When I first met Maureen…” (continued, fictional 1000-word narrative)
…At first, I didn’t know what to do with that kind of calm. I was a storm then—barefoot on stages, chasing echoes, living louder than I knew how to feel. But she… she brought a silence that didn’t feel empty. It was the kind that wraps around you at dawn after a long, endless night. The kind that says, breathe—you’re not alone anymore.
I remember our first real conversation. It wasn’t about music or fame, not even about dreams. We were sitting on this cracked bench outside a pub in West Bromwich, nursing lukewarm ales while the sun dipped below the rooftops. She asked me, not as a fan or a flirt, but just as someone watching closely, “Do you ever wonder what it all costs?” I didn’t answer. I think I just stared at my shoes, the laces untied like always. Because the truth was, I hadn’t wondered. Not yet. Back then, I thought the cost of music was only sleep and sanity. Not hearts. Not homes.
But Maureen—she saw things I hadn’t learned to look for. She’d grown up fast, with more grit than most, and she never cared much for the rock ‘n’ roll circus. That’s what made her different. While the rest of the world looked at me like I was on fire, she saw the ashes underneath. And she never tried to fix me. She just sat beside me in the smoke.
By the time Led Zeppelin really took off, we were already together in some quiet way. It wasn’t flashy—no headlines, no grand declarations. Just two people figuring it out. I remember sneaking her into soundchecks, introducing her to Jimmy, Bonzo, and Jonesy with this half-apologetic smile. She was the anchor I didn’t realize I needed. The crowd roared louder every night, but when I saw her standing backstage—arms crossed, eyes full of something deeper than pride—I knew where I belonged.
Then came the tours. America. Australia. Japan. Months blurred together in backstage hallways, hotel rooms that never felt like home, and phone calls that got shorter and sadder with each passing week. I’d call her from payphones, half-drunk, half-lonely, listening to the delay on the line like it was a ghost between us. I’d ask, “You alright?” and she’d always say, “Just come home safe.”
She never asked for promises. She knew what I was—a soul chasing sound. But when we had Carmen, everything changed. I held that tiny baby in my arms, and for the first time, I understood what permanence felt like. Not applause, not gold records—just this fragile life that didn’t care how many stadiums I’d filled. She just needed a dad. And Maureen, she became more than my compass. She became the map.
But life wasn’t kind, not always. I was reckless. Young. Hungry for everything. There were nights I stayed out too long, came home with the wrong stories, smelling like whiskey and guilt. She didn’t scream. She didn’t throw plates. She just looked at me like she was watching the version of me she loved disappear. And still… she stayed.
Until she couldn’t.
The car accident in Rhodes in ’75—God, I still hear the metal, still see the blood. Maureen lay there, broken and silent in a hospital bed, and everything I thought mattered just… collapsed. Nothing prepares you for the moment you might lose the person who taught you how to love. I spent nights in that sterile corridor, scribbling lyrics I never released, bargaining with a universe I’d ignored for too long.
She lived. Thank God, she lived. But something shifted in both of us. We tried. God knows we tried. More children, more laughter, more records. But fame has a way of eroding what it doesn’t understand. And we were growing in different directions—me into a man still learning how to be whole, and her into a woman tired of waiting for me to get there.
We divorced in ’83.
People think it ended in bitterness. It didn’t. It ended like a song that ran out of chords. Quietly, sadly, with too many unsung verses. I watched her walk away, holding our children’s hands, and I realized then—some people are meant to teach you love, not keep it.
Even now, all these years later, I can hear her laugh in the back of my mind. I can see her dancing barefoot in our living room while I strummed some half-written tune. I still visit those memories like old records—crackling, imperfect, beautiful in their own way.
I’ve had other loves since. Wild ones, fleeting ones, even a few deep and enduring. But none like her. None who met me before the world did—before the legend, the myths, the madness. She saw Robert, not Robert Plant. And maybe that’s why it still aches.
If I could say one thing to her now—just one—it would be this: Thank you for loving the boy in me before I knew how to be a man. Thank you for staying long enough for me to learn what love really means.
And if I could do it all again? I’d stop chasing the sound just long enough to hold her hand a little tighter.
Because some melodies… they don’t get a second verse.
Let me know if you’d like a version from Maureen’s perspective or turned into lyrics, a short film script, or even a song.
