Chapter 79: Nice Guys Get Prayers Answered

Ladies and gentlemen....welcome Matt del Marco to the stage.....from Adam's POV, of course!

Adam

Okay, in the last couple of years, living the rock star life, I've experienced a lot of crazy shit. Matt del Marco rifling through my suitcase, toeing off his Yeezy's and stripping off his jeans in my childhood bedroom is definitely top five.

"Jesus, you're thick, aren't ya?" he says as he puts on my athletic shorts and has to pull the drawstring tight to keep them hanging on his lean, muscular frame. Damn, for an old guy, he's in great shape. Much more muscular than in those those old Skid Marc's videos where he had big hair and wore a leather vest over his skinny, speed-wasted frame. Jesus, why the hell am I staring at Matt's cuts? I shudder and look away.

"Matt, uhhhm...look don't take this the wrong way, I got much respect, but...dude, what the fuck?"

He laughs. "First rule for Rock Star Daddies: a run or the gym is the only place you are gonna get any peace, ever again. Make it a habit or you'll be poppin' pills before the kid's first birthday. Go take a piss, find a goddamn hat 'cause there ain't no time to style that," he waves a hand at my longish-on-top, lightly highlighted hair, "and meet me in the kitchen in five. Let's go!" He throws clothes at me, and stalks out.

Ooooookaaaaay. I guess Matt del Marco and I are going for a run. I'm...fuck. I'm not even gonna question it. I get up and do exactly as I was told.

When I get down to the kitchen, to my utter shock, Matt has whole brought the whole damn family. Well, not the older kids, but Marianne is sitting at the table, a blanket thrown over her shoulder, and I assume, Alley under there, nursing, chatting with MacKenna like they are old friends.

Lane is sitting at the table in MacKenna's lap, determinedly drawing tattoos on a picture of Jesus. Ah, I guess that must be a coloring book my mom has for the grandkids. Wonder if she's going to put Lane's rendering on the fridge, too. I look over at her, trying to catch her eye and tease her about it, but she's busy.

My mom is tying a bandanna around Matt del Marco's head.

I do the only thing I can do. I discreetly snap a picture of that. I'll text it to Trace later.

"Thank you! You're a life saver! I sweat like a pig when I run!" Matt slings an arm around my mom, much to her surprise. "Damn, Heartley, you're a lucky SOB, aren't you? Growin' up with a mom like this, in a place like this?" He swoops an around around the cozy kitchen, and then he stuffs a slice of something my mom made into his mouth. "Christ, and with food like this?"

"Oh, I don't know if he thinks he was that lucky. I was pretty strict. Washed his mouth out with soap a dozen times for cussin' in this kitchen," she says dryly.

Matt laughs so hard he chokes. My mom pounds him on the back helpfully as he leans on the kitchen island and wags a finger at her. "Point taken," he finally croaks. "I though that was actually mild, but I apologize, ma'am," he says, in his best imitation of a Southern accent.

This is crazy. My life is crazy. My mother is chastising one of the biggest rock legends of all time for saying "damn" while she feeds him zucchini bread, and my wife—is she still my wife?—is snickering and helping Lane spell out "Skid Marcs" longways upon the arm of our Lord and Savior.

Matt washes down the zucchini bread with the last of his java and then washes the coffee cup, gingerly setting it in the dish drainer while my mother watches him with her head cocked. "See Adam? Even Matt del Marco can wash a dish. It's not that hard."

Okay, I'll admit it. I avoided my dishwashing chores like the plague when I was growing up. I didn't mind laundry, or dusting, or even washing windows, but the all the remnants of other people's food grossed me out. I would constantly barter with Brett to trade chores with me, and if I couldn't get her to, I would just cut out on the job and take the consequences.

"Only here, to charm you," Marianne assures her. "At home, you won't see him anywhere near a sink."

"We have two housekeepers and three adult children, that don't even pay rent. Dishes ain't my gig. I'm too busy making the bacon, to keep all you women in shoes, AnnieBananie," he teases her.

