Just One Week (Just One Song)

by Stacey Lynn

  “How are you doing today?” My mom asks when she takes a seat in the chair next to me.

  “Better. I can’t wait until I can raise my arms, but I’m feeling okay.”

  She’s been coming over twice a day to take care of me after the surgery. There are tubes that need to be drained and she helps me bathe. It embarrasses me all the time that I can’t do these things for myself right now.

  I finally got brave enough yesterday to finally look at myself in the mirror. It was the first time I stood naked in front of the mirror and really examined my new body. My chest is swollen and bruised. There are tubes coming out of the sides of my chest that are held in place by a band around my waist. I’m told those will come out in the next week or two. It was painful to see and I stood there for as long as I could, taking in every inch of my skin and how it’s now changed permanently. There are scars that will always be visible, but overall, my breasts didn’t look much different due to the implants. By the time I turned my eyes from the mirror and covered my body with my robe, I realized I wasn’t as scared of my new body as I thought I’d be.

  Yesterday was the first day I began to feel like maybe – just maybe – I’m going to be okay when all of this is over.

  “Well, let’s go get the nasty stuff over with.” I follow her slowly up the stairs to the guest bathroom where she’s been bathing me and helping me with all of the other things. It hurts me to see my mom like this – taking care of her daughter. But she’s done it with a smile on her face and a confidence and strength to her that I’ve never seen.

  It’s made me see her in a new light. After she recovered when I was younger, I always thought she was weak for staying with my dad who had turned into such a pathetic creature. But that’s not the reality I see anymore. She’s probably the strongest woman I’ve ever known. She’s continued to live her life, finding ways to find joy and live even when her life hasn’t turned out to be anything like she originally wanted.

  She thinks I’m strong, but she’s wrong. She’s the strong one.

  As soon as we’re done in the bathroom, my phone starts ringing.

  “Can you get that for me?” I ask quietly. It doesn’t matter that she’s my mom. I’m still embarrassed I need the help.

  She dashes to my room, coming back with my phone just as I see it’s a missed call from Nicole.

  I know their schedule by heart. Right now, they’re on the way to Charlotte, North Carolina, where they’ll play a string of shows over the next few weeks with barely any time off.

  “I’ll come back later to see you when Elijah is home from work. How about if I bring you guys some dinner?”

  “That’d be great mom.”

  As soon as I’m settled in bed, I call Nicole back. I’ve hesitated calling her back when I know she’s on the bus. That means Chase is too close by. It makes me nervous that I’ll have to talk to him and scared that he won’t talk to me, and the flip-flopping of emotions makes my head hurt so I’ve done what I do best.

  I avoid it.

  She answers after the first ring, her voice is a bit breathless.

  “Hey Nic,” I say, hesitant at first although I don’t know why.

  “Hey! How are you?”

  “I’m good. My mom just left and I’m feeling a little bit better.” We talk for a little bit about my recovery, the tour, and I notice she talks about everyone except Chase. I’m about to ask her if her avoidance of his name is intentional or not when she peaks my interest.

  “I have some news,” she says slyly, drawing out the words so I can’t help but wondering what she’s scheming.

  “What is it?” Do I even want to know?

  She stutters a bit getting started which begins to make me nervous. “I wanted to wait to tell you when you were feeling better. I didn’t mean to keep it from you.”

  Oh my god. This is not good news. A lump forms in my throat and I brace myself for hearing something … not good. About Chase? Does it matter to me?

  Of course it matters.

  “Spit it out, woman.” I snap at her, not even slightly happy anymore. I shouldn’t have called her back.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  My eyes go wide and my mouth falls open. I’m speechless. Literally. I open my mouth to say something, to congratulate her or scream her ear off, anything that could show how shocked and happy I am for her, but I can’t.

