Endings and Beginnings

Chapter 22

Meryl reached out in her sleep and frowned that Don was no longer in bed with her. She squinted to get her eyes to focus as she looked at the clock on the nightstand by their bed in their hotel suite in Indianapolis they were staying in; and realized she must not have been asleep long since the twins last feeding. She looked towards the bathroom and it was dark and the door was open. It was way too early for him to be getting ready for the day anyway. After getting up and checking on their babies in the bassinet, Meryl gave each of them a kiss, and went to see where her husband disappeared to.

***

Don was sitting on the sofa in the sitting room looking at his driver's license, with lots of thoughts swirling around in his head, when he heard his favorite voice. "There you are."

"Hi, Darl." He looked up with a small smile. "I hope I didn't wake you up; I was trying to be quiet so I didn't disturb the three of you."

Meryl shook her head as she went over and sat next to him on the couch, kissing his forehead and then running her fingers through his curly hair. "You didn't; I just missed the warmth of your body."

"Is that so?" Don asked as he put his ID down.

Meryl nodded as she continued to run her fingers through his hair. "What are you doing out here staring at your ID? You seemed a million miles away."

"Can I ask you something, M?" Don asked seriously as he turned towards her.

Meryl knew that tone. She knew that look. She couldn't have been married to him for 34 years and not have known what that look and tone meant when used together; it was a look she often saw when they were in Indianapolis. She had a feeling it was about James. Meryl tenderly kissed his lips. "You can ask me anything you want; you know that, baby."

"I do." Don tried to smile. "How come you no longer call me by my full legal name? No one does. You used to; but you don't anymore. You haven't for years. When you first stopped using my full name and you would accidentally say my middle name every so often, I could see the look in your eyes that you had slipped; it looked like your heart broke when you did that. I didn't want to bring it up and upset you..."

Meryl shook her head as she placed her fingers on his lips. "You can talk to me about ANYTHING. Honestly, I couldn't bring myself to say your name and his in the same breath anymore; in the same sentence. He didn't deserve you; you were, you ARE, too damned good to be equated to him. You are 1,000 times the man he ever even thought of being. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of sharing a name with you. You are too good to have that fucker's name. You are the best person I know, and he is on the list of the worst person I know; and I couldn't say those two names together. You didn't deserve all the shit he did to you; and I was afraid that when I would call you by your middle name then it would bring everything up; and I could never be the cause of your pain."

"You NEVER have been the cause of my pain." Don choked as he wiped away a few stray tears that rolled down her cheek. "You are why I got through all his fucking shit. You saved me from him, Mary Louise."

Meryl wasn't expecting this conversation tonight. "You save me every single day of our lives together. Sweetheart, why are you just now asking me this? I hope you know you can ask, or talk to, me about anything, ANYTIME. Even if you have to wake me up."

"I do know that." Don smiled. "I have always known that. I don't know; it's just with the wedding and everything I thought about it. I thought about him. We said this is a new beginning for all of us and there has been something on my mind. I just didn't know how you would feel about it. I didn't know how Mom would feel about it; but to be honest I'm less worried about how she would feel about it than anything."