Chapter 82

“Can I get you something to drink, Mr. Richardson?” The flight attendant smiled down at me. “We offer complimentary beer, wine, and spirits, as well as Coke products.”

“Coke’s fine,” I replied, watching as her practiced hands scooped ice into a clear glass and placed it on my tray table with a coaster, cocktail napkin, and a can of Coca-Cola. “Can I get a straw with that, too, please?”

“Of course, sir.” The attendant slid a cocktail straw into my glass, then turned her attention to Dawn, who was sitting in the window seat next to me. “And for you, ma’am?”

“Just water for me, thanks.” When the flight attendant pushed her beverage cart further down the aisle, Dawn reached over and popped open the tab on the top of my can. “After this weekend, I don’t think I’ll ever drink alcohol again,” she told me in an undertone as she carefully poured Coke into my glass. “Clearly, I can’t hold my liquor anymore – at least, not as long as I have to keep taking these meds.”

“We all learn lessons the hard way sometimes,” I said, thinking of the time I had ended up in the ER after taking two of my little blue pills. “I’m just glad you’re feeling better.”

“Thanks,” she said, setting the can down on my tray. “Me too.”

All in all, our weekend getaway hadn’t gone as well as I had hoped it would. But, then, it could have been worse, I thought as I sipped soda through my straw. Dawn had spent our last full day in Las Vegas nursing a hangover, so we hadn’t done much outside our hotel. But, at least, she had managed to avoid another hospitalization. Now, we were flying home by way of Chicago, where we would meet up with Mason and Kristin’s mom, Susan, who were coming from Kansas City. I knew it had meant the world to my in-laws to have Mason spend his spring break with them, but after more than a week apart, I couldn’t wait to see my son.

When we landed in Chicago, I turned on my phone to find a message from my mother-in-law, letting me know she and Mason had also made it there safely and would meet us at our gate. I texted her back while Dawn and I waited for everyone else to deplane. Once I was finally off the plane and back in my power chair, we proceeded up the jet bridge and into the airport.

“Daddy!” I looked up to see Mason barreling toward me and opened my arms as he leaped into my lap.

“Buddy!” Pulling him into a rib-crunching hug, I planted a kiss on the crown of his blond head. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too, Dad,” Mason said as he burrowed into my chest.

Over the top of his head, I saw Susan watching us from a few feet away with a tender smile on her face. When Mason climbed down and went to hug Dawn, I rolled over to her. “Hi, Susan,” I said, spreading my arms to offer her a hug as well.

“Hi, Kevin!” She bent down to embrace me as best she could. “It’s so good to see you! It’s been far too long.”

“I know,” I said, feeling a stab of guilt as I realized it had been over a year since I’d last seen her. “Sorry. Life’s been a whole lot busier ever since I rejoined the Backstreet Boys.”

“Oh, I know, honey; I wasn’t trying to guilt-trip you,” Susan assured me as she let go and straightened up. “I’m so proud of you – and I know Kristin would be, too.”

“Thanks,” I whispered, my throat tightening. I quickly cleared it and, blinking back the unexpected tears that had sprang to my eyes, tipped my head toward Dawn and Mason. “You remember Dawn, right?”

“Of course! Hi, Dawn,” said Susan, hugging her, too. “Thanks for taking care of my boys.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Dawn replied, her cheeks turning pink.

We had booked our flights to allow for a long layover in Chicago, which gave us time to have an early dinner together at the airport before Susan flew back to Kansas City. We found a Chili’s not far from our gate and got a table for four. While we waited for our food, Dawn and I asked Mason about all the things he’d done in Kansas and told him and Susan a little about our trip to Vegas, leaving out the details Dawn didn’t want them to know.

After a while, Mason grew bored of the conversation. “Where’s our food? I’m hungry,” he whined. Thankfully, the waiter brought our meals out a few minutes later. But it didn’t take Mason long to finish eating his grilled cheese and French fries and go right back to complaining. “When can we get on the plane? I wanna go home!”

Dawn and I exchanged a knowing look. We could both tell he was getting tired and cranky after a long day of traveling.

Susan cleared her throat. “Why don’t you and Dawn take a walk around the terminal while your daddy and I finish our dinner?” she suggested with a pointed look at my plate, which was still piled high with fries and half of a burger.

“Good idea!” Dawn agreed and stood up. “C’mon, Mase. Let’s go look out the big windows. Maybe we’ll get to watch a plane take off or land.” Taking his hand, she led him away from the table.

