This was the second time he offered this to me, but I shook my head. I had to be here. I had to make sure he was still alive in the morning; that his bird-like chest kept rising and falling well into the night. I had to.
“No, I’m not leaving.”
My father and the nurse exchanged looks and he shrugged, shooing her away for now. I would sleep in the wheelchair if I had to. Nothing mattered as much as Christopher. Nothing at all.
“Natalie,” my father began, once the nurse had walked away. He was using the voice he always used to admonish me.
“No, Dad. I’m not going anywhere.”
With a sigh, he pulled up the chair that was behind him and sat down. “Well, if you aren’t leaving, I’m not leaving.”
I huffed out a breath. And he wondered where I got all my stubbornness from.
I didn’t sleep much that night, perched in a wheelchair, my body aching in places I didn’t know it could from giving birth, but unwilling to leave my son for one minute. A few times, his monitors went off, beeping loudly and startling both my dad and me out of dozing from our respective seats. After the fifth time, the sun not yet up on the second day of his life, my nerves were frayed and my heart aching, I called a nurse over.
“Is this going to keep happening?” I asked with a clog in my throat and tears in my eyes.
The nurse’s face looked grave. “We can’t really say, Miss Livingston. Your son was born very early and he’s having a hard time breathing, but he gets stronger every hour.” She looked me over, concern in her eyes now. “You really should go back to your room and rest. This isn’t good for you.”
I nodded. I knew I looked like hell because I felt the same way that I looked. But how could I leave him when it was my fault he was in here. What if something happened when I was gone? The thought haunted me.
“I can’t,” was the only response I could manage.
“Natalie, dear, please listen to the nurse. Go have a shower and change, eat something and take a nap. I promise you I will stay with Christopher the whole time you’re gone and let you know if anything happens.” My dad begged me for the five-hundredth time to listen to the nurses and doctors who urged me to take care of myself.
Tears clouded my vision but I slowly nodded. I wanted to resist but the pain and fatigue were wearing on me. I hadn’t slept properly in three days and had barely eaten anything. My body couldn’t heal when I wasn’t letting it, and I knew the nurse and my father were right, even though the last thing I wanted was to leave Christopher. Before I could change my mind, another nurse came over and began to wheel me away, my heart constricting the further away I got from Christopher’s incubator.
“You’ll feel better after a few hours of rest and some food, Miss Livingston, and then we will set up a comfortable chair for you to sit with Christopher.” The nurse droned on and on as we made our way to the elevator and up to the floor where the postpartum wing was located.
I tuned her out, my head and heart back in the NICU with my baby. Scenarios of what could happen while I was away ate at me the whole time I showered, changed, and lay in the hospital bed with the empty bassinet next to it. I wanted to sleep but it evaded me as I checked and rechecked my phone obsessively for calls or messages from my dad.
Despite my racing mind and aching heart, I must have fallen asleep because when I woke, the room was dark. I bolted upright, looking around as if I misplaced something, my breasts aching with the need to nurse a baby who wasn’t able to nurse. My phone was buried under the hospital sheets and I searched for it to see if my father called, but the screen was devoid of notifications. My heart rate slowed as I buzzed the nurse and for the first time in days, my stomach growled. But food would have to wait until I could determine if Christopher was all right.
“How are you feeling, Natalie?” the nurse asked as she walked into my dark room with a wide grin on her face.
“Better, actually,” I answered, because it was true. “How is Christopher?”
“I’ll call down to the NICU and get an update for you. Would you like to have your dinner?” She motioned for me to lie back as she talked, pressing on my belly to make sure I wasn’t still bleeding heavily.
Wincing through the discomfort, I nodded before sitting back up when she was through.
“Good. I’ll bring it in after I call the NICU. You should be able to be discharged tomorrow morning, which means you will be able to spend the rest of your time with the baby.”
I nodded again, numb in a lot of ways, as she walked out of the room. This whole experienced was surreal and after everything, I didn’t even feel like I had a baby. Being alone in this room, with my thoughts and no baby, the only thing I could do was reflect on my failures. I knew now Christopher wasn’t one of them, but the way I handled the details of my pregnancy were. When I was able to, I would set everything right, but for now, I would focus on him. My heart stuttered, unable to fully beat until the nurse came back into the room with news about my son.
“The nurses in the NICU tell me he is doing better. He hasn’t had any episodes where he stopped breathing since the last time when you were there, and he seems to be getting stronger.”
New tears, of relief, sprang to my eyes as the nurse spoke the words. I couldn’t answer her through them; only nod my thanks as she set my tray of food down.
“I forgot to ask. Would you like to pump to relieve the pressure of your milk coming in? I wasn’t sure if we determined whether you planned to nurse or not,” she asked, as she stood by the threshold of the room.
“I can still nurse him?” I thought that option was out due to the premature birth and being in the NICU.
“Of course. As soon as Christopher is able to, you can nurse him. Pumping until then will keep your supply up.”
“Okay. Yes, I want to do that,” I answered quickly, before I could change my mind about hooking myself up to a contraption that would suck the milk out of me. This was for Christopher and I couldn’t be selfish. Not anymore.
