Say Goodbye

Epilogue: Just A Dream

Santa Monica, California
Tuesday, October 4, 2005
(8:00 pm)
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"Hurry up, sweetheart; you're going to miss the beginning!"

Stevie sat in the middle of the plush red velvet sofa with a bowl of popcorn in her lap, her stepson to her right and one of her stepdaughters on her left. She had an anxious look on her face as she watched her husband descend the stairs after putting baby Stella down for the night, but as soon as she found his bright blue eyes looking at his family from across the room and his eyes locked with hers, her anxious look turned into her radiant smile. She knew what he was thinking because she was thinking it too.

This was everything they'd ever dreamed of, and it was theirs to share, forever.

"Daddy, what's this song called?" LeeLee asked. On the big TV screen in front of her, Lindsey's Soundstage concert had just begun, and Lindsey's image on screen was playing the beginning of his first song.

"It's called 'Someone's Gotta Change Your Mind'," Lindsey told his daughter, who was five years old now and starting to really realize that her father was a musician and that he was famous. He sat down on the sofa in between LeeLee and his wife, shoveling in a handful of popcorn from the bowl. Above the television and around the room at the ceiling were still a few stray balloons filled with helium from the previous night's birthday dinner, a surprise party to which only Lindsey, Stevie, the kids and the dogs had been invited, complete with a guitar-shaped cake and a homemade sign made by Will and LeeLee with Stevie's sketch paper that read HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DADDY! Kristen had let the kids stay at the house past their usual weekend visit for his birthday and the PBS premiere of his concert, and after school tomorrow, they were going home, already sulking about it because Aunt Stevie's house was more fun and they loved playing with the dogs and laughing at the fact that they wore sweaters.

"The next one is a really big famous one, Lee," Stevie told her stepdaughter, who was reaching across Lindsey to get at the popcorn. "It's Daddy's first famous song by himself, and it's called 'Trouble'...which you will be in, LeeLee Ruth Buckingham, if you keep eating all that popcorn after the leftover cake you just shoved in an hour ago!" But Stevie was only half joking in admonishing her, and LeeLee giggled. Stevie felt Lindsey's hand take hers, and when their fingers laced together, she felt their wedding rings clink together. She couldn't help but smile, and neither could Lindsey, as they leaned the sides of their heads against each other's.

Sitting in the living room surrounded by Buckinghams, the fireplace warming them and the kids giggling and talking over the sound of the concert on TV, Stevie looked at the screen and felt as though that evening - and the days leading up to it - had been a hundred years ago. So much had changed since then, and it had not been simple, but in the end, everything had worked out for the best.

Finishing the Say You Will tour while divorcing his pregnant wife had been murder on Lindsey, and Stevie had felt the strain in him all year. She'd felt it beside him in bed at night in strange hotel rooms. She'd felt it when he'd hang up the phone with Kristen or the lawyers and retreat to the terrace or the backyard to smoke a joint and let his fury dissipate. She'd felt it in April of 2004 when Stella was born and she'd made the mistake of wearing her engagement ring to the hospital to meet her brand new stepdaughter, watching Kristen roll her eyes from her bed at the sight of the diamond.

But the stress had been nowhere in sight that November when, seven years after they'd said goodbye, Stevie and Lindsey had exchanged vows in a quiet ceremony at her home in Phoenix, surrounded by family and a few close friends, including Jess, who'd pulled Stevie aside and told her he was thankful that before he died, he'd gotten to see his only daughter marry the man he'd always considered another son. Jess had used his cane as he'd proudly walked her down the aisle in the backyard to the instrumental guitar song called "Stephanie", the name he'd chosen for her fifty-six years before.