“Was he supposed to?”
“Yes. Luck.” She hit his arm. “You are required to ask my permission before taking my sweet innocent Katie off to be your sex slave for life.”
“Peyton!” I laughed, the deep-belly kind that made me gasp for air and almost pee my pants, since that cute baby bump resided on top of my bladder.
I had missed this. I had missed this so much.
“My dear Peyton.” He turned on that innocent charm. “Will you grant me the permission to marry Katie? I promise to love her and make her life hell with my terrible jokes.”
“All right. I guess you should make this official before you get her knocked up or something.”
“I thought so too.” He laughed before giving me a soft kiss on the lips.
She linked her arm through mine, tugging me away. “Later, Luck. I need some alone time. I’m bored as hell in Bedford.”
Her smile was bright and contagious as she pulled me to the other side of the room. I felt giddy seeing my roommate again. Her blonde hair was in a high bun on top of her head, with little wispy pieces hanging down. But all of that was overshadowed by the cleavage at the top of her yellow sundress. Peyton was all boobs and freckles today.
“So I’ve got a little news.”
“Yeah?”
Her hands clapped together in excitement. “I finally hooked up with Clark.”
“What! When?”
“Umm.” She grinned like a naughty cat. “About ten minutes ago. I was right, sooo very right about him. Total lumberjack.” Her laughter echoed across the dance hall as I stared in horror at my friend.
“He’s a manwhore, Peyton. Like a real one. And I’ve seen his manwhoreness over and over again on that damn bus.”
“Slow down, Laura Ingles. I know exactly what he is. And I don’t care.” But her verbal denial forgot to tell her eyes to participate. There were tears behind those fake lashes. I pulled my dear friend into a tight hug. I felt so very sad for her. This Clark obsession would never mean more than a reality show hot tub scene—and now she had given him the power to hurt her.
She leaned back, turning her head to the side so I didn’t see her wipe the wet streaks off her face. “So um . . . we should talk about your baby shower, which you have totally ruined now with your wedding shower.”
“Okay.” I squeezed her hand.
We talked nonstop until the room filled up and the show started. She pulled me out toward the front of the stage. The band was playing the fast intro before Lucky came out.
Peyton started twisting around on the floor in her brown cowboy boots. “Come on. Dance with me.”
“I can’t dance. Not like this.”
“Who gives a shit that you’re pregnant? We’re dancing!”
By the time Lucky stood front and center, she had me moving around with her. He winked at me before his voice came deep and loud from the mic.
Baby, let’s take it out of town,
To where the city lights don’t shine.
We gonna crank that music up,
As we park by the old bridge sign.
Takin’ tequila shots,
On the bed of my truck.
Watchin’ you dance just right.
It’s a salt and lime, rockin’ kind of night.
We raise ‘em up, raise ‘em up high.
Hands in the air.
Hearin’ you sing along,
As the radio plays a Hank Williams song.
Deep base shakin’ the cab of my four-wheel drive.
Watchin’ you dance just right.
It’s a salt and lime, rockin’ kind of night.
Stars in the clear sky, they are bright.
But not as bright as that look in your eyes.
Hearin’ you singin’ along,
As the radio plays a Lynyrd Skynyrd song.
Deep base shakin’ the cab,
Of my four-wheel drive.
Watchin’ you dance just right.
It’s a salt and lime, rockin’ kind of night.
I sat on the bus in Little Rock, twisting around on the rickety old bed, trying to get comfortable. My back was aching again and my feet were swollen to the point of only wearing strappy sandals. The heat just kept getting hotter and the road just kept getting rougher. And I just kept getting bigger.
“You are really giving me a hard time today.” I smiled, rubbing my hand across my stomach.
Lucky and I would find out next week if the baby was a boy or girl. Well, hopefully, since his mama wanted to throw a party afterward. We should have known already, but I hadn’t seen Dr. Phillips since the appointment right before I left.
I heard a clap of thunder as it rolled in the distance. Glancing out the window toward the west, I noticed the sky held an ominous glare. I knew the weather was supposed to get bad, but it looked much worse than the forecast had predicted. I needed to get inside the building before this aluminum can on wheels blew away in a storm.
I walked slowly through the cabin, stepping over the usual mess strung across the floor. During the shows, I typically tried to tidy up the chaos. But I hadn’t really felt like doing much of anything today.
As I exited the front door, I felt the eerie darkness surrounding me. The wind picked up, making the old Edison bulb sign tap against the building.
Black might appear to some as an absolute color, but there’s actually as many shades of black as there are gray: Ebony and Onyx and in some crayon boxes, there’s even one called Black Hole. But as I stared into the sky, I would have used the color Raven, a scary, ominous Raven to paint the moving and dipping clouds that kept the moon from shining.
I walked quickly into Gunner’s Dance Hall as the music blocked the sounds of the brewing storm. Security let me backstage, and I made my way to where the crowd was gathered in the old building. I saw Roger next to the stairs, leading up to the stage. He tipped his beer can in my direction like a toast. I think he was still drunk from last night.
