Chapter 14 #2
The chandelier, the windowpanes, the television, the guitar hanging on the wall.
A bookcase where Mark has photos and his award displayed.
There are several thick books on music theory, history, art and culture.
I run my finger across some of the spines, wiping off a thin layer of dust off them.
I hear Dean and Mark talking about putting on a fresh pot of coffee for everyone, but I’m drawn to this guitar hanging beside a tall bookcase.
It’s well crafted, with six strings, and a few nicks on the body.
I run my fingertips across the strings and am reminded of the time Andy tried to teach me guitar.
The guitar was always too big for me, and I could never get a good enough grip on it to play, so I gave it up rather quickly, much to Andy’s dismay.
But still, he and I laughed at every foul, stray string I plucked.
The intense flooding back of memories worsens my headache.
“It was his,” Mark says from behind me, holding a steaming cup of coffee, and I spy Dean sitting on the sofa. “It was the one he used on tour. You can take it down if you want.”
I remember this guitar; it was one he purchased for his birthday one year. He spent a few hours stringing and tuning it himself, and then he played me a John Denver song on it.
“No, no, I’ll leave it on the wall,” I say, brushing my hands off. “I was wondering what happened to it.” Of course, I had several of Andy’s guitars and various other instruments, but I never could pin down the location of this particular one. I had almost forgotten about it.
“I’m going to use it tonight, so I’ll take it down anyway,” Mark explains, reaching over my shoulder to unhook it from the wall, and he places it in a case already laid out on the table.
I sit down next to Dean, and Mark sits down across from us in a matching plush armchair.
“It’s been just over five years, right?”
“Yeah. The first of December was the anniversary,” I look down at my feet. “I can’t believe it’s been that long.” I say, even though I can believe it has been that long. It feels like so much has changed in the short time. I can’t believe that was even me.
“Me either. It feels like just yesterday that we were touring,” Mark says. “It’s still so fresh in my mind.”
“It must have been traumatic,” Dean sympathizes with Mark and quietly sips on his coffee. “For the both of you.”
“I watched it, you know.” Mark rubs his forehead, looking a little distressed.
I don’t want to rehash this like we did at the funeral.
I hate thinking about it. I don’t want to tell Mark he can’t talk about this event that clearly affected him so terribly, just as terrible as it did me, but I know that if I hear the story again, I’ll get upset.
I’m already stressed because my head is bothering me.
“I know,” I say.
“Watched what?” Dean asks.
“Watched him stroke out.” Mark says. He looks out the window and continues.
“He said he had a headache earlier in the day. He took an Advil and was going to wait it out. We were mid-song. And he starts stumbling over his words. And I thought maybe he had a drink for once—he doesn’t drink often so when he does, it really goes to his head, you know…
he was slurring his words. He dropped the guitar. And then he fell.”
“And didn’t get back up,” I say. Dean nods and squeezes my knee.
“We didn’t know what was happening at first. You know, we’re musicians.
We don’t know what this stuff looks like, so we didn’t call the ambulance right away.
We tried to get him up, you know, we didn’t want to scare the crowd,” Mark tells Dean.
“He was still talking, but it wasn’t making sense, so we called the EMS.”
“He died in the ambulance bay at the hospital,” I finish the story. He died in the ambulance bay, surrounded by paramedics and doctors who didn’t know him.
“I’m sorry,” Dean says, and I don’t know if he’s telling me or Mark.
“Yeah, it was crazy, man, and I always have Allison, like, check me for symptoms and stuff.” Mark wipes a tear from his eye, and I remain stoic.
Of course, Allison checks him for symptoms. She comes over with a box of tissues and sits on the arm of the chair Mark is sitting in.
“I’m doing this tonight for him. He has been my best friend since kindergarten. I owe it to him. One last hurrah.”
I grit my teeth and it makes my headache worse.
Mark’s telling this story like we haven’t heard it a million times before.
I guess Dean hasn’t. But I know it by heart, like the back of my own hand.
The surgeon calling me, saying they couldn’t get him back, there was too much bleeding, and they could have him transferred to a morgue near me.
Nothing could ever compare to the feeling of dread hearing that he was dead and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it because it had happened an hour ago.
Not like I could do a thing about it anyway, I’m not a doctor.
Wringing my hands in my lap, I can’t say a thing. I’ve owed him one last hurrah for five years now. Dean clears his throat, setting his empty coffee mug on the table. Allison stands up, clapping her hands. “Let’s eat now.”
Once we’re seated at the table, Dean persistently quiet, puts a large scoop of beef pot roast on my plate. I poke at a gravy covered carrot with my fork. It’s so quiet in here you can hear the snow softly falling outside. Daisy whines in the corner, nipping at Mark’s feet.
“I want you to come on stage with me,” Mark says after a few minutes of silence and eating.
“Huh?” I ask. “And do what?”
“Sing. Dance. Play the tambourine. I don’t really care. Just come on stage. I’ll call you up and introduce you. Or I don’t even have to introduce you. Stay as long as you want. The set is 90 minutes.”
I know the letter is sitting in my tote bag, but I see Andy’s handwriting in my head, a floating graphic spiraling in my mind.
I hope you get to experience something like this someday.
This is more than the moment he wanted me to have.
This is my chance. As sudden as a bolt of lightning, a startling image comes into my head.
Me: on stage. A dizzying headache the same day, slurring my words, falling off stage.
Me: bleeding out in an ambulance bay, far from home. Me: with no one who loves me nearby.
The pounding in the back of my head intensifies, and my heart rate shoots up.
My watch buzzes with a notification for it, and I stand up abruptly.
“Where is your bathroom?” I ask, leaving the table, not even listening to what directions Allison is telling me.
I stumble towards the coat closet door, opening it, grabbing my tote bag, hoping it magically turns into a bathroom.
“To the right, Madeline,” Dean calls.
I turn to the right, and sure enough, there’s another door. I open it and am greeted with a baby blue powder room. Flipping on the light switch, I slam the door closed. I struggle to turn this strange, unfamiliar sink on, my vision blurred from tears or a stroke waiting to happen, I don’t know.
Rifling through my tote bag, I look for anything that might fix what’s happening to me right now. Aspirin. Pepto. Advil. That’s what Andy took, and it didn’t do a wretched thing. Except, I don’t know what’s happening to me right now. I take a deep breath and force myself to drop it.
This isn’t what I came here to do. This anxiety isn’t me. I take hold of myself with an iron-clad clamp. Get a fucking grip, Madeline. I turn the water off right in time to hear the others talking. I quiet myself and listen to what they are talking about.
“Is she okay?” Mark asks, his voice ultra-serious.
“She’s fine,” Dean explains, as if this happens all the time. “She’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Are you sure?” Allison asks. “TMZ and some guy who works at the pharmacy she goes to seem to think otherwise.”
TMZ has a piece on me? The guy who works at the pharmacy? What does that even mean? I ask myself a million questions. I take my phone out and try to Google myself, but I can’t type the words out. Tears fall from my eyes onto my phone screen, blurring the screen and my vision.
“What are you talking about?” I hear Dean ask. He sounds just as confused as I am.
“There’s video footage of her freaking out at a bar earlier this week,” She remarks. “It’s got like four million views online.”
“Allison,” Mark silences her. “I’m sure they know.”
“That bastard,” Dean’s chair shuffles. “I can’t believe they put it online.”
I finally got my name with all the letters in the right order in the search bar. The TMZ article is the first result.
NEW VIDEO SHOWS RECLUSIVE WIFE OF LATE ANDY MCKINNEY YELLING AT CONCERTGOERS
The video auto-plays grainy footage of me interrupting Mike and Gina singing karaoke, and then cuts to me yelling at the camera in the crowd, walking fast, a tall Dean billowing behind me like a ghostly tour guide.
I’m too nervous to read the whole thing so I skim the article, buzz words jumping out at me.
SEEN FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FIVE YEARS
MYSTERIOUS, NEW MAN
HYPERVENTILATING
UNWELL
UNABLE TO SPEAK
NO COMMENT UPON REQUEST
What the hell? No one ever contacted me about a comment—not that I would comment.
I scroll further down, and there’s a second article already loaded. My heart drops straight through to the floor, and my breath is frozen solid in my chest.
LOCALS ON ANDY MCKINNEY’S HYPOCHONDRIAC WIFE
It couldn’t be. Not Dean. Not after all this. Oh, fuck.
I can’t get past the big, blocky headline.
My hand trembles, and my phone clatters to the floor with a loud echo.
I clamp a hand over my mouth so the others can’t hear me cry.
Bending down, I snatch my phone from the tile.
I can’t tell if I’m upset, angry or just plain defeated.
I cry, but the tears mean nothing to me.
Hypochondriac wife.
Is my mental health diagnosis all that I’m cracked up to be?
Shaking, I scroll just past the headline and the name immediately jumps out at me.
CRAIG MARTELL
I let out an intense sigh of relief— it wasn’t Dean. But Craig? That fucking piece of shit. I don’t even read the rest of the article. I don’t want to see what he said about me, knowing it can’t be any good. He always seemed like such a sellout. He was always about the money.
There’s a timid knock at the door.
“Madeline?” Dean’s voice is low and quiet, as to not raise much attention. I open the door, my eyes red and puffy, and show him my phone. He doesn’t even look at the screen and pulls me into a hug. “I’m going to kick his ass when we get back.”
“Don’t do that. You’ll just lose your job,” I whisper. “Just…how can I make this better? How can I fix this? How can I fix myself?” I ask.
“Fix this? You have nothing to fix,” Dean rubs small circles on my back. “It’s not your job to fix this.”
“The whole world probably thinks I’m fucking crazy. But they don’t even know the half of it.” Having a famous dead husband isn’t a choice anyone makes.
“You’re not fucking crazy,” Dean reassures me. “But even if you were, why the fuck should they care? You are you, and there’s nothing wrong with you. I’ll call my lawyer as soon as we get out of here.”
“Okay,” I sniffle into his chest.
“But in the meantime, I think you should go on stage tonight.” Dean says.
“Yeah?” I ask. “You really think that’s a good idea?”
“I do,” Dean says. “Do it for yourself. Not for Andy, not for Mark. Do it because you’re you. Prove to yourself that you’re more than this.”
I nod my head. “I’ll try.” I know what I need to do.
“You can do it. I believe in you, baby. You were meant for this.”
“I’ll go tell Mark.”
Dean gives me one last squeeze and leads me out of the bathroom, while I wipe my eyes.
Mark and Allison are still at the dining table, their food relatively untouched. They look up at us expectantly, storm clouds rolling out over the hills. “Is everything okay?” Mark asks.
“Yes,” I say, pretending like I didn’t just cry my eyes out and leave snotty tissues in his bathroom trash. At least I didn’t clog his toilet. “I’ll join you on stage tonight.”
“Excellent,” Mark claps his hands together. “Do you know what song you want to sing?”
“Yes,” I say.