“Brad.” I folded my notebook closed. “Thank you for that text. It was...it saved my life.”
“I’m sure you’re exaggerating.” He unwrapped his toast. “You’re off the hook for dinner, you know. But I hope we can still be friends?”
“Of course. And you still need to yell at me for what I did.”
“I’ll give you an earful.” He bit the toast, wrinkled his nose and went for the yogurt. “What are you doing here?”
“Margie said she’d text me when he got out.” I looked at my phone, checking to make sure it was on for the hundredth time.
“How long has it been?”
“Six hours, give or take.”
He stirred his yogurt slowly. “That’s long.”
I took a second to absorb what he said, then snapped up my phone and texted Margie.
—any word?—
“If she forgot to text me I’m going to beat her senseless,” I said more to myself than Brad.
A text shot back immediately.
—Dr came out an hour ago. Issues with the aortic valve. Bad—
“Fuck.”
I didn’t say good-bye to Brad.
CHAPTER 48.
MONICA
That f**king waiting room, same as every other I’d seen when they wheeled him from unit to unit. As I exited the elevator I realized what a home they had become, with their greyed colors and worn seats. And I knew that no matter what happened, it would likely be the last day I spent in a waiting room, worrying about Jonathan.
They were all there, like a red-haired baseball team. Even Fiona had stopped blowing by long enough to hold her mother’s hand. They looked at me, eyes shaded from green to blue and back, and I stood by Margie’s seat.
“Sorry I didn’t text you,” she said. “I have other things.”
“Don’t worry about it. Did you hear about Jessica?”
“Yeah.” She waved it away as if she couldn’t care less. Her mouth was tight and she looked drawn and panicked. I never thought I’d see Margie this flustered.
Next to her, Deirdre stood.
They all stood, and looked at a set of swinging doors. Through the window, I saw an older doctor with silver hair take his cap off and pull his mask down. He turned to another doctor, a woman, and opened the swinging doors.
Another followed. An Asian man, snapping his gloves off.
Three of them. One. Two. Three.
They came to us, and the older doctor put his hand on the woman’s shoulder in a gesture of what? Condolences? Professional commiseration? And when the Asian guy cleared his throat? What was that? Gathering strength?
Hope dropped out of me an flowed down an emotional drain, leaving a black despair in its wake.
Shit.
Three doctors. If one took a blow, the other held the family member, one sister, down, and the third called security.
Wasn’t that how it was?
I glanced at Declan, and he must have seen the panic on my face, because he smiled. And then I became that sister.
CHAPTER 49.
CHAPTER 50.
---TWO YEARS LATER---
CHAPTER 51.
MONICA
The crowd wasn’t for me tonight. There was a relief in that. No pressure. I fluffed my dress and tucked my hair into place, fixing the web of pins and curls. The lights on either side of the mirror washed my face out, but I noticed it was rounder, healthier, happier than even that morning.
The dressing room at the Wiltern Theater wasn’t the cleanest I’d been in the previous months, hardly the most glamorous. The table was new, but had the same half-eaten fast food crap that I’d known musicians to eat my whole life. The couch was worn but not ripped, the mirror was clean, the counter had been wiped and replaced some time in the last decade, but I wasn’t there for a dressing room.
Darren blew in, sweating and panting.
“What the f**k?” I shouted. “You’re in the middle of a show!”
“We’re between sets. I had to make sure you were here.” He grabbed a fingertip pinch’s worth of French fries and stuffed them in his mouth.
“I’m here. I’ll be out to do your encore with you then I’m outtie.”
“Is that what you’re wearing?” He pointed to my wedding dress, a sleeveless silk/satin that hugged me on top, and went wild on the bottom, folding in on itself in twenty yards of lace and shine.
“It’s dramatic. Everyone knows I got married today. When I get up on that stage—”
“They’ll think you’re nuts for doing a song between your reception and your honeymoon.”
“I am. And I love you. It’ll be a show that lives in infamy. Get out.”
“You’re husband’s roaming around the halls looking for you.”
“Get out!”
He grabbed his burger and kissed my cheek before slipping out. The door didn’t click closed completely, and I rolled my eyes. Boys, even the sweet, bisexual ones were careless.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
My name is Monica. I stand almost six feet tall. I walk like an ocean wave and I sing like a storm. My voice is a force of it’s own, and I let it loose like a hurricane. I am safe. I own what I make. I am a creator. I am an artist.
(My name is Monica. My life is complete and as it should be. Everything I experience, I own. It is mine to keep or give away or use as I see fit. Nothing is outside my purview. This all goes into the music. I am powerless to stop myself from being myself. I am a lion. I am the sea. I am a star in the sky. I am an artist.)
I felt movement behind me, and knew from the scent it was my husband. He put his hands on my neck, where every nerve ending in my body was now located, following his touch as he stroked me, like the little magnet shavings under plastic I’d played with as a kid. When the pen moved, the shavings moved, and I arched my neck to feel more of him.
He kissed me at the base of my neck. His lips were full and soft, more than lips; they were the physical manifestation of every taste of longing, every tingle of desire, every scorch of ambition.
“We said we weren’t going to do this until we were out of the country.”
“Do what, Goddess?” I groaned in response, opening my eyes to watch him caress my neck and shoulder with his mouth. “No one knew where you were until I asked for Monica Faulkner.”
“You have to give the name change a little time.” It was a lame excuse. The fact was, I’d been too busy touring, recording, and taking interviews to do simple tasks, like changing my name as I’d promised. I could have done it any time, and he knew it. We were married in the eyes of the law, but to us and the world, today was the day. Now came the name change. Now we called each other husband and wife in public.