Star Gazers

CHRISTMAS STARS CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3 (The Missing Chapter 3--so sorry this has been missing for a year!)

The next morning, she did not eat chocolate pancakes with Meg and Jacks. Instead, she ignored the hospital fare, eggs, toast, oatmeal. What was the point anymore?

Matt had spent most of the night standing by her bed, her hand in his, his hand smoothing at her hair. "It's going to be alright Jules," he had repeated many times, as if trying to convince himself as well as her. But it hadn't turned out alright, and now he sat in a chair across from the bed, his bleary eyes staring at the wall beside her. Aside from speaking quietly with a doctor, and later with Dan on the phone, then putting on a smooth fake carefree voice over a phone call with the kids, he had not said much.

Later, there were more phone calls. The guys calling with condolences, and offering to cancel the remaining shows, but recently, tragedy had hit Bobby as well, his wife undergoing several surgeries, bills had piled up. Jules was the one that had held firm, begging Matt not to let the guys take the loss of money that canceled shows would bring.

That afternoon, she was released from the hospital, and boarded the plane as they flew to the next show. Aside from the bubbling chatter of the kids, the plane was quiet, the somber group staring out the window, at anywhere but each other. Matt always maintained contact, a hand on hers, or her wrist, or simply his shoulder against her's.

"Jules," Helen met them at the airport a day earlier than intended and clasped hands with her, murmuring her condolences. Jules managed a nod for the middle aged woman, and a weak appreciative smile, as the toddlers threw themselves at their aupaire, hugging at her knees until she knelt to their height.

That night, she stood at the side of the stage, watching Matt go through the robotic motions of a show. He never smiled, never chatted between the songs, and never sent a secret gaze her way. She knew when he went into the last few of Jewelweed's most popular, that he was doing so because there would be no encore. Sure enough, with a wave, he left the stage, curved an arm around her, and escorted her down the stairs.

Bleakly, she wondered if she would ever walk down the stage stairs without remembering. And if every step seemed torture, every flash of a camera was worse as the guys did their interviews. None of the guys partied the night after that show, and it was odd to walk the halls of the hotel with the entire group. Dan pulled her into a hug, before going on into his room, and that seemed to be the ice breaker for the rest of the guys. She and Matt were pulled every which way, with pats on the back, and well meaning words.

Helen had stayed awake, when normally she went down with the kids so she could wake easily with them. When Jules refused her kind offer of anything, the sweet woman disappeared into the kids room . Matt had showered at the coliseum, and he went straight to the liquor. The clink of ice against glasses was heard as she passed. Detouring long enough to hover behind him, until the mix was made, she, like him, downed it, and waited for another. Then taking the fresh drink, she closed in the bathroom.

Matt shucked out of his clothes, down to his briefs, and although the room was chilly, didn't bother with the flannel pajama bottoms he mostly wore in the winter months. The remote was conveniently placed in a holder on the corner of the night stand, and he reached for it after carelessly tossing the carefully folded bathrobes from the foot of the bed into a heap on the sofa. Flipping through various tv screens, without touching the muted volume, he absently listened to the shower run.

And run, and run...

Three or four drinks later, he tried to speculate how long Jules had been in the closed up room, and ten minutes after that, deduced that at least an hour had to be coming up. Somewhere between the bed and the bathroom, he ditched the empty glass, unable to count what number he was on anymore and breathed in relief when the door was not locked.