As Tatum and Pearl saw it, Deedee, their bassist, always made decisions in the extreme. She didn’t just not do drugs; she kept herself fanatically clean—“as clean as my one cat’s butthole” was how she put it. She didn’t just not want kids; she was fanatically against adding to the world’s population problems. Their drummer, Marcus, had left the band first, in 1991; Deedee left a year later and fell off the grid, checked out before the internet, so there was no trail. Nobody knew if she stayed in music. Nobody knew if she’d found happiness. Nobody knew her politics either—not until Obama, birtherism, and the 2016 election.

But in 2018 she had a crisis involving a twenty-three-year old son whom nobody knew about either. He accidentally shot himself in the heart with a nail gun at a construction site in New Hampshire—and lived. The crisis was the medical bills—$97,000 just for the chopper. Deedee had no insurance (the middle finger to Obamacare), so her kid had no insurance. She launched a Kickstarter, but few in her circle were giving. And then just two months after Schuyler nailed his own heart, Deedee died of an overdose.

Tatum and Pearl were the driving forces behind a name that defined a large chunk of “alt” in the later 1980s—byzantine song structures; antic, surreal lyrics; manic delivery. For the initiated, they were ne plus ultra—a status that, despite all, could never quite cover the ConEd bill. They birthed an odd college radio subgenre, “child mother rocker,” since they both had babies before they were eighteen. They ended the band for good in 1994 and followed similar paths: more kids, drugs and getting clean, weight problems, career reboot, crisis and collapse, different drugs, start again. What defined the band more than anything was the fluke song “Snow-Glow,” which became a perennial Christmas rotation that still gave them modest royalties. Ostensibly about trying to get from Providence to Boston during a blizzard, it was recorded at Fort Apache Studios in Cambridge in 1987.

The double tragedy of Deedee’s estranged life “hit home hard,” as Tatum told the Globe. A promoter had pitched a Christmas concert at the beginning of December. “We’re never gonna do a Christmas anything,” Pearl told the guy they’d put on speaker while she and Tatum were tuning their guitars in a Northampton barn. “We’ll do a benefit concert for Deedee’s kid,” said Tatum. She had six of her own and Pearl had five, with one estrangement each. Now they were grandmas and weren’t even fifty.

Being mothers was the reason they agreed to play at Christmastime. They would do it for the old Deedee despite her new politics. They would do it for Schuyler. They’d lined up the bassist who’d been working with Tatum, but there was the question of the drummer. The promoter thought the show would be “epic” if they could get Marcus, always a mystery that Tatum and Pearl never cared to crack—moody, kept it all inside. They weren’t surprised that he’d managed to fall off the grid as well. They’d got their kids to look for him a decade before but were unsuccessful. This time, one of Pearl’s sons searched using Google Translate and traced Marcus to Berlin, where he’d been living for a long time. He worked for a percussion museum in some guy’s house. They had to email the museum in German. They gave him both the sad news and the proposition. He declined rather quickly, but they stayed on him. “What if we come to Berlin to talk?” He wrote back saying they were free to visit him at the museum. Then, perhaps after some guilt, he wrote that they could visit his apartment, where he lived with his partner, Katka.

The promoter coughed up money for two tickets to Berlin, plus one for a guy named Kieran who was joining their mission to document. Tatum and Pearl sat side by side, with the skinny guy they called Señor Pitchfork on the aisle.

“I’ve never written for Pitchfork,” he told them.

“We’re cramped here because we’re fat,” said Pearl, ignoring him.

“It’s not because we’re fat,” argued Tatum. “Our expectations are extra-wide.”

Pearl smiled at Señor Pitchfork. “Let it rip with the questions.”

He nervously thumbed at his phone. “In the great canon of Christmas songs, you’re a one-hit wonder.”

“That bitch song,” said Tatum.

“One Thousand Miles,” said Pearl.

Kieran shook his head. “I don’t get what you mean.”

“That was our nickname for ‘Snow-Glow,’ ” said Tatum, “the discount version of ‘Two Thousand Miles,’ the Pretenders song.”

“None of us even liked Christmas,” said Pearl. “Christmas then was a weird-ass John Hughes movie . . . before every holiday had its own latte.”

“The story is,” said Tatum: “you’re in Providence and, like, people are clearing milk from the 7-Elevens, and the plows are out there scraping the bridges and you want to get to Boston to pick up a check.”

“But you also want to fuck this guy,” said Pearl.

“Yeah,” said Tatum, “always some guy.”

Kieran laughed. “I thought the song was about a line of coke.”

“Every song then was about a line of coke,” said Tatum.

