Sometimes It Rains

That whole night went by in a blur; there’s very little I actually remember. Snippets of things, like those monitors wailing. That blinking red light. Her hand reaching for me. I remember her eyes, too, although I wish I could forget that. God, she was so afraid. She was terrified, and I couldn’t be with her. They took me away. In her hour of need, I couldn’t be with her. The woman I loved with my entire soul died when I wasn’t there to hold her.

I remember holding my son in my arms. I was sitting in the nursery, clutching him to my chest, telling myself that if I just held him tight enough, Tasha would pull through. How I made that connection I couldn’t tell you, but I firmly believed I could keep her alive by holding onto that child. When a doctor finally came in, the look in his eyes was all I needed. I don’t remember what he said. I don’t care. My wife was dead. No words he could possibly have said would have been enough for that.

My mom was there. I’d called her when Tasha had gone into labor. By the time she’d gotten there though, it was too late. How much time went by between It and her arrival I didn’t know. It could have been two hours, or it could have been fifteen minutes. Whatever it was, her arms were there all the sudden and I gave up trying to be brave. Even growing up, I’d always felt like I had to be the strong one. I took care of Mom as much as she took care of me. It was only on rare occasions that I let myself go to pieces in front of her, because I’d always wanted her to know that whenever she needed me I was a pillar she could count on. But this time, when her arms went around me and my newborn son, I just lost it. It was like I was the infant, and she was cradling me in her embrace, instead of my son.

Once again, I don’t know for how long. My whole sense of time That Night is pretty skewed; as far as I was concerned it lasted a year. I do know that at one point, she touched the baby’s cheek with the tenderness of a mother, smiling as she whispered to me.

“He’s beautiful, Alex.”

I wept until I was dry. But then I regretted it, because all that was left was nothing. I was empty. I couldn’t seem to function. Mom took care of whatever needed taking care of. Howie too. He’d gotten there at some point, and he looked like shit. I tried not to think about what I looked like, because I know I must have looked a hell of a lot worse.

Howie was the one who took me home, I think. Yes, it was definitely him. I remember the sound of his voice in the car. Mom promised she would get there as soon as she could, but she’d wanted to get me out of there. Truthfully, I don’t know how much longer I could have lasted anyway. I asked about my son on the way out, and Howie placed a hand firmly on my shoulder and told me that he was staying at the hospital that night, and not to worry.

“We’ll come back tomorrow and see him,” he softly, though he sounded like he was choking.

“I don’t want to come back here,” I told him. “I can’t.”

“Yes you can,” he assured me quietly. “I’m coming with you, and so is Denise. We’ll both be there.”

I couldn’t say anything else. If I did, I don’t remember.

The car ride back home is another mystery to me. Howie talked a lot I know, because I remember the sound of his voice. Most people tend to be very quiet during something like this, but not him. His mouth just runs away from him. I think it’s so he doesn’t really have to think about what’s happened. Like the call I got from him when his sister died. He just started babbling, and that’s how I knew it was bad. The four of us did the best we could to get the Mexico gig cancelled, but that was back when management was a bitch, so no dice. He was in the airport about to get on the plane three hours after the fucking funeral. That was bad. He called me up, and I think I stayed on the phone with him up until the flight attendant made him shut the phone off on the flight out of Raleigh, and as soon as he was in the air he called me from the AirFone. The four of us talked to him the entire flight. We didn’t question it; we just did it.

It used to be that whenever he went on one of his chattering rampages I wanted to stick in a pair of earplugs or yell at him to shut up. But not anymore. I swear, I think the sound of his voice is the only reason I made it home. It was familiar, and comforting in an odd sort of way.

“I should…I should call people. Or something,” I said at one point. We were sitting at my kitchen table, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of the note she’d stuck on the refrigerator, reminding me about my dentist appointment, of all things. Tuesday at 2:00. Somehow I didn’t think I was going to make it to that one.

“Don’t worry about it,” Howie told me. “I’ll take care of it.”

