was on the road somewhere, with Flash, and on drugs. The child they knew and loved was lost to them.
She turned nineteen in June, and showed up again a few days later. They hadn’t seen her in five months. She seemed a little more sober than the last time, but not entirely, and Eleanor could see the minute she walked in that she was pregnant. She was shocked but could no longer be surprised by anything their daughter did. She had taken the road to perdition a year before, and now she was on drugs and pregnant, and the sex slave of a bad guy, all in the name of her music career. It took all of Eleanor’s self-restraint not to cry when she was talking to her.
“What are you going to do about the baby?” she asked in a low voice of despair. Alex hadn’t seen her yet, and she knew he would be devastated. Their daughter had been ruined by a man called Flash, and what would become of the child?
“I’m going to have it. Why?” Camille looked surprised.
“Are you and Flash going to get married?” Eleanor asked cautiously, afraid to enrage her.
Camille shrugged as though it didn’t matter.
“Maybe. Later. I don’t know.” She didn’t look embarrassed, just confused.
“Where are you going to have it?” She wanted her to come home now, for Camille’s sake and the child’s.
“I can’t leave the tour. I’ll have it wherever we are. It’s not a big deal, Mom. Women have babies all the time, drop them in fields, and keep going.”
“Is that what Flash told you?” Eleanor said, wanting to kill him for what he was doing to her. He had brainwashed her, and was keeping her supplied with drugs, Eleanor was sure. He must have found her easier to deal with that way, and it was how he lived too.
“Yeah, one of the girls had a baby last year. She had it at the hotel, and was onstage the next night.” She looked unconcerned.
“Camille, you need to come home, so we can take care of you and the baby.” She said it as gently as she could and Camille bristled instantly.
“Flash and I can take care of the baby. I don’t need you for that.”
“You’re on drugs.” Eleanor decided to be honest with her. “You’re going to damage your baby, and yourself. Come home, at least until the baby is born.”
“Hell, no!” she said vehemently. “I’m not leaving Flash. You’re just jealous because I have a good life with him and I’m happy.”
“I wouldn’t call it a good life. You’re in a different city every night. God knows what he’s giving you. You could lose the baby or die yourself. You need to come home.”
“Don’t waste your breath,” she said angrily, as her father rolled in in his wheelchair and saw the pregnant belly. His eyes flew to her face with a look of shock.
“What’s that?”
“Your grandchild, Pops.” She grinned at him. She had never called him that before and he wanted to burst into tears but he didn’t allow himself to.
“Are you married?” She shook her head and looked disappointed.
“You sound like Mom. I don’t need to be married to have a baby.”
“It would be preferable,” he said in a raw voice, and he could see she was on drugs too. “You need to come home and take care of yourself.” She had left a year before, and was on a straight trajectory to her own destruction.
“Flash takes care of me now. He’s going to deliver the baby. He did it once before.” She sounded blasé about it.
“You need a doctor, a hospital, and us to take care of you. We love you,” he pleaded with her and she turned away from him. He was interfering with her life and she would allow nothing to come between her and Flash, surely not her parents. Flash had warned her that they would try to do that and told her to resist. He’d been right, and she followed his advice.
She spent two days with them, while they argued constantly, and on the third day, when they woke up, she was gone, back to Flash again. They didn’t even know how pregnant she was and neither did she. She looked four or five months pregnant to Eleanor, but there was no way to be sure. The situation was heartbreaking and there was nothing they could do.
They hardly heard from her after that and worried about her constantly, and the baby.