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Chapter Nine


Kevin

“Night.”

We’d said it at the exact same time, our voices blending together, and I’d looked over at her in surprise as Nick closed the door. Caroline looked just as surprised as I was. She was standing in front of her open door, her hand on the knob, the moonlight from the windows in the room reflecting pale on her skin and hair. The way the light touched her, I was reminded of the night my father died, when I’d been sitting in the old chapel all alone until Caroline came just in time to be there for me at the worst moment of my entire life.

I could still feel the memory of her touch that night, her gentle fingers and the rough chapel carpet.

Her hand released the door knob and she turned toward me. “Kevin,” she said, her voice low, “I need to know… if I’d moved with you to Florida… if I’d been more willing to… to change… would you have stayed?”

Her eyes were pleading.

I walked closer to her, not wanting to talk too loud, afraid of Nick listening. I stood just a foot from her and I said quietly, “Yes, but it wouldn’t have been right if I had. It wouldn’t have been fair to you. You didn’t want Florida, you didn’t want the change, it would’ve been for me and you would’ve been unhappy and in your mind it would’ve been my fault and you would’ve resented me for it the same as if I’d stayed here. I’d have changed and I’d have been unhappy and in my mind it would’ve been your fault and I would’ve resented you for it.”

Caroline chewed her lower lip, staring down at my hands, watching as I moved them as I spoke, and I realized that there were tears beginning to form in her eyes. “Instead I’ve been unhappy and resented myself and you for it,” she said thickly. She looked up at me and the tears clung to her eyelashes, her lip trembled. “Kevin, I know you’re married and you’re happy and --” she choked. “I just wish --” Caroline took a deep breath. “Lordy.” She waved her hands at her eyes, “Listen to me. This is wrong. I can’t even believe I’m even thinking about you like this --”

“I am married,” I said thickly, and I couldn’t believe the words that were about to come out of my mouth, “But I don’t know about happy these days.”

Caroline stared up at me. “What?”

I looked down. “I didn’t just come here because of Nick and trying to help him after his wedding. I came here because I didn’t have anyplace else to go. I’ve been living in a hotel for like a month now… Kristin and I… we’ve been fighting and it’s been bad and I moved out. We went to Nick’s wedding together, on a truce, but we were far from getting along. We fought all the way to the church, and then I got there and Nick was having a panic attack in the groom’s room. And I stood there and all I could think of was how fucking miserable my life had become after getting married and when Nick looked at me with that panicked look in his eyes like I had back in 1991 --” I shook my head. “Caroline, I couldn’t let him go through with it. I couldn’t. I had to get him out of there. I know now it was a mistake, an impulse, something I did more for myself than I did for him…” I shook my head. “He should’ve stayed there and gotten married.”

Caroline was quiet for a long moment, letting all of that sink in.

“He’s learning a lesson he wouldn’t have learned without this side step,” Caroline said. “He’s learning how much he loves her and maybe because of this he’ll never take their love for granted.” She shrugged. “Maybe it’s making what they’ll have in the future that much stronger.”

“Maybe,” I answered.

Caroline was staring right up into my eyes. “What are you fighting with Kristin about?” she asked.

I took a deep breath.

A thousand memories had spun through my mind, like Polaroid pictures, instant and grainy and fading around the edges. “It started after Max was born.”

“You have a kid?” Caroline interrupted.

“Two… Mason and Maxwell.”

Caroline smiled, a sad sort of smile, “I’d love to see them sometime.”

“I have pictures on my computer,” I answered.

She nodded. “So Max is the younger?”

