To Everything, There Is A Season

Chapter 34

Meryl was looking at her script for Sophie's Choice and just couldn't look at it anymore. She went from working on her Polish to practicing it with the script. She set her glasses on the desk she shared with her husband in their apartment office and looked at the time on the clock hanging on the wall. "My boys should be home soon. Enough work for now." As excited as she was to get back to acting, she as well as Don and Henry were still healing from the effects of everything that happened and she still wanted to be around them as much as possible. As she turned off the lights in the office she started towards the living room when she heard their doorbell ring. "Did he forget his key? That's unlike him?" Meryl wondered to herself about her husband. Figuring it was her husband and son, Meryl ran to the door and didn't even bother to look through the peephole and was shocked to see who was on the other side. "Sigourney?"

"Alone at last." Sigourney said holding a gun to Meryl's chest as she pushed her back into the apartment. "Where's my Don Man?"

Meryl cringed that Sigourney used the name for her husband that she did. "Don is MY husband, and you better get out of here before he sees you. I won't be able to calm him down if he sees you near me."

"This is what we're going to do." Sigourney said pressed the gun into Meryl's back and leading her into the office. "You are going to write him a letter telling him you're leaving him."

Meryl shook her head as tears streamed down her face. "Like hell, I will. He'll know that will never happen."

"Then you'll have to make it convincing, won't you?" Sigourney pressed the gun harder in Meryl's back as she pushed her to the desk with their backs to the door. "I know where he and your son are. They're having fun playing in the sandbox at the park. Don sure looks handsome in those tight jeans, flip flops, and blue polo. He always looked so handsome in blue; and boy I love the way his chest looks in that shirt. Then there's Henry in his own little polo like his daddy and cargo shorts. I'd hate to have to hurt them all because you didn't do what I said."

Meryl happened to look up and saw Don's reflection at the doorway in the mirror on the wall. She prayed that Sigourney didn't see him. She saw him make a signal to her to be quiet and also him mouthing to her he loved her. The tears were pouring down from her eyes as she reached for a pen and paper. "Please don't hurt them, please. I'll do anything, but Don won't believe I left him. He's going to look for me."

"Not when you're dead." Sigourney hissed in Meryl's ear, not knowing Don was inching up behind her. "I will be the one making love to him in your bedroom. I'll be the putting your son to bed. It will be me he wants."

Don couldn't stand it anymore, he turned Sigourney around to stop her, not expecting the gun to go off into his stomach. "Mer!" He gasped. "RUN...TAKE...HEN...RY!"

"DDDDDOOOOOONNNNNN!!!!!!" Meryl screamed when she saw her husband bleeding out and collapse to the floor. "NO!! DON!"

****

"Don, no!" Meryl cried in her sleep as she thrashed around in the makeshift double hospital bed she was sharing with her husband. "Don't die! Don't you dare die on me."

Don woke up to feel his wife thrashing around in bed next to him, sobbing in her sleep and screaming for him not to die. He immediately sat up and brought her into his arms, not caring that he barely had the strength after the day he had; at that moment all that mattered was his wife, calming her down and making sure she was alright. "Baby, wake up. I am right here. You are in my arms. I am safe. You are safe. Come on, Darl, wake up for me."

"Don." Meryl sobbed as her eyes fluttered open and she realized she was in his arms. She looked up to find the incredibly beautiful, but worried eyes, of her husband staring back at her. Her hand gravitated to his chest, over his heart, and she cried even harder while she placed kisses all over his face as she felt the strong beat of his heart. "I can feel it, I can feel your heart."