Aubrey (Revolving With Axis)

147: Rafe and Aubrey

147: Rafe

Aubrey flopped on our bed and stretched out, kicking off her sandals and taking the tight hair holder out of her heavy hair for the millionth time tonight. I hung up my jacket and kicked off my sandals. I flopped down on my back next to her.

"You tired?"

"Some." I said. "How does your mom know so much?" I remembered the last six or so hours, sitting at tables in the closed off restaurant downstairs, with unlimited drinks and food at our disposal, the majority of the crew around but not near us. I sat with Aubrey on my right, and Ben on my left at a booth with Jeff, Mutt, Jeremy, Levi, Tracy and Richard, and Kell and Maille Stevak. And Tracy managed to listen to all of us.

"She's dealt with an awful lot of personal grief."

"I'm sorry." I thought about how she'd told us her story of her first band's leader Jet Thomas. Died from a stabbing and gun fight in Long Beach California, drug related. He'd been murdered in his apartment viciously and gruesomely and Tracy had been the one to find him. She told of her first husband, Raine, killed in a fire in their home, and losing a child at the same time. She spoke candidly of the guilt, the shame in not being able to save them. How the depression had set in and she'd nearly lost her sanity. No one thought she was capable of losing it the way she had, and some were mean about it, and inconsiderate, disbelieving, wanting her to just buck up. Others, especially her husband now, Richard Mann had been able to see into the darkness and help her through it, understanding the need to relive it if necessary, understanding the desire to take it one day at a time. She was very spiritual, telling about coming to know the Savior of the World in those dark days.

It helped to hear her story. It helped immensely to know she'd taken the time to come to us just for this purpose.

The grief counselor, Alvaro Benm--- something, had also been very helpful, discussing the symptoms of shock and PTSD, also the stages of grief and loss and trauma. He recommended going home and getting a support group going, dealing with it together.

"Who is the little girl?"

"My niece, Cooper. Kell and Maille's."

"They brought her here?" I was shocked with all the danger we had been in that they had come at all. I hadn't spoken to Kell, but he had nodded to me as he passed on his way to bed.

Aubrey shrugged. "She brought a sort of normalcy to an otherwise not normal situation. She made people smile.

"Why Kell and Maille?"

"They too have experience with trauma and grief."

I rolled onto my side. "You sure had moments of calm and moments of chaos."

She rolled to face me. "Yeah, I did, didn't I?" She chuckled. "You never know how you're going to respond exactly, do you?"

I thought about my near panic attack on stage. "Yeah."

"You did good though. The return to normalcy was good for your crew and the roadies and the band. They needed to see you vulnerable, but holding it together."

I thought about that, and then about her in the shower. "We could have a repeat of the shower, now that we're a little calmer."

She rolled over and easily on top of me, kissing me, gently, lazily, and then with passion. I felt myself responding to her again. Sweet forgetfulness... sweet bliss.

******

Aubrey