Sacrifices Justified by Love

Except for one time, she sang at the Rose Bowl in front of eighty thousand at a multi band event for charity. That was cool, for me at least, as Ashley introduced me to all four members of U2. Only she was a wreck just before show time and I fully learned the extent of how much she had the 'big room' phobia.

Having the kids really suited her. She relished being a mother even more than being a performer.

Performer. She didn't like to think of herself that way. She liked to think of herself as a vocalist, a term I coined for her the first time I heard her sing while we were in college. She was too modest to go as far as what I had really known, that she was a gifted vocalist.

Our wedding was intended to be modest, simple in concept, but it somehow grew legs and became a spectacle. It ran poor Clint and his extended security team to the ragged edge keeping the paparazzi out, but there was nothing he could do about the camera drones. Sign of the times I suppose.

The moments of when she said, "I do," and then when I got to kiss the bride were the greatest memory files of my life.

But if you were to ask my nephew, the best part of the event was when he got to dance with Dua Lipa at the reception.

"Daddy," Luna broke me out of my reverie, "Mommy's next song is going to be the princess one. Pleeeease, I wanna see." She gave me the doe eyes and put her hands in praying position to further her cause.

I chuckled and kissed her cheek. "Of course."

"Uh, Lupe?" I asked. She was on the floor playing dinosaurs with my son, Lucas.

Lupe smiled back, "Go ahead, we'll be fine." Then gave Lucas an, "Arghhh," before tickling him with a dinosaur puppet on her hand.

I put Luna's ear protection headphones on and took her hand, walking upstairs and to just offstage. We could see Ashley shaking her buns to the song just before Luna's favorite in the playlist schedule.

For the umpteenth time I couldn't help but marvel at my wife's fine ass. I should have a sculptor duplicate it in marble in honor of such perfection.

She wrapped up the song and looked over at where we were standing, just knowing we wouldn't miss the next one. Luna and I got a face splitting Ashley signature smile, full on with dimples.

Resetting her attention back to the audience, Ashley began the intro into her biggest chart topping hit, "Little Princess", that we had written together just after Luna was born.

I somehow lapsed in my parental responsibility, Luna wriggled her hand free of mine and ran to the front of the stage where the dancers were doing their thing. She fell into time, loosely knowing the choreography, and I marveled at how she looked so natural at it all, being only half the size of the professionals.

Ashley looked back at me, not at all looking mad as I would have expected. I shrugged my shoulders, hoping for a signal of what to do.

She shrugged back with a big smile, letting me know it was all OK, and continued on with the song like everything was normal.

The dancers just let Luna fold into the routine and the crowd went wild.

I was glad it was captured and put on YouTube for our family to enjoy and to tease the munchkin about when she got her first boyfriend in the future.

At the conclusion of the song, little Luna bowed deeply to the audience and then ran to her mother for a big hug. Ashley knelt down and filled her with praise.

Ashley walked her back over to me and gave me a kiss, her brows dripping with sweat before asking the obvious, "Did you see that?! She was great! We made that! You and I, we made that little girl."

I laughed, "You get all the credit, you had to pop her out. And you had a whole different tone during labor when you blamed me for everything including the end of the world, remember?"

She laughed back. "I love you," and I could see it in her eyes that it was unconditional and heartfelt.

I replied the same way, "I love you."

She looked down on Luna, "Just four more songs and then ice cream."

Ashley returned to center stage and put a little more emphasis into shaking her hiney, including looking back at me, throwing a knowing wink.

It is hard to describe, but I felt a ripple of, geeze, what? Pleasure? Satisfaction? OK, I know: joy. A ripple of physical joy. Don't believe me, that's OK, I just know that something ran through my entire body and it felt good. She had that effect on me sometimes.

She saved my life, in more ways than one. Filling my heart with so much joy, giving me a future when it looked like it had come to an early end, and staying true to herself.

With all that could have happened, and some of the ugly that comes with being in the spotlight like she is, that was the remarkable thing. It didn't change her. I mean, maybe a little. Like she made more of an effort to pick her clothes up off the floor these days and not leave them for the maids, but that was more to influence the kids than anything else.

What didn't change. What could never change, was that our love would be pure and true until our very last breaths.

OK, I'm a little sick over what I'm about to say, though I know it would make Ashley laugh and earn me a deserved punch in the arm over it. Maybe even throwing in a 'goofball' comment at me.

I needed Ashley like I needed a hole in my head. Just not meaning what the trite expression usually does. For I truly needed her completely.

I threw her away once because my love for her wanted what was best for her. It took a hole in the head to get her back and understand that what was best for her was also best for me too. Being together.

FIN

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As per usual, I'll leave the comments open for a few days, and then shut that down.

If you invested ~2 hours of your time to read to the end, that is flattery enough. Thank you.

I had a companion piece for this one, but it sputtered out. Maybe I'll finish it one day, but if you do want one, almost two years ago I wrote another story centered around the rise of a pair of singer-songwriters that, not at all perfect but I'm still a little proud of it. So if you want to read another within the theme, it is here: https://literotica.com/s/a-voice-lost-and-found