Kevin shook his head, resting his arms on the table around his empty plate. “It doesn’t feel like that, Bri. It’s not like…every other time. I mean, come on, we came back after 18 months non-stop and I didn’t feel like this. I just, I don’t know, maybe I just need more down time. After these last few months – with everything that’s been going on – maybe I just need to evaluate things.” He folded his hands together, lifting them up to rest his chin down on them. “I’m not feelin’ it.”
“You’re not gonna feel like a lot of things for a while, are you?” Brian asked. “Is something like this something you want to decide right now? Don’t go makin’ any big decisions. It’s gonna freak you out, but you’ll –“
“Don’t say I’ll get over it,” Kevin interrupted sternly, lifting his head from his hands. “Just – don’t.”
“Kev, I’m not makin’ light of it, honest, but eventually, you’re gonna have to. You got a long way to go.”
Kevin sat back and crossed his arms. “I don’t know if I want to keep doing this. It’s been thirteen years, and honestly, what do we have to show for it? What life do we have to show for it? We missed out on family, friends. We’ve missed holidays, and birthdays, and anniversaries. We’ve missed sleeping in Sunday mornings and mowing the dang lawn. Friends, and barbeques and –“
“And look who you’re talking to.” Brian cocked his head to the side. “Like I haven’t been there myself? And you haven’t sat in that very same spot and said ‘but look what we had instead.’ I’m not sayin’ it’s been a party every night either, but you can’t just ignore everything we have accomplished.”
“Accomplished? Brian, what have we accomplished? What have we done?”
“No. I’m not gonna let you do this, Kev. I’m not gonna sit here and let you say we haven’t done anything.”
“I don’t mean it that way, but, come on, Bri. We’ve missed a lot and when you look at it all – and I mean really look back at it all –“
“You are so not ready to be makin’ these decisions, Kevin.” Brian shook his head slowly. “Don’t. You’re in no place right now.”
“Maybe I’m more ready than I’ve ever been,” Kevin countered. “Maybe I’m finally seeing the real picture.”
“You’re seeing fear,” Brian answered him firmly. “And while you’re in this frame of mind, I’m not accepting any decision you make. And I’m telling the rest of the guys to do the same thing.”
Kevin evened his eyes on Brian and exhaled deeply, barely lifting a shoulder almost casually. “You do what you have to, and I’ll do the same.”
~###~
Kevin exhaled before bursting into laughter and knocking into Nick with his shoulder. The room began to feel lighter around him and he felt as if he could breathe lighter. Everything looked crisp and he dropped back into the chair lazily still chuckling. “It went good tonight, didn’t it?” he asked noticing Nick’s eyes get redder and his laughter get louder.
“Ah, I messed up at one point, but Brian caught it – got me back. I messed up somewhere else, and AJ found it. I was all over the place.”
“Yeah, and everyone noticed so much.” Kevin rolled his eyes and pushed himself up. “We should get to the bus though before they take off without us.”
“You just want to go sleep, admit it,” Nick said pushing the back of Kevin’s shoulder as he followed him out. “You’re an old man, now, right?”
“I’m a wasted man, now, alright? And it just about takes this to get me tired enough to ignore Alex’s babbling for the next five hours.”
“Dude, what’d you do with our Kevin and when do we get him back?”
“Ah, shaddap.” Kevin reached up and pulled Nick into a headlock with a laugh, stumbling slightly against the wall in the hallway. “You don’t want him back, anyway, so what’re you complainin’ ‘bout?”
~###~
Dude, what’d you do with our Kevin and when do we get him back?
Kevin laid in the bunk, trying to fit in the space and find comfort. He could hear Brian on the phone with LeighAnne and closed his eyes, wondering if just listening to their prayers covered for him making any of his own. He could already hear Nick snoring and the TV on low as the bus rocked them slightly as it rumbled on to the next city.
When do we get him back?
