Water Ch. 129 - Damned

Sitting in the chair that was obviously designed for looks, Jon was anxious and fidgeting with his pant leg.  Squirming about, they could tell he didn't want to be there.

"Can I get you anything, Mr. Bongiovi?  Some coffee, tea or water?"

"No thank you.  Is this going to take long?" He responds, and anyone within the sound of his voice knows that he's irritated.

Dot pipes up and says, "It's only supposed to be an hour, can you manage that?"

Jon is only there because the doctor requested he come for a few sessions, in helping Dorothea get well and on the road to recovery.

"Can we start? I can't wait to hear that I'm the root of all of your problems, Dot.  Let's get this going." Jon mocks, but doesn't mean to.

The doctors office has a scent in the air that is giving Jon a bit of a headache, he looks around for the cause but doesn't see one.  He notices the furniture is dated and pretty ugly and thinks that shrinks in hospitals must not get paid much.

"Jon, why did you come today?" Asks the doctor.

"You asked me to."

"You could have said no, but instead you chose to come, why is that?"

"Look, you're not here to shrink me. I'm here to get her better and help her in anyway that I can, so please don't try to read more into it." Jon firmly says, with no expression on his face.

The doctor asks the next obvious question, "Why are you so angry?"

Oops, that was the wrong question to ask him, given the current circumstance. "Why am I so angry, ha, lets start with the fact that I'm here because she decided to overdose and let our daughter find her.  Is that reason enough to be angry, doctor?  Lets not forget that she did this the night before our divorce was to be final. Angry? I am beyond angry."  He switches legs and his anxiousness was getting worse. Ask him why he's angry, is this guy for real? 

"Most people get mad when someone attempts suicide, I guess it's a good thing that your daughter did find her, otherwise the outcome may be quite different. Have you given that any thought?" The doctor questions Jon, and each syllable that he says, Jon just gets angrier.

Dot is sitting next to Jon in an equally uncomfortable chair and she is just listening and watching like she were at a tennis match.  The exchange that was going on between the doctor and Jon was as if she weren't in the room at all.  But when the question of the potential outcome arises, she has to but in and say, "It was never my intention for Stephanie to find me."

"Then who the fuck did you want to find you? Jesse? Jake? Lupetta?  Someone would eventually have found you Dorothea. Do you understand what you have done to Stephanie?" Jon gets louder as the words roll off his tongue and his level of anger is maxed, because his children are involved. "Your attempt to get back at me only hurt our children and you.  You never even gave it a thought, did you?  I'll bet that when you swallowed all of those pills you thought something like, I'll show you Jon, or maybe you thought that you were getting even with me.  Dot, our marriage is over."

His harsh words really hurt her and hit her in the heart.  She's looking at him wondering where all the love they once shared had gone. "Jon, where did we go wrong? What happened to us?" She asks.

Feeling like an animal in a cage, trapped, Jon honestly tells her, "None of that matters anymore Dorothea.  Our marriage is over. What you need to focus on is getting better, so you can go home.  The kids miss you. They need their mother."

Quite rudely she asks, "What do they need from me?  They have Beth."  

"Goddamnit Dorothea, knock it off. Yes, they do have Beth and she's more than happy to take care of them, but you're their mother, Beth isn't. So lets knock the bullshit off and do what we're here to do."

The doctor sees that this isn't working and steps in, "Jon, can you tell Dorothea why or how your marriage ended, in your mind.  Was it one thing or a culmination of many things?  She needs to hear you say it, put it into prospective for her, if you could."

Jon has now reached the point where he feels like his time is being wasted, and he doesn't like that.  He could be home with his family,  but he agreed to this, so he knows he has to follow it through. Repositioning himself in his chair, he starts with, "Our marriage ended the day I caught her in our bed with her karate instructor. In our home....."

Dot blurts out, "You were doing Beth in our bed." And that's all it took, Jon stood up, waved his hands and said, "That's it, I am fucking done. I'm not going to sit here and go through this, like this.  I met Beth AFTER the papers were started. So whoever I fuck and where has NO bearing on what you did."  He opens the door and leaves, forgetting he needed to be escorted out.  He stops at the nurses station to wait to be taken out.

Standing there, waiting he sees the doctor coming at him. He shakes his head no, letting the doctor know that he was done and leaving.

"Mr. Bongiovi, please come back. Your input and support is going to be crucial to her recovery, but first she needs to accept that your marriage is over.  There is a very big part of her that still believes you can get passed this and resume being husband and wife."

"There is no way our marriage can be saved, it's over.  What's it going to take for her to accept it?" Jon asks the good doctor.

"Well, it seems like her biggest problem is with Beth.  Would Beth be willing to sit in on a session, answer some questions for Dorothea? And for me, to help Dorothea?" He pauses and waits to see what Jon has to say, assuming its not going to be pleasant or good.

Jon laughs at what the doctor just asked, but is respectful enough to answer him. "Beth would be more than willing to come in here and help in anyway that she can, but I would never let that happen.  There are things in my personal life that are going on that I would never let Beth be subjected to this, nonsense and stress."

