Finding Family

Faye: Touring again

I wasn't entirely sure what my emotions about this tour were. I mean sure it was yet more time away from Mick and Benjamin, but on the other hand I knew that, if all went to plan, after the tour my family would soon enough be all together properly. Hopefully my baby girl would want to come home. I was rushing around the house trying to pack everything before I went away tomorrow afternoon when I felt I should check in on Evalynn's room. I knew nothing would have changed, it'd been empty for the better part of a month now, but I wanted to just feel like my baby girl was nowhere further away from me than at school. Her little lamb teddy she'd had since she was a baby was sat on the pillow, just waiting until she came back, and there was also a jumper I believed was hers folded on the bottom of the bed. I smiled sadly as I backed out the room before realising; I was seeing her again while I was away. I could give her Tara back the day I saw her! I re-opened the door and headed across the room, scooping the teddy up in my hand. It was smaller than I remembered it being when I'd given her it, and the fur was messy and in places stuck together with mud. I sighed. I knew well enough she was protective of her teddies, she'd got into one tiny argument with Benjamin the entire time she'd been up here and that was because Benjamin had tried to take Josie off her, but would she really mind that badly if I washed Tara with a couple of Benjamin's bears? Tara must get washed sometime right? There was only one way to find out. I carried Tara downstairs and set her down next to the washing machine before going to find some of Benjamin's teddies.

I collected Ian the dragon (which I'd named as a joke), Blue the bunny and a few other teddies from around the house which were either sticky or dirty in some other way, and stuck them in the washing machine before putting Tara in as well. Having turned it on I then went upstairs to carry on packing. As I sat staring at Mick's jumpers and trying to work out which one he wouldn't notice was missing I had a thought, Tara was tiny and could come around all the venues with me in my pocket and I could take pictures of her. I had no idea if Evalynn would like that, but when I'd been left in charge of Blue on the last tour I'd taken pictures of him in interesting places and shown Benjamin them all when I'd next seen him. It just felt like a cute thing to do.
I grabbed one of Mick's jumpers he hardly wore and tucked it in the bottom of my bag, just in case he noticed it was missing before I went away, then started off packing different things of mine I'd need. It wasn't like I was away for long, it wasn't going to be as bad as last time, but still I didn't want to leave Benjamin and Mick again this year, even for a short while. But I'd be okay, we'd be okay because we always were.

#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*

"I'm just hungry now." Lisa moaned as we sat on the stage. The technicians were playing with the lighting, trying to get it just right for our opening night, and we were just sat in silence. H was on his phone - taking mugshots of everyone guessing by the way he was giggling - Lee was texting someone (we assumed Kerry), Claire was fiddling with the bottom of her jumper. I'd been doing my usual trick of staring off into space and imagining lovely things like seeing and hugging Evalynn again, and being by the beach with Mick, and long forest walks with my parents' dogs. But mostly my mind was settling to the first one.
"I know, me too." I replied, dragging my mind back to the present for a moment.
"Here's an idea, if you shut up we'll get this done quicker." H told her.
"Oh yes, says the king of shutting up. Anyway hows that meant to help?" She teased.
"So we're just not going to mention the lamb in Faye's pocket then?" Claire asked.
I laughed, looking down at Tara who's head and front legs were poking out of my chest pocket. Noticing she wasn't straight, I re-adjusted her slightly.
Lee looked over at me. "Well I for one can excuse myself by saying I wasn't planning on looking too much around there. What H? We're both married and happy as we are thank you very much."
"She's Evalynn's little lamb you might remember I gave her as a baby, she left her at my house by accident and I decided I'd take her around with me on the tour as I'm going to see her anyway on the last night." I explained.
Lisa smiled. "That's adorable. Is that why you've been taking pictures of it?"
I nodded. So far I had pictures of her balanced on Lisa's head, sat on a piano and in a couple of random places from when we'd been rehearsing. "Tara the lamb's on a little adventure." I said with a giggle.
"That's actually a nice idea, I should do that next time we tour." Claire replied. "If there is a next time." She added quickly.
"I hope there is. I'd love one day for my little kiddie to see me on stage for real." H said. We knew he'd been looking at having kids, and he'd already said that he wanted us lot to be aunties (and Lee to be uncle) to the little one when he did. I was actually quite fond of the idea of being auntie to his children and, as it was before Benjamin had really met any of them, I'd started referring to the others as his aunties and uncles and it had turned out the other two had done the same with their kids. And it was actually really nice given how we'd all been as close as siblings before the split and we were slowly going back that way now.
"I kinda hope there is too. I mean can you imagine in the future Benjamin, Star and Daisy will be old enough to appreciate it." I added with a glance between Claire and Lisa. None of them knew yet that I was going to ask Evalynn to move home when I saw her later this week, and getting to bring her along backstage like we had with the littles would be amazing. I could already tell she'd love it.
Lisa, Claire and I exchanged a smile and I knew then they felt the same way too. We'd all rebuilt that special place in our heart for Steps, and we all quite liked each other's company.