The Wedding Chapel

by Rachel Hauck

He came back from his musings and fixed on her, the twinkle gone from his eyes.

  “Are we going to make it? Did we think our marriage was forever? I’ve never seen one work, Jack. Not my grandparents’, my parents’, my sister’s. Emma and Javier were supposed to be soul mates. Didn’t last ten years. So if London is your dream—”

  “Hops gave me some marriage advice.”

  “Can’t wait to hear this.”

  “He said if working late was sexier than going home to my new wife, then maybe our relationship had run its course.” He was watching her carefully as he talked. She was suddenly aware of her hands and legs, remembering the light dusting of freckles on her cheeks and nose that Jack said he loved on their wedding night. “Said I should cut you loose.”

  “Like a horse from the herd? Nice, Hops. So do you agree? Have we run our course?” When they eloped they’d started something. Taylor just wasn’t sure they’d ever committed to finishing the race. “You’d rather work than come home to your wife?”

  “No . . . I just thought we were building our careers. Wh-what do you think? Did we rush things when we eloped?” Jack smoothed his hand along his jaw. “And, Taylor, one last time and I’ll never mention it again. You have no feelings for Voss?”

  She raised up on one knee and grabbed his face in her hands. “I. Have. No. Feelings. For. Voss.”

  “Okay,” he said, low, tentative. “End of Voss.”

  “But did we rush things when we eloped?” Taylor said. “Probably.”

  “What about that heartbeat thing? I mean, have you heard it since, you know, you left him? Since you married me?”

  “I hadn’t. Until a week ago. When I took the pictures at the chapel. That’s why I had to get involved. I felt the heart of that place, like something was alive. I couldn’t let Coach sell it. So I went to Daddy for help.” She laughed at the sound of her description. “I’m cray-cray, right?”

  “Not at all. What’d you hear at the chapel?”

  “This whoosh-thump. Like a heartbeat under a stethoscope and magnified.”

  “Then what’s God saying to you?”

  She regarded him for a moment. “Now, that’s a good question. I’ve not really thought to ask Him.”

  Jack set aside his fry bag and shake and pulled himself up, jumping from the car. He offered Taylor his hand. “Come on.”

  Taylor stopped for her shake and his, passed them to him, then hopped out of the car. “Where are we going?”

  “To think.”

  Taylor jogged alongside him. It felt good to stretch, move, be in rhythm with him.

  At the bleachers, Jack climbed to the top and faced the empty field. “Wonder where we’re playing away tonight.”

  Taylor sat down next to him and shook the dew from her melting shake. “Lipscomb, I think.”

  “Were you there when my band played at that big bonfire my senior year? Our stage was right over there.” Jack raised his shake toward a spot near the end zone.

  “The Sonics! You guys were good.”

  “Good?” Jack sat back, putting his arms on the bench behind him. “We were horrible. Just horrible.”

  She laughed, taking another sip of chocolate goodness. “True, but the drummer was really hot.”

  He grinned and kicked at her with his foot. “That’s about all I brought to the table. My extreme hotness.”

  “You all were like this weird blend of rock-country-Christian.”

  “I’d be in jail if I hadn’t become a drummer.”

  “Really?” Taylor sat back, loving this moment where he talked, like in the beginning, when they met in Manhattan. They talked of work, politics, news, where they wanted to be in ten years. Always the future and never the past.

  So she enjoyed this reminiscing river.

  “I was a really angry kid. Ticked off at the world, at the universe. Why did my mom die, the only parent who cared about me? What did I do to deserve a crappy life, going from foster family to foster family? One of the last families I lived with before moving in with the Gillinghams had six kids. They all played an instrument. So when I moved in at fourteen, the dad handed me a set of drumsticks.”

  “He just threw you in? Sink or swim?”

  “Pretty much.” Jack sipped from his shake, dew running down the sides and dripping onto the bleachers. “I was horrible. The oldest boy, Simon, was a savant with instruments. He could play anything after hearing it once. Simon said, ‘You look angry. You’ll make a great drummer.’ So he taught me and for the first time since Mom died, I felt like I belonged. I came home from school every day and practiced, sometimes until my hands bled.”

  Taylor loved the gentle flow of this moment. “So, ha, you lived with the Partridge Family?”

  “Yeah, something like that.” He glanced at her. “ ‘I think I love you, so what am I so afraid of?’ That’s how their song went, right?”

  The lyrics settled quietly on her heart. Sounded like their song. I think I love you.

  “Just when I was getting good, falling into a rhythm, no pun intended, the dad transferred to a different job. They moved to Oregon or Washington, someplace far west. The state wouldn’t let me go with them, so guess who got a new family. But deep down I don’t think they wanted me to go.”

  “So you moved in then with the Gillinghams?”

  “Nooooooo, I went from living with the Partridge Family–slash–Brady Bunch to living with the Monsters–slash–House of Horrors. Sex, drugs, and rock ’n roll, the works. Don’t ask me how they got approved in the foster system. Remember Bobby Eastman?”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh, wow, you lived with the Eastmans?”

  “Yep. Bobby started offering me pot, coke, this pill, that pill, and bullying me into stealing from his parents. But I hated that place so much I joined the high school band just to stay away as long as possible. I never left school before six o’clock, even later if I could. Sometimes Stuart Greaves would invite me over for dinner and his mom always insisted I just spend the night. The first new pair of shoes I ever had came from them.”

  “First new? Ever?”

