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Bo's Journey Home - Chapter 30 Bo and Nora sat in silence in the car. Neither one looked at the other, their handcuffed wrists as far apart as the length of the links would allow. Nora knew the driver had returned; the car was on the move again. She darted her eyes over at Bo. His face was turned slightly away from her towards the tinted window so that she could only see his profile. But she knew him well enough to see from his profile that he was deep in thought. She heaved a sigh and decided to break the silence. “So where are we going? I can’t see out these tinted windows so I have no idea where we are.”   Bo glanced over her. “For a ride. You’ve been telling me for weeks you want to talk. Here’s your chance. So talk. I’m listening.”   His smug attitude had her dander back up. “You want to talk?” she asked him, a little angrily, a little sarcastically. She pressed her lips together, gathering her thoughts. “Okay then. Let’s start with you storming out of my house the other night, full of anger; disappearing for days, no phone calls, and no contact. Then, you show up today, in your father’s limo, let yourself into my house, manipulate my son,” She held up their arms, “handcuff and kidnap me; and now you sit there and say you want to listen to what I have to say?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so, mister. I think you need to talk first.” She starting to fold her arms across her chest, but feeling his wrist attached to hers, she dropped her handcuffed arm down between them and stared over at him. “I’m listening.”   “First of all,” he began, his voice raised, a little angry at her insinuations. “I did not manipulate our son. Having him side with me helped, but I did not manipulate him. And you better get into the habit of thinking of him as OUR son, not just yours.”   His sudden anger caught her off guard. She nodded at him slightly, her eyes down. “You’re right,” she muttered. “Sorry.”   There was an uneasy silence between them. Bo looked away from her for a moment. This was not how he had planned this conversation to start. When he turned back to her, his voice was softer, calmer. “No, I’m sorry. He’s been your son a lot longer than mine. I’m the one who has to get used to it.”   Nora quickly interrupted. “We both do.” She then added almost in a whisper. “He’s always been your son. We just didn’t know it.”   They both gave quick smiles, both knowing what the other was thinking. The past had snuck up on them, again.   “About the other night,” Bo began, changing the subject, looking away from her again.   She interrupted him again. “Bo, I’m sorry about what I said. I was wrong and what I said about you wasn’t fair.”   He cut her off, stopping her apology. “Don’t apologize.” He hesitated a beat. “What you said about me was pretty close.” He glanced over at her again. “No one knows me better than you.” He looked away from her. “But you were right. I was angry with you when I left your place. Angry at what you had said. And after I thought about it, I got angrier because what you said,” he paused, “about me, was true. I didn’t like what you said, but it didn’t make it any less true. So I drove around, thinking about you and me. There’s been a lot of stuff between us.” She looked over at him with alarm. “Most of it good,” he added quickly, “but there’s been some bad stuff, too. Why is it that we tend to always focus on all of the bad? Why is it we can’t seem to let go of the bad stuff? Is it maybe because we never really talked about it?”   She shrugged, not sure if he was expecting her to answer. This was not what she thought he was going to say. She certainly didn’t want to talk about the bad stuff, let along think about it. It hurt too much. She looked at him quickly. He wasn’t looking at her. He seemed to be deep in thought again. She wasn’t sure where he was going with all of this. She used to know him so well she could almost read his mind. Or maybe she did know and she was afraid to go there with him; their past. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to take her back there. Bo was trying to collect his thoughts, not quite able to look at her. “When I think back to everything we’ve been through and try and understand it, I realize I can’t make sense of all of it, because we never really talked it all out.”   She opened her mouth to comment but he stopped her by holding up his free hand in a stop motion. “I know. You tried more than I did. And we had some moments. But for the most part, whenever you were ready to talk, I didn’t want to hear what you had to say. I was too angry. For me, it was a done deal. You slept with Sam, we were through. There was really nothing left to say. I was your judge and jury; you never stood a chance for a fair trial.” He paused, looking over at her and staring at her intently. “But everything that happened between us, everything we said and did; it wasn’t just about the words or the things that were done.” He paused again. “It was about emotion and feelings.”   She almost grimaced at the word ‘feelings’. “I hate that word,” she muttered through clenched teeth. She hated that word almost as much as she hated her sin.   He nodded in agreement, his lips pressed together, still staring at her. “Not as much as I do.” Then he added. “But not enough to continue to avoid talking about them. You?” He knew she couldn’t back down from a challenge.   