Page 108 of Touch in the Dark

Still, I don’t go back. I hail a cab. The driver doesn’t notice or care who I am, just where I want to go. Which is where? I stare at my phone. There are so many people I could call or turn to, but I don’t want to burden anyone with this, not until I’ve figured myself out.

“Where to, buddy? I don’t got all day.”

It’s a dick move because I know everyone will be worried, but I still turn off my phone and tell him where I want to go.

“That’s a least an hours round trip man and there are tolls,” the driver turns. I can see he is about to ask me to get out.

I pull out my wallet and check inside. Fortunately, there is plenty of money in there from being out shopping. I take out four, hundred-dollar bills and hand them to him. He stares at me, then the cash in my hand. He’s an older guy, probably been a NY cabbie most of his life, if he knows off the top of his head how far it is. He’s really thinking about this though, the money hasn’t convinced him.

His eyes come back up to me. The recognition I see is not that he realises he just picked up a world famous rockstar, and more that he recognises the pain on my face. He nods and turns back around. Then he sets off, driving me away from this life and back to my old one.

The cabbie asks if I want him to wait when he sees where I’m going but I thank him and send him on his way. He wishes me all the best and drives away from the cemetery. It takes a while to find the plot, it’s been a few years since I came here but once I do, I stand in front of my grandfather’s grave, careful not to step where I know his coffin is laying beneath the ground.

He was an amazing man, and a great role model to me. He taught me how to play the bass. I used to spend hours over at their house while mom was at work, playing and learning music. It wasn’t just about playing the chords, he taught me how to read music, how to compose it and turn what we put on those pages into the music flowing through our fingers. The revered Warwick the fans hold so dearly, belonged to my grandfather. Losing that bass the way I had last year, nearly sent me into a tailspin of depression. It held so many memories, not just for me, but for Doris and my mom too. It was stupid to think it, but it was like my grandfather’s essence lived on in that guitar.

For the first time in ages, I long to play it. Since I got it back, it’s been stored in its special case in my bedroom closet. I’ve been so afraid of losing it again, I locked it away. My grandfather would hate knowing it hasn’t been played.

“Music is a gift, Nicky,” he used to tell me. “If you have the gift to make music, you have to do it. Whether it’s to an audience of none or an audience of thousands. Bringing music into people’s lives can change everything, the emotions it evokes. Sadness, joy, anger, love. You should never shut off your emotions and never shut off your gift.”

That advice is something that should have stayed with me. Something I never should have allowed to sink too deep inside of me that I forgot about it. He died right after we moved to White Plains when I was ten. He was such a huge presence in our lives, he left a huge hole. He was the only male role model I had.

Thinking of losing him only makes me madder at Atwater. I try not to let that continue, he doesn’t deserve any of my thoughts or feelings. I’m putting off the inevitable. A slight tilt of my head and my eyes fall on mom’s headstone. I take a shuddery breath as I step over to her side of the plot. Cora Leanne Chambers was only thirty-four years old when she lost her battle with cancer. Right up until the end, she fought that disease. And she only ever thought about protecting me.

I spent a lot of time at the hospital between school and band practice. Mom always made sure I met up with the guys every night and got at least a couple of hours in before I came to the hospital. Watching her fading away was the single hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. And for a long time I was furious with her for what she did that last night. She was in and out a lot, but she always made the effort to be at her best when I visited. I know now it was her way of preventing me seeing the bad times. She’d have a nurse make sure she was dressed, that she was wearing her best head scarf to cover her hair loss and that she didn’t have any tubes or needles in her arms. She never let me see when she was barely coherent, or throwing up everything they put in her, but I knew it happened. I was fifteen, old enough to know she was hiding it from me.

The last time I saw her was one of her good days. I’d wanted to stay longer but she told me to go home and do my homework, that Doris told her I was slacking, and she wasn’t going to let that stand. She wanted me to graduate, go to college and follow my dreams. So I left. I did that homework, and I went to sleep exhausted.

I woke up to find out she died through the night. She’d given everything she had so the last time I saw her she was awake, able to talk to me and smile at me. She’d cupped my cheek, told me she loved me and to do that homework or Doris would ground me. Basically, she sent me away. Because she knew it was the end.

Was it possible to love someone and hate them at the same time? It felt like that for a while. I felt as if she’d betrayed me by not allowing me to stay but she was sparing me that grief of watching her take her last breath. That was the amazing person she was. Her love for us overruled her own suffering.

She left me a letter. I didn’t read it until we got signed as a band and moved to L.A. three years later. Doris packed it for me. She’d held on to it when I threw it away, saying I didn’t ever want to read it.

As I think about the things she said to me in that letter, I don’t realise I’ve sat down beside her grave, and silent tears are falling down my face. She talked about forgiveness a lot in that letter, to always be the bigger person and keep my heart open. I have to wonder if she was referring to this moment. When I came face to face with the man who fathered me. Did she want me to give him a chance? I don’t know, but we can’t always respect the wishes of someone long gone, when forgiving someone feels so foreign and wrong. I don’t think I will ever forgive him for what he did to her. Of course mom saw it different. She saw me as a gift, no matter what happened to bring me into her life.

And I’m okay with that.

I don’t need him. He walked away and made his own life. And I made mine.

With the family I chose. With people who will move heaven and earth to be there for me.

“I can’t do it mom. I know you’d want me to try but I can’t. Maybe if he’d been in my life and there was something to rebuild… But he was never there. I don’t know him. I don’t want to know him.”

She doesn’t answer, obviously. Like she hasn’t been able to answer for the last seventeen years. She’d had a fifteen-year-old when she died. Pregnant and abandoned at Nineteen. But she lived life to its fullest. I remember laughing a lot growing up. She was stern when she needed to be. I got grounded a lot, but she was always there for me. That is what I remember from my childhood.

It suddenly dawns on me that I’m only two years younger than the age she was when she died. I can’t imagine dying now, there is so much life left in me. There are so many things that I’ve still yet to do with my life. I’ve been incredibly lucky, I’m successful, have millions of adoring fans, and more money than I can spend in this lifetime. All these years I’ve been keeping people who were open to caring about me, maybe even loving me, at arm’s length. I’ve missed out on a lot. Mom would have hated that for me.

It’s starting to get dark. I’ve lost track of time sitting here. I take out my silent, dark phone, knowing what is going to happen as soon as I turn it on.

Leaning back against the side of mom’s headstone I listen to the eighteen voicemail messages from the band. Jenna and Elsa. Stone too. His make me laugh, he’s furious I’ve run off without security, like I knew he would be. I don’t bother reading the twenty-six texts. Maybe it’s wrong but I text Stone first to let him know I’m alive, safe and he doesn’t need to worry. He texts me straight back saying he’s going to kick my ass. But he understands. Stone has a son who lives in Florida with his ex. I don’t know how often Stone speaks to him, but I know every vacation he takes is to go to Florida and see his son.

Then I call Archer.

“Where the fucking hell are you?” he screams.

“White Plains.”

A moment of silence follows that. “Okay. You need me to come get you?”

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