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 believe 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.