Story: Phoenix
Chapter 20
Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
Previously: Jed took a swing at Frankie Crews, but was restrained by bailiffs; Mike tried to calm Jed's temper; Jed confronted Abbey about leaving him out of her decision to encourage the plea bargain; Abbey admitted she regrets the actions that led to Zoey's premature birth
Summary: Jed and Abbey continue to argue; Abbey's father urges her to give Jed a break; Ellie's tantrum breaks Abbey's heart
AN: Thanks again for the feedback! It means a lot!
On the verge of a meltdown, Abbey dabbed at her eyes with a dry tissue as she gathered her composure. "I should have listened to you. That day...you told me not to go with you to Ellie's school. You told me you'd handle it. I should have trusted you. I shouldn't have gone. If I hadn't...God, Jed, I should have listened. I should have listened to you."
Abbey didn't know what she expected from him in response. Maybe a warm smile or a gentle hand on her shoulder. Maybe just a softened tone or a whisper to affirm that it wasn't her fault. But that isn't what she got.
Instead, Jed paused to collect his thoughts then looked directly into her eyes. With an unforgiving tone, he asked, "Why didn't you?"
Her first reaction was one of disbelief. There was no doubt that Jed had lost patience with her. His drawn features mapped his exhaustion while his eyes screamed betrayal. Abbey stood motionless, her lips moving to form some kind of sound, but her vocal cords uncooperative, leaving her speechless.
How could she answer that question? How could she look at her husband and explain the tumultuous emotions churning inside her? How could he understand?
"What?" she finally asked, her voice soft and demure.
"Why didn't you?" Jed asked again. "Why didn't you listen to me? When I told you that I would take care of it, when I begged you to trust me, why didn't you do it?"
"It wasn't about trust." To Abbey, it really wasn't. It was about so much more. She had been victimized by a psychopath and just the thought that her daughter could have been in a similar situation at school provoked the unyielding motherly instincts that drove her to defy Jed's request.
"No, it wasn't about trust." It was an involuntary reaction really, the sarcasm that defined his anger and clogged the path towards a reasonable, productive discussion.
"It wasn't."
"Then what was it, Abbey? If it wasn't about trust, if you trusted me to handle things, then WHY did you put yourself in the line of fire? Why did you show up at Ellie's school?"
"I had to. I had to know. I had to see it for myself...to hear her teacher explain what was happening."
"I would have come home and told you. Why wasn't that enough?"
"Because you have no idea what was going through my mind, Jed!" He wasn't the only one who had lost patience. Her temper at the brink of eruption, Abbey surrendered to the seething cauldron of pain that kept her stomach tied in knots. "I know I shouldn't have done it, but you have no idea how I felt imagining that someone...I mean, I know you were upset too, but for me, it was...different. It was..."
He gave her a few seconds to resume her thought, and when she didn't, he calmy replied, "Tell me."
Abbey took a deep breath. She hadn't shared these feelings with anyone, for sharing them aloud would mean she'd have to admit them and she just wasn't ready for that. With guarded vulnerability and trepidation, she began. "I was scared for Ellie. The thought of her being hurt ripped me apart and that wasn't even the worst part, Jed. The worst part was that little voice inside my head that kept whispering 'what if it's him? what if he got to her?'"
"Him, as in the man who attacked you?"
"Yes."
He was listening. There was no doubt that Jed was listening. But his curiosity didn't subside. It didn't lessen with her words. "And what did you think you could do that I couldn't?"
"You're not understanding. The notion that this psychopath got his hands on Ellie...I wanted to be there, to see him. I wanted to meet him. I had to. Even if it wasn't the person who came after me, I had to see the face of the man who might have hurt my daughter. I couldn't depend on you to tell me what he looked like. I couldn't depend on your description. I had to see him."
"Let me get this straight. You walked into that school, thinking that you might come face to face with the bastard who nearly killed you and you didn't even tell me?" The revelation only confirmed what Jed had been saying all along. It validated his anger. "You were pregnant!"
"And I made an unbelievable mistake, one that I will blame myself for until the day I die." She needed so badly to hear him say something, anything, that would soften the jagged edges of her deep-rooted guilt. But when he didn't say anything, she answered for him. "...and so will you."