“No…no. I just need my, um address book. She wrote down all of our numbers in there. I just need to find it. She keeps it somewhere…I don’t-”

“No, Alex,” Howie said firmly. “Not now. I’ll do it. Please. You should try and get some sleep or something. It’s late. Early. Whatever.”

I ignored his suggestion, and instead concentrated on her handwriting, the loop of her y, the curve of her p. Somehow though, him telling me to go to sleep seemed to hit me. Everything seemed to just hit me. “Howie?” My voice wavered. I hated that my voice wavered.

“Yeah,” Howie said quickly, reaching over the table and putting his hand on mine.

“I…I just…I mean,” I started to stutter, and then I started to come unglued. Howie was out of his seat and at my side in a flash.

“Hey,” he murmured. “I’m right here. You got that? I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

I latched on to his arm, cradling it as I rested my chin on my fists. Each breath felt like I was choking. I slowly became aware of Howie’s free hand rubbing my back, and I noticed he was talking again. Low and soothing, saying whatever came to his mind. I closed my eyes and just let myself listen until I calmed down a little. When I released his arm he backed away and sat down, angling his chair so that he was facing me.

“Your mom will be here soon. We’ll get you through this, okay?”

I nodded vaguely. “I’m a dad, Howie,” I said dully.

“Yeah,” he said, smiling a little. “You are.”

“I don’t know how to be a dad. Not…not by myself.”

“You’ll be fine,” he said gently. “You know more than you think. And surely you picked up a trick or two from Kevin along the way. Lord knows he had the parent thing down after dealing with us for just a couple of months.”

I laughed hollowly. “Yeah.” I ran a shaking hand through my hair. “Yeah.”

Sometime later my mom got there, and the three of us sat there at the table. When Howie couldn’t take it, they started talking. The rest of the time they were silent. I can’t say I said much of anything. Several times they tried to get me to go to bed, but sleep just didn’t seem important. Not much of anything seemed important.

Dawn came, hazy gray melting into blue, and they were still there. I think I told them a few times to go home, at least I hope I did, but they didn’t listen to me. I suppose it’s only fair, me not sleeping when they told me to and all. Howie went out to pick up breakfast, but I didn’t eat any of it. I felt kind of bad, because he went out of his way to bring me McDonalds. All these years, and I still maintain that I eat enough of the stuff to give heart attacks to like, three men. But I just had no interest in it. I really thought that my mom was going to go into parent mode and make me eat it, but she didn’t.

Instead of eating, I wandered over to the sliding door that looked out into my backyard. The haze was starting to burn off, and the sun was rising clear and bright. It was going to be a beautiful day.

“That seems wrong.” I didn’t even realize I’d said it aloud, until Howie asked me what seemed wrong. “That,” I said, gesturing out to the sky. “It’s sunny. It’s warm. Shouldn’t it be like, rainy and cold? At least cloudy. You know.”

“Yeah,” Howie agreed. “I said the same thing when Caroline died.”

“Did you?”

“Uh huh.”

I stood there for a while longer, staring at the sky. “This doesn’t seem real,” I whispered. “It just doesn’t…it’s not real. It can’t be real.” I felt Mom’s hand on my arm.

“Come on,” she said softly. “Let’s go see your son.”

I didn’t want to. That would make it real. Right now I could still fool myself into thinking that Tasha wasn’t dead. It had been a horrible nightmare, and my mom and Howie were both on crack for thinking it could possibly have happened. After all, the sun was shining. When bad things happen, it always rains. It wasn’t raining.

Oddly enough, my illusion was dashed in the driveway before we even left. I had just opened the door to Howie’s Porsche when a familiar SUV pulled up beside us. I hadn’t been expecting that car. I mean, Nick lived over an hour away for chrissakes. But there he was. Nick scrambled out of that car so fast I thought he was going to fall face first onto the concrete. The look he had on his face scared me so bad that I knew immediately something really bad had happened. The only way you could get a look like that out of Nick was if someone had died or something.

Oh, God.

