5 | Weep With Those Who Weep (Part 1 of 4)

Maria Hale stood in the dimly lit hallway, her whole body tense with dread and expectation. Margaret's "episodes" had begun five days ago while she was at school. The call came from the headmistress. The nurse said perhaps they were night terrors—except the first one happened during the day.

Little Margaret Hale had crouched down in the middle of lunch and screamed—deep, terrible, horrible screams. No one could calm her, not even her mother, when she arrived. Maria took Margaret home and let her watch telly and sleep for the remainder of the day. The next day was worse. She couldn't even go to school.

"Come back!"

Margaret's scream shook Maria out of her thoughts and she cursed, stumbling into her daughter's room. Margaret seemed to be asleep, all tangled and twisted in her bedclothes.

"Dad!" She gasped, a desperate, forlorn plea. "Don't go—no, no, no—Dad."

"Margaret—"

"We need you. Please, Dad. Please. Please!"

"It's alright—" Maria tried to pull Margaret into her arms but the child kicked and shoved her away, gasping between cries.

"I don't know! I don't how to—I can't—I can't—you can't!"

Richard had moved out only two weeks ago but they were working on things. Margaret certainly missed him, but Maria couldn't understand this outburst—as if Margaret thought she'd never see him again. As if he'd—

"He's dead!" Margaret's eyes flew open and tears streaked down her round little face. "He did it. He—"

"Daddy's fine," Maria said, stroking her face, her voice pleading. "I swear it, Margaret. He's perfectly fine. Let's ring him and—"

"I hate you! You selfish bastard, I fucking hate you!"

Maria gaped at the string of foul words pouring from her little girl's lips. And then Margaret covered her face with her hands.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean it. I'm sorry—so sorry—I—"

Maria clutched at Margaret as the angry words changed into a whimper.

"Please, come back. Please, Daddy. Please."

"Darling—"

"You have to come back. To Mother and Fanny—"

Maria stiffened. "Who?"

"I can't, I can't," her voice broke, so hollow and lost. "I can't do this—I can't, Dad."

"Margaret—please, darling."

Margaret shoved her away, hands clutching her head, and let out a guttural wail that tore into her mother's soul and left her breathless.

"DAD!"

Black.

Everything was black.

Inside and outside.

John stared at his shoes, squeezing Fanny's hand tighter. He bit his tongue, feeling nothing, tasting blood. He refused to look at the thing lying in the coffin.

Whatever it was, it wasn't Jonnie Thornton.

Something, but not his dad.

Fanny whimpered.

John's stomach clenched and he grit his teeth. He tried to breathe.

How could simply existing hurt so damn much?

He kept his eyes on his feet as the preacher droned on but John wasn't listening. He held onto Fanny, onto his mother, helped them into the car, helped the, out again, walked them down the hill. There were more words said, more prayers, all of them empty and hollow. A shuffle finally pulled John's eyes from his feet. His mother knelt in the grass. Mr Bell stood behind her, one hand on her shoulder as the coffin was lowered into the ground. When the black box disappeared, people trickled away and Fanny began to wail.

"I'm here, Fan," John picked her up and held her close. "It's alright. We'll be fine."

John felt like a liar. He'd been saying the same damn thing over and over and over again. He didn't really believe it and neither did Fanny. But she was allowed to cry, had been crying for days. Even mother cried.

But John didn't.

He couldn't.

"No tears, my boy," Mr Bell had said. "Chin up, soldier on."

But inside John felt like he was dying.

At first none of the doctors her mother took her to see were able to explain what happened to Margaret. And she hated being asked about it. She didn't like to visit that raw place inside her that always raged. When the doctors' questions poked at her too much, she would clutch her hands behind her back and grit her teeth.

"Leave him alone!"

"Leave who alone?"

But Margaret couldn't quite explain it and it was none of their business anyway. Then she met Dr Morris. He was a nice doctor with brown curly hair and thick round spectacles. And he seemed to understand that the rage inside her wasn't Margaret's exactly.

