Chapter 97 - Who's Gonna Hold You?

"What?" he says as he answers the phone, after he sees that it's Dani.

 

"She kicked me out, she's home alone now." she says to him and then his phone went dead.  He's sitting on the beach with his toes buried in the cool sand, watching people walk dogs and play in the water.  He knows he needs to get up and go home, Beth is alone and she shouldn't be.  He's thinking that no matter what she said or did, Dani should not have left her alone.  Either way, he needs to get home and in a hurry.

 

As he walks to the house, he can hear his own song playing in his house.  It's the end of Thank You For Loving Me.  Walking through the door, he hears it starts all over again.  He thinks to himself, it must be on repeat.  He's looking for Beth and he can't find her.  She's not in the house and he didn't think she would be in the studio.  As he headed back out towards the front of the house, he catches a glimpse of her as she walked down the riverbank to the water.  Whipping open the French door that separates his office from the outside world, he runs toward the river.  Beth has never gone down the bank to the water, that he knew of.  She didn't like the current right there by the house.  The kids could never be outside alone because of that.  When he seen her drop down, out of sight, he assumed the worst. 

 

He reaches the river bank and sees her sitting at the waters edge.  She's throwing flowers in the water and watching them float away.  He walks up on her and she doesn't even notice, she's off in her own world.  Deep in thought, with a broken heart.

 

"Hey" he says, quietly.  "What are you doing?"  He startles her and she quickly looks at him.

 

"I'm saying goodbye."

 

"To the flowers?  What are you doing so close to the water." he watches her throw another daisy in the river.  He sits next to her and moves a curl from in front of her eye.

 

"To happiness." she says, as flat as she could possibly be.  "I'll never know happiness."

 

He can see that her heart has been ripped out, hell, he watched his run away with hers a couple of days ago.  He is having a hard time being strong for her right now, he can barely pull himself through each moment that lies before him.  He doesn't know what to say, but he's always known what to do.  He wraps his arms around her and pulls her close.  Each second that she's in his arms he can feel her melt a little, she let's her guard down.  "We'll get through this and we will be happy babe, I promise."

 

Again with the flat tone, "Don't make promises you can't keep."

 

"What's our alternative?  We have to get through this, and when we do we can work on happiness."  he kisses the top of her head and starts to cry.  McKenna always smelled like her mother.  When she would eat, she would be so close to Beth that she would pick up Beth's scent.  On her pajamas or her clothes, it was always on her blankets. He was so caught of guard by that, he had no way to control what he was feeling.  "What happened to my baby?"  he cries, holding Beth even tighter.  "How can she go to sleep and never wake up?" Beth has never seen him cry like this, this one hit him pretty hard.  "She was my baby girl, what happened?"  She feels him tense up and he starts to get angry.

 

"The coroner's report came today, her death is ruled unexplained." she says in a whisper, safely nestled in between his legs and tightly wrapped in his arms.  "I don't know what that means."  She wipes a tear from her eye. 

 

"Unexplained?" he repeats, angry.  "They said it was SIDS., how can it be unexplained."

 

"I don't know." she pulls away a little, "I need to go get the house ready.  People will be here tomorrow." 

 

"That can wait."  he doesn't let her go. 

 

"Jon...."

 

"Please, not yet.  I'm not ready to let you go." he blurts at her, "I know you're going to leave once she's buried.  I know it."

 

Beth looks up at him, "You think I'm going to leave?  And go where?"

 

"You always leave when we have trouble, you always leave me to pick up the pieces.  I know I can't make it through you leaving again."

 

She gets on her knees and takes his face into her hands, "Baby, I'm not going anywhere."  He looks into her eyes and sees that her light is gone.  He can see that she's numb, he wishes that he was.

 

"Do you know what it would do to me if you did?" he leans over, they are now head to head.  "I can't lose you too."

 

"I'm right here and going no where, Jon."

 

"Promise me." he begs.  "Tell me that you're not going to leave me too."

 

She kisses his nose and puts her arms around his neck, "I promise, I'm not going anywhere."  She hugs him tight, "I promise."

 

They get up and go into the house.  They can see the camera crews still on the road and the reporters at the ready.  To catch a glimpse of someone or maybe snag a quote from a guest as they pull into the driveway.  "Why can't they leave us alone?"  Beth says more as a statement, not a question.  "One day, just one day I'd like to not see them out there."

 

"They'll be gone tomorrow.  I've already taken care of that." he arms is around her, she looks at him and  tries to smile, but she can't.

