Thanks to everyone who has reviewed in the past and especially EXINTARIS, one of the last old-school (no pun intended) writer of Friends fics. So many great fic writers have "retired" per se. Some that come to mind include Knib17 and my all-time favorite (drum roll please ...) Tina Chaves. If you've been here for a while you've seen the quality of the fics decline somewhat over the last few years. This is to be expected as the show has been out of production since May, 2004.
Gone are the days when you could come here and find so many updates to quality fics that you could read/review all afternoon. I miss that ...
I've been writing fics for a few years now ... and unless something changes this may be my last. I've found that the "passion" is just not there anymore. Perhaps this is what happened to Knib and Tina. I'll probably never know but I'll miss writing these long stories. Perhaps I'll add a one-shot in the future. I still plan to review those stories that interest me.
On to the story ...
What follows is the epilogue to "Where Have You Gone?". I started this in October of 2006 as an alternative storyline to the producer's handling of Ross/Rachel's breakup in Season 3, which I found very unrealistic. Ross loved Rachel forever while Rachel loved Ross with a passion she had never had with any other man. The show handled it the only way they could to keep a coherent, profitable show ... they kept them at arms length, both loving and hating (and some not caring) for many years. If you've ever lost at love you will realize that some love never dies ... and that is what was (ultimately) portrayed in the show, especially towards the end of season 10. This story was an attempt to make the post-breakup more realistic. It got out of hand a bit ... to the tune of 29 chapters!
Thank you to the few who still read and review. You are a dieing (yet very appreciated) breed ...
The passion may be gone but I put everything I had left into this one chapter ...
Every story has to have a beginning, a middle and an end …
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Epilogue
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My face feels warm …
I open my eyes and am blinded as the light of the morning sun shines through my window.
I take a deep breath …
I stretch out my arms to wrench the sleep from my tired body.
As I swing my arms across the bed I realize that it's true, it was no dream.
It had happened.
The smile leaves my face as the comfort that was sleep finally departs from my mind.
I am alone … again.
He said that he would never leave me … he promised. I don't know why I believed him. I guess it was because I was young and naïve and was so much in love with him. He was my hero, my rescuer … my everything. I would have believed anything he told me at that moment.
Such is love.
And now I am alone, again.
I will miss him. Over the years he had become many things to me, my best friend, my lover, my husband … the voice in my head that told me how important I was … and how much I was loved. This time I won't be able to go after him … to ask him why he left. I don't have to … I know all too well why he had to go. My heart stings with the pain of loneliness, of knowing that I'll never see him or talk to him or make love to him … again … ever.
He's gone.
Today is the day I've dreaded for so long … the day I am to say goodbye.
I sigh and look up at the ceiling. A tear drops down the side of my face. I don't want to get up. I don't want to leave my bed …
… My lonely bed.
I don't want to say goodbye. I don't want to be alone. I'm tired, too tired to get out of bed …
… too tired to say goodbye.
I'll stay in bed all day today. I'll wait for a better day … a day I know will never come.
I prepare myself for the inevitable …
I have to say goodbye, today.
I close my eyes and try to fall back to sleep, to escape …
I can't. I'm interrupted …
"Good morning Gramma!" the child says as she jumps onto my bed.
It's my granddaughter, the youngest child of my youngest son. My perfect little granddaughter.
A perfect enough reason not to give up … and to go on.
"Good morning baby. How are you this bright morning?" I ask.
"I'm OK Gramma." She replies as her curiosity gets the best of her …
"Gramma, where's Grampa?"
She doesn't know.
She's too young.
She wouldn't understand.
It would hurt too much if she knew …
"Papas not here right now …" I reply, trying to find a way out of this terrible mess.
"But I brought the paper for us to fight over with him, Gramma."
"I know." I reply. I don't know what else to say. Thankfully my son saves me as he knocks on my door …
"Mom, are you decent?"
"Yes, come in." I reply.
"Aurora, what are you doing in here? Are you bothering your grandmother?"
"Oh no daddy, I love my Gramma. I would never bother her."
I melt. I'm dying inside and I can't do or say a thing about it.
Before me stands my youngest son, a product of the love that my husband and I once had for each other. I can stand it no more, I begin to cry. Noting my emotional decay my son again saves me …
"Aurora, please leave your grandmother alone, she's tired. Go eat your breakfast. Your mother is making it for you downstairs."
