Finding Abbey Road (18 page)

There's somewhere else you're meant to go.

“Dammit,” Susan says behind me, sniffling.

“Yeah.” I'm wiping at tears myself as we both watch them play. Eli is smiling as they move into the second verse. He looks so alive, ghost-free, in the moment, and that grin is so much like Caleb's, brighter than he probably even knows.

They play another chorus, and then enter a refrain. Caleb and Val are ready to sing in response to Eli's line:

We can smile . . . one last time

(Abbey Road, I'm finding . . .)

We can smile one last time

(Abbey Road, I'm finding . . .)

They finish, hitting a resounding chord, and all of them freeze, letting it hang, the notes defying time, the song a flock of birds fluttering to the ceiling . . .

Fade into silence.

“I've heard him do that song so many times,” says Susan. “Never like that. He told me it was about wanting that moment, like the Beatles had.”

“What do you mean?”

“When they got together to make
Abbey Road
, they all knew, at least on some level, that it was their last album together, and so a lot of the acrimony fell away. They were able to enjoy themselves, at least somewhat. Eli always wanted that with Allegiance, even though he was the one that made it impossible.”

It's silent down in the studio. I don't think any of them know what to do next.

Finally it's Val: “Want to play another one?”

Eli: “Sure.”

Caleb: “How about ‘Exile'?”

“Nah,” Eli says emphatically. “Not mine. Teach me your songs.”

Caleb and Val show him one of their first songs, “Knew You Before
.
” They play it slower and with more of an open feel, fitting the acoustic vibe. Caleb tears apart a box of guitar strings and scratches out the lyrics on the white cardboard insides, and they have Eli sing the main chorus.

About two-thirds of the way through, I have a step-out moment where I really consider what we're witnessing here.

“This stuff is so good . . . ,” I say. And the wheels in my head are turning. . . . We've spent so long imagining if Dangerheart got the chance to play Eli's lost songs. But this . . . Eli playing Dangerheart's, in father-son-daughter renditions . . . But I tell manager me to shut up, to just be here.

Then a minute later, Susan says, “This is so wonderful. I can't decide if it's perfect or tragic.”

“Tragic?” I say. But I know what she means. “He won't really want to erase these, will he?”

Except of course he will. And even if he didn't: What could possibly happen with them? The whole Eli being-not-dead thing is kind of an issue.

“That's always been the only way he can make art feel pure,” she says. “He has to create it just for creativity's sake. Erasing it is the only way to ensure that. Even those last few Allegiance songs, before he died, the ones that could have gotten him out of trouble . . .”

“I thought those songs were what he was in trouble for?”

“Well, yes and no,” says Susan. “Part of what Kellen and the rest of Allegiance were so mad about was that they were just about to sign a new deal with Candy Shell.
Into the Ever & After
was their last album on their current record deal. The next deal was going to be huge.

“Kellen and those guys were always going to be able to sue Eli for lost tour money and future royalties after he ditched the band, but it would have been for so much less if he'd just delivered those final three songs. That would have technically fulfilled his obligation to the existing contract. To Candy Shell. So many of their legal knives would have been gone. But Eli didn't trust them to do the right thing with the songs. He didn't trust them with his art anymore. He literally couldn't live with the idea.”

“Wow.”

All this has my brain spinning. Maybe there is something we can do. . . .

I can't be sure, but there's enough of a chance that I take out my phone and switch off airplane mode. As Caleb, Val, and Eli play on, I send a text, and then keep the phone on, hoping for a reply.

When it comes a minute later, I show it to Susan.

(424) 828-3710: Yes. I think I could make that work.

“Is there a way?” I ask her.

Susan nods. “Let me route a few things. I think we can pull this off.”

4:53 a.m.

Caleb, Eli, and Val work through six songs. Sketching them out, laying down basic tracks, then going over them to re-sing harmonies, overdub background vocals. Add guitar parts. Even drums now and then. They bop around in the island of light just creating, at first speaking quietly, but eventually louder, nodding, smiling, even laughing. They never talk about anything other than parts, structure. They speak to each other in song.