As I reached the top of the stairs, I saw Lucky sitting on a stool. He might dance and play while singing most of his songs these days, but I still loved this side of him the best. Just him. His voice. And his guitar.
My heart beats faster when you look my way.
Baby, I need you, I want you.
I want to hear every word you say.
Baby, I need you, I want you.
I want to spend every night and day.
Dancin’ barefoot in front of the firelight.
Kissin’ and a’holdin’ you tight.
Baby, I need you, I want you.
’Cause you take my breath away.
I blushed hearing his words. What the crowd didn’t know was that he wrote that song after we danced naked in front of the fireplace a couple of days before New Year’s.
Lucky noticed me off to the side and gave a little wink as he sang the last few words. I stayed through the next one before my back started aching with shooting pain through my sciatica nerve. After giving him a little wave, I decided to wait out the storm backstage. Maybe I could find a couch. I didn’t even care if it was covered in decades of rocker sweat. I just wanted off my feet.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I walked past Roger and down the dimly lit hallway. Rainwater dripped in puddles on the floor. I heard Lucky switch songs, his fingers moving over the guitar strings as he played the intro to The Thunder Rolls. I laughed, looking over my shoulder. Lucky loved to play his Garth Brooks covers. Turning back around, I continued down the hallway.
I had only made it a few steps more when the pain hit me like a brutal knife to the back.
I screamed. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought someone had run up and plunged an actual blade into my skin.
I screamed again as the second stab wrapped around my stomach. My legs gave out, and I fell forward, smacking my face on the cement. I couldn’t breathe. I tried to suck in a breath, but the pain knocked it out of my lungs.
Filthy rainwater dripped onto my face. It dri
pped from the ceiling as I yelled for Lucky, but my voice was small compared to his coming from the speakers. Curling up on my side, I held onto my stomach, feeling another pain stab my back. I wanted to scream so very bad, but I couldn’t utter a word until the wave passed.
I counted my breaths.
I counted to eight, and it happened again.
I counted my breaths as I struggled to stay conscious.
Roger eventually heard my screams when he stumbled back toward the restroom. Even in his drunken state, he managed to call 911. I asked for Lucky. His manager said he would get him. But I knew that wasn’t true. I still heard his deep voice coming from the speakers. The show was only half over, and Roger wasn’t going to do a damn thing about it.
In my delirium, I begged for Lucky as they loaded me in the ambulance. Maybe the paramedics would get him. Instead, my words just came as gasps and the medic put a mask over my face to help me breathe. The tears came, but no one seemed to listen.
It wasn’t until they lifted me onto the bed at the hospital that I noticed the blood soaking my clothes. My baby was dying. I knew it. My heart felt it. Terror slipped through my conscience sharper than the blade that kept stabbing me in the stomach.
After being admitted to the hospital, I was sent to labor and delivery. They said it was too late to give anything for the pain. I didn’t know anything about actually giving birth, just what I had read in my book. It had been too early for the classes.
I didn’t recognize a single face. I wanted my doctor. I wanted Dr. Phillips. But he wasn’t there. Lucky wasn’t there. I was in a strange hospital, in a strange city, surrounded by people who didn’t even know me.
I was breathing. I was clinging to the hand of a nurse named Lucy. I wanted to laugh at the ironic twist of fate, but there was no laughter in this moment. She talked me through the process until I was weak and exhausted. As the waves continued to rip through my body, the next hour twisted into a devastating blur.
The pain.
The tears.
The sadness.
That felt deeper than a black hole.
Darker than a raven.
During the worst moment of my life.
While I was alone.
The blonde woman in scrubs spoke to me—Dr. Gilham or Dr. Gilbert or something else that sounded like guilt. She used a vast amount of words, which explained absolutely nothing.
It just happens sometimes.
That’s all I really heard.
Your baby was a girl.
I guess Lucky won the bet.
As she talked, I couldn’t remember much. Just the worst pieces. Part of me wished the unfamiliar doctor would have just knocked me out. Put me to sleep. I’m sure Dr. Phillips would have done it for me and maybe it would have hurt less than what actually had transpired in that room.
Maybe.
Maybe I would have never felt the ache of a thousand knives shoved into my soul.
Maybe not.
When Lucky finally arrived at the hospital, it felt like days had passed instead of just a few hours. I’m not sure when Roger finally told him something was wrong. Probably after the meet-and-greet that followed the show. Couldn’t have anything interrupt his precious tour, or maybe the drunk bastard just forgot I had been loaded into an ambulance.
I knew Lucky was scared when he came into my room. His beautiful brown eyes were full of pure panic. He grabbed my hand, kissed my cheek, and cried. I stared at the tears running in streams down into the scruff of his beard. Getting a handful of tissue, he wiped the snot from his nose. I had seen him tear up, but I had never seen him lose everything, so wide open and vulnerable.
Lucky sat in the chair next to the bed talking, but I didn’t hear his words. They faded in and out as I smelled the sterile scent of lemon disinfectant.
He was sorry.
He fired Roger.
He hated Roger.
He blamed Roger.
But I knew it wasn’t Roger’s fault. None of this had anything to do with Roger.
Not really.
