The Ballad of Michael & Beulah

Nearly a week had passed and Mike still hadn't returned home.

Beulah was, to say the least, very nervous about what this meant to their marriage.

He'd called twice to talk to Vegas and Rory, but avoided any communication with her and it just didn't seem like him. It just didn't seem right altogether. And it made her feel that this was finally the beginning of the end.

And her heart was breaking.

It had been one whole year since Mike had fallen out completely with Billie Joe and Tre, causing the group to disband and pursue side projects, including their side bands they'd kept up with over the years, as well as some acting. But not much of the latter due to lack of talent in the entertainment field. So, when Beulah picked up the phone and called Billie Joe, she wasn't at all surprised to hear that the aging punk rocker had no clue where Mike had gone either.

Hearing how distraught she sounded on the phone, he offered to stop over so they could chat; one of the many reasons that had fueled the gap between Mike and Beulah in the first place.

The friendship that had been built from the ashes of the rubble left in the wake of what was now referred to by all involved as 'The Downfall.'

Dressed simply in a pair of brown dress slacks and a yellow tank top she could still pull off, Beulah puttered around her kitchen as she pulled her hair up in a loose bun atop of her head and it was amazing how she still looked not a day over thirty.

She chalked it up to just eating right and her kids keeping her young, but the honest truth was she had supplies of beauty cream she'd fallen in love with in Paris once, and since then, it was the only stuff she used, and swore by. Oh, and let's not forget the hair appointments to get rid of the gray hairs that tried to pop out of her scalp like unwanted visitors.

With a pot of coffee brewing on the counter and the muffled vibrations of the living room's stereo wafting in the air like subtle, urban static, Beulah's blue eyes glanced over at the clock on the wall well more than once until she heard the doorbell ring.

Walking down the hallway to the front door, the 43-year-old mother of three pulled the door open to find Billie Joe standing on the other side of the threshold with his hands in his pockets.

Crow's feet at the corners of both of his eyes, dark rings from restless nights and gray peppered in with his naturally dark, wavy hair, he was looking his age more and more every time she saw him.

"Hey," he smiled lightly as she stepped aside for him to come in.

"Hey yourself." Closing the door she folded her arms across her chest and gestured with her head for him to follow her into the kitchen. "I've got some coffee that's almost done brewing. Want a cup?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure." As soon as they were both in the kitchen, Billie Joe watched her move over to the coffee machine and pull out two coffee cups from the cupboard above her to set them on the counter. "So...uh...you haven't seen him in a week, huh?"

This has got to be the first time in all my life he's cut to the chase with me, Beulah thought as she nodded in response to his question. "He's talked to Vegas and Rory, but didn't want to talk to me...and he didn't say where he was to them, either." Then she added, "I asked them...if he'd said..."

"I'm sorry," he offered lamely.

"Don't be. Shit happens, right? I s'pose I musta been absolutely naive to actually believe I could have a fairytale marriage with Mike. To believe he and I would be together forever. Till death do us part and all that..." Forgetting about the coffee at the moment, Beulah gripped the edge of the counter top and bowed her head. "These last two years...more than that, really...it's all been...culminating. Not just him and me, but all of us...it's putting too much of a strain. What with him defending his stance in everything against your accusations and Tre's...and me being the new Yoko of this day and age, apparently..."

"I didn't mean to call you that," Billie Joe insisted; quick to apologize for something that had clearly happened not that long ago to the group and all of them personally.

"I know that. And I'm glad we put that behind us, but it doesn't change the fact that us getting 'past the bump' in the road and becoming friends put a wedge between Mike and me. It revisited old wounds."

"Are you trying to say that your marriage is crumbling because we're friends? Christ on a stick, Bee. It's taken us how many years to finally get to this point where we could be just friends and nothing more and now Mike has a problem? He sure as hell forgave your pretty quick when we fucked before Vegas was born."

"You know that's not it...not exactly. What happened two years ago, we haven't talked about. I haven't told anyone. Not Mike, not the kids. And I know you never said anything to Adrienne or your kids. We kept the secret but that doesn't mean no one has suspected anything, given our history."

"Yeah, well...I was drunk," he excused lamely, shifting his eyes to the floor.

