Broken Crown

by Susan Ward

  After dinner, we settle on the patio.

  “I’m leaving in the morning. I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m going to do.”

  “You’ll know when you know. But don’t make decisions with your head.” He balls up his fist and taps his abdomen. “Make them with your gut. It won’t steer you wrong. Where your family is concerned that’s where a man’s decisions live. Don’t question what your gut tells you. Just do it.”

  Really?

  That’s what you’re going to send me off with, Jack?

  Four days and that’s the solution you’ve come up with to fix my thoroughly fucked-up family and marriage?

  I laugh, rough and frustrated. “Then my gut is a fucking useless thing. I still don’t know what to do. It’s not telling me a damn thing.”

  Jack smiles. He fixes his intense blue eyes on me. “It’s all going to be all right, Alan.”

  Fuck, such a trite thing to say.

  Why is it always so believable when Jack says it?

  * * *

  Early the next morning I catch the 101 freeway south still without a clear action plan. Even after a sleepless night sifting through my discussions with Jack, trying to find something useful, I still don’t know what I’m going to do when I go home and see Chrissie.

  By Ventura, my gut is screaming loudly to me. Only one thing: I’m not leaving my kids again. The clearest thing Jack said last night, the one thing I couldn’t shut off in my head, was about Kaley.

  All she sees right now is that you left.

  I don’t even need to analyze that to understand it.

  I know what that felt like to Kaley.

  I lived that, too, with my father.

  After deciding to just do what my gut is telling me to do, I stop trying to think everything through and step into action. I call my pilot and tell him to file a flight plan to the UK for tomorrow. I call my assistant and ask her to hire me a nanny, preferably British, able to travel, with a passport, and send her to meet up with us at Heathrow on the day the tour departs from the UK. The kids’ schools were a bit of a hassle when I requested they prepare lesson plans, messenger them to me, and agree to allow Kaley to graduate even though she won’t be finishing her senior year. Arguing with Pacific Palisades Academy to get what I wanted for Kaley didn’t work. I went in another direction. All their unwillingness to accommodate my request, wrapped in that academic superiority about needing to do what’s in the best interests of the children, ended with the offer of a substantial donation.

  I pull into the driveway in Pacific Palisades, knowing this is going to be a fight with Chrissie. I’m determined nonetheless. Those are my kids. This is what I have to do for them. For me. To get us on track and start moving in the right direction together I need to work through this with them without Chrissie. She is just going to have to deal with it even if she doesn’t understand why this is necessary. And I am sure as hell not going to explain myself to her.

  I’m not ready to think about our marriage. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to try to work it out with Chrissie. It seems impossible to me right now after everything that she’s done. Even though I love her. And even though the thought of walking away scares me to death.

  * * *

  After I touch base with each of the kids, trying to talk with them about everything that’s happened, I make a stop in the nursery to be with Khloe.

  I sit with her for a while to collect my bearings again. Krystal and the boys were cautious and standoffish. They’re worried. They don’t know what’s happening. It won’t be all right for them until it feels and looks all right with Chrissie again. I can tell them everything will be fine, but they are meaningless words because the house is pulsing with the worry of their mother. Kaley opened her bedroom door when I knocked, stared at me, and said nothing before she shut it in my face.

  Two hours back and Chrissie still hasn’t appeared. Even though my rational self reminds me it was the right thing for her to do with the kids here, it hurts that she didn’t come out and try to fight for me.

  I’ve been gone four days.

  I haven’t talked to her.

  She’s hanging back, like always, waiting for me.

  Her in control, but today I am not in disarray.

  I kiss Khloe, set her back into her crib, send Lourdes in to keep an eye on her and then I tell Aarsi to take the younger kids out back until I send for them.

  I go down the hall and into my bedroom.

  Chrissie is sitting curled in a chair, a tissue in her hand, staring blankly out the window. I shut the door and her face snaps toward me.

  I sink down on the foot of the bed across from her.