“Has it been a long week?” I asked Susan once they were out of earshot. “I hope he wasn’t this whiny the whole time.”

“Oh, no, of course not!” she assured me. “He’s been a delight! I cherish every moment I get to spend with him.”

“Oh, good,” I replied, but a fresh wave of guilt washed away any sense of relief I might have felt. I knew I needed to give her and John more of those moments while Mason was still little. He was growing up way too fast. “You know,” I added on sudden inspiration, “Dawn and I are flying to China with the Boys toward the end of next month for our first run of shows. We’ll be there for a couple of weeks. I was going to have Mason stay with my mom, so he won’t miss his last day of school. But you would be more than welcome to come stay at the house with him or bring him back to Kansas with you over Memorial Day weekend.”

“I would love that,” she said with an eager nod. “Either way works for me. Why don’t we ask Mason what he wants to do? He can decide whether we go to Kansas or stay in Kentucky.”

I nodded. “Sounds good. We can talk to him when he comes back to the table.”

As I picked up my half-eaten hamburger to take a bite, Susan offered me a surreptitious smile. “You know, the real reason I sent him away with Dawn wasn’t because he was getting antsy. It was so we could talk privately for a few minutes,” she admitted. “I wanted to ask you how your conversation with Natalie’s parents went last weekend.” She raised her eyebrows hopefully, and my heart sank.

Swallowing hard, I set my burger down. “John told you, huh?” I said, feeling my face redden. “I was planning to talk to you about it in person, too, but I guess it doesn’t really matter now. Natalie and I won’t be getting engaged anytime soon. Maybe not ever.”

“Oh no!” Susan gasped, knitting her brow. “Why not? You mean, her parents wouldn’t give you permission?”

“Nope,” I replied flatly. “Her dad doesn’t think I’m the right man to marry his daughter, and her mom’s a ‘good Christian woman’ who won’t go against her husband. They’re pretty old-fashioned.”

“Well, they sound like a pair of fools to me,” Susan said, frowning. “No offense to Natalie – John tells me she’s lovely.”

“She is,” I said with a wistful smile. “She’s not like the rest of her family. If I went ahead and proposed to her anyway, she would probably say yes. But I don’t wanna put her in an awkward position, knowing her parents wouldn’t approve.”

“Oh, honey…” Susan pursed her lips in an expression of sympathy. “I’m sorry. If they only knew what a wonderful son-in-law they would be gaining, they would be happy to have you marry their daughter. It’s their loss, really.”

“Thanks,” I whispered, a lump rising in my throat. I took a sip of my soda to wash it down, looking away so Susan wouldn’t see the tears that had welled up in my eyes.

“So, what are you going to do now?” she asked gently.

Watching a pair of flight attendants walk past, I shrugged and shook my head. “I don’t know.”

***

It was dark when Dawn, Mason, and I landed in Lexington, having lost another hour on the short flight from Chicago. By the time we got off the plane and gathered our luggage, it was past nine p.m.

“As soon as we get home, you’re going straight to bed,” I told Mason as he buckled himself into the back seat of my truck. “You’ve got school tomorrow morning.”

It was a mark of how tired he was that Mason didn’t protest. In fact, he didn’t make a peep the whole way home. It was only once I had parked in our driveway that I looked in the rearview mirror and realized he had fallen asleep.

“Think we can get him inside without waking him up?” I asked Dawn in a whisper.

Glancing into the back seat with a smile, she nodded. “I bet I’ve still got it.”

As she quietly opened her door and climbed down from the passenger seat, I pushed the button that opened the driver’s side door and lowered the lift. Once my power chair was safely on the ground, I rolled around to the other side of my truck to see Dawn sliding a still-sleeping Mason out into her arms. I smiled, remembering all the times she had transferred him from his car seat to his crib as a toddler. But he was bigger and heavier now, and I didn’t know if she could carry him all the way up to his bedroom without straining herself.

“Here,” I said, patting the top of my thigh. “Put him in my lap.”

Mason stirred as Dawn lowered him gently onto my legs. “Where are we?” he asked groggily.

“We’re home, buddy,” I whispered, wrapping my left arm around him while my right hand worked the joystick. “Go back to sleep. Daddy’s got you.”

He nuzzled against my chest as I rolled up the ramp to the front porch. The porch light was on, but the rest of the house was dark.

“Where’s Natalie?” Dawn wondered as we went inside. “She’s home, isn’t she?”