He didn’t really want him back. He knew that. It’d be the same as asking Nick when he’d get his littlest brother back – and it wasn’t going to happen. His littlest brother wasn’t 13 years old anymore wondering what was happening to his voice, and why his legs ached so much with his growth spurts.
No, he wasn’t coming back as much as this other Kevin wasn’t. Too much has happened, hadn’t it? He was determined to make this tour the best one yet. Who cared about reviewers and critics and awards…this tour was theirs. They were taking their time, doing what they wanted to do, meeting more of the people that gave them the life they had. He wanted to enjoy the time they had together – the five of them on the bus, laughing and singing and getting to know who the other one was again, discovering that they became pretty cool guys in spite of what the industry tried to do to them along the way.
Even AJ – Alex – whatever he wanted to call himself – was becoming a pretty decent guy, probably doing the most growing up in the past five years than all of them combined over the last thirteen. He could see him watching the world around him and making the tough decisions instead of trying to hide from them. He could also see him embracing the things that just make him happy instead of the things he should do to make everyone else happy. That alone is one of the hardest lessons to learn, much less live.
Which brought him back to the decisions circling through his head. When do we get him back? Well, Nick, you’re not getting him back, probably not this one either when this is over. Make it worthwhile, now. Make it what it should be. Leave on a high point, right? Leave while you’re all family without any unanswered questions or reasons for them to doubt your choice.
He admitted looking at those faces each night can still be addicting. Hearing those screams, the applause, and the audience singing along. They still wanted more, but he didn’t – couldn’t – give more. He needed something else now, needed to be with his family, work on his marriage, work on what he wanted. After a year of doctors and tests and hospital visits, this wasn’t – couldn’t – be the only thing his life was about. There had to be more. There had to be a deeper kind of happiness than what he had.
He still couldn’t get off the stage and not balance the sound of the audience to the tiny whisper of his wife’s voice over a cell phone. ‘We lost the baby.’ No audience would ever drown out that pain. And where was he while his wife was in such pain? Nowhere near her. No chance of being close to her for at least a day – regardless of whether or not he left that very second, within the hour, or waited – it all came down to one very simple fact: he wasn’t there. He simply wasn’t there and had no way to get there when she needed him the most.
“No, Kevin,” she said adamantly. “I’m not going to do this without you. I don’t want to be on the road, or following you around to different studios, or fit into some kind of schedule, or be your tag-along wife. I want a marriage. I want to come home to my husband more than not. I want to have conversations with my husband over dinner, not from an ocean away, over a cell phone. I want to kiss my husband goodnight and wake up in the morning knowing he’s going to be there. Knowing, at the very least, that he’ll be there again that night to hold me in his arms after we make love. I don’t want this to be the kind of marriage we have anymore. I don’t. And I am certainly not going to try to bring another baby into it the way it is now.”
At that very moment, life as he knew it stopped for a second time, tears in her eyes, watching him with such hope. Watching, and waiting again, for him to choose her. The words ‘we lost the baby’ silently hanging between them. He wasn’t going to have a life without her in it. That wasn’t an option, but he had to evaluate all the others before him. He had to look at what was behind him, standing right in front of him, and more importantly, look at the things that he wasn’t there for along the way while everyone around him supported his choices. When was it time to support theirs and be around long enough to be any kind support, or comfort, or even friend?
All around him it turned quiet, but he still couldn’t get his mind to stop. Pushing the thick curtain aside, he slid out of the bunk to find AJ sitting in the front cabin, flipping through a magazine.
“I thought it was virtually impossible to do what you did and not sleep,” he teased as Kevin settled at the little table and began rummaging through the fridge.
“It wasn’t all that much, Al,” he said, feeling a slight pang of guilt. Shouldn’t he be more supportive? He looked at the bemused look on AJ’s face and took a bite of cold pizza. Didn’t bug Alex in the least.
