach. Lou Adler and some of his friends lived on Carbon Beach. And J. D. Souther and Don Henley with Eagles shared a house just up the hill from mine.

Because so many of my neighbors were celebrities, the invitations I accepted brought me to high-profile events and parties. I found myself spending social time with people actively seeking the very visibility that I had tried to avoid. Some celebrities were more intellectually curious than others. In addition to being a stellar athlete, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had a vast knowledge of jazz and its place in history. But more often I found myself in the company of people who enjoyed gossiping about who was wearing what, who was dating whom, who’d had plastic surgery, and what the best places were to see and be seen. Even now I can’t explain why I continued to socialize with such people. Perhaps I was still trying to make up for my high school years, when I was rarely invited anywhere. But without Charlie to say no for me, I found it difficult to say no for myself.