Spotlight

If someone was to ask me what my greatest achievement was, it wouldn’t be the success of My Chemical Romance, nor would it be marrying my wife, Alicia. My greatest achievement and my most prized possession came to me at an unexpected time, but she never has been one for good timing.

It was a freezing winter’s night in New Jersey; my brother had grown bored over the past few months and decided that MCR would do a show down in Hoboken, where we had played our first show back when our fan base consisted of a whole ten people. Now there was a line from the door and down the next block of diehard fans that practically swooned over my brother, still.

I had left a thirty-six week pregnant Alicia back at home, not really something I wanted to do, but she was not up to any more concerts in her current condition. Frank had wanted to stay at home and spend time with his family; he’d be smitten with the idea of being a father ever since his son was born. The man almost broke down in tears when little Daniel got his first cold- thought the kid would be dead in a week. Overreacting, perhaps? Bob had flown over from Chicago and Gerard was more involved with the idea of a concert than a Christmas for Aiden.

The call came midway through the set. Gerard was pouring out the lyrics to Famous Last Words, as the crowd screamed against the roaring music and Frank, Frank rolled around the floor like he was having an epileptic fit or had drank too much red cordial. The vibration of the phone in my back pocket distracted me from the music as the tone was drowned out by the guitars, ringing for what felt like forever before the caller gave up. Before Gerard even got a chance to go into the next chorus, the ringing started up again. He’d heard it this time, glancing back at me for a moment with a face that screamed ‘Turn that fucking thing off.’ But I couldn’t, my hands were stuck to my bass as the adrenaline from the music pumped through my veins and the crowd sung along to my brothers voice.

I swallowed nervously as the phone ceased ringing again, relieved that caller had given up on an answer. But at the same time nervous at to what was so important that they needed to call during the middle of a set. The music continued to surge around me as the guitars peaked and came into the bridge, the whole room seemed to go quiet as the crowd chorused along to Gerard’s singing.

“I see you lying next to me, with words I thought I’d never spe-” And that’s when that fucking ringing started again, calling out for me to answer from the confinements of my pocket. I swore under my breath as the fans faces grew confused and my brother turned around, all eyes falling upon me and my feet grew roots into the ground and my body froze from the embarrassment of forgetting to turn my cell phone off.

Gerard shook his head at me, Frank was confused and Bob kept hitting those drums with everything he had. We couldn’t stop for a single phone call, the song had to finish. And it did; only this particular version had the added sound effects of a cell phone ringing.

“I think Mikey better answer his cell,” Gerard announced through his microphone, glancing at me as the crowd roared in agreement. All eyes were on me as I released the bass from my hands, leaving it to hang around my chest as I retrieved the cell from my back pocket. The words Alicia calling displayed across the screen. She’d never call me unless it was an emergen- fuck. I felt my heart leap in my throat as I put the device to my ear and Alicia’s voice came through the receiver.

“Mikey,” she sounded flustered, panicked almost. Something wasn’t right. “Mikey, something’s wrong! The baby-” Her words stumbled over each other in a rush of panic, and she stopped to groan in pain.

“Alicia?” Every single pair of eyes in that club was on me, drilling into me as the whole room was propelled into silence and I grew nervous and scared, my chest tightening. “What’s wrong, hun? What about the baby?”

“I was in the kitchen when something happened... it just felt like the baby has ‘dropped,’ she’s gone!” Her words weren’t making sense, she was speaking too quickly and the words went straight through one ear and out the other. “Something’s wrong!”

By this stage I was sweating more than I had ever sweated on a stage before, as I tried to register what she was telling me in my head.

Baby. Dropped? Baby. Pain. Panic. Baby... dropped?

Then it hit, and alarm bells were going off in my head.

Emergency.

Instinct kicked in and I found myself screaming down the line; “Call an ambulance. I’m coming.” Without a minute to spare I bolted from the stage leaving a bewildered band and audience behind me and out the door to find a car. Gerard came flying out of the stage door after me in a hurry.

“Mikey, what the fuck is going on?” He sounded confused, he looked confused.

“Alicia. I need to get to a hospital.”

So we did. After an argument that Gerard should stay behind and finish the concert before the audience turned into an angry mob, I found myself in the passenger seat and speeding off in the direction of the hospital.

Then I was in a room surrounded by nurses and doctors, gripping onto Alicia’s hands as tears poured from her pretty blue eyes and the feeling went from my hands. I don’t remember much of what happened between her call, and arriving at the hospital, but she was there by the time we had arrived and had practically thrown myself across the reception desk at the nurse, flustered and scared, demanding for the mother of my unborn child.

Now we were here as nurses ran around the room and a doctor shouted orders.

“We need to get that baby out!” Wait. What? My heart stopped in my chest right then and there and I had never been more scared in my life.

No. No, this wasn’t right. Alicia wasn’t due for another month, not until January. Not. Until. January.

Alicia was almost screaming now, her eyes glazed over in fear and any feeling I had left in my hand was long gone as the nurses were injecting drugs to calm her down. My head was spinning, thoughts churning a mile a minute and nothing made sense. What was happening? What was going to happen to my baby?

A hand thrust itself on my shoulder, the doctors voice startling me as a jumble of words I couldn’t understand fell from his mouth, my brain barely making sense of the words complications, premature and caesarean... They were going to cut her open!

“Mr Way, you need to let go.” a nurse sounded, her voice calm and collected. How on earth could she be calm and collected when they were going to cut my wife open to get a baby out that wasn’t even due until January! “Mr Way, please.” She tugged at my arm, trying to detach it from Alicia’s grip. I couldn’t let her go.

I stood there in disbelief, not even knowing what was going on around me as they rushed my wife off in another direction and I couldn’t move. My brain couldn’t comprehend what was happening and Gerard was suddenly back at my side and I was outside, waiting. Waiting to know what was happening, waiting for everything to make sense again.

That’s when a doctor came out.

“Congratulations Mr Way, you have a baby girl,” he spoke, pulling off his mask and smiling at me.

My baby was here, my baby was in the world now and everything was beginning to make sense.

Falling over my own feet to get into that room and to see my wife, sweat pouring off her head as her outstretched hand reached for mine.

“Where is she?” I asked, gripping her hand and looking around. Where was the baby? “Alicia, where is she?” The panic had been gone merely seconds before it had come back, tightening my chest and I couldn’t breathe. Each breath I took caught in my throat, I wanted my baby.

“They...took her away,” Alicia was breathless as she forced the words. Fear took over and my eyes were fluttering... then everything went black.

I think I must have fainted then, because I woke up seconds later with nurses crowded around me and some strange scented stick in front of my nose, and another slapping my cheeks. One of those things I’d seen used in medical shows to wake up the unconscious patient.

“Where’s my baby?”

“Your baby is fine, Mr Way,” one of the nurses smiled and relief swept across my body and a faint cry filled the room. “She’s safe now.”

Being helped to my feet and escorted across the room to an incubator. Inside was a the tiniest human I’d ever seen, squirming and crying lightly as the world was finally making sense.

“Hello...” I whispered, placing one hand on the plastic case as the baby, my baby, squirmed inside. I couldn’t take my eyes off her eyes that were firmly shut and those tiny hands. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and my heart was about to explode out my chest from the site of my daughter.

She was mine. All mine.

“Hey, don’t cry. I’m your daddy...” That word, daddy, it felt so strange coming from my mouth. I had spent nine mon- no, eight months. Eight months waiting for the day I would see my child and now she was in front of me, so small and so fragile.

“...I’m going to keep you safe, I promise.”

Merely an hour old and she already knew how to cause a scene and capture your heart.

She was beautiful.