Sing (Songs of Submission #7)(44)

“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.

“Take your hair down,” he said.

I smirked. “I don’t think we have time.”

“I won’t wait.”

He’d left that operating room a different person. You don’t just walk away from a heart transplant and continue as before. He was confused about who he was, vulnerable, testy, physically weak, and overly cautious. He was also sexually vanilla, which I tried to accept. I didn’t think it would last, but with each passing day, I feared my kinky Jonathan would never return. I stood by him, helping him manage his recovery. We agreed our marriage wasn’t genuine because of the circumstances surrounding it, but we never suggested our love was anything but real. He bought a house in the Hollywood Hills, and we moved into it. Two years, we said. If we could be together two years, we’d get married for real.