"OK Daddy." she replies. Turning towards me she kisses me on the cheek and scurries off …
"I'm sorry mom; I hope she didn't bother you."
I raise my eyes to meet his … "They never bother me. You and you brother and sisters never bothered me."
An uncomfortable silence fills the room. My son is emotionally unprepared and ill-equipped to play the role of his mother's comforter. He doesn't know what to say or do to relieve my pain. In an effort to ease the tension I take his hand and guide him down onto the bed.
"Please hug me." I ask.
"Do you have to ask?" he replies as he takes me in his arms.
We sit there embracing for a minute as I gain the strength to talk about things I really don't want to talk about …
… and to start dressing for places I really don't want to go to.
"What time will the limousine be here?" I ask.
"At 10:00." He replies.
Raising myself off the bed I walk over to the closet …
"Then I better start getting ready. You know how long it takes me …"
"Do you want some breakfast?" he asks.
"No, thanks, I'm not hungry." I reply. How could I eat at a time like this? Why would I care to? I find it interesting how you lose interest in things … when your world lay in ruin around you.
Two hours later I find myself sitting in front of my mirror, looking at what time has done to me. I examine every little facet of my face. Wrinkles and splotches of differing color are the main features of my reflection. My face resembles a mountain range with high peaks and deep crevasses. Long gone is my smooth skin. The only reason my hair has any color at all is because of the gallons of hair dye that my stylist pours over my head each month. I sit and wonder. I wonder what he ever saw in me and why he ever stayed so long. He could have always found a younger woman … but that wouldn't have been him. He was always so loyal to me.
I am brought out of my daydream by my son …
"Mom, the limo is here to take us to the church. Do you need any help getting down the stairs?" He asks.
"No, I'm fine." I reply. "I'll be right down." I look towards my door to the stairs in the hallway. I consider the problems I might have getting down them by myself. It would be so easy just to "accidentally" trip and fall.
It would solve so many of my problems.
As I approach the first step I consider the easy way out. Taking my first step I quickly consider the implications of what I'm about to do. I stop and consider how selfish it would be and how much pain and hurt I would cause the ones I love. I lower my foot to the step and slowly repeat the process until I make it down the stairs, safely.
As I am guided into the limousine I am surrounded by my children and their spouses. They've come from all over to be with me this day. As the car begins to move my eyes slowly move between them. Memories of the past flood my mind as I relive the life that I was given and enjoyed. I have truly been blessed to have had such wonderful children. I wonder … I wonder what it would have been like without him in my life. I can't imagine how different things would have been, how different my children would have been without their father …
… how all but one would never have been born.
I remember …
I remember how he came to my rescue and watched over me when I was pregnant with our daughter, fathered by another man. He didn't care who her father was, all he cared about was that she came from me. After she was born he always treated her as his own.
How different would my world have been?
As we arrive at the church I wonder if he would have been mad at me. In the end I decided to use a church instead of a synagogue. I hope he wouldn't be mad.
At the church I am lead like the old woman that I am down the isle towards the front … where it sits, the cold metal box that holds what's left of my life. My sons lead me to a seat … I resist.
"Boys, you go ahead and sit. Give me a few moments to be with your father … one last time?" I ask.
As I approach the casket I find it easier than I thought it would be … to see him again. I am handling it with uncharacteristic reserve. Where I am getting this strength I will never know.
I pause …
He looks so peaceful …
He looks asleep.
He looks so pale …his face has already begun to sag.
He looks terrible. What did I expect? Sometimes I feel like such a fool. How naïve can an old woman be?
I lift my hand and gently graze my knuckles against his cheek …I pull back abruptly. His skin is so cold. Then it hits me … that's not him … he's not here, it's just his body, the vessel that once contained my love.
He truly is gone.
I slowly work up the courage to run my hands through his hair, one last time. Long gone are his long brown locks, now replaced by strands of silver and gray.
I remember back … I think it was when we were in our fifties, as his hair started changing color. I used to tell him how distinguished he looked. As the years went by and we aged into our sixties the gray took over completely. At least he kept his hair, unlike most men his age.
All of my life has come down to this one moment …
I lean in and kiss him on the lips … for the last time.
"Goodbye, my love." I whisper so that only he and I can hear …
He had chosen a beautiful time of the year to leave me. It was late spring and the cold of winter was a distant memory. The sun shone so brightly that I had to wear my sunglasses just to keep my old eyes open. A light breeze swept through the trees, causing their branches to sway. The breeze was a welcome respite from the heat. With most people wearing black it would have been most uncomfortable without it.