“We were trying to be original with the fucking,” said Pearl.

“Well, it got you in Spin,” said Kieran.

Tatum looked at Pearl. “How did Edie Brickell get on the cover and we didn’t?”

“Neither of us was fucking Paul Simon as I recall.”

“We didn’t even get in the Swimsuit Issue.”

“The Meat Puppets got in the Swimsuit Issue.”

Tatum turned to Marcus: “We used to beat ourselves up by saying we could only get on the cover of The Noise.”

“And even there,” said Pearl, “we could never bump Scruffy the Cat.”

“That summer we finally ended the band,” said Tatum, “Beck’s ‘Loser’ was blaring from the cars of all these BU jocks.”

“The meatheads who would’ve beat up Beck.”

“That was the writing on the wall,” said Tatum.

“Soy un perdedor,” said Pearl.

“Where was Marcus then?” asked Kieran.

“I have no idea,” said Tatum. “Ask me another question.”

“Why didn’t he use cymbals?”

Pearl laughed. “Remember that song ‘She Don’t Use Jelly?’ ”

Tatum sang: “She uses Vaa-aa- aa- aa- aa- aa- aa-seline.”

Pearl looked at Kieran. “It’s because the drum kit Marcus borrowed didn’t have them. They’d been stripped, like hubcaps.”

“Drummers are always counting things out with their knuckles,” said Tatum. “Remember that story about Ginger Baker?”

“Dude,” said Pearl, “there are probably a thousand stories about Ginger Baker.”

“I don’t remember,” she snapped. “That’s why I’m asking.”

“What is it with drummers?” said Pearl philosophically.

“Shiny, shiny pants and bleach-blond hair.”

“A double kick drum by the river in the summer.”

“She fell in love with the drummer.”

“Another and another.”

Their singing elicited several buzzes for a flight attendant.

“People around us have had no fucking idea,” said Pearl. “They’re like: Who are those freakin’ old broads?”

Tatum nodded. “They think we’re from a British baking show.”

In Berlin, the trio made their way to a ticky-tack hotel near the Brandeburg Gate and then reassembled to take the U-Bahn to Friedrichshain and Marcus’s apartment building, which looked beautifully aged and ramshackle from the street. The women apologized for temporarily leaving Kieran outside at a food truck before entering another world in the lobby, one of chic substances and a precise mix of textures. At the door on the third floor, they were greeted by a still-skinny, middle-aged man whose withdrawn expression was almost too familiar.

“This place is amazing,” said Pearl as Marcus closed the door behind them.

“It’s like being shrunk inside a Bang and Olufsen speaker,” said Tatum.

“This is all Katka,” he said, looking around. “Her family owns a grocery store chain.”

Tatum laughed. “Do they find you to give you royalties?”

He looked confused.

“For One Thousand Miles,” said Pearl.

“I forgot we called it that,” he said.

Tatum glanced at Pearl and they knew: He is rich and cultured and we are poor and forgotten.

“Any kids?” asked Pearl.

“Katka has two daughters at university.”

“Do you still ba-dump-bump?” asked Tatum.

“I play bass and guitar now,” he said, indicating that they should sit on the sofa of impeccably supple black leather within a walnut platform.

Tatum touched where she was going to sit. “You got enough seating in here for an entire jury.”

He stared at the sofa as if suddenly trying to understand it. “So what are you two doing these days?”

“I grow things and have a business with one of my daughters,” said Tatum. “It’s called Messy Farmer Pickles. Because, well . . . sometimes what you feel like is a really good brine.”

“Tell him your slogan,” said Pearl.

“We will sell no brine before its time. We got a cease-and-desist from this pickeler in Brooklyn, who told us that was his phrase.”

Marcus looked at Pearl.

“Portable poopers,” she said, “but high end.”

“Ha ha,” said Tatum. “Butt high end.”

“You must remember the family business,” Pearl went on. “We do weddings, bar mitzvahs, graduation parties in the Valley of the Vanderbilts.”

“Pearl has cornered the posh pooper market in Newport.”

“It’s all my brothers now that Dad’s retired. I just glom on to the money.”

“Holy shit!” said Tatum, noticing the entire the wall of Marcus’s custom-built record collection.

“Nobody has those anymore,” said Pearl.

“I hate the English word vinyl,” he said. “This historical solecism of reducing art to a substance. They’re records. They were always records.”

“No one said vinyl back then,” said Tatum.

“Vinyl was a shower curtain or handbags from 9West,” said Pearl.

