Holding Hands Won't Be Enough

”Ville, you have something you want to tell us?” Linde asked perplexed, as he walked into the courtyard holding his cell phone in his hand.

”Regarding?” he inquired, looking up from the iPad he had yet to work out how to use properly.

”Jonna.”

”No...” he shrugged, pouting his lips and holding his eyes wide.

”That’s funny, because she just called saying that her doctor gave her the all clear to fly yesterday-”

”The all clear?” Mige asked, confusion rife on his face. Ville shuffled in his seat.

”-she’s just landed in New York for a meeting and will be here tonight to surprise you, seeing as you’re apparently so stressed you have been forgetting to return her calls.”

”The all clear?” Mige asked again. ”The all clear for what, man?”

”Ville...” Linde offered, Ville said nothing. He could only pinch his bottom lip for some resemblance of feeling. ”To fly pregnant, Mige. The bitch is knocked up.”

”What? No.” he said defiantly, ”Ville, seriously?”

”Yeah. I, um... She told me the other day.”

”Why didn’t you say?”

”I have to go.” Ville said slowly, standing from his seat and excusing himself, much to the worry of his friends. He ignored their calls as he headed inside the house, he needed to gather himself. Milly had only been gone eight hours and already reality was crashing in around him.



”Burst water main. I can’t believe this shit is happening. I feel so bad for dragging you out here for nothing.” Bam complained, utterly defeated. They had headed straight from the airport to the Note in order to measure up and get an idea rolling, but upon arrival they were met with city council and fire trucks parked outside due to a large burst main running under the club. It meant work couldn’t start until it was free from water, which they’d been advised could take up to four days. Milly took a seat on the gutter beside him, resting her head on his shoulder.

”I’m sorry Bam. But, it’s okay, really.. We can just relax for a few days, you can show me the sights of..” she stopped, having already forgotten the name of his township.

”West Chester.” his answered, solemnly.

”Yeah.” she said cheerily, ”We can even spend a few days luring your wife back with my child. Every cloud, eh?” she smiled reassuringly.

”You’re totally right. Come on.” he offered his hand as he stood, pulling her to her feet.

”We will be needed to rescue Oscar from Tim before we leave though.” she laughed, looking over to Glomb holding Oscar’s hands and guiding him along on his skate board. ”Is there a fire at your house, it’s so cold here..” she chattered, pulling her jacket closer to her body for warmth. She hadn’t been in a cold climate for so long, she had almost forgotten what it had felt like to need layers.



”Yo!” Bam hollered as he entered through an unlocked door to the side of his house, ”Any of you fuckers home?”

”Yo!” a faint voice responded, ”Up here dude.” Milly followed Bam through his dungeon like kitchen, complete with skulls imbedded into a small fireplace seating area, up a set of stairs leading into a large open space filled with purple fabrics and heartagrams. ”Welcome home dude!” the guy who had been calling out to Bam grinned, ”And who is this hot mamma?” he laughed, extending his hand politely.

”Milly.” she answered, shaking his hand with the hand that wasn’t holding her son’s.

”And the handsome little guy?”

”Oscar, say hello..”

”Hi.” he said, behaving shyly.

”Cool name little dude. I’m Dico.”

”Dick no.” Milly laughed at her son’s mispronunciation, Bam found it hilarious.

”Dick no! Fuck.” he cried out in laughter.

”Dick no fuck.” Oscar replied with a cackle. Causing them both to fall to the ground in hysterics, causing more people to come into the mix.

”Oscar! Bam, don’t say things like that, you know what he’s like!” Milly said, trying to hide how funny she actually found it to be. But she was a parent, so she had to do the right thing by her child and that was to not teach him profanity was okay before the ripe old age of four. Bam shook his head and his hands, trying to apologise, but Dico howling with laughing just made him laugh more.

”What is going on out here?!” a woman’s voice asked, rife with stress, from behind them. Milly turned to see Bam’s mother, she knew as they looked so alike. ”Oh, hello.” she smiled kindly as she approached them, ”Bam, get the hell up.” she quipped, subtly kicking him as she walked past him.

”Hi, sorry, I’m Milly..”

”April, it’s lovely to meet you. And who’s this little darling?”

”This little darling is a trouble maker in the works, I think that’s why he and Bam have become the best of friends.”

”Hey sweetie, what’s your name? I’m April, but you can call me Ape.” she said sweetly, crouching to his small height.

”Oscar.”

”And is my son nice to you?” she asked. He looked up to his mum, confused as to who her son was.

”April’s son is Bam, hunny.”

”Yes!” he grinned, ”He lets me kill him in all the games and he got me some new dinosaurs and we have pudding when mummy doesn’t know sometimes.”

