Why Us?
"Why does this keep happening?" AJ whispered, lying on the couch with her husband.
The police had gone along with Cassie. The room was dark. Punk hadn't been able to put any lights on. He'd sat with AJ hugging into him since he'd gotten home. They were laying in complete darkness with the drapes opened, the only light coming from passing cars in the street.
"I don't know. How often do you hear of people in remand escaping from lock-up?" Punk shook his head.
"I'm not meaning just Joey." AJ said, "All of it. Why is it when me or you come across something in our life, come across someone, somehow they always show up years later?" She asked as Punk listened to her, "There's always something or… someone." She shook her head, "I'm so tired of it, Phil." She told him as Punk nodded.
"I am too." He said softly, running his fingertips down her arm softly.
"No one can ever stay dead. No one can ever stay gone… stay in prison." She shook her head, "Why?"
"I don't know." Punk said truthfully.
"I used to think it was our karma. I thought maybe it was the world giving back to us what we put into it, when we were young and stupid." She nodded, "But I don't think we were that bad. Do you?" She whispered.
"No. We weren't." Punk assured her.
"I try put on a brave face, you know? I try to own what we've been through. Be proud of all the stuff that we've gotten over in our lives. Prison, issues with the girls, Rio, Jackson, my family… whoever and whatever." She nodded, "But I think there comes a point where I… I don't know, I just want to ask someone why? Why is this happening?"
"I don't have that answer for you, baby." Punk whispered as she nodded.
"No one does." AJ understood, "Is it my family? Is that how all these connections, all these paths were created? Was it Rio? If we didn't know him would we have got a nine to five and settled down in the burbs right away?" She asked, "Is it just… me and you? Our decisions?"
"It's not me and you. I know that much." He assured her, "But I think the decisions everyone makes in life, leads them down a path they're supposed to go down."
"You can't tell me that all these things were supposed to happen. You can't tell me that… I was supposed to lose you for eight years, or that my daughters would suffer things that I myself don't really understand. That somehow we'd be targets for so many people… and for what?" She shook her head.
"What would you do differently?" Punk asked her curiously. He wanted her to talk about this with him. She never really did. He figured it was something they both thought about subconsciously, but never really addressed with each other.
"I don't know." AJ shook her head, "Because I don't think we did anything particularly wrong to deserve shit like this." She sighed exhaustedly.
"We didn't." Punk nodded, "You didn't." He made clear.
"If I didn't have Thea, if I wasn't pregnant back then, would you have come back to me when you got out of prison?" She asked.
"Of course I would." Punk said, "It's all I thought about for the entire year." Punk assured her, "Thea was a… a bonus ball in all of it." He nodded as AJ smiled.
"She was." AJ smiled, "I could have gone to Puerto Rico with her."
"I would have come found you." Punk assured her as AJ nodded.
"I thought I was doing the responsible thing. I thought I was doing the right thing by staying here in Chicago but… maybe if I just went to Puerto Rico, maybe things would be different." She thought.
"Yeah, you'd be working with your family. You'd have Thea around that stuff." Punk said, "That's not you. That was never you. Sometimes I think you get your reputation because of me. You… You were never a dealer or… any part of that world. Not really. I put you through that. You always just wanted to be there for the kids and… have our date nights." He smiled to himself, "Have a good home."
"So did you." AJ said, "What is it that makes people hate us so much? Not to throw a pity party for ourselves or anything but… people seem to really enjoy hurting us, hurting our family… and what for?" She shook her head.
"Comes down to what Rio said, I guess." Punk said, "Being loved. Loving and caring so much that you put yourself in a vulnerable position. A position that if someone takes those things you love… they suddenly have you in the palm of their hand." He nodded, "He knew that. Jackson knew that. Your family knew that. All those people… I don't think they were capable of understanding what family is. And they didn't want to either." He said.
"So we're punished for… loving our kids? Each other?" AJ asked, "It's a little cruel. I mean… Bill and Jane love their kids across the street, I don't see anyone trying to murder them or… rape them." She shook her head as Punk nodded.
"Bill and Jane were probably crafted by angels and grew up in meadows." Punk said, "Not really the same for you and I."
"Yeah and you'd think that'd be enough. You'd think that us growing up like that would be enough for a person to take." She said, "I mean you… you were really abused as a kid. I was never physically hurt but I… I couldn't have grown up in a more toxic environment than I did. So why was that not enough? Why couldn't we be people that had the tragic backstory but… the beautiful rest of their life together?" She said.
"We will." Punk nodded.
"When?" AJ laughed a little, "When we're both in a care home together and don't know each other's names? Is that when things will finally be peaceful? And we won't know what colour the sky is or who our children are?"
"Who said we're going to care homes?" Punk scoffed as she smiled a little.
