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After: Faithfully


Nick

I could see dust riding on the beam of light emitting from somewhere in the rafters of the stadium. The applause of the fans echoed around me, a sound that reminded me of the ocean's tide rolling against the shore. Perhaps that's what I'd always found so comforting about it. In all my years as a Backstreet Boy and all my years working as a solo artist, this sound had been so soothing to me. Some of my lowest lows were healed by the sounds of the fans cheering, chanting, yelling.

But there was still no Ashley in the crowd and my heart felt heavy, wondering where she was, why she wasn't there.

I gripped the microphone and closed my eyes as the sound of the music washed over me from behind... my voice sliced through the dark, piercing the airwaves, ringing in the crooks and crannies of the auditorium.

"Highway run... into the midnight sun...
Wheels go round and round... you're on my mind..."

It felt like forever since I'd seen her. Felt like forever since I'd kissed her, touched her, held her close to me. I wondered how long it really had been. Days on tour don't measure the way normal life days do. There are no 24 hours on tour, there's just blurry memories of cities and travel and faces. Lots and lots of faces.

I couldn't have told you where I was if I tried to put a name to it. I'd lost track many shows ago, if I'd ever had an idea to begin with, that is.

"Restless hearts... sleep alone tonight...
Sending all my love on the wire
They say that the road ain't no place to start a family
Right down the line it's been you and me
And loving a music man ain't always what it's suppooosed to be...
Oh girl, you stand... by me...
I'm foreeever yoooours... faithfully."

I opened my eyes again as a saxaphone solo crept around me like blood in the veins of me and every person in the room. The lights spun purple and pink and blue through the air, turning cartwheels, and I slid down, sitting on the edge of the stage. I couldn't sing this song without thinking of Ashley, without thinking of our wedding day, of our hands woven together.

Missing Ashley was the strangest feeling I've ever known because it wasn't a hurt. It was a dull longing, like an acknowledgement that her presence could make things more perfect than they already were. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt pain. This tour had been an amazing one. I was truly happy.

"Circus life... under the biiiig top woooorld...
We all need the clowns... to make us smile...
Through space and time... always anooother showwww...
Wondering where I am.... lost withooooout yoooou..."

But the tour was winding down, I reminded myself. I couldn't tell you how many more dates or days I had left to go, but I knew I was on my way home and that soon enough I'd arrive at my front door and there she'd be. I looked forward to that day constantly...

And being apart ain't easy on this looove affair
Two straaangers learn to fall in looove again...
I get the joy of rediscooovering yoooou
Ohhh girrrrrl you stand byyyy me
I'm foreeeeverrrr yooooouuuurs.... faithfully..."

Soon enough I'd sit on our back porch with her and stare out at the ocean. I couldn't wait.

I'm still yours... I'm foreeeever youuuurs...
Ever yourrrrrs...
Faithfully."




Ashley

There was a knock on the door that woke me up. Sunshine seeped through the cracks in the blinds and as I oriented myself to beign awake, I found I was wrapped into the pillow, Nick's favorite shirt pressed to my face. Another knock at the door, and I stretched as I sat up, "Coming," I said, and I got up, pulling on my robe and tying the waist band into a knot as I slid my feet into some slippers.

When I opened the door, I nearly forgot I wasn't staring at Nick. Oliver looked so much like Nick that many a time it was quite easy to look at him and forget that he wasn't his father. If it hadn't been for that scar of Nick's, Oliver would've been indistinguishable from him. "Surprise," he said, his smile crooked even without the scar. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me tight into him just like Nick always did. "Zoey didn't tell you I was coming, did she?"

Oliver was like his father in other ways, too. He had his father's restless nature, and had gone to college for journalism and now travelled the world writing articles for National Geographic and taking photographs. He had a world-renown blog called Earth Steps that was featured frequently on the news to give emotional backdrops to current events in other countries. Oliver had a best selling book about how to travel the world on less than twenty dollars a day.

It'd been a long time since his twenty dollars had brought him home.

I closed my eyes and just experienced his hug. It'd been a long time since all my babies had been home under the same roof at the same time but finally Zoey, Oliver, Leslie, and Presley were all here.

If Nick had been there, it would've been the first time in four years that we'd been a complete family. Well I guess now this was the complete family. I felt sick at the thought, and pulled away from Oliver, my throat swelling with emotion that I had to do something to get my mind off of, and hugging was not helping.

"C'mon," I said, "I'll make you pancakes."

"With Mickey Mouse ears?" Oliver asked.

"If that's what you want," I answered as he followed me down the hallway, down the stairs, and into the kitchen. I waved at the cabinet, "Be a dear and get your old mum the griddle out of there will you?" I requested.

He bent down and made a big clattering mess of the pans yanking the griddle out and putting it up on the stove. He sat on the floor and started shoving pans back into the cupboard.

Zoey came out into the kitchen wearing a smart blue pencil skirt and blouse, looking every bit the successful fashion magazine creative director she was. She was pulling her long red hair into a braid. "Figures it was Oliver making all that racket," she said, rolling her eyes. "You want some spoons Ollie to drum with?" she teased, seeing him on the floor with the big spaghetti pot between his knees.

"Drum! Drum!" Oliver said in a baby voice.

Presley, my baby, came into the room. She was our wild child, the one who took after her daddy so much she'd been trying to break into the music scene and had done a moderate job of it locally, playing bars and coffee houses by night and working at a recording studio by day running the soundboards and equipment her daddy had trained her well on since she was yea high. "Has anyone seen my glasses?" she asked, squinting as she looked around the kitchen.

"Sink in the bathroom upstairs," Zoey answered.

Oliver climbed to his feet. "Don't forget my mouse ears, ma," he said as I started pouring pancake batter onto the griddle.

"Mickey Mouse pancakes! I want Mickey pancakes!" Presley yelled as she ran up the stairs.

"Where's Leslie?" I asked.

"Walking Steve Perry," Zoey replied. Steve Perry was Nick's chocolate lab. Leslie was a surgical resident at Vanderbuilt, operating everyday to save lives. She lived at the house with me and Nick for the past seven years while she worked on her internship and took on residency immediately following. She'd been the one to purchase Nick the big, sloppy, drooly labrador and the dog had been their pride and joy for the past six years. They went jogging with Steve Perry - who was a girl - every morning since Steve Perry was big enough to jog without trying to eat her leash. "She should be back in a minute," Zozo continued, "She said they were going to walk to the end of the block and back."

The commotion continued around me as I made the pancakes and put them into a dutch oven to keep them warm. Leslie came back and Steve Perry came barking into the kitchen, his big paws leaving prints on the floor and Presley came downstairs complaining that her roots were showing (why she'd ever dyed her beautiful blonde hair black was beyond me, but kids, you can't tell them such things). Zoey made Oliver help her set the table and soon I was asking Oliver to carry the dutch oven with the pancakes out to the dining room to eat, and pulling the carton of blueberries out of the fridge.

"Leslie," I said before I could realize what I was asking, "Call your father down for dinner."

Silence fell over the five of us.

Even Steve Perry seemed to understand the sobriety of the moment as she laid down and put her face between her paws.

My hands shook on the blueberry carton.

Oliver stared down at his plate, Leslie stared at me, stunned, and Presley looked near tears. Zoey came over and wrapped her arms around me. "C'mon, mumma," she said, and she guided me to the table, where we all sat down, one chair conspicuously empty.