“Should be,” I replied shortly. But I didn’t know for sure because Natalie had barely spoken to me since our fateful FaceTime call the previous morning. She had texted me later that day to let me know she had landed safely in Atlanta, but, since then, she had only responded to my texts back to her with a passive-aggressive thumbs up. Had she even boarded her flight back to Lexington like she’d planned, I wondered, or was she still in Atlanta?

Dawn gave me a quizzical look but didn’t ask any more questions. “Okay. Well, I’m gonna go bring in our bags, unless you want help putting Mason to bed.”

“Nah, I’ve got this. Thanks.”

“Thank you – again – for the great gift,” she said, flashing me a grateful smile. “I had fun this weekend, even if I didn’t feel my best. And, sorry – again – for all of that.”

“Don’t mention it,” I replied, forcing a smile back. Of course, Dawn had no idea how much drama she had inadvertently caused. She didn’t know that Natalie had seen her sleeping next to me and freaked out. I didn’t want her to know; it would only make her feel worse. Now that I was finally home, I hoped I could clear the air with Natalie and help her understand what had actually happened with Dawn.

As I went about Mason’s bedtime routine, I kept waiting for her to come in and welcome us home, but Dawn was the only one who popped her head into his room. “Goodnight, Mason,” she called softly as I sat next to his bed, reading the picture book she had written about us, which had been a regular request in our bedtime story rotation since Christmas. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Can we have waffles for breakfast?” Mason mumbled, his eyelids drooping.

Dawn smiled. “Of course. Sleep tight, kiddo.”

Mason fell back to sleep before I even finished reading the book. Setting it down on his nightstand, I turned off his lamp, then left his bedroom, shutting the door behind me. I rolled down the hall to my own room, but it was dark and empty.

Frowning, I turned around and went the other way, toward the guest bedroom, where we’d been keeping Colby Jack’s litter box. The door was closed, which was odd; we always left it open, so the cat could come and go as needed. I could see a faint strip of light filtering through the crack beneath it. Clearing my throat, I rolled up to it and knocked. “Natalie?” I called softly. “We’re home. You awake?”

“Yeah,” I heard her voice reply. “You can come in.”

Pulling down on the handle, I pushed the door open and peeked inside. Natalie was propped up in bed in her hot pink pajamas, reading. She barely looked up from her Kindle as I rolled into the room. “You must be at a pretty good part, huh?” I said, pretending I didn’t know why she was hiding out in there. “Didn’t even hear us in the house.”

“Oh, no, I heard you,” Natalie replied, swiping her screen to turn the page. “Your power chair’s not exactly quiet. Neither are Dawn’s footsteps.”

“Oh. Well, in that case, you could have come out to say hello. We didn’t even know if you were here.”

“Yup. I’m here,” she said flatly, finally looking up to meet my eyes for the first time in almost a week. “Hello.”

I sighed, my heart sinking. “Okay, so, clearly, you’re still pissed at me. Can I assume you’re also planning to sleep in here tonight?”

“Well, I didn’t wanna take Dawn’s place in your bed,” she said with a shrug.

I rolled my eyes. “Did you even read my texts? I told you why she was there.”

“Uh-huh. How kind of you to offer her a comfortable place to sleep when she wasn’t feeling well – and how convenient that it just happened to be right beside you in bed,” Natalie replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “But that still doesn’t explain why she was spooning you! If you ask me, y’all looked a little too comfortable in that bed, like it wasn’t the first time you’d slept together.”

“Well, it was. And we didn’t sleep together,” I hissed, hurrying to close the door behind me before Dawn heard us. I resisted the urge to slam it shut, worried it would make up Mason. “I mean, technically, yes, we slept side by side in the same bed, but we didn’t have sex or whatever it is you’re implying. You can ask Nick; he spent the night there, too.”

“In your bed?” Natalie asked, her eyebrows raised.

“Of course not,” I said, feeling my face redden. “He was on the couch.”

“Ah, I see,” she said, setting her Kindle down on the nightstand. “So there was a couch where Dawn could have slept after she got sick all over her own bed.”

“She tried to go there first,” I told Natalie, “but I convinced her to sleep in my bed instead because it was more comfortable and closer to the bathroom. I was just trying to be chivalrous.”

“What a gentleman,” said Natalie in the same snarky tone she’d been using ever since I had entered the room. She reached out to stroke Colby, who was curled up next to her at the head of the bed.