She blows a kiss at him and fiddles with the blanket, extracting a sleepy baby girl and readjusting herself with nonchalance. I look anywhere else. I mean, I've seen my sisters breastfeed on rare occasion when a kid was making its hunger urgently known, but typically, they seem to feel more comfortable going into a quiet room for privacy, when the house is full of the menfolk.

But Marianne is California, and it's different out there. I see women nursing comfortably in public all the time. I look at MacKenna, wondering what her thoughts on breastfeeding are—if she's anxious about it, or more likely, given her hippie upbringing, if she's totally confident in her ability to serve up sustenance for our kid without a single worry. I hope it's the latter. I don't want her to be stressed over any thing else. We have enough stress.

It's like we are on a never-ending rollercoaster.

Thrills and screams and stomach drops, and not much more.

No wonder we are both freaked out and acting crazy.

Matt interrupts my thought by gripping me from behind by the shoulders. "We're going for a run, and then we have some errands. I need some cowboy boots. What are you ladies getting up to, today?"

I guess it's like that. Mac and I have become pawns in the del Marco Scheme of Things. I get it now, why Trace just folds and does whatever Matt tells him to. He's a hard dude to ignore.

"Oh, we'll probably do a little retail therapy,too," Marianne says with a wink at MacKenna. "Then I'm going to help Mac hire a personal food manager." She nods toward a stack of resumes. Matt grunts and paws through them, like he's actually interested. "Ph.D's from Harvard. Dam-...Dang," he corrects with a wink to my mom, who snaps at him with a dishcloth.

My mom just swatted Matt del Marco, like a naughty grandchild, like she doesn't even care he's about her age. And a Rock Legend. I rub my face, grab a mug, pour a slug of coffee, gulp it down black and hot. Blink. Pinch myself. Yep. Still real.

Marianne is instructing Mac to sort through the resumes and group them into three piles, based on their pictures and their 'personal interest' sections. "Shameless Inner Fangirl," and "Too Brainy to know who Soundcrush is," and "Somewhere in the middle but with common decency." Then she takes Lane's crayon, codes them, and winks at Mac, "We'll give them all a fair shot, of course. During the interview, we'll code again. Over time, it helps to hone your instincts."

"I thought we were going to interview the candidates together," It's crazy, but I am almost afraid to protest. Not to Mac. To Marianne.

Matt snorts. "Nuh-huh. Interviewing for a job for is not easy. Too much pressure on these ladies, anyway, because Mac is such a Celebrity Goddess. You show up and most of them will lose their composure completely. They'll all seem like fangirls and Mac will get pissed and chuck all their resumes in the trash." Matt tosses the stack back on the table. "Second Rule for Rock Star Daddies. The Ball-and-Chain..." he grins at Marianne as she discreetly flips him off where neither Lane nor my mother see, "I mean, your lovely wife," Matt amends, nodding at MacKenna, "chooses any women that work for you. You get to hire her security, though. If it's a job you're hiring for with a mixed field of applicants, then you can do it together or whatever."

"That's seems kind of old-fashioned," MacKenna says with an eye-roll.

He raises his eyebrows in that devilish Trace way. "Hmmmmph. Mama-Child, do you want to stay happily married or not?"

He's joking, but he doesn't know how hard what he says strikes us both. My chest ribs tighten, squeezing and squeezing, like there's nothing inside to stop them from collapsing altogether, because I'm hollow inside.

I look at her.

MacKenna looks up at me, and for the first time in a couple of days, I'm not seeing the Killer. She smiles that sweet smile. "Yeah, I guess I do."

I take a sharp breath, like I haven't had oxygen in days. I let it out slow.

Thank you, God.

Okay, we can fix this. My dad was right. I can't walk away from this woman, and our child. I don't want to—I love them with all of me, and she's telling me right now, she loves me, too.

