Christmas in Bethel

Chapter Seventeen

Sometimes I feel like my memories should come with Graphic Content and NSFW warnings.

Beth Stilton’s Diary

I’m not surprised that things turned as quickly as they did. On a dark, almost subconscious level, I’m sure I anticipated it. I don’t know if it’s superstition, PTSD, or a sadistic universe that hates me, but whenever something goes well in my life, I know there will be a reconciling. Something bad will happen. It always does. So it goes.

I hadn’t always resigned myself to being so pessimistic. In fact, I spent many years fighting the gravity of my former hardships. But as hard as I tried to leave it behind, my adult life experiences only proved that I was inseparably linked to the experiences of my past. No matter how hard I tried, I could not make things better.

I joined the military to be strong and secure. I got raped. I got married to a man I thought I loved, and he turned into a monster I didn’t recognize. I was blissful when I learned I was pregnant—to finally have someone to love who would love me back. Then I lost the baby. There’s an obvious pattern at work.

I suppose it wouldn’t take Freud to decipher the underlying belief of that pattern. Even a shallow dive into my childhood would reveal that I had never been enough. For anyone. And people who aren’t enough are unworthy of good things happening to them. It’s simple math, really. The relationship with Lee was a good thing that happened to me. Therefore, it was destined to fail.

I didn’t sleep that night. I had too much on my mind. Mostly, I had Lee on my mind. I had never been treated so well by a man so good. He was beyond my comprehension.

I didn’t stay awake just because of all that was on my mind, but also because I was afraid to sleep—well, to dream. I had been in this state many times before, and I knew what monsters lay waiting behind the screen of consciousness. My nightmares were so dark that I could barely stand to recall them myself—I’d certainly never shared them with another soul. Someone as kind and caring as Lee couldn’t handle knowing what a mess I was; if he ever found out, he’d leave—and my heart would be the most broken thing about me.

That night, one particularly haunting memory found its way to the theater of my mind. I was still an EMT then, and my partner and I had arrived at the scene of an accident where the car had caught fire. The fire department had just put out the flames, and I was sent in to verify the bodies. The air was filled with the pungent stench of burned plastic and flesh.

There were two people in the front seat, mercifully dead, as they were both charred beyond recognition. As horrific as that was, I saw a baby seat in the back with the infant still strapped inside. I opened the car’s back door and climbed across the wire frame of the melted seat to the infant. The baby was charred like the bodies in front. Then, to my horror, I saw the baby’s chest rise.

“The baby’s alive!” I shouted. “Get me morphine. Quick.”

My partner handed me a syringe. I pushed the needle into the child’s burnt leg. Within seconds, the breathing stopped. I felt the child’s wrist. There was no longer a pulse. I turned back to my partner. “You gave me too much.”

His gaze was heavy and dark. “I know.”

I have dreamed of that moment more times than I can remember. I see myself in a room surrounded by charred faces. Sometimes they cry, sometimes they scream at me. And that’s just one of the episodes airing on my nocturnal network. There are others, equally horrific.

That is me. The real me. This is what Lee didn’t know about me and I never wanted him to find out. The universe had never been my friend, and now it was just mocking me with a mirage of happiness that could never last.

They say the higher you climb, the harder you fall, and right now, I was at a dizzying height. I knew that I could never survive a fall from this height. I had to get out while I could.

At four in the morning, I got dressed, packed up all my things, then, on the hotel’s notepad, wrote Lee a final note.

My dear Lee,

How do I tell the most beautiful man I’ve ever met how sorry I am? Or how grateful I am for all the kindness and love you have shown me?

You are truly a gift to this world. My gift to you is to free you from me.

I know me. You deserve better.

Love, Beth

I cried as I wrote the note, but I knew that when we inevitably ended, it was better to end on my terms. That’s how I had survived. And my life was about nothing more than survival. Love was a luxury, and right now I was more in love than I had ever felt in my life. But to be in love is to be vulnerable, and that was something I could not afford.

I folded the note in two, then took my bag and walked out of my room, slowly closing the door so that he wouldn’t hear it. The hallway was lit but quiet. I crouched down and quietly slid the note under Lee’s door, then took the elevator downstairs.

A doorman greeted me as I came out of the elevator. “You’re up early. May I help you with your bags?”

I wiped my eyes, hoping that he wouldn’t notice that I had been crying, but I’m sure I was way beyond that. “I need to go to the train station. Is it far from here?”

“Too far to walk. Penn Station is about three miles. But I have a cab available right outside.”

“Do you know if there’s a train to Lancaster?”

“Let’s ask the desk. They know everything. What’s your name?”

“It’s Beth Stilton.”

A tired but elegant-looking Black woman was standing behind the counter. She smiled at me as we approached.

“Aria, Ms. Stilton needs to catch a train, but she doesn’t know the train schedule.”

I could tell when she noticed I was crying because her expression softened. “Let’s see what we have.” She typed something into her computer. “What is your destination, Ms. Stilton?”

“Lancaster, Pennsylvania.”

“Pennsylvania,” she said, still looking at her screen. “Here it is. The next train to Lancaster from Penn Station leaves at four forty-five. The train after that is seven thirty. But I think we need to get you on the first one, don’t we?”

I nodded. “If we could.”

“You have thirty-five minutes; you should be okay. It’s forty-nine dollars. Would you like me to purchase the ticket for you?”

“Yes, please.”

I handed her a credit card. She scanned it in. She suddenly looked perplexed. “Hm.” She turned to me. “I’m sorry, there seems to be a problem with this card. Do you have another one you’d like to use?”

I felt embarrassed. “Yes,” I said, digging into my wallet.

“You have a card on file. I could put the ticket on your room.”

“I’d rather not do that.”

“No problem,” she said gently. I handed her another card. Thankfully, that one worked.

“Would you like the ticket on your phone, or would you like me to print it out?”

I didn’t want to turn my phone on. “Print it out, please.”

She handed me a paper with my ticket. “There you go, dear. Have a beautiful day.”

I was about to turn away when I remembered the gifts. I reached into my suitcase and took out the Tiffany bag with the two beautiful blue boxes inside. “Would you see that Mr. Harper gets these, please?”

She lightly frowned as she took the bag from me. “Of course. I’ll put them in the safe.”

The ride to Lancaster was just shy of three hours. The passengers around me looked as tired as I was. I noticed someone reading Lee’s book. She seemed completely engrossed. I turned away. I wondered if I would ever be able to read his books again. I doubted it. It would be too much like being with him.

I fell asleep somewhere before Philadelphia and fortunately woke just twenty minutes before arriving in Lancaster. I dragged my bag into the crowded station, got a Diet Coke from a machine, then just sat on a bench and held my phone, afraid to turn it on. I needed to call for an Uber, but I knew the moment I woke my phone that the texts and messages would start.

I took a deep breath, then turned it on. As I waited for the phone to reboot, it suddenly started dinging with texts and voicemail messages. I couldn’t help but see the first messages. They were all from Lee, asking me to call him.

I ordered the Uber, then put my phone in my pocket and went out to wait for the car. The air was cold, probably in the low thirties, and a slight breeze braced my cheeks. It felt good.

The city was busy. Lancaster, with its Dutch and Amish influence, is a popular destination during the holiday season. It would only get busier as the season neared—as people would come from all over the country to celebrate Christmas here. And I would just ignore it.

After I got home, I heated myself a bowl of tomato soup for lunch with a cheese sandwich, then I turned on my phone. Lee had called three times and texted four times. The last text he sent he had just learned from the desk that I had checked out and left his gifts. He begged me to just talk to him. But I couldn’t.