Chapter 83 - We'll Raise A Toast And I'll Pretend

She cried so hard and so long, she finally exhausted herself and fell asleep.  She knew that in her dreams she would see him and that everything would be okay between them, it has to be okay.

In Texas, Jon arrives at Paul’s, to be greeted with big smiles and warm hugs, “Welcome my friend, come in!!”  Paul says to Jon when he sees his friend walking to the door. Jon seen his old time and dearest friend and felt right at home.

“Hey, how are ya?”  Jon asks, “What’s been going on?”  Jon sets his bag inside the door and follows Paul into his warm and inviting home.  “I forgot how nice it is down here, I really need to come more often.”

Paul says, “Yeah, yeah, yeah – sit down.”  He points to a bar stool, one of 6 at the bar.  “Wine?  Or do you need the hard stuff?”

“Hard stuff please.  And make it a quadruple.”  Jon gives his friend a fake smile.

Looking at Jon and knowing that there is something going on, he comes right out and says it, “What is going on with you?”

“Paul, I don’t even know where to start.”

“Start back at why you called me.  I can only recall that happening twice in our relationship.”

Jon wiggles in his chair, gulping the scotch that Paul poured for him, “I just had something snap or a switch was flipped, I don’t know.”

“What happened when you snapped or that switch flipped?”  Paul has an idea of what might be going on, but he can’t say for sure, he’ll wait and see what Jon has to say.

“We had that party for Beth the other night.” He starts.

“Yep, I was there, remember.” He chuckles a little.

“Well, when Beth and I learned that she was pregnant with a girl she disappeared.  She left the table, boIting again.  Long story short, she disappeared and by pure luck I was able to find her at the cemetery.”

“Okay….”

Jon wiggles some more, he really hates sounding, much less feeling weak – but this is Paul.  “She always takes off when shit gets hot and I have had enough of it.”

“Jon…”  Paul attempts to talk, Jon just keeps on going.

“I really think that she forgets that I lost children too.  I never had the option of burying my head in the sand and not dealing with it.  I had to keep being a dad, taking care of business and doing my job.  She promised me this last time that she would never do it again, and she did.” He has to stand up, he’s getting too heated to sit and talk.  In true Italian fashion, he starts flailing the arms as he talks and the wrinkle in his brow gets deeper.  “I know she only went to the cemetery, but god damn it, she bolted again.  Leaving me at the Met to take care of everything and explain her irrational behavior.”

Paul nods, letting Jon know that he’s listening, waiting for his turn to talk.

“When I thought to look for her at the cemetery and found her there, we stayed there all night, through that storm and everything.  As we left that morning, we passed some graves that she thought deserved her attention.  So, we had to buy flowers, three thousand dollars worth of flowers to take back to the cemetery and leave on random graves.”

“That was very nice of her to do.”

“I know.”  Jon snaps.  “And I won’t discredit her for that at all.  We both know how loving and generous she is.”

“We do.”

“SO, as we’re there, Beth happens to be at the graveside of a baby, a baby that lived like 8 weeks.  Anyway, while she’s there, the mother shows up and now they’re best friends.”  Jon says with a snideness that Paul has only rarely heard.

“I have yet to hear a problem.” Paul states, as he refills Jon’s glass.

“She has been with this lady since they met, practically.”

“Are you jealous Jon?” he looks at his rock star buddy with a cocked eye, seeing what’s really going on.

Jon turns around and looks at Paul, “Jealous?  Have you ever known me to be jealous?”

“Then what’s going on?”

“I’m fucking pissed because we found out that we’re having a girl and since that moment in time, it’s been about her, what she needs, what she feels, what she wants………..and gives less than a fuck about Jon.”

“Have you tried to talk to her?” Paul knows the answer, but he had to ask the question.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, really.  What did you say?”

“Yesterday she went out to dinner with Dani and after she was gone for over 5 hours I called her and told her that I needed her, that I needed to talk about it and she had the nerve to call me needy.”  Jon could see Paul’s eyes get a little buggy.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.  Now am I supposed to put up with that?  I needed her and I told her that I needed her and she fucking called me needy.  I never do that to her, I never would.”

“So you came here.”

Jon walks over to the window and takes a sip of his scotch, he can see Paul reflection in the window, “Where’s the family?”

“Disneyland for the week.”

“You’re home alone?”

Paul laughs, “Yep, left to fend for myself for a week.”

“Nice.”

The men were quiet for what felt like forever to Jon.  His thoughts are all over the place again and he’s pissed that he’s letting himself feel like this, he’s pissed that he’s pissed at Beth.

“Does she know you’re here?”

Jon walks to the bar and sits back down, “Yeah, I sent her a text.”

“You haven’t called her?”

“No.  When I woke up this morning, I left without waking her.  When I got here I just shot her a text.”

“How did you leave things in New Jersey?”

Jon takes a deep breath and tries to rub the stress from his face, “I seen her yesterday when she left for dinner with Dani, haven’t seen her since, other than sleeping.”

“You got on a plane and came here with bad blood between you two.”