I see it now. We've both been playing our love song slightly out of tune. When we hit the bridge, pitch up in intensity, that's when it shows. She's sharp and I'm flat. We've got to fine tune, and hit that perfect harmony.

We can do that, right?

I smile back at her, noticing for the first time this morning that she looks so beautiful—no makeup—her hair completely natural—no false flame, no rainbow, just fair and flowing Mac.

Vulnerable and slightly scared—just like after we lost our minds from our first fevered kisses, went too far, and made love in her dorm room the very first night I met her.

That first night, she gave all of herself to me, without reserve, like she trusted me completely, and I met her there, and did my damnedest to take care of her, tenderly, passionately, honestly—in every way. We'd said things to each other I'd never dreamed of saying to a girl before. Told each other how much we liked what we were doing to each other, what we were craving from each other, what we were making each other feel as we made love. It maybe lasted twenty minutes, but it felt like my whole life.

No, like eternity.

I'll never forget the look of surprise and uncertainty on her face as she tried to get out of the bed a few minutes later, and I pulled her to my chest and said, "Don't get up, please. Wait, just a few minutes. Holding you...it feels just as amazing as the sex."

She said, "Why is that, do you think?" and she looked exactly like she looks this minute. Vulnerable. Scared. Waiting for me to say something.

I remember clearly what I thought, but didn't say. I thought, "I've never felt like this before. Ever. Maybe this is love."

I couldn't say it. I was nineteen, I had just met her, and the logical part of me—or maybe it was just the nineteen-year-old part of me— thought it was crazy to say such a thing, even if we had just shared the most real thing I had ever felt.

So instead, I said, "We just...work. Like the sound." I meant, she had swooped in and revolutionized my heart, just like she had stalked into band practice and completely upended our sound in the best way. Made us what we are. Forever.

I was never sure if she understand what I was trying to say. I think she did, but she was hoping for more, I guess, because her face changed. She rolled her eyes at me, said, "You're weird," and slipped out of bed. Slipped away into the Killer. For years after, I learned to love the Killer, too, and I only saw her sweetness in her bed, in the dark, when we were both a little buzzed from alcohol, or a little high from performance, or a little fuck-drunk, and she would talk with me softly and honestly, for a little while, before she recovered her killer strength.

Now all of her vulnerability is showing on her face, and I'm leaving her hanging again. She said she wants to stay married, and I'm standing here like an oaf, staring at her. Yeah, Heartley, fix that. Now.

I take a step toward her, put my hand over hers on the table, and say, "We will. Of course we will. Maybe we should take Matt's advice, yeah?"

She leans over Lane to hide her face, but as her hair falls forward, her head nods, and she spreads her fingers beneath mine, tips them up, and curls mine into hers, squeezing.

I twist her wrist up to my mouth, and kiss her for a long and grateful second.

Matt claps me on the shoulder, and calls my attention to his two children. "Okay, Heartley. Pick one."

I reluctantly release Mac's hand. "Huh?"

"When we get back from our run, we'll be taking one of the kiddos with us on our errands, obviously. This is Daddy Rock Star training, remember?"

"Oh...uhhh...doesn't matter, I guess?" But my eyes go to little blonde Alley, and Mac sees that. She smiles, and bounces Lane on her knees. "What do you say Little Man? You want to hang with me and your mom today? If your mom will let me, I'll spring for ice cream..." she looks at Marianne, who winks and nods.

"With sprinkles?" he asks, concentrating on giving Jesus a guitar.

"You got it," she laughs.

A rapid conversation ensues, in which Marianne, Matt, my mom, and their nanny that has suddenly popped up when needed, figure all the logistics for our day, and in moments, Marianne is shooing Mac up the stairs to get "pap-ready, because no doubt before the day is over they will find us," and Matt is shoving me out the door.

While we stretch, it finally occurs to me to ask. "Did Trace call you?"