Tatum laughed. “Remember It’s so boutique? Deedee used that word instead of bourgeois. She had it wrong in middle school but kept on with it her entire life.”

“We don’t really know that,” said Pearl, “about her entire life.”

Marcus looked down at his hand where it rested on his thigh. “We knew a small fraction of her life.”

Pearl looked at him. “Yours too.”

“In the grand scheme of things,” he said, “everyone’s is a stranger.”

“That’s so Werner Herzog,” said Tatum.

“But true,” said Pearl.

Marcus suddenly looked distressed. “She was interesting—secretly interesting. It’s so sad. What happened to her?”

Pearl took offense. “I thought she was publicly interesting, Marcus.”

“She wasn’t what they call forthcoming with her thoughts,” said Tatum.

Pearl looked away. “We knew how she felt about kids and drugs. And then what does she do? Have a kid and die from drugs.”

Marcus let his eyes drift to where Pearl was looking. “Deedee and I always saw eye to eye. In the music world, in order to get to the next level, you had to implode everything that had got you where you were.”

“Stepping on heads,” said Pearl.

“Only the supporting cast could see it,” he said. “You guys couldn’t. You were the stars.”

It stung for both of them, to be called out for wanting to be a star.

“What kind of music do you play now?” asked Tatum.

“I’m in a band where we do percussion with strings. Two other guys.”

“Hans and Fritz?” she asked.

“One’s from Tennessee.”

“Fritz McCoy,” said Pearl.

“I’m not going to do this concert,” he said. “This is not who I am or where I am.”

“It’ just one time,” said Tatum.

“We could come here for it,” said Pearl.

“Americans love these sentimental rituals after someone dies. They can’t even say the word died. It’s always passed away or, worse, passed. Living in antiseptic denial of what happens to everyone.”

“I guess you didn’t really know Deedee the way we did,” said Pearl.

He looked at one and then the other. “What did I just say?”

Both women were confused into silence.

“Deedee and I hooked up a bunch of times after the band broke up. In different years.”

Tatum quickly side-eyed Pearl: it was too apparent, too real, too funny. The maternal hairs on the back of their necks were at right angles.

“It could be anyone’s kid,” said Tatum.

He looked annoyed. “Whose kid?”

“Schuyler,” said Tatum, “the one who shot himself in the heart.”

“Show him the pics, Tate.”

Tatum thumbed the face of her phone before handing it to Marcus. “Here he is when he was little, from Deedee’s Kickstarter.”

He started scrolling.

“We’re afraid of knowing anything about him now,” said Pearl.

“He’s probably a MAGA head,” said Tatum.

They knew he was disoriented. He kept putting his fist against his mouth as if suppressing a belch.

“He was born in February 1995,” said Pearl.

“He’s a Pisces.”

He thrust back Tatum’s phone. “He’s not my kid.”

“We don’t know who’s kid he is,” said Pearl. “And he’s twenty-three. No one has to pay his tuition to Yale.”

Tatum looked out the window for something to help change the subject. “Remember how we thought nothing was going to last long, like the country?”

“I hated Providence,” he said.

“I always loved the word Providence,” said Pearl.

He shook his head as if to erase the thought. “I hate that country.”

“You say it like it’s an old girlfriend,” said Tatum.

“I hate the way history decides to define you,” he said. “Things that are so incidental to your life when you’re young—they push their way massively to the fore. These bully things. These bully things think they can define who you are.”

Tatum nodded. “Amen, brother.”

“You’re young and it’s all just pouring out of you,” said Pearl. “You say the dumbest things. You don’t pay attention. And then twenty years later that’s your meme.”

He abruptly looked away. “I don’t even play drums anymore.”

“You can learn,” said Tatum.

“Yeah,” said Pearl. “You taught yourself the last time.”

The lines of frustration across and down his face were so precise, like a mask.

“Aren’t you curious to know?” asked Tatum.

Pearl searched the room absently with her eyes. “Omigod we forgot about Señor Pitchfork.”

“Who?”

“Kieran, a kid who’s doing a story about this concert. We left him at the Turkish truck across the street.”

He got up to look out the window.

The two women could see a spark of recognition across his face. “What is it?” asked Tatum. “Is he your kid too?”

Marcus stared at the street and shook his head. “Everyone young looks familiar.”

“All the young’uns want to talk to us about is ‘legacy,’ ” said Tatum.

“Yeah,” said Pearl, “to remind us we’re no longer ‘relevant.’ ”

“I wish we had our guitars,” said Tatum. “It would be fun to play.”

He indicated they should follow him down a hall. He led them to a soundproofed room filled with guitars sitting on bespoke stands floor to ceiling.

