Sleep evades me that night. My shoulder is inflamed and raw, but it’s not the only cause of my insomnia. Instead of trying to force rest, I gulp down a bunch of pain meds I’m not even sure are mine and drive to the studio. If nothing else, while I’m playing, I’m focusing on just that, not thinking about whatever’s eating away at me. So, often I play, and by the time I’m done, I’ve forgotten what I was pissed off about, or I remember, but I no longer give a fuck. It’s what got me through the years after my dad died without ending up in jail, or worse.

Tonight I pace the makeshift stage in the studio’s recording booth like a prisoner waiting out his time on death row, allowing my anger to erupt like hot lava from a long-dormant volcano and pour into the words I sing. Some of the songs have been building in my mind over the previous weeks and months, but the rest are brand-new, developing organically as I let the lyrics pull me where they want to go. It’s a stream of consciousness, but the outcome is better than some of the shit we worked on for months for our previous albums.

Fueled by endless coffees, cigarettes, adrenaline, and prescription narcotics for my shoulder, I go through the night and into the morning. At a reasonable hour, I decide to call Mom, aware of the utter hypocrisy of the move. Two days earlier I tore the guys new assholes for calling her on my behalf, and here I am now doing the same myself. I may be a hypocrite, but I’m also going to be a father—that fact puts a lot of other shit in perspective. Big-time. Mom would know that more than most people. Besides, I guess I feel like I owe her an update after our last call. She picks up on the first ring.

“Hi, Arlo.”

“Hey, Mom.”

“How are you?” Why does her voice sound like she’s bracing herself for bad news?

“Been better.”

“London?”

What else would it be? I wouldn’t normally speak to Mom on the phone twice in the course of a year, and here we were on our second call in as many days. Of course London.

“Yeah.”

Mom says, “She’s pregnant,” at the exact same time I say, “She’s gone.”

“Gone? Where?”

“Pregnant? How did you know?” We speak at the same time again, laugh nervously, and fall silent.

“You go first,” Mom concedes.

“She is pregnant, but how did you know? I only found out yesterday.”

“I don’t know, I just knew. When we met at the gallery, remember I mentioned she had that glow? I had a feeling in my gut right away. That’s why I was urging you to speak to her. I figured if she hadn’t told you by now, she must have been close to… assuming she wasn’t planning on keeping it from you indefinitely, or….” She lets her voice trail off and I know what she’s hinting at.

“I haven’t spoken to her. I mean, I have, but not about this. I called her like you said, and I was surprised when she picked up and agreed to see me. We met up, talked, and it turns out she wanted to end it officially in person. We went back to my place for old time’s sake, and when I woke up the next morning, she was nowhere to be seen. That’s when I found her ‘calling card.’”

“What do you mean?”

“I looked across to her side of the bed and found an ultrasound photo on the pillow.”

“I don’t understand.” She’s not alone.

“She’s pregnant with my baby, and she’s gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Australia.”

Mom sucks in a sharp, shocked breath.

“You said you haven’t spoken to her.”

“I haven’t. As soon as I found the ultrasound, I sped to her place, but she was already on a plane. I spoke to Marko, her best friend, and he told me everything. Namely that she doesn’t want anything to do with me right now. Not that I needed him to tell me. Bailing to the other side of the world without warning sends a pretty clear message.”

“When was all this?”

“Yesterday.”

“So if you haven’t spoken to her, you don’t know if she’s…. Or if she’s going to….” Tearful, she lets her sentence trail off again.

“You can say the word, Mom. Abortion. No, technically I don’t know if she’s planning to, or even already has terminated our baby. But to leave that photo and disappear without a word knowing that she had or was about to do that would be cruel. That’s not her style. If she loves you, she does it with her whole heart. Likewise, if she’s pissed at you, she’ll let you know in no uncertain terms, especially where I’m concerned—she’s never been shy to tell me exactly what a douche she thinks I am.” Despite the pain in my chest, I smile a little at the thought. Like Gramps said, I have finally met my match with my little hummingbird. More than anyone, she’s happy to give it to me with both barrels when I screw up.

“You know she struggled with the idea of the two of us for a long time, but she’s never done anything in the past to lead me to think she would be vindictive, no matter what I had done to her. I just don’t believe she would ever go out of her way to hurt someone. Even me.” Especially me. Especially under these circumstances.

“But she is hurting you. I mean—”

“No, Mom, let me finish. I get that it’s her body and her decision, and I respect that. I just know if that’s the decision she made, she wouldn’t drop it on me that way.

