by Daisy Allen
“Oh babe. No wonder.”
“Anyway, I…I wouldn’t leave the bar, and they threw me out. And I guess…I guess I just fell asleep in an alley somewhere…and forgot to pick up my baby. I forgot to pick up my Ben! Brad. I forgot him.” The words come tumbling out, followed by sobs that break my heart. How could she have held onto all that without breaking apart, I can’t imagine. No wonder she’s so afraid.
Suddenly she stands up, pacing around the room again, mumbling to herself. “I can’t…fuck, this can’t be happening. I can’t lose him.”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that!” she screams, her hands grabbing her hair, her face. “All this…all this. It wouldn’t have happened if...”
“What, Emily?”
“It wouldn’t have happened…if I...It wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t on this tour…if …if we...”
“Don’t say it, Emily,” I tell her softly, but firm.
“I’m sorry, but it’s true.” She stops in her tracks, staring at me.
“No.”
“It wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t run into each other.”
“It’s not why this is happening, Butter.”
“It is, don’t you see, Brad?! We lived a quiet, safe life. Silas was barely a part of it. But now…he’s…he’s trying to compete with you. And he doesn’t like to lose.”
“Then we’ll beat him.”
“We can’t. We can’t, Brad. He’s going to take Ben away. He’s going to find out what happened, and he’s going to take him away. He’s his father.” Her nods anchor each sentence, as if the facts bury themselves in her fear, growing by the second.
“And you’re his mother, and you love him. And I love him. And I…I will protect the both of you. I can do that.” I try to reach for her again, hoping my touch will help ground her, reassure her, but she pushes me away.
“This is wrong…this is all wrong!” Her head shakes side to side, her hair wild around her face.
“Emily.”
“I just…I need some time, Brad.”
“I can’t leave you like this!”
She takes a deep breath, and a strange calmness comes over her. She looks at me through darkened eyes, but her voice is calm “I’m okay. I’m okay. I just need to think. Please. Please, Brad. I just need some space.”
While I can’t fathom leaving her right now, her eyes beg me for time alone.
I wonder if part of loving someone is knowing when they need you, and when they don’t.
“I love you, Emily. That’s all you’ll ever need to know. That and I’ll never leave you. Everything else doesn’t matter. We will make it work,” I tell her, taking her into my arms. She doesn’t push me away, and for a moment, I let myself believe it’s not going to get worse than this.
“Do you really think it’s that simple?” she whispers against my chest.
“I know it when I’m with you.”
She doesn’t say anything, just presses her hand against my cheek, then walks away.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Emily
When I told Silas I was pregnant, he said four words that have stuck with me ever since.
“Do what you want.”
He didn’t tell me to get rid of my baby, and he didn’t beg me to keep it. He just didn’t care.
It was months after Ben was born before he contacted me, even though I’d sent him photos and updates. I wanted my son not to miss out on anything that a boy born into a family with both his parents would have. After the tenth, fifteenth email I gave up. Six months later, he showed up on my doorstep with a toy and a shit-eating grin. He was in town traveling with his band and, in his words, thought he might as well drop in.
I didn’t want to deny him what I felt was his right as Ben’s father. So I let him in and that has pretty much been the arrangement since then. Him popping in and out whenever he feels it’s convenient for him. Always with a toy and always with promises he never keeps. And it’s worked for all of us. Ben, happy to see his father when he is around, but never really missing him when he’s not.
As for me, I’d rather a life without Silas in it, but if he never wanted more from us, from Ben, from me, then I wasn’t going to make a big thing out of it.
And I don’t think that I was wrong when I said that all this, all this posturing, all these demands, this sudden change of heart when it comes to Ben, is nothing but a pissing contest with Brad. Brad, who has always been a thorn in his side.
But whatever the reason, the threat is real, and I refuse to have any threats in my son’s life.
“Why are you here?” Silas asks me again.
“Because I want to sort this out once and for all.”
“What’s there to sort out? I want to make sure my son is safe. And you don’t seem to share the same concerns.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it, Silas.”
“No. You putting up a fight is bullshit. You see what I’ve cited as reason for belief that you’re neglecting him. And I’ll find more, you know I will. That’s why you’re so scared.”
“I’m not scared. I’m angry. You have no right. A father cares for his child. You have five years of proving you don’t care.”
“Not as the courts will see it. I believe they’ll see it as me trying to keep in contact with my son, and his mother making sure I don’t.”
“You don’t have proof,” I throw at him.
“You forget who I am. Who I can get to work for me, who I can get to swear up and down that I’m a good father.” There’s not a ripple of doubt on his face, and I almost think that he believes it.
“But why Silas, why now?”
“I told you why.”
“It’s not because of Ben.”
“Of course it is. He’s my son.”
“He’s been your son for almost six years.”
“And he will be for the rest of his life.”
“What can I do to get you to drop this?”
“What makes you think I want anything?”
“Because I know you. I know how selfish you are, how greedy for fame and fortune. How nothing in the world matters but you.”
