I unlock the door to a place that is my calmness in the storm of my life. I enter, stepping over the threshold walking slowly to the lamp. I hesitate before I turn it on… knowing that once the light dawns the past will come back full force, once again. In some ways I haven’t missed my home much. Living at the Dimera mansion has afforded me a sense of ignorant bliss… because my past isn’t constantly starring me in the face. Of course John is there, but the history we share isn’t. I sit heavily on the sofa as I glance around the room. I swear that these pictures are mocking me. I think I have placed one on every minuscule empty space. These pictures, whether they might be happy or sad… they tell the story of my life. A story that I fear, will never have a happy ending.
I go to my room and head straight to the closet. I grab his jogging pants and his old and worn jersey out of what I like to call my “memory drawer”. I had to keep something of his to sleep in. Otherwise I knew… I knew would never have another restful night of sleep again. I slip them on and instantly I feel a sense of comfort. Comfort in the fact that I have this material against my skin… material that once hugged his skin so closely. I wander out into the living room once more… and still the pictures mock me. These pictures… each one a memory in a simple black or white frame. I grab the photo album that sits on the coffee table, from the last time I took a solitary stroll down memory lane. The day that Roman callously told me “You have to let him go”. What gives someone the right to say that to another person? What gives someone the right to tell another that they have to let go of the best part of themselves? I am tired of having these kinds of talks with people, people who are my family and friends. People who know that John means everything to me. When John “died” it was the same old line “You have to let him go.” Now all I ever hear from people is, “You have to let the ‘old John’ go, he’s never coming back.“ How do people say that as if its set in stone? We all thought just a few months ago that John had died… it was a FACT! I knew it, I believed it, I held him in my arms when he took his last breath. Yet he is here…living at the Dimera mansion.
I want John to remember more then anything. I guess I try to force his and our memories upon him and I know I shouldn’t do that… but I just can’t help it. He gets so mad at me when I want him to remember something… anything! I guess that is why I was so upset with Sami today, when I found out that she told John of our past together. What gives her the right to tell the story of MY life… a life that I shared with John! Granted she was a part of that life, a very special part… but she didn’t play the lead! I think it just upset me more to find out that John asked her about our past, and not me. At that point it felt as though all the hope I had drained out of me… and I stormed out of the mansion with tears clouding my vision.
I sit back defeated… a heavy sigh escapes from my lips that felt trapped in my chest all day. I slightly open the photo album and all at once… my solitude is invaded. A loud banging on my front door lets me know that peace will once again slip out of my reach. I drag myself to the door cringing as I look out the peephole, seeing what awaits me on the other side. I swing it open heavily.
“What?” He looks me up and down and a grin comes to his face. A grin that I have had the urge to slap off him every time I see it.
“I take it you are going for the… casual look this evening.” Why does he have to be such an ass? It often makes me wonder if that pretentious attitude was specifically implanted by Stefano just to irritate me… or was it a mere side effect.
“Did you want something John?”
“Yes… I wanted to know why you left.”
Ugh… he will never understand. I walk over to the sofa grabbing the photo album and placing it in my lap as I sit. I look over at him as he stands just inside the door… totally indifferent. “I wasn’t interested in the history lesson… especially when it is MY history that is being talked about.”
He comes towards me, but passes me by and sits in the arm chair, starring blankly ahead. “Samantha wasn’t talking about your history… she was telling me about mine.”
How dare he! My blood pressure just shot up one hundred points as I stand abruptly. “News flash… your history IS my history! The last twenty two years of YOUR life IS MY LIFE!”
He turns to look at me… his eyes devoid of emotion. His love for me used to shine in those blue orbs so brightly, and now… now there is nothing there. “You are hardly an… objective observer Blondie. I needed someone to tell me about my life… someone that wouldn’t be bias.” I can’t help the scoff that comes out of my mouth. I get up and walk to the mantle. I gently caress the black frame that holds the memory his beautiful face.
“If an unbiased, objective opinion is what you wanted… well then you defiantly went to the wrong person.”
He turns to face me… is that shock I see on his face? “How can you say that? Sami is your daughter. How can you believe that she would intentionally mislead me about my past life?”
I hate when he says things like that… his past life. “That is precisely why I can say that John… because she IS my daughter. And the majority of her life… has sadly been spent making other people miserable.”
“That’s pretty… harsh don’t you think?”
I don’t know what to say in response to his question. Maybe it is harsh… but I also know that its true. I start to feel trapped standing here… not knowing what to say to the man who used to know what I was thinking, before the words even formulated in my head. I start to pace around the room. “So John tell me, what made you decided all of a sudden that you wanted to know about your past?”
He shrugs his shoulders… just the same as he used to. He walks over to the piano and stares blankly at the faces. Faces that make up part of his history and mine. “I couldn’t sleep…nether could Samantha. She was worrying about the deportation hearing… she needed a distraction. So I asked her to tell me.” I notice him pick up the picture of Sami’s babies, the one she gave me for Christmas… and then quickly set it down as if it has burnt him. “It was actually… kind of refreshing… hearing about my past from her point of view.”
Oh good grief… I can only imagine what she told him. “How exactly was it… refreshing John?”
