Infinite

I’m wearing a dress. The last time I wore a dress, it was Christmas Eve and I saw Gerard for the first time since our breakup. It’s even the same dress this time – the black, long-sleeved one with the crew neck and red buttons. And it’s not the same kind of anxiety as that day, but it’s close enough. I don’t know if the dress has anything to do with it. It’s almost 70 degrees out and I can feel the sweat running down my back. I sit through the entire service with Jamie on one side and Elliott on the other, trying not to think about the bodies in the coffins.

Karl, Noel and Hunter are in the back. Not because any of them even knew my mother that well, but because she was my mother. Other than that, there aren’t that many people here – some of mom and Rick’s colleagues, all of them very sombre-looking. I don’t know any of their names.

The funeral director asked me to do the eulogy for my mother, and I refused. Joan Harris is standing up there now, telling lies. There’s a part of me that regrets saying no now, but at the same time, I couldn’t have gone up there and told all these people what I actually thought. 25 percent good memories, 75 percent bad.

"Sarah always had time for her children", Joan says, sniffling. "And I’ve never seen a person so happy as when she found out she was pregnant."

Lies, all of it. I remember the way my mother didn’t tell me until she was almost five months along, and even then, she was reluctant to. Like she didn’t want to admit it to herself, and certainly not to me. I was the thirteen-year-old who made sure she took her vitamins. I threw away every cigarette pack she brought home during those months.

I’m holding Jamie’s hand, and she throws a glance my way as I realize that I’ve been gripping it harder for every word that Joan has said.

Linda goes up to say something about Rick, but mostly make it about his kids. When the caskets are finally lowered into the ground, I can’t help but think that if I had known my mother at all, this might have been a beautiful moment. I would have felt something other than stifling social pressure to at least cry.

The sun is out, and the temperature just keeps rising. We get into Linda and Thea’s rental car to go and have a late lunch, and I ask Jamie if she’d like to come see MCR tonight. It’s a long shot, and I doubt she’s been able to listen to her favorite music at all for the entire year I was gone. Maybe she doesn’t even remember them, and maybe she just sees Gerard as the guy who took her sister away. But I need to show her some part of my life before she goes to Oregon.

She looks at me for half a second before exclaiming:

"Oh my god, yes!" She’s grinning, and I’m wondering how much of her childhood I’ve really missed out on since she suddenly sounds like a teenager. Then she suddenly tenses and says: "But Thea has to come. Thea loves My Chem."

Even if it’s kind of weird doing fun stuff on the day of your mother’s funeral, it’s so nice seeing Jamie enjoying herself. Thea, who apparently spent the entire flight from Oregon reading up on the way children grieve, tells me before we leave for Philly that I shouldn’t feel bad. "If Jamie wants to talk, you’ll have to be there. But locking ourselves up isn’t going to do her any good."

This night is all about what Jamie wants. If she’d said no, I wouldn’t have pushed it. If she wants to leave once we get there, we’ll go. But right now, she seems happy. She has asked a lot of questions about the funeral during the week, and she went with us to look at the house to just see it in daylight.

As I help Jamie put her hair in pigtails and let her decide which clothes to wear from the things Linda and Thea has bought for her, I wonder if the guilt she felt that first day at the hospital will ever go away completely. Maybe it won’t matter that she knows she couldn’t have done anything differently, and that she got her brother out. She still hasn’t talked about the fire since that day.

She’ll probably need years of therapy. But then again, I’ll probably need that too.

When we’re done, and Jamie is in her black leggings, red Vans and red-and-black checkered t-shirt, Linda snaps a picture of the two of us with my phone. I look at it for what seems like minutes when she gives me my phone back, even though I was just going to send it to Gerard. It’s probably one of the few pictures that still exists of me and Jamie, and I realize that I actually look happy. My makeup is still the one I did for the funeral and my band shirt is crinkled, but standing next to Jamie, I look like I might actually pull off this sister thing again.

