Rock Angel (Rock Angel Series Book 1) (44 page)

“It would be difficult,” he was saying. “We have another two months on tour, so you’d have to deal with being knocked up on the road. We have to start on the new album as soon as we get back, then there’ll be another tour and, somewhere in the middle of that, we have to find a house. The timing really couldn’t be worse, but we’ll make it work, if it’s what you want.” He caught her hand, squeezed it. “Is it? You said you wanted a family. Would it make you happy?”

Happy?
She didn’t know, had never thought about having a child with Quinn in concrete terms. It seemed like something impossible, a dream so far out of her reach that to ponder it would lacerate, and she’d firmly blocked any such musings before they could begin to bloom into fantasy or, even worse, hope.

And she wouldn’t fantasize about it now, because there were other considerations. She pulled her hand out of his grasp. “It doesn’t matter,” she said sharply, “because I’m a methadone addict, Quinn. Did you forget about that?”

He shook his head. “No, I didn’t forget.”

“Then how can you even suggest this?”

“It isn’t as cut and dried as that. There are options. We should see an OB and find out what they are.” She shook her head, but he caught her face between his hands, stopping her. “Just think about it, that’s all I’m asking. Wait to decide until we find out what we’re dealing with.”

She shrugged, dropped her eyes, then realized she was looking down at her pregnant stomach.

Quinn put Jeff on it, had him line up an emergency appointment with the best obstetrician in Casper, where they were bound for their next show, and the OB, Dr. Benner, spoke candidly to them. “If you choose to have the baby, I wouldn’t advise trying to detox while you’re pregnant,” he said. “It can cause a miscarriage, if you do it too fast. Have you tried before?”

“Yes,” Shan admitted, the old shame welling up inside. “I haven’t been able to kick this last dose.”

“Then don’t try to do it now,” he said. “All you’ll do is put yourself under duress. That’s more dangerous for your baby than the methadone is.”

“But won’t the ’done hurt the baby?”

“Not if you’re careful. Stabilization is what’s important during pregnancy, not dose reduction. If you deliver, though, the concern will be neonatal abstinence syndrome.”

“Meaning the baby could be addicted to methadone?” Quinn asked. Shan went cold.

“Right. There’s no way of knowing if that’s the case until the baby is born.”

“What’s the least I can be on?” Shan interjected. “You know, for that not to happen?”

“It’s hard to say. Some people are on eighty milligrams and it doesn’t affect their child. Others are on ten and it does. It’s individual and might change over the course of your pregnancy. You’ll need to be monitored closely and, after you deliver, the baby will have to be watched for signs of withdrawal.”

Shan thought about what a methadone turkey was like. The sweats and shakes and nausea. The utter exhaustion, feeling like she’d collapse if she didn’t get some rest, but not being able to sleep no matter what she did. The anxiety that made her want to crawl out of her skin, the physical sensitivity that made everything hurt. Then she thought about a newborn baby going through that.

“I want an abortion,” she said without looking at Quinn. “Can we schedule it today?”

Dr. Benner didn’t perform abortions and apparently neither did anyone else in the state of Wyoming, so he referred her to a clinic in Nebraska, where their next show was scheduled. She and Quinn flew to Omaha, then rented a car and drove to Bellevue, where the facility was located.

First she had to undergo counseling. It was state law, Dr. Benner had told her, warning her that the session would likely rely heavily on information intended to discourage her from having the procedure. He turned out to be right, but the stream of propaganda declined sharply once she told the counselor about her methadone dependency.

“We don’t advocate abortion here,” the counselor told them, “but we recognize that it’s sometimes the best choice. In some cases, life can be a curse instead of a gift.” Apparently, the right to life carried less weight when the fetus in question could turn into a junkie baby.

She was required to wait twenty-four hours before they’d perform the abortion, so they checked into a motel near the clinic. Quinn was with her every second, even went to the counseling session with her, but he remained uncharacteristically quiet. She could barely bring herself to meet his eyes, they looked so troubled and guilt ridden and there was something sorrowful there that she didn’t want to see.

The morning of the procedure she woke to find him sitting up in bed, watching her. “What if you never get off methadone?” he asked, once he saw she was awake.

