The Free Spirit

Dreams of the Gardens, 1971 (Part One)

"We are stardust, we are golden..."

My thirty-third birthday had been spent quietly with myself and my children at home and we watched the ball drop in Times Square in New York City through the telly. It was an American tradition that started in 1907 and continued annually every year since, and with the advent of television, it became a tradition enjoyed by American citizens all across the country, not just those in New York City. Not much happened at home between New Year's and Phil's thirty-second birthday besides helping the kids with homework and all. Jackie and Phil's divorce still had not been fully finalised yet, but Phil had won custody of Jason, and Michelle was due to give birth any day. I only knew this because Phil started talking to me again only after agreeing with me that it wasn't my responsibility to tell him about Don's solo album, but he still wasn't on speaking terms with his brother.

On the seventeenth of January, Michelle went into labour, but Phil didn't call us. Michelle asked a nurse to call me because she knew that I was a midwife and because I was the closest thing she had to a female family member, and of course Don and the kids tagged along with me. Don wanted to meet his new niece or nephew and the kids wanted to meet their new cousin. Around dinner time, Michelle gave birth to a beautiful little girl that they called Phillippa Louise Everly, called Pippa for short. Jason was very excited to meet his new little sister and my children were allowed to meet their new cousin, too, but Phil did not allow Don into the room, which broke his heart. Don hadn't meant to hurt his brother by releasing a solo album, but Phil wouldn't hear him out.

They had to tour in early February, after Don's thirty-fourth birthday, but Phil still wouldn't speak to Don except when they were onstage performing. "I don't know why he won't talk to me, this is gettin' ridiculous!" Don said to me over the phone one night.

"Sweetheart, you hurt his feelings. He thought you two did everything together and then he finds out after the fact that you've already done something on your own," I told him.

"It ain't like it was successful or anythin'! And I'm my own man, I ain't attached to him. He oughta know this," Don replied to me, and I let out a sigh.

"Darling, Phil was tacked onto you from the time he was just a little lad. He didn't grow up independently from you at all, he was raised thinking that he was attached to you by the hip. You have to understand that he doesn't understand why you're trying to break away from him because all he knows is you two being stuck together. Talk to him, won't you? Or at least try," I said to him, and he agreed.

"Very well, I will," he told me. In a letter, he summed up the conversation he had had with his brother, which led to Phil finally understanding that the Everly Brothers were near the end of their rope and that it was soon time for them to go their separate ways. He didn't like it at first, but as the two brothers talked, he realised how close he and Don were compared to other siblings and saw that it was normal for brothers to go their separate ways. Don told me that Phil said he wanted to make his own solo album and Don encouraged him, promising to help him if he asked.

It was a few days after that phone call when something terrible happened both to Phil and his newborn daughter. I had agreed to let Michelle and the kids stay with me since she had very recently given birth, so Jason shared a room with Elton and Pippa slept with Michelle in the guest room. I woke up one morning to the sound of crying, wondering if it was Marley in her own separate room - Maggie had moved into Stacey's room to accommodate Marley - but when I went to check on her, Marley was fast asleep. And so I went to the guest room and heard the sounds of Pippa's cries on the other side of the door and I knocked. "Michelle?" No answer. "Michelle, is everything all right?" Still no answer. I slowly opened the door and saw the bed, fully made and empty, and the bassinet beside it, where Pippa lay crying from hunger. "Oh, poor dear," I said, picking up the one-month-old infant and cradling her in my arms. "Where's your Mummy gone?" On the bed was a note, and I picked it up and read: