Love and Trust

When I pulled up the driveway and opened the front door, nothing. No kiss, no hug, nothing.

"Honey, I'm in the kitchen," I heard her yell out at me. She was stirring something on the stove. Wiping her hands with a towel I got my hug and kiss a little later than I had expected. Maybe I was expecting too much. She was a little quiet, however Angela more than made up for it.

"Regina, you okay? Are you coming down with something?"

"I'm fine, just a little tired, I think. By the weekend I'll be back to normal." She wasn't.

My wife spent an extraordinary amount of time at her mother's or on the phone with her. It might have been just a little post wedding let down, or maybe I wasn't being attentive enough, whatever it was, it was getting worse.

When she snapped at me Friday night for giving Angela two dollars instead of one I knew something was definitely wrong. When she countered that nothing was wrong I told her I didn't believe her.

That damn little voice in my head started talking to me again and I didn't like what it was saying. Saturday morning Regina said that she was going to confession at the church. Since I'd known her, she'd never gone to confession. Being as Catholic as she was what the hell did she have to confess that was so bad?

When she got back I could immediately tell she'd been crying. Whatever she was hiding was tearing her apart and indirectly me, too.

"Regina, honey, we need to talk, today!"

"I know, and we will when Angela goes to bed tonight." The inner voices got a hell of a lot louder.

Dinner was simple, but neither one of us could eat much. A little television, a quick bath, two chapters of her favorite book, and Angela was down for the count.

I found my bride in the living room waiting for me.

"Do you want to start or do you want me to just start asking questions?" I said, trying not to be confrontational.

"Steve, you have to promise me you aren't going to get mad, no matter what."

"Regina, I don't know if I can promise that, it depends on what you're going to tell me."

"Please, promise me." She was now crying.

"Okay, I promise. No matter what you tell me I won't get mad."

"Steve, you know how we talk about everything and make all important decisions together?" It was one of the things we both agreed upon before we got married

"Okay, so what didn't we decide together?'.

"Just remember, it wasn't entirely all my fault. It's just that I, I mean we, I mean..."

"For Christ's sakes, Regina, spit it out!" I was speaking a little louder than I meant to.

"Steve, I'm pregnant! I know you wanted to wait until we moved into a house. I'm so sorry."

"How could it happen? When?" I was in shock to say the least.

"Sometime during our honeymoon, the best I can figure."

"But you're on the pill. Did you miss a day or something?"

"Nope, I checked. I went on the pill two days before we left and I made sure to take a pill every day." We had used condoms up to this point. "Sometimes it was after we did it or first thing in the morning. My gynecologist doesn't have an answer either. She said I probably should have started a month earlier to regulate my cycle, but even then sometimes it just happens, nothing is one hundred percent foolproof. But no matter how it happened, we are going to have a baby. Please, don't hate me." She was starting to lose it again. "I told my mom and my priest and both told me that I shouldn't be keeping this from you."

"They were right. How can I be angry with the mother of my child. Sweetheart, we're going to have a baby, I'm so happy." She screamed for joy, jumped into my arms, and gave me a huge salty kiss.

All right, I'd lied, but I wasn't Catholic, so it didn't matter. I was neither elated nor totally unhappy. I really wanted to wait until we were a little more settled. But it happened, and I was going to be one hundred percent on board, no matter what.

That night I thought we were back on the cruise ship, as she tried to drive me through the bed riding me. I was about to tell her I was ready for the midnight buffet on the Lido deck, when she wanted to go again for a second and then a third time.

"We're going to have to do it a lot, because soon it's going to be a lot harder with a big bump in front. I was thankful when she tired out. We went to sleep in a puddle of our various juices.

I figured she'd blab our news to everyone at Sunday mass. She said nothing, which kind of surprised me. However, when we walked into her parent's house all hell broke loose when she confirmed to her mother that she had finally told me.

Nonstop happy, excited yelling and screaming became the norm that day as all the women huddled together, this time making baby plans. The men folk gave me their condolences. They told me I didn't have a clue what was going to happen to me. They wished me luck because I would need it.

Grandmamma sat quietly by herself. I walked over to her with a dessert for the both of us.

"Well, you made it," I told her. "You saw your granddaughter get married."

"Now, if I can just live long enough to see my new grandchild born."

"You're going to outlive us all and you know it. Just be thinking about a name or two. We decided we don't want to know what gender the baby is until he or she is born." She smiled, patted my hand, and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

"Steve, you're a good man. Regina and Angela are both lucky to have you. Just promise me you'll treat them like the treasures they truly are." I gave her my solemn promise they would be my main priority in life. I had officially adopted Angela shortly after we were married. Her biological father was thrilled to sign away his parental rights—no one coming after him for child support anymore—and I was thrilled to legally be Angela's father.

"Hon, is your grandmother sick or something?"

"No, what gives you that idea?"

"Just the way she was talking today, like she was kind of saying goodbye."