He grins. “And that’s why.”
“Why what?”
“Why I want you to come work for me, because you know me.”
“Not this again.”
“Yes, exactly this again.”
“Come work for you? I despise you. Now more than ever.”
“That won’t stop you from doing your job. See, I know you. Come, come work for me and my band. Write about us, get us in the papers, on the news, in front of people’s faces.”
“I have a job.”
“Quit. Today. I’ll pay you twice what they’re paying. Can you really afford to say no?”
“You’re sick.”
“Fine. Forget the money as a reason. Why don’t you think about this—you come work for me, and I might not feel so inclined to keep pushing for custody, since I’ll get to see more of Ben since you’ll be around.”
“What?” Please don’t offer me this, I beg him in my head. Don’t make this part of the deal. I won’t be able to say no.
“You heard me. So, think it over. But not too long. Tick tock, all offers have an expiration date. Just remember, I won’t stop until I’ve won, Emily. I’ll do whatever I can to make it so. Pick the right team to be on. Sooner or later, I will get what I want.”
***
How many times have you looked back on a decision you’ve made, and wished that you’d done it differently? How many times, when in that moment, you’d been so sure you were doing the right thing?
How many times in my future will I look back on this exact moment and wonder if I made the right decision.
“Come on, Ben. Hurry up, we have to go.” I hurry my son. Grabbing as many of our possessions as possible and cramming them into the suitcase.
“Where, Mommy? Where are we going?” he asks, taking my hand as I lead him out of the
bus.
“We’re going…we’re going away. We have to leave, right now.” I push the suitcase out the door and pick Ben up under his arms and help him down the steps.
“But…I don’t want to go, Mommy. I want to stay,” he says, tugging on my arm, willing me to drop the suitcase handle.
“I know, I know, but we can’t. You have to come with me now. We’re going to go on a new adventure! Don’t you want that?” I say, trying to keep my voice light, hoping he doesn’t pick up on my own sadness.
“I don’t know, Mommy. I don’t want to leave.”
“I’m sorry, baby. Mommy’s sorry, but it’s for the best.”
“Can’t I say goodbye to everyone?”
“No, sweetheart. We don’t have time. We, er, we can call them later.”
“Please, Mommy please!” he yells, and his confusion tears at me.
“Quiet, Ben. Just please, be quiet until we get into the taxi.”
“I don’t want to be quiet, Mommy! I want to say goodbye to everyone. I want to say goodbye to Uncle Brad! Uncle BRAD!” he yells.
“What’s going on? Where are you going, Emily?” Brad comes up behind us, catching Ben in his arms.
“I…I have to go, Brad. I’m sorry,” I say, not bearing to look at him.
“No…wait, what’s going on? Where are you going?” he asks, his voice as panicked as I feel.
“I… I can’t tell you.”
“Then you can’t go!”
“I have to, our taxi is here. Say goodbye to Uncle Brad, honey.” I pull at Ben’s sleeve.
“No!” he yells and wraps his arms tighter around Brad’s neck. I almost wish I could let him stay, to spare him this.
“You’re taking Ben?” Brad asks, his hand coming up to cup Ben’s head against his chest.
“Of course I am, he’s my son. My son…and Silas’s,” I force myself to say, force him to remember.
“No, Butter.” he pleads. “Talk to me, tell me what’s going on, I can help, I promise I can help!”
“You can’t, it’s too late. We have to go. Let him go, Brad.”
“I don’t want to go, Uncle Brad. I want to stay,” Ben cries, and I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to ignore the despair in his voice.
“I’m sorry, baby, I’m so sorry. Brad, let him go, please.”
He looks at me like I’m asking him to tear his own heart out. He squeezes Ben tight, closing his eyes as they cling to each other, unable to let go. “I love you, Ben,” he whispers against my son’s ear. And I hope Ben never forgets it.
“I love you, Uncle Brad,” Ben sobs.
Brad leans over and I reach for Ben, pulling my son into my arms. His scream at being taken from Brad pierces my ear, but he lets me hold him, his body shaking with tears.
Brad reaches over and wraps his arms around us, his hand warm on my back as he whispers, “I love you, Emily.”
I can feel my heart shattering, and I have to leave before I can’t. I pull away from him, forcing myself to look into his eyes one last time.
“Goodbye, Brad. I had no choice. I’m sorry.”
I carry Ben over to the taxi, Brad following with our suitcase. I climb into the car and shut the door behind us as the taxi driver lifts the suitcase into the trunk and closes it with a thud. Ben climbs onto the seat staring out the window, his hand pressed up against the glass. His sobs echo the same thing I feel in my heart.
I don’t turn back. The past is now in the past.
How many times? How many times will I relive this moment, wondering if I was right or wrong?
Chapter Thirty-Three
Brad
No one will tell me where she is. Someone must know, but no one will tell me.
Not Dennis, not her editor, not even her mother, who has spent the entire time we were friends trying to get us together.
