Going Back

Storms (Him)

I sat at the dining room table with Pierce as he munched on his snack, eating a few bites as he swung his legs off the chair, telling me in a very distracted fashion about monster trucks. Livi squirmed a bit in my arms but was mostly satisfied at the moment, taking her bottle. Kate went out for a few hours- lunch and nails with Stevie. I was glad that they were able to get some alone time together and I have to say that I was really getting into the swing of things with the kids. Dare I say I would have even been good at this?

The sound of an engine running outside pulled me from my thoughts and I leaned forward a bit, taking a glance out the window. Kate was home, and glancing at my watch she was early. A few hours early.

She slammed the front door in a huff.

"Mama!" Pierce was excited at her return, though he quickly went back to his apple slices.

"Kate, what's the matter?"

Livi had nodded off so I placed her in her tiny lounger and went to join Kate.

"What's the matter? You two are the matter! You're both just so hard headed!"

I was a bit confused. "What happened with Stevie? Start from the beginning," I coaxed her, attempting to get her to sit down.

"No!" She refused. "I'm not doing this. I'm not getting involved in this little stunt. If you want to know how she is so badly then why don't you just go over there and ask her?"

I don't think I'd ever seen Kate this worked up. "Sweetie, calm down. It's not that easy."

"Yes it is," she cried, the tears now streaming down her face. "Yes it is."

"Look, you deserve answers. And I should have given them to you a long time ago. Let's talk about this," I offered, knowing she needed the truth but also internally aware that I'd never say anything negative about Stevie to our daughter.

"I just want you to fix it. I don't want an explanation!" She wouldn't even sit by me, she just stood her ground a few feet away, her arms crossed defensively across her chest as she quickly wiped her tears away.

I had nothing to say for that. I wanted to make her pain go away but it was clear that Stevie wasn't exactly welcoming me back in right now.

"I'm sorry," Kate finally peeped. "I'm being irrational."

I decided to take a different approach. "Did you have a fight with your mother," I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. Not really I guess. I just tried to talk to her about you and she shut me down. I should get in the middle of this, I suppose, but I just seems like you guys are so good together, maybe you just needed a nudge in the right direction."

I chucked a bit. "That's very sweet of you, but she's right. We don't want you to worry about us." Kate had no idea of the true wrath of a Buckingham Nicks fight, and I hoped she wouldn't ever find out.

"Anyway, we we were just finishing lunch and Karen flew through the doors with these two men in suits I've never seen before. They were waiting for her in an office and shut the door. She told them she's speak to them later, that if she didn't even know what they needed it couldn't be that important. But Karen was close to having kittens and kept saying she didn't even really know what was happening or what they were up against so Mom finally got up and joined them. But boy was she pissed that they interrupted us. She didn't immediately come back out soI figured it was important so I scribbled her a note and came home. I wasn't getting anywhere with her today anyway, she's in one of her bad head spaces something. Probably you," I heard her continue to mumble under her breath.

I didn't immediately respond to that accusation.

"Anyway," she cleared her throat, her fine immediately becoming chipper. "I figured if she's going to be tied up in a meeting I figured I'd just come back here and we could all go to Pierce's soccer game."

"Sounds great," I told her. "He's ready."

We loaded Livi snugly into her carrier and I grabbed Pierce's backpack and my keys.

"I'm going to follow you," I told her. "I have to run to the studio after the game."

She nodded her head in understanding as we walked out the door.

"Are you going to get that," she asked if my ringing phone as we locked the front door.

"Nah, I'm sure they'll leave a message if it's important."

We pulled out of the house and I followed behind her, eventually flipping on the radio to fill the silence.

A few closing riffs of a Van Halen classic exited my speakers as I saw a press truck drive by me in the opposite direction. How odd, I thought. This is usually a quiet neighborhood.

"And back to the biggest news in rock this afternoon, maybe this year," the DJ'd voice came into my car. "The sudden book release of a juicy little novel called Storms. Now for those of you who haven't heard in the last hour this is 300 pages of juicy gossip written by the former husband of rocker Stevie Nicks. I won't give all the good bits away but I'm sure it'll be flying off the shelf." 

I couldn't believe my ears. That bastard. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel, turning up the volume and listening carefully.

"It really was sex drugs and rock and roll for her," the jockey continued. "But the real kicker in her is the announcement of her love child with fellow Fleetwood Mac superstar Lindsey Buckingham."

"Fuck!" I yelled. This couldn't be happening.

I blasted my horn and flashed my lights incessantly to flag Kate down, running up to her driver's side window once she pulled over.

"Daddy what's wrong, you look like you've just been hit by a bus!" Her eyes widened.

"Kate, listen to me," I told her sternly. "You can't go to soccer. I have to get you guys tucked away. Give me a piece of paper."

"Wha- what?"  She was confused.

"I don't have time to explain. The press knows about you," I told her, scribbling as fast as I could.

"It's going to be okay, sweetie. Go to this address, okay? It's your mother's condo. The parking is underground. Enter this code to get through the gates into the lot and then take the elevator marked penthouse. Enter your birthday on the keypad and it'll take you up. Stay there until I'm there and don't answer the phone, okay?"

She looked terrified. "It's going to be fine, sweet girl," I reassured her, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

"Where are you going," she asked me, terrified.

"I'm going to her," I shouted, jogging back to my car. "I have to get to your mother."

I pulled into traffic and whipped a I turned into traffic, slamming onto the accelerator as I headed as fast as I could to Stevie's house.