“That’s right, I am a gentleman,” I retorted angrily, rolling closer to it, “and Dawn knows it! That’s the only reason she felt comfortable enough to sleep next to me. She trusts me. More than you do, apparently.”

“Excuse me? I did trust you, Kevin! Did I say one negative word about you taking another woman to Vegas and sharing a hotel room with her while I was out of town? No! I actually believed you wouldn’t sleep naked next to her in the same bed. But, obviously, I was wrong. I should have known better,” Natalie said, shaking her head. “I mean, it’s not like this is the first time I’ve been cheated on.”

“Damn it, Natalie, I didn’t cheat on you!” I insisted. “I’m not like your douchebag ex, Derek. Nothing happened between me and Dawn! Do you honestly think I would have answered my phone while she was still in my bed if it had?”

“And what if I hadn’t called you right then?” Natalie fired back at me. “Would you have told me about Dawn sleeping in your bed if I hadn’t caught her there?”

“Probably not,” I answered honestly.

“I see. So, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, huh?” She rolled her eyes. “That just proves that you knew it was wrong!”

“No, I just knew you would overreact!” I argued. “You’re making a way bigger deal out of this than it needs to be. It’s no different from you sharing a hotel bed with your flight attendant friend, Jared.”

“Jared’s gay – and in a committed relationship, neither of which describes Dawn. So, yeah, it’s a lot different,” she replied. “And, for the record, Jared and I have never slept in the same bed.”

I sighed, feeling she was missing the point I was trying to make: that, regardless of Dawn’s sexual orientation or marital status, our relationship had always been – and would always be – strictly platonic. “Okay… but if I found out you had, I wouldn’t freak out about it.”

“Uh-huh. And what if I’d FaceTimed you from France while lying fully naked in bed next to a straight, single, male member of my flight crew? The pilot, let’s say. Would you have been fine with that, too?” Natalie cocked her brow as she waited for my answer.

“If I knew you were just friends, and there was a reasonable explanation for it, then yeah,” I forced myself to say, refusing to admit that the thought of her hooking up with a random French guy had crossed my mind. “I mean, I might have been a little shocked at first, but I would have at least let you explain instead of hanging up on you. You wouldn’t even listen to me.”

“You’re lying,” she said, tossing her hair. “There’s no way you wouldn’t have made a big deal out of me sharing my bed with another man, whether we had sex or not. Either way, it would’ve been weird and inappropriate, just like you sleeping with Dawn.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Under the circumstances, it didn’t feel weird or inappropriate to me, but I can see why you’re upset. It won’t happen again.”

“It never should have happened in the first place!” Natalie exploded, startling Colby, who abruptly jumped down and slunk beneath the bed, his ears laid back, body low to the floor. “I don’t understand why you and Dawn were even sharing a hotel room to begin with. You made it perfectly clear to me last weekend that you’re capable of staying in a hotel room by yourself.”

I should have known she was going to bring up Easter Sunday at some point. She still hadn’t forgiven me for faking sick to avoid her father.

“That was during the day. It’s different at night. You know that’s when I need the most help,” I told her. “I didn’t want Dawn to have to get dressed and walk down the hall to a different room, possibly on a different floor, to turn me multiple times a night, so we both agreed it would make the most sense for her to stay in the same room with me.”

“Why didn’t you just request adjoining rooms?” Natalie asked, folding her arms across her chest.

“Not all hotels have adjoining rooms, let alone wheelchair-accessible ones. You, of all people, should know that,” I shot back, returning her steely glare. For someone who had stayed in hotels around the world and worked in hospitality, she sounded astonishingly unaware.

“Did you even ask?” she pressed, ignoring my dig at her.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why not?” she demanded. “Did you want Dawn to spend the night with you?”

“Honestly? Yes,” I admitted. “But not for the reason you’re thinking. I just… don’t like to be alone at night. It makes me feel… I dunno… vulnerable, I guess. I sleep a lot better knowing there’s somebody else nearby that I can call on if I need something in the night.”

“I thought that’s what your phone was for.”

“Yeah, but how many times have you seen me drop my phone?” I countered. “I can’t assume it’ll always be within reach.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly before continuing. “This one time, when I was newly-injured, I got ghosted by one of the caregivers I had hired. He was supposed to come over and do my morning routine-”

“He?” she interjected. “Oh, so you did have a male caregiver once.”

