Chapter 25 Roll the Dice
Roll the Dice
FINALLY, BACK IN VEGAS, I WALKED INTO MY APARTMENT and collapsed on the couch.
I was exhausted from the drive, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d made the wrong decision.
Part of me felt like I gave up my independence and changed my life so quickly for a man that it made me run away, but another part of me felt like I fulfilled my promise to J and helped him get his daughter and create a safe place for them to live together, and that I owed it to him to be there.
Plus, the quiet in that penthouse was eerie.
And for the first time in my life, I felt like I didn’t belong there.
I took a couple of days to sit in silence and really sift through my thoughts about what I wanted out of life.
J and I were still talking, and he understood where all my anxieties were coming from.
He, too, was feeling exactly how I felt—the pressure of being a husband and dad and the noise of everyone around us.
If I had just communicated with him back in Nashville, we probably could have worked through it. I owned that.
Neither one of us knew how to be parents, or spouses.
We had no fucking clue what we were doing and we both were scared shitless.
So we decided to raise Bailee in Vegas, to get away from all the bullshit and gossip.
Bailee could still talk to her mom on the phone every day, and we could have a fresh start without the Nashville baggage.
But I knew we needed space. My two-bedroom penthouse would have us climbing the walls. I found a mini mansion with five bedrooms—Bailee even had her own living room and bedroom. J flew out to Vegas to meet me, and we went and looked at this huge house together.
“Baby, we can’t afford this,” he said, looking around in disbelief.
“I got us, I promise,” I said. “I’ll work and make the move-in, and then we can just split the rent. There’s a private school right up the street for Bailee.”
We were flying by the seat of our pants and living above our means.
It was written all over his face. But it only made me want to work harder and prove to him that no matter what, I had him.
It was my way of apologizing for abandoning Bailee and him.
It was my way of saying I’m in this for good now. Actions, not words.
Reluctantly, J agreed, and we signed the lease. As promised, I came up with the move-in fees. Before we flew Bailee out, I made sure to go all out for her living room and bedroom to make her comfortable in her own space. Her little area was so fly, I wanted to hang there.
We had a friend fly with Bailee after the house was furnished. When Bailee walked in, her mouth dropped.
“This place is huge!” she yelped, and J and I smiled like proud parents. We ushered her upstairs to her area to show her what was hers. She shrieked with glee and went through everything in awe.
That night, we started getting her ready to sleep in her new bed, but she wanted to sleep on the couch.
This is when I finally realized that she wasn’t comfortable sleeping in a bed—she wanted her chair.
Needless to say, it was a fight to get her to sleep in a bed, but she eventually learned.
Nowadays, we can’t get that teenager out of bed.
* * *
NEXT, WE GOT BAILEE INTO that private school and tried to start getting her on a regular schedule.
I was raised in a house that was nothing but rules and schedules, and J was raised in a house where there was no responsibility and no schedule.
I could see early on that Bailee craved structure and routine, so I got her on a strict schedule.
Everything was timed down to a tee. Bailee and J bucked and fought me on it a lot, but because of how I was raised, I thought this was the only way.
It would take years of this parenting adventure to learn my biggest lesson: compromise.
I signed Bailee up for everything. Piano, guitar, theater, dance team.
I was one of those moms. I just wanted her to thrive and have a chance to find something she liked and was good at.
I didn’t realize I was doing what Bill and Mindy had done to me by not giving her any free will or control over her life.
Granted, parents are supposed to guide and help children find their purpose, but how can they find their purpose when they’re under their parents’ thumb 24-7?
Bailee and I have parallel stories. Both of our moms were drug addicted, both moms abandoned us, both dads did the best they could but also had to work through their own issues, and we were both forced to grow up too quickly.
If there is anyone in this life besides J that I have to thank for helping me heal, it’s this little girl.
Seeing so much of myself in her made me want to be a better “mom” for her.
A better person for her. Bailee has helped us both learn how to be parents and sometimes I feel bad because she had to grow up with us.
* * *
ONCE WE GOT BAILEE SETTLED, we had to get back to work—which meant touring and doing shows for J and seeing clients for me. We hired a nanny who was close to the family. Leaving wasn’t for months at a time anymore. We were parents, and there was someone else we had to think about.
The first Waylon & Willie album—the album J and his best friend, Struggle, first released—was written in our Vegas house.
Struggle and the crew would come down and stay in the house for weeks at a time.
J was surrounded by his friends so he wouldn’t get too homesick.
And then we would venture out on tour and come straight back. This was our new norm, or so I thought.
All of a sudden J decided to pull the plug.
I never saw it coming.
* * *
WHILE WE WERE GETTING SETTLED, one of J’s ex-flings came back around.
She was hanging with Struggle’s daughter.
I couldn’t wrap my head around why she was welcome in our circle, and everyone was fine with it.
I didn’t want my insecurities to overshadow our relationship and the family we were working so hard to build, so I pushed them to the back of my mind and focused on family life.
I had let my past trauma from Karma seep too much into our relationship already.
Even if J and I argued a lot, it was nothing like my past relationships.
I didn’t think I had anything to worry about.
I should have known with his supposed “best friend” around, it was about to be some bullshit.
But instead of bashing Struggle, I’ll just simply say my husband has been the best friend to that man, that man has never been a best friend to my husband.
I’ll leave it at that—until later on in the story.
So imagine my shock when J told me he had decided to take Bailee and move back to Nashville.
We had been together in Vegas for only five months.
When I asked him why, he gave me every excuse except for the real one: He was talking to his ex behind my back.
Not a baby mama, but this young girl he was seeing briefly before he and I hooked up.
I’d felt it but couldn’t prove it. But I’d also felt his pain.
The wounds that were deep inside him, left to fester, unhealed, and I could see how neither of us had really learned how to love.
“You can come, too, if you want,” he said, but it was clear that he didn’t really want that.
By then, I was committed to J and willing to work through anything.
I told myself he was just homesick. I’d left, too, partially because I was homesick.
I understood it. I wasn’t going to abandon our little family ever again.
So I started packing up our Vegas house and trying to find a home in Nashville in the area where J wanted to raise Bailee.
After everything, I was going to have to be a Nashville girl after all, whether I wanted to or not.
But I didn’t care. This was my family, and whatever we had to do, I would do.