I could feel myself starting to shake. Blindly, I reached for something to hold on to, but I wasn’t really able to focus on much. Nick took one look at me and covered the distance between us with that huge stride of his, engulfing me in a giant embrace. He was so damn tall. I’d always felt like a scrawny little shrimp standing next to him as it was, but right then I was just dwarfed by him. Thank God. I needed him to hold me up, because I was doing a pretty fucked up job of it on my own all the sudden. He took over just fine though; mashing me to his chest and squeezing me so hard I thought I was going to snap in half.

“Oh Christ, Alex. I got here as soon as I got Howie’s message. I—I…God, I’m so sorry.” He held me tighter, if at all possible. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here. Damnit, I’m sorry. I should have been here last night.”

I shook my head weakly against his chest. He released me somewhat, looking right into my face with a look of concern unlike anything I’ve ever seen from him. Those blue eyes of his were bluer than I’d ever seen them, even bluer than the sky.

“How’s the baby?” he asked me, refusing to let me break my gaze.

I nodded, trying to figure out where my voice had gone. I couldn’t find it for the life of me. “Fine,” I managed to croak. “He’s fine. He’s perfect.”

“Good.” He put a hand on the back of my head, pulling me in again, though not as tight as before. “Are you headed back there now?”

“Yeah,” Howie spoke up. His eyes were watery, I noticed. “We’re on our way back.”

“I’m coming with you,” Nick said firmly. I nodded gratefully. My mom approached him and gave him a squeeze on the shoulder, smiling briefly. “Good to see you Nickolas,” she told him.

I somehow wound up in a car with my mom. Nick must have gone with Howie, because I know the four of us weren’t in one car. At least I don’t think. I remember that Mom had the radio playing softly in the background, and I found myself listening to it as we drove in silence. She wasn’t like Howie; she didn’t talk much in situations like this. With her though, the silence wasn’t empty and lonesome. I could feel her support, and her love. Oh I already knew it was there, but in that car I felt it. I needed to feel it.

At one point, one of our older songs came on the radio. I remember that because I was so surprised to hear it. It had been awhile, and I found myself humming along to it softly. It was one of my favorites to perform. Briefly I wondered if we’d include it on the next tour. We were supposed to be getting together next month to pick out a set list…

I didn’t want to think about that. The very idea of performing right now made me nauseous, so I put it out of my mind. All things considered though, it was probably one of the more pleasant things I had to think about. You know you’re fucked up when the best thing you have to think about makes you sick to your stomach.

I don’t remember getting there, parking, or even going up to the maternity ward. It doesn’t really matter I suppose. I just remember leaning against that glass, looking into the crib labeled “McLean, Alexander Jr.” As much as it hurt to see him, knowing what I’d lost, I felt this surge of love come from somewhere. My kid. That was my kid in there. Mine and Tasha’s. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t here to see him. He was still as much hers as he was mine.

My fingers curled against the window, and I leaned my head against it. Someone came to stand beside me- it had to be Nick, because I felt small again- and I looked up. He had this stupid looking grin on his face, which I thought was odd. Funny though, seeing that grin made me forget for a moment how much pain I felt.

“Will you look at that?” he said in awe. “You’re a dad, Alex. I can’t believe it. He’s just like you said. Perfect. Wow.”

“You make it sound like you thought it would never happen,” I said gruffly.

“Well, I mean-”

“Kary’s almost two,” I reminded him with a raised eyebrow. “I’d be more shocked by you having a kid two years ago than me having one now.”

He blushed sheepishly, shifting his weight back and forth on his feet. I almost smiled. Leave it to Nick to make me almost smile when I’m trying so hard not to cry it’s killing me.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here last night,” he said quietly.

“Don’t start that,” I muttered. “How could you have known?”

“Well for one, I am never turning my cell phone off again. Fucking Jive. Lord knows nothing else is important besides them. We need a new record label.”