Matt pedals his calves on the porch steps. "He did. Said Mac was having a pregnancy crisis and you were freaking out, talkin' about you two quittin' the band. I told him to let it ride a while, I've heard that speech of desperation a hundred times over the years—hell, even made it myself a few times, and it always changes when the crisis passes. Then Row called, said you were acting like a douche and needed an ass-kicking—" I laugh, and so does he, "which you know is just her way of saying she was worried about you and thought you could use a little encouragement, right?"

"I'm not so sure about that..." I protest.

He drops down into a runner's lunge. "Nah, my Doodle fronts the bad bitch, but she has a big heart. She's just really, really smart. Smart enough to realize she can't show her feelings as a young woman in a cutthroat industry. She goes overboard with it, cause she's like Trace, without the wounds and with twice the confidence. It's all an act. Except when she's mad at me for being an overbearing dad. That's real."

"So it was Row that convinced you to come here?"

We start down the drive in a light jog. "No. I told her of course you were actin' like a douche—you are just a kid, not much older than her, who has knocked up his girl, gotten sort-of hitched, and is now facing a grown-up crisis for the first time all in the space of a summer. I told her the douchieness would pass. I told her to cut you break. But then, last night I got a call from an unknown number. It hardly ever happens, but occasionally somebody gets my private mobile number. I put my thumb out to ignore the call—I would swear to God I did—but somehow, something made my thumb go the other way instead. It was weird, and for a second I thought about ending the call again, but then I thought, fuck it. Let's see who it is. Maybe I can make somebody's day."

"It was your dad, introducing himself, telling me he got the number from Trace, asking for a few minutes of my time. He was hoping I would give you a call, but I figured...if a man of God who raised a decent kid like you is asking for my help, it must be hella serious. And you don't fix hella serious with a phone call. So here I am. Now tell me, Heartley...what the fuck is really going on in that head of yours?"

I open my mouth, and the Madam Love Story comes pouring out. It's crazy, but I tell Matt del Marco shit I could never speak aloud to my dad. Things I couldn't tell Leed, because he's Mac's brother. Things I can't tell Trace or Bodie, because they are Mac's bandmates. I tell him how we started, how it is between us when things are good, and how it is when things are terrible. I tell him the ways we are alike, and the ways we grew up so differently. I tell him about the breaks, the fangirls, the drugs, the drinking, the fights, the way Mac implodes and runs, and the ways she sometimes explodes when she doesn't. I tell him how I think about my innocent unborn daughter, and I can't stop thinking that all those fangirls were somebody's daughter, too.

He listens to it all like a father, like a friend, like a priest. It's fucking weird. The last thing I say to him is..."The thing is. I love her. I've only ever loved her. I'll love her forever. I know she loves me the same. But sometimes...in the back of her eyes, I see this anger and this fear. I see her resentment of all the fangirls. I see her fear that I'm going to...overpower her. Not physically, but with...this life." I jerk my head to the countryside. "She wants the security of this life, but she wants it in the world where we are both rock stars, on equal footing. And I don't know how to be the man she needs...she wants the rock star, at the same time she kind of...hates him, too? She wants me to be the Preacher, but in the Rock Star's life, and I don't how to be that, without feeling...terrible. Guilty. Unworthy. Does that even make sense?"

"It does, actually," is all he says, and then we jog in silence for awhile. I don't say anything, because I can tell Matt is mulling it all over in his mind. Finally, he speaks.

"Adam, I guess the first thing is...that you can see all that shit at twenty-four years old... you are way the fuck ahead of my curve. It took me until thirty to see half the distance you can, and even when Street and the girls came along...I was not as mature as you are now. I have never cheated on Annie, but there's been other stuff. I put the music ahead of my family. Sometimes I even put the party ahead, too. She left me—a couple of times—when the older three kids were still little. The third time, she didn't pack up the kids and go home to her parents in the middle of the night. The third time, she had all the locks changed and hired security to keep me out of my own house, and told me she would talk to me after I got back from ninety days of rehab. That time—three months without my family—I knew she was serious. I haven't touched anything but a drink now and then in almost twenty years. The fact that your kid isn't even here yet, and you are trying to clean your party up...I think that speaks volumes. I think you do that—and MacKenna sees that—and the trust will grow, and the jealousies and insecurities about the fangirls will fade."