"You're always drunk," Beulah muttered with a faint smirk, lifting her head to finally look over at him. And when he looked back up to meet her gaze, she shook her head. "You weren't drunk when it happened, and you know that."

"Well, I can't very well use the excuse that Adrienne and I were having a bad fight and I needed someone's shoulder to cry one, because Lord knows I killed that excuse a long time ago." He then pointed knowingly at her, taking a step forward. "Not to mention, if I remember correctly, you'd just had a spat with Mike and were drunk."

"No, I wasn't." When Billie Joe held his persistent gaze, her indignant posture slumped somewhat. "Okay, so maybe I was a little tipsy. But I was not drunk. Which, if you think about it, means you took advantage of me in my stupor. My...tipsy-ish stupor."

Billie Joe quirked an eyebrow her way, but as the barely there smile that was trying to surface upon her lips faded before it had a chance to actually come into existence, Beulah's face fell, expressing her conflicted and pained heart. She furrowed her brow, bit her lip and, before the aging rockstar realized it, she was crying very lightly.

"Baby..." he whispered softly and platonically. With open arms, he moved up to her smaller frame and wrapped his arms about her shoulders, pressing his cheek to hers.

"What did I tell you about calling me that?" she blubbered as she buried her face into his shoulder.

"Don't?" he questioned with a tiny grin.

"Yeah."

"Well, it's meant with endearment. I'm not trying to get you into bed." Then as an afterthought, "I'm not that guy anymore. I'm your friend."

Snaking her arms around his waist and up his back, Beulah held on tightly to the father of her oldest child, and sighed. "I just wish everyone else could see that that's all we are anymore."

"They will. We just need to give them time to realize it."

The two of them stood there for a few more minutes, not saying anything. Just him comforting her as she cried for what she was terrified of losing.

"I love him," she whispered in-between sobs. "It hurts so much when he's not here. Or when he is, and all we do is fight."

She was, of course, referring to Mike.

"I'm scared. Scared that he wants a divorce. I don't know what I'd do without him. He was the only man to ever love me the way I needed to be loved. Unconditionally. No offense to you..."

"None taken. I was a complete asshole to you for way too long and I'll always be sorry for that."

"Well, stop apologizing. It's getting annoying."

"Hell no. I'll keep letting you I'm sorry till I bite the dust and I'm six feet under."

Lifting her head, Beulah looked up at Billie Joe and smiled appreciatively. She studied his face for a few moments and he began to shift nervously under her gaze.

"What?"

"There's the eighteen-year-old Billie Joe I first knew."

Rolling his eyes, the 51-year-old Billie Joe Armstrong couldn't help but smile. Bringing his hands up to cup her face, he leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers. "Yeah, well, how you've managed to be the same ten-year-old, in essence, to me for thirty-three fucking years, I'll never know."

And it was in the simple, platonic moment between one man and one woman, who were nothing more than friends, that the son they shared, came walking into the kitchen; his temper rising in an instant.

"What the fuck?" he snapped. 22-year-old Bailey stood not a few feet away from his parents as their heads turned in his direction. As they slowly stepped apart from each other, the realization of how he perceived the situation began to sink in.

"Bailey," Beulah began cautiously.

"Not now, Mom. I wanna have a little chat with my sperm donor here," he remarked firmly.

"Hey!" Billie Joe barked at his son.

Bailey was a bit bulkier than his father, taking after his Uncle Nick on his mother's side in that aspect, but he was all Billie Joe. From head to toe. Kinda like Billie Joe during his more hefty stage. Ironically, the point in time when Bailey had been conceived.

"What the fuck is your problem, Dad? You get wind that Mom and the man who's been more of a father to me are going through a rough spell and thought you'd try and make a move?"

"That is not--"

"You're such a fucking asshole! And, Mom...how could you even think of gettin' cuddly with him. Now, of all times?"

"Your father and I are friends now, Bailey and you need to respect that. We are not together nor are we planning on every being together the way we once were when you were just a toddler. He is not an absent father either, so I want you to cut him some slack," Beulah demanded, finding a strength in her she'd forgotten, as she got in her own son's face. Granted she had to look up at him now. "I was upset because Mike hasn't spoken to me in a week and I'm frightened as all hell. Alright? I needed someone to talk to and your father is that person right now. Because we're friends. Can you understand that?"