"I never said this was your fault."
"You didn't have to. Your actions are deafening." She couldn't fault him really. Her love for one child overshadowed her concern for the other and, as a result, their youngest daughter was barely clinging to life. Of course he blamed her. How could he not?
"My actions?" He was surprised, to say the least. He was upset that she put herself and Zoey in jeopardy, but he was there, in that delivery room, the day Abbey went into labor. After seeing what he had seen, the lengths she went to to prevent an ill-fated birth, condemning her for what she did wasn't even an option.
Abbey swallowed past the lump in her throat. It was time to come clean, time to confront the emotional barrier that stood in their way. "The way you talk to me, the way you dismiss the tension that's been building between us since Zoey was born."
"That's because you've been shutting me out, Abbey! That tension was there every time you made a decision without me and it only grew after Zoey was born. That day we went to see her in the NICU, right after you had her..."
"What about it?"
"The doctors rushed over to you and you stood there and spoke to them for 40 minutes, going over options, telling them what we'd consent to and what we wouldn't. You didn't even bother to ask for my opinion. You didn't even explain to me what was going on!"
"I was going through Hell! I wasn't thinking straight!"
"And were you thinking straight when you consciously chose to keep me in the dark about Frank Crews's plea bargain?"
Abbey leaned back against the counter, her eyes widening in acknowledgment. This was the crux of the issue, not only for Jed, but for her as well. "I should have said something to you. I should have warned you."
"When you told Mike that you were comfortable with the plea, you basically said that what Frank Crews did to you didn't matter. What he did to this family made no difference."
"That isn't what I said. Don't manipulate the situation."
"Manipulate the situation?" he shouted as he spun around her to the other side to watch her as she crossed in front of him. "I'm not manipulating the situation, Abbey. I'm pointing out the facts."
"So am I! I had to tell Mike to do it. I couldn't stand the possibility that I might have to face this man in court. I couldn't get up on the witness stand and testify. Do you have any idea what his lawyer would say? How he'd try to find a lapse in my memory? And he'd succeed, Jed. My memories of that night still aren't crystal clear. He'd turn everything around and somehow, I'd be the traumatized weakling who's framing an innocent man because I can't REMEMBER. And Frank Crews? He'd walk."
"He'd walk," Jed sputtered dismissively.
"Yes. He'd walk. That was a very real scenario, Jed. He could have gotten off scot-free. Then what?"
"Then at least we'd know that we did what we could to put him behind bars."
"At what price? Our sanity? Public humiliation? At least this way, we're assured he'll get some jail time. I wanted that assurance. I needed it. I needed to know that I finally had control. He took my power away the night he attacked me. I wasn't going to let him do it again."
"He took it away from me too," Jed mumbled. "What he did to you, he did to me."
"Not exactly."
"Don't you understand? What happens to you, happens to me. You may bear the physical scars of the attack, but I'm suffering the mental ones right along with you."
Of course he was, Abbey acknowledged. She knew that Jed felt responsible for not being there to tear her out of Frank's clutches. He had told her that long ago. But somewhere between relieving him of what he considered marital failure and forging ahead to regain a sense of independence and normalcy, she had neglected the turmoil he struggled with every single day.
Abbey once told her sister that to know Jed Bartlet was to know his soul. His heart was clearly open with one stolen glance into his sapphire-colored eyes. In those expressive orbs, his emotions sat on display. She was reminded of that as she stared at him now.
This was his anguish. The remorse, as well as the fury, that punctured his spirit was exposed by the thin layer of stagnant tears that stubbornly refused to trail down his cheeks. She could comprehend his torment, if only he could comprehend hers.
"It's not the same," she said softly as she extended her hand to touch him, quickly retracting the gesture when she heard her name.
"Abbey." Jed and Abbey both turned to see James standing in the entryway.
"Dad, everything is okay."
"No, it isn't," James replied. "I can hear that it isn't and frankly, so can your daughters. Elizabeth's been listening to portions of this argument for the better part of twenty minutes now."