"But that's not all you are asking me. You're asking me how to split your soul. How to be the guy that lives his childhood values and also be the rock star. How to give MacKenna the home life she wants for her kid—the one she never had—and let her keep the freedom she needs to create as an artist—and somehow still be a man who can look himself in the mirror every day. If you'd asked me that a year and half ago—I would have told you were overthinking, man. I would have told you that you are way too hard on yourself. I would have told you to ease up. But that's an old man's answer. An answer from a man that went through it and came out the other side a long time ago. An answer from a man that forgot how hard it was to become the husband, the father, the family man."

"Yeah, I would have chuckled at your youth, except for Trace. A year ago, he walked up to me and introduced his mother to me and goddamn...I was twenty-six years old again...and reeling. I was looking between my wife—the love of my life—eight months pregnant across the room, and Gina—who was maybe the only fangirl that every really made me forget about Annie for a few days—and this kid, who had my eyes, and everything I thought I knew for sure went to shit in a hurry."

He stops running, bends over at the waist, walks back and forth. "The hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life, was sit my pregnant wife down, and tell her our firstborn son was not my firstborn son. To ask Marianne to open our life, and her heart to my son with another woman. It didn't go down easy. She didn't blame me, exactly, but she was so angry, because she was hurt. It took some time, but she accepted Trace, because she loves me, and she's come to love Trace, but it hurt her badly. And hurts her still, because I...I struggle with it all. I..." he cracks his neck... "I feel, for Gina."

"Whoa," is all I can manage, but he smile, and waves a hand, almost like he's smoking a cigarette. Maybe he is, in his memory.

"It's not a feeling born of real love, but of...memory, and regret and guilt. I was...reckless with her. Marianne and I weren't together, we'd been broken up for a few months at that time, and I thought maybe Gina..." he breaks off, looks into the distance of his memory. "Well, I was wrong, and I was reckless. I kept her with me a whole week. I started treating her like a girlfriend, not a fangirl. The condoms in my travel kit ran out, and we just...didn't care. I'd never behaved like that with a fangirl. She was different, though. Special. Worthy. An amazing girl."

"Then, she surprised me. One morning I woke up and she was all packed and sitting on the sofa. She told me she had spent all her cash, but she was hoping I'd help her out with a bus ticket back to her college town, because spring break was over a couple of days ago, and she was missing classes and really had to get back. I told it was alright, she could stay for awhile longer. She just smiled, shook her head, and said she couldn't. So I got her a car, offered her a wad of cash that she wouldn't take, and then...I..." he smiles bitterly. "I didn't give her my number.

"I thought about it. Thought about it hard. I knew I had been careless. I never asked her once if she was on the pill. I never asked her shit about her life, where she was from, if she had a guy back in her real life. All I knew was her school...and that she was a senior. I knew if I let her walk out that door, I'd probably never see her again. Then I thought about Marianne, and I thought...'It's for the best, because I can't love two girls, and I'm gonna marry Annie one day.'

"So I let Gina walk without my phone number. Without a way to contact me. I left her pregnant my kid...without...without a lifeline." Matt makes a frustrated growl and blinks rapidly, shaking his head and looking at me. "And I have to live with that, every day for the rest of my life. And so does Trace. And so does Marianne. Gina, too. So I get it. The guilt, the baggage, the worries that you have about your past."

He looks at me, winces, looks away again, but he keeps talking.

"Sometimes, I have nightmares. I'm in a house I've never been in. I can hear an angry man yelling, a woman crying, a kid's ragged, fearful breath, and I know the kid is hiding. In the dream, I know who these people are. Ross—a guy I never met—and Gina, and Trace as a little kid. In the dream, I'm tearing through that house, trying to find them, but every room is empty. I can't get to them, but the crying and scared breathing...they don't stop."

