by Susan Ward
I open the front door to the house. It’s quiet. I poke my head into rooms as I make my way toward the back. Empty. Maybe everyone is sleeping.
I go into Jack’s bedroom. He is sprawled on his bed, reading, Kaley is sound asleep on his chest, and both of them are covered in the loose drape of a throw blanket.
He turns his head and smiles at me. “Good day, baby girl?”
“Good day. Was Kaley all right while I was gone?”
I sink on the bed beside him.
“No trouble at all. Uneventful.” He sets down his book and adjusts Kaley in his arms. “Neil called.”
Shit. “Is he OK?”
“He’s fine. He just couldn’t reach you at the house. He was worried. I told him everything was all right, that you went out on your first day alone since the baby. He was happy that you finally left the house and took some time for you away from Kaley. He wants you to call him when you get back to the house so he knows you got home safely.”
I scoop Kaley out of Jack’s arms. “We should get out of your way, Daddy. I’m sorry I’m so late. I lost track of time. Thank you for watching her.”
Jack’s blue eyes sharpen in that way that makes me tense. He stands. “My granddaughter is always welcome here. But, Chrissie, the rule from now on is that you tell me where you’re going if you want me to take care of your daughter. I won’t lie to your husband a second time.”
~~~
I tuck Kaley into her cradle and climb into bed. I grab the cordless phone and my glass of wine. I rub my lip along the edge of the glass, trying to rally the courage to call my husband and tell him everything I’ve done today.
I can’t even imagine how pissed Neil is going to be. Shit, it all just happened. I didn’t intend it to. But Alan gets my circuits all crossed and like always, somehow, I just end up doing the things he wants me to.
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.
I punch Neil’s number and take in a steadying breath. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. My body tenses. Voice mail. Neil never sends me to voice mail. I check the clock, trying to figure out what time it is in Germany and my frantic mind can’t do the calculation. Instinct tells me this is not a time-zone thing. I didn’t miss Neil by phone. Neil is not answering, not answering me.
Breathy and alarmed, I fight to keep my voice as steady as I can as I quickly say, “Hi. It’s me. We’re home. Sorry I missed your call earlier. I love you, baby. Call me soon.”
I click off the phone and toss it on the bed. Three hours later it still hasn’t rung and I am in full-blown panic. I don’t know how he knows, a continent away, but I do know—am certain—Neil knows what I did today.
CHAPTER TEN
June 1995
I hear cars in the driveway and run for the door with Kaley in my arms. God, let it be Neil. Let him be here. Let him be home.
Four weeks, he hasn’t taken my calls and he hasn’t called me. The most miserable weeks of my life. I don’t care if he’s angry. I don’t care if we fight. The silence has been crushing. I want it over. I want to fight it out. Fuck it out. Anything. Just get back to someplace where we’re OK. Or at least where he’ll speak to me.
Kaley starts to fuss in my arms. I’m jiggling her too much with my hurried steps. I slow as I cross the foyer and open the front door. I go out into the driveway and my face falls.
Cars. Why are there so many cars?
Everything starts moving too quickly around me. I can’t keep up with the car doors opening and the people flooding my driveway. Nate. Josh. Les Wilson. Pat Larsen. Neil brought the guys home with him. He brought the fucking band home to be here with him for the three-week break.
Nate Kassel reaches me first. He gives me a loose hug and a kiss on my head. “Hey, Chrissie. It’s good to see you.” He looks at Kaley. “So this is her?”
I nod, half listening as I keep trying to find Neil. But it’s not easy. Too many people. Who the hell are all these other people? I watch them pour out of cars, frantically searching for green eyes. Where the hell is he?
I look up at Nate. “What’s going on?”
His face changes and my insides go numb.
“Chrissie, do you want my advice? Just roll with things. That’s what the guys and I have been doing. That’s why we’re here to work during the break when all of us would rather be elsewhere. My boy has been crazy for weeks. He is wound tighter than I’ve ever seen. Don’t push him. Not when he’s like that.”