”Does he now...” she smiled, looking up to Milly, who nodded fully aware of the fact that they had ’secret’ pudding in the garden around lunch time.

”Is your name Ape because you like monkeys?”

”Milly, babe, this kid is golden. Holy shit.” Dico said, wiping his eyes. April shook her head and turned back to Milly with a sigh.

”Would you like a cup of coffee?”

”You know, I would love one. Somewhere quiet.” Milly laughed.

”Now, we don’t have any secret pudding, but would you like a juice box?” Oscar nodded frantically. If there’s one thing the kid loved more than secret pudding, it was juice boxes.



”He thinks it’ll work, but I don’t know her, so I can’t say...” Milly explained. She and April had been discussing Bam’s plans to win Missy around to the idea of having kids, by using Oscar as an example of how good of a dad he would be. ”He loves her so much though, it’s really sweet to hear him talk about it actually.” Milly smiled, enjoying the warmth from the fire on her face.

”Missy is just scared. She’s scared that she’ll be left ’holding the baby’, so to speak. How is he really, with Oscar..?”

”Truthfully?” she nodded, ”He’s brilliant. Seth has never been that kind of hands on father figure. He says he’ll do a lot of things to Oscar, but never follows through; whereas Bam was blowing plans off left, right and center to hang out with Oscar rather than me have my friend Gwen take care of him. He’s been really amazing. Oscar really loves him.” she padded her eye with a napkin and nodded.

”It’s just, it’s so lovely to hear.” she gushed.

”Don’t be so surprised. I think he’s a natural father. Oscar is going to miss having him around every day, that’s for sure.”

”So, Seth isn’t Oscar’s father?” she shook her head.

”That’s right.”

”Oh, but Bam said before Seth you were with Ville- Oh.” she put her hand to her lips, shocked at her sudden realisation. ”Oh, my, but- Of course.” she said, running her hand down Oscar’s hair. ”Oh sweetie, he’s like a miniature, does he know?”

“No.” she replied, swallowing hard, expecting harsh judgement.

“Well, Bam did tell me what happened between the two of you. People make a lot of strange, tough decisions when things like that happen; it’s hard to know what to do after.” Milly looked slightly relieved at April’s response, she reached across and patted Milly’s hand, “I’m not here to judge sweetie, I’m here to help.” She smiled kindly. “Any friend of Bam’s is family and us Margera lot look out for one another.”

“Thank you April.”

“Now, when are you going to tell him?” she asked in a motherly tone.

“When I go back to L.A, he should still be there recording.” Milly replied, worry dripping off her words.

“That’s sensible. You don’t want to be doing that over the phone.” She drummed her fingers on the table, Milly could see her brain ticking over in her head, “You really couldn’t have told him at some point over the last three years?” she winced, obviously not wanting to seem rude but just trying to further understand.

”I went back to Helsinki when I was pregnant, but I was hormonal and my judgement from wanting to kill him and feed his corpse to Jonna lapsed into that of wanting him to hold me. But, he wasn’t there, so I left and the rage bubbled up again. It wasn’t until he turned up on my doorstep to work with Seth that that feeling started to crumble away, now I just feel like a disgusting human being..” she said, her voice cracking, tears wanting to spill from her eyes. ”He hurt me so much, but, I can’t bring myself to hurt him with what I’ve done... It’s so much worse.”

”Sweetie, no.” Ape cooed, moving around the table to embrace her son’s friend, ”No, no, no. You mustn’t think like that.”

”But what I’ve done is horrible.” she sobbed. April pulled away and took both of Milly’s hands in hers.

”Well of course it is, but you can’t do anything about it now. It’s been done, all you can do now is rectify it. You’ve spent years without Ville, if he gets so mad he can’t even look at you, that’s no skin off your nose really is it?” Milly’s eyes dropped and she chewed pensively on her bottom lip. It would be skin off her nose, it would devastate her and April could see it written all over her face.

”You have to be strong, for Oscar and for your dignity. Okay? Now, who else knows?”

”Everyone except Ville and Seth.”

”What? How?”

”Mige and Linde picked it as soon as they saw him. He looks exactly like Ville when he was young.”

”Oh.. And what do they think about this?”

”That I should tell Ville. Mige even went so far as to threaten that if I didn’t, he would.”

”Well that’s not very friend like is it?” Milly shook her head. ”I gather that’s why Bam has brought you here? To get away from it all for a bit, to clear your head before you tell Ville?”

”Yeah, he’s a good friend.”

”Well, don’t you worry about a single thing you hear. We will talk about this more, we will work this out, everything will be okay. Okay? Say it with me; everything will be okay.”

”Everything will be okay.”



Ville knew it was risky, but he didn't care. He took a seat and laid his head back, closing his eyes and hoping some idea of what he could do would come to him.