Chapter 70 - She Didn't Say Goodbye

Jon sits in the back of the car and just lets the driver drive.  He really had no idea where Beth might be.

 

Not only is he worried about her, he’s starting to get pissed off that she took off.  He’s picturing her getting out of the limo and into a taxi cab in that gown and he’s pretty sure that it will be all over the news.  The paparazzi were still there when he left, snapping picture after picture of him leaving alone.   The driver knows that he needed to take the family home, from the original plan so he asks Jon, “Sir, would you like me to take you home?”  Jon looks at the driver through the window.

“Did she say anything when she got out of the car?”  Jon asks the driver, hoping for even the slightest clue, a hint as to where she ran off to.   

The driver shakes his head and says, “All she said was that she had to get to her babies.” 

Jon thinks for a minute and tells the driver, “Take me to the Monmouth County cemetery.”  That’s where she has to be.  He feels like a jerk because he should have known that that would be the first place that she would go.

“Yes Sir.” The driver responds and then he raises the window so Jon can be alone. 

Jon’s thinking, this driver has to be so confused.  A woman leaves his car needing to get to her babies, and then he’s asked to go to a cemetery.

It doesn’t take long for Jon to get to the cemetery.  It’s the middle of the night and the moon is behind the heavy clouds that look like they are holding back some rain.  As the driver gets close to Rowan and Spencer’s grave he tells the driver, “This is good.  Wait here please.”  And he gets out of the car.  In a hurry he navigates his way through gravestones, bushes and ceremonial stuff that people leave graveside.  As he comes around a big statue, he can see her sitting on their grave sobbing.  He takes off his jacket and gets ready to put it on her, saying to her, “Hey, you scared me.”  Startled, she turns around and sees Jon standing over her.  He drapes his jacket on her shoulders and sits next to her.  With his arm around her, he kisses the side of her head and asks, “What have you told them?” 

Beth leans her head on his shoulder and says, “So far, only that we had a party tonight and I ran out like Cinderella.  Then I explained who Cinderella was.” She gives him a crooked smile, “They need to know who Cinderella is.  That’s one book I never read to them.”  A tear rolls down her face; Jon catches it with his fingertip and kisses it, like he always does.

“Did I interrupt?”

“No.  We were just sitting here quietly, listening to the silence of the night.” She explains, “It’s peaceful here.”

“It is, but its pretty dark.” He brings her to him, “Why didn’t you wait for me?”

She shrugs her shoulders and really starts to cry, “I don’t know.” She gasps for air, her diaphragm spasming from all the crying, “I don’t even remember getting here.  It all happened so fast and it all seems like a dream.”

“I should have been with you,”

“You’re here now, that’s all that matters.  I had no idea how I was going to get home.” She feels silly, sitting in an expensive ball gown, in the middle of the night, in a cemetery talking to her dead daughters.  “When the cab pulled away, I didn’t even care.  I needed to be with my girls.”

“I’m glad I found you.”

“You knew I’d be here.” She says, with a little question in her voice.

“Honestly, had you not told the driver that you needed to be with your babies, I don’t think I would have guessed you to be here.  I was thinking you were on a plane.”

She smiles at him, “Never again would I leave you like that, Jon.  I told you that.”

“When I walked you to the car, you were in a place that I haven’t seen you in.  I was scared, and then when I came back out to the car and you were gone, I knew you were gone.”

“I am in a pretty scary place right now, and I freaked.” She admits, with a steady stream of tears rolling down her cheeks.  Jon doesn’t have a death wish, so he’ll keep the fact that she looks like a raccoon to himself.

“You weren’t ready, were you?”

“No.  Were you?”   She asks him.

He nods his head yes and tells her, “I’ve wanted to know the whole time, but I needed to wait for you to be ready.”

“I’m sorry if I ruined it for you.  I just felt earlier today that I was ready.” She drops her head.  “And it turns out that I wasn’t.”

He squeezes her and kisses the top of her head, “You have ruined a perfectly good gown, ya know?”

“I can’t even laugh.”  He holds her close and lets her do her thing.  She cries, picks at the grass, kicks off her shoes then gets up to walk around.  She circles the girls’ headstone, never taking her hand off it.  Jon watches her, knowing that she needs to do whatever it is that she’s doing.  He gets up and waits, he can see that any minute she could go down.  Her face goes white, her breathing a little deeper and her walk gets slower.

“Babe, you okay?” he walks up to her and puts one hand on her belly and the other on the small of her back.

She looks at him, “I’m a little nervous.”

“I can see that.  Let’s sit down.”

“Will you help me clean off these dead flowers?  We can bring some more when we come back.” She kneels down, paying no attention to the fact that she is in a Versace gown and it’s destroyed.  Beth didn’t care about that.  Her coral gown can be thrown away as far as she’s concerned, but her children’s grave needs to be pretty and manicured.  She starts to dead head what she could see, digging up roots from the weeds in the grass.  Jon could see the switch flip in her, her body went tense and he could see that she was getting angry.  The more weeds she sees, the deeper she digs.  “Do you think they’re okay?”

“The girls?” he questions.

“Do you think they’re scared?  Are they scared, Jon?” she gets louder with each word.  Her intensity increases as she starts to dig deeper and harder. 

“Babe, what are you doing?” he grabs an arm, “Stop that.  You’re making a mess.”  He grabs the other arm, stopping her from digging.  As soon as he stopped her, it was like he pulled her from the trance that she was in.  She looks at him, looks at his hands on her arms and notices all the dirt on her hands.  She goes limp, falling into his arms.  He catches her and holds her until she’s ready to move.  Caressing her hair and rubbing the side of her face, all he can think of to say is, “I love you and we will sit here as long as you need.”  She doesn’t respond, but he can see her eyes are open. 

They sit there with Rowan and Spencer until the sun starts to come up.  Beth has a million thoughts running through her head, as does Jon, but Beth’s seem to be paralyzing her.  She doesn’t want to leave her daughters, again.

As if it were sign from God, the clouds opened up and started to rain down on them.  Neither panic about it, nor show any concern, they were in no hurry – but Jon knows that she needs to get home and eat.  She picked at her dinner and had very little of her dessert, she has to be hungry, she eats for two.

“There has been a car waiting for us, all night.  Are you ready to go home?” he asks softly, running the tips of his fingers up and down her arm, just barely touching her.  He can see her hair stand on end. 

She looks up at him and says, “Yeah, I think I’m ready.”  They both are soaking wet and really didn’t care.  She sat there, with the man of her dreams, the man that had her heart, and the man that was her everything and let the rain wash away her concerns and her worries.  She knows that as long as they are together, they will be just fine.  She sits up and looks at him, and it’s at that moment he can see that she has made peace with what life has dealt her.  He can see that she knows that it’s the way that it is for a reason.  She looks calm, calm enough to where he’s a little worried about her.