ACT 2: Belong, Be Strong, Reach Far.

What if the only way to fix your family… was to stop trying to fix them at all?

New here? Start at
ACT 1: Welcome to the Fire.

When Emerson Spelling first asked me to follow him around and document his startup, I thought I’d be observing strategy sessions and investor pitches. Not standing awkwardly in another man’s kitchen while his marriage strained in real time.

Two years after selling his company for $20 million, Emerson stood at the counter of his St. Louis home, pacing. Erin leaned against the sink, arms folded.

“I don’t want to force them,” he said. “But if they don’t come with me to Songa tonight, I don’t know what’s left to try.”

Erin didn’t answer right away. She seemed used to letting silence fill the space until it softened. T

hat was her role—diffuse, deflect, de-escalate. Emerson made noise; she absorbed it.

Emerson thrived in the spotlight—brilliant at commanding a room, clumsy in a one-on-one. Erin, on the other hand, had told me she’d spent years smoothing conflict, soothing emotions, and swallowing her own needs just to keep the peace—at home.

She made peace for others, too—helping wealthy families navigate their domestic dreams in the upscale town of Huntleigh, where she worked as a realtor—without ever tending to her own."

“I think they’ll come if you just talk to them,” she offered gently.

He scoffed. “I have talked to them.”

“Talking at them isn’t the same thing,” she said.

He turned. “So this is my fault?”

She didn’t seem angry. Just tired.

“No, Emerson. It’s not about blame.”

“You’re saying I’m the problem—like always. I’m the one out there trying to fix this,” he snapped. “I built Songa for them.”

“And yet, you haven’t actually spent real time with them in months,” she said. “You treat vulnerability like a pitch deck. But they don’t need a show, Em. They need you.”

She said, barely above a whisper, “Maybe just listen. Without trying to fix it. Or win.”

He shook his head, “ I’m either too much or not enough. You want me to lead, until I do.”

“I want you to feel.” She said it so quietly, I almost missed it. “And I want to stop feeling like I’m failing you just by asking for what I need.”

That night, they arrived late. The musicians had come from all across St. Louis, and they were ready to play.

Sylvie stayed in the hallway, earbuds in.

His son followed him into the parlor, hoodie pulled low.

Erin sat in the back, arms crossed—but not closed. I could tell she was still replaying the kitchen conversation, her words caught somewhere between guilt and resolve.

The theme of the night was Belonging and the Courage to Speak. Each artist shared a story of emotional disconnection. The goal? To turn their story into a song.

A few notes of a song began to develop as the families shared their stories.

Emerson and his son ended up in a circle of other teens, passing around a mic. It was a lyric-writing game, guided by Sage Storries, the studio’s lead facilitator and musician.

“You don’t have to sing,” Sage told the group. “Just say what you wish someone would say to you.”

Lewis Blues—Songa’s orchestrator of music and people, the night’s freestyling, keyboard-playing impresario—drew stories and emotions out of the crowd and turned them into song.

One father-son duo from East St. Louis riffed about a time the dad missed his son’s science fair for a gig. A pair of sisters opened up about an inheritance fight that had left their entire family estranged.

Every feeling became a note. A lyric.

And then… a shift.

Emerson stepped forward.

He hadn’t planned to perform. But something cracked.

Maybe it was Sage’s invitation.

Maybe it was watching the other families.

Maybe it was Aaron looking at him—for once—not with disdain, but curiosity.

“I don’t know how to talk to you,” Emerson said to his kids, “but I know how to build. So I built this—to try.”

Sage handed him a guitar.

“Say it with a song.”

🎧 Listen free below to “Belong, Be Strong, Reach Far.” To unlock the full catalog of original music, become a paid subscriber.

Sylvie rolled her eyes. Aaron muttered “cringe.” But neither left.

With the help of the band, Emerson began strumming a simple progression. Sage added melody. Then something strange happened.

Aaron walked over.

Without a word, he picked up a tambourine and started playing along.

Then Sylvie, almost in protest, sang the next line.

In ten minutes, they’d written a chorus.

In fifteen, they were harmonizing.

By the end of the night, the whole room was singing it with them.

Sylvie crept forward. Erin leaned in.

I noticed her clutching her knees, gently rocking in rhythm with the music—not the posture of a wife appeasing her husband’s latest plan, but a mother taking in something she wasn’t sure she believed in… yet.

But something in Sylvie, that hardened teenage girl, had softened. She looked up from her phone and, for once, didn’t look away. When the chorus came around again, she quietly sang along.

Emerson wasn’t watching his own family—but the others. A drummer’s daughter curled into her mother’s lap between takes. Families of artists: working-class, chaotic, tightly bonded in a way his hadn’t felt in years.

“They don’t have our money,” Emerson whispered to Erin, “But they have something we lost.”

Now, as Sage and Lewis locked in the lyrics—keys, drums, and strings moving in harmony—it was Erin’s turn to speak. She had something to add.

But she didn’t do it with a whisper.

“My job is helping people move from unhappy homes into happy ones,” she blurted. “I work in real estate. I help people start over.”

She paused.

“But lately I’ve wondered… what happens when your own home is the unhappy one?”

She looked at Emerson, then at her kids.

“Maybe home isn’t a place. Maybe it’s a feeling. A feeling of belonging”

No one responded. They didn’t have to. The weight of her honesty filled the space in a way even music couldn’t.

Emerson swallowed hard. He forced a smile.

“Belong, be strong,” Lewis Blues said.

It started as a whisper, then grew louder, voices layering in harmony.

“Belong, be strong.”

The room pulsed with energy, a collective heartbeat.

“Reach far.”

In that moment, the Spellings weren’t just a family in crisis. They were part of something larger. A community. A movement.

Sage stepped forward with a chorus inspired by what the group had created:

We belong when we’re brave
enough to speak,
when we stop pretending, and
dare to be weak.

If you're tired of silence
and hungry for song...
Come into the fire.
Belong, be strong.
reach far.

The room erupted. The kids sang. The adults swayed. The anthem was born.

That moment didn’t fix the family.

But it gave them something to sing.

But healing isn’t linear.

Sylvie ghosted the next two events.

His son texted Sage nonstop about music recommendations… then suddenly stopped.

Erin told him she still wasn’t sure.

But as I stepped out onto the porch that night, watching the lights dim inside the mansion, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something… magical had happened in that room.

But if Emerson and Erin can’t prove it works with their own family…
How will they ever convince any other families to join them?

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“We all deserve to belong. This…
Is how it sounds…to go farther—together.”
Listen below to “Belong, Be Strong, Reach Far”
— inspired by stories like this one.