A Time in Heaven (17 page)

Katie nodded her head, “Maybe under the aspen tree outside the lodge.  Then
,
when we watch the sun go down, Matthew will be with us too
.”

Jesse
sorrowfully
agreed as he carefully took the baby from beside Katie and laid him ever so gently on a blanket at the foot of their bed.

He told Katie that he was going to go take care of things.  He asked if she would be alright if he was gone for a few minutes.  Katie just nodded.
She turned over and cried into her pillow.

Jesse went downstairs and found a wooden box with a lid.  He used some clean linens to line the box.  Then
,
he folded a towel and put
it
into the bottom.  He found the shovel leaning against the lodge just outside the back door.
  The idea of putting
h
is infant son in the ground was too much for Jesse.  He sat on the stoop and cried like he had never cried before – not even when his father had died. He pulled himself together before he carried the box up to the bedroom.

Whe
n she saw the box, Katie wailed and picked up Matthew. She held
on to the
baby
looking like she would never let him go
. Jesse
told her that it was time to say
goodbye
to Matthew.  She
looked tearfully at Jesse then she
kissed the baby’s
little head and reluctantly handed him to Jesse.  He
laid
their son
into the box and went to Katie.  He held her until she fell asleep from exhaustion.

Jesse took the tiny coffin downstairs.  He too kissed the little one’
s head.  “Goodbye, little buddy.  Know that your mother and I love you very much.  We’ll never forget you, Matthew.”

He
put the lid on the box
, making sure that it was tight
.  He too
k
the little coffin
out
side
to the aspen
tree
.  Th
ere he dug a small hole and buried his son.  He
sat on the ground and cried.  It started to snow softly on the earth blanketing Matthew Danvers.

When Jesse returned to Katie
, she
was still
asleep.  He stood by the bed looking at her, thinking about how the loss of their child was his fault.  He remembered the times that he was so rough with Katie, like when he threw her into the snow. 
And all those heavy boxes that she carried when they moved to the lodge.  Jesse
thought that it was he who should have carried them. He gasped as h
is mind went to how hard he had tried to father a child with his other wives.  The doctor
s
had told him that his sperm count was extremely low. 
To Jesse, that must have meant there was something wrong with him – something that probably had something to do with the death of Matthew.

Jesse sat on the bed beside Katie.  H
e took her in his arms.  He thought that
it might be the last time
. S
he would surely blame him for causing Matthew’s death.  He cried for himself as the reality
over took him
that he had lost his career, his son and for sure the woman beside him that he loved so dearly.

Sadness overshadowed everything Katie and Jesse did the next several days.  Katie slowly started to feel better physically.  She would get up in the mornings and go
through
the motions of keeping busy.  Jesse wanted her to stay in bed and rest, but she told him that staying in bed would just give her time to think.  She would rather stay busy.

Katie worried about Jesse.  He was so quiet. 
He saw that Katie’s needs were met, but then he would go off by himself. He seemed to be
was drifting away from her.  She feared he was heading into a very dark place.  It scared her.

Christmas Eve
morning, Jesse told Katie that he and Sadie were
going for
a walk.  When they returned, he had brought back a small pine tree.  It made Katie smile for the first time since the miscarriage.
Jesse could see no reason to celebrate the birth of a child when his
own
son was lying in the cold ground never to laugh or feel the warmth of the sun.
But for Katie, he pasted
half
a smile on his face.  They spent the afternoon making simple ornaments for the tree
and decorating it
.  There was no joy in what they were doing.

It made Katie sad to see Jesse like this.  Christmas was
his favorite holiday. She watched as he rejected the whole idea of Christmas.
But she loved him for putting on the “happy face” for her.

Christmas morning was pretty much like all other mornings recently except they both
wished each other half-hearted
“Merry Christmas”.  Katie
decided she
wanted to cook them a decent dinner.  Jesse said that she didn’t need to, but she insisted.  The menu she
planned
included a canned ham, mashed pot
atoes and green beans.  Jesse se
t the table.  Unlike the fancy spread he set at Thanksgiving,
he just put out the dinnerware on the table in the dining room.  There
were
no extra candles.  They ate
almost in
silence.  Before headi
ng for bed, the
y
finished the Than
ksgiving bottle of wine.

Later,
as
t
hey
lay in bed in each other’s arms,
Jesse sof
tly sang a verse of “White Christmas
” to Katie. As the snow softly fell outside
, they
fell asleep.

