FEBRUARY, 1993, OLYMPIA, WA

"YOU SOUND TIRED," were the first words out of Reagan's mouth as she heard Dave's voice over the phone.

"Yeah?" Dave laughed. The laugh was ragged, nothing like it usually sounded to Reagan's ears. She noted that it melded into a tired sigh.

"Yeah," she said. "Everything okay at the studio?"

"As good as it can be. How's G?"

As soon as Dave mentioned their daughter, Reagan watched as Gracie tottered by the kitchen with Kody and RaeLynn chasing behind her. She had finally gotten the hang of walking without losing her balance and now, it was impossible to catch her once she got going. Her feet were capable of carrying her at lightning speed, or at least that's what it felt like to Reagan when she was running after her.

"She's good. The twins are keeping her entertained right now. It's a nice break for me."

"You at your parents' house?"

"Yeah. The whole family is here. Chris is going to stop by later too."

"That's nice, baby. I'm glad you're not alone."

Reagan tightened her fingers around the phone. It felt imperative that she pressure him more into talking, to revealing the truth of how he felt. She needed to know if he was okay, really okay, after the messy start of the new year that he and the band had been through.

As much as it hurt her to admit, everyone's fingers were pointed at Kurt when it came to assigning blame for those tumultuous last few weeks. Even Reagan was nearing the end of her rope with her once-good friend. They had hardly spoken, if not at all, and any information that she got on Kurt came from Dave. None of it was ever positive.

"Are you having fun?" Reagan pressed, knowing that she must have sounded stricken.

"Sure I am. We're about to finish this record and then I'm coming home. That's the most fun part of it all."

"Shouldn't the recording part be the fun part?"

Dave lowered his voice. "Reags, I don't know what to tell you. You know how it is."

"Yeah," Reagan said, her throat locking. Why the idea of Nirvana being on the rocks hurt her so much, she didn't know. Maybe it was because she dwelled on the past too much. "I do."

"Remember what we said. It doesn't affect us. This doesn't involve you and me."

"How can it not involve us when I'm worried about you?"

"There's nothing to worry about. I'm doing the record with Kurt and Krist, it's gonna' be great, and then I'm coming home to you and Gracie."

"You make it sound like such a job," Reagan whispered.

"It is my job, babe."

"It's not supposed to feel like one."

A muffled voice crackled in the background, probably Krist's by the booming sound of it. Reagan thought she heard him heckling Dave.

"I've got to go. I'll call back tonight. Are you staying in Olympia?" Dave asked.

"Maybe, I don't know, there's really nowhere for Gracie and I to sleep . . ."

Another voice popped in. This one sounded like Kurt's, clipped and irritated though Reagan couldn't make out what he was saying. She felt a cold chain of ice cinch at her heart.

"I'll just call your parents' house," Dave insisted. "I'll talk to you later. I love you."

"Wait," Reagan said in protest. "Let me put Gracie on. She'll wanna' hear your voice."

"Baby, I —,"

"Dave, she hasn't stopped saying 'da' for weeks now. Talk to her just for a second."

Reagan pressed the phone to her chest and hollered for her siblings.

"Kody! RaeLynn! Mom, get Gracie!" She put the receiver back to her ear. "My mom will grab her, just one second."

"What is it?" Kimberly yelled from the living room.

"Reags, I really gotta' go, Steve is going to bust a blood vessel in his head if I don't get behind the kit in five seconds. I'll talk to Gracie tonight, okay?"

"But —,"

"I love you. I love her. Tell her I love her, okay?"

And then the line went dead.

Reagan held the phone away from her face, staring dully at it. It wasn't so much that Dave had hung up on her that hurt, but rather it was the implications behind it. He was busy. He was clearly struggling. The phrase 'in over his head' hardly covered the heartache that had been amassed over the last few months between him and his band-mates.

Things felt like they were edging out of control and ultimately, there was nothing Reagan could do to fix it, especially from Richard and Kimberly's house in Olympia.

"What's all the screaming about?" Kimberly huffed, entering the kitchen. Gracie was wrapped in her arms.

