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Chapter Twelve / 2013


Nick

When I called Kevin back later that night -- there may have been a couple hours' delay due to me showing Lauren how much I appreciated her being perfect and all (If you know what I mean) -- he sounded surprised. "I didn't think you'd call back tonight," he said, "I was just about to go to bed."

I glanced at the clock and did some quick math. It was 7:30 in the evening in LA.

"Sorry, go to bed, Grandpa," I said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kev demanded.

"Nothing, just that there's second graders that stay up later than you do," I answered.

Kevin humphed.

I was picking at a fruit salad that we had in the fridge. Lauren was in the other room doing sit ups. I could hear her grunting. Some guys find exercise noises unattractive. I find them sexy. I leaned back in my chair. "Kev, while I got'cha on the phone, I have... an important thing I need to talk to you about."

"I knew there was something bothering you," he said with a hint of triumph to his voice. Kevin loves being right. "I knew it," he repeated. "I could tell the way you were quiet and all that earlier and the way you --"

"I have a kid," I blurted out, interrupting him.

Absolute, total silence filled the phone for what felt like a solid minute. I glanced at my watch.

"Lauren's pregnant?" he asked tentatively.

In the other room, Lauren let out a shout as she jumped to her feet from the floor. It was a very Hidden-Dragon kind of move. I shook my head, even though Kevin couldn't see it, "No, Laur's not pregnant." I paused, "Seven years ago there was this girl ---"

"Oh Jesus," Kevin muttered. "How much child support is she suing you for? Did you get a blood test?"

"Listen a second," I said. "Remember I told you about Eddie and the Christmas Miracle program kid I had to meet when I came back to Nashville?" I stared at the pattern on the piece of pineapple I was balancing on my spoon.

"Yeah?" Kevin asked.

"So I get to the hospital and the kid's amazing. Really smart. He has the same thing Brian had. The ventricle septical whatever-whatever --"

"Ventricular Septal Defect."

"Yeah that. So anyways, I go to leave after making the kid super happy and the mom comes running after me and --" I took a deep breath. "You know the phone number girl? The one I told you about when you came back?"

"Yeah..."

"It's her, Kev. Phone number girl has a six-and-a-half year old kid with VSD and blonde hair and big blue eyes."

Again with the dead silence filling the phone line. "You're serious."

"Yes," I replied.

"Did you ask her about it?" Kevin asked.

"I didn't have to. She told me. Well, kind of. We sorta came to an understanding about it."

Kevin let out a low whistle. "And she doesn't want any financial assistance from you at all?"

"Kev, she gave me an out. She told me outright I could walk away if I decided to."

"So the kid's okay then?"

"Come again?"

Kevin repeated, "So the kid's okay then?"

I wasn't entirely positive what he meant, so I said, "He's more than okay, he's great. He's amazing, actually. I've seriously never met a kid that was cooler than this kid. No joke, Kev."

"I mean with the VSD and everything," Kevin answered, "Did they repair the defect, get him all patched up?"

I put my spoon down. "Well. No. Not exactly." I covered the fruit salad and pushed it away. I took a deep breath. "Kev, I don't know if I can do the promo run this month. That's kinda part of why I'm telling you this." I chewed my lip. "They say he might not make it through the holidays."

Kevin's silence has always made me nervous. When I was younger it was because it was followed up by a good boxing 'round the ears. Who am I kidding? Last week it was. I waited in his silence, half prepping for him to somehow find a way to reach through the phone and smack me upside the head. I pictured him running across the country like The Flash or the Road Runner, with a big cloud of smoke hot on his heels. "Kev?" I said tentatively.

"Did you tell the fellas?" he asked, voice calm.

"Not... exactly," I said slowly. Then, "Well. Not at all. No."

Kevin sounded surprised, "Not even Brian?"

The tone of shock in his voice kind of stung because it was a throwback to the days before he left, before I fucked up everything between me and Brian. Back then, Brian and I were Frick and Frack, we were everything that the fans believed we were and more. He was the first person that I called whenever I was sad or hurt or needed help. He was like my a dad - a good dad, that is. In fact, he was my guardian way back when on European tours. I remember a day when I looked at him and I thought to myself how much I wanted to grow up to be just like Brian the way little kids wanna grow up to be just like Superman. But then the same thing that sent Kevin off like shrapnel eventually split Brian and I apart -- my fucking drinking and drug habits.

I can blame Leighanne all I want for the gaping chasm between Brian and I (and I frequently do blame her because, frankly, she can be a total bitch), but it wasn't her that caused it.

The demise of my friendship with Brian can be traced back to a single day - a single moment, even. I can still see him in my mind's eye, standing in the door of a dressing room in some concert hall in some city on the Unbreakable tour, staring at me with the saddest eyes I've ever seen. I'd shown up higher than God almighty, to the point that they'd already told the crowd I wasn't going to be able to perform, and Brian had been called to calm me down because I was in a hysteric fit.

