My Lucky Days: A Novel (31 page)

I
sat on the bus in Little Rock, twisting around on the rickety old bed, trying to get comfortable. My back was aching again and my feet were swollen to the point of only wearing strappy sandals. The heat just kept getting hotter and the road just kept getting rougher. And I just kept getting bigger.

“You are really giving me a hard time today.” I smiled, rubbing my hand across my stomach.

Lucky and I would find out next week if the baby was a boy or girl. Well, hopefully, since his mama wanted to throw a party afterward. We should have known already, but I hadn’t seen Dr. Phillips since the appointment right before I left.

I heard a clap of thunder as it rolled in the distance. Glancing out the window toward the west, I noticed the sky held an ominous glare. I knew the weather was supposed to get bad, but it looked much worse than the forecast had predicted. I needed to get inside the building before this aluminum can on wheels blew away in a storm.

I walked slowly through the cabin, stepping over the usual mess strung across the floor. During the shows, I typically tried to tidy up the chaos. But I hadn’t really felt like doing much of anything today.

As I exited the front door, I felt the eerie darkness surrounding me. The wind picked up, making the old Edison bulb sign tap against the building.

Black might appear to some as an absolute color, but there’s actually as many shades of black as there are gray: Ebony and Onyx and in some crayon boxes, there’s even one called Black Hole. But as I stared into the sky, I would have used the color Raven, a scary, ominous Raven to paint the moving and dipping clouds that kept the moon from shining.

I walked quickly into Gunner’s Dance Hall as the music blocked the sounds of the brewing storm. Security let me backstage, and I made my way to where the crowd was gathered in the old building. I saw Roger next to the stairs, leading up to the stage. He tipped his beer can in my direction like a toast. I think he was still drunk from last night.

As I reached the top of the stairs, I saw Lucky sitting on a stool. He might dance and play while singing most of his songs these days, but I still loved this side of him the best. Just him. His voice. And his guitar.

My heart beats faster when you look my way.

Baby, I need you, I want you.

I want to hear every word you say.

Baby, I need you, I want you.

I want to spend every night and day.

Dancin’ barefoot in front of the firelight.

Kissin’ and a’holdin’ you tight.

Baby, I need you, I want you.

’Cause you take my breath away.

I blushed hearing his words. What the crowd didn’t know was that he wrote that song after we danced naked in front of the fireplace a couple of days before New Year’s.

Lucky noticed me off to the side and gave a little wink as he sang the last few words. I stayed through the next one before my back started aching with shooting pain through my sciatica nerve. After giving him a little wave, I decided to wait out the storm backstage. Maybe I could find a couch. I didn’t even care if it was covered in decades of rocker sweat. I just wanted off my feet.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I walked past Roger and down the dimly lit hallway. Rainwater dripped in puddles on the floor. I heard Lucky switch songs, his fingers moving over the guitar strings as he played the intro to
The Thunder Rolls
. I laughed, looking over my shoulder. Lucky loved to play his Garth Brooks covers. Turning back around, I continued down the hallway.

I had only made it a few steps more when the pain hit me like a brutal knife to the back.

I screamed. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought someone had run up and plunged an actual blade into my skin.

I screamed again as the second stab wrapped around my stomach. My legs gave out, and I fell forward, smacking my face on the cement. I couldn’t breathe. I tried to suck in a breath, but the pain knocked it out of my lungs.

Filthy rainwater dripped onto my face. It dripped from the ceiling as I yelled for Lucky, but my voice was small compared to his coming from the speakers. Curling up on my side, I held onto my stomach, feeling another pain stab my back. I wanted to scream so very bad, but I couldn’t utter a word until the wave passed.

I counted my breaths.

I counted to eight, and it happened again.

I counted my breaths as I struggled to stay conscious.

Roger eventually heard my screams when he stumbled back toward the restroom. Even in his drunken state, he managed to call 911. I asked for Lucky. His manager said he would get him. But I knew that wasn’t true. I still heard his deep voice coming from the speakers. The show was only half over, and Roger wasn’t going to do a damn thing about it.

In my delirium, I begged for Lucky as they loaded me in the ambulance. Maybe the paramedics would get him. Instead, my words just came as gasps and the medic put a mask over my face to help me breathe. The tears came, but no one seemed to listen.

It wasn’t until they lifted me onto the bed at the hospital that I noticed the blood soaking my clothes. My baby was dying. I knew it. My heart felt it. Terror slipped through my conscience sharper than the blade that kept stabbing me in the stomach.

After being admitted to the hospital, I was sent to labor and delivery. They said it was too late to give anything for the pain. I didn’t know anything about actually giving birth, just what I had read in my book. It had been too early for the classes.