"I'm not wheeling you around in here." AJ said.
"Why am I always paralysed when I'm older? Do I end up in a tragic accident or something?" Punk asked her as she laughed a little.
"You've had a bad back since you were thirty years old." AJ scoffed.
"I just get stiff." Punk assured her, "I'm a hard worker, you know."
"I know." AJ nodded, "Maybe we should have moved. You think that would have done anything? Remember when I was pregnant with Jude. We talked about it a lot."
"I think the people we've dealt with in the past are people who were… out to get us no matter where we were." Punk said.
"Yeah, you're probably right." AJ said, "I just… I couldn't imagine having that much hatred for someone."
"They got nothing better to do. Majority of them are or were mentally unstable." Punk nodded.
"Have we ever came across mentally stable people before?" AJ asked, "Seriously?"
"You work with a lot of nice people." Punk nodded, "So do I."
"Just wait… they'll be after us soon too." AJ said as Punk smiled a little.
"Kinda feels like the world is pushing against us sometimes, huh?" He nodded.
"Sometimes? All the time." AJ said quietly, "It's not all been dark. There's memories I always try to think of when stuff like this happens. I think about the girls, when they were little. I think about the way you used to scoop Thea and Jude up in their towel after their bath. They'd look so small in your arms." She smiled to herself.
"I think about you coaching Cassie's soccer team and her yelling at you cause you weren't taking it seriously enough." AJ nodded as Punk smiled, "The way you used to sing Jude to sleep when she was little, and she'd… she'd do that little smile before she'd fall asleep, like she was just so happy and safe with you." She said as Punk listened to her, "Think about helping them getting ready for their wedding days. Meeting their first baby's and being there for them when they… thought they were doing everything wrong." AJ nodded.
"That's the stuff you live for." Punk nodded to himself.
"Yeah." AJ agreed, watching the car lights on the car passing by their street, lighting up the living room until it passed, going dark again, "I just wish it could have been like that all the time. And I know that's selfish. And I know no one goes through life with just the good things." She nodded, "But did we have to have so much bad?" She asked him as he sighed.
He wished he could have gave her answers. He heard her desperation for answers. Answers to questions he thought about too.
"No, but… when I think about all that stuff… stuff that went wrong, I try look for the silver lining. It's hard with some of it because… no, I can't see any good coming from our daughter being sexually assaulted. I can't see anything good from me sitting in a prison cell for eight years. Or… coming in here tonight and finding out what he… tried to do to you." He said, "And then I get a phone call from Jude and she talks to me about the speech she gave at a sexual assault awareness fundraiser. And I can hear how proud she is of herself. Of what she's doing. Of who she is now as a person." He nodded, "And all I do when I'm talking to her is smile." He said as AJ smiled.
"And then… I'm a few months out of prison and I realise I'm getting to fall in love with another little girl we have. Who's smart and funny and… bossy as all hell." He smiled to himself, "And I realise eight years could have been fourteen, and I'm out now and I'm watching my youngest daughter play soccer and she's… so good." He said.
"What happens when there's no silver lining?" AJ whispered, "Not even a little tiny bit."
"It eventually comes. Maybe in a year or two. Maybe in five. Or tomorrow." Punk said, "You feel it."
"Or it doesn't come and another something bad happens in place of it. Then you're looking for two silver linings. And then you… just give up looking." AJ said.
"If you give up… you'll never find it." Punk nodded, "You don't think in prison I thought about giving up? I mean the 'lights out' sort of giving up." He said as she looked up at him, "I kept looking. Kept thinking, one day I'm gonna get to hold my wife again and… be there for my girls. And I got there. I felt it. I felt it that night we were at the docks, all five of us. Thea was starting to open up to me. Me and you were doing good." He nodded.
"I remember that." AJ nodded, "We were probably feeling the same way at the same time." She said as Punk nodded.
"Probably." Punk said, "These things happen and you immediately just look for the reason why. But… sometimes there isn't one. Most often than not for us, there hasn't been on. Just knowing an unfortunate bunch of people, I guess."
"I just want to know when it's gonna stop." AJ nodded.
"I do too." Punk said, "I could walk out of this house tomorrow morning and get hit by a bus." He nodded as AJ rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, that'd probably be the cherry on top of it all." AJ nodded as he chuckled a little.
"I could." He nodded honestly, "And I could be dead and buried by next week." He said, "Point being… we don't know what's gonna happen. I can't tell you that we're gonna be happy now, forever until we die. Most likely, we're not. But you… you keep going." He nodded.
"And what do you do when you're almost raped in your bedroom by a… sociopath?" She sighed, closing her eyes over.
"You just… lay in a dark living room and talk to your husband. And he tells you that he loves you more than anything in the world."