“Yeah, he’s just about a year now. Mason’s six,” I added. I took a deep breath, “We’d agreed that two was enough and after Max was born Kristin was going to… you know, make it so we couldn’t have anymore, while they were doing the C-Section, and… I don’t know, she had the baby and they did the operation while they were in there, and afterwards, she just…” I shook my head. “I guess it was postpartum. She got so depressed, she was just unable to move. She’d lie in bed and she’d say that her back hurt her or her stomach hurt her or her head and her limbs and she couldn’t get up and couldn’t I please just look after the children for her? And I did as much as I could. Here I was, in the middle of a promo run for the new album and Kris can’t even get out of bed and I’m hauling poor Max to all the rehearsals and everything for the tour and it was okay at first because everyone wanted to see the baby, you know, but then it got to be a burden and I was about to start the tour… So I called Sue, my mother-in-law, and I told her I needed help. And she came out from Shawnee to Los Angeles and moved in to help with the baby and Kristin got so mad at me. She thought I was insulting her, that I didn’t think she was a competent mother.”

Caroline was staring at me, listening, leaning against the wall.

“I wasn’t trying to imply that. I mean, well I guess I was. Just, she was sick. I knew it wasn’t her fault, I knew that and I respected it and I was trying so fucking hard to get her the help she needed but she wouldn’t go see a doctor and there wasn’t anything I could do. I couldn’t back out of the contract for the tour, I couldn’t take the baby with me. Sue was my only option. But Kristin and I fought somethin’ fierce, like you wouldn’t believe over it. And in the fight, we both said a lot of things that shouldn’t have been said, things you don’t quite forget were said, you know? And there wasn’t any time to work on it because I had to go. So I went. And when I came back, the fight was still there, the animosity was still there. And Sue stayed because I was going back out on the road again soon and Kristin became more and more resentful of her and of me and she would pick fights over things, just to spite us, I think, like a kid acting out, you know?”

It felt so good to get this stuff off my chest. I’d been carrying the world on my shoulders, it felt like, and it was like the burden was becoming lighter with every sentence.

“It just brewed and brewed until finally it exploded over a stupid thing… she was yelling about, I don’t know, it was something about an empty box of cereal or something and it just erupted like a volcano you know because I’d been suppressing all this anger for a year, trying to be the perfect husband and the perfect friend and son and whatever and I hollered at her and she kicked me out, said if I wasn’t going to respect her then I could leave.”

Caroline sighed at the end of the story, shaking her head, staring down at her hands sadly.

“I just want my wife back,” I said and I choked on the words because they were the realest thing I’d ever felt. “And I’m scared, Caroline, I’m scared because I don’t know if she’s still in there or if she’s gone and if we’ve said things we can’t unsay. I don’t know how to fix it.”

Tears were glistening in Caroline’s eyes, clinging to her lashes when she looked up at me. “Well for starters, don’t wait for twenty-two years before you say you’re sorry.”

I laughed, a choked up, comic-relief sort of laugh. “Good tip,” I managed to say.

“One you could use to learn,” she nodded.

“One I should’ve learned twenty-two years ago,” I said.

Caroline smiled. “Seriously, though, Kevin… just tell her the truth, tell her what you just told me. That’s the answer for both of you boys. You keep telling all the wrong people all the things you feel and the people who need to hear it ain’t hearin’ it.”

“It’s hard. I’m not good at all that mushy love crap,” I said.

Caroline raised an eyebrow, “Oh c’mon Kevin, you’re in a freakin’ boy band, of course you’re good at the mushy love crap.” She laughed.

I laughed, too, in spite of myself. “But those songs are all written by other people most of the time and it’s emotions about their stories, not my own. It’s my own that I have the problem with. And plus when I do figure out how to wrap words around my emotions, I do a stellar job at fucking up the delivery of them.” I was thinking specifically of earlier, when I’d texted Lauren instead of Kristin. “I’ve texted Kris,” I added, “I told her I missed her. She didn’t answer.”

Caroline shook her head, “It’s gonna take a lot more than a couple text messages to fix that mess, Kevin. By the sounds of it you’re in a deep hole and if you’re gonna get out then you’re both going to have to work together and it’s going to take a lot of patience and a lot of understanding and a lot of love. But most of all it’s a lot of hard work. But if y’all still love each other, then the work won’t be impossible, and the reward for it will be worth every ounce of blood, sweat and tears you put into it.”