"I don't know why but I had to cry," she told him. "I think he wanted to cry."

"He?"

She nodded. "His daddy left—like—like mine."

"Do you know who he is?"

Margaret shook her head, clutching her arms around herself. "Am I crazy?"

"No, Margaret, you're soulmarked." Dr Morris smiled, his eyes softening. "Sometimes things happen to people that change them deep down inside. And sometimes other people can feel that change. Usually it's a sad change."

Margaret nodded, "It hurt. Everything hurt."

"Does it still hurt?"

"I think so," she frowned, clenching her little fists. "But it's not the same anymore."

"What is it now?"

"Angry and scared. I don't like it." Margaret frowned. "I don't think he likes it either."

John sat on the floor of his room, staring at the wall. His whole body felt heavy, leaden, desperate for sleep, but his mind refused to settle. The constant worry for Fanny and Mother was there, like it always was. But that wasn't the problem. His father had been gone for two years. It was hell, but they survived. John sighed, slinging his arm over his eyes, waiting. Every day for the last month an intense feeling of dread and loneliness would creep into his mind. He glanced at his watch, the orange slanting light of the disappearing sun glancing off the watch face. Every day the same haunted thought tortured him.

"I want to go home," he whispered.

John's eyes snapped open as the words tumbled, unbidden, from his mouth. His stomach churned as his skin rippled, suddenly cold and sweating. His breaths came in shallow gasps, like he couldn't get enough air. John grit his teeth. He was home, damn it. He listened to the soft sound of his mother reading to Fanny. They were right outside the door. So why the hell did he feel utterly abandoned?

John felt himself curl into a ball on the floor.

Get up, you loser. Get up, just get the hell up.

"I want to go home."

He was home. He was fine. He was with Fanny and mother and—

John pressed his eyes shut as a wave of nausea stole over him.

She was alone. Always alone.

He was losing his damn mind.

Margaret lay in bed clutching her pillow in her arms. The stiff linens smelled wrong—too sweet and too new. Not like her nice flannel ones on her bed. Was her bed still there? She squeezed her eyes tight against the tears. Mummy said she must be brave.

"Maria never should've married the man," Aunt Shaw's voice was muffled but it still carried through the floor. "He was rotten from the start. I told her but she wouldn't listen.

Aunt and uncle mustn't think she was ungrateful. Margaret must be a good girl and smile and do as they said. She'd promised daddy.

"Thank God the divorce has finally gone through. The nerve of that man trying to put a stop to it—"

Mummy and daddy would come back for her. They promised they would come back and then they'd go home like before daddy left.

"Margaret should stay with us until Maria is well. It's been a nasty business, and her health isn't what it used to be."

Margaret squeezed her eyes tighter and thought about home, the nice brown smell of daddy's tobacco and the soft purple smell of mummy's soap. And there was all the green outside and inside from daddy's plants and the lovely colors from mummy's photographs and paintings hanging on the walls. There was one large painting of a yellow rose that hung over Margaret's bed that mummy made just for her.

"I'll be good," she promised, as tears began trickling into the funny smelling pillow. "I promise I'll be good and then we'll be happy again."

"That man has ruined Maria. I doubt she'll ever be truly happy again."

Margaret gasped, turned her head deeper into her pillow and sobbed.

She wanted to go home.

John slumped down in the small upholstered chair, glaring at the shit brown wall, listening to the mumbling voices drifting from behind the thin door behind him.

"He's still not himself, Dr Hamilton. It's been four years."

"Healing takes time. Panic attacks like this aren't necessarily permanent either."

John shook himself. Panic attacks, his ass. He knew what panic—real paralyzing panic—felt like. This wasn't it. But it didn't really matter. He thumbed his head against the wall and grinned a little as his mother's voice suddenly stopped. Three more months and he'd be eighteen. Mother couldn't force him to come here after that and he'd be done with all this psychologist therapy shit for good.

"How are you, John?" Dr Hamilton smiled and waved him into the room.

