Forever More
Part 2 - Faith
Chapter Twenty Two
The date for their wedding approached and Rebecca was glad that Paula had taken the brunt of the load. She had not been feeling very well in the early months of her pregnancy, but by mid February she was feeling better and the plans for their new home were well underway.
Rebecca was still in her robe in the upstairs bedroom of Jon’s and Paula’s large old home as she ran a comb through Kyle’s hair. Both boys looked so handsome as they sat on the bed in their new suits that she had purchased for them only a few days earlier.
She was now giving instructions as to sitting still and not messing anything up when Scott came out of the bathroom. He pulled the jacket of a shiny black suit on over his crisp white shirt and was now standing in front of a mirror maneuvering the ends of his tie through a series of knots.
Rebecca came and stood behind him watching with great pleasure as he mastered the perfect knot. She brushed off the shoulders of the jacket and smiled into the mirror as he ran his hand through his long blond hair. He had planned to wear it back but she protested admitting that she loved the way that it fell onto his shoulders.
She stood behind him thinking how handsome he was at that very moment. She had never seen him in a suit such as this before. A sport coat and jeans or dress slacks were as far as he usually ventured and he looked so good in them. Yet as he stood fussing over his tie and hair she felt him the handsomest she had ever seen him, his blond hair resting on the black suit coat, the pure white shirt and black tie, the dress slacks with their perfect crease right down to his polished dress shoes. But that smile, that huge wide smile that he flashed at her and those dimples that shot into view just made her heart want to melt.
He finished fussing and turned to her. "Will I pass?" He asked as he held up his chin while she made one more attempt to adjust his already perfect tie. She just wanted to touch him.
Rebecca let out a breath, "I think so."
Scott turned toward the two smaller forms in black still sitting on the bed restlessly, "OK, come on. Mommy’s gotta get dressed now." Then added, "And so help me if you guys get dirty before hand she is gonna kill us all."
Rebecca thought he was probably right. Scott had been a father to Ethan and Kyle for about five months now and if there was one thing he learned fast was that you don’t do anything to make mom mad, and that usually included himself also.
They had fallen into being a family so easily that both he and Rebecca had wondered if they were doing something wrong. Weren’t step families supposed to have problems? But the boys had taken to him from the first time that he had ever visited their home and he had found himself not only wanting but needing their love. Now with the approaching birth of Becky’s and his own child he wanted more than ever for them to all be one family. When things had settled down after the wedding and the house was finally built they had made plans for him to adopt the boys.
Rebecca watched as Scott ushered the two boys out into the hallway and turned to tell her that maybe she had better get moving since it was already after one o’clock and the ceremony was less than an hour away. He had already heard car doors and was on his way down to greet the few close friends who were there for the wedding.
Once left alone Rebecca put the finishing touches on her make-up and slid out of her robe to dress for her wedding. As she tugged adjusting the pantyhose over her already protruding belly she thought how different this wedding day would be from her first one to Jack. It seemed so long ago and the young girl that she was then was only a shadow in her past.
She felt a twinge of sadness as she remembered Jack and how she had looked at him that day nearly thirteen years before never having any notion how much their lives would change. She silently said a prayer for him and told him that she would always love him and asked him to please be happy for her and the boys in their new life.
Rebecca pulled the simple ivory satin A-lined dress onto her shoulders. She hardly looked as though she were the five months pregnant that she was, but still she wondered.
Paula knocked at the door and Rebecca called her in.
"Things are picking up down stairs." Paula informed her. "Scott’s mother’s here now with Marie. I think we’re just waiting on Eddie."
Rebecca smoothed down the dress as Paula hooked a string of pearls at the base of her neck. Simple but elegant.
"Do I look fat?" Rebecca asked her friend as she stood in front of the mirror.
"No, and don’t even ask me that one more time."
Rebecca changed her tone, "This is really stupid but I think I’m nervous."
"I would be too if I was marryin’ him," Paula laughed.
"Shesh! You should talk. You got the other one."
"Yeah." Paula admitted. "Did I try to talk you out of this?"
"Not good enough," Rebecca added with a grin.
"Well, I’ll try harder next time," Paula hurriedly remarked as she smoothed out the back of Rebecca’s dress and straightened the pearls.
Then looking at her dear friend Rebecca sighed, "God, I love him, Paula."
