Water Ch. 141 - He Said Forever

 

 

 

She doesn't know what to do.  Sitting on the riverbank for the rest of her life wasn't an option. But she couldn't allow him to treat her that way.  It was tough staying up on his moods lately.  She knows he's under a lot of stress, but so is she. Yet, she can treat him with love and respect.  Beth loves being with Jon and the kids, but what's going to happen now?  She still has no idea what has him so pissed off and she can't catch her breath.

On the bench, her tears keep coming. This is supposed to be the happiest time of her life, but it's somehow shadowed by this incident. She wants to go back in time, just one day. One day.

Composing herself, she gets up and heads toward the house.  Walking with her head down, she didn't notice Jon was walking in her direction.  She looked up just in time and she walked right into his arms. As soon as her head hits his chest, she starts to cry again, uncontrollably.

"Beth, I am so sorry I got so upset with you. I really am. I was a complete asshole about it and I had no right to be. Baby, I know you were only trying to help; I just wish you would have listened to me. I know the mind of Dorothea." He's rubbing her back and holding her tight. "Can you forgive me?"

"What did I do that was so bad Jon?" She asks through gasps of air and deep sobs.

Jon gently guides her to the house.  "Let's get you in bed and I'll explain it, okay. You and the babies need to rest. I've put you through hell today."  They walk into the house arm in arm, Beth resting her head on his shoulder.

"Jon, you tore me apart today.  Mentally and emotionally."

"I know I did." 

They walked back into the house and found the kids were home.  Romeo ran to his Beth and gave her a big leg hug. "Hi little man! How was ice cream?" Jon reached down and picked him up so Beth could love on him, and she did.

The kids noticed that Beth had been crying, as did Lupetta.  Being the great nanny that she is, she tells Jon, "I'll bathe the little ones and put them in bed."  She extends her hands for Romeo, but he wants his daddy.  Jon kisses him, hugs him and hands him off to Lupetta, but he had to get a kiss from Beth first.  Beth kisses the little guys and off the little ones go, with Lupetta.

"What are you two going to do?"  Jon asks Stephanie and Jesse.  "I'm putting her back to bed and then I'll be down, okay?"

Jesse says, "I'm going to bed, I'm tired.  Don't forget that I am going over to Danny's house tomorrow."   Jon had no idea what he was talking about.

"Danny's?  What for?"

Jesse gives a sigh and says, "I told you on the way home, dad.  It's his birthday tomorrow."  Jon was able to recall that conversation, he just needed a little help remembering.

"Noon, right?" he asks his son.

Jesse gives a nod, as he hugs his dad goodnight.  "Goodnight Beth, I'll see you in the morning." 

"Good night Jesse."  Beth says to him as he heads up the stairs. 

Stephanie turns on her heals and tells them, "I'm going to watch MTV, I'll see you in the morning Beth.  G' night."  Beth and Jon watch her walk away, and Jon chuckles a little bit.  She walks just like her father.  She has the spring in her step and all the confidence she will ever need in life.

Jon turns to Beth, "It's your turn."  And he points up the staircase.  "Let's go, you have been up to long for someone that's been on bed rest."

They walk upstairs and into their room together.  Beth has a mild headache from the crying and the fighting and the last thing that she wants to do is pick up the broken lamp.  She approaches the mess on the floor and Jon tells her, "I'll get that.  Please get in bed."

"I can pick this up Jon.  It's just broken glass." He walks over to her and that startles her a little bit.  She flinches and he sees it, and that concerned him.

"Babe, please sit on the bed.  I have to talk to you."  Beth looks up at him and she can see that he's troubled by something.  She does as he asks, and sits on the edge of the bed. 

A little nervous because talks that start with 'I have to talk you' never go well.  "Let's talk."  She says as she takes her sweatshirt off. 

He takes a seat on the edge of the bed next to her and he takes her hand.  "Babe, we need to talk about today.  There are some things that you need to know, things I should have told you in the beginning."  Beth is really concerned now, she can't imagine what he hasn't told her.  She looks to him for answers, but his face shows nothing new.

"Okay.  I'm listening."  Grabbing the corner of the down comforter, she pulls it over her legs as she sits Indian Style, facing Jon.  Her heart is beating a mile a minute and she is as prepared as she thought that she could be.

"When my career started, Dot and I were dating.  I had to leave and hit the road, for a tour that didn't last very long.  While I was gone, I was with my best friends and we did things on the road that we don't ever talk about."  He turns to look more directly at her, she needs to see that he is meaning what he's saying.  "I called home one day, after a nursing a hangover and feeling lonely and Dorothea told me that she wasn't going to wait for me anymore.  It was her or the band."  He takes a breathe and looks her in the eye, "I loved her so much, that I knew I couldn't lose her.  She was there with me from the very beginning and she supported me the whole way.  Anyway, not wanting to lose her, I came home and convinced her to marry me.  In my mind, I thought that would be enough for her and she would stay with me."  Wiggling a little bit because he hates that he's having this conversation now, when he knows she should have been told all of this months ago.  He continues, "We went to Vegas, got married, flew home and a few days later I had to go back on the road.  I left my new bride at home to go play rock and roll all over the world."

"Jon, what does this have to do with me?"  She asks, not wanting to hear what he's already said.  She hated to hear about their life together and how much he loved her.  But she knows that he needs to tell her whatever it is that he's kept from her.

Jon pulled her closer to him and they were sitting on the bed, with their knees touching.  He leans over and puts his arms around her and rests his head on her shoulder.  She takes the opportunity to love him right back.  She wraps her arms around him and holds on. She can feel his tension let go, just a little.  She kisses the back of his head and says, "Go on." 

Without lifting his head, he begins to tell her, "I never had a pre-nup.  We ended up getting a post - nup with several clauses."  He can feel  Beth get tense, her frame became rigid and her breathing changed.  "We did several silly clauses to it over the years, removed many and added a few new ones - but the one that really screws us is the one about 'children of another'." 

He lifts his head and tries to read her eyes.  She has gone blank.  "It states that if either one of us have children with another, the one that has the children while married, pays the other 50,000.00, if there is ever a divorce.  Now that you are pregnant, and once I can get a divorce, I have to pay her 50K month in alimony or whatever I'm ordered to pay."

Beth looks at him like he had just said the dumbest thing she has ever heard him say.  With a puzzled and sarcastic look on her face, "Who ever thought that was a good idea?"

"We did, at the time.  When we added that one, I knew I would never have children with another woman.  I just hadn't met you yet. I couldn't imagine having children with any woman I've met over the years.  And I knew Dot wouldn't let herself get pregnant from one of her affairs.  She would hate to pay me that money."

"Wait a minute, you got pissed off at me today, like you did, over 50,000.00 a month?"  her attitude is quickly changing, because he treated her the way he did over money. 

"That's part of it.  The clause is a per child clause, so it will be 100K a month.  And money isn't an issue really, it's the divorce being dismissed along with a couple other things."

Beth's head is spinning because she can't get over the fact that he yelled at her, swore at her and broke a lamp over $100,000 a month for something that she thought he was happy about?  Maybe she was wrong.  "So, you're pissed off because you are going to have to pay her 100K a month because we're having twins?"  There is a little bit of sarcasm in her voice.  "We are having babies Jon, aren't you happy about that?  Or is the money the biggest thing you're thinking about?  I have seen your finances, you make more than that in a day in interest."

"That's alot of money, Beth." he plainly tells her.

Now she's even more pissed off about it, because it's over money and nothing else.  She gets out of bed and grabs her robe.  "Isn't Stephanie waiting for you?"  She wants him to leave the room, she's so angry that she's afraid of what she might say and she doesn't want to say anything that she may regret.  She can't hold it in, "What's are alternate Jon?  We not have the babies?  What can we do?  You're just going to have to pay her."  She runs her fingers through her hair, several times and ends up cupping her face.  "You have got to be fucking kidding me.  You agreed to that?"

He gets up off the bed and walks towards her.  She puts her hand up to stop him.  "Come on, it's not that bad, we'll just deal with it, okay.  I'll pay what I have to pay and be done with it.  I was just hoping to get the divorce before she found out you were pregnant."

"I wasn't going to lie Jon.  She asked me flat out.  I had to tell her."  Beth had the overwhelming feeling to elaborate, "She needed to know.  Having her find out now was probably the best, she's with people can help her with the news."

"I know." he paces the floor with stress on his face and tension in his shoulders.

"What other asinine things did you agree too?"

He had another bomb to drop, "She gets this house.  It was written that the one that cheats loses all personal assets that are in both names.  She gets this, the SoHo apartment and the East Hampton house."  he pauses, takes a deep breath and tells  her, "I had forgotten about all of that."

"So, me telling her I'm pregnant is the 'proof'' that she would need to get all of this?" Beth questions.  She has worked years learning strategy and she sees this as an opportunity to see what she could do. She's thinking she needs to move some of his money and get going on his accounts.  "I guess we start house shopping as soon as we can, huh?"

He walks over to the window and looks out the window, out at the river.  The sun is about to set and he's mesmerized by the colors dancing on the water.  He's thinking that he's in one hell of a mess and he hates to part with his money, hates it.  "We have time, the divorce can't be started until she is out of the hospital and no longer under the supervision of a psychiatrist, but we can start looking."

Beth takes a moment before she says anything else. She has made up her mind on what she is going to do.

Jon turns to her, "I love you more than you will ever know. I am beyond thrilled that we are having the twins, you know that. I love that you are honest to a fault and you try to help everyone, but please, I beg you - don't see her again. I know your intentions were pure and you really wanted to help her, but there are things that she doesn't need to know. It's bad enough that the press finds crap out, let's keep what we can to ourselves." Walking over to her, he grabs her hand and leads her out onto the patio. She stops at the railing and looks at the lake. Behind her, he wraps his arms around her and says, "We need secrets, from the world Beth. Otherwise, they win."

She titls her head back so that it's resting on his shoulder. He kisses her forehead and says, "We need to leak that you're pregnant, so I can control the damage." And he held his breath. Beth was motionless and speechless, but only for a minute.

"We are telling everyone?" She's really surprised by that, and a little irked. She wanted to tell everyone. She didn't want to be forced into it.

He knows that that is what they need to do and he hates it as much as she does, "Yeah, we need to be able to have damage control done on this one. It's not the ideal situation, but we really need to beat her to it. She'll make up and elaborate story and make us out to be monsters."

"Then we need to tell all of our friends and family first, they will be upset if they find out from the press." She walks away and gets into bed. "I'm done with this for right now, Jon. I can't take anymore."

He tucks her in and says, "Figure out who you want to tell and we'll make it happen. We need to leak this as soon as we can." Kissing her goodnight, she reaches up and holds him, gently pulling him down on her. She needed to feel him, she needed a hug. He didn't have a problem accommodating her and gladly hugged and kissed all over her. "I love you."

"I love you more. Now go talk to Steph. She asked me a pretty hard question today and I directed her to you." Beth gives him a heads up, so he's not caught off guard.

“Is she okay?” he asks Beth, quite concerned.

Beth gives him a sad face and said, “She can’t understand why Dot did what she did. She asked me how she could do that to them. I see she’s hurting and she needs to talk to you. I think you’re the only one that can help her see the reality behind the cry for help.”

“I’ll go talk to her.” One last kiss and he’s out the door.

Beth lays there and just looks out the window, wonders why she let this get this far. How could she let herself get sucked into such a tangled web? She loves him and his family, but is money really his driving factor? If that’s the case, she can’t be with someone like that. Was she all wrong about him? She also wonders why he never told her that the vineyard was in her name?

As the night gets darker, her eyes get heavier. She eventually falls off to sleep and isn’t even woken up when Jon climbs into bed.

Jon and Stephanie had a great talk. He let her know that her mother never intended to die and that she did it for one of two reasons. She did it as a cry for help, to try to get Jon back or she did it to stop the divorce. Either way, she was getting the help that she needed and she would be out soon, better than before.

Over the course of the next couple of weeks Jon and Beth had planned a dinner for close family and friends, with the intent of telling all of them that they were expecting and they decided they would answer questions about Dorothea, if any came up.

The guest list was small. It included Beth’s brother, the band, the road crew that was close to the band and management, Tammy and a few of Jon’s friends from the various interests that he has. His parents and brothers are on the list as well.

The dinner was a great success and everyone was so happy for the two of them. They all wished them well and hoped that the divorce would be speedy once Dot was released. Everyone could see how happy that they were and that made the night even more enjoyable. Jon informed all of them that they were there so they would hear the news before they released it to the press. Everyone appreciated that.