It was the best advice I’d ever been given.

Caroline stood upright. “Anyways,” she said. “You think on that. I’m going to bed. I have an early day tomorrow.” She turned toward the bedroom door, and paused before going in. “And by the way, thank you for coming up to get me earlier, and for finishing Portia’s stall. I really appreciated the help. I know I’m not great at saying things like that, I like to think I’m all Miss. Independent, but the truth is I really needed a hero and tonight it was you.”

“It was no problem,” I replied.

“Night,” she said.

“Night,” I answered. And I turned and headed back down the hallway toward my room, but once my hand touched the knob, I knew there was no way I was going to go to sleep after all that talkin’ we’d done and I knew there was only one way to solve all the swirling thoughts in my mind. I headed for the stairs instead.

“Where are you going?” Caroline asked. She hadn’t yet closed the bedroom door, I realized.

“I think I’m gonna go for a ride actually,” I replied.

She stared at me from the gap in the door, biting her lower lip like she was making a choice, hesitating. “Can I come?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I answered.

She disappeared from the door and returned a moment later, swinging a sweatshirt over her shoulders and rushing to join me on the stairway.




It was like a hundred nights before it. That was the beauty, though. We got in the car and I started it up and Caroline giggled, “Turn off your headlights,” she said, “Like old times.” I’d picked her up after midnight a hundred times, no headlights on to keep her momma and daddy from knowing I was there and that we were sneakin’ off for a night of God knows what, God knows where. So I backed out the driveway in the dark and didn’t spin the headlights on ‘til we got to the road, ‘til we’d passed the camp sign and Caroline whooped with delight just like she always had, then laughed at the nostalgia of it all.

“God almighty I can’t believe we’re forty-something years old, can you?” she asked, “This feels like it was yesterday.”

“You don’t look a day over twenty-five,” I told her.

And she laughed, “I don’t know about that.”

“You’re gorgeous,” I replied. “The Kentucky air does good things for you. Always has.”

Her smile was lit up by the moonlight coming in through the windshield as I drove down the mountain out to the town. We were passing the high school on the way out of Irvine and Caroline leaned forward, spinning the dial of the radio. We had the windows up ‘cos it was still a little chilly from the rain and all, but everything felt perfect, like a memory. You know those pictures where people are holding up an old picture in front of a new reenactment of that picture and they blend together almost seamlessly? That’s what it felt like. And all the stress and pain and worries that had been pulling me down for the past year seemed to melt away.

“Okay, not to be the girl in the song or anything but Oh my God, this is my song,” Caroline cried out, and she turned up the volume as Luke Bryan’s voice swung into his second verse. I tapped the wheel in tune to the song because I knew it well and when the chorus came, Caroline and I both started singing along.

She was like, oh my God, this is my song
We've been listenin' to the radio all night long
I can't believe that it came back on, but here it is
She was like, come here boy, I wanna dance
'Fore I said a word, she was takin' my hand
Spinnin' in the headlights she gave me a goodnight kiss
And I said, play it again, play it again, play it again
And she said, play it again, play it again, play it again…


When we finished, both of us laughed and Caroline held up her hand for a high-five, which I gave her and she turned down the radio a little bit. “Remember the night we drove to Nashville?” she asked, “And you sang Johnny Cash in that dive on Broadway?”

“Oh Lord, only barely,” I replied, “I drank both our beers that night.”

“You sang Ring of Fire and it was amazing.”

“If you say so,” I laughed.

Caroline grinned, “I love everything you sing.” She blushed.

“Do you now?” I laughed, “Everything?”

Everything,” she said fervently.

“You ain’t even heard everything I’ve sung,” I argued with a laugh.

“Have so,” she answered.

