Chapter 6
Ben and Maria went to bed in their separate bedrooms that night. Neither one of them could sleep a wink and both wound up downstairs at the same time. "So, I take your peaceful night is going about as well as mine is." Ben said sarcastically when he saw Maria. She looked up and smiled at him. "Yeah Ben, I can't stop thinking about our daughter." She sat down on the couch and Ben sat next to her. "You know, maybe we could watch a movie together something to distract both of us until morning." Maria, agreed and they turned on their favorite video Gone with the wind. The two hours the movie was on flew by and Maria was in tears by the end of it. During the movie Ben had slipped his arm around her. "You know this reminds me of us a little." "How's that Ben?" Maria asked curiously. "Well the circumstances are different but you have two love tragedies, two couples kept apart that love each other." As soon as Ben said the words outloud he instantly regretted it. Maria looked at Ben confused. "Ben, I thought you loved Meg." She asked him. She didn't dare hope that it weren't so. "Well Maria, I thought so. But..." Ben didn't really know how to phrase himself, he had to make this sound right. "Maria when I found out you were alive, initially I was thrilled, my first reaction was to go to you when you fainted after catching the bouquet. When Tyus tried to pull me off I yelled at him telling him you're my wife." Maria looked at him curiously, "But why did you stay with Meg then." "Well that was when things got complicated, you didn't remember me and that hurt me, it hurt me a lot. So I stayed with Meg it was easier then facing the pain of you not knowing me. But then time went on and you would have glimpses of memories. Like that day by our swing." Ben said with a smile at the memory itself. Maria smiled with him "Ben, I'm so sorry, I had no idea how much me losing my memory hurt you." "It's not your fault and I never blamed you Maria." Ben continued his story. "Well eventually you got your memory back, and I thought the answers to all our questions would be there with it. But those five years were still missing Maria, I had no idea where you were, or why you stayed away from me and that hurt me as well. It was easier to convince myself that I loved Meg then to face the pain that was there because you left me." "Oh Ben, I'm so sorry" Maria said with tears in her eyes, she had no idea what effect all this had on Ben, she had thought that he was happy with Meg. "It isn't your fault" Ben said while squeezing her hand. "Maria, when I found out that you were being drugged and under mind control drugs while you were missing, I realized that it wasn't your fault that you stayed away. I realized that you never stopped loving me and that when you got into the accident that caused you to lose your memory you were on your way back to me." By this time Ben had tears in his eyes as well. "Maria, I hope you can forgive me, for hurting. I hope you can forgive me, for being with another woman while I knew you were alive, and I hope you can forgive me for not searching for these answers right away." Maria just smiled at Ben. "Don't you know there is nothing that I can't forgive you for, I love you so much. And part of that love is forgiveness." Ben took Maria in his arms and held her close to him. "I love you too Maria." Saying the words outsold Ben now knew that he could never love someone the way he loved Maria.