“Geez, Marcus,” said Pearl, “every minute’s Christmas in here.”

The women looked about in astonishment, wondering if he was at all embarrassed by the curatorial spectacle.

“Fee free to use any instrument.”

Tatum grinned, lifting one off its cradle. “We can practice up on ‘Snow-Glow’ for our Hallmark Channel concert.”

“That song doesn’t even mention Christmas,” said Pearl. “Even The Pretenders went full frontal.”

“Let’s do Chrissie’s song then,” said Tatum. “I used to play it for my kids at bedtime. Always knocked ’em out.”

“It’s too weepy,” said Pearl.

“The video is weird,” said Marcus. “Are they making fun of themselves for doing a Christmas song?”

“She had a friend who died,” said Pearl, “and she’s wishing he comes back at Christmas. Kind of creepy saying the children will be singing.”

“Jesus doesn’t come back from the dead ’til Easter,” said Tatum. “And then he blows everyone off.”

“We’d better do ‘Snow-Glow,’ ” said Pearl, getting up to take another instrument.

Marcus stared into the distance, beyond all his guitars. “The world wasn’t great back then,” he said bitterly.

“It was great because we were young,” said Tatum.

“How? You had all those kids.”

“We were young, Marcus,” she said in a deeper voice. “Everything’s better when you’re young. Babies are better when you’re young. And we liked making the babies a whole lot more.”

“I’m texting Kieran to come up,” said Pearl.

“Let’s record a couple songs while we’re in Berlin,” said Tatum. “Can’t you find us a studio for tomorrow? We can release them at the concert.”

“It’s just a thousand miles,” said Pearl.

He seemed to scowl. “To quote Lao Tzu: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

“That’s the holiday spirit!” cried Tatum.

“I’m being sarcastic.”

The buzzer rang; Marcus plucked a phone from his back pocket to unlock the door.

“You gonna join us, Doctor Faustus?” asked Tatum as they waited.

He sighed wearily. “I suppose I can do bass.”

“Good,” said Pearl. “Play Deedee’s part.”

When Marcus returned from fetching Kieran, Tatum announced: “Heads up, Señor Pitchfork. We’re attempting ‘Snow-Glow.’ ”

This was the part where normally any onlooker would go out for coffee. The three of them on high-class folding chairs—an Isosceles triangle of guitars—strumming bad notes and twisting the pegs to find the right path of crumbs through the forest. Finally, sans percussion:

I see snow-glow, I see slo-mo, I see you’re so . . . far away.
Truckers glide, on a long drive, off the roadside, I will make it through to you.
Sweetie-honey snow-glow, sweetie-honey all blow, sweetie-honey I know
I’ll make it, make it, make it through to you.
The world is white, like day at night, snow-glow bright.

This only made them sad—all three at once and together—and not just for the song’s silly ephemerality. They could see Deedee’s face, her smile, her raccoon eyes. Her always getting up the next morning and lugging shit out of the van. Her long, bare, bone-white arms draped along the back of a diner booth where they’d sit in silence in the murky light, where one of them would slide the red plastic salt shaker across the Formica like an air hockey game and another would slap it back. They all played in silence; they all knew that you played. That’s what you did—not talk but play and get up and pay at the register and drive back onto 95 South.

Marcus hugged the instrument like a flotation device. Both women had lost patience with his indulgent dithering. They needed to get out of that Bang and Olufsen world and left Kieran there being a fanboy.

“Well, that was a journey and a half,” said Pearl as they stood on the street.

Tatum surveyed the curated punk murals on the building across the way, how it contrasted with the kitsch plastic letters on the brick of the corner café, the pale turquoise of an old Olivetti typewriter. “I read that Germans offered their visitors Edam cheese. That’s another front that Marcus did not come through for us.”

“Let’s go eat at the truck.”

They walked in silence and ordered food by pointing. “I’m ready to leave,” said Tatum.

“I thought you had all these shops to hit? Check out the Senfgurken.”

“He won’t change his mind, Pearl. He’s a drama queen with an imaginary audience. He’ll play Deedee for ten minutes instead of twenty-four years.”

“We don’t know who her baby-daddy was.”

“We know who his sugar-mamma is.”

“Who’d even want Dickie Downer as a father?”

“You’d want his money.”

“Bitch, we’re gonna have to make Schuyler two hundred grand ourselves.”

“Who did he quote, Madame Mao? A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Pearl laughed. “For a dude, the only reason you take that step is to leave behind the mess you made.”

“Fuck ’em all, Schuyler. I’ll make it, make it, make it through to you.” §