“Apart from the fact that it would be out of character for her to do that, when I spoke to Marko, he told me that she’s had a rough ride with the pregnancy so far.” I pause momentarily at the foreign feel of the word on my tongue. It’s not a word I ever thought would be associated with me, but now that it is, I really want it to stay that way.

“He helped her deal with the sickness, but it has taken a toll on her. She’s apparently over the worst of it, but needs time….”

“A baby is supposed to bring you closer together, not push you further apart.”

Is that so? I have no fucking idea. All I know is that when every fiber of my being is telling me to stay and fight, she always wants to take flight.

“I’m hoping that like Marko said, she just needs to be near her mom, and not to have to deal with my shit. He was talking like she was pregnant and staying that way. If she was planning to have an abortion, he would know about it.”

“Are you sure that you could trust him to tell you even if he did know?”

“Yeah, Ma. I mean, I want to fucking kill that pretentious cocksucker stone dead most of the time—”

“Arlo!”

“What? You know I’m no altar boy. Do you want me to put a couple of hundreds in the swear jar to cover this conversation?” I know she hates to hear us cursing, but it’s not the first time, and it sure as shit won’t be the last. We both know that. I have no idea why she still insists on trying to ‘fix’ this—all four of us curse like drunken sailors, and no amount of nagging or guilting is going to change that. “My point is he loves her almost as much as I do. He’s really been there for her, when I couldn’t be.”

“Because she wouldn’t let you.”

Because she doesn’t trust me. When she needs something or someone, he’s the one she turns to.

“I know, but the fact still stands. She needed him, and he was there. Always has been, and says he always will be. I hate him, but I believe he keeps his word. Case in point, he’s been throwing me a bone too. Since all that shit happened with you-know-who, I’ve called him every day, and he’s played along, given me updates on how she’s been doing without letting her know.”

“But he didn’t mention the baby, so…?”

“What kind of friend would he be if he betrayed her trust like that and told me she was pregnant? Think about it. It’s bad enough that he was taking my calls behind her back in the first place, without totally double-crossing her. And if she didn’t have him to rely on, then what? Then I’d have kicked his ass. For now, he’s my only connection to her, so I’m rolling with it.”

“Okay, son, you know best.”

“I don’t know shit. I was clueless when it was just the two of us. What the hell do I know now that there’s a baby in the mix?”

“You run the band, and not one but two successful businesses. Even though you behave otherwise a lot of the time, you’re a smart guy. Your problem is that you act before you think when something gets to you. You let your heart rule your head way too often.”

What? Where does she get this stuff? That’s total bullshit.

“You’d do well to apply some of the smarts you’ve used to get so far in business to your personal life. Oh, and the other thing is that you need to grow the hell up.” Her tone sharpens. Looks like understanding gentle Mom is gone, to be replaced with kickass Mom.

“Excuse me?” Between Mom and Gramps, I don’t need to wonder where I got my bluntness from.

“You heard me. You need to man up. Fast. A small part of me is not surprised she ran. A woman’s instinct is to protect her child—and by the way, that instinct never goes away, no matter how old or stupid that child gets. This whole time, London’s been trying to shield herself from you, but now it’s not just her she has to look out for. You can see why she doesn’t want to drag an innocent little one into the hot mess of your life. To be honest, I’m glad she’s doing the right thing. The way things stand, I wouldn’t want my future grandbaby caught up in all this.”

Ouch.

The women in my life sure know how to slay me with their tongues. If I had to choose between going head-to-head with Conor McGregor, and taking a verbal beating from the two of them, I’d risk it with the prizefighter every time—broken bones heal quicker than a bruised ego. Not that I don’t need to hear it, but that doesn’t make it any easier to handle.

“If you want her and the baby, you need to show her you can be the partner and father they need in their lives.”

Then I’ll work out how to move matter backward through time and space. In fact, that sounds simpler.

“Easier said than done. How the fuck do I do that?”

“I wiped your butt for years when you were a boy. I have no intention of starting again now. You were my baby once, but now you’re a grown man and you’ve made a baby of your own, for Christ’s sake. Time to start thinking like a man and a father.”

Word.

My phone beeps with another call. I pull it away from my ear to see the caller ID.

“Oh shit, Ma, I gotta go. I have to get this, okay?” I really need to take this call.

“Okay. And Arlo?”

What now?

“Yeah?”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”