I nodded slightly, turning my attention back to my son. Nick lapsed into silence, and the two of us just stood there. It was so eerie; I could almost feel Tasha standing next to me. I shivered. Not too much later (or maybe it was; I don’t know), a nurse took me in to see Alex. They placed him in my arms, and I promptly forgot about the outside world. All that mattered was me and him, and the woman who should have been with us.

“Hey,” I said to him softly, completely awestruck as he squirmed about in my arms, making those baby noises that had fascinated Brian, Nick, and Kevin so much when they first became fathers. “Hello there. I’m your daddy, Alex. Did you know that? I don’t know if I’m what you were picturing,” I glanced down at my tattooed arms and decided I was most definitely not the textbook photo of a typical dad, “but you’re stuck with me. And I love you. Got that?” Alex gurgled in reply, and my breath caught in my throat. “I want you to know that I’m sorry for all the times I’m about to screw up. You see, I’ve got to do this without your mom, so bear with me. I really have no idea how I’m going to live without her, much less us, but I’m working on it. I know that’s not what you want to hear, so I’m just praying like hell that the love I’ve got for you is enough to make up for that.”

I was rapidly picking up Howie’s babbling habit, but I couldn’t help it. There was so much that I felt like I needed to say. So I sat there and said it until the nurse came in to take him away again. She assured me I could come back soon, but that didn’t make me feel any better. I knew there were other things I needed to be doing, but I really didn’t want to face all of that. That was more reality, and I really wasn’t happy with the way reality was going.

Somewhere I joined up with Mom, Nick and Howie. Howie was on his cell phone a lot, something to do with Brian and Kevin. Apparently they were having trouble getting out of Lexington. I didn’t know the details, and I didn’t ask. Hell, I really couldn’t be all that sure if it really happened anyway. I wondered if it was raining in Lexington.

I spent what seemed like forever signing papers. I’m really glad that Howie was standing right there, so I know that I wasn’t doing something stupid, like signing over the rights to Johnny No Name or something. Lord knows I didn’t read a single word of what I was signing. I also spoke to a herd of nurses and doctors about taking the baby home (well, spoke isn’t the right word, more like they talked and I nodded my head every now and then), and how to cope as a single father. I didn’t hear a word of that either. I wasn’t a single father. Didn’t they understand that? Assholes.

For at least a little while, I slept. Mom took me home (I know because I remember looking up at the cloudless sky as we got in the car, still wondering where the rain was), and must have given me something to put me out. When I woke up, my house seemed a lot fuller than it had been before. There were a lot of people there. I waded through them, probably had conversations with some of them. I really don’t remember who was there. They could have been strangers for all I knew. I remember Nick, Howie, and my mom, but that’s about it. I know other relatives of mine were there. I could tell you who I know would have been there, but I just have no recollection of it. At one point, someone mentioned Tasha’s dad to me. He was flying in from Sacramento. More reality. Tasha’s dad was flying in, not because she’d had the baby, but because she was dead.

I hated reality.

I found myself suddenly wanting Kevin. I had grown up without a dad, so when Kevin joined the band, he got the job. Dad, big brother, friend, he was all of it. It must have sucked to be him those first few years. We all came whining to him, and when we weren’t whining he was kicking our asses for being morons. I think he took to me though. He took to all of us in different, special ways I guess. But in me he saw the kid without a father, and he knew how horrible that was. He never thought twice about filling the role for me. The mention of Tasha’s dad made me really miss that all of the sudden.

I managed to track down Howie and pry him off his damn phone long enough to ask him if Kevin and Brian were flying in.

“Of course they are,” he said, looking very startled that I would even think otherwise.

“When?”

His face twisted into an angry scowl. “Good question. They can’t get out of the goddamn city, because it’s all over the news, and the fans are all over the airport. Brian was almost attacked in the terminal, and they had to get ‘em out. Everything happened so…so fast, so they couldn’t charter anything, and our security wasn’t there…you know.”

I felt my eyes get really big, and I repressed the urge to scream. Sensing my forthcoming outburst, Howie hurried on. “They were going to try flying out of Louisville; it’s bigger and there’s more security. They’ll keep trying until they make it. Don’t worry, Alex, they’ll get here. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear.”