 

Entering the kitchen, Jon sees the coroners report on the counter.  He picks it up and reads it.  With each word that her reads, his tears get heavier and his sobs get louder.  Beth sees the switch as it flipped, she can see that he's getting angry.  He reads it and reads it again, "What can this mean?  Did she not die of SIDS?"  He crinkles the report and throws it on the counter.  "Why, god damn it, why?"  Beth steps into him and holds him.  At first he tries to push her away, but she stands her ground and hangs on.  She can feel his heart race and his breathing intensify.  "You didn't notice anything wrong with her when we got home?"

 

"No Jon, she was perfect.  You seen her in the bathtub.  She was wide eyed and smiling.  Her arms and legs were non stop."

 

"What about after that?" he's looking for anything, he needs something to blame.  He can't accept that she was in his life and he cared for her everyday and she was only supposed to be with them for just a few months. 

 

"We dressed her for bed, remember.  We were on our bed, you powdered her and I cleaned her ears.  You put her diaper on her and I put her pajamas on her.  Then I fed her and she went to bed."  she takes his hands and tries to pull him upstairs.  "Come on, let's go to bed."

 

"No, I want to talk about this.  I need answers, Beth.  I need to know why our daughter is laying in a funeral home waiting to be brought here tomorrow."

 

She takes a step back and looks him in the eye, "I don't have answers for you, I'm sorry.  I have gone over that whole night in my mind a million times and I keep seeing the same things.  She was fine when I put her to bed."

 

"Did you cover her up?"

 

"Of course I did.  It's chilly in here when you have the air on.  I laid a receiving blanket on her, why?" 

 

"Any stuffed animals in the bassinette?"

 

"No Jon."

 

"She didn't wake up to eat in the middle of the night to eat?"

 

She takes his hand, "No, when you went in to get her and found her that was when she should have been up wanting to eat."

 

"We're missing something." he states and she can see that he has literally thought of nothing else.

 

"How was you drive?" she wants to change the subject, she needs to get his mind somewhere else, even if it's for only 10 seconds. 

 

He grabs the coroner report and uncrinkles it, thinking that Beth will want to save it.  "I just went to the shore and people watched for awhile.  Dani called and said you kicked her out and that you were here alone.  So I came home."

 

"I can be alone, Jon."

 

"I know, I just liked thinking that maybe you needed me."

 

"I do, more now than ever before." she stands there and cries.  Her head hung low, her heart on her sleeve.  She feels like her life is over and that she will never be able to be a mother.  "Why do my babies die?" 

 

He walks up to her and hooks her neck, pulling her to him.  His lips on her forehead, he mumbles, "Why do our babies die?"  They stand there in the kitchen in each others arms, both are crying and getting tired.  Beth hasn't slept for days and Jon is just as tired.

 

'Okay, let's go to bed.  I need to shut this off and reboot."

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Jon thought that he should put her eulogy on paper.  He knows that he can express what he feels and what he thinks, but he needs to be careful with his words.  The way he felt about McKenna was way different that what he felt for the other children.  He was with McKenna a lot more than he was with the other ones and he didn't want to hurt them with his words.  With a glass of wine, and Beth sleeping, he goes out onto the patio off of their room and sits at the table and he starts to write. As he wrote his goodbye to his daughter, his tears felt as new as they did when they started to fall.  He says what he wants to write before putting it on paper, but he's talking to her. 

 

I don't know why you had to leave me MK, I loved every minute that we spent together and it breaks my heart to have to say these things to you.  You saved your mommy and me and now we have to say goodbye.  Thank you for being the wonderful daughter that you were, My memories of you are all wonderful and the way you smell lingers on mommy.  From the day we learned that you were coming, we were scared. Really scared.  We never thought that you would make it to us, mommy and I were worried.  When we found out that you were really coming and we picked your birthday, my heart felt things that it's never felt before and the anticipation of your arrival was almost too much for me to handle.  When they pulled you out of mommy and we heard you cry, we both started to cry with you.  You made it, you were coming home.  We had our baby.  Your mommy is the best mommy that I have ever seen and I am proud to have had you with her, but I don't know what's going to happen to her or to us.  We've lost sooo much, I don't know if we can survive this.  I miss you sooo much, I cry for you all of the time.  Kenna my heart is broken.  You're my baby girl and I can't believe that you're gone.  I wrote a song a long time ago and there's one line in it that says, God Couldn't Give You What You Need and right now that line holds true.  He gave me you and then took you away, right now I need the courage and the strength to get through this and I don't think I'll get it from God.  I don't know what happened to you, I don't know if I could have saved you but my heart truly breaks because I don't know if you went peacefully.  I hope and pray that you didn't feel pain.  I hope that you passed peacefully while you slept.