A Voice Like Sandy Denny's

A Novella — Chapter Five

I never told you this, but when I got home that night and listened to the work I had done over the years, I was overcome with a compulsion to scrap it all and begin again. Frankly, it embarrassed me. It seemed fake, dishonest, lacking depth. How you could tell me that you liked it as much as you did didn’t make sense. I felt you were patronizing me, that you had said all those things because you didn’t want to hurt my feelings, that you believed I wouldn’t be able to hear the truth. I started to have doubts about you. Then I thought perhaps you were telling me the truth. Who was I to say you were lying to me? I knew then if I didn’t hear from you, you were just being kind. I had to keep myself from calling or emailing you. I had to know. I’d been down that road before.