Love Moves On
An excerpt from "Found and Lost: The Jake and Cait Story" a novel.
Found and Lost: The Jake and Cait Story by follows guitarist Jacob Rosner and violinist Caitlin Doyle, who, as young musicians in 1985, created something transcendent each time they locked eyes and finished each other’s musical phrases—until the music stopped. Forty years later, in 2025, their long-forgotten song unexpectedly goes viral, pulling them back into each other’s lives. This novel examines love, aging, faith, fame, and the passage of time.
—
“Hey, asshole.”
“What?”
Jake heard what the woman said, but he needed some time to recover, not from the name-calling—he’d been called worse—but from what he saw before him. She was in her mid-to-late-twenties, and her red hair and freckled face reminded him of Cait, but with a maturity that only time could bring. She exuded a fierce confidence that left him reeling. And she was saying something.
“—the fuck away from my mother,” she said, pointing a finger at his chest.
“Huh?”
“You fucking heard me, loser. Stay the fuck away from my mother.”
Jake had long imagined a reunion with Cait but was momentarily flustered by her doppelganger swearing like a sailor and pointing up at him accusingly. At first, all he could do was stammer.
“Um, ah. What? You see, I’m looking for—that is, I’m—” Then he paused, closed his eyes, waited a few beats, and tried again.
“Well, first of all, nice to meet you. And by ‘my mother,’ I’m assuming you’re speaking of Caity. To tell you the truth, I haven’t seen your mother at all in forty years, and I did not know she had a daughter. What’s your name?”
Jake waited for an answer. He hoped that the pause in conversation might tone down her anger a notch, and this woman was clearly upset.
“Erin,” she said.
“Hello, Erin. Look, have you seen your mother at all? We’re supposed to be rehearsing today.”
“Yes, I’ve seen her today, and she’s not coming to rehearsal. You can go back to wherever you came from. We told her it was a bad idea to come here in the first place, and she agreed.”
By “here,” Erin meant Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan. They were at Kresge Auditorium, a covered outdoor concert venue that had hosted Jake and Cait concerts forty years earlier. The people who planned these kinds of things thought it’d be perfect for the reunion tour to begin where it all started for the duo four decades ago.
But this firecracker standing before Jake was telling him that it’s all been called off. He thought something like this might happen. It all seemed unreal, anyway—the rediscovery of their old songs, their viral fame, the documentary about their relationship so many years ago, and this out-of-proportion, voyeuristic curiosity about what they looked like now that they were in their late fifties.
"Boy, you haven’t aged very well at all,” Erin continued, her voice cold and steady. “You were a cute boy 100 years ago, but my mom won’t give your ancient, wrinkled ass a second look now. I don't know what you want from my mother, anyway, but I can tell you right now you're not welcome here. Not in my life, not in hers, and certainly not my dad’s."
“Why am I not welcome?” Jake asked.
“Look—Jake.” Erin overly emphasized the “k” sound at the end of his name in kind of a mocking tone. “Until a few days ago, I never knew you existed. I heard the songs, even liked a few of them, but had no idea that you and my mother sang them, like, ninety years ago.”
“Forty,” Jake interrupted.
“Whatever,” Erin said. “She’s not the same little girl you knew when you were teenagers.”
“I would think not,” Jake said, trying to get a word in.
“First,” Erin interrupted, “she went on a crazy diet and lost forty pounds in an unhealthy amount of time. It makes sense now. She knew that she would be judged if she had to appear in public again. And women getting older are judged much more harshly than aging men. Then, when Mom told us that she was actually ‘THE Cait’ from ‘Jake and Cait,’ she started crying miserably. I don’t know what you did to her. She wouldn’t say, but it doesn’t matter to me. It’s too big a disruption in her life, in my dad’s life, in all our lives. Just go the fuck away and leave us alone. I want my mom back.”
Jake paused and thought for a moment, sizing Erin up.
“Erin, you look to be in your late twenties, and so you’re not a little child anymore. You’re an adult, but you’re talking like a kid. You have to think of your mother as an adult, too. I will ‘go away’ only if I hear it from Caity.”
Jake turned around and left Erin standing there, mouth open, near the Kresge Auditorium stage.
Erin mouthed a “fuck you,” coupled with a rude hand gesture, to Jake’s back and went to look for her mom and dad.
She thought of everything that had happened in the past week and shook her head in wonder and frustration. Before her mother’s announcement, the whole Jake and Cait phenomenon happened on the edge of her awareness. She had heard of their sudden explosion ever since “Love Moves On” went viral as the background song to videos on social media, then TV commercials, then streaming series and movies. Nobody could escape that simple tune featuring two teenage voices, a guitar, and a violin.
A documentary maker finally found out what happened: Jake and Cait had been a team for only six months, gained a cult following, had signed with a major record label, and were on the verge of a big album release before some mysterious event tore them apart.
Then, only a week ago, when Erin was visiting her parents in Rock Island, Illinois, her mother revealed the whole story to her husband and daughter. All that came out from Erin was, “Wait, what? You’re the Cait from Jake and Cait?”
“Yes,” said her mom. “I’m that Cait.”