Paula smiled, "I know you do."
The two women left the room and headed down the stairs to greet their guests. Jack’s mother and sister and her family were already there and Rebecca was greeted by her former in-laws with warm hugs and well wishes.
It was a very casual affair despite their two boys dressed in new suits. There was a small trellis set in the corner of Paula’s back garden. A few chairs were set up to accommodate the twenty-five or so guests. People were already milling around and visiting as Rebecca came out of the house.
Scott watched her make her way through the guests, stopping to say a few words on her way to his side. He slid his arm around her waist and kissing her told her how beautiful she was.
He had seen her in the dress before as she had put it on several times deciding if she looked too fat in it. Up until now he was almost amused at how nervous she had been about this whole thing. Up until now he hadn’t been.
He wasn’t having second thoughts, but as she stood there next to him, his arm wrapped around her, his hand resting on the side of her stomach knowing that she was carrying his baby his heart started to bleed for love of her. How could he have been so lucky to have found her? He loved her so much and in only a few moments they would stand together just as they were now and make vows of commitment to each other.
He had made some mistakes in life. He had a few regrets that he would only admit to himself, but this was not one of them. From nearly the first day that Becky had been to his place to paint for him he had been attracted to her. He wasn’t even aware of it at first. She had inched her way into his heart with every day that passed till he could no longer stand it.
It wasn’t all physical. There was something about her that made his knees a little weaker and his groin ache when she was near him, but even before that it was something much more real, something concrete. He just loved to talk with her. He felt that he could say anything and share everything. She had become his best friend even before he had first held her.
When he had realized that he was becoming more and more attracted to her he began questioning his whole relationship with Linda. He had never meant to fall in love with someone else. Indeed, he wasn’t looking when she drew him into her, then that afternoon down by the river when he first pressed his lips to hers it was all over. There was no turning back from then on. He was hopelessly and passionately in love with Becky from that moment.
Situations being as they were it was so much more complicated than he had wanted. All he wanted to do was to take her in his arms and run away from there and from everyone.
Now as the actual ceremony was about to begin he felt a growing lump in his throat that he wasn’t sure he could nor wanted to quell. God, how he loved her. And as they finally stood under the trellis of ivy as it twined in and out through the lattice work he could no longer hold back his tears of love for her.
He held her close as the minister spoke his words and Scott looked into those soft blue eyes of Becky’s as they too swelled with tears. Even though it had been a little over a year since he had first tenderly kissed her it seemed that they had gone through so much to get to where they were at that very moment; standing before their familles and friends and God and acknowledging their love and commitment to each other.
A few days after the wedding Scott took his new bride on a cruise. Rebecca had never been on one, she had never really been anywhere. Her trip to meet him in Montreal that time had been her only time out of the country, and New York loomed exciting and grand. She had never traveled very far from her little part of the Midwest. Scott was enjoying seeing everything again through her eyes for the first time. As much as he had traveled by air and slept in hotel rooms the experience was almost mundane and tiring on occasions, but Becky always amazed him with her excitement of something that he had long ago taken for granted.
She was also not used to being treated as someone anything special. Attention that she was afforded because of the mere fact that she was now his wife was sometimes overwhelming. He had taken those things for granted. Hell, Linda demanded it sometimes, he thought. Becky preferred to stand in the shadows rather than in the center of things. That was just one more of the qualities that he loved about her.
The boys had been taken back to Michigan with some friends who had flown out for the wedding. They were back in school while Scott and Rebecca enjoyed their leisurely honeymoon, drinking in the warm sun filled days and long starry nights. He had her alone again, the center of his attention.
He most loved the lazy afternoons spent relaxing on deck as the world seemed to drift passed them. Sometimes she would slip into sleep in the warm sun. She was so tired lately. Her pregnancy had exhausted most of her energy some days.
Scott looked over at her now as she lay still in the lounge next to his. The warm sun had given color to her soft creamy skin. Her breasts were beginning to show the fullness of her condition. He studied her as the tiny bulge in her belly gently moved up and down with each breath that she took. That was his child. Becky loved him so much that she was carrying his child.
Never until he had met her had that feeling of love been expressed in such a way. At first, in his younger years, sex was sex. That was all it was. If you were lucky enough to get it, and he usually was, then that was great. He didn’t even want to think about any consequences, and usually didn’t. As he got older relationships meant much more than hopping into bed with someone. They were also so much more confusing, but still well worth the effort.