I nod slowly. Christ, this is fucking insane. Matt del Marco is about to make me lose my shit. I'm about to bawl for him, and for Trace.

"Shit, man," I say, and pace around. Finally, I say, "Okay, so you know. Way better than I do, you know what I'm talking about. I don't think I've got any kids out there I have to worry about, but I worry about the girls...what it did to them. If it...changed their lives in a bad way, being with me. Then I feel...unworthy to be with Mac."

He nods. "Exactly."

"Okay—so don't take this the wrong way, but everybody in this business thinks you are like THE FAMILY GUY of Rock Stars. The steadiest husband, dad, dude, in the whole business. Yet you're saying...you feel torn up...divided."

"Yeah."

"So how do you look at your wife, your kids—Trace in the eye and not feel like a fraud?"

He smiles. "I do what they taught me in rehab."

"What's that?"

"You fake it, til you make it. You get up in the morning, be the man they need you to be. One day at a time. It doesn't matter if you feel like that man inside or not. You make a choice. You live like that man, you become that man. I'm not saying you don't let your wife in on how you feel—your worries, your baggage—but you don't spotlight it and you don't fold beneath its weight. And in a fight with your wife, or in a crisis, or in rut—cause you will fight sometimes, and bad shit will happen, and sometimes you will wonder if the love's gone cold—you marry for life and there's no getting around all that shit—but when the shit hits the fan, you don't let all that self-doubt you feel bury you both. You don't walk off and behave like you aren't good enough. The truth is...maybe you aren't good enough, maybe you are.

"Maybe in your heart of hearts you should have been the Preacher, not the Rock Star. Or maybe you were born to be the Rock Star and let the Preacher fade. Doesn't matter, 'cause you didn't choose between them. You chose to love a woman that needs them both. You chose to make a complicated life, a crazy bicoastal family with her. So you get up in the morning, you look around and wherever the fuck you find yourself that day, and whoever the fuck you are that day, you stand up and you fucking fight for what you love. It's pretty damn simple, and pretty fucking hard."

I just sort of stand there, after he says all that.

Because sometimes, when you hear the truth, you're struck still, while the truth takes root inside you, and grows.

That truth grows fast, and suddenly I don't feel so hollow anymore.

"Okay, I feel that," I say slowly, "But how do I start? We had a big fight, and I feel we both want to make it right, but I don't know how to...get started. Every time we've ever fought this badly before, it was a break-up."

"Making up is easy. Surely I don't have to tell you that, Adam." He circles his finger and makes crude gesture with his both hands. We both laugh, but I shake my head.

"That's off the table. Doctor's orders."

"For the rest of her pregnancy?" Matt's eyes are horrified.

"Hmmm, not sure. We have to see the doc once a week. There's like a..." I tried to remember the way the second doctor explained it..."there's a bruise in her uterus, from a tiny tear in the placenta. If the bruise gets smaller each time they check, they know the placenta healed itself and we'll be good to go. They want to monitor for a month or so..."

"Shit, you don't to wait a month to start making up," Matt says. He slaps me on the back and we start to jog back. "So there's the other way, but you gotta go big."

I laugh at him again. "You mean bling? We're not like that. Mac has her own money, remember? She's told me over and over, I don't have to buy her shit, she can get her own stuff."

Matt throws back his head and laughs. "Oh Christ, it's a good thing I'm here. You might be mature for your age, but you are still dumb as shit about being a rock star husband. Double time, it kid. Mac being independently wealthy just means we have to get more meaningful and more creative. We've got a lot of place to hit."

He takes off down the country road, and I have to struggle to keep up with him.

Things are looking up with Matt taking the wheel! Can't wait to hear what Marianne says to Mac! Thoughts on Adam's honesty and Matt's advice? Or Matt's take on how Trace has impacted his life (I'll admit, I cried a little...)