When Reagan locked eyes with her daughter, her worries melted away like a block of ice puddling into water. She lit her face with a wide smile, hoping that it would in the very least reassure Gracie that nothing was wrong. Gracie may have been too young to understand, but in lieu of the vow that Dave and Reagan had taken to not allow any Nirvana drama affect them, Reagan always put on a happy face for Gracie. By default, she was included in that vow.

"Guess who I just talked to," she beamed. Gracie smiled ear to ear, revealing the several teeth that she'd sprouted over the last few months. Much about her had changed. She had a soft, feathery
nest of brownish-auburn atop her head now and her eye color had finally turned. They were blue, just as Dave had predicted. A stormy, grey blue, piercing and beautiful all at once.

They may not have been the same shade as Dave's warm brown irises, but they were still the most wholesome pair of eyes that Reagan had ever looked into.

"Mamamamamama," Gracie babbled, outstretching her hands and flapping her fingers. Reagan scooped her into her arms and nuzzled the top of her head.

"I talked to Daddy," she murmured into Gracie's ear. "Daddy. Say Daddy."

"Da," Gracie blurted with enthusiasm. Reagan hoped that when she said it, she was imagining Dave's face, however an almost-one-year-old might do that. One thing had been made certain and it was that Gracie adored her father.

"She can say 'mama' just fine, yet she calls David 'da,'" Kimberly remarked, smoothing her hand back over Gracie's head.

"We're working on it."

"It's probably because she's too attached to you. That child barely lets you out of her sight for a minute before she starts crying. Are you still co-sleeping? I told you not to co-sleep."

Reagan held Gracie tighter. "She cries for me in the middle of the night. What am I supposed to do?"

What Reagan didn't add was that she secretly enjoyed having Gracie nestled next to her at night when Dave was away. It made her feel less lonely and it occupied the unused side of the bed. Instead of curling her fingers against empty sheets and feeling pain when her conscious mind realized Dave wasn't there, she felt the reassuring warmth of her daughter.

"You let her cry," Kimberly instructed firmly. "How is she ever going to eventually transition to a bed when you've got her sleeping in yours every night?"

"She doesn't sleep in my bed when Dave's home. He's the only one who can get her into a real deep sleep, long enough to stay in her crib. He sings to her."

"Well, he ought to get himself home soon then, shouldn't he?"

Ignoring Kimberly, Reagan pushed past her and went into the living room where the rest of her family was gathered. Richard and Robbie were on the couch channel surfing while Kate sat cross-legged on the floor, trying to entertain the children of the house. There were so many toys laying about the floor that Reagan felt as if she were stepping through a land mine.

"There's my big girl," Richard grinned. Reagan raised her eyebrows, thinking for a moment that Richard was addressing her, until he held his hands out towards Gracie.

Gracie went willingly to her grandfather with one of her trademark smiles. Reagan supposed that Gracie's special love for Richard had to do with his similarity to her. Of everyone in the family, Richard's genetic coding aligned most closely with Reagan's, and Gracie seemed sharp enough to sense that. She splayed herself into Richard's lap and hugged him around the neck.

"Was that Dave on the phone?" Richard asked.

"Yeah. They're almost done recording the album."

"Ooh, are they?" Robbie said, perking up. "What's it gonna' be called? What's the first song? Wait, don't tell me, I wanna' ask Dave about it. Is he gonna'
call back? Can I talk to him?"

"Um, hello, earth to Robbie, is Dave your husband or Reagan's?" Kate demanded.

"I haven't talked to him in awhile," Robbie mumbled, burying his chin into his chest and giving Kate a dirty look.

"He's really busy," Reagan said.

"How are Kurt and Krist?" Richard asked kindly. Reagan offered him a tiny smile. At least Richard had taken the time to memorize the name of Dave's band-mates. Kimberly usually referred to them as 'the boys' or on her distinctly bad days, 'the other ones.'

"Good," Reagan replied. The answer tasted sour in her mouth, sounding like a lie even to her. It was impossible to remember the last time that things had been 'good.'

"Put Gracie down, Daddy," RaeLynn pleaded. She darted into the living room and came to a skidding halt by Richard, pulling on his pants leg at the knee.