I didn’t recognize a single face. I wanted my doctor. I wanted Dr. Phillips. But he wasn’t there. Lucky wasn’t there. I was in a strange hospital, in a strange city, surrounded by people who didn’t even know me.

I was breathing. I was clinging to the hand of a nurse named Lucy. I wanted to laugh at the ironic twist of fate, but there was no laughter in this moment. She talked me through the process until I was weak and exhausted. As the waves continued to rip through my body, the next hour twisted into a devastating blur.

The pain.

The tears.

The sadness.

That felt deeper than a black hole.

Darker than a raven.

During the worst moment of my life.

While I was alone.

The blonde woman in scrubs spoke to me—Dr. Gilham or Dr. Gilbert or something else that sounded like guilt. She used a vast amount of words, which explained absolutely nothing.

It just happens sometimes.

That’s all I really heard.

Your baby was a girl.

I guess Lucky won the bet.

As she talked, I couldn’t remember much. Just the worst pieces. Part of me wished the unfamiliar doctor would have just knocked me out. Put me to sleep. I’m sure Dr. Phillips would have done it for me and maybe it would have hurt less than what actually had transpired in that room.

Maybe.

Maybe I would have never felt the ache of a thousand knives shoved into my soul.

Maybe not.

When Lucky finally arrived at the hospital, it felt like days had passed instead of just a few hours. I’m not sure when Roger finally told him something was wrong. Probably after the meet-and-greet that followed the show. Couldn’t have anything interrupt his precious tour, or maybe the drunk bastard just forgot I had been loaded into an ambulance.

I knew Lucky was scared when he came into my room. His beautiful brown eyes were full of pure panic. He grabbed my hand, kissed my cheek, and cried. I stared at the tears running in streams down into the scruff of his beard. Getting a handful of tissue, he wiped the snot from his nose. I had seen him tear up, but I had never seen him lose everything, so wide open and vulnerable.

Lucky sat in the chair next to the bed talking, but I didn’t hear his words. They faded in and out as I smelled the sterile scent of lemon disinfectant.

He was sorry.

He fired Roger.

He hated Roger.

He blamed Roger.

But I knew it wasn’t Roger’s fault. None of this had anything to do with Roger.

Not really.

This just happens sometimes.

The cryptic words of the doctor just looped around in my head as my hand rested on my empty stomach that still held the shape of my baby bump.

Lucky climbed into my bed, wrapping his arms around my whole body—and I let him. He whispered all sorts of words against my hair, which I knew smelled like sweat.

He didn’t seem to care that I didn’t say anything back. He just talked and cried a few more times while I didn’t have any tears left.

This baby had been something unplanned. I had been scared. I had been downright terrified. But I had done everything in my power to make her feel wanted. I had loved her before I could even feel her. I had loved her without seeing her.

And now she was gone.

“I want to go home,” I finally whispered.

A
fter making arrangements with the hospital, Lucky rented a car and we started the several-hour trip back to Stillwater. I could tell he was tired. I’m not sure how much he’d slept during our time at the hospital. He downed a few cups of coffee as I gazed out the window. The pain was still raw as my mind struggled to process what had happened. I felt empty. I felt lost.

Everything in my life had suddenly changed.

We didn’t talk much as the car traveled down the highway. I think Lucky asked me a couple of questions. I didn’t really hear him. Maybe he didn’t ask. Maybe I wasn’t used to the silence and my head conjured up the constant noise that had surrounded me the last several weeks.

He reached for my hand a few times, and I let him hold my fingers. I felt them.

Warm.

I was cold. It was mid-July. And I was cold.

He got something out of the trunk and covered me up with it.

We stopped for food, and I got a hamburger because he insisted I needed to eat at least something or I would get sick.

I think a little of me envied Lucky. He got off easy. He didn’t have to feel the emptiness of where something used to exist inside of me.

Your baby was a girl.

I had names. Sometimes on the bus, during the shows, I wrote those names down on a notepad. And then I would show them to Lucky later that night. He would tease me, saying a bet is a bet. Just mark those girl names off my list.

I heard Lucky’s voice. I looked over in his direction, realizing those words were meant for me.

“What about your mom?” I mumbled.

“When I talked to her this morning.” His tired eyes glistened in the sunshine. “If we want a memorial or something. She can help.”

I stared at him for a moment before nodding. He reached over, taking my hand, and I rested my head back against the window.

Lucky took a call somewhere around Russellville. Without Roger in the picture, I wasn’t sure who was handling the cancellation of the final dates. And the bus. Someone must be retrieving that damn bus.

I took a pain pill and closed my eyes, blocking out his voice as it filled the car. I didn’t want to know where he was sending the bus.

Outside of Fort Smith, he got another call from Jack Harlow. I woke up enough to hear their discussion. He was giving Lucky a few days to decide about the fall tour before looking for a replacement.