Forever More
Part 2 - Faith
Chapter Twenty Four
The days of November were shorter as darkness came creeping earlier every evening. Rebecca was home alone with her children. Scott had flown out to California with Tom to attend some record label function. Rebecca wasn’t even sure what this one was for, she had other things on her mind when she dropped him off at the airport a few days prior. He would be home by the weekend.
The boys were asleep and Sarah was snuggled in her mother’s bed. Coming out of the bathroom Rebecca sat in the overstuffed chair in one corner of their bedroom. She wasn’t sure what she should do, if anything. Finally she picked up the phone and dialed the California number.
Paula answered. They talked awhile before Rebecca asked if Scott and the other guys were back yet. Paula said that they weren’t. She wasn’t even expecting them to float in until way passed midnight.
Paula could tell that something was bothering her friend. "Do you want me to have him call you when they get in?"
"Yeah," Rebecca thought and then changed her mind. "No, just forget it. It’ll be too late. I don’t want the phone to wake Sarah. I have her in here with me."
"What’s wrong?" Paula asked almost motherly.
Rebecca gave a little laugh into the phone. "Nothing. I just thought that maybe I should talk to him tonight."
"Why?" Paula was curious now.
Taking a deep breath Rebecca laughed again.
Paula asked again, "Becky, you tell me what the hell is going on? Right now!"
Rebecca couldn’t hold off any longer, "I’m pregnant."
"Oh, jeez! You’re kidding?"
"No. I found out today."
"That’s great!" Paula was so happy for her. I’ll make sure he calls you the minute he gets here."
"No. Don’t do that. I didn’t really want to tell him over the phone anyway. I’ll just wait till he gets home on Saturday."
"Oh, man! You can’t make me wait that long!"
"You? How do you think I feel? I’ll probably crack anyway."
"No." Paula was giving advice, "Don’t do it on the phone. I know. I’ll get him out of here on Friday."
"How you gonna manage that?"
"I don’t know. I’ll think of something."
Friday evening rush hour in Lansing was not what Rebecca liked to find herself driving in. Luckily they could take the back roads most of the way to the airport. Ethan and Kyle both wanted to ride along to pick up their father with the hopes of eating out at some point along the way. Sarah was buckled in behind Rebecca as she maneuvered the mini van into a parking place nearest the entrance. Soon they were inside and waiting for Scott’s plane to land.
He was pretty tired from a long day of air travel that did not go to smoothly. He didn’t really want to drive and Rebecca slid back behind the wheel. He was up for dinner, though, and he let the boys decide. Burger King.
Everybody was talking at once, as was generally the case, and both boys tried to tell their dad about things that were happening at school and a movie they had just seen. Sarah sat in her high chair scarfing down every French fry that Scott would lay on the tray. She spilled her juice and Scott completely missed his wife’s comment about having to go through all of this again as she sopped up the spill.
Rebecca had been eyeing him in a funny way since she picked him up. He had noticed that, and she continued to do so all evening at home. Later after everyone was asleep Scott came up to bed and crawled in next to his wife.
He rolled around and rested on his elbows while she lay under him.
"I missed you." Rebecca whispered quietly into his lips.
"I know, I could tell."
"Oh, you can, can you?"
Scott started kissing her working his way down from her lips. She let him spend some time on her breasts before she stopped him. "We need to talk."
Removing his lips from one nipple with a last good suck he looked up at her impatiently, "Now?"
"Well, soon" She wasn’t sure if that was what she wanted to say or not.
Scott started back down on his mission. "Well, this probably won’t take long," he mumbled into her belly.
As he inched his way down Rebecca lay tapping her finger on the mattress. She was definitely not in the mood for this. She had to get out what was on her mind or she might scream.
Scott slid down further under the sheets. His tongue had just found its way through the soft mound of hair between her legs.
Rebecca couldn’t stand it any longer. "It might be a little crowded down there."
She wasn’t even sure he had heard her at first. And maybe it took a moment to register. He lifted his head and pulled the blanket off his face. He lay between her legs looking up. Rebecca bit at her lip.
"What did you say?"
"What did you hear?"
"Are we playing some sort of game?" He could tell she wasn’t into this and wondered what he had heard.
"No. I said that it just might be a little crowded down there, was all."
Scott sat up and started to open his mouth.
"Just how do you mean that? You didn’t start or anything? ‘Cause at this point I don’t really care."
Rebecca knitted her brow and rolled her eyes, "No. That’s not what I meant."
"Well, then what?"
Shaking her head, she grinned and looked away.
He had to think a moment. This was a game. Then just as suddenly his mind clicked. Crawling up next to her he ventured, "Are you pregnant?"