  “Do the kids have passports?” I ask, removing the things from my pockets and setting them on the bed to have something to focus on other than her face.

  A long moment of silence.

  “Yes,” she answers weakly. “Why? Why are you asking me this?”

  I shift my gaze back to her. “Have them packed in the morning and ready to go by nine. All of them except Khloe. I’m leaving tomorrow with them for the UK. I’m going to spend a few days with the kids, alone, at my home there. Sort of an impromptu holiday. Then they are going on tour with me. The entire four months. Without you.”

  Her eyes go wide. She tenses. Her breath comes in rapid spurts. “You are not taking my children from me, Alan.”

  I meet her stare directly.

  “That is inaccurate,” I counter coldly. “I’m taking our children, Chrissie. That’s not subject to discussion. Don’t even try to tell me no. Not now.”

  “Don’t—please.” She crosses the room to me, panic etched on her face. “Don’t do this, Alan.”

  “Go talk to the kids. Tell them they are leaving with me. See that Lourdes packs their things. Do it, Chrissie, or I will. But I think it’s better for them that this comes from you instead of me.”

  She stares at me, her eyes wider than I’ve ever seen them. I hold my breath. She looks so sad, so worried, and it cuts deep that I’m responsible for that look. It’s torture, the fractured heaviness between us, and it feels like a slow, suffocating death.

  In my head comes the daunting awareness that if I stay on this track with her this is what it will be like tomorrow when I leave. I don’t want that for the kids. And I sure as fuck don’t want it for me because looking at her the way she looks now makes everything sharply adjust inside me and less certain.

  “I’m not doing this as some sort of punishment or to hurt you, Chrissie.”

  She steps back and it’s a move that signals all too clearly that she doesn’t believe me. She starts to cry. Each tear lands like a knife in my belly.

  “Then don’t do it at all,” she sobs, anxiously brushing at her cheeks.

  Now that she’s crying I can’t take my eyes off her and I feel her more sharply than I feel me. Her pain. Her fear. Her love. Everything. I feel her above what I feel inside of me.

  Every line rehearsed in my head before this fails me. If I walk through that door tomorrow how we are now I will have nothing but a void inside my chest.

  I can’t leave us like this.

  No matter what has happened.

  No matter where we go from here.

  I can’t walk from her like this.

  I pull her up against me before she can protest and hold her as tightly against me as I can. I bury my lips in her hair. “Chrissie, I love you, but I can’t change this for either of us. Too much has happened. I don’t know where we go from here. I can’t cancel the tour. I can’t stay, and I know if I leave here now they won’t understand and that’s something I won’t ever be able to fix with them. I don’t want to fuck this up.”

  She puts her arms around me and I don’t even know what this is. She holds me for a long time. She doesn’t say anything. Her tears stop. She looks up at me, her eyes clear and calm and fixed on mine. “You won’t fuck it up, Alan. I wouldn’t let you out of this house with the most important parts of me if I didn’t be
lieve that. I’ll go talk to the kids. I’ll talk to Lourdes. They’ll be ready in the morning to leave.”

  She hurries from the room and doesn’t look back. The blood starts pounding through my head. I don’t know what the hell just happened here.

  Chapter 19

  Six days later

  The car rolls to a stop at the airstrip. The tarmac is busy with activity. The road crew is loading equipment. Band and wives and children are standing in the sun, laughing and talking. Our usual horde of press is here. Last leg of the tour—the final tour, I remind myself—and we’re all traveling together on that nightmare 757. Linda’s fucking idea. She wanted something special and this was her idea of special.

  Why did I give in? I let out a ragged breath, reminding myself that a year ago when I consented I didn’t know I’d be taking off from the UK with four out of five of my kids by Chrissie. Fuck, a year ago I didn’t even know I had any kids.

  I battle down the reaction that stirs, really wishing I could fortify myself with some scotch, but these damn kids don’t miss a thing. Krystal openly remarks on everything she sees and the rest of them just stare disapprovingly. Half the time I don’t even know what I’ve done to make them disapprove.