Erin thought the song was juvenile, but she also understood that was the point. There was an innocence about it, yet also a foreboding, as if the young couple was unaware of the complexity of life beyond their own small world. Then, other Jake and Cait songs were unearthed, and that’s when the mania truly started. There was something about them that nobody could quite define, but everybody wanted to hear more and more of their songs. Maybe these simple, direct, naïve tunes calling out from a different time was a refreshing break from overly produced auto-tuned voices. Perhaps it was the raw, unfiltered authenticity of their music that made it so enthralling. Then there was the way they vanished, leaving behind only unanswered questions.
A documentary maker finally found out what happened: Jake and Cait had been a team for only six months, gained a cult following, had signed with a major record label, and were on the verge of a big album release before some mysterious event tore them apart.
Then, only a week ago, when Erin was visiting her parents in Rock Island, Illinois, her mother revealed the whole story to her husband and daughter.
All that came out from Erin was, “Wait, what? You’re the Cait from Jake and Cait?”
“Yes,” said her mom. “I’m that Cait.”
Erin still could not believe that her mom, a housewife who played violin now and then for church and community orchestras, was Caity Doyle from Jake and Cait. Fucking Jake and Cait! Jesus fucking Christ!”
Erin, perhaps for the first time in her life, studied her mom’s face closely and tried to imagine the nineteen-year-old girl she used to be. And she saw it. Now, she could see it. In Cait’s green eyes, she saw more than her mom. Erin could see a past that had nothing to do with her. She could imagine her beautiful teenage mom, with red hair, freckles, and shining, innocent eyes, singing and playing her violin as if nothing else existed and the future was yet to be written.
The whole family was in kind of a daze, but Cait pushed forward and agreed to at least a reunion rehearsal at Interlochen to see if the couple could still play decent music together. Erin and her dad insisted they come along as a family, so they drove the six hours from Rock Island, Illinois, to Interlochen, Michigan.
***
Jake wandered around the Interlochen campus, almost every inch of which was filled with memories of his time with Cait. He aimlessly kicked stones, tossing sticks as he walked, inhaling the scent of pine and wood chips that sent him time-traveling to the happiest period of his life.
Pathetic, he thought. That was it? You peaked at eighteen? Caity’s daughter is right. You are a loser.
He was so deep within himself that he almost did not hear the faint sound of music carried on the wind from a few hundred yards away at the edge of a pier off Duck Lake, where the campers used to swim. As he approached, he caught a glimpse of a figure playing the violin, with a mass of bright red hair that bounced in time with the music.
It is strange, he thought, what random things enter your mind when you’d rather it focus on something important. The Bob Dylan line from “Tangled Up in Blue” rose to the surface, the one where he wondered if she’d changed at all and if her hair was still red.
Jake put his hands in his pockets to affect a casual look, like this was no big deal, and made his way toward the pier on Duck Lake. He was about halfway there when the music stopped. Cait carefully placed the violin and bow back into the case.
At this distance, it was difficult to tell how she had aged. He could see no lines on her face but suspected they would be there when he got closer. The woman in front of him was not the skinny teenager he knew. Middle age and childbirth had reproportioned her figure. He remembered what Erin had said about her mother losing a great deal of weight in preparation for public scrutiny, and Jake scolded himself for noticing any change. And he didn’t care. He really didn’t. This was his Caity. He saw it in her green eyes. Familiar feelings of warmth and excitement jumped from his stomach to his chest. The first time he felt them all those years ago, when he stumbled over Cait on the beach, they were such a shock to his system, he almost threw up on her. Now, these sensations were like old friends.
Jake started walking again, but Cait held up her hand in a motion for him to stop. Shit, Jake thought. Erin was right. She doesn’t want to see me.
“Don’t come any closer,” Cait said. “Not until—
“—I can name that tune?” Jake asked.
“Yes,” she said, trying to hold back a smile.
“Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 in D Minor,” Jake said. “You made me listen to one of the Interlochen orchestras rehearse it. You looked like you were going directly to heaven in the Rapture. I thought it was a little too over the top. Dramatic.”
“Yeah,” Cait said. “You told me Shostakovich must have been like the Russian Freddie Mercury. I almost broke up with you right there. I probably should have. Would have saved us both a lot of—” Her voice trailed off, then cracked.
Jake was going to finish her sentence in the way they used to banter, but he noticed something wasn’t quite right with Cait. Her head was bobbing again, but not in the way violinists sway to the music as they play. Jake saw what was happening and knew what he had to do. He eased into a jog, then a run, then a full sprint.
Cait was still trying to choke out words, but none would come, as Jake came flying toward her. It was her body that finally stopped him, but not before knocking her back a few steps, almost off the pier and into the lake. Jake caught Cait before she tumbled down and held her in a tight embrace. He could see every line on her face drenched with tears as he kissed her salty cheeks, her forehead, and finally, her lips. At first, Cait was passive, simply allowing this to happen. Then she became an active participant, kissing Jake back, embracing him tightly, running her hands through his salt-and-pepper hair. They both cried, hugged, and kissed for a few minutes before Cait finally placed her palms against Jake’s chest and pushed him away.
“You’re such a fucking idiot, Jacob,” said Cait.
“I know,” said Jake. “I know.”
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