Bailey held his jaw in place, firmly, as he looked down at his mother, then glanced to his father who looked angry at the insinuations thrown out at him and Beulah. As well as being referred to as a 'sperm donor.'

"I've got myself a wife I love more than you can ever know, Bailey," Billie Joe spoke. "And even though I love your mother on a level you can seem to wrap your mind around, that doesn't mean her and I are shackin' up. Are we clear? Once upon a time I was an asshole who used your mother and she was nothing more than my other woman. We've made peace with that. Gotten over it, and now we're friends. And the man you consider to be more of a father to you than me...he's not here right now and I'm just trying to be the friend I've become, and comfort your mother. Tell her everything's gonna work out."

Bailey still hadn't replied as he folded his arms across his chest in a very Beulah sort of way and his shoulders slumped.

"Honey...look into my eyes," Beulah spoke more softly to her son. "I love Mike to the point of my heart aching. He's the love of my life and always will be. Always was. I'm just scared shitless because I miss him and want us to not be fighting anymore but I don't know where we can begin at fixing the rift between us."

His features softening like his mother's voice, Bailey caved at the pleas from his parents; the sincerity ringing in his ears like a friggin' bell.

"I'm sorry, Mom. Dad," he added with a nod to Billie Joe. "It's just that...Dad, uh...I mean, Mike-Dad, he called me this morning to see how I was doing. And I guess the thought of you and him splitting up scared me too. You've been together so long I felt like that if you divorced you'd be betraying the view I had everyone." Dipping his head, Bailey frowned. "Does that make sense?"

As he looked up through his eyebrows, Beulah nodded and pulled her son into a hug as Billie Joe reached out a hand to gently grab the side of his son's neck and kiss his cheek.

"Makes perfect sense, son," Billie Joe assured.

"Sorry for jumping to conclusions and, uh...calling you--"

Billie Joe waved it all off before his youngest son could finish talking. "S'okay. Don't worry about it."

"Well...okay, um...I'm just gonna head upstairs. I was actually here for a reason, and it includes some shit I left in my room that I wanted to keep in my dorm room, so...yeah. I'll just be upstairs."

As Bailey began to turn away, Beulah spoke up again. "You wanna stay for dinner tonight? You're never form for it anymore."

"Yeah, sure, Mom. I'll stay for it." Casting his eyes over to his father he nodded, "You staying for dinner too, Dad?"

Billie Joe shrugged. "Do you want me to stay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do." With that, Bailey exited the kitchen and soon the only sound Beulah and Billie Joe heard were their son's heavy footsteps ascending the staircase.

Looking to her left, Beulah stared at the green-eyed man beside her and lifted her hand to flick a curl of peppered hair behind his ear with a faint smile. Glancing at her, Billie Joe smiled back.

"You did a great job with him, y'know?"

"We all did a great job." With a faint sigh, she moved closer to him and kissed his cheek and gave him a friendly hug. "Mike will always be the love of my life and my best friend, no matter what happens, and if I can't rebuild on what him and I have lost so far, I want you to know it's not because of you. It's up to him and me to fix it and we can't place the blame on anyone else because that would mean giving up on each other."

Pulling back, Billie Joe looked at her. "Mike's a lucky man. And if he doesn't work this all out with you I promise I will personally kick his ass because the two of you together...it's the real deal."

Sharing a smile, the two of them turned to look at the coffee maker at the same time.

"So, coffee?" Beulah inquired.

"I'd love a cup."

* * *

My love,
No matter what life threw at us, at least we knew we were surrounded by people who loved us and could help make everything seem doable. My heart, no matter how many times it got broken, I knew that I could depend on you. Billie made me realize that day in the kitchen that we would always be together. There was nothing we couldn't overcome. We'd lived through worse, experienced great losses, welcomed changes...and the one constant in it all was the two of us, together. In love.

Billie Joe was right about us, and I know we both wish he was still with us to see just how right he'd always been.

We're in the winter of our lives now, but at least we still have each other.

Forever your love,
Beulah

I didn't realize I'd been crying as I read this very heartfelt letter from my grandmother to my grandfather until I noticed a teardrop on the letter in my hands. It was dated as being written on February 17th, 2048. My grandmother would've been 68, and my grandfather would've been 76. Spring chickens they weren't. And elderly couple, yes.

And still very much in love.