  I thought our five days in my country home outside London were…pleasant? Progress? Denial is a terminal addiction. Fine, they avoided me as much as they could. I tried to talk, they pretended to listen—Kaley wouldn’t come out of her room. Hardly at all—but we have to start somewhere together. I just wish it wasn’t with them still anxious and oddly disapproving me.

  Maybe I should have had the nanny at Winderly House with us. She would have probably known better how to entertain them.

  No more stalling. Time to get this over with. More than a few loitering around the plane are staring at the car impatiently. I’m late. So what? Delays come out of my pocket not theirs. And what the hell do they all expect? Being late is nothing new for me. What is new is being late because I had to fight four kids to get here.

  Fuck, I need a drink and about ten hours’ sleep. It is very fitting that my angry gesture, my idiotic show of fatherhood authority with Chrissie—taking the kids on the road with me. Brilliant, Alan, just brilliant—has turned into a fit punishment for me. These are Chrissie’s kids. I should not have expected it to be easy.

  From behind my sunglasses I cautiously check each kid staring at me. God, they look grim. All of them, except Kaley. She looks ready to murder me. Jesus Christ, they’re skipping the last months of the school year to travel the world on a plane with a rock band. They should be a little more upbeat, shouldn’t they? Probably not, they are traveling with me.

  I take off my glasses so they can see my eyes when I speak. “Listen, there is press out there. I want you to exit the car, go directly onto the plane and say not one word to anyone.”

  Krystal nods. Kaley rolls her eyes. I can’t tell if Ethan or Eric even understand the language I speak. But then again, they’re only six; they probably don’t even know what the word press means.

  Fuck, I wish Chrissie were here. All the guys—Len, Jimmy, Kenny and Pat—have their wives with them. For once I have my family with me. Now that I’m over being angry, the kids make me miss Chrissie even more desperately.

  The car door opens. I put on my sunglasses and gesture Kaley out first. Then Krystal. I climb out. The cameras explode. There are shouted questions from every direction.

  I do a fast look over my shoulder. The girls are climbing the metal stairs to the plane. At least Kaley did one thing as asked without argument.

  I bend and look into the car. The twins look terrified. I hold a hand out to the boys. “Come on. It’s OK. It’s a short walk to the plane. I’ll be with you the entire way.”

  I wait. Just take my hand, one of you, please. Nothing. They’re afraid to get out of the car.

  Decision made. I lean in, scoop one under each arm, and carefully back away from the car until I can stand.

  I adjust my hold so I can see them. “Do you want to walk or do you want me to carry you?”

  Eric tries to wiggle free. I set him on his feet, but Ethan loops his arms around my neck. It is a uniquely pleasant feeling.

  I smile. “It’s going to be OK, kiddo. Just ignore them. That’s what I do.”

  I march toward the stairs with the boys. I usher Eric in front of me, and the cameras don’t stop even though they’ve got nothing to see but my back. Haven’t the tabloids ever seen kids before?

  The flashes start popping even more rapidly. What the fuck has happened now? I feel movement in my arms and shift my gaze to Ethan. His arm that was around my neck is behind my back waving at the press. I almost smile. Nice touch, kid.

  Inside the plane, I find the girls waiting for me. Every seat from the tenth row back is full. Who the fuck are all these people? The nanny is supposed to be here. I don’t see her and I’m not going to search through the plane looking for her.

  I stop at the bank of seats in the front row where the tour manager has already staked his claim. I set Eric down on one side of him, and Ethan on the other. Cuddy looks up from his phone and gives me a startled look, though he doesn’t have the nerve to tell me not to put my kids here. It’s probably rude just to surround him with them without asking, but fuck it, it’s my plane.

  I motion for Kaley and Krystal to sit.

  “This is Cuddy, the tour manager,” I explain. “He’ll make sure the flight crew gets you whatever you need.” I point to the hulking figure standing twenty rows away. “Back there is Nick Day, the production manager. That’s as far back in the plane as you’re allowed to go. You’re not allowed to mix with the road crew. I’m going to sleep until we land in Mumbai. Behave yourselves.”

