The place I was, the way I was living, was so far from how I lived before Christopher was born, I didn’t even recognize the woman I was two months ago. I wasn’t sure if I felt like a shell of a person because I was scared for the life of my son or because I didn’t know who I was or what my place was anymore.
“You look like hell, Nat. I mean that with love,” Dad said as he sat in the chair next to me, the one that had become his chair.
“Thanks. I guess. But I’m not leaving.”
He nodded, patting my arm. “Okay then. Rest your eyes and I’ll watch Christopher.”
I closed my eyes again, relieved to have the respite, even if only for a moment. All these years, and I never knew my father was capable of this level of care. In his defense, I never asked him for anything beyond the money to pay for my education and to take over his company. But besides last month, when Rhys sat with me for the day, and the sporadic visits from Carla, my dad had been here every day, when he didn’t have to be at the office taking back all the duties I resigned for now. Or maybe forever. I hadn’t decided yet.
I thought about Rhys again, despite my best efforts to push him from my brain. There was no space left for him or regret, only Christopher. This was what I had to remember. This was what kept me going, keeping me from falling apart into a million tiny pieces. But I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a small part of me, the part that made the choice to have sex in an alley with a stranger, that wished I could reach out to Rhys and tell him about Christopher. The whole truth.
My mind was racing through the exhaustion, making it hard for me to doze off again, and frustration gripped my chest for a moment. But only for a moment. I wasn’t allowed to be frustrated. If I was able to still be pregnant with Christopher, if I could have carried him to term and not watch as he struggled to get stronger, to breathe and live one more day, I would be allowed to be frustrated. We didn’t have the luxury—I didn’t have that luxury.
Because of me, he was in this incubator. Even though the doctor told me there was no reason for his early delivery, I knew it was my fault. It was my karma. And I wasn’t allowed to complain about being sleep-deprived or frustrated or hungry. I was only allowed to wait, agony in my chest at the thought of losing him, until we could finally go home from this place.
“Do you want something to eat?” My father’s voice once again broke through the fog of sleeplessness and deep thought.
“Maybe just some coffee?” I said it as a question.
“You have to eat, Natalie.” He was back to his commanding dad voice.
I shook my head again, refusing anything for the millionth time. “I’m not allowed to eat in here. I’m not leaving.”
Worry and fatigue lined his eyes, making him look much older than his fifty-five years. I think Christopher’s early birth aged the both of us at least five years already in the last two months.
“Fine. I’ll bring you a coffee, but if you keep drinking coffee like this, you’ll never sleep.” Dad stood, brushing invisible lint from his slacks, and walked slowly towards the entrance to our little room.
“That’s the point. If I don’t sleep, I won’t miss anything,” I said softly, almost afraid to admit my biggest fear.
Dad sighed, turning back to me, the worry and strain in his eyes magnified. “When your mother was dying from cancer, I never left her side. I was afraid if I did, she would think I abandoned her, that I would miss a last word, her last breath. I was afraid she would leave me before I was ready for her to. I see you doing this with Christopher, the fear of losing any small moment because you’re afraid he won’t ever leave this hospital. But I want you to know that he’s a fighter. Your tiny boy is getting stronger every day. They didn’t think he’d make it through his first night and yet here he is, two months later. Instead of waiting for the end, look towards the future. We didn’t have that with your mother, but we have that with him. I can feel it.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks at his words and I batted them away with the back of my hand. Nodding, I swallowed around the large lump that had taken permanent residence in my throat and tried to clear it out to speak. But my dad held up his hand.
“I know, Natty. Rest your eyes and I’ll be back with some coffee.” He turned again and walked from the room.
I buried my face in my hands, silently sobbing because his words went deeper than he realized. How could you lose two of the most important people in your life? It didn’t seem fair. Christopher had to make it out of the NICU because if I lost him too, I wasn’t sure where I would be able to go from here.
* * *
There was no concept of night or day in the NICU. The lights were always muted, the voices always hushed, the days long as they ran into a night that wasn’t visible in the tiny cubicles. I knew it was after nine o’clock because I looked at my phone twenty minutes ago, but beyond that, I had no idea if it was cold, warm, raining, or snowing. The only thing I knew was loneliness. A loneliness so oppressive it made me feel heavy, made it hard for me to take a breath.
Seeing the other families, husbands and wives, partners, standing vigil over their babies was a constant reminder of how alone I was. Just Christopher and me. It helped when my dad came to visit but it wasn’t the same. He cared about Christopher, but he was here as my dad. He came here to watch out for me as I watched out for my child. I had no one to watch Christopher with. No one to share my fears or my worries with. Just me.
An overwhelming need to speak with Rhys wrapped around me like a vise, squeezing what little breath I felt I had left out of me until I was panting. Before I could even focus on what I was about to do, I realized I had my phone in my hand and was searching for his number in my contacts. Sleeplessness, no food, and the general fog of not knowing what day it was, or whether I was coming or going, must have muddled my brain because the next thing I knew, I had the ringing phone to my ear as I waited for it to connect.