He had met Karen and they had both mistakenly confused physical attraction to the point of actually believing it was love. This was more intense. It had to be love. He had no idea. He thought he did. Thought he had it all worked out. They had even talked about having children. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you fall in love?
It didn’t take long before they both knew that they had made a very big mistake. She was a party person, that being where he had found her. She was fun. They had great fun, but you can’t base a relationship on fun.
When he bought the place in Michigan she had out right refused to go. He must be crazy to even suggest it. He went anyway. He was beginning to crave solitude and sanity from the lifestyle that he had traveled in for so many years.
He had also made many changes in that lifestyle. For many years he had been out on his own playing the club circuit in and around the Chicago area with his friends in the band. It was nearly a constant hum of traveling, hotels, motels, smoky clubs, all night parties, drinking and drugs. He was young, he could handle it. He would live forever.
When another local band, who had just lost a guitarist, had contacted him, he interviewed and got the job. The band was Paradox. He had heard of them before. It was the mid nineteen-seventies and they had just released their fifth album. A tour was planned and this was the big time as far as he was concerned. He rode high on that tide for several years having the best of everything. He was writing, performing and fine tuning his craft.
The band had become a major contender in the music field affording themselves several multi-platinum albums and great success.
The money started coming in too. Too much too quick was an easy, but dangerous way to live life and it became easier every year. Then somewhere along the line he started to change, began to see his life as something very vulnerable. Maybe he was beginning to burn out. Maybe it was the constant touring and no sleep, seemingly endless highs that he rode just to keep what he once foolishly thought of as sanity.
The early nineteen-eighties were a time when he stepped back and took a long hard look at himself. He didn’t necessarily like what he saw most days. He needed a place to escape to, a retreat, a haven.
He had managed to clean up where the drugs were concerned. He had seen far too many friends and acquaintances wasting their lives away. He was learning that drugs were not the answer. No one sets out to let them overtake you, it just happens somewhere along the way. He had to do something soon or he might not live to enjoy life.
He seemed to be going in a different direction than the rest of his bandmates. Small riffs had been developing and he had chosen to go out on his own. It was a very hard move to make. This group of men had become family to him, yet they had grown apart. He still owed so much of what he had and who he was to all of them.
He had met Linda during the last few years with the band. She knew them all. It was true, Scott was going through so many changes in his life. He was a little older now and had put much of the lifestyle that he had led behind him. He had good success with his first solo album after leaving the band. He could spend much more time at his place in Michigan. The heat was off, or at least it had died down.
Linda, when he met her, was the perfect compliment to him. They shared both hers and his lifestyle. They moved in the same circle of friends. Their relationship was so much more mature for several years enjoying the completeness that they had given each other. But for all the love that he felt for Linda, and she him, they had never talked of marriage. It wasn’t something either had wanted. Certainly not children. Not that he didn’t want children. He loved them. Saw himself someday as a father. But Linda did not want children, or maybe she just wasn’t ready yet. He didn’t even know he was.
That was one of the things that so confused him about Becky. As soon as he ever felt the first pangs of eagerness for her just knowing that she had two small boys would have been enough to send a man like him running, but it hadn’t. Instead he was drawn to them all.
There had been times when he had first come to sense his desire for her that he lay in bed at night and allowed himself the pleasure of taking her in his mind. On some occasions he had even let his mind wander and pictured her belly heavy with their unborn child. Never had he ever envisioned that before. His lot since his youth had been to NOT let that happen.
Now suddenly he had met this incredible woman who had stolen not only his heart but his soul and that was something that he very much thought about. Maybe that was even why subconsciously he never asked her about birth control. If she had gotten pregnant his decisions would have all been made for him.
That was why when Becky had told him that day that she was not on the pill he was so ready to commit to fact that in all probability she would become pregnant very soon. He was willing to take on that responsibility. He was ready to share his love in such a way that he had never done so before. To create a life with her was the single most beautiful way that he knew to express his love.
Now as he studied her breathing as she lay near him in the warm sun he felt as though his heart would burst for love of her and their child. He wanted to scoop her up in his arms and carry her to their cabin and hold them both, his wife and his child, never letting go.