When they are finally finished, spent and breathless, it seems like no time at all has passed, and yet I can feel the hours of lost sleep in my shoulders and neck.

They put down their instruments and climb wearily up
to the control room. They are quiet, total exhaustion setting in, I'm sure. They all sit on the couch, the three of them side by side, sipping water, staring off into space.

“Ready?” Susan asks, after a moment.

“Ready,” says Eli. This feels like another part of his ritual.

Susan hits play, and we spin through the just-recorded tracks. Twenty-seven minutes of work hewn from three hours of energy. In a hundred different moments, one of us laughs, or shakes our head in admiration at what we are hearing.

There's even one time when Eli says: “I dig the way you drove the compressors on that bass track.”

And Susan says: “That was all Summer.”

And I sort of supernova inside, while fighting desperately to rein in a goofy grin.

When the songs are done and the tape hisses quietly, silence settles over the room again.

Caleb looks to Val. Val looks to Caleb. Both of them to Eli.

“What do you think”—the slightest pause for Caleb before he can add—“Dad?”

It's obvious what he's asking. Obvious because it's what we're all thinking. We won't be around for the next session. This has to be decided tonight. These recordings are amazing. So amazing that . . .

But Eli slowly stands, stares at the floor. Puts his hands in his pockets.

He glances over at the tape machine. Sighs.

Sixteen years spent fighting his own desires. Sixteen years spent running from who he used to be. I want to ask him who he is now. I wonder if he's asking himself that same question.

Because he could be something new. Right here. This morning. Like in his own song, he could say good-bye with a smile. I should tell him this. But it doesn't feel like quite my place. . . .

He puts out his arms and yanks both his kids up off the couch, pulls them into a clumsy group hug, squinting hard as he does, emotion overwhelming him. Relief? Guilt? Love?

All of the above.

He kisses the top of Val's head. “We'll always have tonight,” he says into her hair. Then he pulls away and steps toward the tape machine.

I watch Caleb watching him. He wants to tell him to stop. Wants to grab him, but he doesn't. His eyes find me. I try to send him all the strength I can.

“Dad,” he says. “Just this one night . . . this one time. Don't erase it.”

Eli pauses. He stands there looking torn, like either choice will kill him. “Tonight meant more to me than you know. And I'm sorry I can't be more for you both. . . .”

He takes another step.

“Dad,” says Caleb again, his voice rising in urgency.

But I catch his eye and try to somehow send him a telepathic message:
Don't worry. It will be okay.

Eli reaches the machine, presses buttons. The tape reel begins to spin. Erasing. Releasing this moment, this one night, into its rightful place in the infinite.

“Gotta let it go,” says Eli. It sounds like a mantra, one he's intoned a thousand times. Maybe it's how he survives, the only certain thing he's got, and yet he sounds so tragic tonight, like even he knows the cost of the trap that he's in.

The tape whines, until all that's left is blank hiss.

I find myself tearing up. Maybe because I know what's next.

“I should go,” Eli says, looking at the clock. “Get moving while it's still dark.”

“Where are you staying?” Susan asks.

“I'll let you know,” he says. “Was thinking I'd head to Berlin. Just for a while.”

He turns to his kids. Both Caleb and Val are trying to find safe spaces to stare into.

“Will we ever see you again?” Caleb asks.

“Maybe,” says Eli. It sounds more like
probably not
. “I gotta come up with a new plan.”

“Maybe there will be a way to get you back to the States someday,” I offer.

“Maybe.”

He hugs them both again, wordlessly.

Steps away, closer to the door.

“I was um, I was wrong, before,” he says. He shoves his hands in his pockets, his head twitching. Staring into the shadow beside the mixing console. “I
did
ask for this. Not just that summer, with those tapes. But since then, every time I played, alone down there . . . I was asking. To see you. To set things right. But I was wrong about that, too. You're both already right. You did it without me. So I guess . . . I guess I'm just really grateful to know you. You're both so damn special. And you found each other. . . .”