I nodded dumbly. What else could I do? I hadn’t even thought about the press. Why the hell couldn’t they leave me alone? This was one thing I didn’t want to have to share. I should be able to keep something, shouldn’t I? It suddenly seemed to me like the music industry was a game, and no matter what I couldn’t win.

Well, maybe I couldn’t win the game, but I was sure as hell going to win this round. I made a beeline for the upstairs, carefully avoiding the master bedroom, and grabbed the first phone I saw. I used speed dial to call Kevin’s cell. Surprisingly, Brian was the one who picked up.

“Brian?” I said in confusion.

“Yeah? Wait, Alex? Alex, is that you?”

God, he sounded so far away. Why the hell was Kentucky so far away? “Yeah,” I said. There went my voice again. Gone. Just like that.

“Are you ok?” he asked me urgently. I’d forgotten how easily he panicked. I was trying to figure out how to answer when he realized it was a dumb question. “Shit, I’m sorry. We’re trying to get there, okay?”

“Good,” I said with some relief. “’Cause, things here aren’t going that great, and I, ah, I…” I put a hand to my mouth, as if that would somehow remove the lump in my throat. My eyes watered freely, and I sniffled in spite of myself. The change in Brian was instantaneous. At the drop of a hat he can go from Panic Attack Brian to Nothing Else Matters But Helping A Friend Brian.

“I know,” he said, slipping effortlessly into that soft, soothing voice of his. “We’re doing our best. We’ll stay on the phone if you want. Do you want to talk to Kevin? He’s on his way back; I can see him now. Aw shit, he’s running. Well, the latest excursion into the airport was a failure. He can still run pretty fast for someone that old. Should I put him on?”

Bastard was psychic on top of everything else. “Yeah,” I grunted. “Hey, Brian?” I asked suddenly, catching him just as he was about to hand the phone off.

“Yes? What is it?” I could tell he really wanted to break into Panic Attack Brian again. But once he’s gone into friend mode, he’d die before he came out of it.

“Can you tell me something?”

“Sure. Anything.”

“Is it…is it raining there? Or is it sunny?”

“It’s sunny,” Brian replied, sounding puzzled. I nodded my head before reminding myself that he couldn’t see me.

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Alex?”

“It’s nothing,” I told him. I tried to sound sure of myself, but I failed miserably. “Forget I asked.”

“Okay,” he said uncertainly. “We’ll be there soon. I promise.” Seconds later, a breathless Kevin picked up.

“Hello? Alex?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“Listen, we’re trying to get there, bro. Security’s a bitch. They’re trying to get it taken care of, but right now we’re stuck. We’re in a van in some random back parking lot. But don’t worry, we’ll steam roll past them if we have to. We’re coming.”

“Thanks.” I didn’t really know what to say. What was there to say? ‘Hey, my wife died. Feel sorry for me. So how’s the weather?’ It’s just… there aren’t words for this.

Well I’ll be damned, but Kevin found some. I knew he would. His kids have got to be the luckiest in the world, because they have a damn good father. He kept me on the phone, asking me about Alex, wanting to know all the details. If I started sounding ‘froggy,’ as he put it, he started telling me he understood. Not that it would be okay, not any of that bullshit about her being in a better place. He just understood. It was a lot like Howie. Howie understood. They didn’t try to make it better, they just understood.

Well that was good, because I didn’t understand.

I somehow got the feeling that I wasn’t going to for a long time, either.

I sat on that phone for at least an hour, rotating back and forth between the two of them. I don’t know what we talked about. I don’t really care. What I did care about was that I felt a little less empty. A little less scared. And that was good.

When I finally hung up the phone, I wandered over to a window and gazed outside. To my surprise the sky had grayed over a little at some point during the day. Not too much, but a little. On sudden impulse I pulled up the window and took in a deep breath. You could always smell rain better at this time of year, when spring is about to break into summer. Sure enough, I caught a whiff of it on the wind.

Index