“Yeah, I did… until the day he just didn’t show up. To be fair, I think he did try to text me to let me know he wasn’t feeling well, but I didn’t get the message because my phone was too far away for me to reach. It was just on my nightstand, but I was facing the wrong way and couldn’t roll over in bed. When I tried, I just got stuck in an awkward position.”

I paused, remembering the frustration of feeling like a turtle trapped on its back as I lay in bed with my torso twisted and my paralyzed legs hopelessly tangled.

“I lay like that for hours, listening to Mason cry in his crib and calling for Nick or AJ, who were living with us at the time, to come and help. But AJ was sound asleep on the other side of the house with his earbuds in and couldn’t hear me, and Nick wasn’t even there. He had gone out the night before, hooked up with some girl, and ended up crashing at her place,” I explained. “By the time he finally got home and found me in bed, I’d had a bowel accident because no one had come to do my program. Do you know how disgusting and humiliating it is to have to lie in a pile of your own shit because you can’t even get out of bed by yourself? That was one of the worst days I’ve had since becoming disabled.”

“I’m sorry,” Natalie whispered, her expression softening. “That does sound awful.”

“I didn’t tell you about it to make you feel sorry for me,” I said, shaking my head. “I just want you to understand why I don’t like staying alone – and why it’s so important for me to have a reliable caregiver around.”

“I get that,” she said, “but I don’t feel like you fully understand my perspective. You’re not the only one who’s trying to heal from past trauma, Kevin. I am, too. Mine may not be physical, but that doesn’t make it any less real. It manifests as jealousy and trust issues, which I’ve been working really hard to overcome… but how can I, when you keep flaunting this weird, co-dependent relationship you have with Dawn in my face?”

“Weird, co-dependent relationship?” I repeated, raising my eyebrows. “Wow. Real nice, Natalie.”

“Well, it is!” she replied defensively. “You obviously depend on her, and I don’t fault you for that, but… don’t you find it the least bit odd how she’s ingrained herself into your family in just a few short years?”

“What?” I looked at Natalie, hardly recognizing her as the friendly, kindhearted woman I had fallen in love with. The warmth and light had left her brown eyes, leaving them as dark and cold as cave doors. I stared into their cavernous depths, struggling to understand where her sense of compassion had gone. She was trying to paint Dawn as some sort of parasite who had been leeching off me for the past four years she had lived in my home. “No,” I said, firmly rejecting this distorted picture. “I mean, she has become a part of the family, but that’s kinda what I was looking for in a live-in caregiver. It would be a whole lot weirder if we didn’t like each other.”

“But this goes beyond just liking each other,” Natalie insisted, shaking her head. “I like the people I work with, too. I like the passengers I serve. But I would never get into bed with one of them!”

“Really?” I raised my eyebrows again. “Pretty sure you did get into bed with at least one of them,” I said with a snicker, glancing down at myself. I was trying to relieve the tension in the room, but Natalie didn’t seem to appreciate me pointing this out.

“Oh, come on, Kevin!” she cried, her face flushing pink. “Can’t you see what she’s doing? She’s using you and Mason as replacements for her divorced husband and dead son!”

Her words hit me like a ton of bricks, knocking me back to every New Year’s Eve I had sat next to Dawn, commiserating over our shared grief. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to lose a child, nor could I believe that Natalie would deliver such a low blow.

“I’ve tried to look past it for the sake of our relationship,” she went on, tears starting in her eyes, “but I can’t pretend to be okay with it anymore. I’m sorry, but she crossed a line this weekend.”

“So did you, just now,” I said, glaring at Natalie. “I seem to remember telling you last summer that if you couldn’t accept Dawn’s place in my life, this relationship wasn’t going to work.”

“I remember,” Natalie said with a nod. “So, does that mean you would still choose her over me?”

“Why does that matter?” I asked. “Are you going to make me choose?”

“You’re the one who sounds like you’re giving me an ultimatum,” she argued. “Either get over it or get out.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just thinking out loud here,” I said, running my left hand over the top of my head. “I love you, Natalie, and I want us to work through this… but I’m not sure we can. Because you’re right: A line has been crossed, and we can’t go back. But I don’t see how we’re going to move forward from this either. I already told Dawn I would never turn my back on her, and I promised Mason she would always be a part of our family, no matter what. I meant what I said to them both, and I won’t go back on my word. But you’re obviously not okay with her being here. So, where does that leave us?”

Natalie shook her head slowly as a single tear trickled down her cheek. “I don’t know.”

***