  I can feel stares from all around me. Everyone on the plane is watching and not pretending to do otherwise. Fine, I didn’t announce I’d be bringing the kids. Get over it.

  My gaze settles on Kaley. That’s where the trouble is going to come from if there is going to be any.

  She glares. I arch a brow at her. No response. Silent treatment still in effect. Fine, Kaley, today that’s a win for me. I start making my way down the aisle to Linda and Len.

  “Daddy, are we there yet? I’m bored.”

  That stops me. After six days of unrelenting, hostile silence now Kaley decides to speak. It’s not going to be good. I turn back toward the front of the plane. She is sitting on her seat on her knees, arms draped over the top, staring at me.

  I’m not sure what pisses me off more: her relentless efforts to irritate me; her willingness to engage in shocking public displays rather than just talking to me—why won’t the girl just talk to me?—or her flexible voice that dominates the air without effort that I can no longer deny she’s inherited from me.

  I meet her stare for stare. “You speak to me in that sarcastic tone of voice again and this trip is going to get real rough real fast.”

  Kaley smiles. “Sure, Pop. I just have one question, though. Why did you drag us along on the Smash the Family tour? You should have just left me home with Mom. At least she’s not an asshole.”

  I feel the beginnings of an Alec Baldwin moment. I’ve always been critical of Alec for that damn voice mail he left his daughter that’s had far too much media play. But now I understand it better. The chaotic emotions and flash responses your own kids can stir. Of course, Alec had been stupid in the extreme thinking only of the immediate release and not the long game, but oh, I am beginning to understand it. Kaley can effortlessly hack through my reserve and the girl uses a machete.

  I count to ten inside my head. “Go ahead, Kaley. Keep it up. You’re only embarrassing yourself.”

  “Fine, I’ll sit here and tweet.” The smile she gives me is pure Chrissie. “Come on, Pop. Lighten up. Admit it, that was a little funny.”

  Yep, that round she was Chrissie. I sink into the seat across the aisle from Linda, recline, and nearly have my eyes shut before Linda starts to laugh.

  “Oh God, Manny, she
’s you. We should start calling her Mini-Manny. She certainly knows how to get you pissed off.”

  I open my eyes. “I don’t need one more enemy, Linda. Don’t pick at me. I’m already surrounded.”

  I can tell Linda is fighting back a smile. “Jesus, you’re touchy today.”

  I run a hand through my hair, shaking my head. “The girl hates me. I don’t know what I was thinking bringing them along for this.”

  Linda gives me a sympathetic look. “The girl, as you kindly refer to her, is your daughter. That’s what you were thinking. Don’t work so hard. Sometimes that’s all the answer there is. And she doesn’t hate you. She’s angry. There’s a difference. How are the little ones doing? Did you have a nice holiday at Winderly House with them?”

  “How the fuck would I know? The boys don’t talk. And Krystal, she smiles all the time for no reason, but when she sees me she stops smiling. You can decide for yourself what that means.”

  “Jesus, OK. I didn’t ask to pry. I asked because it looks like the second verse is coming your way. Parenting is not your forte, Manny. You better learn quickly. You can’t hide from them. You can’t ignore them and you certainly shouldn’t fight with them. Why the hell did you leave them in the front of the plane?”

  Criticism on parenting from Linda. Really? “Because I need a break from them. And I don’t need your advice.”

  “Of course you don’t. You do very well all on your own being an asshole.”

  Linda closes her tray table with an angry snap.

  I open my eyes to see Krystal closing in with her playful half-skipping walk. She smiles at everyone she passes, but she stops smiling when she nears me.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  Krystal climbs over me and settles in the seat beside me. She locks her belt in place. “Kaley is really angry. I don’t want to sit with her. You shouldn’t argue with her. It makes her angrier. Mom and I ignore her when she’s in a mood. It seems to work.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”