The Concert #3
The last of the SAR officers gets aboard and gestures for the pilot to take them up. He looks at Claudia and Sienna. “The kids look fine, but we’re going straight to the hospital to have a doctor check them over. It’s protocol.”
Both women nod, not caring at all where they’re going now that their children are safe in their arms again. Sienna asks him for a blanket, then positions it so Claudia can nurse the baby without an audience. Tears stream down Claudia’s face and she gives Sienna a grateful smile.
After a minute, the man purses his lips at them. “Couldn’t stay put and wait?”
They both shake their heads at him, and Sienna expects a lecture, but the man shrugs. “No way I would either.”
Poppy turns to her mom, putting her small hands on her cheeks and wiping away her tears. “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to run away.”
“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay,” she says. “Were you trying to find me because Ivy was going to do the thing she wrote about in her diary?”
“I thought maybe you could stop her, but I got lost.” Her face scrunches up into a tight, red ball, and she starts to cry, clearly remembering the awful moment when she realized she had gone the wrong way and didn’t know how to get back.
She leans her head on Sienna’s chest and sobs while Sienna rubs her back.
When she’s finally done crying, Poppy turns to Claudia. “I’m sorry. I hope baby Elliott is okay.”
Claudia puts a hand on Poppy’s cheek. “He’s fine. You took very good care of him.”
“He’s a pretty heavy baby. My arms are sore.”
Claudia and Sienna both laugh, and it feels like the greatest thing in the world. To laugh again, when only minutes before they were facing a future of unspeakable pain.
Sienna hugs Poppy again. “I love you so much, my girl.”
“I love you too, Mommy.”
“No more secrets.” Sienna tucks a lock of Poppy’s hair behind her ear. “From now on, we tell the whole truth.”
The helicopter lowers onto the roof of the hospital. Poppy gives Sienna a thoughtful look, then reaches up and smooths out her mom’s now-wild hair.
“Do I look frightfully bad?” Sienna asks with a silly grin.
“Yes, you do.” Poppy answers in her little fake British accent. “But it’s nothing a hot shower and some tea can’t fix.”
The hospital staff whisks the children away on gurneys, and a nurse brings their moms to a private waiting room. Sienna and Claudia choose chairs next to each other even though the rest are empty. They sit in a state of happy exhaustion, their shoulders touching.
Sienna knows that at any moment the rest of her family and the band will come bursting through the door, and she longs for a few more minutes to think before the circus begins.
She realizes Claudia is as much a victim of her husband as she is.
They’re no different than Angela. She’s suddenly filled with regret for every unkind thought she ever had about Claudia—for the way she manipulated things in her favor.
“I want to apologize for coming up with this stupid lie and pressuring you into it.”
“No, please don’t apologize. I’m the one who created the situation in the first place. You were just trying to fix things.”
“But it wasn’t the right thing to do,” Sienna answers. “And I wasn’t doing it for the right reasons. I can say it was for my kids and Elliott as much as I want, but the truth is, deep down, I couldn’t take the humiliation.”
“Sienna, you’re not the one who should feel humiliated.”
“But I do anyway. I had one job—to keep my husband happy. And clearly, I didn’t do it.”
Shaking her head, Claudia places her hand on Sienna’s. “That’s not true. What happened between us had nothing to do with him not getting what he needs from you.”
“It must have.”
“No, it really didn’t. Not with someone like Zane.
I think he only wanted me because Mike had me.
And maybe because of the music. I don’t know.
But that first night, it was just a way to save ourselves from the grief we were feeling.
It’s like only the two of us could understand the guilt, you know? ”
Sienna’s heart squeezes. “It must have been so awful when you found out.”
“Devastating. It still is,” she answers. “I can’t stop going over every little thing I did wrong in our relationship and wishing I could change it so maybe he wouldn’t…”
Sienna flips her hand over and gives Claudia’s a squeeze. “There was nothing you could’ve done to save him.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
“It’s true.”
“Tell you what, I’ll stop blaming myself for Zane cheating if you’ll stop blaming yourself for Mike ending things the way he did.”
Claudia stares at her, then they both shake their heads. “Easier said than done, right?” Claudia says.
“Yeah,” Sienna answers. “But we have to try.”
Silence fills the space again, and Sienna’s mind works furiously to figure out why she has a bad feeling nagging at her. Something that wasn’t there before. “Wait. You said the first night.”