Wound tighter? Crazy for weeks? Shit, who the fuck told Neil I’ve recorded an album with Alan? Damn.
Josh Moss juts his chin at me as a hello but his eyes scream you fucking bitch as he continues on toward the house. Pat and Les smile but move quickly past me. Gear is pulled out and lugged into the house by guys I’ve never seen before. It’s like my quiet home has been invaded by a fucking army.
“Who are these other people?” I whisper anxiously.
Nate rolls his shoulders. “That’s Barbara. Image consultant. The tall one there is Patricia. She runs our PR. The rest, I don’t know who the fuck they are. They work for the label.”
My eyes widen to their fullest. “But why are they here?”
Nate rakes a hand through his hair. “Talk to Neil.” His eyes grow sympathetic and intense. “It’s been fucking nuts with him. Jesus Christ, girl, don’t you ever think before you do anything?”
I flush scarlet.
Nate relents. “He loves you, Chrissie. Just let him work through this. Don’t push. It will be OK.”
OK? Then why does it feel like I’m suffocating and that something terrible is about to begin? Nate makes another small smile at Kaley and then wanders off.
Finally, Neil climbs from a car. Green eyes, but they are not smiling. He pauses to say something to the guy who climbs out of the back of the limo right after him. I know he knows I’m waiting here. He keeps talking. He doesn’t even want to come to me.
What have you done, Chrissie? What have you done?
I stay back, trying not to show how worried I am to all these strange people crowding my life at this horrible moment and continuing to brush past me into the house. Roll with it, huh? Nate, I’m not sure what I’m rolling with.
I study Neil. Four months on the road, and he looks terrible. Fatigue lines. His tan without glow. Posture one of exhaustion. Or was it me? Did I do that to him, not the road? My heart clenches. I’ve never seen Neil look so ragged and weary.
Once everyone is gone from the driveway, he comes around the car to me.
“Neil, I’m so glad you’re home. I’ve missed you. We both have.”
Neil just stares at me. He rakes a hand through his hair. The look in his eyes turns me cold as his jaw clenches and unclenches.
After a minute, or what feels like forever, of silence, he lifts Kaley from my arms. He kisses her and holds her close. He says nothing to me. He goes inside the house.
~~~
I hurry down the hallway. Everyone is finally in a guest room. Everyone finally has everything they need. The waiting has been torturous.
I rush up the stairs onto the main level. Shit, Neil has moved from the living room sofa. Where is he? My nerves are so taut that if I have to wait another second to find out what’s going on with him, and us, I’m going to shatter into pieces.
Family room is empty. Kitchen, no one. I go to the nursery. Kaley is asleep in her crib. Shit, he put the baby in her room, where she never sleeps, and not in the bassinette beside our bed. He doesn’t want her in the room with us, but I now know where Neil is waiting for me.
I go down the hall and turn the bedroom knob. Neil is lying on the bed, still dressed in his traveling clothes, arms covering his eyes. He’s awake. I can tell by his breathing.
I close the door and hang back, leaning against it.
“Please, Neil, just talk to me,” I implore. “You haven’t talked to me in weeks. I can’t take it anymore. I’m sorry for everything. But I need to know that we’re OK. I can’t take another minute unless I know we are going to be OK
.”
His arms move. His eyes open. The look he gives me rends my heart. “Goddamn you, Chrissie.” His voice is anguished and furious, and those definitely are not the words I want, but at least he’s finally speaking to me.
“Who told you?”
His eyes flash. “Fuck, is that all you care about? Who told me?”
He sits up, his posture coiled, his muscles quivering from the anger pulsing through him. He looks at me. My breathing hitches.