"Yeah, please let her play," Kody added as he appeared next to his twin sister.

It was disorienting for Reagan to hear the twins speak with such clarity. In a way, it caused her a twinge of regret, having missed out on the large growth spurt that they'd gone through since she'd left home. They were five now and first-grade bound at the start of fall. By the end of summer, they'd be six. The same babies that she had helped rock to sleep, bathe and feed were grown.

Would her time with Gracie fly by that fast?

She winced at the thought. If time was capable of being frozen in place, then Reagan would have done it, if not only for herself but for Dave. It was a crime that he should miss out on seeing his daughter grow up while he traveled the world. The only consolation of it was that Reagan knew he would have rather been with them. If the pull of performing hadn't been so strong, he would have been. He would have been right there in her parents' living room with her.

"Maybe you should ask your sister that," Richard suggested.

"Reagan, can Gracie play?" RaeLynn demanded, turning around impatiently. Her light brown hair flounced against her shoulders as she spun, making Reagan bite her lip around a smile. That pouty face she wore looked all too familiar.

"No more running around," Kimberly said. She walked into the living room with an armful of laundered towels. "One of you is going to break something."

"Mom!" RaeLynn and Kody whined in chorus.

"Play upstairs," Kimberly instructed. "You can use Katie's room."

"Mom!" Kate said angrily. "Not my room!"

"Hush, you don't even live in it anymore. Now, as for my little Gracie . . ."

Kimberly laid the pile of towels onto the coffee table and put on a smile that Reagan was half-tempted to call sickeningly sweet. For someone who had despised the thought of Gracie before she'd even been born, Kimberly sure did love the little girl.

Probably more than the rest of us, Reagan thought grudgingly.

"Where are you taking her?" Reagan asked as Richard passed Gracie onto Kimberly's hip. There was a crash from upstairs, causing Kate to shriek through her teeth and scamper after whatever mayhem the twins were causing.

"We're going to have a snack. Are we going to eat Cheerios, Gracie?" Kimberly said, raising the pitch of her voice to a baby-like keen as she bounced Gracie up and down.

Gracie squealed in reply and Reagan couldn't resist smiling. She was such a happy kid, responding to everyone with the same heart-melting smile that made even strangers in the supermarket cock their heads to the side and let out resounding 'aww's.'

"Honey, will you fold those towels?" Kimberly prodded, nodding at the lump of towels and then at Reagan.

Reagan's face fell into an openmouthed stare. She couldn't fathom that Kimberly was actually asking her to do chores as if she was still a member of the household, an unwilling servant to all of her mother's needs.

"Get Robbie to do it," Reagan said.

"Bye," Robbie said automatically, hopping up from the couch and bolting upstairs.

"Ugh!" Reagan scoffed in disbelief as he turned the corner out of sight. "That little shit."

"Language around the baby," Kimberly warned, covering the side of Gracie's face protectively.

"She's got me and Dave for parents," Reagan said. "She'll get used to it."

"Yes, and God help her." Kimberly sighed, kissed Gracie's head and whisked her off into the kitchen, leaving Reagan with towels to fold.

"I'll help you honey," Richard said with a chuckle. He patted Reagan's shoulder, ever the helper when one of his children was clearly in need.

"Thanks. She never misses out on an opportunity to use and abuse me, does she?"

"I think it has more to do with Gracie. She loves her very much."

"Yeah, she's obsessed. It's a little much."

"Well, it is her first grandchild," Richard reasoned as he shook out a towel. "Can you really blame her?"

"Yes," Reagan said. She snapped the wrinkles out of the towel in her hands with a loud thwack.

"I understand."

They folded the rest of the towels silently into a neat pile until Richard spoke again, sitting back into the couch and propping his ankle up on his knee.

"I've been reading the magazines, you know," he remarked. Reagan threw him a surprised smile.

"You? Buying magazines? Did time revert itself back to the seventies?"

"I only buy the ones that have Nirvana in it."

"That's sweet, Dad. You'd be making Dave blush if he was here."

"I've read some things, honey."

