Love Knows No Color Pt. 13

Our finances had gotten much better since the marriage. We were no longer maintaining two houses. Brian and Tamika were renting my place, covering the mortgage. In addition, they were paying the utility bills. All told, that added about $1000 a month to our budget. We'd used the first month's savings and what was left over from the gift cards our parents had given us for the honeymoon to pay off the balance on my Liberty, which we now owned free and clear. Add another $350 a month to the budget.

But, we were about to take a hit. Since Rose was now in prison, the child support payments were stopping. In addition, we'd now have to pay for day care. We discussed the situation with Althea, who volunteered to sit the kids when Shavonda was working. Soon, they'd both be in school, and Shavonda had enrolled them in the local school. Ethan would be starting kindergarten this year, and Brittany would be in first grade. When the time came, Shavonda would get them off to school in the morning, and Althea would come over to the house to be there when the school bus dropped Ethan off around lunch time. She'd be there when the bus dropped Brittany off later in the afternoon, and would leave when either Shavonda or I returned home from work. The morning of my birthday, Shavonda had called the day care to inform them that we would be pulling the kids out when school started.

As always, Barbara would be welcome to come over and visit the kids whenever she wanted. We informed her of the new arrangements. We hoped that increased contact with the grandkids would help compensate for the loss of her daughter. Shavonda had come to love Barbara, and made it a point to invite her to any family functions.

On Sunday, I took the week 24 photos of Shavonda's pregnancy. She was growing, having put on about 15 pounds since the wedding. She still felt fat, but I told her it was all baby weight, and that it made her even more beautiful to me. I also reminded her that we were now past the point of viability, and that even if she delivered today, the baby would survive. That really put a smile on her face. I took a photo of her standing there, naked with her hands holding baby bump lovingly, with the huge grin on her face and sparkling eyes. I also posed her for the same photo clothed. Even she commented on how beautiful she was.

The next week, we looked at contractors. We had $30k to work with, the two $10k checks, and the $10k we'd gotten from the settlement from the Ethan's daycare. Ethan still had his money in a trust fund, we had set it up so that we couldn't touch his money until he went to college.

What we wanted to do was add two bedrooms to the house, which would make it into an L shape and almost double its size. There would be an excavated basement underneath, and we could put in a game room as well as move Shavonda's office space down there. We put the job out for bid, to carefully selected contractors. We didn't let anybody without a stellar reputation bid on the job, having heard horror stories about rip-off contractors. The bid we selected came in at $44k, with half due now, and half due upon completion of the job, which was expected to take six weeks. Reluctantly, we decided to get a home improvement loan on the house for the remaining balance. I joked to Shavonda about when you go white your credit gets right. She laughed, then said, "Boy my credit was right before I met you."

That week, at train night, Ziggy mentioned that they'd finally gotten Officer Shoemacher. They'd tried setting him up with various undercover women cops as bait, but he didn't bite. Then, they worked a cop who looked a little like Shavonda, and he took the bait. They were building a case against him that would stick.

About a week later, the DA called, asking for Shavonda's testimony in the case. "Of all the women who have accused him of attempted rape, Shavonda has the most impeccable record. She's a well-regarded member of the business community, whereas most of the other women were streetwalkers. Shavonda would make a credible witness.

Shavonda told him, "Look, I mean no disrespect, but I am having a baby in a couple months. I don't think I want the stress of the trial to harm the baby." She agreed to contact the DA after the pregnancy.

We made some changes to how we did the Ren fests. Shavonda no longer helped carry the cases from the company van. Tamika and I did all the work ourselves. Shavonda's only duty was to staff the booth. I didn't want her straining herself. Brian, as he had the past summer, worked the festivals as a food vendor and wasn't available during the day. He did, however, share Tamika's motel room and they hung out with us in the evenings.

When we did the main Ren fest, the one that lasted six weekends, we stayed at the same motel across the street from the bar where Darren and Minnie hosted karaoke. Shavonda still wanted to sing, so on the weekends we didn't have the kids I'd accompany her to the bar while she sang her heart out. Some people remembered her from before our wedding, when nobody knew she was pregnant. They congratulated us on the marriage and the baby. Shavonda still ate the bar food, which was very good. But we made sure she drank only non-alcoholic beverages.