John glanced at his mother and pulled himself to his feet, ambling silently into the room. Dr Hamilton closed the door and adjusted her glasses.

"Are you going to stare at the wall again this week or can we try to make some progress?"

He rolled his eyes. He hated psychologists almost as much as he hated regular doctors. None of them really understood what the hell was wrong with him anyway and he was tired of being poked and prodded.

"Are you sleeping?"

"Yes."

"In your own room?"

John shifted his feet. Dr Hamilton waited, her pen poised over her notes.

"No." He folded his arms.

"Have you tried sleeping in your room?"

"No."

"Why not?"

John didn't answer.

The doctor sighed and and smiled, her eyes gentle, " I can't help you if you don't let me, you know."

"I'm not sick." John growled, finally letting his eyes meet hers. "I never was."

"John—"

"She's not sick either. She's sad and lonely as fuck. And I—" John shook his head, feeling the aching flair inside him. "I don't know what to do to help her."

"Her?"

His hands clenched into fists. For two years he'd lived with her loneliness inside his soul, like a scar. Sometimes it flared, like a old broken bone aches before a bad storm, and sometimes it was hardly there at all. But he could always feel it—he could always feel her.

"I'm not depressed. I don't have anxiety. I'm mad as hell at my dad, but you'd have to be a damn idiot not to know that—"

"John—"

"I'm not taking your goddamn medicine and I don't want to talk anymore."

"Your mother—"

"My mother doesn't understand shit and neither do you." John knew he was yelling now, but he didn't care. He'd promised himself not to yell at mother and Fanny, but everyone else was fair game. Besides, yelling always made people leave him—and her—alone. "Can I go now?"

Dr Hamilton tilted her head to one side, studying him for a long silent moment, filled with only the grating mechanical tick of the clock on the wall.

"Why did you say 'her'? Who are you talking about?"

John couldn't answer. He hadn't meant to to say anything. The lonely empty place inside of him wasn't him exactly. It was someone else—it was her—whoever she was.

Dr Hamilton leaned forward, "Do you experience strong emotions you know aren't yours?"

John swallowed, his throat suddenly thick. "Yes."

"And they belong to a woman?"

"No," he scowled, his temper flaring again. Maybe he couldn't help her but he could keep her shit private. "We're done."

"You were right," Dr Hamilton closed her notebook and set it aside. "You aren't sick or depressed. I think you're soulmarked."

"Soul-what?"

"You have a soulmate, John." Dr Hamilton said. "The science is a bit vague but simply put, some people's souls are linked in a way that they share emotional trauma. Something happened to her and your soul is experiencing the trauma of that moment. Just like she shares your trauma."

"She— she shares my— " John stood. "You're saying some girl out there is living with the hell my dad left behind because she's stuck with me as a soulmate?"

"She likely felt something when your father passed, but—"

John wasn't listening anymore. He was halfway to his truck before he realized he'd walked out. His mother followed behind him, her eyes boring into his back. But John stayed silent the entire drive home. He ignored her piercing look and unspoken questions, closing the door to his bedroom and turning the lock. He leaned back against it, eyes closed tight, listening to his heartbeat slam in his ears.

It had been almost four years since his father's death. But the constant anger and crippling fear simmered under the surface of John's mind, exploding out at the worst times in the worst ways. He'd told himself it didn't matter. It was his own personal hell and he walked through it alone.

Except—except he wasn't alone.

She knew it all.

John's knees buckled under the weight of relief and regret, and he slid slowly to the floor. He didn't know how long he sat there, breathing slowly, unable to move. Finally, John shifted and stuck his hand between the bed frame and the mattress, pulling out a beat up picture frame. He forced himself to look at it without flinching, trying to hold back the sickening wave of anger boiling out of him.

"I hate you," John said, staring at the picture of his dad. "But I'm going to try not to—for her."

He stood and set the picture on his dresser.

AN: Thanks to ColleenD for suggesting this one. I know the mood is more serious, but I felt I couldn't leave out the two most important events in J&M's lives. Thanks for the follows and reviews.