Jed relaxed his hands on the counter and shuffled his feet below as he faced Abbey. He could see the regret seeping through the colorful remnants of distress painted on her face. Dark smudges under her eyes marked her pale skin with evidence of fatigue while the vibrant red streaks across her nose and cheeks slowly dulled as she regained some composure.
He wanted to comfort her, to take away her hurt and assure her of his unconditional love. But now wasn't the time. There was still more to discuss before he could let go of the animosity, and with her parents and their daughters only a few feet away, that wasn't going to happen.
Instead, he draped his coat over his arm and headed towards the front door. "I need some fresh air."
"Where are you going?" Abbey asked.
"I don't know." He threw her a final glance, one reflective of the hostility that ravaged his calmer sensibilities, and with a turn of the knob and a dismal click of the latch, he was gone.
James cautiously stepped forward as Abbey remained glued to her spot. "Your mother is giving Ellie a bath. She's going to want you to read to her afterwards."
"Okay." She turned to face her father, but her eyes absently fell to the floor.
"At some point, you should talk to Lizzie. She's confused about what's going on."
"She isn't the only one." Abbey had been grappling with questions of her own, trying desperately to pinpoint the cause of the growing distance between her and Jed, the exact moment they took a shocking detour from the tranquility of the months before. Was it Zoey's birth? Or had they never fully recovered from the night a maniac named Frankie entered their lives?
"Why didn't you fight a plea bargain, Abbey? After what that man did..."
"Dad, I really don't want to get into this with you," she warned, her hands raised to quiet him.
"You're scared." Abbey scoffed as she walked around him, dismissing the assertion with a roll of her eyes. "Abigail, what are you scared of?"
"I just don't want to go to court. Why can't anyone accept that?" She picked up the milk carton Jed had left on the counter and approached the fridge.
"It doesn't make sense. You're a fighter. You've always been a fighter."
"I'm TIRED of fighting!" She dropped the carton to the ground, watching helplessly as milk splashed over the tile. "Damn it!"
"It's okay." James covered her shaky hands, holding them in his to lead her out of the kitchen. His soothing touch seemed to relax her almost instantly.
"I have to clean that up."
"I'll take care of it." He guided her towards the living room, but she escaped his hold before he could sit her down.
"I just want to forget that awful night happened."
"That's part of the problem. Ever since it happened, you've been trying to forget it, and you did a pretty good job for several months. But Jed - he can't forget. He doesn't want to forget. Because to him, it was more than just the initial assault. To him, it was an attack on his family. He nearly lost his wife, not just that night, but in the months afterwards."
Abbey clenched her eyes shut while she furiously massaged her forehead trying to demolish her frustration with every irritated rub. "I know."
"He would move Heaven and Earth for you. He would give his own life if he could save yours. But in this situation, he was completely powerless."
"I know," she repeated as she allowed her hands to fall to her side.
"Then maybe you could give him a break and try to understand why he's so upset that the man who started all this won't get what's coming to him."
Give him a break. That's what he urged her to do. That's what she wanted to do. But opening the lines of communication wasn't just her responsibility. Jed suffered a different kind of violation the night that Abbey was attacked and though a careless admission of anger occasionally slipped through the cracks in his armor, he kept his rage pretty well guarded, at least from her. At the time, all that mattered was Abbey's recovery. But now, after unmasking the face of the sinister phantom, the thoughts of revenge that had been pushed to the backburner were exploding out of him with an intensity Abbey didn't expect.
"I'll talk to Jed when he comes home. But I can't fix this alone."
"No one's suggesting you should."
"Mommy!" Ellie ran down the hallway and turned sharply towards the living room. Her shiny curls bounced against the top of her pink pajamas. "I'm ready!"
Abbey smiled at the little girl's exuberant energy. "Did Grandma dry your hair?"
"Uh huh. And I brushed my teeth and said my prayers!"
James returned his daughter's inquisitive stare with an encouraging nod. "Go ahead. I'll clean up the milk."
She graciously mouthed a 'thank you' in appreciation, then followed her young daughter into her bedroom, closing the door behind them.