“Great. I’ll bring the pump in so that you can get started after you eat.”
The nurse left the room, leaving me in silence once more. I pulled the lid off my dinner and winced. It smelled okay but looked less so. Grayish turkey floated in a pool of light brown gravy, with a side of lumpy mashed potatoes and mushy stuffing. My stomach growled again at the aroma of the food. Now was not the time to be picky.
If I didn’t eat, I couldn’t pump milk for Christopher, and I wouldn’t be strong enough to be discharged so that I could sit by his side. Taking a deep breath, I pushed a forkful of the less than appetizing food into my mouth. Surprisingly, it tasted better than it looked, and I ate three quarters of it before I couldn’t tolerate it anymore. As hospital food went, it wasn’t awful and I felt a lot better afterwards.
The nurse reappeared with an industrial-sized breast pump and began to show me how to work the contraption. She told me how often to use it, and explained how I would have access to a fridge to keep the milk in while Christopher remained in the NICU, as well as the pump itself. When she was done, I tried it out, only cringing from discomfort for the first ten minutes, and was proud of myself for getting through it. I was trying to be better—a better person, a better woman, a good mother.
The way I lived my life the last fifteen years wasn’t something I was proud of, and after having more than enough time to think the last day and a half, about where I went wrong, I knew I needed to make some changes. People said having a baby changed a woman. They had no idea just how much Christopher changed me or how much he made me want to be better. I couldn’t get rid of the thought that the reason Christopher was born early was some sort of sick karma because of the way I treated people over the last decade. I had to be better, do better, for him. I had to right all I did wrong, and I was going to start with Jackson.
14
Rhys
“So, she had the baby early?” I heard Nathan ask as I walked in the door, waving at the other two guys, who were s
itting on the couch with video game headsets on.
We were still on tour, just outside of Atlanta, making a pit stop before our show in two days. I was exhausted and exhilarated all at once after the last month of touring. But I was ready to get the hell off this bus too.
“Who you talkin’ about?” I whispered to Nathan as I made my way towards the front of the bus, to the kitchen, and grabbed a beer from the fridge. I hated to admit I was still self-medicating with booze after Natalie rejected me a month ago.
“Natalie Livingston. I’m talking to Jessica at the PR office. She said Natalie gave birth early, a few days ago. The baby is in the NICU.” He communicated this all quickly, with his hand covering the phone.
“What?!” His words didn’t register in my brain for a moment.
How had Natalie given birth already? She was barely pregnant. At least, it seemed like she was barely pregnant. I tried to tell myself that I knew nothing about her pregnancy save for what she told me that night. The last night we were together. What I did know was she was likely hurting and scared because of the early birth of her baby. Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to see her and comfort her, despite all she said the last time she was in my bed.
“Is she okay? What did Jessica say?” I peppered Nathan with questions as he gave me a strange look and waved me away with one hand. But I didn’t go anywhere, plopping down on the bench closest to where he stood, and I waited.
After what seemed like an eternity, Nathan hung up his phone, turning to me. “What is your deal?” he asked as I sat there staring at him, waiting for an update.
I shook my head. “Nothing. What’s going on with Natalie?” I tried to sound casual but must have failed because Nathan furrowed his brow before he answered me.
“Uh, the only thing I know is what I told you. Jessica said her baby is in the NICU and that Natalie has taken a leave of absence from work. Our PR account was handed over to Jessica and Jason.” Nathan shrugged, and I could tell he wasn’t sure if I wanted to know what was going to become of our account or if there was something else going on.
“Oh, yeah. That’s fine.” I wanted to ask him more but knew it would raise suspicion. It wasn’t that I didn’t want my bandmates to know about me sleeping with Natalie, but I also didn’t want them to know I was hung up on a woman who had another man’s baby and never wanted to see me again.
“Dude, maybe you should stop the day drinking and get some sleep because you’ve been acting so weird for the last few weeks.” Nathan pointed at my beer before walking away, shaking his head.
I set the beer down hard on the table, too hard, as foam frothed at the top then spilled over. Nathan was right. Even though what he said pissed me off, I knew I had to lay off the liquor. We all drank on tour, but I wasn’t drinking to unwind or have fun; I was drowning my rejection. This was becoming a problem.
What I really wanted to do was get off this godforsaken bus and fly to New York to see if Natalie was all right. But how could I pop in on her after a month, especially since she told me never to contact her again? I had to get my priorities straight. We had a concert in two days in Atlanta, and after the East Coast leg of our tour, we were going back to San Diego to do a few show dates there before our album release. My career was taking off, and here I was, obsessing over a woman who didn’t want to be with me.
But I couldn’t get her out of my head.
“So, what would happen if I had to take a few days off of the tour for personal reasons?” I posed the question to Rob as he came back into the bus.
“What the fuck, man? We have two more show dates left on the East Coast. What do you have to do that’s so important?”
“Nothing, it’s nothing. After our East Coast dates, I have to go to New York.” I stood up as I spoke, then walked off the bus because I couldn’t field any more questions about why I was being so cagey.