This just happens sometimes.
The cryptic words of the doctor just looped around in my head as my hand rested on my empty stomach that still held the shape of my baby bump.
Lucky climbed into my bed, wrapping his arms around my whole body—and I let him. He whispered all sorts of words against my hair, which I knew smelled like sweat.
He didn’t seem to care that I didn’t say anything back. He just talked and cried a few more times while I didn’t have any tears left.
This baby had been something unplanned. I had been scared. I had been downright terrified. But I had done everything in my power to make her feel wanted. I had loved her before I could even feel her. I had loved her without seeing her.
And now she was gone.
“I want to go home,” I finally whispered.
After making arrangements with the hospital, Lucky rented a car and we started the several-hour trip back to Stillwater. I could tell he was tired. I’m not sure how much he’d slept during our time at the hospital. He downed a few cups of coffee as I gazed out the window. The pain was still raw as my mind struggled to process what had happened. I felt empty. I felt lost.
Everything in my life had suddenly changed.
We didn’t talk much as the car traveled down the highway. I think Lucky asked me a couple of questions. I didn’t really hear him. Maybe he didn’t ask. Maybe I wasn’t used to the silence and my head conjured up the constant noise that had surrounded me the last several weeks.
He reached for my hand a few times, and I let him hold my fingers. I felt them.
Warm.
I was cold. It was mid-July. And I was cold.
He got something out of the trunk and covered me up with it.
We stopped for food, and I got a hamburger because he insisted I needed to eat at least something or I would get sick.
I think a little of me envied Lucky. He got off easy. He didn’t have to feel the emptiness of where something used to exist inside of me.
Your baby was a girl.
I had names. Sometimes on the bus, during the shows, I wrote those names down on a notepad. And then I would show them to Lucky later that night. He would tease me, saying a bet is a bet. Just mark those girl names off my list.
I heard Lucky’s voice. I looked over in his direction, realizing those words were meant for me.
“What about your mom?” I mumbled.
“When I talked to her this morning.” His tired eyes glistened in the sunshine. “If we want a memorial or something. She can help.”
I stared at him for a moment before nodding. He reached over, taking my hand, and I rested my head back against the window.
Lucky took a call somewhere around Russellville. Without Roger in the picture, I wasn’t sure who was handling the cancellation of the final dates. And the bus. Someone must be retrieving that damn bus.
I took a pain pill and closed my eyes, blocking out his voice as it filled the car. I didn’t want to know where he was sending the bus.
Outside of Fort Smith, he got another call from Jack Harlow. I woke up enough to hear their discussion. He was giving Lucky a few days to decide about the fall tour before looking for a replacement.
I didn’t say anything as he hung up the phone.
Some strings don’t unravel all at once. Instead they come apart, thread by thread—so slowly that a person doesn’t know anything is wrong until a giant hole opens up on the side of their favorite sweater and the string is completely gone.
Lucky helped me into the house. I took a deep breath, seeing the familiar gray walls of the living room.
“Maybe you should take a shower.” His eyes were bloodshot and his hair was twisted in a wild mess. “Do you want me to help you?”
I stared at him a moment before shaking my head. “I can do it.”
I felt his lips against mine, but my heart didn’t move. His little kisses had always made my breath catch and my feet feel light
er.
After stripping out of my clothes, I turned the temperature to hot and climbed inside the shower. I stared down at my stomach as the spray hit my skin. I couldn’t feel the warmth of the water. I turned the knob a little more and a little more. I turned it all the way to scalding and my skin turned red. I still didn’t feel it.
I eventually climbed out with splotchy patches across my body. I stared at myself in the mirror. I had a mark on my forehead from where I’d fallen against the cement.
Picking up my phone, I stared at the screen until I finally punched out a message.
ME: I’m back early. I need you to come to Stillwater tomorrow. I’ll explain when you get here.
PEYTON: What is going on?
ME: I just need you to come here.
PEYTON: Katie! You can’t send cryptic messages. Talk now. I’m calling.
I didn’t respond. She called twice, and I turned the phone completely off.
When I got dressed, I found Lucky passed out across my bed with his clothes still on. Taking out my box of candles, I lined them up in straight rows across my desk. I lit each one, seeing the flame come to life. I climbed in bed beside the man who had brought the greatest happiness and the greatest pain into my life.
Taking in a deep breath, I inhaled the familiar scent of lavender. I stared at my familiar curtains and familiar window until my eyes finally closed.
The next morning, I woke to him sitting in the desk chair next to the bed. His hair was still damp as he watched me sleep.
“Hey,” he whispered.
“Hey.”
We stared at each other. The dark circles were vibrant under his eyes. He let out a deep breath. “I don’t know what to say. I-I don’t know what to do.”
I swallowed the knot in my throat. “I don’t either.”
I suppose life would continue on. Lucky would go on the road. I would start teaching in a few weeks. But today? I wasn’t sure what would happen today. Or tomorrow. What would I do tomorrow? I needed to call Dr. Phillips and make an appointment. That’s what the ER doctor told me to do. But not today.
My Lucky Days: A Novel Page 22