Reagan finished her last towel and placed it atop the stack. She mashed her lips together, wondering which direction their conversation was going in and if she'd have the will to stick around for it. If Richard was buying magazines that covered Nirvana, then he certainly was up to date with the latest trials and tribulations of the band. And this meant that he'd been fed both a myriad of truths and lies combined.

"What things?" she asked calmly.

Richard examined his wrist-watch, rubbing the skin around it with a contemplative look. He sighed deeply.

"Dave's friend, Kurt . . . the frontman . . . he isn't doing too well, is he?"

"It's a long story. What exactly did you read?"

"You know how those magazines are. They don't always tell the truth. I'm going based off assumptions. Last August must have been rough for him."

Reagan matched Richard's position on the couch. She leaned back and crossed her ankles, knowing that the truth would be blatantly easy to read in her eyes. There was no use in trying to hide it.

"He's on drugs," she told Richard softly. "Heroin."

"Poor kid," Richard murmured.

"It's awful, Dad. He already tried rehab and it's not working. This whole thing . . . he can't handle it."

"You seem critical of him."

Reagan jerked back as if Richard had pinched her on the arm. Critical? That wasn't the word she would have used. She hadn't ever been critical towards Kurt. For as long as she could remember, she'd only wanted to support him through every mess.

"How am I critical?" she asked tersely.

Richard gave a small shrug. "I wouldn't know the truth. I'm not around enough to know that. All I see is that this young man has become the receiver of a good thing, though much too fast."

"He's living his dream," Reagan said. "His band is famous and successful. He's got a beautiful daughter. Why do this, then? Why throw it away on something so dumb?"

"Maybe it's not a dream anymore. It's just reality. You know very well how hard that can be to face."

"I want to see him happy," Reagan vented. "I want to see the band . . . functioning. They've gotten this far already. And you should hear Dave on the phone, he sounds so stressed. He's just trying to finish this record and have fun while doing it but it isn't the same anymore."

"Kurt is your friend, isn't he?" Richard inquired.

"Of course he is."

"And you're concerned about him?"

"Of course I am!"

"Then I've found your problem."

Reagan's forehead creased with wrinkle lines as she made a face. "That I'm concerned? That's the problem?"

"No. You consider Kurt to be your friend that you're worried about, but you're worrying about all the wrong things. The band, the success, Dave."

"Success?" Reagan cried incredulously. "It's never been about that! And Dave . . . come on Dad, he's my husband." She cringed at the use of the word around her father, knowing that it must have still been foreign for him to see his eldest married off, but Richard only smiled sadly.

"And you're a very good wife to care about him so much. But if Kurt is your friend like you say he is, then you should try to spare a little of your focus on him. Talk to him. You don't have to sit on the sidelines and watch the fire grow bigger."

"Dave said we can't change his mind," Reagan mumbled. "He said there's nothing we can do to change it."

"What is this 'we' business?" Richard said, placing his hand over Reagan's. "Is your friendship with Kurt conditional because of Dave? You have your own bond with him, Reagan. Instead of worrying so much in your head, why don't you try to help Kurt? Even if you just listen to him when he talks."

"I . . ." Reagan nearly said that she hadn't considered this idea before, but in truth, she had. A long time ago, she'd been ready to sit down Kurt herself and let him spill his secrets to her if he pleased. She'd wanted to listen. She always had.

"Be there for him," Richard urged. "Be the friend that he needs right now."

"Dad, do you think that Dave hasn't already tried to do that? That Krist hasn't? Dave would have never told me not to get involved if he thought there was a fighting chance to make some kind of difference. Dave loves Kurt, too."

"You're a different breed," Richard said. "You've always had a great way of listening to people. And you've got quite a comforting presence, sweetheart. It's surely kept me sane throughout the years."

He glanced pointedly towards the kitchen where Kimberly was cooing over Gracie. Reagan laughed a little when she understood what he was getting at. It was mildly comforting to know that even Richard could admit that Kimberly was off the rails.

"What if it doesn't work?" she asked after her smile had faded. Her voice suddenly lilted with fear. "What if he gets mad at me? What if something bad happens?"

Richard smiled again, that same melancholy smile that brought out the newly acquired lines in his face. He squeezed Reagan's hand tightly into his own.

"Well, at least you can say that you tried."