Welcome to the Family

I felt the cool autumn breeze nip at the exposed skin on my face and upset the loose hairs from my messy “mom” bun. Sitting by my little two year old daughter as she crumbled the fallen brown leaves in her still baby-awkward fingers I couldn’t help but feel an ounce of hesitation for what I was about to do.

Did I really, truly want to bring her into all of this? Did I really want to bring her into her father’s world? They didn’t need to know about her. She was safe here, with me. She didn’t need to know who her father was. She didn’t need to know his friends.

I knew that I had blown that chance when I named her in honor of her father.

Rhiannon Everly Viola Sullivan, R.E.V.S.

I hadn’t known the rest of Avenged Sevenfold very well. Jimmy and I hadn’t been dating for very long when he passed away. I’d met them once or twice, but I never got to know them. They were strangers to me. They didn’t need to know my daughter.

On the other hand… they were her daddy’s best friends. They would have been her god-fathers. They likely would have been referred to as “Uncle”. Jimmy would want her to know them.

I had been dating Jimmy for five months when he died. I didn’t know him very well myself. A lot of our relationship was drugs and sex. I was a horrible drug addict before I realized I was carrying Rev. After that little plus sign, I went to rehab and I got clean for my baby. Not even Jimmy over-dosing convinced me to stop, but my little Rev Jr. did.

I think I had loved Jimmy somewhere. When we weren’t high or trying like demons to make Rev, I had some of the best conversations of my life with him. He just had something about him that made you want to smile forever. He made you feel like everything was going to be okay when we all knew it wasn’t.

After he died, I went into a depression. Instead of convincing me to quit my ways, Jimmy’s death just made me go at them harder. I tried to drown all the pain in booze and coke, but I quit for Rev. I’m not religious, but I kept thinking that Jimmy would never forgive me if I killed our daughter or let her become a crack baby.

I considered myself a good mom. I worked two jobs, one at Target and the other at Creative Caterpillars, Rev’s daycare, to make ends meet. We lived in a small two bedroom apartment with two roommates who were practically her parents just as much as I was. It was Jake and Tina as well as Tina’s own bun in the oven convinced me that I wanted Rev to know as much about her family as I could get her to know. If that meant starting with Jimmy’s best friends…

…Then so be it.

At four o’clock, three hours before Avenged Sevenfold was set to preform, I took Rev backstage with passes Tina, Jake, and I had been saving up to get for months.

It didn’t take long to locate the four men I sought. What took long was me trying to get up the courage to speak to them. I couldn’t think of what to say. My mouth was dry and it felt like I was going to throw up. Rev squirmed in my arms, blinking at me with pale, blue-grey eyes that were so shockingly like her daddy’s.

For Rev and Jimmy, Dani, you have to do it.

I sucked in a breath and strode up to where Matt, Zacky, Brian, and Johnny stood laughing with a few crew members. I adjusted Rev’s position on my hip before speaking.

“Excuse me?” I asked. I shocked myself with how even my tone was. I was so certain it would waver.

They all turned to me and took in everything. They seemed most surprised at the fact that I’d brought a little girl to a rock concert.

“Umm… hey…” It was Brian that spoke up giving me a quizzical look. “You look kind of familiar… have we met?”

I took another shaky breath. “Yes, once or twice. My name’s Danika. I was dating Jimmy when he passed away…” I looked at them for a second and knew they all remembered me at least faintly. I closed my eyes for a second before brushing down a rogue curl on Rev’s head.

“This is Jimmy’s and my daughter, Rhiannon.”