“Natalie? Is everything all right?” Rhys’s voice over the phone line was like a beacon of light in the night and when I heard it, I broke down. I couldn’t speak around my sobs, couldn’t hear what he was saying, though I heard the fear in his voice. This was a bad idea and yet I couldn’t have stopped myself if I wanted to.
“Natalie, are you all right?” Rhys practically screamed into the phone.
I snapped out of my breakdown, clearing my throat around the tears that still clogged it. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I croaked the words out, my voice still wobbling.
“What’s going on? Is the baby okay? Where are you?” He fired questions at me faster than my sleep-deprived brain could grasp them.
“I’m at the hospital. Christopher is okay for now.” I wanted to say more, to tell him the truth. I suddenly had to tell him because it was weighing on my chest, adding to the oppression I felt every night and day alone in this room.
“I have to tell you something,” I finally managed to say.
“What? What’s going on? You’re scaring me.” Rhys’s voice was high-pitched with worry and before I could chicken out, I took a deep breath to spit the truth out for good.
“Christopher is yours. He’s your baby. I’ve been lying to you. But he’s yours, Rhys. He’s always been yours.”
The other line was silent, and it was at that moment I realized there had been so much commotion on the line before that Rhys must have been out somewhere. But now there was silence, an ominous silence that made me check the phone to see if the call was still connected.
“What?” He said it so quietly I thought I imagined his response.
“Christopher is yours,” I said again, my voice louder and surer. It was a terrible thing to reveal to someone on the phone at night, someone who was thousands of miles away, but I was never known for delivering information in a way that softened the blow.
“Why are you telling me this now? Why didn’t you tell me when I was there last month?” Anger and disappointment flowed through the phone line at his words.
I s
hook my head though he couldn’t see me. “I don’t know. I’m so sorry, Rhys. I’m sorry for calling you out of the blue like this, and I’m sorry for keeping it from you for so long. I was scared. I’m still scared.” The admission was hard for me, but it was out there now.
“Jesus,” he muttered, and I could tell he pulled the phone away from his face for a minute. “I’m coming out there.”
“No, no. Don’t do that. I don’t want you to do that. Your album, everything. No.” I was shaking my head again as I spoke, my words making no sense.
“I’m not asking you, Natalie. I’ll be there tomorrow.” The line went dead after he made the last declaration, and I was left staring at the phone in disbelief.
What else had I expected to happen?
18
Rhys
“I have to go,” I shouted over the din in the club, unable to hear my own words and hoping my bandmates heard them.
“What?” Nathan screamed back at me as Rob and Todd looked at me blankly.
“I have to leave. Now,” I said it louder, closer to their faces.
“Why? What happened? We’re supposed to play in fifteen minutes.” Todd gestured emphatically towards the stage with his hands, and the other two gave me dirty looks.
I couldn’t leave my guys in the lurch, but I couldn’t spend another moment away from Natalie and Christopher. Not after her revelation. Christopher was mine and here I was, in a club, playing on the road, while he lay in that incubator, small and struggling. What the hell was I doing? He needed me. Natalie needed me. I felt like such an asshole.
“I can’t play tonight. I have to go to New York.” I shook my head like a maniac.
“What the fuck, man?! New York?” Nathan grabbed my arm and waved for the other two guys to follow as he dragged me away from the crowd and noise, into the back room where we had our things. “You have to be fucking joking me right now. How the hell are we going to play if you aren’t here?”
“What the fuck is all of this about? What’s going on in New York?” Rob spat out.
I didn’t blame them because if the situation was reversed, I would be just as pissed. But how was I going to explain to them the anguish I felt at Natalie’s confession? How could I tell them what it felt like to suddenly realize everything you wanted wasn’t what you had right in front of you, but thousands of miles away in a little plastic bed, fighting for his life?
“I, look, I have a lot to explain, but I don’t think I have the time right now.” I ran my hands through my hair as I spoke frantically. I was suppressing the urge to run from the building and straight to the airport.
“Well, you’re gonna have to try because we aren’t letting you leave without some explaining,” Nathan said, and pointed towards the couch.
After two months, I could spare fifteen minutes for the guys who built this career with me. I owed it to them, I knew that, but it would have to be quick because my heart and mind were already in New York.
I flopped onto the couch, my leg bouncing nervously, as I perched on the edge. “You remember last summer, our show at the Garden?” I looked around to see the confirmation on their faces before I continued. “After the show, I had sex with Natalie Livingston, in the alley behind the building.” I waited for their noises of shock to subside before continuing. I laid everything on the table, about the baby, our encounters since then, and everything she said to me on the phone tonight.
“How do you know she’s not lying now? How can you be sure she isn’t just trying to use you, like she used this ex-husband of hers? Maybe she needs money?” Nathan asked, voicing the things I knew they were all thinking.