The first week, Shavonda's first song choice was 'Giving him something he can feel.' As she started into the song and reached the chorus, somebody in the back of the bar shouted, "That's why you're in the condition you're in."

Shavonda, mic in hand, walked over to the heckler. "What was that?" she asked. Darren had paused the song.

"I said, that's why you're in the condition you're in," an embarrassed older white man replied.

"Yes, it is," Shavonda replied, not missing a beat. "And it was gooooood." The crowd laughed. She wandered back over to me and Darren restarted the song. She sang in her best Aretha imitation, and when the song was over, introduced me. "This is my husband, Jason, who inspires me to sing these songs. I gave him something he could feel, and all I got was this big belly." The crowd laughed again.

And so the night went. The heckler had released the playful side in Shavonda, which I hadn't really seen in a while.

By this point, she was well into her third trimester, and the pregnancy was starting to take a toll on her. She complained of aching back and hips. The baby was active as well, and now when it kicked, you could see her belly move. Labor Day weekend, she was at 27 weeks, and things were beginning to slow down for us. Up until this point, Shavonda's pregnancy had increased our already active sex life. I loved how easy it was to make her come multiple times, seeing hearing and feeling her in the throes of passion ignited something primal in me. But now, fatigue and pain were starting to put a damper on things.

We'd had to adjust our positions to compensate. Gone was any position where she lay on her back. Instead, we did doggy style, or she rode me. I didn't mind, either position gave me one helluva view of my fertile goddess. I enjoyed the view either way. Doggie, I got to watch myself sliding deep into her. Her on top, I got to watch those luscious D cups bounce and sway to our rhythm. I enjoyed her larger breasts. If I thought they were perfect before, they were truly great now.

Shavonda had never really slept on her back, preferring a semi fetal position. I always liked this because it allowed me to curl up into her while we slept. I enjoyed feeling her push back into me in the night. But now, she'd started sleeping with a pillow between her knees. She claimed it helped to ease the soreness in her legs. All I know was the pillow parted her thighs enough for me to easily slip my hand between her legs as we slept. If she was going to grind her booty into me and make me hard during the night, I was going to mess with hers as well.

The week before Labor Day, the contractor started on the addition to the house. First, they dug a huge hole in the backyard adjacent to the existing house, then poured a concrete footer at the same level as the existing basement floor. After that cured, they laid out the foundation in cement blocks, and set the doorways for the outside entry, and the doorway between the existing house and the extension. Soon after, they had the walls and roof up, and the extension was protected from the elements. The remaining four weeks was spent putting up the floors and walls, adding the plumbing for the added bathroom, and doing the electrical work. The building inspectors signed off on the new construction, and by the first week of October, the extension was ready.

Shavonda was at week 32 in her pregnancy, and her belly was getting huge. I told her how sexy she was, how I loved the way she looked knowing she was bulging with our baby.

We spent the next weekend shopping for new beds, for the kids. I moved our bed into the new master bedroom at the rear of the extension, just beyond the new bathroom. The new bedroom was a bit larger than the old one, which we equipped with a brand-new queen bed. It would make a good guest room for when family visited. We set up the new kids' beds in the new second bedroom in the extension. We also bought a crib for the baby. Eventually, we'd give the baby a room to itself. But to start, we wanted the baby close by.

The bathroom was amazing. We'd had them put in an extra-large tub/shower, so we had room to move when we resumed our bubble baths. It also had a private entry into the master bedroom, so we didn't have to walk naked in the hall.

The Ren fests had been good for business, so much so that we were running out of stock to sell in the stores. Shavonda had thought ahead, and the photos of the jewelry that were on the website were saved. Usually, when an item sold, we took the photo down. Now, we'd leave them up, marked special order. If somebody wanted one of those items, we could make another one to order. The special orders kept us in business when we ran out of items to display in the stores.