“Yes I mean No, I left because I’m sick of being treated like I don’t matter and that my feelings need to be just that, MY feelings.  Paul, she has no idea how I feel about what’s going on.  She doesn’t ask what I think, fuck she can’t even bother to ask me how the fuck I’m doing.”  He slams his fist on the bar, “Can’t she see that I’m dying inside?”

Paul can see that Jon is having a minor crisis and lets him know that it’s okay to snap, crack and pop.  “When we lost Katherine, I thought that Nancy was going to die from heartbreak alone.  Greif is a tough thing to gauge, everyone is different.”

“I remember how she was and I can sometimes compare her actions to Beth’s, even though their situations are different, they both had to deal with the initial loss alone.  You were in New York and I was in New Jersey.”

Nodding his head, Paul adds, “But it doesn’t hurt any less.”  He walks around the bar and sits on the stool next to Jon, “I can only imagine how she feels, honestly.  She carried two babies and they died in her.  And she may lose the one that she’s carrying too?  I feel for her, I feel for both of you.”  He puts his hand on Jon’s shoulder, “I know you’re hurting and if there was anything I could do to take your pain away, trust me, I would bear that burden.”

“I know you would.”  Jon looks at him, “At what point will I stop being so pissed?”

“When you two realize that your pain should be shared, it’s not your cross to bear on your own.” He tells his friend, his boss.  “You two need to stop being so stubborn, you are what you’re hurting by being that way.”

“We were doing so well, it’s like I said, something just snapped.”

“You said you left this morning, what took you so long getting here?”  Paul asks, it had finally hit him what Jon said about leaving in the morning, why was he getting to Texas at 11pm?

Jon shakes his head a little and then lets it hang low, “I had an event with Dot this afternoon.”

“And Beth didn’t go?  She always goes for that stuff, well most of it.”

“She didn’t know about it.” Wincing, he waits.

Paul takes a moment to process what Jon just told him, “What do you mean that she doesn’t know?  Jon, tell me you’re kidding.”

Jon just looks at him.  No expression.

Paul is quite irritated by that and really can only think of one thing to tell him.  “You better get your ass back home; you know how this is going to play out, don’t you?”

Resting his head in his hands, he mumbles, “She sent me a text that asked how my afternoon with Dot went, so she found out somehow.”

“Jon…..”

Jon gets up and starts to pace, “I couldn’t tell her.  I couldn’t make the words come out of my mouth.  It was like I was trying to get even with her or something, it’s very hard to explain.”

“Why do you feel the need to punish her?”

“Punish her?  I would never do anything to hurt her, you know that.”

“That’s why she didn’t know about the event today, right?  Cause you would never hurt her.”

His fingers go through his hair as he gives Paul the stink eye, “You know what I mean.  I only found out about the event two days ago, and with her party and all that, I just couldn’t tell her that I needed to go spend time with my wife, while I bitched to her about needing time with her.”

“How do you think she found out?” Paul asks, knowing it could have been several ways.  “Was the press there?”

“Yeah.”

Paul gets up and walks to his friend, he can see that Jon is at war with himself and he’s only seen this one other time; that was when Beth left when she was pregnant with the twins.  Jons heart wanted to go after her, but his mind didn’t let him and lately he’s been punishing himself for that.  He’s wondered if he had gone after her, could they have avoided the whole Dalton situation and everything terrible that has happened since then.

Jon can’t keep it together any longer, Paul sees the tears well up in his eyes and  comforts his friend, understanding the craziness that’s been going on in his head.  Paul has lost a child, Paul did things to protect Nancy that later backfired and proved to be more hurtful than helpful, Paul has had to get on with life, and he knows that Jon has to, too.  “You need to go to her and talk this out.  Or have her come here, she is more than welcome.  Maybe time away will help?”

“I’m not going home and she doesn’t need to come here.  I NEED TIME AWAY, I need my time.”

“Is now the time for you to take time away?  She’s pregnant with a girl Jon, one of two things could happen and do you want to be 2500 miles away from her if something does?”

Through the tears and through the sobbing he says, “The baby is fine, she’s strong.”

Paul holds his friend until he pulls away, it was killing him to see him in this mood, but he obviously needed it.  Paul is quickly seeing where some of his current writing is coming from.  Tommy and Gina aren’t priority any more, he’s moved onto Iove, loss and the afterlife.  Paul thinks of Seat Next To You, he had assumed that came from the passing of Mr. Sambora, but it’s evident to him now – it could mean any situation that either band member has been through. 

Jon takes his glass off the bar and finishes his drink, “I gotta get to bed.”  He tells Paul, suddenly a little wobbly on his feet. 

Paul gets him settled into his room and leaves him to get himself into bed, Jons pretty drunk and hasn’t been drunk in a very long time.  Dropping his jeans on the floor, his shirt wasn’t far behind.  He took his phone out of his jacket pocket, hoping to see something from Beth, and there wasn’t anything new.  Scrolling through pictures of his family, he too, cries himself to sleep.