"She is just happy for the two, or should I say, the three of us. I can't wait until she sees our beautiful baby."

I'm sorry to say that two and a half months later, her grandmother passed on. It was sudden to us, but I don't think to her—she somehow knew.

They say when one door closes another opens. I thought our baby would be the door that opened, you know, a replacement for her grandmother. I never counted on losing someone in my family too.

Unbeknownst to everyone, except her new husband, my mother had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. She had been getting radiation treatments and the doctors thought they had it under control. It had shrunk enough so the doctors thought it would be possible to remove it. Why she put off the surgery so long is anyone's guess. The only reason her husband could surmise was perhaps she thought if the operation went badly she'd never live to see her only grandchild. A couple of months later it came back with a vengeance and now was inoperable.

Our daughter was born January 14th at four a.m. in the morning. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, was there, except my mother. Three days later I was laying our new daughter on my mother's chest in her hospice bed. She had hung on by her fingernails to see her grandchild. I'm not sure she was all there, but her eyes told me she was there enough to enjoy the moment.

The next two days were tough. I spent most of my time at my mom's bedside coming to grips with losing my mother for a second time. My dad told her he had forgiven her and he still loved her, something I thought I'd never hear him say.

"One day in the future, you and I are going to have to sit down and calmly have that talk we should have had years ago," he said, holding her hand. She smiled and he kissed her goodbye. A day later her husband Dan and I watched as her breathing stopped and she passed on to a life without pain and suffering. She'd found religion years ago and the priest gave her the last rites to speed her on her way to heaven.

It was five days after our daughter's birth, and still we hadn't picked a name for her. We didn't want to choose just any name. We wanted it to be something special, one we could tell her years later why we named her what we did. It came to us a day later.

We looked down at Isabella Jane Moore sleeping in her crib, and life was good again. We could tell her about the two guardian angels in heaven we had named her after, who would be looking down and protecting her.

Both sides were there in force for her christening at Saint Timothy's Church. The party at my dad's house almost rivaled our engagement party. In attendance were two proud parents, three beaming grandparents, a delighted sister, and a large extended family that would always watch out for her.

Three weeks later Dan showed up at our apartment. I could tell he still grieving. We did our best to make him comfortable.

"Your mom went through her own personal hell after she left you and your father. She may not always have been there for you, but she always loved you. You can't imagine what it was like for her after you allowed her back into your life. It was like she was given the second chance she never had." He was having a hard time speaking. "Here," he said, handing me an envelope. "She wanted you to have this."

I looked at Dan and then Regina and opened the envelope. It was a check for seventy-five thousand dollars.

"It was a life insurance policy she took out for you through her work. I didn't know anything about it until just before she died. Your mom said to tell you she hopes it makes up for a little part of the pain she caused you all those years." I was tearing up. I again looked at Dan and Regina. "There is also an annuity set up for your daughter she can get when she's eighteen. By then there should be enough to pay for her college education."

Regina and I thanked him, telling him again how sorry we were for his loss.

"Your mother and I had some great times, I'm going to miss her terribly. I only ask that you will allow me to see your daughters once in a while. I think seeing both girls will help me remember what I had."

After he left we just looked at each another before grabbing one another.

"I guess we're going to get the house we dreamed about, after all. Maybe a little bit after the fact, but nonetheless the four of us will have a place we can call home, thanks to your mother."

*****************

Next week Regina and I will celebrate our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. Two years after Isabella Jane, we had one more baby, a son named Robert. We are as happy today as we were the day we got married. Many friends and loved ones have passed on. I think about them everyday. Twenty-five years ago my dad remarried, retiring five years later. He and his wife went to live in the Florida sun in a retirement community called Temple Gardens. We drove down once a year for the holidays to spend a week with him and his wife Julie.

During a visit years ago, we were sitting on his back deck enjoying a little quiet time while the women were getting supper together.

"Dad, I was cleaning out the garage the other day and came across something I think you might want to have since I no longer have any use for it." I had gift wrapped it and stuck a huge red bow on the top. He ripped into it and when he finally saw it he just looked at me and smiled.

"Worked, didn't it?"

"Yes, it did, but I don't need it any longer." It was the equalizer he'd made me all those years ago. He slipped his thin hand into the strap, smacked it against his other hand, and smiled.

"I showed it to Robert when he was growing up. I told him the story about how I only had to use it once. I let him know if he ever needed it, it was there for him to use. Thank God, he never had to."

"I was a hard ass back then. Guess I've mellowed with age."

"Dad, we all have."

My dad stayed around for many more years, then he went to have that conversation with my mother. The one he'd promised her years earlier.

Regina and me? Well, like I said we're happy, and every time we get ready for bed I think back to our honeymoon, the bed we wore out and the outfits she wore. She may have gained a few pounds over the years, but she's still my hot Latin momma. Now if I could just get her to clean up her language a bit, she'd be the perfect wife.