Ellie immediately rushed towards the bookshelf. It had been so long since her mother had read to her, that she spent several minutes just gazing at the spines, searching for the perfect story. She touched her index finger to her chin - a move she learned from Abbey - while pondering her choices.
"This one," she announced as she pulled out The Velveteen Rabbit. "And this one." She yanked on the top of Green Eggs and Ham.
"Just one, Sweetie."
"I want two."
"It's late and I'm really tired."
"Please, can we read two?" Ellie tilted her head to the side as her brows wrinkled with her plea. It was a look Abbey could never resist.
"Okay, bring two."
Ellie took a step in her mother's direction, then retreated back to bookshelf. "Three."
"Ellie."
"One more. That's all." She teetered on the tips of her toes as she reached for her favorite, Goodnight Moon. But before turning away from the books, she pulled out a fourth choice - Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes.
"Ellie, that's enough. Put the fourth one back."
"Please," she pleaded as she turned towards Abbey.
"Not tonight. It's late and you have to go to bed."
"No I don't."
"Yes, you do. Now put it back."
"Pleeeeeaaaassssse."
"Eleanor." Ellie remained still, unwilling to relinquish the four books she was cradling in her arms. "Fine, then you can go to sleep without a story tonight."
"No." It wasn't a strong declaration or even a whine. It was a mellow response that curbed the sheer hysteria brewing beneath her beautiful blue-green eyes.
"Come on, get into bed." Abbey held out her hand, expecting Ellie to take it. Ellie refused. "Ellie, get into bed now. I'm not going to tell you again."
"No."
"You don't want to have this fight with me tonight. Now get into bed!"
Ellie turned away from her mother and braced her hands on the frame of her bookshelf. Abbey looked on quizzically before she realized what was happening. Ellie's little body was quivering under a wave of tears.
She approached from behind her and lifted her up into her arms. Initially, Ellie fought back, kicking at Abbey's waist and beating down on her shoulders with her tiny fists, but after a few seconds, she relaxed into a comforting embrace.
"I don't wanna go to sleep," she cried, her voice muffled by Abbey's sweater.
"Then let's just talk for a minute, okay?" Abbey sat down on the edge of the mattress, holding Ellie tightly against her. "Why don't you want to go to sleep?"
"I just don't."
"Why not?" Ellie's behavior startled Abbey. So eager to please, the five-year-old rarely threw tantrums and had never acted out in pure rebellion. "Sweetheart, tell me why you don't want to go to sleep."
Ellie sniffled as she raised her head from Abbey's shoulder. Her long, dark lashes soaking up her tears, she replied, "Because when I wake up, it'll be morning and you'll be gone again."
The words hit Abbey like a stab to the heart. This is what Jed had been talking about, what he had been warning for so long. "Oh, Ellie."
Gut-wrenching sobs racked Ellie's body, causing her to tremble nervously against Abbey's chest as she tried to talk in between labored breaths. "I don't...wanna...go to...sleep."
"What if I'm not gone when you wake up?" Abbey asked, gently stroking the top of her daughter's head. "What if I stay right here with you until you're fully awake?"
Her tone deepened as her cries eased into softened whimpers. "Really?"
"Really." Ellie began to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand, but Abbey pulled it away, replacing the little girl's fingers with her own. "What if we wake up together tomorrow morning and you help me cook breakfast? We'll make banana pancakes just the way you like them."
"We will?"
"You bet we will."
"Okay."
After clearing her tears, Abbey twirled her fingers around Ellie's springy curls. "In the meantime, will you do me a favor?"
"Yeah."
Abbey laughed. "You don't even know what it is."
"That's okay." Loyal to a fault, Ellie would pretty much agree to anything.
"Your dad's not here and I wanted to lay down for a little while, but I'm going to be so lonely all by myself. Will you sleep next to me tonight to keep me company?"
"Yeah!" Sleeping in her parents' bed was always a special treat, but tonight, it was especially important that Ellie know her mother was laying beside her.
Abbey reached down to pick up the four books Ellie had dropped. She handed two of the books to the five-year-old and held the other two in her own arms as she tightened her grip around her daughter and stood up to leave the room.
TBC