She won’t answer her phone, she won’t reply to my emails.
I don’t know how she is, how Ben is, and how that fucker Silas fits into the equation.
I only know that once again, I have a gaping hole in my life in the shape of a blue-eyed, shiny-haired brunette, and it feels like all the air in my lungs gushes away into that abyss.
“Tell me where she is, Phil.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything more than you. Only that she sent me all her notes, an outline of her article, and a simple ‘I’m sorry.’”
“TELL ME WHERE SHE IS!”
“Brad. I promise you. I don’t know. I would if I could. But she hasn’t been in contact with me at all.”
“You’re just pissed at her because she left you high and dry.”
“I can see how you might feel that way. But at this point, I just wish I knew that she’s okay. Let me know if you find out anything.”
I know he’s telling the truth. It’d be easier to think otherwise. At least then I’d have hope of having some way to get in touch with her, but I know, I know he cares about her. He didn’t blink an eye when I asked him about helping to fund a nanny for Ben on the tour. He only asked what else he could do to make it happen.
“I will. I’m...I apologize for yelling at you. I’m just very worried.”
“I know. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”
“Please.”
I hang up the phone and stare at it. It’s ridiculous that someone can just vanish into thin air. Two people, I remind myself, though I hardly needed to. I didn’t think it could’ve been worse, but the ache is double what is was when we last parted. There are two empty spots in my heart now.
“Hey, have you heard anything?” Jez wanders into the living room on the bus from his bedroom.
I just shake my head.
“Nothing at all?”
“Yeah. Not from her. No one that will answer my phone calls has heard anything either. That, or she’s told them not to tell me anything.”
“It’s fucked up.”
I shrug. I don’t know what to say.
“It is fucked up, Brad,” Jez says firmly, surprising me.
“What’s fucked up?” Marius asks, climbing onto the bus, Sebastian and the girls trailing behind him.
Jez just sighs and gestures his head toward me.
“Ah. Well, for once, I agree with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t see what we saw when she left.”
“No, I fucking lived it,” I remind him.
“Well, I can tell you, watching it was no picnic either. She was sad, Ben was devastated, confused...and you. Well, I could do without seeing you look that wretched ever again, thanks. Except, now I’m seeing it every day.”
“But we don’t know why. She must have a reason.”
“What could possibly be worth that, man?” Marius demands.
“You guys are being too rough on her. It’s not like she wanted to leave. You saw how she looked! Something’s going on, we just don’t know what it is yet.” Hailey says, her voice soft, obviously sad for her new friend.
“It’s not the first time—” Sebastian starts.
“Yeah, yeah, we know. Brad boo-hoo sad. A lot’s happened since then. She’s been amazing on this whole tour. Helpful, doing things she doesn’t need to, helping out where she can, not to mention talking you guys up a storm. The last few weeks, everywhere we’ve gone people have mentioned the columns she’s written. Come on, give her credit where it’s due,” Cadence rants at her husband, her arms waving around, emphasizing her point.
“I give her credit where it’s due. But the way she’s treated Brad, is not where that’s at,” Jez counters with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Guys...” I try to interrupt.
“Not to mention, how does Ben fit into all this? He was fucking traumatized,” Marius argues.
“She’s his mother, it’s her decision what’s best for him. That doesn’t always mean they know what it is,” Hailey counters.
“Guys...” I try again.
Marius ignore me and continues. “Well, maybe we would’v
e all been better off if...”
“GUYS!” I yell, and they stop, as if realizing I’m there for the first time. “I appreciate all this fighting over my virtue, but all of it is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is where they are, and are they all right.”
“And how do we find that out?” Sebastian raises the vital question.
“I don’t have a fucking clue,” I admit.
We all look at each other, seemingly having the same lightbulb moment at once.
“Let’s ask Dennis!”
***
When I left at the age of eighteen to go on tour with the band, I couldn’t get out of London fast enough. I packed one bag, with three shirts and five pairs of underwear. My violin and bow. And a box of cookies my mother sneaked into my bag.
I left everything. Because I thought I’d lost everything.
My parents begged me to write or call more often. But anything that made me think of London made me think of her.
Now I spend my days looking for things to bring me closer to her.
I moved into her bedroom on the girls’ bus, gathering all the clothes and Ben’s toys she left behind in her rush to leave. I surround myself with them to keep me company on the sleepless nights.
Every conversation, I want to be about her. Every song, something to make me remember her laugh, her smile, her body, the way she felt in those seconds after climaxing and falling into my arms.
I have no wish to distance myself from her, only pretend that she’s not gone.
***
“I’ve found her. She’s with Silas,” my manager tells me after he’s pulled me apart from the band.
“What?” I can’t be hearing him right.
“She’s working for Silas.”
“Damn. How did you find that out?”
“She had to have her mail forwarded and Phil give me the address. It’s a PO Box that’s being paid for by Silas’s management company.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“Just, it’s my job, okay?”
I can tell there’s something he’s wanting to say but isn’t.
“What?” I press.