He turns towards me and smiles as he places his arms behind his back. “It was nice to hear that I wasn’t the saint that everyone makes me out to be.” I knew it… she must have told him about every mistake he has ever made… or she told him things that SHE perceived to be mistakes.
I walk to stand in front of him. “I never said that you were a saint. Of course you made mistakes… we all have, Sami included. That didn’t give her the right to throw yours in your face… especially since you don’t remember the context that surrounded them.”
“I don’t see how it makes any difference. You seem to want me to only remember the good things.”
“NO… I don’t! But YOU seem to want to hear only the BAD things! I don‘t see the purpose in telling you things that have no bearing now… in the present.”
“Well you keep saying that everything is important. Why shouldn’t I know everything that happened in my life.”
“All you had to do was ask me John. I have been trying for months to tell you about us, about your past. And every single time you have shut me down! THAT is what hurts the most about all of this. I want to tell you about our life… our love and all you ever say is that you don‘t care and you don‘t want to remember. How do you think that makes me feel?”
I walk to the mantle behind him. “LOOK…” I turn him around abruptly. “LOOK at these pictures! These pictures… are our life. Our life together and our life apart! These pictures tell the story of your life! These are the faces of your world, protected by a thin piece of glass!” I delicately pick up a picture of Sami and I… taken at a family gathering after she confronted me about my affair with John. I turn to my left showing it to him. “Not everything is as perfect at it seems. See our faces in this picture? Sure we are smiling, and our eyes don’t cry any tears… but we aren’t smiling from happiness. They are smiles to hide the pain John. This was taken not long after Sami told me that she knew… she knew we had an affair.”
I walk to the picture in the center of the mantle… I know I must be smiling from ear to ear. “Ohh but this picture… those smiles are from pure happiness. This is a portrait of my husband… on the day I became his wife! Yes I may sound bias… but John believe me when I tell you, this was one of the happiest days of both our lives.”
I don’t plan it but I grab his hand and guide him to the shelves next to the fireplace. Shelves that are lined with pictures of just the two of us. “These pictures represent it all John. All the YEARS… of trials and struggles that we have been through, just to build a life together. We had to fight every step of the way to be together.”
He bends over and picks up the frame he has been starring at for the past few minutes… a picture of him and his “twinners”. He turns to me… curiosity clouding his eyes. “Why… why do you refer to all of the kids, as our children?”
“Because they are…” I take my hand and cover his chest. “They are OUR children… in our hearts where it counts the most.” I grab a family photo that we had taking at our wedding in 1999. It has all of us in it. John and I, Carrie, Eric, Sami, Brady and Belle. I trace the happy faces with a trembling finger. “That is one of the things that we loved the most about each other. Our ability to love each others children as if they were our own.” He abruptly sets the picture down and goes back to sit in the armchair.
“That’s not exactly how Sami tells it.” I knew this would happen… it was one of the things I feared the most. I sit on the sofa across from him.
“What did she tell you?”
He shrugs yet again. “The truth, as she sees it I suppose.”
“I will be the judge of that. Please tell me what she said.”
“That you loved me… because you thought I was… her father.”
I can’t help it as my eyes roll towards the ceiling. How long will it take before she gets over that misguided notion. I look back to him. “Honey… that is the farthest thing from being the truth.”
He looks at me incredulously. “Come on Blondie don’t sugar coat it. I know that you though I was Roman… you have told me as much.”
I can’t argue that fact. “Yes… I did think that you were Roman. But that’s not WHY I loved you. My thinking that you were Roman… made it possible for me to love you… openly, without regret.”
I can tell that he is confused by the way his eyebrows furrow together. He used to do that often when he asked me to talk about an aspect of my work that he didn’t quite understand… it makes me smile. “I don’t see the difference Blondie.”
“Oh sweetheart… there is a big difference. I loved you long before I though you were Roman. When I first realized I loved you, I actually thought you were Stefano.”
When he raises that eyebrow in shock, my heart just about stopped. I haven’t seen that since… since before he died. “Sami told me that… but I didn’t believe her. You really thought I was Stefano?”
All I can do is nod. “I did! But I loved you and that confused the hell out of me.”
“I can imagine.”
“It wasn’t just that, that upset me. It upset me because I fell in love with you, not long after my husband died. A man that I though I would spend the rest of my life with.” I can’t help the tears that come to my eyes… and the only thing I want is to feel his gentle touch as he wipes them away. I move off the sofa to kneel on the floor between his legs. “Don’t you see John… I loved you long before I believed you to be Roman. But believing that you were Roman let me love you openly… it let me love you without thinking that I was betraying my husband.”
He nods his head tersely signaling that he understands… but I am not sure that he does. He doesn’t seem to believe much of what anyone tells him these days. I stand as he moves out of the arm chair and moves over to the piano. He picks up a frame and stares at it for a moment before he turns to me. “Is this Belle and Brady?”
I walk over to him and glance at the picture. Oh… its one of my favorites. “Yes it is. This was taken at Christmas time.”
He laughs lightly. “Yeah I got that much. They are sitting on Santa’s lap… that kind of gave it away.”