She turned back and smiled. He laid back and pulled her into his arms where they lovingly discussed the future. Before long he was back under the sheets where he had left off, only this time Rebecca was paying much more attention.
Paula gave birth to another baby boy, Jacob, in February of the following year. Rebecca wasn’t due until the second week in July, but things weren’t going very well.
She was as sick as she had been with all three of her pervious children. She secretly detested the fact that Paula never seemed to be feeling bad at all while she was pregnant.
Around the middle part of April, into her seventh month, Rebecca’s doctor had decided to put her in the hospital. Her blood pressure was much higher than should be and the doctor ordered several tests on both her and the baby.
She spent about four days there before she was sent home to bed. Scott’s mother again flew up to help with Sarah and the boys. Scott was very worried but tried not to show it around Rebecca. All the tests had been coming back good and the ultrasound revealed a healthy baby. They seemed to be more worried about Rebecca.
By the middle of June Rebecca was back in the hospital. This time she was afraid of what might happen. They wouldn’t even let her out of bed for anything. They kept doing more tests on the baby and it was clear that the doctor was concerned for both of them by now.
Scott stayed with her as much as possible but she wasn’t even supposed to have many visitors, only constant rest. When he was there she would cry and was so afraid that something was seriously wrong with the baby. A few days later the doctor had decided that the baby was under a great deal of stress and thought it best to induce labor.
Even though this was Rebecca’s fourth birth it was very long and hard on both her and the baby. Scott was there through the whole ordeal and tired to keep a positive outlook for Becky’s sake all the while wanting to break down on his own.
When at long last the time came to go into the delivery room complications developed and Scott was asked to leave. The delivery was taking too long and they feared that the baby was in danger. They had given Rebecca something to put her to sleep and were going to deliver the baby with forceps.
Scott remembered the fear in his wife’s eyes as they put the mask over her face. She was crying out that she wanted him but they were rushing him out of the room.
He was so helpless as he sat alone in the waiting room praying for the life of his unborn baby and his wife. When at last they came to get him he followed a nurse up the hall to the recovery room where Rebecca lay partially conscious. She looked so pale and weak and could hardly move her hand as she tried to lift it off the table to take his.
She told him that he had a son. She had been told that he was going to be fine but she hadn’t seen him yet. He should go down to the nursery. Then she drifted back into sleep.
Scott walked down to the nursery and saw the tiny form laying under a heat lamp and in an incubator so frail and motionless. He couldn’t even touch him. A nurse came around from the room and put her arm around him.
"Your son is going to be fine. I know that he had a hard time. We just want to keep him under the lamp for awhile and his lungs are a little congested."
Suddenly the weight of the last fourteen hours caused his knees to weaken under him. For the first time he could allow himself to let go. He couldn’t take his eyes off his son. He stood forever watching every strained breath that caused the tiny chest to raise and lower.
After awhile Rebecca was brought down the hall on a bed and they stopped at the nursery so that she could see her son for the first time.
It wasn’t until the third day that Treage Thomas Taylor was strong enough to be brought into his mother and father. Rebecca cradled her baby in her arms as Scott sat next to them holding a tiny hand with one finger.
Rebecca had a hard time recovering after the birth. It wasn’t until late August that she started feeling like her former self.
And for their son who had started life out on a rather shakily he was certainly making up for it. It didn’t take any of them long to realize that for something so tiny he had total control over the household. He was by far the noisiest, most demanding little thing that they had ever seen. He never slept through the night and wanted constant attention and when he didn’t get it he let them know. But for all his fussiness and loss of sleep that he caused everyone he was the cutest little guy.
Marion said that he looked exactly like his father when he was born. Fair skinned, soft blond hair that was so light he looked as if he had none. Tiny little features with a nose the crinkled up when ever he started to get mad, which he did often.
He was quite a handful and as he grew it was more apparent that he was a force to be reckoned with. He was always going full speed in the opposite direction of everyone else. He could get into more trouble and create more messes than two toddlers put together. Scott or Rebecca were always having to pull him down or away from some potential danger. He could scale the bookcase in the living room and more then once was paddled for climbing up onto the kitchen cupboards.
Marion would just laugh and tell her son that he deserved everything that the little rascal could dish out.
Some nights when Scott would carry his sleeping son, so peaceful in his arms, up to bed he wondered how such a little guy could leave so much destruction in his wake. But Scott loved him so and many nights snuggled him down in between Becky and himself in their bed, until he would start kicking. On more than one occasion Scott, painfully doubled over, crawled out of bed and slept on the sofa.