  “I guess that explains my shoe obsession. And why I like new things.”

  “Jack, babe.” Taylor scooted closer to him, brushing her hand over his shoulder.

  “I was fifteen before I had a brand-new anything. Mrs. Greaves . . . she was a good lady. Bought me shoes, a couple pairs of jeans, and some shirts.” His voice faded. “Fed me so I didn’t have to eat from Dumpsters.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  He peered at her. “I don’t like to talk about it because it makes me seem pitiful.”

  She linked her arm through his. “It makes you seem heroic. You survived. You overcame. Look at you, an ad exec in New York City for one of the best firms in the country. With a job offer in London to boot.”

  “Sometimes all I see is that unwanted kid who ate from a Dumpster.”

  “There’s your ghost, then. It’s not your dad at all. It’s how you see yourself, Jack. You’re not a failure, you’re a survivor. And look what you’ve done with your life.”

  The shadows lengthened and the conversation fell silent as Taylor tried to picture sweet, handsome, fifteen-year-old Jack Dumpster diving.

  “I’m glad you became a drummer,” she said after a moment.

  “Me too. Or we’d be having this dinner at the state penitentiary.”

  Or worse . . . She peered up at him. Not having it at all.

  “Taylor?” Jack slipped an arm around her, drawing her close. “Have we taken this relationship as far as it can go?”

  “You tell me. You’re the one with the sexy office.”

  He laughed, lightly touching her chin, raising her face to his. “The only thing that’s sexy in my life is you.” His kiss encompassed her and disarmed her fears, stirring all of the stars and, if possible, bringing the Milky Way down to earth.

  She clung to him, wanting him, yearning to feel beneath his chest, to feel his heart. When he pulled her onto
his lap, she wrapped herself around him.

  When the kiss faded, she pressed her forehead to his. “I never said if we don’t work out we could walk away.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “Then how come we both heard it?”

  “Maybe fear had a voice that day?” Jack slipped his hands around her waist and pulled her close. “Maybe I said it and don’t remember. But the truth is”—he paused for a long inhale—“I want us to work.”

  “We have some hurdles.” Taylor smoothed her hands over his broad shoulders. But they were strong enough to carry her burdens. And she was willing to bear his.

  “Taylor.” His breathing deepened and his lips found hers. “I’m not good at telling you how I feel. I never grew up with a good exchange of emotions. Ask Sam and Sarah Gillingham.”

  “Okay, then just tell me one thing about how you feel, Jack. It doesn’t have to be perfect or pretty, just true.” She hungered, thirsted, for intimacy from his heart. He’d said so little in the six months they’d been man and wife.

  “I want to, but the words get stuck and—”

  “Do I matter to you? Do you care?”

  “So much it hurts, Taylor.” He brushed his hand over her hair, his warm breath scented with chocolate and Fry Hut fries. “When I think of how much I love you, it hurts. Corny, right? An eighties love song. Sometimes, if I imagine you and me ending, I can’t think straight and my heart gets all fluttery.”

  “There, Jack, you’re telling me how you feel.”

  In the distance, a dove cooed and the crickets sang their evening song. Taylor floated away on the wind of Jack’s confession, her heart humming a melody of its own.

  She wanted to trust love. Trust that the heartbeat of God was for them, not against them. All they had to do was surrender every one of their fears.

  Turning to Jack, Taylor slipped her hands into his. “Babe, I have some news.”

  “Good or bad?”

  “Good, I think. Shocking.”

  “Yeah? What?”

  Taylor peered straight into his twinkling eyes. “I’m pregnant, Jack. I’m pregnant.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  JACK

  Stripped down to his slacks, he threw punches at the heavy bag swinging from the top of Sam Gillingham’s detached garage.

  Jab, cross, hook, upper cut. Followed by a roundhouse kick, sending the bag against the workbench.

  Jab, cross, hook, upper cut . . .

  Taylor’s confession echoed through him. “I’m pregnant.”

  Jab-jab. Cross, hook, upper cut . . .

  Okay, pregnant. Parenthood. Being a father. He could do this, right?

  A memory flashed of when he was nine, right after his mama died and Rise dropped him off at the Martins’, friends of his mama’s.

  “This is where you live now.”

  “But I want to live with you.”

  “Jack, you can’t, you just can’t.”

  Right cross, jab . . .

  Bouncing from side to side, Jack worked the bag, punching and kicking each painful memory.

  Jab, cross . . .

  Freedom. He so craved freedom. But in the moment, Jack wondered if he’d ever be free.

  With a yell, he hammered the bag over and over, finally falling back, exhausted.

  Dropping to the old stool at the workbench, he snatched up his T-shirt to wipe the sweat from his eyes.

  Poor Taylor. She didn’t know what to think. She announced she was pregnant and Jack closed up. He drove her back to Granny’s, then borrowed the car to drop in on the Gillinghams’ punching bag.

  Why? Why did finding out he was going to be a father bring up the ghosts of his past, of Rise Forester?

  “I thought I heard someone out here.”

  Jack swung around to see Sam standing in the door, his reading glasses hooked through the top button of his shirt, slippers on his feet.

  “I was going to come in when I was done.”

  “Didn’t know you were in town.”

  “Wasn’t planning on being, but my celebrity endorser got away from me.”

  Sam made a face. “Sounds challenging.”

  “Colette Greer. She came down to meet with FRESH Water but had business in town she needed to tend to.”

  “Ah, I see. