Chapter 111 - We're Halfway There

Jon stops and gives all of his attention to his wife.  He stands there and looks at her, feeling an anxiety that he has never felt before.  

It wasn't as bad as when his new bride was in her coma, there was no way it could even compare to the anxiety that he felt knowing that he had to tell his wife that they lost their baby - this was an anxiety that was bad in the way that he didn't have an answer for her.  "I have no idea who Stevie is Monica."

"Oh, you don't?" she snaps at him.

"No.  I never met the friends of your nurse, why would I?"

"Cause you were at her house."

Quietly, he mumbles, "I was never at her house."

Monica sits in the passenger seat of the car, looking over at her husband.  She doesn't know what to think and much less, she doesn't know what to believe.  It's a plausible situation and it literally could have happened, but she doesn't know if she can believe that Jon would do anything like that.  She doesn't want to believe that he could.  "Then why is she doing this?"  Monica cries at him, "Why would someone drag us into the mud like this?"

"Money?" he doesn't know, but he can see that his wife needs him.  "Monica, none if this is true."

"How do you know?" she whimpers, covering her face with her hands, "You don't remember everything, you said so yourself."

Jon walks over to her and kneels down beside her.  He gently tries to take her hands away from her face, "Honey, I don't feel it.  Nothing happened."

"Just because you don't feel that it didn't happen, doesn't mean that it didn't."

Jon leans over, resting his head in her lap, rubbing her leg he adds, "Monica, none of that happened.  You have to believe me."

"Will you take me home please?" she mumbles, leaning forward to turn the radio off.  "I can't listen to anymore of this shit and I don't want to be in this car anymore."

Jon lifts his head to look up at his wife.  He can see in her eyes that she had hit the point of being angered, instead of being sad and he knows that it might not be a quiet night for them.  It takes a lot for Monica to get upset, she's usually pretty level headed and calm until she no longer needs to be and Jon believes that she is just about to that point.  "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure.  Do you want to listen to anymore of it?" she snaps at him, getting more upset by the second.  "Do you want to listen to this crazy person destroy our life?"

Jon slowly stands, taking a second to brush the cheek of his wife, "How is she destroying our life?"

"Are you listening to the same bullshit that I was?" Monica snaps again, "Are you hearing what she's saying?  You know what this is going to do to us, to our lives."

Jon steps back and slams the door to the car, "I didn't do this!"  Monica looks out the window opposite of Jon.  When he walks around to the driver side and gets in the car, Monica diverts her attention out the passenger side window.  She can't look at Jon, she can't let him see that this is tearing her up on the inside.  Pulling the car into gear, Jon floors the accelerator and pulls out of the parking lot that they were in and into the flow of traffic.  Monica was silent most of the way home, she didn't really have the opportunity to speak, Jon took the floor and wouldn't let her have it.  "Monica, none of this is true, and you know it."  

He looks over at her.  She continues to look out the window.  He sees a tear roll down her cheek and that infuriates him, "It's all a bunch of bullshit and I have no idea why all of this is happening, but you have to know me well enough to know that none of it is true."  She still doesn't respond or look at him, "You know I love you more than anything in this world and I would never hurt you like this."  

With a heavy sigh, he reaches up and grabs his cigarettes off the dash.  With a slight tap, he knocks one out and puts it in his mouth.  With deliberate attempt, he lights the cigarette and tosses the lighter back on the dash.  It clinks the window and that startles Monica.

She looks over at Jon, with a glare.  He looks back at her and says nothing.  When he feels that they had enough eye contact, he puts his eyes back on the road and continues with their drive home.  He smokes his cigarette and says not another word to her, until she talks to him.

"I'm sorry that I wasn't a wife to you from day one.  I'm sorry that I was in the way of a moving car and was injured as severely as I was.  I'm sorry that I wasn't woman enough to carry your baby - even after being hit by a car.  But NONE of that Jon, none of that deserves you cheating on me, making a joke of me and our marriage.  It was YOU that wanted to marry ME, not the other way around.  If we had done things MY way, we would have our baby and we never would have been hit by that fucking car."  She takes a deep breath and continues, "I'm SORRY that I wasn't enough to keep you interested, even though I laid there like a dead woman.  I'm sorry that you had to stay there and take care of me, even though you were injured but most of all Jon, I'm beginning to feel sorry that I married you at all!!!"

Without thinking, Jon slams on the brakes and pulls the car over on the side of the road.  Before he can slam it in park he yells at her, "What the hell did you just say?"

With tears rolling down her cheeks and her breath hard to catch, "You heard me!"  She looks at him, "You heard every word I said."

"Do you really feel that way?" he is still screaming at her, "Do you really feel that way Monica?"

"Take me home!"

"You aren't doing this, you are not shutting me out."

"I don't want to do this now Jon.  I want to go home and lay down."

"I don't care.  You aren't saying what you said and going to lie down." he lowers his tone a little bit, "You can't say that and expect me to just let it go, Monica."

"But this stupid bitch on the radio can run her mouth and you act like it's nothing."

"BECAUSE IT IS NOTHING!!" he gets loud with her again.  "Why aren't you listening to me?"

Monica rolls her head and looks at her husband.  Calmly she asks, "Doesn't the timing of all this tell you anything?"

"No."

She sits up in the car seat, "It doesn't?" she asks sarcastically.  "The timing raises no questions for you?"

"NO. Should it?"

"Well, think about it while you drive me the rest of the way home."

"MONICA!!" he screams at her, slamming his fist on the steering wheel.  "Stop acting like a fucking child and talk to me."

Wiping the tears from her eyes, "This chick didn't just come out of the woodwork, she's here for a reason."

"Obviously, Monica.  But what do you think the timing means?"  he has no idea what she's trying to get at, and he isn't in the mood to try to get it out of her.  "Stop talking in riddles, I don't have the desire to try to figure out what the hell you're talking about."

"Well, let's listen."  She snaps at him as she reaches up and turns the radio back on.  As she gets the volume to a level that they can here, the first thing that they hear come out of the cigarettes was..........

"Well, I can prove it to the worl in just a few weeks."  Mandy tells the DJ, with a laughte rin her voice."

The DJ falls for her game and asks, "Oh yeah, how is that?"

"Well, that's when our baby is due."  There is dead air on the radio.  The DJ has no idea what to say.  He has no idea what to do.

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Monica went deaf after she heard that.  The only thing she heard was the sound of her own heartbeat, pounding practically out of her chest.  Her mind went on autopilot and she followed what her body had her do.  With intent, she reaches up and opens the car door and steps out.  Once she is out, she slams the door and starts walking down the sidewalk in the direction of their house.