I smile at him happily. Sometimes his dry sense of humor can really make me laugh… but other times it makes me cringe. I glance at him to get his reaction as he runs his finger over our faces in the photo.
“We… we look happy in this picture. Were we?”
I draw a deep breathe… these are the moments that I hate to relieve… the moments when were weren’t together. But beggars can’t be choosers. He is finally seeming to take an interest in our past… I can’t leave bits and pieces out just because some of them might be unpleasant or awkward. “We were happy to be there, together with the children. But actually you and I weren’t together as a couple when this picture was taken.”
He looks so confused, I hate to see that puzzled almost childlike look on his face. It makes me ache for him. “If we weren’t a couple… then why are we kissing?”
Again, I can’t help but smile. “The photographer suggested it.”
He nods appreciatively at me then turns to the picture again. “Well… I guess he saw something between us that we didn’t realize at the time.”
If only that were true. How do I tell him that I realized that we belonged together, long before that picture was taken? I don’t think I will… I don’t want to confuse or hurt him. I am sure Sami told him enough of the bad things that happened between us.
~~~~~
It has been over two hours and we are still here, together, looking at pictures. We are sitting on the sofa looking at the photo album. Is it just my imagination or is he actually interested? He has asked me about EVERY picture we have looked at. When was it taken, where was it taken, why it was taken. Maybe I owe Sami a ‘thank you’ after all. It seems that she has pique his curiosity in a way that hasn’t been possible up to this point.
After I thought John had died I had made it my mission to go through all of our pictures and put them in albums, so in those times that I ached for him and I wanted to remember… the memories were easily accessible. John reaches over to the table and picks up the last album I made before Stefano decided to bring my husband back from the dead… Belle’s wedding album. I don’t know what this emotion is that is coursing through me right now… but it forces me to snatch the album from his grasp.
“That one doesn’t… it doesn’t have any… pictures of you in it.”
“Is it from when you were married to Roman Brady? The real Roman Brady I mean.”
“No its… Belle’s wedding album.”
“Well let me see them. I am Dink’s father after all, right?”
“It’s Tink… you call her Tink John.”
“Whatever.” Ugh… I hate when he says that too. He smirks at me and takes it out of my grasp. He flips through the pictures not really showing any emotions. If this was MY John sitting here he would have a beaming smile on his face and tears in his eyes, this John seems as if he could care less. He finishes his perusal and hands the book to me.
“Well it seems as though TINK had a great wedding, with or without me.”
This man sitting next to me is infuriating. I stand immediately and look down at him, my eyes are no doubt shoot daggers. “Why do you say things like that!”
He remains completely impassive. “Like what?”
“Things that are so completely cold… and hurtful.”
“I was just stating a fact.”
“Well here is a FACT for you… you don’t KNOW anything! Remember what I told you earlier? Not everything is as perfect at it seems. You have no IDEA what that day was like and you have no IDEA how we felt. It tore Belle apart to walk down that isle without her father! It tore my heart out watching our little girl get married without my husband there by my side! I was so deep in my grief I felt like I was loosing my MIND!” Oh I am so tired of crying… my eyes ache from it. And my heart aches even more, because if my husband were here he would be wiping my tears away. This man is just sitting here… starring at me.
“You don’t care… do you?” I am so frustrated that I can’t help but walk around the living room in a fit of anger, waving my hands frantically at all the pictures. “You don’t care about any of this! You don’t care that each one of these pictures represents something! You don’t care about the life we built together, or the love we have shared!”
Still he just stares at me. I just can’t do this anymore.
“You know what John… you were right.”
“About what exactly.”
“About the fact that I have to let it go. I have to let go of the idea that my husband is coming back to me. I have to realize that YOU are NOTING like the man I love. Because the man that I love could never be this hurtful, and uncaring. He couldn’t sit by and watch when someone he loved was in pain. I have to accept the fact that you are not him, and you never will be. I have to accept the fact that all you will ever be… is what Stefano made you.”
John instantly grabs his coat and goes to the door… he rushes out and leaves it open in his wake. I am not sure if I should go after him… but it’s a moot point when I walk over to the door and see that he has already disappeared. I close the door and sag heavily against it. Oh… what have I done? I walk over to the mirror on the wall and stare at my reflection in disbelief. I don’t even recognize myself anymore. I guess Stefano finally succeeded. He took away my soul mate, then brought him back, in the forum of a man that I wouldn’t even recognize were it not for the fact that he is in my husbands body. I finally understand Stefano’s purpose… he wanted me to turn John away. Stefano wanted me to despise the man in my husbands body… so I would be forced to walk away and grieve for my husband all over again. “God I HATE YOU STEFANO!”
I hurt John with what I said. I could see it in his eyes. Eyes that are normally devoid of emotions… where suddenly filled with such hurt. I wanted to take it back as soon as I said it… but the words never came, and then he left. Oh… what have I done? I may never get him to understand what I was feeling when I said those hurtful words. We were making progress tonight, I know we were… and now I have probably blown it. Because of my thoughtless and hurtful comments he probably won’t even want to speak to me again. And I will be left with nothing but the memory of my husband… and these damned pictures on the wall.
The Jarlena Journal 