"You guys are kind of scaring me," Charlie said, his voice cracking and making him sound ten years younger than his actual age. "Did someone die? Is Uncle Trae okay? Or Aunt Kim and Aunt Beth?"
"Nobody's dead Char," Lindy promised, shaking her head in dismissal of Charlie's fear.
"Why does Dad look like he's about to vomit, then?" Charlie accused, a note of panic in his voice.
Lindy glanced over at Kurt and analyzed his face. It was morbidly funny -- Kurt had spent so much of their early relationship looking like he was going to throw up at any given moment that she was relatively used to the expression he wore then.
"It's about Nirvana," Kurt suddenly said, cutting straightaway to the main topic of his disclosure.
Both Charlie and Frances raised their eyebrows but remained silent, waiting for Kurt to continue further. Lindy encouragingly stroked the back of Kurt's hand.
"So I got a call from Danny . . . you guys know, my old manager," Kurt began, speaking with gradual intent. "And he told me that he thinks Nirvana should have a mini-reunion in January at this tribute concert for Chris Cornell."
"Holy shit," Charlie said through a sudden burst of ecstatic laughter. "Dad, that's fucking great! A Nirvana reunion? Shit!"
It was not unlike Charlie to be excited. He'd fawned over Kurt's talent for years, always wondering aloud why his dad didn't act on such gifts when he so readily had them. Lindy had once explained to Charlie why it was so hard for Kurt to imagine re-entering the music business, but Charlie held firm to his belief that his dad could do everything and anything. Charlie's faith in Kurt was as unwavering as a devout disciple's.
Frances had not reacted as Charlie had. She sat hesitantly in her seat, eyeing Kurt curiously as if trying to dig deeper to the bottom of the situation at hand. She was doing exactly what Lindy had when she too had first the news of a possible reunion.
She was scoping Kurt out to see if he was truly ready to accept such a feat.
Frances knew her father in ways that no one else in the world did. Lindy had guessed that maybe it was due to her being Kurt's first born, but she had not yet nailed down how Frances managed to understand Kurt so completely. Even though she'd only been an infant during his worst period of hardship, it was like she had understood what was going on and committed it all to memory so one day, she could be her father's shoulder to lean on.
"That's really cool Dad," Frances said sincerely. They connected eyes, Frances nodding slowly, a gesture for Kurt to go on with whatever weighed heavy on his mind.
"I agreed to do it," Kurt confessed, sounding guilt-ridden. "But I don't know what the hell is going to come out of it. I was told it would be a one time thing, but I don't really know."
"Are you kidding? Dad, you've literally got hundreds of songs written upstairs," Charlie cried. "You could make a whole album if you wanted to! Hell, you could even go solo after this!"
Well, Lindy thought. There's Charlie's approval.
"Charlie, I don't even know if I'm going to actually do it," Kurt said exasperatedly.
"Why wouldn't you do it? You already agreed," Frances said, blinking in confusion.
Kurt quieted, looking shameful as he bowed his head to the floor and paused to once more consider what he was going to say. When he looked up again, Lindy thought his eyes appeared more glassy than before.
"If you guys don't want me to do it, then I'm not going to," he said, every word as solemn as when he had first recited them in his head.
Together, Charlie and Frances spoke at the same time, their exclamations congealing into a blurb of noise as they reacted to Kurt's proclamation that he would stand by their ultimate decisions.
one-hundred-forty.
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