Chapter 14 - There's No Place Too Far

Walking into the house that she shared with Jon a lifetime ago, she can't help but feel all of the bad memories and all of the sadness that they went through in there.  

She felt a chill come over her as she watched Jon disappear up the grand staircase.  Looking around, she could see that the house had lost it's homey feel and it's warmth.

After standing there for what felt like too long, she made herself at home and went into the kitchen, seeking out a bottle of water.  With her water in hand, she makes her way upstairs to find out what's taking Jon so long.  She doesn't see him in any of the rooms along the way, she deduces that he's in the master bedroom.  The bedroom that is no longer hers, the bedroom that he shared with his wife again, after she left.  Leaning on the door jamb, not having the guts or the nerve to enter the master suite, she looks around and sees that it's been completely changed.   "Hey, what are you doing?" she yells to him.

"Come here." he says back, with excitement in his voice.  "I'm in the nursery."

Her heart drops.  They still have the nursery in the house?  She wonders why Dorothea didn't remove that and make it into a closet, or brick it up with all of the memories attached to it.  "I'm good.  Are you going to be long?"

"Please come in here." he pleads with her.  "I want to show you something."

With hesitation and a verbal protest, she makes her way through the master suite and on to the nursery.  The nursery that was made three babies ago.  As she makes her way to the door, she can see that there has been a new lock added to the door. "What?" she says as she breaks the threshold, stunned that it's exactly as she left it.  She stops dead in her tracks and is in awe.  She forgot how beautiful it was and she could still smell McKenna.  

"I want you to look at this." he points to a picture hanging on the wall that wasn't there when she left.  "Rose did this and she wanted me to send it to you."

Beth walks up to where the picture is hanging on the wall.  She looks it over, every inch she takes in and it warms her heart.  Stephanie had taken a photograph that was taken of the whole Bongiovi/Adams clan; Jon, Beth, Stephanie, Jesse, Jacob, Romeo and McKenna and she put it on canvas, leaving no detail out.  Beth's breath was stolen as she looks at the painting.  "This is beautiful, absolutely beautiful.  How come you didn't send it to me?"

"I didn't know where you were and if I paid someone to find you, you would have been pissed."  he puts his arm around her waist, "Plus, I knew you would be back someday."

"I didn't know she could paint." Beth admits, with tears filling her eyes.  "She captured everything.  Every minor detail."

"She was pretty proud of herself." he rubs her back, "And she was pretty pissed that I didn't send it to you, but she understood why I couldn't."

"It's perfect right where it's at."  Beth looks at him, with a tear rolling down her cheek.  "Why did you keep the nursery?  Did you and Dorothea fight about it."

Jon looks at her and wants to tell her why he really kept it, he wants to tell her that he kept it because in his heart he knew that Beth would be back and that they will have a baby one day, but as he's standing there with her, he sees how foolish his thinking might have been.  He reaches up to take the painting off of the wall and Beth stops him, "Leave it there, Jon.  It belongs in here, that is if you're keeping the nursery?"

"I'm not keeping the house."

Beth's jaw drops.  "What do you mean?  Are you selling it?"

"It's on the market."

"What on earth for?" she can't believe it.  His first house that he built once her reached the pinnacle of his success, he wants to sell?  "You can't sell this house, Jon."

"I can't keep it, Beth.  It's too painful to be here."

"Don't sell it, Jon.  Keep it for the kids."  Beth starts to pace the nursery looking at all of the stuff that she left behind when she left NJ.  It broke her heart to think that Dorothea possibly threw it all away, and she can see now that Dot wasn't even allowed in the nursery.  "This is where you kids came home, this is where your kids spend the holiday's; you can't sell this Jon."

He doesn't respond. 

Beth picks up the blanket that Jon's grandmother made for him when he was a baby.  McKenna was wrapped in her daddy's blanket all the time.  With it in her hands she smells it and she is quickly taken back.  Back to the day that she was born, she can see the look in Jon's eyes when they pulled McKenna from her abdomen.  He was speechless and in instant love.  He was smitten with the little girl still covered in her mommy's blood.  It was a love he had never felt before and it came from the deepest and the most protected piece of his soul.  When he lost McKenna he lost something that he will never get back and he's certain he will never feel a love like that ever again.  She was his miracle baby, she was his baby girl.  From both parents, she felt the love that the had for Rowan and Spencer, McKenna Rose Bongiovi was special.  In many ways.

"I can hardly being in here now." he tells her, walking into her.  His arms find their way around her waist and she caves.  She let's herself fall into the arms of the man that she loved more than life itself.

They stand there, in one another's arms for what needed to be forever, but it was a very short time.  Beth had to ruin it and say, "I need to get a flight home.  I want to get back to my boring and safe life."

He has a hand on each of her shoulders and says, "I can fly you home."

She smiles her I'm a big girl smile and says, "I'd like to get myself home."

"Okay.  But you know the offer still stands."

"I know.  Can you take me into the city, or do you want me to call a service."

"I'll take you, I'll take you. You know that."  he leans in and kisses the top of her head.  "Is there anything that you want from in here?"

Beth looks up at him, "What are you going to do with it?  With what I don't take?"

"I'm packing it up and taking it to my new house." he tells her.  Not wanting her to worry about it.  He seen the look on her face when he mentioned it.

"You have a new house, already?"

"Yeah." he runs a finger down the side of her face and walks away.  "I found one on the other side of the river.  Not so big."

"That was fast." Beth is very surprised that he has a new house and is already planning to pack this one up.  

"I can't stay here.  Too much has happened, there are too many shadows and too many pieces of broken hearts on the floor."