I slipped my phone from my pocket as I walked, then typed Natalie’s name into my contacts until her number was glaring at me on the screen of my phone. I couldn’t call her, not like this, not out of the blue. Right? Not after what she said to me the last time. Not after she dismissed me for another man. Not after she had his baby.
But something made me click on her number anyway, put the phone to my ear, and wait as it rang and rang. The look on her face the last time I saw her, or the time before that—the lost kitten look, her panic attack, all of it—it made me want to reach out to her, to make sure she was all right, if nothing else. Ignoring the tightness in my chest, I waited as the phone rang, surprised when someone actually answered, because I anticipated voicemail.
“Hello?” It was more of a question than a greeting. The voice on the other end sounded detached, almost asleep.
“Natalie?” It didn’t sound like her but I knew it was.
“Yes. Who is this?” Confusion and something like irritation seeped through the phone line.
“Uh, it’s Rhys. I heard about the baby.” I didn’t know how to continue so I paused and waited for her to respond.
“Hey, Rhys,” she said, her voice changing to include a note of panic.
“How is the baby?” For whatever reason, I had an uncontrollable urge to find out how her baby was doing.
“He’s…he’s small. So small.” She croaked the words out, and I could tell she was now on the verge of tears.
“I’m so sorry. You had a boy?” I couldn’t stop asking questions despite her distress.
“Yeah, yes. Christopher. His name is Christopher. I…” Her voice dropped off without finishing her sentence.
“What?” I asked, because I wasn’t ready to hang up yet. I wasn’t ready to lose whatever connection we had over the miles, over the months, because I wasn’t ready to lose her.
“No, it’s, never mind. I really have to go. The baby, he’s…he needs me to be there. I’ll talk to you later, Rhys.” Natalie sounded sad all of a sudden; dejected. I wanted to reach through the phone and take her in my arms. This damn tour couldn’t end soon enough.
“Okay, yeah. I’ll talk to you. Maybe I’ll come see you and Christopher.” I was losing my mind. Why had I added that?
“Uh, no, no, we’re okay.” The panic was back.
“Okay, sure.” I had no intention of keeping that promise.
The line disconnected and I stared at the phone for a really long time before shoving it back into my pocket. Nathan was approaching and I schooled my face to show something other than what I was feeling. Something other than the overwhelming sense of grief I felt for Natalie and her tiny baby.
As soon as the tour was over, I was going to New York. Nothing short of nuclear war could stop me.
15
Natalie
Three weeks in the NICU. That was how long I had been sleeping in a chair upright, eating vending machine food and drinking bad coffee, or eating nothing at all. That was how long I stared at my baby inside of what looked like a plastic cage as he breathed through a machine, ate through a tube, and made little to no noise.
But he was still alive and getting stronger every day. That was what they told me, the nurses and doctors who I hounded upwards of twenty times a day with questions. My dad was in and out while running the company I abandoned for Christopher. I was taking a leave of absence, and I honestly didn’t care what happened one way or another to the company I had previously given my whole life to. Nothing mattered but Christopher.
“Do you want to hold him?” the nurse asked me as I paced around the incubator, singing softly to him so he could hear my voice.
I bobbed my head vigorously. The last week, we were taking him out of the incubator intermittently to be held and cuddled. They told me it would help him with breathing on his own and with getting stronger. I approached where she stood anxiously, as I did every time they took him from the incubator, my arms stretched out to receive my almost two pound bundle.
The nurse placed him in my arms, of which I only needed one to hold him with. He seemed fragile, breakable, like if I ma
de a wrong move, he would shatter to pieces and take my heart with him. Shifting him gingerly in my arm, I sat down in the chair that had become my new home, resuming cooing and singing to Christopher as he lay tangled in tubes and wires.
We sat like this for a long time, me losing track of time as I rocked gently and Christopher sleeping. He slept a lot but they assured me all of the sleep was necessary for him to grow and develop the way he couldn’t by being born so early.
“Miss Livingston, you have a visitor.” A nurse broke into my rambling thoughts, my rambling words, and my gentle tears. She spoke softly but it still startled me.
“Tell my dad to just come in,” I said.
“It’s not your dad,” the nurse said.
I pushed back my curtain of unwashed and greasy hair that was covering my face as I huddled over Christopher and looked up at her with shock. Who could it be? We had no other visitors. Ever. It was just Dad and me, no one else. Carla came in once or twice but I asked her not to. It was easier this way.
“Who is it?” But I didn’t have to wait for an answer because he was standing behind the nurse when I looked up.
Rhys.
“Hey, Nat,” he said, the nickname sounding too familiar and too intimate coming from someone I barely knew.
“What are you doing here?” I was aware of how invasive my high-pitched response sounded in the room of muffled and whispered voices.
An emotion like regret flashed in his eyes and he took a step back as the nurse moved around him, aware we didn’t need an audience for whatever was going to transpire. I hadn’t meant to sound rude, but Rhys Beckett was the absolute last person I had ever thought I would see again, even though he did call me two weeks ago. But I was in a funk after Christopher was born and had almost forgotten about that call. Almost.
One Song: book two in the one series Page 10