The photos were also selling reasonably well. By now, we'd gotten a reputation for being a place where you could buy some different looking photos. And we now custom framed them at the Ellsworth store. My evenings after work were sent doing solder work. I tried to put in at least an hour every day. With the booth venting all the fumes outside, Shavonda was able to join me in her garage workshop while I did this work. I enjoyed her company, and we'd taken to pulling up albums at random on the iPod, and playing them all the way through. Every night we'd pick a different band to listen to, alternating choices between ourselves. It was hard to believe after well over a year of listening to each other's music, we'd still not heard it all. The iPods each contained almost 10,000 individual songs.

After I was done working in the workshop, we'd head upstairs where we often spent time reading books out loud. The doctors had told Shavonda that the baby liked to listen to the parents' voices, and we tried to pick short stories or poetry that didn't take a long time to read. Often, I would read with the book next to Shavonda's belly, close to the baby. During these times, we often watched the baby kick. I hoped that, in addition to strengthening our marital bond, we were also bonding with the baby.

Our final festival before the baby came was the Bedford Fall Festival in mid-October. Like we did the previous year, we'd driven over the mountains, with Brian and Tamika following us, though they knew the way by now. When we checked in, the Indian lady, who'd last seen us on our honeymoon, looked at Shavonda's belly and said in her heavy accent, "Didn't take you long!" She fawned over Shavonda's belly when she saw the baby kick, and her daughter, about Tamika's age, also felt the baby. They were happy for us.

The first night when we were there, we were playing Uno on the bed when Brian dropped one of the cards, on purpose. Tamika volunteered to pick it up for him, and leaned over the bed in search of it. When she got back up, Brian had an open ring box in plain view. "Tamika, will you marry me?" he asked.

"Yes! Yes!" whimpered a tearful Tamika. Brian slipped the ring on her finger, and she grabbed him and pulled him down on the bed for a long, passionate kiss. Uno cards scattered everywhere. So much for the game. We celebrated with a bottle of wine they'd brought. Even Shavonda had a glass, saying, "Just one drink won't hurt the baby. This is way too special not to celebrate."

After we'd finished the bottle, they retired to their room next door, and we listened to them making love while I rubbed Shavonda's back. They were so loud we couldn't help but listen. Later, Brian told me it was the first time Tamika had let him in without a condom, and that he hoped he'd put a baby in her. I told him to do what we did. Just keep flooding her womb with seed until something took. He laughed, and said, "We intend to."

The festival was busy, and we'd pretty much sold out of whatever stock we had. Shavonda, being the smart businesswoman she was, had marked some of the jewelry 'display sample, may be custom ordered' so that even though we lacked product to sell, we could still take orders and mail out the items when we'd completed them. We even sold the display items, with the provision that they couldn't be picked up until the end of the festival.

The second evening, the four of us went to a movie after the festival closed for the day. Dinner consisted of subs from Sheetz, the only edible thing open that late. I also got Shavonda a pint of fudge ripple. She still had her cravings. That night, after a loving shower than ended up with me inside her, I led her to the bed where I feasted on her toes. It had been awhile since we'd done that, and I'm sure Shavonda's moans kept Tamika and Brian's attention through the walls. Especially after I left her toes and licked the cream from between Shavonda's legs. I never got tired of her taste, either before or after sex.

In the morning, before we turned in our keys and went for breakfast and the festival, I took the week 34 pictures of Shavonda. We were in the home stretch now, and Shavonda was occasionally feeling contractions. By this point, she'd picked up about 25 pounds, and become pleasingly plump.

Arriving home from the festival, we got a call from Tamika. "You got a letter came to the house. I'm gonna bring it over. I think you two should read it right away."

The letter turned out to be from Rose, addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Jason Waite. It had come to Tamika's house because that was the only address of mine she knew. We still hadn't let her know where Shavonda's house was.

It read:

Dear Jason and Shavonda,

I still do not approve of your relationship and marriage. But I wanted to thank you for taking good care of Brittany and Ethan while I am away. Mother brought them to see me today, and she tells me you have built an addition to your house so that they can have their own rooms. She also tells me that the reason you didn't bring the children to see me was that the DOC won't allow you to visit me. I understand. The fact that you willingly let Mother bring them to me means a lot.

