Chapter 43 - Lord Knows I Tried So Hard To Be

 

 

He takes the glass off of the counter and takes a drink.  She can feel the cockiness she is about to hear, they have danced this dance and played this song.  "I'm not going anywhere, Beth."

"Just go." She looks up at him, "I'm not doing this all night.  I'm tired and this is a pointless conversation."

"How is it pointless?"  He leans on the counter next to her.  "We have an issue here and you think the conversation is pointless?"

With a heavy sigh, "Yeah, it's pointless.  I have done nothing wrong and I refuse to let you make me feel like I did."  He reaches over and tries to pull her close, but she steps away, avoiding being pulled into him.

He doesn't like her rejection, in fact it infuriates him.  "I can't touch you now?"  As fast as the words came out of his mouth, her head turns and she gives him the stink eye.

"You think I've slept with your best friend and you want to touch me?"

"You were raped and I still want to touch you."

The sting on his face hurt, and she wanted it to when she slapped him.  He can't believe that she just slapped him, and he can't believe what he just said.  He didn't think before he said it, it just kind of rolled out.  "You are such an asshole."  She walks out of the kitchen and out the back door.  She needed to get away from him.  She doesn't know or want to know the man that she just left in the kitchen.  He was being borderline cruel and she couldn't figure out why. 

On the back deck, she looked over the lawn and tried to relax.  She took several deep breaths in and slowly exhaled them.  Her heart was racing and her mind was going just as fast.  The sound of the back door made her angrier, he wasn't leaving her alone.  She really wanted him to leave. 

"I'm sorry I said that." he walks up behind her and puts his hand on her shoulder, "I wasn't thinking, it just came out."  She doesn't respond.  He moves in closer and kisses the back of her head.  She's a statue, not responding to him.  The tears start to roll down her cheeks.  "Beth..."

With moving nothing but her mouth, she says, "My life since I met you has been nothing but chaos and turmoil.  I have loved you with every ounce of my being from the deepest depth of my soul and it's gotten me nowhere but heartbroken.  From the beginning, I should have walked away, fuck that, from the beginning I should have ran away - but I didn't."  She can feel his lips press a little harder into the back of her head and she can hear him breathe.   "You were married, that should have been red flag number one, but oh no, my brain turned that around and seen that as a challenge.  You were married with children and I let you into my life and away from your family.  We never should have happened, we should not be here right now."  She takes  deep breath, "Had I turned you away, had I walked away - I wouldn't have babies buried in New Jersey."

"Had you walked away, you wouldn't have the babies that you have upstairs." 

Without thinking, she turned on her heels and just looked at him.  She can't believe the stuff that's falling out of his mouth.  "What the hell is wrong with you?"

He runs his fingers through his hair and tells asks her, "What is wrong with us?"  He reaches up and runs a finger down the side of her face.  "Why do I feel like I have lost you and the babies are the only reason that you want me around?"  She leans slightly into his touch, closing her eyes and mentally reaching back.  There is a silence that neither wanted to break, they were frozen in a moment in their time that they would never see again.

"I'm not feeling it anymore Jon."  She mumbles, eyes still closed and her heart practically beating out of her chest.  His touch goes from more than just a finger, he takes her face in his hands.  She's startled, her eyes open and she sees it.  She sees what she has missed, she sees the man that hides often and only comes out in the 11th hour, but she really thinks that it's too late.  She sees that his eyes are tearing up and that tears at her heart strings.  She starts to say, "You came here either mad about Stephanie or to accuse me of cheating on you with Richie, either way - they are not reason enough for you to fly here in the middle of the night to argue with me."

"Don't you get it?" he asks her.  He can see that she has gone cold, that she has lost the glimmer in her eye when she looked at him.  He can remember a time when she would look at him and her eyes would smile.  Her smile was so beautiful that it practically took his breath away.  "I prayed for you to come back, I bartered with God for you to come back.  I would have given it all up for you, if God brought you back.  Beth, when you were gone, I was gone.  I checked out when you left the last time.  When you left that last time, I knew it was going to be forever and that killed me."

 

"Do you think it was easy for me?"  She rudely interrupts him, "I am so sick of you thinking that I walked away from everything unscathed?"

 

"I don't think that, I think that maybe it was easier for you."

 

"I'm not going through all of this again, Jon.  We have had this exact same conversation before and I am not going to do it again."  She starts to walk away, he grabs her arm to stop her.  She looks back and says, "Let me go.  I need to check on the twins."  She tugs her arm away and heads upstairs, to her sleeping beauties. 

 

Jon emerges as she's leaning over and kissing the babies that are sound asleep, listening to the sound of the wind coming through the window.  It was a beautiful night in Napa, Beth was looking forward to sleeping with the windows open.  When she turns to leave the nursery, she sees Jon leaning in the doorway.  He has tears in his eyes and an ache in his heart.  He can feel that this could be the end.  He can feel that Beth may have met her limit and she may want him to leave, and stay gone.

 

She stops in front of him, "If you need my car to get to the airport, take it.  I'll get it in the morning.  I don't want the helicopter flying in tonight."  And she squeezes by him. 

 

He walks into the nursery and looks at the life that their love created, he smiles as he watches them sleep.  Even with the tears in his eyes, he too leans over and kisses his children.  "I love you."  With a deep breath, he leaves the nursery and goes off to find Beth.  He can hear her in the master bathroom.  At the bathroom door he asks, "Do you really want me to go?"

 

With her toothbrush in her mouth, she nods her head and says, "I do."

 

"You want me to leave and not come back?" he needs to confirm, before he walks out of her life and doesn't return to the vineyard.  She still nods.  "When I leave Beth, I can't come back."

 

Beth finishes brushing her teeth and rinses out her mouth.  With a little bit of attitude, she rests her hand on the counter and says, "I will never keep you from the twins, you can see them whenever you want, whenever you can.  I just can't keep doing this Jon.  It's just too much."

 

"Then let's stop doing this."  he responds, knowing that he doesn't want to lose her again, but he can't keep fighting the same losing fight.  "What has happened, why are you pulling away?"

 

"Have you heard the asshole things that have come out of your mouth.  Do you remember why you're here?  YOU think I have something going with Richie - are you kidding me?  And you're mad at me for not telling you about your ADULT daughter getting into trouble?"  She runs her brush through her hair and adds, "You should be thanking me and Richie, not thinking that we have something going."  She leaves the bathroom and starts her night time ritual that he thought he knew.  He watches her undress and put her concert shirt and boxer shorts on.  Taking her clothes and throwing them in the clothes hamper she continues, "I enjoyed the two weeks that we spent together when the twins were born, I am so grateful that you were here, but let's be real here" she approaches him at the foot of her bed, "I live here, you live on the other side of the country.  You're on tour and I'm not going with you."

 

"So."

 

"It's not healthy, it's not happening."  she sits on her bed and rubs lotion on her hands, face and neck.

 

He sits next to her, "Can't you relocate?"

 

"I thought about it, I really did - but I love it here and I know that the twins will thrive here, without the shadow of their famous father."

 

"They will thrive anywhere that they are, with you as their mother, you know that."

 

"I'm staying out here Jon.  And you have family on the east coast.  Long distant relationships don't work, even with private planes and personal helicopters."  She can see that he's getting angry.  His sadness is changing quickly, she knows that he is about to explode and she's going to let him.