“No, she isn’t lying. She was lying before but she isn’t now. Natalie’s father is one of the richest men in Manhattan. She doesn’t need money and she doesn’t have any reason to tell me about Christopher. This will ruin her, that’s why she pretended the baby was her ex-husband’s. That’s why she waited so long to tell me.” The explanation made sense as it came out of my mouth, but it didn’t reduce the ache in my chest knowing she lied to my face every time we were together.
“We go on stage in less than ten minutes, Rhys. You can’t leave now. Play the set and then take off. I’ll cancel the rest of the shows for the next month.” Nathan had calmed down considerably, and I knew what he said made sense.
I let his words sink in for a moment. He was offering to cancel the rest of our release tour so I could be with Natalie and the baby. My baby.
“Are you sure?” I had to double-check to be sure. They would be putting their careers on hold for me.
The three of them nodded in unison and the brotherly love I felt for these guys increased. “Your son is more important than our tour. If we need to, we can even reschedule some show dates for the East Coast so that you can be there.”
My son.
The room was suddenly spinning, and my heart was pounding. One minute, I was a guitarist and lead singer for a band on the rise and the next, I was a father. None of this felt real. But no matter how much I wanted to pretend like it wasn’t true, on some level wishing my life was simple again, I had to admit it felt good to have something, someone, to hold on to for once. For so long, I felt like a loner, despite my relationship with my bandmates, and now, even though I wasn’t sure if Natalie wanted me, I had a son. The thought was monumental, and I was ready to move mountains to get to him.
“I really appreciate this,” I started. We all stood to make the show time even though my mind was already on its way to New York.
Rob waved his hand to dismiss it. “This is your kid, bruh. We get it, even if we don’t have kids yet. Besides, we already did our national tour; this was just a little something extra to sell more records.”
We headed out to the stage without speaking to each other. I could tell my news sobered the mood, which is usually hyped before a show. But we rocked the house anyway, playing as many songs from our new album as possible, as well as a few of our old songs. The crowd was great, cheering and demanding an encore when we’d finished. The guys looked to me to see if it was all right to play one more and I gave them a slight nod. One more song wouldn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things ,and they were putting everything on hold for me.
After we finished the encores and dismantled all our equipment, the guys and I carried our instruments out back to where the van was waiting. My phone buzzed with an update for my flight info, which was leaving in about an hour, as well as notification my Uber had arrived. I looked between my bandmates with a feeling of guilt pressing against my chest.
“We’re good, man. Go. I’ll give you an update about everything later.” Nate spoke for all of them but the other two nodded their agreement.
I gave each of them a handshake and slap on the back before turning to leave. The whole way there, I pictured Natalie in that tiny room with the baby, his breathing labored and forced from the ventilator, and an ache developed in my chest. The ache morphed into anger over time as I sat and stewed on the flight. How could she keep this from me? What if I never found out and Christopher didn’t make it? What if I never got to know him at all before he was gone from this world? The ache came back, making me double over in my seat for a moment.
How could she have done this to me? How could she have kept Christopher from me for all this time?
It felt like the four-hour flight took days, and when I finally landed, I rushed into my second Uber, urging him to speed through the city to get to the hospital. I had so much to say to Natalie, all of it bubbling to the surface during the ride to the hospital. It was building in my chest like a belch, ready to explode the moment I saw her.
Though it was almost midnight, the city was bustling, even in the cold weather with snow flurries floating around to decrease visibility. But none of it registered. Not the leftover holiday lighting that still lingered in shop windows and hanging off balconies nor the laughter or glee from those who were spending time with friends and family, because my brain had one sole focus�
��getting to Christopher.
When the car stopped at the curb in front of the hospital, I grabbed my bag and hopped out, and practically ran inside. It was as if the last few hours, the concert and everything in between, hadn’t occurred. Natalie’s voice on the phone haunted me as I rushed to the elevator, rode it up with butterflies in my stomach, and exited on the NICU floor. The enormity of having a child, a son, had barely sank in because that child was fighting for his life. How could I be afraid to be a father when I wasn’t even sure if the baby who made me one would live long enough for me to even experience any of it.
The weight of those implications pressed down on me as I slowed my speed to a stroll and entered the area where Christopher’s incubator was. A soft light emanated from the tiny cubicle and I could make out Natalie’s form hunched over in the chair. Nerves suddenly gripped me and I paused, unable to move forward right away. What would I say to her when I went in there? I was suddenly at a loss after everything that was running through my mind on the plane and Uber ride. I couldn’t stand out here for much longer because I was drawing stares from the other parents.
Taking a deep breath, I crept forward, like I was approaching a spooked animal, until I was fully inside the cubicle.
“Natalie,” I whispered, as softly as possible so as not to startle her.
“Rhys?” She said my name as a question, turning in her seat.
Her sable-colored hair was scraped back into a messy bun on top of her head, a few greasy strands escaping to frame her face. The sweatshirt she wore was limp and stained, coffee decorating the front in a long line all the way to the hem. Under that, she wore long black leggings, which disappeared into a pair of Ugg boots that were so worn they had to be at least ten years old. But, despite the state of her unkempt clothing and her unwashed hair, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
One Song: book two in the one series Page 12