“I know you live detached from the world, but the world is still there. A reporter called for comment the day you were down there recording with him. How the fuck do you think that made me feel, to find out you were with him from a reporter? When I’m fucking three thousand miles away on the road, busting my hump for us, and you don’t even bother to pick up the phone and talk to me first. Jesus Christ, Chrissie—” The way he says that makes me flinch. He sounds on the verge of punching the wall or tears. “The promotions for Long and Hard and the new album have been in the trades for weeks. It’s made my life on the road a fucking nightmare. Everyone talking about you. You and Alan. You’ve turned me into a fucking joke. How did you think I would react to this, Chrissie? Don’t stare at me like I’m behaving irrationally.”
I jump. “I’m not. And you’re not.”
He drops his face into his hands, his fingers tightly clenched in his hair. “Fuck, I just want Alan Manzone out of my life and I can’t get rid of him.” His face shoots up. His eyes are raging. “Are you fucking him? Are you having an affair with him? Did you fuck him, Chrissie?”
My body grows cold as the entirety of my body heat concentrates in my cheeks. “NO! How could you ask me that, Neil? I love you.”
I cross the room to him then, sinking down between his knees, but I don’t touch him. Something warns me not to yet.
He runs a hand across his face. “You have a fucking terrible way of showing me that you love me.”
I flinch. “I didn’t plan to record with Alan—”
The look in his eyes silences me. “What the fuck did you plan?”
“Nothing! I went down to be in the studio when they recorded my song. That’s all, Neil. I was wrong, but I thought you’d understand my wanting to be there with my music. And you are definitely right, I should have told you first. But the rest of it just sort of happened. I didn’t think.”
“How does it just sort of happen that you’ve recorded two albums with Alan Manzone that I know nothing about, and are pretty much fucking launching your career as an artist tied to him?”
I lower my gaze. Hearing it in words makes it sound even more awful. Oh jeez. What have I done?
“We recorded Long and Hard six years ago in his apartment in New York. The label shelved it. I never thought it would be released. Alan told me it wouldn’t. Not ever. That’s why I never told you about it.”
“Fuck.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re always sorry, Chrissie.”
“I love you.”
He shakes his head, as if not wanting to believe me or maybe not wanting to forgive.
The emotion starts to churn in his eyes again. “I don’t know what to think, Chrissie. I don’t know how to get through how I’m feeling about this. It’s felt like there is a knife in my stomach for weeks and I can’t pull it out.”
Fear chills me. “What are you saying? Are you thinking about ending us? Do you want a divorce?”
Neil looks so sad. Weary and despondent. His teeth cut into his lower lip in that way he has when he’s desperately struggling with his emotions and words.
He shakes his head. “I’m saying I don’t know if or how we get through this. I love you, Chrissie, but I don’t even know if I want to get through this.”
~~~
I climb from my bed. 8 a.m. Fuck, the longest night of my life. I stare at the neatly tucked in blankets on the far side of the bed. Everything starts running rattling and loose inside me again. We haven’t had sex for months, and our first night together he slept elsewhere.
Where did Neil sleep?
The hallway is quiet when I enter it. Good, maybe the intruders on the lower level are still in their rooms. Maybe I’ll get a few minutes alone with Neil to read the lay of the land today.
I peek into Kaley’s nursery. Not here. In the kitchen I find a pot of coffee half empty and still warm. I pour a cup. Beside the sink is a dirty bottle with an empty breast milk pouch. My lips curl in a downward smile. Kaley woke last night. I must have slept through it. Neil got her and fed her. Damn it, I have fucked up royally here, haven’t I?
Sipping my coffee, I stare out the window above the sink. Nate is on the small patio sofa, feet propped on an ottoman, sipping coffee and looking like he just rolled out of bed after one hell of a night. Maybe Neil roomed with him since there isn’t a spare bedroom in the house. Probably, they’re tight buddies, and Nate looks like hell.
I go out onto the back patio and curl in a chair beside Nate.
Nate smiles at me. “Hey, you hanging in there, Chrissie?”
I flush. “I’m OK.”
Nate shakes his head. “You could hear my boy all through the house yesterday shouting at you. I almost busted in and stopped it. I was worried about you. And fuck, he didn’t shut up for a minute last night.”
