This was the first time Miss Clara felt the blues. After seeing Miss Jessie get into a cab, Miss Clara sat on the porch step, and the blues found her. She remembered the guitar’s thumping and the slow rumbles beneath, rising into high-pitched, acoustic sounds of misery. Its bass, with its cadence and syncopated rhythm, mirrored the pounding heart of her broken affair. She never knew how often Howard asked, “Have you seen my girl, my woman?” 

There wasn’t enough time to mend the hole in her heart or to heal the one she believed he carried from losing her. But there was a loss greater than the one she thought he felt. He had a son who didn’t even know his daddy’s name, adding another burden for Miss Clara’s blues to blame. But she wondered: How could she ever explain losing their baby the way she had?

She heard the guitar burst into sound with the plucking of steel—it marked the end of one phrase, then swayed between the mantras of her heartache, transforming into hosannas, hallelujahs, anthems, and prayers offered to soothe the suffering she had caused. She heard the guitar’s deep bass PICK its place in time and thump the mantra of her discontent: “Was I wrong? Was I wrong to hold my secret so tight—for so long?”