The next morning Jesse was up before dawn
taking down the tree.  He threw
it in the gully with the other garbage.  He was more than
relieved
that Christmas was over.
He sat on the steps outside the lodge and cried again.  Guilt and sorrow had overtaken him.
Patterns from long ago snuck into his head.  Alcohol had eased his pain back then, maybe if he could find some liquor he could feel better now

When Katie came downstairs, she was shocked to see the tree was gone.  It was like Christmas had never happened.
She sat in the lobby and cried.  She cried for her small son and for Jesse.  She had never felt such sadness.
As she sat in the lodge, she thought how she had never felt so alone either.  She needed Jesse, but he just wasn’t there for her.

Over the next few days, Katie
gradually
began
to deal with the loss of Matthew. 
She still had moments when she would just start to cry.
Crying actually made her feel better.  She also saw a change in Jesse.  She wasn’t sure if it was a positive thing. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought he was
drinking.  She knew that wasn’t possible since they had finished the one bottle of wine that she had found in the store.

But Jesse was drinking. H
e had found the liquor that was stored behind some shelves in the store.  He figured it had to be somewhere.  No one ever heard of a dry fishing camp
,
so he
had
set out to find the stash.
He
discover
ed
several cases of cheap whiskey
kept behind some of the shelves in the store
.  It didn’t matter the vintage.  He just wanted the pain to go away. 
In
his
mind
,
his
world
was slipping away
– his career, his son and the woman in his life; again.  Surely she would blame him for the death of their
son;
he did. What was he thinking making her carry all those boxes from the cabin and pushing her in the
snow?
  But more likely his
own genes caused the miscarriage.  When Katie realizes it
,
she will
hate
him. He couldn’t stand
the idea of
being alone again.
So he
avoided
her as much as he could. He wasn’t going to give her the opportunity to say the words he knew were coming.

New Year’s Eve came without warning. It was also
Jesse’s birthday
, but there was no joy in the day for him.

Katie had made him a cake thinking that it might c
heer him up a little
.  She
knew that he was
having
a really hard time dealing with the miscarriage. 
It troubled her
that he wouldn’t talk to her about it.  The more
she pressured
him to talk the further
he pulled away.
Katie could
see him sliding deeper into a
very
dark place. 
She feared that she wouldn’t be able to pull him back to her.

That day,
Jess
e
decided that he couldn’t go on evading
Katie.
He took a couple of drinks from the bottle he had hidden in the store, before he went to find her.

Katie was napping on the couch when Jesse gently nudged her awake.  He sat down beside her as set sat up.
He
tried
to tell her
how he
felt
but words would fail him.
He wanted to help her get through her pain and sadness.
He wanted them to share in the grief.
He wanted Katie to know that he took the blame
for the loss
of their
son
. There was so much to say, h
e
just
couldn’t find the words he needed
.
  So he just kept quiet.
Jesse felt so lost.
Only the whiskey
seemed to help
.
He got up and
went toward
the dining room
.

Confused, Katie went to the kitchen to finish
frosting
Jesse’s
cake. She
brought it
to the dining room
enthusiastically
saying, “Happy Birthday!
”
 
But, he
wasn’t there. She
put the cake down and
went to find him
.  She found him alright. He was in the store pouring himself another drink.
He turned to greet Katie.
“
Wish me Happy
Birthday,
Babe!” He held his glass in the air as if he were making a
toast.

Katie knocked the glass from his hand and slapped his face.  “What the hell are you doing?”

“Celebrating my birthday,” he said slurring his words.

Katie was furious.  How dare he fall into his old way of handling
stress?
When Jesse’s second marriage fell apart, he had started drinking heavily.  It was pretty much w
hy his music career declined.  But,
up until
now, s
he h
ad thought he had been able to keep the drinking
under control – so had Jesse.

“I’m going to bed now,” Katie abruptly ann
ounced
and turned toward the stairs
.
Jesse started to follow her.  She turned and angrily said
, “
You are not welcome in my bed until all the alcohol in this place is gone.
Every drop!  Do you hear me, Jesse Danvers? I will not sleep with a drunk.
”

She called for Sadie and
then stomped upstairs. Jesse heard her slam the bedroom door.

“See there, J
esse my boy.  You lost your career, you lost your son and now you’ve lost your lady.  Not much to hang around for, is there?”
Jesse downed two more shots of whiskey before staggering to the couch in the lobby. 
He took
off his shirt a
nd one boot
before
he
passed out
on the couch
. He was
lying face down with one arm and both legs hanging off
the couch.

Katie woke up in the middle of the night. She was freezing
and could see her breath
. 
She wrapped herself in a blanket and headed downstairs, where it was even colder.  She saw Jesse
,
half
naked
,
hanging off
the couch.
He looked like he would slide off at any second.
  He had left a candle burning on the coffee table. She was annoyed that he had presented a fire
haza
rd to them, but at least she could see.