  Because I see her. I see her giving birth to Andrew, her little boy who died when he was just four years old in a car accident along with her first husband. I see the tears that fell down both their cheeks the day that he was born, and I see his dark black hair that used to sit right above his shoulders, flying all over the place as he played soccer in their backyard. I see the life she used to have, the joy that she used to feel, and tears fall down my cheeks. They puddle in my lap and I wipe them away with the back of my hand, sniffing loudly into the phone.

  “Mia?” Her voice is hesitant. So quiet it’s almost non-existent.

  I swallow down my tears, making an unattractive choking sound into the phone, but I can’t help it. I can’t stop the memories from flooding my mind as I remember his pudgy little face and the mess he used to make smashing avocadoes and bananas all over his face. At one point, Nicole had the life she always wanted and when it was ripped away from her so fiercely, her family and I never knew she would recover. But she did, and if possible, she’s a better and stronger woman because of that. My own tears aren’t just sadness because I remember Andrew and the memories of that little boy will always hurt, but because I’m just so freaking excited that her and Zack are starting their family.

  “Oh my shit!” I finally say, a huge smile breaking out on my face. “How are you?” I’m squeal into the phone once I’m finally able to put all the pieces together in my head. She’s having a baby. This is fantastic news!

  “I feel like crap, but I’m excited …” Her voice trails off and I know she’s thinking of Andrew, just like I am. “I’m scared, but excited. Zack’s been great. All the guys have been, really.”

  Of course they have been. For a group of rock stars, they really can be a bunch of great guys.

  “When are you due?”

  She tells me she’s only two months along and we squeal together then drift into talking about babies. She’s having the time of her life and I can’t believe that two years ago she was still in so much pain from losing her family that I had to practically drag her out of her apartment for dinners with me once a week.

  This is not the same girl I knew. But she’s a better version and I love her with absolutely all of my heart.

  “Chase misses you,” she finally says. I can practically see her grinning through the phone. I’d be willing to put money on the fact that he’s sitting on one of the couches, grinning at her. Or scowling.

  “He’s right there, isn’t he?” Her silence gives me my answer.

  “Wanna talk to him?”

  I sigh. Yes. I really do. I want to tell him I’m stupid and I’m sorry. “No. Not yet. Just thank him for the flowers for me.”

  “Will do. Love you.”

  “Love you, too. Congratulations again. I’m really happy for you.”

  “Hey sis! We’ve got company!”

  Elijah’s shouts from downstairs pull me out of the romance thriller I’ve been reading for the last several hours. How a woman can fall in love with her crazy ass captor makes no sense to me, but I can’t seem to pull myself away from this book. It’s totally enraptured me.

  But I’m surprised by Elijah’s shouts. We never have company, besides my mom. I’ve talked to Nic quite a few times in the last couple of weeks and she’s been trying to get out to see me on one of their breaks, but it hasn’t worked out yet. They’re in Boston tonight so I know it’s not her.

  Elijah’s house is still overflowing with flowers. I think Chase has it planned down to a science because as soon as one of the bouquets he bought me starts to wilt, another one of the exact same kind shows up to replace it.
I’m beginning to think he’s got cameras watching the flowers or something.

  I still haven’t talked to him, but I’ve started replying to a few of his texts that continue to come twice a day. Morning and night. “How are you?” “Good morning, babe.” “Do anything fun today?” They’re simple texts and I don’t answer all of them. Just some.

  It’s the only way I can think of to tell him that I care. That I am still interested but need more time. I just hope he doesn’t think I’m leading him on.

  I’m smiling at the last response I sent to him when he asked me if I did anything fun. I responded with surfing, sky diving, and got a tattoo … just your average day.

  My smile drops as soon as my feet hit the last stair. And I freeze.

  I was right that my mom is our company. But I never would have thought she wouldn’t be alone.

  I haven’t seen my dad unless I’ve been forced to on holidays and his presence here is just a reminder to me of all the things this man and this disease has taken from me.

  It’s not fair. It’s not fair for his issues to affect me, and yet I’ve let them. For far too long. The only problem is that I don’t know how to make them stop affecting me.