As the casket was lowered into the ground I knelt … to grab a handful of dirt.
My arthritis is acting up and I can't get to my feet. My sons have to help me up.
Such is old age.
The casket hits the bottom of the vault with a thud that surprises me. I think they should have been more careful when lowering my husband into his final resting place.
I walk over to the hole and with one final farewell I drop the dirt from my hand … onto the casket.
As go to leave I can take it no more … I break down. I felt so embarrassed … but I didn't care. I lost it in front of all of my family and guests ...
… but I couldn't keep up the act anymore. I wasn't OK with all of this. I never was and never would be. The entire day had been just a show … for the outward world to see.
If it were up to me I should have just fallen down those damn stairs … so that I could be with him, again.
I sit here on my porch talking with my eldest daughter. The rest of my family is enjoying themselves in the house. They don't often get the chance to get together … except for weddings and funerals.
Such is life.
I'm surrounded by the ones I love … yet I feel alone.
I hold a letter in my hand. It's a voice … a voice from the grave. My husband knew he was going to leave me … and he wanted to say goodbye. I just found it in our bedroom, today. He had hidden it so that I wouldn't find it for a while. He wanted me to be able to recover before I found and read it.
I've read the letter and I can't stop thinking about what he said. He told me that he loved me and didn't want to go … but he had no choice in the matter. His letter contained a question that I hadn't really expected to be asked. My eyes stare at the words …
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"What did you expect? We don't live forever, my love."
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I look up at my daughter and decide to speak up …
"Well, I guess this is it."
"What do you mean mother?" she replies.
"I'm the last one."
"The last one?" she questions, curiously.
"I'm the last one alive of my generation, dear. All of your aunts and uncles, my friends and your father … they're all gone."
I feel so alone.
Other than my children I have no one to talk to.
All my friends are gone.
"Mother, can you answer a question for me?"
"Of course dear." I reply.
My daughter wears a strange look on her face, one that I've never seen before. She looks apprehensive and pained about something …
"What's wrong?" I ask.
"Mother …" She replies as she lowers her eyes to the floor.
"I need to ask you a question … it might be hard for you to answer."
"Ask me." I reply.
"Was Dad really my father?" She asks, looking straight into my eyes.
Her eyes pierce my flesh. We've never told her the truth and on this day-of-days she asks me this. How could she know? I try to act surprised, in a futile attempt to keep the truth from her.
"Why do you think this? What gave you the idea that your dad was not your biological father?" I ask, in desperation. It's been a horrible day … and now it's getting worse.
"Mother, after dad died I was looking through some old papers, trying to organize them for the estate … and I found this."
She hands me a piece of paper, a document like a knife that was cutting me, opening up old wounds …
"What's this?" I ask, feigning ignorance.
She believes me. I suppose she believes that I am forgetful and losing my memory. Unfortunately, I know exactly what the paper is and what it represents …
… I just can't believe that she found it … and that I didn't destroy it years ago.
"Mother, this is a medical form from when I was a baby. It has my entire medical history on it, including that of my biological parents."
Then she asks me the question that I feared she would ask … a question that I never dreamed she would, except in my worst nightmares …
"Mother, who is Mark Johnson?"
There, she asked the question. I try to look unaffected by it but I can't. She sees right through me. She knows …
"Mother, please. Be honest with me. Was he my father?"
Anger builds up within me. I'm furious! How could she ever think that he could be her father?
… On the same day that she said goodbye to her real one.
I lie …
"No dear, he was not your father."
She's not persuaded. She knows. She rephrases her question so that I can lie to her no more …
"Mother, I love you. Please tell me the truth. Did you ever have a relationship with this man? Did he get you pregnant with me?"
I break down again. I can lie to her no more. She must know the truth …
"Yes. I dated him before I married your father." I reply. I hope and pray that she asks me no more …
"Why didn't you end up with this Mark person instead of with dad? What happened?" She asks.
My daughter is asking just the right questions … at just the wrong time. She's become an aggressive prosecutor. I'm tired. I have little energy to fight her prosecution. I surrender …
"Your father and I dated for a year and then broke up. I dated Mark after your father and I broke up and before we got back together and got married. One day I discovered I was pregnant, with you. When I told him he got angry and accused me of trying to trap him into something he didn't want. He gave me a choice."
"A choice?" she asks.