She tried to look away from him but couldn’t. Those blue eyes of his were locked on her eyes and held hers tight. He was daring her to revisit the past. Well, if after all this time, he was now ready to talk about feelings, she would let him talk. She’d take this trip to the past with him. But maybe she could control the trip. “All right,” she agreed, trying to control her own emotions and feelings for this conversation. “Feelings.” She almost spit the word out. “What kind of feelings are we talking about here?” she asked.   This was the hardest part of what he had to say. “Grief.” He pulled his gaze from her for a moment before looking back. “And forgiveness.” He paused before adding, “Or lack of.” Bo shook his head slightly. “My grief hurt a lot of people; people I loved and who loved me. It left so many wounds that some of them never really healed; especially for you, because I was so unforgiving for so long.”   Nora shook her head, interrupting him. “But you did forgive me.”   Bo shrugged his shoulders. “I know. But it was my grief over losing Drew that drove you to that lie, and then everything went wrong. Life changed, not just for us, but for everybody; especially Matthew. Now I need to make things right.”   Nora disagreed with him. “There’s nothing left for you to make right.”   “Isn’t there?” Bo asked her. Nora looked at him confused and Bo continued. “What about what’s right for Matthew?”   “You are what’s right for Matthew,” she said quickly. “You’ve been a good friend to him and now a good father.”   Bo shrugged again. “Maybe. But I saw the look in his eyes when he asked me to live with him and I told him no. I saw the hurt. Then you and I struck out at each other; causing more hurt.” He looked back at her. “Its like my grief won’t stop causing wounds.”   Nora swallowed hard. “Bo. We’ve lived a lot of life since then. What we had was so special and I know it ended because of what I did. It was my mistake that caused the domino effect of mistakes. I will regret what I did for the rest of my life. It cost me you. That’s painful enough to live with, without adding unresolved feelings of grief to the mix.”   Bo shook his head. “But the wounds from that grief are still there and they still hurt. I still seem to make decisions based on those wounds. And now I’ve caused new ones, for Matthew. Its time to heal all of the wounds, old and new.”   Nora looked directly at him. “There’s nothing left for you to heal.” She then spoke almost distantly, resignedly, looking away from him. “You just learn to live with the past.” She shook herself from that distant moment to look back at him. “I have. I’ve had to, for Matthew. And now you have to, for Matthew.”   Bo shook his head in disagreement. “Don’t you see that that’s not really living? It’s existing. Matthew deserves better than that. You deserve better than that. You both deserve to be happy.”   Nora shook her head right back at him. “I am living. I am happy. Because I have Matthew. He is my life now.”   Bo interrupted. “And in ten years, Matthew will be gone, living his own life. Then what will you use to escape from the past? What will you live for? What will give you happiness?”   Nora spoke quickly. “Knowing I raised a son and a daughter to be better than I was. Knowing that I taught them not to make the same mistakes I made so that they don’t have to live in the same hell I live in. Knowing I showed them by example to own up to their mistakes and take responsibility for their actions” she turned her head away from him, “or suffer the consequences.”   Bo continued her logic for her. “By consequences you mean guilt and self punishment?”   Nora turned back to him. “No. I want them to avoid guilt and self punishment.”   Bo spoke carefully. “And avoid forgiveness?”   Nora answered too quickly. “Yes.” She quickly retracted. “I mean no.” She turned her head from him. “I mean you learn to live without it when you don’t deserve it.”   Bo’s voice was soft. “Are we talking about Rachel and Matthew now, or you?” She turned away from him and he continued softly “You don’t have to live that way anymore, Nora. The past is over. Stop letting the past dictate your life.”   “The past does not dictate my life,” she lied, not looking at him.   “Doesn’t it?” he countered right back. “Then why can’t you let it go and live in spite of it?”   “Is that what you’ve been doing?” she shot back at him. “Living in spite of the past? Could have fooled me.”   He nodded slowly. “I am now.”   Nora could feel the tears coming. She held them back. “Well, I can’t. I can’t let it go,” she blurted out. “And you of all people should be able to understand why.”   “Well I don’t,” he answered. “You’ll have to explain it to me.”   She finally said out loud to him what she had never been able to say before. “Because punishing myself is the only way I found I could live with myself. Now you know. Are you happy now? I said it.” She pulled slightly at their attached wrists, wishing she could move further away from him than the links of the handcuffs would allow.   He sensed her trying to put distance between them. He grabbed her handcuffed hand in his, pulling her towards him. “Is that another lesson you want to teach Matthew and Rachel? To punish yourself and hold back self forgiveness, even when others have forgiven you? You want them to learn that forgiveness is only for those who deserve it?” He relaxed his grip on her hand, covering her hand with his free hand. “You told me once you could move on if I could forgive you. But that wasn’t true, was it? It’s your own forgiveness you need and you can’t forgive yourself, can you?”   