“I still thought it was virtually impossible to be awake. It knocks Nicky right out.” He bit into the pizza again quietly thinking ‘Nicky isn’t thinking about leaving them or leaving his wife behind.’ “Wow, there’s something going on in your head,” AJ said. “That’s quite a look I just got.”
“I’m just tired and my head won’t turn off, that’s all.”
AJ closed the magazine and looked closer at him. “You’re feeling okay?”
“Fine,” Kevin assured with a nod, finishing off the slice of pizza. “Just wound up, is all, just like you or you’d be asleep too.”
“I was going to finish this article on Pearl Jam and head in,” he said. “And Kev? You’re thinking too much again.”
“Am I?” he asked, cracking a smile but AJ didn’t return it.
“You haven’t said anything in a while, you know. About what happened…how you’re doing.”
Kevin shrugged and started in on another piece of pizza. “I’m fine.”
“I know that’s crap because of that look you gave me just a few seconds ago,” he said. “That’s what’s on your mind, isn’t it?”
“Partly,” he chewed. “It’s also finishing a 90 minute show and having an adrenaline spike.”
“I heard partly,” AJ said. “What’s up?”
“Nothing, Al. What can be? It is what it is. I can’t change it, or fix it, or make it un-happen.”
“But you’re still trying to figure out how.”
Kevin dropped the pizza to the box and looked at him directly. “I’m not trying to figure out how to un-do it. I’m trying to figure out how I can make sure I’m there the next time someone needs me.” He lowered his eyes and picked up the pizza, “And I need them,” he added quietly.
“Kev, even if you were in the next room over, you would still be where you are now. She’s not angry at you for not being there. She’s angry because it happened.”
“She’s angry at a lot of things that happened. But most of all, Alex, I’m never going to get the sound of her voice out of my head.”
AJ shook his head and closed his eyes briefly. “Yeah you will. And you know how I know? Because I don’t hear your voice in my head anymore. And trust me, yours was a lot louder.”
Kevin felt the tears in his eyes and slowly shook his head in return. “No, Alex, it will never be louder than that whisper. Nothing will.” He slid out of the bench and lifted his hand – partly saying goodnight, partly not to have the rest of the conversation.
“It won’t be like that when you forgive yourself,” AJ continued. “And you never will if you don’t open up and talk about it.”
“Goodnight.” He half smiled to him and stepped back down the narrow hallway to the small, cramped bunk. When AJ followed and whispered a quiet ‘sorry, Kev,’ he never wished for walls more. Instead, he just let the tears slide down onto his pillow silently.
~###~
Twisted in the blanket, he could hear the rest of the guys waking up. The TV was on, some laugh track in the background. Maybe it was Seinfeld. He could hear plates clanking, and the last guttural sounds of the coffee maker. Sounds of home are transportable, too. Nicky and Howie giggled quietly and interrupting it was the sound of his cell phone.
He scrambled through the pockets of the jeans he was wearing, still trying to kick the blankets off. It was hot and sticky and he could feel a trickle of sweat slip down his back as he answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Kevin?” Her voice was soft and low, childlike. “We lost the baby.”
He sat up, twisted in the blanket, feeling the sweat trickle, but listened only to the snores and rumble of the bus. He kicked the blankets down and dropped heavily back onto the mattress with a heavy sigh, rubbing his hands over his face roughly. “Thanks, Alex,” he muttered and exhaled deeply.
Since the phone was in his hand, he hit the button and listened to the ringing.
‘Hi, I can’t take your call right now, but leave me a message and I’ll call you right back!’
“Hi, Baby,” he said, listening to the grogginess of his own voice, “just calling…thinking of you. Love you. ‘Night.”
When he clicked off, he checked his messages. “Hi, Baby…you’re performing right now and I know it’s going great. I love you. Oh, and, Kev? When you get this? Go to sleep.” She giggled and Kevin smiled at the sound. That sound is what he needed to hear before closing his eyes. He could sleep to that sound.
~###~