  “What are you doing here?” I look around and see the concern written all over Elijah and my mom. They both knew I’d be pissed about this visitor, which is why I probably wasn’t told.

  My dad frowns. His skin is more wrinkled than it should be for a man his age and his nose is slightly red. His hair is a little bit greasy and a whole lot more gray than it was the last time I saw him.

  He looks like shit. His clothes are a little bit wrinkled and his hands are shaking. Which means he hasn’t been drinking today - at least not much.

  It pisses me off that I recognize these signs in him.

  “I wanted to see you,” he finally says. He sounds uncertain and nervous.

  I wish I didn’t care.

  “How about some dinner?” My mom asks everyone with a large, fake smile on her face. I shake my head. She’s unbelievable. I’ve given her a lot of credit in the last couple of weeks since I realize how strong she really is, but it’s this behavior that drives me mad. How can she just put a smile on her face as if she truly believes that it erases all of the pain and anger in the room right now? A smile does nothing except delay the inevitable and sweep the truth under a rug.

  I’m suddenly not hungry but a part of me wants to know why my mom and Eli would sneak this on me, so I go with it.

  I plaster on the same smile as my mom and walk to the kitchen. “Well, let’s eat then.”

  Dinner is tense. Besides the obligatory requests to pass the rice, Mongolian beef, and General Tso’s chicken, there’s not a lot of talking. Eli talks about a new case he’s taken on this week, which will keep him pretty busy.

  And the entire time, my dad watches me with a pain in his eyes that I don’t quite understand.

  “Would anyone like some coffee?”

  I nod my head absently, still watching my dad. He smiles at my mom and requests a cup, too.

  “Can we sit in the living room while your mom gets it ready?”

  I want to tell him he’s capable of getting his own cup and that his wife shouldn’t have to wait on him so much, but I bite my tongue. My dad and I reached an impasse years ago. If he doesn’t bother me - I’ll show him some respect when around my mom.

  The fact that he’s asking to talk to me is new. And I’m still curious as to why he’s here in the first place.

  “So what’s up?” I ask, once we’re settled in the living room. The kitchen isn’t too far away, but it’s suspiciously quiet and empty. I laugh to myself. Both my mom and my brother have totally set me up. Ways to exact my revenge on Eli in his sleep flash through my mind.

  “I want to talk to you,” my dad says, and I stop wondering if Eli’s pillow is firm enough to smother him with.

  “So talk.” I sit back in the couch and cross my arms, wincing slightly at the pain in my chest. My drains are gone now, but I’m still sore and there’s a lot of bruising.

  He leans forward, rubbing the palms of his hands on his khaki pants, and I realize my dad is nervous to talk to me.

  “I’ve let you down ever since you were a little kid.”

  When I was a little kid, he was awesome. It was only since I turned thirteen that my dad became my greatest disappointment.

  “I’ve had a drinking problem since before you and Elijah were ever born.” His words shock me. My dad was perfect when I was little. It makes no sense. “Your mom was my entire world and always helped keep me in line with my drinking. It runs in my family, but that’s not an excuse. I was able to stay clean for a long time after you were born, but do you remember when you were about eight that I had to go on a trip for a month?”

  I nod. I remember that. My dad was a sales manager for a manufacturing company and it meant travelling a lot when I was growing up. Not that I always understood it, but when he was home, he was always the best.

  My throat begins to feel a little pasty, my tongue thick, as I realize what he’s saying. “You were in rehab?”

  His lips purse and he looks down, running his hand through his hair before looking back at me.

  “I was never really the dad you thought I was, even though I always tried to be better. Your mom kept me grounded. When she got sick, I just lost it. I know I should have been able to be better for you and Eli. I should have been able to be better period, but I wasn’t. I just hate feeling like you think it’s the cancer’s fault that I turned into the man I’ve become. The cancer and your mom getting sick didn’t change who I was, I just lost the person who was always so good at helping me hide it.”