"Can't Beth decide that on her own? I would be more than willing to call her and talk to her about it.  Dorothea has mentioned in a few sessions that she has questions for Beth and that she would like to talk to her, with her.  And it's my professional opinion that that should be done in a controlled setting, like here"

Jon has heard it all now. "I'm sorry doc, but Dot has had several opportunities to talk with Beth and is always on the defensive with her. She treats her like shit and I'm not going to let that happen anymore.  Maybe my marriage ended because I didn't pay Dorothea the attention that she craved, but I assure you, it's now my job to protect and defend Beth and that's what I'm going to do."

"Please, come back to my office. Lets put some of this out on the table so Dorothea can hear it. I think she needs to know what you just said."

Reluctantly, Jon agrees and they head back to the doctors office.  When they enter the room, Dorothea was looking out with window, the ones with bars on them and she's crying. When she turns around and sees Jon, she smiles a little bit. Jon and the doctor take their seats and Dot stands at the window.

"Dorothea, please join us. Jon and I were just talking in the hall and he made a very valid point, that I think you need to hear." He motions to the chair across from him and next to Jon.  Dot does as asked and she takes her seat.

Looking to Jon, she asks, "What's your point?"

He looks back at her and simply tells her, "If I drove you into the arms of those other men by not paying attention to you, I'm sorry. And I'm also sorry that I'm not going to subject Beth to this. I won't let her come in here and listen to you blame her or me for your actions. Maybe I was a bad husband for working my ass off to give you all the shit that you have. If it weren't for me, you'd be some middle class house wife in Sayreville. I took you out, my hard work got us out and you repay me by fucking any guy that I employed to keep our homes nice and you happy?"  The doctor has no idea the flood gate he had just opened, no idea at all.  Jon continues with, "And you think talking to Beth is going to help you? That is the craziest thing I've heard. She has nothing to do with our divorce and the breakdown of our marriage.  YOU, Dorothea are the single most, biggest reason our marriage ended."

The doctor interrupts Jon with, "Mr. Bongiovi, have you been 100% innocent in this marriage?  I recall reading about you several years back and seeing a book written about you, all not flattering at all?"

"I have never said I was innocent and I have never denied anything that I have done, but doc this isn't the first time we've been in front of a therapist. And after all of these years and many many sessions, I am the only one that has kept my word.  I haven't cheated on her, with ANYONE in years. She cannot say the same.  It's over, I'm done."

"Why won't you let me talk to Beth?" Dot asks.

"What do you have to say to her or ask her that you think will help?" Jon sarcastically asks.

"How can you decide what she can and cannot do?  Can't she decide if she wants to talk to me?" Dot asks, just as sarcastic as he asked her his questions.

"It's like this Dorothea, she can decide if she wants to talk to you, I do not control her; however, she'll never know that you wanted to talk to her. I am not going to let you drag he into this any farther than you already have. She is just as innocent as the kids are. I brought her into our lives, and I will take whatever heat comes from that. She loves me for me, not what I have or what I can offer her. She loves our children and they love her right back. I am sorry that you have your wellness tagged to talking to Beth, but it's not going to happen!  So what else can we do that might help you?" And he takes a deep breath.

"Can you not be such an ass?" She asks.

The doctor interjects at this point, "I see we have run out of time." He stands and extends his hand to Jon, "Thank you for coming in Mr. Bongiovi, it was a pleasure to meet you." 

Jon shakes his hand, turns to leave and stops at Dorothea. He's puzzled what to do or say. Should he hug her to show her that he does care? Walk out and show her that he doesn't, even though he does?!  He leans over, kisses her on the top of her head and tells her, "Take care of yourself. Call me if you need anything." And he leaves.

Dot is taken back to her room, where she ponders what was discussed in her session, preparing herself for group therapy later.  She knows in her heart that Jon is right, and on one hand she's feeling like a huge failure in more ways than just one. She thinks to herself, I can't even kill myself. And she's at the point where she IS thankful that Stephanie did find her, when she did.  She didn't really want to die.

Jon gets in the car and calls Beth, right away.

"Hey there" she says, answering the phone.

With a smile on his face, and warmth coming over his body, he says "Hey!"

"How was your meeting?" She asks him, having no idea where he really went.

"It was good, what are you doing? Kids being good?" Quickly changing the subject, not wanting to answer anymore meeting questions.

She kind of laughs at him, "the kids are always good for me and I just finished changing the bedding on our bed, why?" She sits on their bed to talk to him. 

"What do you say to going out to a night on the town, just me and you?  I can call mom or I can ask Lupetta to stay?" He suggests, knowing she would love it. And in his mind, she deserved it.

She smiles and he can hear it when she asks, "What did you have in mind?"

"Oh, I don't know. Dinner and a play?  Bruce is at the Garden. Or we could just grab a bite and walk through Central Park? It's up to you, what do you feel up to?"

Beth thinks to herself for a minute and honestly tells him that she was up for all of the above.

"Okay, I'll call mom. I'll be home in about an hour. Wear something sexy." And the phone goes dead.  Beth looks at the clock, it's 5:14pm.