Page 48 of The Next Chapter

I’d heard Ma and Pa arguing about the other women Pa had and I remember hating them.

I told myself we were different, Jimmy and me.

I thought we were in love. I don’t know what else there is to say about it really.

He was older than me, and he had so much power.

But he didn’t force me or anything. I liked the attention, and I liked him.

When I went to his bed, I went willingly.

Except when we got back from London, Jimmy didn’t talk no more about our future plans.

He went back to being the manager, all formal like, and I was…

confused. I wondered what I’d done wrong.

Ashton said that Jimmy was an arse and that we should tell some other folk at the label.

But I didn’t want to tell anyone. It was embarrassing, to be rejected again.

I wanted to forget all about it. I started to drink more and more and the newspapers, well, they didn’t have to work so hard at comin’ up with things to write about me no more.

I was becoming the thing they’d always painted me as, or something like that.

It took longer than it should have done to realize that something wasn’t quite right. Like I said before, I was young really. Inexperienced. So, it was spring when I realized that I might be in trouble.

There weren’t any proper symptoms. I’d feel dizzy sometimes, but we were working real hard and I just put it down to that. And I’d never been that regular. I didn’t even look all that different.

But then one day, I saw some woman pushing a pushchair down the road. It was awful frilly, with ribbons and lace and stuff everywhere. And I just knew.

I told Ashton before I even did a test. He was shocked and the things he said about Jimmy coulda made a sailor blush. But he promised me that it’d be okay, that we could do whatever I wanted.

I know there are ways to be without a child. But I’d been raised in Baton Rouge, I’d gone to church my whole life and I couldn’t ignore that, you know? I told Ashton that I wanted to keep the baby. Even though I knew that it would mean I had to tell Jimmy.

It wasn’t easy even getting him on his own.

I was five months gone and my stomach was a little round.

When I finally did tell him, the spring was almost over.

Jimmy went real quiet, then said that he didn’t see how I’d be able to have a baby while I was in the band.

Said that I’d have to go back to Baton Rouge.

I noticed that he never said we.

I was back to feeling like I’d done wrong by everyone, being a burden.

Every night, Ashton told me that it’d be okay, and I tried to go along with it, to believe him.

But when he was asleep I’d lay there and think about my own ma.

About how much she’d struggled. I had no idea how to do a better job than her.

I started to show, and they had to find me clothes that would hide it.

The whole time I just felt more and more guilty.

About Jimmy and the label. About Ashton, for making his life harder than it ought to be.

It’s no wonder everyone thought we were together, we were never apart.

And I felt bad on Prune and Shawn. They just wanted to be famous and here I was ruining everything because I was more tired now.

I couldn’t stand for twelve hours a day like I used to.

But most of all, I felt so guilty towards the baby. For getting me as its ma. It was overwhelming, the guilt.

The label pushed the release of our next single back until October. A month after the baby was due. Jimmy told me I had a decision to make. If I had the baby, I’d have to quit the band and go back to Baton Rouge. He made out like the baby might not’a even been his. But I knew it was.

I didn’t know what to do.

Then my brother called, remember my youngest brother, Jessie?

He told me that Ma had died. Right quick.

A stroke, even though she was only young.

I took it as a sign that history was just repeating itself, like by having the baby I was cursing it to a life of bad luck.

Without the band I couldn’t provide for it, I didn’t know how to be a ma.

I’d be sent back to Baton Rouge with nothing.

So, I did what I thought was best. I told Ashton and Jimmy that I wanted to give the baby up for adoption.

The label put out an announcement that I was in rehab abroad. When really, there was no hiding my stomach anymore. I flew to England and came to stay up here on Skye with Ashton’s aunt. No one ever thought to look for me here. Skye wasn’t up and coming like it is these days. There was no Instagram.

I was numb. Between the baby and Jimmy and Ma, I think I lost the ability to feel anything at all. I cursed myself for relying on someone again.

Ashton came with me, and he did all the work.

He found me an adoption agency. There were local ones, but I wanted the family to be far away.

I didn’t want to think that I might run into them any day.

I thought that would hurt too bad. We settled on one in Manchester.

The agency asked me a whole lot of questions and finally they found me three potential couples.

They were all mighty nice, really they were. But this one couple in particular, I liked them a lot, right from the off.

I remember thinking that they were the sort of parents I would have liked to have grown up with.

Plus, she was a piano teacher and I thought it might be nice for the baby to know music, like it might be a link between us still. They cried when I told them I wanted them to have her. Big wracking sobs. They kept saying thank you. Told me they already loved the baby.

Seeing that couple so in love, it felt like I was doing some good. More so than I’d ever done in my life. Like maybe I could break the cycle.

Giving birth was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Not the physical part of it, though that was mighty tough too, but I knew that this was the last thing I’d do for her, for the baby. Even though I hoped that she’d see that giving her up was an act of love in its own way.

I wanted to call her Lola. If I’d have kept her, that’s what her name would have been.

Lola Starr, like me. Maybe it’s a bit vain, I don’t know.

I just had this feeling that even then, this baby was all the good I might do in the world.

I wanted her to have my name. Course, that was up to her parents, it wasn’t my decision to make.

But for those few hours we had together, she was a Lola to me.

There’s nothing much can prepare you for the pain of giving away your child. It’s against the natural order of things. I thought I deserved for it to hurt so bad.

The room was so quiet after she’d gone, even though she hadn’t really made much noise to begin with. She’d been a reserved little thing right from the off, with big brown eyes. They were full of wonder, those eyes. I remember wondering how the right decision could hurt so bad.

It was the kindest and worst thing I’ve ever done.

And it ate me up. I tried to go back to how things were before…

I just couldn’t. I drank to try to forget about it.

I wrote her a song, ‘Eyes Full of Wonder’, and then tortured myself, thinking that she’d hear it and not know it was for her.

Jimmy told me that I was ruining everything.

I did try to move on, move forward. I’d given up so much for the sake of the band, it didn’t make sense that I’d throw it all away.

We were due to play in Vegas, and there were rumours that we might get a residency there one day. I don’t know if y’all have ever been to Vegas, but it’s an assault, on the senses. It’s big and busy and I thought it would be the perfect place to drown out everything that I was feeling.

But it wasn’t.

I missed my baby so much; I couldn’t hardly think straight. I’d written her the song, our biggest one, and that helped for a short while, but it wasn’t enough. It didn’t get easier, it got harder.

I was standin’ there, waiting to go on and perform. The lights, the noise, everything was as planned, but I didn’t know what I was doing. It wasn’t what I wanted.

I just… walked away. Right before we were due to go on stage.

I walked away, got on the first flight back to the UK and called the adoption agency. I told them I’d changed my mind, I wanted my baby back.

It was the week after her parents had finalized the court order. I was too late. They told me I had to wait until she was eighteen to get in contact.

That there was the second worst day of my life.

Everyone was angry with me. The label. Jimmy.

I didn’t care. I didn’t want to go back to the band anymore.

The band was the reason I didn’t have my baby.

Or that’s how it felt in my head. Ashton stood by me, though.

He asked me where I wanted to go. We were so big in the States by then, it didn’t feel like there was a corner of the country I could go to where someone wouldn’t find me.

Skye was the only place I could think of since the band started where I’d felt some peace and calm.

Ashton’s aunt had passed not a month before so his family helped me to buy it off them, off the record, even though I didn’t know anything about running a hotel.

I had some money, but not as much as people might’ve expected.

It’s not the same as it is now, the label had all the power.

None of it mattered to me.

I changed my name, I moved to Skye, I settled down for a quiet life in the only place I’d ever felt close to my baby. And I’ve been here ever since.