Mother and the children both tell me that Shavonda takes very good care of the children, loving them like they were her own. I am glad that if they can't have me, at least they are loved by their new family.

The prison has me going to group therapy sessions, and as part of this I am reaching out to tell you I appreciate what you are doing on the childrens' behalf.

Sincerely,

Rose Meridith Waite

We looked at the letter in shock. Was this Rose's way of showing remorse?

Shavonda insisted on hand writing a response, which she handed to me to read before sealing it in an envelope:

Dear Rose,

Thank you for your letter. I am writing this letter with Jason's consent and approval.

It means a lot to me that you took the time to write me, especially since I know you can't stand me.

The Lord's prayer in part says, "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us." You have committed many sins against us, trying to destroy us. We are still standing, stronger than ever. The past is the past. I am willing to forgive you and let this matter go. I am doing this because I need to move on. I can't let resentment for what you did to us rule my life. So, I have decided to forgive you. I hope one day the good Lord will see his way clear to soften your heart, so that you won't let hatred continue to destroy your life.

Sincerely,

Shavonda Marie Waite.

It was such a beautiful letter, and I was very proud of my ebony queen for writing it. I mailed it the next morning.

The final weeks of the pregnancy flew by. Sundays, when we had them, we took the kids to church. The AME congregation had accepted them with love, and it was a good spiritual home for all of us.

The last weekend in October, I took a 4-day weekend and we made the long trip to my parents' farm. Edie made the trip with us, longing to see Kenny again. Evidently, they had been getting together once a month or so, at a location midway between Pittsburgh and his home in Western Virginia, just a stone's throw from my parents. The leaves were still in brilliant color when we arrived. In addition to my parents and Grandma, Kenny was on the front porch awaiting our arrival. He greeted Edie with a hug and kiss like they were long term lovers. They spent the evening with us, then he took her home to his place. They stopped by to visit every day.

We ribbed Kenny about licking the chocolate tootsie pop, and he laughed. He was as happy as I'd seen him in a long while. "See what you started," he said. "You had to bring Von here and disrupt things. Now I am in love with a woman who lives 300 miles away, and I don't know how much more of this I can take. One of us is going to have to move, and soon."

Our visit went well. Everybody pampered Shavonda. She barely had to do anything for herself all weekend. In the mornings, we sat in the kitchen chairs while Mom made breakfast, Shavonda's feet in my lap. Everything felt so right. We finally had peace in our lives in both places. Shavonda passed on the invitation from her parents for my family to join them for Thanksgiving dinner. Hopefully, by that time the baby would be here.

Shavonda seemed increasingly weary and forgetful. Mom said that was normal. "Just keep doing what you're doing and she'll be fine," she said. "Remember, her body is about to be turned inside out. The baby is stretching everything she has, and to be honest, those changes hurt. Just hold her. Tell her you love her. Tell her how beautiful she is and how proud of her you are. Rub her wherever she hurts, and above all, let her tell you what she needs. If she needs sleep, let her rest. If she needs love, give it to her. But you already do this. I can tell by the way you two interact that she's having her needs met."

To Shavonda, she said, "I know you're sore. But do what the doctor tells you, even if you're too tired. It will help you and the baby. Remember, both of you, it isn't about you anymore. It's all about the baby from here on in. Von, you only have a couple of weeks to go. It looks like you've done a good job so far. Just keep up what you're doing, and try not to get irritated by the little things. Above all, try not to be afraid. You can do this. There is a blessing at the end of it all, but you have to endure some misery to get there. Just remember, seeing the baby for the first time will make it all worth it."

Monday morning, Kenny brought Edie back, and we all had breakfast together one last time before hitting the road for Pittsburgh. On the way back, Edie and Shavonda had the girl talk. They talked about Kenny and me, comparing notes. They talked like I wasn't there. Obviously, Edie was in love. She wished she could have stayed longer, but she had to leave. We all had jobs to get back to. As happy as the conversation was, there was an air of sadness that hung in the air.