She looked at it like it was the first time she’d seen it. She said, “I have no idea.” She started talking about something else. And then out of nowhere, about ten minutes later, she goes, “Oh! I bet it’s from when I smashed the window to break into my parents’ house.”
I said, “Daisy, are you okay?”
She said, “Yeah, why?”
Billy: A few weeks after the tour ended, I woke up at four in the morning to Camila shaking my shoulders and telling me she was in labor. I grabbed Julia out of bed and raced Camila to the hospital.
When she was lying in that bed, sweating and screaming, I held her hand and I put a cold cloth on her head and I kissed her cheeks and I held her legs. Then we found out she had to have a C-section, and I stood right there—as close as they’d let me—and I held her hand as she went in and I told her she didn’t need to be scared, that everything was going to be okay.
And then there they were. My twin girls. Susana and Maria. Squooshed little faces, heads full of hair. But I could instantly tell them apart.
I realized, looking at them … [pauses] I realized that I’d never seen a newborn. I’d never seen Julia as a brand-new baby girl.
I handed Maria over to Camila’s mom for a moment and I went into the bathroom and I shut the door and I broke down. I … I needed some time to deal with my own shame.
But I did deal with it. I didn’t try to bury it in something else. I went into that bathroom and I looked at myself in the mirror and I faced it.
Graham: Billy was a good father. Yes, he’d been a drug addict who missed the first few months of his daughter’s life. And yeah, that’s shameful. But he was fixing himself. For his kids. He was making it right and doing better every single day. It was a hell of a lot more than any man in our family had ever done.
He was sober, he put his kids first, he would and did do anything for his family. He was a good man.
I guess I’m saying … if you redeem yourself, then believe in your own redemption.
Billy: I had this moment there in the hospital, when it was just me, and Camila, and my three girls, and I thought, What am I doing out on the road?
I went on this long epic speech to Camila, I said, “I’m giving it all up, honey. I don’t want anything but this family. The five of us. That’s all I want or need.” I really meant it. I probably went on for ten minutes. I said, “I don’t need rock ’n’ roll. I just need you.”
And Camila—keep in mind she’s just had a C-section—I will never forget it, she goes, “Oh, shut the hell up, Billy. I married a musician. You’ll be a musician. If I wanted to drive a station wagon and have a meatloaf ready at six o’clock, I would have married my father.”
Camila: Billy would sometimes make these grand proclamations. And they sounded good, because he’s an artist. He knows how to paint a picture. But he was almost always on some flight of fancy. I’m the one that often had to say, “Yoo-hoo, hi, hello, come back down to the earth now, please.”
Karen: Camila knew who Billy was better than he did. A lot of women would have said, “You’ve had your fun, but we’ve got three kids now.” Camila loved Billy exactly as he was. I dug that about her so much.
And I really think Billy loved her the same way she loved him. I really do. When they were in the same place at the same time, you could tell he was just so taken with her. He’d stay quiet and let her be the one to talk. And I always noticed that he used to squeeze the lime into her drink before he handed it to her whenever we were all out somewhere. He’d take his own lime and squeeze it into her glass, too. He’d squeeze the two wedges in and then throw them in with the ice. It seemed like a beautiful thing to have, somebody giving you their lime wedge. I mean, I hate lime, actually. But you get the point.
Graham: Karen hated all citrus because she said it felt sticky on her teeth. That’s why she hated soda, too.
Billy: Teddy came and visited us in the hospital. He brought this big bouquet for Camila and stuffed animals for the girls. As he was leaving, I walked him down to the elevators and he told me he was proud of me. He said I’d really turned it all around. I said, “I did it all for Camila.”
And Teddy said, “I believe that.”
Camila: When the twins were just a few weeks old, my mom had taken them for a walk one afternoon and Billy asked me to sit down. He said he’s written another song for me.
Billy: It was called “Aurora.” Because Camila … she was my aurora. She was my new dawn, my daybreak, my sun peeking over the horizon. She was all of it.
It was just a piano melody at that point, but I had all the lyrics. So I sat down at the piano and played it for her.
Camila: The first time I heard it, I cried. I mean, you know the song. It would have been impossible for me to not feel bowled over by those words. He had written me others but … this one … I loved it and I felt loved listening to it.
And it was pretty, too. I would have loved that song even if it wasn’t about me. It was that good.
Billy: She got teary and then she said, “You need Daisy on it. You know that.”
And you know what? I did know that. Even as I was writing it, I had known it. I wrote it to be a piano and vocal harmony. Before we even got back into the studio, I was writing for Daisy.
Graham: That period of time when Billy was with his girls and Daisy was coming on board … well, it was a great opportunity for me to step up and take more of a center role in things. I was coordinating getting us all back together to start talking about a new album. I was discussing time lines with Rod and Teddy. It was fun.
Actually, it wasn’t that fun, it was just that I was happy. Everything seems fun when you’re happy.
Karen: The money was rolling in. I wanted to make smart decisions with it so I went out with a realtor for one day, and found a pad in Laurel Canyon and bought it.
Pretty soon, Graham unofficially moved in. We spent that spring and summer just the two of us together. We’d grill on the patio for dinner and go see shows every night and sleep late in the mornings.
Graham: Karen and I spent whole weekends high as shit, rich as hell, playing songs together, and not telling anybody where we were or what we were up to. It was our little secret. I didn’t even tell Billy.
People say that life keeps moving, but they don’t mention that it does stop sometimes, just for you. Just for you and your girl. The world stops spinning and just lets you two lie there. Feels like it, anyway. Sometimes. If you’re lucky. Call me a romantic if you have to. Worse things to be.
Billy: I trusted Graham to handle everything with the band. I knew it was in good hands and my head was elsewhere.
Daisy: Simone left to make the rounds on another tour.
Simone: I was hitting the road for the Superstar album. And in between shows, I was going to be based more in New York than L.A. The disco scene was really about doing the Hustle at Studio 54. So that’s where I was going.
Daisy: She seemed worried about me. I told her, “Go on. I’ll see you soon.” I was excited about everything I had in front of me. I was joining a band.
Graham: I had everything straightened out. I’d talked to Rod and Teddy. Billy said he was ready to get started. And I had come up with a date to reasonably deliver an album. So I called a meeting.