I don't want to hurt her … and the truth will hurt. She needs to know. I tell her …
"Yes. My choice was to stay together or break up."
"Why did you break up?"
"He didn't want a baby. If I wanted to stay with him … I had to abort you."
She's shocked and devastated to find that her own father wanted her gone. Her face contorts as tears stream from her eyes. She descends into sadness …
As I finish telling her the truth I can keep it inside no more. Old wounds are opened. I have failed in my life-long attempt to suppress these memories. Fifty years of pain and anguish are released in a single moment … I cry again for the hundredth time today.
"Mother … I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I … I was just curious. I needed to know the truth. I needed to know who my real father was …"
I look up at my daughter through my tears. I understand her curiosity, her compulsion to know the truth and where she came from. I can see a hint of shame on her face …
"Are you happy that you finally know?" I ask her.
My daughter looks down, away from me. Drying her eyes and nose with a tissue she slowly looks up at me and replies "I guess". She doesn't seem too sure of herself.
I wait …
I wait for her to compose herself a little more before I ask her the question that I hope I know the answer to …
"So who was your real father? Was it the man who got me pregnant and didn't want anything to do with you … or was it the man who chose to marry me and raise you as his own … despite the fact that I was pregnant with another man's baby?"
"Oh mother …" she replies as she can take it no more. I gave birth to her so many years ago and I cannot remember her crying so hard … and for so long.
I wait again. I want to tell her something and I want to make sure that she hears it.
I wait …
Minutes pass as my daughter's tears begin to ebb. I reach over to her and embrace her in my arms. She gladly accepts my love.
I raise my mouth to her ears and whisper …
"Your father loved each of you equally. He showed no preference to one of you or the other. He wouldn't acknowledge this to anyone, but you were his favorite. It doesn't mean he loved your brothers and sister any less, he just felt guilty, so guilty that he felt the need to break up with me all those years ago. He told me then that he needed to be apart from me so that he could work on his feelings and his jealousy, so that if we ever did get back together again these issues would not destroy us again. He felt so bad that you were not conceived of our love that he put everything into making your life as good as possible."
As her head leans against my shoulder she is sobbing again … I can feel it.
I can hear it.
Through her sadness I can hear her trying to whisper …
"I will miss him so much."
It's been three months since the day I said goodbye.
I was told that the grave marker was finally installed.
I asked my son to drive me there … so that I could visit him and see the stone.
I feel so cold. It's a hot day and my son has the air conditioner running … it's blowing directly on me.
"Could you please turn that down? I'm cold." I ask.
"Sure mom, I'm sorry."
"Thanks." I reply.
I feel better as the sun warms me through the window of the car.
I daydream as we pass through the city towards the place where my love rests.
So much of this place has changed since we moved here all those years ago.
We pass by a house that we considered buying when we moved out of the city.
The memories …
We decided not to buy the house … it was too small. It would have been fine for the three of us … but he wanted more children. I gave him those children and I don't regret it for a moment. I don't regret the morning sickness, the bloating and labor pains for one second.
I'm glad he wanted more children …
As we walk up to where he lays, I stop. My eyes travel over the marker that announces to the world that he is gone.
My eyes fixate on the words …
"Loving Husband and Father"
It's true, he was.
I ask my son to help me sit, next to where he rests.
I raise my arm and let my hand come to rest on the side of the stone. It feels hot, having been warmed by the afternoon sun.
I gaze at the grass below me …
Raising my eyes I look up at my son …
"This is where I will rest." I tell him as I pat my hand on the ground.
He can't take it …
He looks away and takes a few steps, trying to keep it from me …
I know …
He's crying … badly.
I made him sad.
I didn't mean too.
I just need someone to talk to … to confide in.
I needed to do it …
I need to prepare him …
I need someone to take care of things after I'm gone.
I need to toughen him up.
"Come here, please." I ask.
He returns and I take his hand.
I gently pull on his arm …
He gives in and sits down next to me in the warm grass.
"I need your help." I tell him.
"Anything, mom."
"I need you to be strong. I need you to take care of things when my time comes. I need you to have me buried here, next to your father. When the time comes I need you to be strong … for me. Can you do this?" I ask.
"I'll do my best mom. It won't be easy … but I'll try."
"Thank you." I reply.
My room is dark …
I lay in bed, staring out into the darkness.
As I close my eyes I hope …
… I hope that it will end soon.
I wonder if I will see him again.
I've lived too long.
I pray that I can rest soon … and be with him again, forever.
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End
