Love Me Tender

Lynn stared at her reflection in the mirror one more time. The cream colored satin Rock-a-Billy style dress did its best to accentuate the positives of a body that had seen and given life. Her red hair that was freshly dyed to cover the greys that came with that life was pulled back from her surprisingly youthful face into a ponytail laced with baby's breath and white roses.

"Mom, quit worrying. You look beautiful," whispered her oldest daughter as she wrapped arms about her from behind.

In the mirror, Lynn stared into the face of a younger, more beautiful version of herself. This woman was everything she was not. Steady, confident and self-assured. Everything that Lynn had created her to be. A woman of steel that her mother's mistakes had forged her into the fires of love, laughter and life. Lynn felt the tears gathering in the corner of her eyes.

"Stop it Mom. You are going to ruin your make-up. It's a wonder we even got you into any at all. We don't need to have to go through all that again because you have huge black steaks running down your face." She matched actions to words, turning Lynn around to face her and dabbing at the corners of her mother's eyes with a tissue.

Another set of fingers laced through her own and gave a gentle squeeze. She greeted the gaze of another beautiful and strong woman: her daughter-in-law. Her tummy bulged and seemed to actually move beneath her dress with the same life that Lynn had brought into this world. But she knew that her son and this magnificent creature would do so much better a job than she ever had with her first grandchild. "Oh, Mama," she chided as she shook her head.

"Gees, Mom, you would think this is your first time to do this and not your third," said the petulant teen sprawled across the chair in the corner with her iPad close at hand.

Her older sister poked the girl in the shoulder, but ever the honest person that Lynn raised her children to be her youngest daughter stood her ground. "What? It's true, ain't it."

And that was the crux of the matter. Her baby girl always seemed to have a way of stripping all the layers of polite society to the very beating and throbbing heart of the matter...bloody though it was. Lynn loved all her children. She loved all children period. But there was something special about this final precious gift of the goddess that had taught more about life and love than any of her other children had.

The slow and familiar melody began to drift into the room. It was the signal they had been waiting for. Her girls surrounded her and led her to the door where her beloved son waited to take her hand. She knew that she was fighting a losing battle against the water works and her daughter must have too because she pressed a handful tissue into Lynn's hand along the bouquet of roses. "You just better have gotten your aim right, Mama. Or I'm gonna cutta bitch and I'd hate to get that dress all bloody and send you to the hospital on your wedding night. Besides how many times do I have to tell you, Mama, you are not a pretty crier."

Lynn laughed as the four women formed a circle of love, a girly group hug, Lynn knew one thing: she might have shitty taste in men, but damn did she have amazing children.

As if reading her mother's mine, the youngest voice of reason, the soul that was born old, shoved her mother through the door to her waiting brother, "Quit worrying, Mommy. This time we choose him for you. And we gots good taste in men."

Her son, who had stood at the other end of what seemed like an endless path, less than a year before, tucked her hand into the fold of his arm as his wife heavy with child snuck up the aisle to take her seat. Her daughters preceded her slowly up that path of non-descript reddish-brownish-orange carpet towards the front of the chapel where Elvis Presley stood holding a Bible in one hand and a microphone in the other as he belted out the words to his most famous song...Love Me Tender.

She chuckled at the odd, unusual, eccentric culmination of her warped fantasies. Her dream wedding...Elvis in Vegas. What more could any girl hope for? Well, maybe that this time...she was not making another mistake.

"Mom, I'll tell you exactly what you told me...there are no guarantees in this life," whispered the man next to her. It was just like him to turn her own words back on her. But then again, he had every right to...her Mister Stability. She smiled as she remembered the other words that she had spoken that day to her daughter-inn-law..."It Is both sad and wonderful that the only 'perfect' man I have ever met is the one I raised."

It was their turn then to begin that endless walk. Each step seemed frozen in time, a slow motion replay of the big play at the Super Bowl. She looked around the small Vegas wedding chapel at the smiling faces...her children, his, a scattering of friends. She looked to the raised dais at the front of the chapel.

Damn, this Elvis was good. Not the fat, cheesy older one. Not the boyish man-child that had stepped on the world's stage. The man...the mature one in black leather that had ruled this town as its top headliner for almost a decade in the seventies. He had that song down pat. How many times a day did he sing it, she wondered? How many of those were the disasters in the making that her first tow marriages had been?

Her eyes drifted to Elvis's right. He stood there in a suit. Simple but functional like the man. His shoulders were broad. Broad enough to carry the baggage that she had brought to this relationship. Broad enough to break down the doors...walls...fortresses...that she had built around her heart.

Lynn smiled and tried to focus upon his face. But the tears must be back because all she saw was a...

***

All she saw was a blur. Lynn sat bolt upright in her bed. The sheets were wet with sweat. But it was a different kind of moisture that collected in a large pool on her pillow. Tears. Tears of a lifetime. Tears of thousand mistakes.

But what surprised her was that mixed sparingly among those tears of pain were a few of hope and faith as well. She had been having this dream...the exact same dream...every night since her son's wedding over a month ago.

It was probably just the sentimental rantings of an old woman. Her time was gone. She had her children and they had all turned out wonderful and hopefully soon she might begin to have grandchildren. And if worse came to worse she would fill the whole damned house with cats...let them talk about the crazy old cat woman at the end pf street. It was not like she cared what people thought.

Except for the teeny tiny kernel of hope and faith that still lived in her not-so-old heart. That seed of which miracles are made. That belief in the redemptive power of love about which she wrote every day. That truly miraculous melding of two souls across time and space. The love of a lifetime that had eluded the romance writer for her whole lifetime.

She sighed and turned over to look at the time on her phone. Five-thirty. A bit early but too late to go back to sleep. She pushed back the covers and headed for the kitchen and a cup of strong, hot, black coffee that fueled her tales of love and hot sex. Two things woefully lacking in her life. Oh well such was the winding path of life. As she hummed off key..."Love me tender, love me true, all my dreams fulfill, for my darling I love you and I always will."