Her words came out quickly, her inner most thoughts of the past six years tumbling out of her mouth in rambles. “Don’t you think I’ve tried? Don’t you think I want to let go of this guilt? Do you think it’s easy for me to look at Matthew every day and see your smile, hear your sense of humor, and see your mannerisms all in that little boy? Do you think it’s easy for me to see YOU every day, and know what I threw away?” She paused and continued quickly. “Well, it’s not. But I do it, Bo. I have to. Because of that little boy – for that little boy. And you know why? Because that’s my punishment. I made a deal with God a long time ago that if Matthew was kept safe, I would suffer whatever consequence God felt fit to inflict on me for my sin. So this guilt, this heartache of everyday living without you but with your son is my punishment for what I did. I accept it and I live with it – every day. That’s my life, Bo.”   Bo shook his head at her. “And what about my life? What about Matthew’s life? You choose to punish yourself and we have to live with your choice?”   Nora lashed out at him. “You think I chose this? You think I choose to live with this guilt? It isn’t a choice, Bo. It is MY life. But if I could choose, if I could make a choice, I would go back and change what I did. You and I would still be married. I would never have hurt you. We would have known all along that Matthew was your son. But I have no choices save one – and that’s to be the best mother I can be to Matthew; to love him and protect him and keep him safe. That’s what I live for.”   “And what about me?” Bo asked suddenly. “You think I’m guiltless where Matthew is concerned? It was my grief that pushed you to lie. Why should Matthew continue to have to pay for the wounds that my grief caused, huh? I walked away from you and Matthew when you two needed me most. Matthew didn’t ask to be a part of this Bo/Nora/Sam nightmare. He didn’t get a choice. He was born into it. And now he’s living it, right along with us. Don’t you think its time for you and me to make it right for him and for us?”   “And how do you suggest we do that?” Nora asked exasperated.   Bo took Nora’s face in his hands, her hand clinging to his handcuffed wrist. “By letting go of the past. By choosing to live for the future; for us. If Matthew wants the three of us to live together and be a real family, then so be it. I can do that for him; and so can you. I want the chance for us to be a family. Matthew deserves that and so do you.”   “And what about you?” she asked, pulling her face from his touch. “What about what you deserve? Can you tell me when you look at me, you don’t think about what I did? You don’t think about what you’ve missed with Matthew? That you still don’t hold me responsible? Can you?” He turned his head away from her but she grabbed at his face with both of her hands. She looked into his eyes. “Forgiveness aside Bo, can you honestly look at me and tell me that you let all of that go?”   Bo smiled at her gently, nodding his head in her hands. “Yes. For the first time in a long time, I can tell you honestly, I let it go. All of it.”   Nora shook her head in disbelief, releasing his face from her hands, turning from him. “Now who’s not being honest?”   Bo continued to smile at her. “I am being honest. And if you would look at me, really look at me; you would see that I’m telling you the truth.”   She turned back to stare at him. There it was again; something about his eyes. There was something different about him. “So then what is it, huh?” she demanded. “Where did this great relief of the past come from for you? Tell me, because I could sure use it right about now.”   He nodded gently. “I know. And that’s what this little trip is all about; to help you.”   “Really?” she demanded, still sarcastically. “How? How can you help me let go of the past and live for us when I can’t seem to find a way to do it myself?”   He looked at her for a second. “You’re telling me that if I can help you let go of the past, that you and Matthew and me can live together as a family? That you would give us a second chance?”   She stared at him. “You can’t help me with this, Bo.”   He shook his head. “Answer my question.”   She rolled her eyes at him. This was ridiculous. “All right. Fine. But what makes you think you can help me release the past when you’re part of what I can’t get over.”   He smiled almost victoriously at her. “First of all, I don’t want you to get over me.” She looked back at him. He was serious. “And I can help you release the past, the same way I did it.”   She looked hard at him. “And how did you suddenly do that?”   He held her handcuff hand in his. “Something happened to me the other night after I left your house.”   “What?” she asked sarcastically. “What could possibly have happened after you left my house that could have brought you to this great acceptance, this great truth after all these years? And what makes you think it will work for me?”   He took her face in his hands again. “Because I know you. And it worked for me.”   She rolled her eyes at him again. “What worked for you?”   His voice came in a deep whisper. “I faced the past. Instead of hiding from it, or burying it deep down, I finally let go of it and let it take me where it needed to take me. And now I want you to do the same thing.” Bo reached for his keys and unlocked the handcuffs. Nora noticed the car had stopped moving. “The car. It’s stopped. Where are we?” she asked suddenly, looking towards the tinted window.   Bo smiled at her as he put the handcuffs down on the seat and caressed her wrist with his thumb where the handcuff had rubbed against her skin. “Where we need to be.” To be continued…