  I struggle through my own tears, wanting to scream at him. For being such a fake and for not telling me this sooner.

  Cancer didn’t take my dad from me. I never had him to begin with – not really. Not if what he’s really saying is true.

  I press my fingertips over my eyes. I press so hard I feel like I might shove my eyes back into their sockets and be blind forever. I get little flashes of my childhood in between the small bouts of pain in my chest. My dad throwing the ball with me and Eli, bike riding, taking us to parks, reading me books and tucking me in at night, cooking birthday cakes for my mom. Was he sober for any of that? Does he even remember any of it?

  “Why are you telling me this now?” I swallow my tears and set my hands in my lap. This isn’t fair to me. What’s the point of it anyway?

  “I’m going back to rehab. I can’t make up the time I’ve lost with you or the mistakes that I’ve made, but when I heard you were sick, it made me realize how much you truly deserve better than who I am. I want to be your dad, and I want to be able to be there for my daughter. I want to be the man who has a daughter who will crawl into his lap and I know you’re too old for that, but I hate that I’ve become someone you despise.”

  “So you’re doing this for me? Isn’t the whole point of rehab to get better for yourself and not others?”

  “It is. And I do want it for me. I want it to repair the relationships I’ve done such a good job at ruining over the years. Eli hasn’t hated me as much as you.”

  I feel like I should argue with him over the word hate, but I don’t. Mostly because I can’t. I do hate him.

  “But you, I’ve seen the looks of disgust you give me. I’ve been around enough to see how your mom’s illness changed you, affected you in a way it didn’t your brother. And I wasn’t there for you to help you through that. I was too lost in my despair at losing my queen that I didn’t see my princess disappearing before me.”

  He gives me a pathetic smile. His queen and princess. The nicknames he used when I was a kid. Before my mom got sick. I haven’t heard that name since I was twelve.

  “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say to you now.”

  He stands up and comes to sit down next to me. He puts a hand gently on my thigh and my hand covers his, although I’m not sure why I’m tryi
ng to comfort him.

  “Nothing. I just want you to know that I’m going to rehab for thirty days and I want to fight it this time. I want to be able to call you when I’m well, and maybe … I don’t know … talk occasionally.”

  It’s too late, I think. But then I think that maybe I’ve spent too much time looking at my dad through the eyes of a child. The innocence that doesn’t see the darkness and perhaps I’ve thought more highly of him than I should. He might not be the man I ever thought he was, but does that mean he’s a terrible man? If he was always this way and I simply didn’t notice then maybe I shouldn’t hold his failures against him.

  “We’ll talk,” I finally say and see a tear escape his eye. I look away before he brings forth my emotions, not ready to share them with him yet.

  This tour is sucking the fucking life out of me. Our manager, Aaron, has been giving us our reviews, and they’re all good. People love Nicole. They love the romance between her and Zack. Midwestern everyday girl snags the rocker. They get married, she joins the band, and they live happily ever after. Touching.

  It is. If I weren’t feeling like such a caged up prick right now, I’d want to celebrate with the guys tonight. I can’t though, because I’m pretty damn sure I left half of my heart in Minnesota the day I left Mia.

  There’s an ache I can’t get rid of. No matter how many times I bang the drums and regardless of how many beers I drink, it’s always there.

  It doesn’t matter though because it’s been six weeks. Six weeks of wondering how she’s healing and how she’s doing.

  Nicole told me a few weeks ago about Mia’s dad going back to rehab. It took five guys to talk to me down from hopping on the next plane to be there for her. She hates her dad, and I’m not sure of all the shit he’s put her through, but I can only imagine how hard that talk must have been for her. And I was here. Or in South Carolina, or wherever the hell I’ve been for the last two months.

  Two months. It’s too damn long. I want to see her smile again. To know that she really is going to be okay. And the few texts she’s returning aren’t enough.