| Staring out the window of the vast jetliner, Hermione Granger contemplated her life. Tears unwillingly rolled down her cheeks. She touched the cool glass lightly, as if reaching for something she knew would never be there again.
�B-But where are you?� �Hermione, don�t be stupid.� His now malevolent voice seethed through the phone. �If my clothes are gone from the closet and my car isn�t in the garage, put two and two together. I thought you were supposed to be smart.� �But, Jonathon� I don�t understand�� �I�m not going to sit here and explain everything to you. I don�t have to, you�re not my burden anymore.� �Jonathon! The baby!� �You�re smart, you�re independent. Take care of it yourself.� �Jon! It�s our baby!� �Not anymore.� Pressing the heel of her hands to her imploring brown eyes, she wiped the tears away like a two-year-old would. In a matter of a few hours, she had lost everything. Everything that had been important to her was gone. She and her husband had just celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary. She remembered laughing and telling him you weren�t supposed to celebrate tenth wedding anniversaries when you were twenty-nine. He chuckled, murmured something about how adorable she was, and kissed her. The soft tinkling of laughter and the cork of the champagne bottle softly made its way out of her mind as she continued to remember the events that had occurred not more than forty-eight hours before. �Hello, Cathy. Is Jonathon in?� �Oh hello, Hermione. No, he isn�t, would you like me to give him a message?� Hermione frowned in confusion. �Um, no� that�s all right. Do you know where he�s run off to?� �No, he left at the normal time.� Hermione�s brow furrowed even more than before. �Are you sure, Cathy? I mean, he�s not home yet and I can�t think of anywhere else he�d be.� �I�m afraid I don�t know.� Hermione�d been at work, correcting test papers and essays, when she�d gotten the sudden urge to talk to Jonathon. Seeing as it was past five, he should probably have been home by then. The phone rang and there was no answer. Now that she was overly worried, she raced home quickly. What if he had been in an accident? What if he had gone into a deep, dark ditch out in the middle of nowhere? She didn�t even want to think about him dying in a grisly accident. Without thinking about where she was, she instinctively pulled out her wand, pointed it straight at the door and shouted, �Alohomora!� The door unlocked and she pushed it open. She had not checked the garage for his car. Instead, she flung herself into their master bedroom on the first floor. The sight was so eerie she could have screamed. Jonathon had never been a tidy man, so it was a shock when she saw their bedroom had been swept clean. No clothes lay on the floor, no crumpled socks were at the foot of the bed, and his normal stack of magazines had been swept off the nightstand. Something didn�t feel right. Her hands were shaking and cold sweat dared to seep through her hairline. What would she find if she opened the closet? A trembling hand answered that question. Much to her dismay, the closet was empty. The realization hit her faster than a ton of bricks. Staring at the lonely wire hangers on the rack, she reached out her hand to touch one. She burst into tears before she could reach it and fell to her knees. The phone rang in the distance four hours later. It was ten o�clock by this time, and Hermione was still in a lonely empty house. Blinking back the tears in her eyes, Hermione recalled how icy Jonathon�s voice had sounded on the phone. He�d told her in not so many words that he wanted nothing to do with the institution of marriage. He didn�t love her, he had never loved her, and he was sick and tired of being pulled between his life and her old life. With Jonathon it had always been a struggle. He�d always been morally opposed to the fact that she was a witch. After they�d gotten into a tremendous fight while they were dating, Jonathon reluctantly agreed to overlook everything she did by way of magic as long as she didn�t rub his nose in it. She did him one better and never performed magic in front of him at all. She had lived as a Muggle for years, and after finding the magical freedom she had always wanted at Hogwarts, she was again denied her access when she found someone to marry. Something, she thought at the time, was all right to give up magic for. She couldn�t believe this was Jonathon on the phone� her Jonathon. The man who always made it a point to wake her up before going to work every morning. The man who on any unimportant day in her life would send her a different colored flower for every month he knew her. Jonathon Maybourne, the man she had loved, the man she had married� What hurt more than the icy tone and empty closet was the fact that after ten years of trying, two miscarriages, and six months of excitement, he had so easily denied his parental status to their unborn child. �You take care of it, Hermione. You�re good at doing things on your own.� He�s calling the baby �it.� �Jonathon, it�s our baby�� �What did I just say, Hermione? It�s yours now. I ? don�t ? want it.� �Jonathon� What is going on�?� He sighed disgustedly, obviously dying to get off of the phone. �Hermione, I�ve been ashamed of having you as my wife for too long to stay anymore.� Hermione�s eyes filled with tears. She cried, �Then why didn�t you say any of this sooner?� Jonathon sighed, and for the first time during their conversation, he sounded sympathetic. �Because I just wanted to be married, and I didn�t care. Now I do.� �Excuse me, miss?� a soft voice rang over Hermione�s head. She whipped her head around and looked up, and realized she was on the plane, staring at one of the flight attendants. �Are you all right?� The young woman was going by on her way to deliver drinks and had seen Hermione sobbing. How embarrassing, Hermione thought. �I�ll be fine,� Hermione muttered, wiping her eyes. �Here,� the compassionate lady offered, handing Hermione a small package of tissues. �Thanks,� Hermione said. She opened the packet quickly, dabbing at her already red-rimmed eyes. Hermione needed to get home to England, where she belonged. Even though her father had passed five years ago, Hermione�s mother still had the house. She had readily offered half of the place for Hermione to stay. Grateful that her mother hadn�t launched into an �I-told-you-so� lecture, she took the offer and decided to go home. However, going back home meant facing old ghosts. Ghosts of her Hogwarts past. At that state in her life, she definitely was not ready to face those. She had to keep her return as subtle as possible. Ron, where are you? The thought startled her more than anything and she closed her eyes tiredly. Ron had not entered her mind for several months. It had been eleven years since she�d been with him, and it hurt to think about him now. Ron, are you out there? Are you still mine? Do you think about me the way I think about you? As much as it hurt having been betrayed by Jonathon, Hermione knew that in the darkest part of her soul, she was still in love with Ron. She always had been and probably always would be. He had been her one and only. She belonged to him in every way. Are you still in love with me like I am in love with you? |
 |
 |
 |