I don't remember much of the exchange except for Brian's eyes, but I'm told that it was terrible. Brian apparently stared me straight in the eyes, told me that he couldn't take me doing drugs and drinking and falling apart the way that I was anymore and that if I didn't stop, he was going to have to quit just the same as Kevin did. And instead of me taking it as the ultimatum that he'd hoped for, in my drunken state, I'd screamed at him that I hated him. I'd shoved him into the wall so hard that the plaster broke a little and he'd sprained his wrist. I'd told him that he should've died in 1998 because all of our lives would've been easier if he wasn't around to judge us.

In short, I'd broken his heart.

He'd gone from being my best friend, who I told everything to, to being the guy in the band who I hardly spoke to outside of business situations. He became the one that found out about my life through the grapevine of the other guys talking about it. He became the last person in the world that I would ask for help from because who wants to help the asshole that treated you the way I treated him?

My pause to think about all this apparently was enough to give Kevin the answer to his question.

"You should call him," Kevin said.

"Brian doesn't wanna know my shit," I said, "He's got enough issues with the old balls-in-chain he's got."

Kevin took a deep breath, "I think you'd be surprised. Besides, maybe he can help you guys. Maybe he knows a better doctor that can save the kid's life or something. He's got all kinds of connections, how many of those fundraisers and videos and whatever has he done? You really should call him. If not for you, for the kid."

I sighed. As usual, Kev was probably right.




Abbey

I pushed Matty's hair up on his head and kissed his forehead softly. It was almost eleven and I had to leave the hospital to head to the Waffle House for my overnight shift. I hated the part where I would say goodbye to him and leave him there in the hospital alone with nobody but the nurses around to keep him company. It made my stomach turn to think that something could happen to him while there was nobody there to see. I squeezed his hand and checked about a hundred thousand times to make sure the nurse's call button was right there near him. "I love you," I said, "So much."

"Love you too," he answered sleepily. On TV, we'd set up Finding Nemo on his DVD player. He liked falling asleep to that movie because the fish made him happy. I remembered the time I took him out to Pigeon Forge to visit the big Ripley's Aquarium out there -- he'd been so ecstatic. I always promised him when he was little that one day I'd bring him to the ocean and we'd play in the waves and feel the sand melt away from between our toes.

We still hadn't been. And, if Monica was right, we never would.

"Sleep tight," I said. I took my purse and kissed his forehead one more time for good measure.

"Wait. Mom." He sat up and reached in the drawer beside his bed. "Here." He held up the toy catalog I'd been wrangling with him over. "I finished going through it."

"Did you find something five-stars?" I asked.

He nodded. "Night mom."

"Night," I replied, and I tucked the catalog into my purse. I was running late, so I didn't take time to look at it then. I'd look at it on break, I told myself, and I headed out to the car and drove to work.

When I got to work, it was crowded so Kiki and I set right to work getting waffles made and orders up as our chef-slash-night-manager Oscar shouted out order-ups. We were ducking and dodging around each other's trays and in and out of the little swinging door that let us behind the counter. It was a long shift and when it got over, I headed home for a couple hours' sleep before heading back to the hospital.

I threw my keys into the bowl just inside the apartment door and kicked off my shoes. It was freezing, so I turned up the heat and crawled onto the couch, pulling my fleecey blanket over me as I curled into a ball and turned the TV on. Reruns of I Love Lucy were on and I laid there staring at the TV vacantly, barely seeing the antics of Lucille Ball.

I didn't dare to fall asleep because lately my sleep had been haunted by nightmares. Terrible ones, ones that featured the little shoe box coffins with clowns and trains painted on them. I dreamt of gravestones with teddy bears leaning against them. I dreamt of unending nights of laying in an apartment as empty as this one was now.

I got up after about an hour of laying there, trying to tell myself that if I slept I wouldn't dream any of those things, and I walked down the hallway to Matty's room. He had a little sign on the door that had his name on it. I pushed the door open and inside the room was in pristine condition, except for the mess I'd made getting his books off his bookshelf to bring into the hospital room for him. He had action figures lined up against the window in various world-saving positions. There was a giant stuffed alligator on his bed and a poster of the Backstreet Boys over the bookcase. His lamp was shaped like a football and he had a Tennessee Titans jersey tacked to the wall.

I sat down on the bed and I spotted a Magic 8 ball on his nightstand and I picked it up, shaking it gently.

Will Matty be okay? I asked it.

Better not tell you now, it answered.

I put it down and grabbed Gator from the pillows and hugged him close, burying my face into his head. The tears came silent and slow, and I rolled onto my side, my knees going to my chest as I squeezed the god-damn stuffed alligator tight. Even a Magic 8 ball was giving me negative answers. I felt like I should be working harder to somehow prepare for what was coming at me at the speed of light, for what I was being warned about from every angle. But how do you prepare yourself for something like losing your kid?

You don't.