I pause my cup at my lips and sniff to hold back my threatening tears. “I’m sorry. Do you know where he is?”
Nate points toward the trail into the forest. “Took off about seven with Kaley strapped to his chest. Asked me if I wanted to hike. I said ‘fuck no. I need some space from you.’”
The way Nate says that makes me laugh, though it shouldn’t. He’s such a sweet guy in his way.
My lips do a downward smile. “I’m sorry my problems are your problem.”
“Don’t sweat it, Chrissie. It’s cool.”
We sit on the patio, not talking and just staring at the trees, sipping our coffee.
Nate looks at me with an expression of exhausted amusement. “It took us six years on the road to get where we are today. Someday you’re going to have to explain to me how you go from doing nothing to the top of the music industry recording two albums with fucking Alan Manzone.”
My face heats with a burn. I can’t believe he said that. Then Nate’s expression transforms into that oh shit, good one kind of thing and I can tell he just remembered my history with Alan.
I pretend not to notice.
“Shit, Chrissie, I’ll say this about you. When you fuck up, you fuck up big.”
He chuckles and I bite back my words because he doesn’t mean it the way I’m taking it. A clumsily worded joke. So Nate. And I don’t want to piss him off. Right now he feels like the only friend I have in the house.
I set down my cup. “Do you want some breakfast?”
“Nah, you don’t have to go to any trouble, Chrissie.”
I smile. “It’s no trouble. Not for you.”
He slips an arm around me and that’s all it takes to get me to curl into him and start crying again. Damn.
“It’s going to be OK,” Nate whispers into my hair. “My boy is crazy in love with you. Doesn’t even look at the women on the road. You are all he thinks of. All he wants. Back to his room first thing every night to call you, Chrissie. Shows me every picture and video of Kaley you send him. You and Kaley are all that there is for him. That’s not going to change. Not ever. It wouldn’t hurt him so much, Chrissie, if he wasn’t crazy in love with you.”
The patio door opens. Great, that’s all I need this morning.
Josh Moss steps out. “What the fuck is everyone doing up so early?”
“I’m thinking about hitting the beach. Trying to surf a little today,” Nate says. “I don’t even care if we can’t find waves. Just be somewhere quiet for a while. You up for it, man?”
Josh nods. He drops heavily into the chair, squinting against the bright morning light.
“Do you want some coffee?” I ask him.
“I’ll
get it myself, Chrissie.” Josh nods toward the yard. “Are we bringing him?”
Nate laughs. “Fuck no.”
I look over my shoulder. Neil is on the trail up to the house.
Josh stands up and gestures to Nate. They both leave me.
I sit in my chair, curled up hugging my legs, as I wait for Neil to reach me. Please don’t let it only be round two today. I want this done. Over. The knots in my stomach won’t quiet until it is.
Neil doesn’t look at me as he climbs the steps. He settles in the chair beside me and unstraps Kaley from his chest. He takes her from the carrier and hands her to me.
“She’s hungry, I think,” he says stiffly.
I pull up my t-shirt and put her to my breast. “Did you have a good hike?”
He nods.
We sit in silence for a while. Slowly he uncoils and sits back in his chair.
“It was quiet out there,” Neil says. “I could clear my head. Too many people are telling me what to think. What to do. What I should think.”
He pauses and I wait, not sure where this is going and afraid to say anything.
He stands up. He reaches for my cup. “Do you want more coffee? I need some fucking coffee. I haven’t slept in weeks.”
I struggle to hold back my reaction to those words. I don’t really want any coffee, but if I ask for some, he’ll have to come back and at least this morning we’re talking calmly. It’s strained, but he’s not yelling and looking like he wants to smash up the room.
“Thanks. Another cup would be good.”
A few minutes later, Neil comes back with two full mugs and a packet of papers beneath his arm. He sets the cups on the table between us and lays the papers on the side near me. He settles back in his chair, saying nothing.
“What is that?” I ask, unable to take the mounting dread and fear over what’s in that folder another second.