Claudia turns to her. “Yeah.”
Sienna lets go of her hand and sits back in her chair. “It wasn’t just the one time.”
Shaking her head, she says, “Three times. The night of the funeral. And once when you were on a field trip to the zoo.”
“Oh,” Sienna answers, surprised by how little it matters to her now.
“He told you it was just the night that Mike died?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never felt this bad about anything. It was the most selfish thing I’ve ever done.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s actually a good thing because I don’t have to second guess myself again. He’s a liar. And a cheat. And he’s not going to change.”
They’re both quiet again, then Sienna says, “I’m sorry I talked you into getting bangs.”
“I’m sorry I fucked your husband.”
“Yeah, that’s worse, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“But the bangs were pretty bad,” Sienna answers, causing them both to laugh.
When they finish, everything that had been blurry becomes clear.
Sienna feels her pulse speed up and her stomach flips as she lets the words go.
“You can have him, you know. He’s all yours if you want him. With my blessing.”
Claudia faces Sienna, her eyes narrowed in disbelief. “Really?”
“Yeah, really. I won’t cause any trouble. Well, not much trouble anyway. Expect the odd snarky comment for the rest of your lives,” she says, feeling as though a tremendous weight is being lifted with each word. “And for God’s sake, go in with your eyes wide open.”
Claudia sighs, then says, “I don’t think I want him either.”
“I thought you were madly in love with him.”
“I thought so too, but maybe it was just … an extremely intense infatuation. He’s honestly been very disappointing since Elliott was born.”
“The hero never lives up to the hype.”
Nodding, Claudia says, “It was the People photo shoot that did it, actually. He was so … perfect at being utterly phony. It was clear he had no emotional connection to his son. I thought maybe he’d cry a little, you know? He could’ve played it off as missing Mike. But…”
“Nothing.”
“Yeah, nothing,” Claudia answers, and nothing more needs to be said. They both understand the message by heart. After a second, she says, “There’s something else too. Something that concerns Ivy.”
Sienna feels her back go up at the mention of her child. “What’s that?”
“I heard her saying she is writing songs now, and it’s none of my business if she writes for Zane or not, but it’s come to my attention that Zane might have a disturbing pattern of taking credit for songs he didn’t write.”
She snorts dismissively. “What? Nooo. He’s a lot of bad things, but one thing he’s not is a thief. He’s an extremely talented songwriter.”
“I’m not saying he can’t write, but I picked up a copy of his ex-wife’s poetry, and man, you could set any of those poems to the melody of ‘Faded Denim’ and they would fit perfectly,” Claudia told her. “He also did it to me.”
“‘If I Didn’t Have Her’?”
Nodding, she says, “It was originally me.”
“And it was about Zane?”
“Yes.”
Sienna gives her a hard stare, her exhausted brain trying to understand what she is hearing. “You don’t think she wrote ‘Faded Denim,’ do you?”
Claudia shrugs. “Maybe. I’m telling you this because I don’t want Ivy to be used by her father.
Someday, some music journalist might figure it all out and Zane’s legacy will include being a thief.
I’d hate like hell for her to know he didn’t care enough about his own daughter to let her get the credit for her work. ”
Blowing out a long sigh, Sienna mutters, “Well, shit. Are you going to go after him for your work?”
She shakes her head. “No. I’d like to leave the door open for him to have a relationship with his son, and that would pretty much close it permanently.”
“That’s very mature of you.”
“Thank you. I’m going to do my best to be someone Elliott can look up to.”
Sienna takes her hand and squeezes it. “You already are.” After she lets go, she says, “So? What are you going to do from here?”
“I have no idea. Most likely Full Moon will drop me now that the world knows I’m a harlot. And a liar. So, my solo career will be over just as it’s getting started. But I’d rather give up my dream than lie to my son for his entire life. He deserves to know the truth about who he is.”
Sienna sits quietly beside her for a full minute before she answers.
She could very easily leave it at that. Let Claudia eat the rotten fruits of her own labor.
After all, doesn’t she deserve it? Claudia’s future should be nothing to her.
But she can’t do it. Claudia is as much a victim of Zane as she was. “You’re not going to get dropped.”
Claudia chews her bottom lip for a second. “How do you know?”
“Because I won’t let that happen.”