68 CARTER
C ARTER
After she walked out of Alex’s place that day, I turned the corner into the sitting room.
I know some might find it hard to believe, but Alex is the wise one of the bunch.
Anytime I need to figure something out, it’s his place I usually end up, and I’d been in the back bedroom when she arrived.
He hadn’t told her I was there, which was a good thing.
He knew me well. Knew I needed time on my own.
“So what are you going to do?” he asked me.
I told him I wasn’t sure.
“You want my opinion? I’d say to hell with her. You don’t need some kid running around. And your life is better without the both of them.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re such an asshole,” I told him.
“I’ve heard this. But I think it’s my most charming quality.”
He reminded me then how lucky we are. How he would give anything for what we had. We had found our way back, by some miracle. It didn’t matter how long it’d been. Time’s not real anyway, right? Just a man-made tool.
“I swear those two have been a pain in my ass for years now,” Alex says to Michael, and I smile. I didn’t realize he was still awake. We’d been talking for a couple of hours, and if there’s anything that will put Alex to sleep, it’s the sound of me droning on and on.
“They finally get back together and they’re still causing trouble.
” He shakes his head, Michael watching him closely.
“Are you done yet, for fuck’s sake?” he asks me.
“Please tell me you two will finally just sit down and shut up and be happy now. Or are you going to keep bellyaching for another couple of decades?”
“I think we’re pretty good now,” I assure him.
“Thank god. Now will you finally shut up and let us sleep?” He closes his eyes and dims the light, and I do the same.
The night after I left his place and returned home, I’d found her asleep in my bed, knees curled up, wearing one of my shirts.
We talked for hours, and I fell asleep holding her.
And then, a few days later, when we had to say goodbye again—we did it with smiles.
Because for once, it was temporary. Finally.
I know it may be hard for some to understand this and they would criticize her for the choices she made.
But she wasn’t wrong for what she did, as much as I hate to admit it.
I look around at everything we’ve created, and none of it would have happened for us if she hadn’t made the choices she did back then.
She was right. She knew that I hadn’t wanted children, not because I didn’t want to be a father but because I didn’t want to be an absent father.
And I know people will look around and point to all the examples of all the people who have done it well.
Tommy is one of them, of course. He’s an incredible father.
But his son is young, and by the time he arrived just a few years ago, we were already set and stable, calling our own shots.
But back then, it was different. If it had been just a couple of years later, it would have been fine.
But it wasn’t. We were just getting started.
We were puppets on the strings of a dream, our schedules and plans and every moment dictated by the machine to which we had sold our lives.
And if I had known she was pregnant, I would have seen nothing but her and that child in my vision.
I would have left the band. Mayluna as we know it would have never existed.
The world would have never known the songs that we’ve written.
Which, for me, may have been an acceptable, perhaps even preferable, trade-off.
I would have been home with my family, teaching mathematics somewhere, maybe playing music on the side.
But what about the others? Their whole lives would have changed as well, their dreams derailed.
Because of me. Because of us. And if I had managed somehow to attempt to split myself into two, then what?
Who would that have made me? What would that have made her? Our child?
No. She wasn’t wrong. She made a choice out of love—one that altered the fates of many—and I understand her, just as she always understood me.
I’m a believer in the ability to cast our own lot and to bring to life our deepest wishes and fears, if only we feel them deeply enough in our bones to will them into existence.
I’ve had more success than most in this world could ever dream of, and when I’m gone, my name will be remembered while other far more deserving people will fade into history, forgotten.
It doesn’t seem right, does it? Which is why I see now that again, she was right to do what she did.
No one man deserves to have everything, certainly not me. And I’ve had a lot.
But now? I tend to wonder. Because here we are at this new precipice, and as I sit here watching the clouds float by beneath a million stars, while the same moon shines down on her and our daughter, asleep in their beds, I wonder if maybe I can still have more.
And maybe I still have some dreams left, after all.
“So what’s next for you all?” Michaels asks.
Over his shoulder, the windows have gone dark as nighttime descends. We’ll be landing in not too long, and I’m looking forward to playing these last few shows and then returning home to a new life. I like the way it feels. I’m preoccupied but return my attention to the question.
“I think it’s safe to say we’ll be enjoying some time off for a while.”
“Time to settle down?”
I nod, agreeing.
“Well, I’ll give it to you: as band stories go, this was all pretty damn romantic,” Michael says.
I can tell he’s happy with the story he’s gotten, and I feel like it’s in good hands.
Still, it’s odd to know that when the plane lands and he’s reconnected, it’ll all be out there. “But certainly not perfect.”
“Nothing ever is.”
“When this gets out, her life will change. How are you feeling about that?”
Thunder rolls outside the window, followed by the distant glow of lightning a few moments later.
“More storms up ahead.”
“Is that an answer to my question or a comment on the weather?” he asks.
I have to smile at that. It’s been a long day, and I close my eyes, imagining what our future might hold, her on the side of the darkened stage, lit up by the purple lights and hazy glow.
Beside her, I imagine a daughter leaning into her hip, dwarfed by giant headphones protecting her young ears from the roaring crowd beyond.
It’s a good fantasy. Even better now that it’s actually possible.
Michael doesn’t know all of that, though.
It’s the band and the album he wanted to know about.
I’ve still kept some things, including the more recent time I’ve spent with Evie, to myself.
When we first got the call to do the interview to celebrate the anniversary of the Sigma Five album, we of course declined at first. A knee-jerk reaction.
But when Evie heard me mention the name of the journalist, she said good things.
And it occurred to me, to all of us really, that maybe we didn’t need to have so many secrets anymore.
It’s pretty hard to pull off the whole “mystique” thing when you’re playing for stadiums, so really, we needed to just get over ourselves.
It felt good to tell the story, surprisingly.
“So what happened?” he asks a beat later, as if reading my mind. “To the great love story.”
“What happened is that she saved me.”
“Forgive me for saying, but with your history, you seem more like a guy who may not have been saved.”
“Yeah. I suppose you’re right. But we don’t always understand at the time. What’s really going on in life. What the universe has in store for us—the endless possibilities available to us. We think we know what’s coming next. But we don’t.”
“If you could go back and tell yourself one thing, what would it be?”
I think about this for a time before answering.
“From the moment I first met her, all I wanted was to protect her. But it turned out she was the one protecting me. That’s what I would tell myself.”
“So,” he says, removing his glasses and stretching. It’s just small talk now, and I want to get some sleep. “Last thing, I guess. The next album, Universalis , you’re calling it, right? What’s that title all about, dare I ask?” He gives me a look, and we have a laugh.
“It’s an homage to Pythagoras.”
“Pythagoras? You’re serious?”
I nod. “I am. Pythagoras and Kepler.” I explain then.
“The musica universalis . It’s the philosophical concept that regards mathematical proportions in the movements of celestial bodies—the sun, moon, and planets—as a form of music that is not audible to our ears but could nevertheless be heard by the soul. ”
Regardless of space, time, and distance, it’ll be like that for us. She’ll always hear me, and I’ll hear her.
“Only you could make mathematics sound, dare I say, romantic,” he jokes as he cleans his glasses and leans back into his seat.
We switch off the lights, the cabin going dark, and I lie back, closing my eyes and drifting off toward sleep.
“By the way,” he says, posing his last question, “I just realized you never told me her real name.”
“Her name.” The words repeat, and I breathe in. To finally say it out loud to the world, the spell that is her name.
“Her name is Evie.”