“Prove it,” I teased.

Caroline thought for a moment, then said, “Roxie… you got nothin’ to worry about… it’s all a circus, kid, a three ring circus…”

“No fucking way,” I laughed.

“These trials… the whole world… all show business! But kid, you’re working with a star!! The biggest!!!” she continued, then she cleared her throat and, in the deepest voice she could muster sang, “Give’em the old razzle dazzle… razzle dazzle ‘em… give’m a show so splendiferous.. row after row will crow vociferous… Give’em the old flim flam flummox… fool and fracture ‘em… How can they hear the truth above the rooooooar… throw’m a fake and a finagle, they’ll never know you’re just a bagel! Razzle dazzle’em… and they’ll beg you for mooooore!

I cracked up and clapped one hand against my knee as I drove. Caroline gave a fake little bow, “Thank you, thank you,” she laughed, “I’ll be here all week.”

I laughed all the harder. “Oh my Lord a’mighty, how in the hell did you -- I didn’t think any of my run in Chicago made it to the internet,” I laughed.

“I don’t know if it made it to the internet,” she said, “I went to see you in it.”

“You came to see me?” I asked, surprised, looking over at her.

“Yeah, twice, when you were in Louisville. It was marvelous. I clapped so hard for you. I was so proud.” Caroline was grinning ear to ear. “I wanted to tell you so but I couldn’t get anywhere near you and of course I was scared and everything was still… you know. It hurt like hell but I knew when I heard you were coming I had to go, I just had to because… well because it was your dream, wasn’t it? And it was really honest to goodness true and… I hadn’t gone to any of the Backstreet Boys shows and… I don’t know, this felt more like it was you to me anyway. And I had to go. So I went. And you were incredible.”

I blushed. “Thanks,” I said.

“I understood for the first time why you had to leave Kentucky that night, Kevin,” she said. “I mean the night when we went to Nashville. When you sang Johnny Cash. And I remember riding home and looking over at you and I was so fucking scared because I didn’t wanna lose you but I knew it was really selfish of me to keep you. Not just because you wanted to go but because the whole wide world deserved to hear you sing.”

I gripped the wheel, my throat tightening up.

“If I’d kept you, if you’d stayed, it’d be like caging up a beautiful bird just to look at it and never let it fly,” she said. She paused. “I just wish I’d been a bird, too.”

“You weren’t ever a bird, Caroline,” I said.

She looked over at me.

“Birds are too fragile, they take off the moment anything scares’em, they’re not reliable. They come and go and they’re just for show. You weren’t ever, ever a bird.” I shook my head. “You were always more than me. Always. You still are. You’re steady and you’re strong and ain’t nothin’ breaks you, you just stand up to it, you’re incredible, you. You have this heart, this big old gold heart buried down in there. You’re a rock with a core of gold, Caroline. You’ve always been my rock.”

Tears filled her eyes.

“I don’t mean that mean or nothin’,” I clarified.

She shook her head, “It’s just that’s the most beautiful, kind thing anybody’s ever said to me.”

I laughed, “Ain’t nobody told you how incredible you are?”

“Not since you last done it,” she said. “I ain’t trusted nobody since you left. I didn’t want nobody else. I didn’t understand what happened and I thought I wasn’t ever gonna see you again and that I’d never know the answers to all my questions and I was scared.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

And I meant it even more than I’d meant it the first time I’d said it.

“Kevin, I’m so very glad you came to Irvine,” she said. “Maybe it wasn’t the right choice for you and Nick but for me… for me it’s been the most… healing... “ She stopped mid-sentence and stared at me, her lower lip trembling. “Just thank you for coming back.”

I nodded, my throat aching.

“I finally, finally feel like I can move on.”

It was the kinda moment when you realize that anything could happen - anything at all - and you’d be surprised by none of it, because something was stirring in the air that just felt like it was going to be a night you’d never forget.

And, damn, was it ever.