He sighs. “I'm sorry I can't be the dad you both deserve. When you learn so many ways that you
don't
work right, you gotta stick to the few that do. I only know a few ways to make it through the days. The years . . .”

“We could help, Dad,” says Val through her tears. “We could.”

“Yeah,” says Eli, “you probably could. Maybe someday . . . Thanks for tonight.” He looks at me, and at Susan. “Thanks for making this real. I—I gotta go.”

“Let me know when we'll meet next,” Susan says. I can tell she hates this, but she's done the math on Eli. She's seen the equation. She's probably thinking: if she can just get him to show up again, for the next midnight session . . . Then she can work on him some more. He's come this far.
It's a long journey. Maybe there's hope.

“I will,” says Eli. “Okay . . .” He looks at Caleb and Val one more time, and there is a hesitation, like the faintest of magnets tugs between them, and my heart freezes because I can imagine him staying, lunging into their arms, making everything whole. . . .

But Eli White turns and walks out the door. Into the London dark. Back beyond the decades and the sea.

5:28 a.m.

Pancakes.

They're really the only solution.

Up all night + life-changing adventure x seminal secret recording / erased tape = Pancakes.

Or eggs Benedict, according to Susan, but that's too adult.

Once we order, I slip my phone off airplane mode and send a text:

Summer: We want to talk. Meet us at the VQ Bloomsbury diner. Now.

I don't wait for a reply.

“Are you sure this will work?” Caleb asks me.

I share a glance with Susan. “I think it will.”

Heaping plates of food arrive, a pot of coffee, along with the obligatory because-we-were-up-all-night milk shakes.

I hold Caleb's hand on the vinyl booth between us, my
head occasionally falling to his shoulder. We shovel pancakes, mine blueberry, his plain with some creepy English meat on the side.

“I'll let you know when I hear from him,” says Susan, breaking the latest long, exhausted silence. “Where he's staying and all that.”

“Just tell him,” says Val, “that when he wants to get in touch with us, he knows where he can find us.”

Caleb agrees.

“What is it like?” Susan asks. She means now. After meeting the man. A question I haven't been able to ask Caleb or Val yet.

“It's quiet,” says Val. She taps her head. “Easier, in here.”

“Yeah,” says Caleb. “I'm not saying this whole thing was the ideal way to meet your long-lost dad, but, after all we went through, it sort of made me ready to deal with who he actually is.”

“I hope he can find a way to get better,” says Val.

Susan nods. “I've always believed that he will. Somehow. I mean he is better than he was. But I think he can get even further.”

The diner door jingles. Caleb and I are facing it. And we freeze.

“He's here,” I say.

Kellen McHugh spots us. He unzips his long coat, a high turtleneck beneath. With his clean-shaven head and small
glasses, I wonder if he realizes how much he looks like a supervillain. He grabs a chair from the empty table nearby and sidles up at the end of our booth. Pulls his e-cigarette from his pocket. It glows blue as he takes a drag and squints at us.

“Mind if I have a coffee?” he asks, flagging down the waitress without waiting for a reply. “I was surprised to hear from you three. And what a coincidence: the landlady is here, too.”

“Nice to see you again,” says Susan, her tone saying otherwise.

“I was sorry to lose track of you last night,” says Kellen. “It seemed so . . . intentional.”

The waitress brings a mug and Kellen helps himself. Drinking his coffee black. Definitely a supervillain.

I just want this to be over as soon as possible.

“We have something for you,” I say.

“Is it an address for my cheating, career-ruining, undead band mate?”

I shake my head like he's speaking another language. And yet somewhere inside I register that Kellen's anger and resentment have their place. “I don't know what you mean, but no. I'm talking about the third tape. The reason we came to London. Eli's last song from
Into the Ever & After.
”

“That's charming,” says Kellen, “but we both know that is not the reason you came to London.”