Aubrey: This 6 y o is about as happy as I am about tonight

Gerard: <3

The car ride to Philadelphia takes us almost two hours, but Thea’s driving and we spend the ride listening to MCR and talking. I’m very impressed that Thea manages to come off as completely sensible even though I know what a huge fan she is. It’s five in the afternoon when we get to the venue, and there’s already a long line forming out front. We can see them from where we’ve parked the car, but I’ve called Gerard to let him know we’re coming, and he told us to meet Big Worm by the backstage door.

Jamie is wide-eyed as Worm lets us in. Mostly because Worm is kind of scary-looking (even though he smiles and hugs me), but also because there are a lot of grownups backstage. They all look at us, or rather at Jamie, as Worm leads us through the corridors to the dressing rooms. Maybe bringing a six-year-old to a My Chemical Romance concert is about as common as bringing one with you to a club in Manhattan, but at least Jamie looks the part. She’s dressed like a miniature of half the people here.

We meet Frank first, and he grins and high-fives Jamie before introducing himself to Thea. When he turns to hug me tightly, he’s suddenly serious.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I suppose." I try to smile, and he gives me a small, sympathetic smile back before leading the way towards the rest of the band, who are currently having pizza in the dining area. Gerard stands up when he sees us, and I barely have time to think about the fact that this could possibly be awkward before he’s hugging me too.

I want to tell him that I’ve missed him. I want to tell him that I don’t know what to do with all these feelings, the ones concerning him, which are currently all jumbled with the fact that I just went to my mother’s funeral. But I smile at him and try to revel in the fact that he smiles back at me, and that he lingers with his hand on my waist as he bends down to hug Jamie.

They’ve roped off a private section of a balcony for the three of us, and once we’ve spent some time backstage with the band, we’re ushered upstairs because they’re about to let the crowd in. Even though I’ve seen so many MCR shows from backstage now that I’ve lost count, it feels weird to watch the place fill up with people this time. We were supposed to be the supporting act tonight, but that’s not what feels weird – it’s more the fact that these kids remind me so much of myself, and I don’t belong to them anymore. Most of them probably know who I am. I can see the ones joining us on the balcony giving us looks, and a few actually point at me while talking to their friends. Just a little over a year ago, I was one of them. The one with the red dye in her hair and the band tees and the heavy eyeliner, who had never travelled farther than the next state.

Apparently, this is what "living the dream" is like. And as far as I’ve seen, its as much of a shitstorm mixed with the good stuff as life in general.

The sound is kind of crude at this place, but at least we’ve probably got the best view in the building. The guys are amazing. It’s been a long time since I saw them perform from this angle – the last time it happened, Gerard and I were still dating.

I catch him throwing a quick look in our direction in the beginning of the show, but after that, he’s completely focused on the crowd. It’s amazing to be able to see them like this. I can tell that they’re tired of touring, but that’s probably because I know them so well. If Infinity is just a fraction as good as these guys on stage on our best days, I can die happy.

Jamie is standing between me and Thea, and other than Thea’s and mine impromptu dance sessions during House of Wolves and Thank You for the Venom, she stands still against the railing, listening. I notice that she’s mostly grinning, just watching everything around her.

Some of the lyrics aren’t exactly kid friendly, but she’s already heard all of them anyway. The only song I’m worried about is Sleep. Sometimes I see flames, and sometimes I see people that I love dying. Jamie doesn’t seem to react to it at all, even though I find myself holding her hand tightly again. She gives me a skeptical look but keeps her hand in mine. Maybe it’s just me being oversensitive. Jamie has already proven herself a lot tougher than me.

I can see Jamie mouthing the words to Cancer along with the rest of the crowd. It’s been so long since that day in Newark, and I suddenly feel like hugging her tightly. Just for still being my awesome little sister, despite all the shit she’s been through.

Before I can do that, though, the song is over, and in the few seconds separating it from Famous Last Words, I can hear Gerard saying something. It’s so fast and the crowd is still cheering from the last song that I almost miss it, but it’s there. Just enough for me to hear, but fast enough so that people can’t be sure.

"This one’s for you, A."