27/12/2025
You can’t love him,” my mother said. “Watch me.” We met in 1964, when I was a nursing student and James Carter, a jazz guitarist from the South Side, played in a bar across from campus. He called me “book girl.” I called him “heart trouble.” We’d talk for hours on the curb after closing time, until the streetlights shut off. When my mother found his picture in my wallet, she packed my bags and sent me home. I never said goodbye. Life moved on—marriage, kids, silence—but I never stopped hearing his music. Last fall, they moved me into a care home outside Detroit. On my first morning, I heard a piano down the hall. It was James. Same smile. Same hands. He looked up and said, “You still love trouble?” I laughed and said, “Always.”
