Love Is... (Part 1)

One Tear Slid Across Her Lips

Paradise Valley, Arizona
Saturday, December 30, 2011
(1o:30 am)
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Lindsey took a deep breath before he knocked lightly on Stevie's bedroom door.

"Stevie? The cars are all here, angel. Time to go."

He heard no response. All he could hear was the faint sound of "Undun" by The Guess Who playing from the other side of the door.

"She didn't know what she was headed for, and when I found what was headed for...it was too late...It's too late, she's go too far, she's lost the sun...She's come undone..."

Stevie had been behind closed doors all morning, and everyone assumed she was getting ready for the funeral. Lindsey was worried when he heard nothing from her. He knocked again. "Stevie? You okay?" He adjusted his necktie, borrowed from Christopher to go with his black suit, purchased in hurry yesterday from the Macys at the mall in Phoenix - he had packed for a family reunion, not a funeral.

A small, shaky, faint voice came from inside the bedroom. "Lindsey? Can you come in here for a minute?" He stepped inside immediately, closing the door behind him. Stevie stood in the center of her bedroom, the downpour of rain splashing against the windows behind her. She was dressed for the funeral in a black blazer and long black pencil skirt, almost like the suit, he recalled, she'd worn to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1998. He could still feel her soft hands on his shoulders as he played the guitar instrumental in the middle of "Landslide", his pregnant girlfriend in the audience, feeling so guilty for still loving the woman touching him so tenderly as he played her song that he wanted the earth to open up and swallow him whole.

"I'm having a bit of a problem," Stevie said. She looked like a deer in headlights, lost, and very small.

"What is it, angel? What's wrong?"

"Can I trust you? I mean...like...don't tell anyone? Like not Chris or Lori or Sandy or Ed or...please just keep this a secret?"

"You're scaring me, Stevie. Of course I won't tell." He felt his heart pounding as he advanced towards her. "What is it, baby? What is the problem?"

She looked to her left and right as if they were being watched. He was scared. "I have been shaking for two days now...it set in right when she died and I figured I'd wake up better, but it was still happening. Then today I woke up...and I'm still shaking. I'm not too cold, I'm taking my medications, I haven't had a drink...or anything else...I'm starting to get really freaked out, Linds. Why can't I stop shaking? Am I sick? Is this Parkinson's? Lou Gehrig? Why can't I stop shaking, Lindsey?"

He could see the terrified look in her eyes as if she genuinely believed she was sick, not thoroughly knocked out by grief. Her loose grip on reality frightened him, but he didn't let on. Instead, he took her hands in his and said, "You're not sick, angel, I promise. You're grieving. You're shaking because this is a lot to take in." He wrapped her up in his arms and she let her forehead drop to his chest. "I've got you, Stephanie. You just stick with me today, okay? If you're shaking, I'll hold onto you, baby. I won't let you fall."

"Don't tell anyone," she repeated. "They think I'm fine."

Lindsey kissed the top of her head as he held her. "I won't, baby," he obliged, terrified for her. "Your secret is safe with me."

He sat beside her in the back of the black limousine that took the immediate family to the church in town where Barbara was to be given a Christian ceremony, the eulogy delivered by Christopher. Stevie gripped Lindsey's hand for the entire service, and only strayed from him outside in the parking lot, as the full crowd of loved ones and Barbara's friends from the community gathered around one another beer umbrellas, groups separated by smokers and non smokers, talking about the rarity of such a rainy day in Arizona, and he heard someone say, "Blessed is the dead that the rain falls on." He found Stevie hugging her cousin Sandy, and he gently touched her shoulder. "Stevie? We're going to turn the lights on and start towards the cemetery now." She ducked under the big black umbrella he held and blindly let him lead her away to the car.