She blinked. “What?”

“A lot of people never kick it,” he continued, “and you have to think about what that would mean. You said you wanted a family. If you can’t get clean and you won’t get pregnant if you aren’t…” He paused, then shrugged. “What happens to that dream, angel?”

She stared at him for a moment, then got up and went into the bathroom without answering.

An hour later they were in the waiting room at the clinic. When they called her name Shan rose to follow the nurse practitioner. She was at the door leading to the procedure room when Quinn was suddenly at her side, gripping her hand.

“You know that I’m with you, don’t you, angel?” he said. “I might have made a different choice if it was up to me, but…I’m with you. You aren’t alone.” Again she saw that look in his eyes and she experienced a pain deep inside when she realized that what she was seeing was grief.

He kissed her and she dropped his hand, then followed the nurse into a little cubicle. She undressed, donned a gown, and was led into the procedure room. The nurse helped her climb onto the table and spread the paper sheet over her lap, then Shan lay back and stared up at the ceiling. It was very white, the fluorescent bulbs glaring, and she wondered why they didn’t make it a little easier on the eyes since she assumed most of the patients in this room would be flat on their backs.

The doctor came in next, a tall woman with curly dark hair shot through with silver. “Hi, Shan. I’m Dr. Greene. Do you have any questions about the procedure you’re having today?”

Shan mumbled a no. The counselor had been more than thorough in her description, but the doctor still went on to explain the intricacies of the method she’d be using to terminate the pregnancy, something called first trimester suction aspiration.

Shan let her mind wander during the discourse, remembering what Quinn had said that morning. What if he was right, if she never did get off methadone? Did that mean she’d never have a child, never be a mother? And what would that mean for her relationship with him?

It had never occurred to her that he might want children. She knew he liked them, he adored his niece and nephew, but she’d still been shocked when he suggested keeping this baby.

What would it be like, she wondered, to create a child with Quinn and raise it with him? They’d be a family, a real family, bound by blood and love and progeny. For the first time she let herself imagine the child they might have. A little boy who looked like him, maybe, or a little girl. She might have dark hair, like hers, but her eyes—they’d be blue as a summer sky, just like Quinn’s.

I’d name her Abby
, she thought, and tears welled up in her eyes at the thought of her mother.

The nurse handed her a tissue. “Are you all right?” she asked gently.

Shan nodded, but she wasn’t sure that she was. She felt something rupture in her chest, actually felt it, her heart breaking. Her stomach was roiling, too. Maybe it was morning sickness or maybe it was the weird, wondrous thing that was suddenly causing her to expand from the inside out. The thing that, very soon, would cease to exist.

The doctor turned back from the sink, now enumerating the postoperative instructions. “You should rest for the remainder of today, avoid any heavy lifting, and no swimming or tub baths for the next week,” she concluded, snapping on a pair of gloves. “Is there someone here to drive you home?”

Shan dashed her hand across her eyes. “Yes, my—”

Boyfriend,
she was going to say, when she was struck by what an inadequate word that was to describe what Quinn meant to her. He was her best friend, her partner. Her muse. Her lover. Her family, now more than ever, fused to her by the small, fragile bump in her belly. A sob escaped her.

The doctor’s smile faded. “Are you sure you want to do this, Shan?”

Shan opened her mouth to say yes but her eyes filled again. Then she was sobbing, so hard it felt like she’d never stop.

Quinn was drinking a cup of lukewarm coffee and staring out the window when Shan came back into the waiting room. He took one look at her red, ravaged face and leapt to his feet. “Are you all right?”

She shook her head. “Get me out of here,” she choked. “Now. Please.”

Wrapping an arm around her, he guided her out of the clinic, across the parking lot, and into the rental car. When he got in beside her, she was doubled over with both arms wrapped around her middle. “It’ll be all right, angel.”

“I hope it will,” she said, “because I didn’t do it.”

He froze. “You didn’t?”

“No.”

“You’re still pregnant?” He looked stunned.

“Yes.”

He was silent for a long, long moment, so long that Shan’s eyes filled again. “Oh no! You’re upset. I’m sorry, Q. I didn’t mean to—”

He held up both hands.
“Stop!”
he said. “I’m
not
upset. I just need a chance to—to catch up with you.” He put his hands over his eyes and rubbed them, hard. “Why didn’t you do it?” he asked, after a moment.

Her face twisted and her arms tightened around her stomach. “I want her.”

“Her?”

She shrugged. “Or him. Whoever it is. It was different before, when she…he wasn’t real to me. Now he…she is. She’s ours and I want her.”

“Oh.” He was silent for another moment, then he lowered his hands from his eyes. When he did, she saw they were beginning to shine. “I guess we’re having a baby, then.”

Then he was pulling her into his arms, squeezing her so hard she could barely breathe. A minute later they were peeling out of the parking lot, speeding back to the motel. Once they got back to the room she pulled the T-shirt over his head, unbuckled his belt while he pushed her back on the bed and slid in beside her to embrace her and kiss her and fondle her.

Then he stopped. “Can we? I mean, will it hurt anything?”

“Oh no,” she breathed. “I mean, no it won’t. And yes, yes we can.” Then she stopped talking, because he was inside of her.

Afterward his hand stole between her legs, fitting snugly over her vagina. She loved it when he did that. It was such a possessive gesture, like he owned that part of her.

“So,” he said, “should we get married?”

“Fuck!”
Quinn tore a sheet of paper out of his notebook, balled it up, and threw it on the floor of the bus. Sugaree raised her head, alarmed, and he scratched her behind her ears so she’d know it wasn’t her he was mad at.

“Why is this so hard?” Shan groaned. The rest of their bandmates were up front playing poker, but they were in the master suite. They’d been there for hours, trying to write their vows.

“I don’t know, but it is. Why can’t we just say ‘I do’ and be done with it?”

“We can,” Shan said. “I just thought it would make the ceremony more personal if we wrote the vows ourselves, since we have to get married in Vegas. We don’t have to do it, though, if you don’t want to.”

The scowl had faded from Quinn’s face. “We don’t
have
to get married in Vegas, angel. It was just a suggestion. We can’t put together a big shindig until after the tour and you wanted to do it sooner rather than later because of the baby, so I thought it made sense. We can change our plans, though, if you—”

“No,” she said quickly. She wasn’t about to rock the boat. She still couldn’t believe that he wanted to marry her. “It’s okay. It doesn’t have to be a big thing.”

“Well, it
is
a big thing.” He regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, then, “Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way. You and I aren’t poets, after all.” He climbed off the bed and left the compartment. When he came back, he had the Angel in one hand and his Casio in the other. “We’re songwriters. Let’s write a song.”

They were married three weeks later, at the Graceland Wedding Chapel on the Las Vegas strip, and the place felt as packed as one of their concerts. All their bandmates were present, as well as Denise and Oda. Quinn’s mother and stepfather were there along with Ron with his family, and also Jeff, Stan, and the assorted other techs and crew from the tour. Lorraine flew in for the occasion and even Fred the driver was present. He’d volunteered to take charge of Sugaree who was there, too, wagging madly at the end of her leash.

Shan smoothed her skirt as she waited behind a bower of silk roses for the canned wedding march to commence. Her dress was more traditional than the venue, an ethereal white frock that floated around her like mist. She wore no veil or jewelry, just the dainty engagement ring Quinn had presented her with, a perfect one-carat, heart-cut diamond nestled inside a swirl of green-gold garnets exactly the color of her eyes. “It’s not too fancy or ostentatious,” he’d said when he put it on her finger, “but it’s unique. Beautiful. Special, just like you are, angel.”

When the music began, Shan took the arm of the Elvis impersonator who’d be walking her down the aisle. Quinn had insisted upon that detail, much to the horror of his mother, his sister-in-law, and Denise, but Shan understood and wholeheartedly approved. They lived in the rock ’n’ roll world, after all. How could they get married in Vegas and not have the King in attendance?

Shan’s eyes went to Quinn as she made her way to the front of the chapel. He was handsome in a white cotton suit with a white, open-necked shirt and his eyes shone as he looked at her. Her heart expanded, felt too big for her chest, and she wondered just how it was possible to be so filled with love and still have room for the baby growing inside of her.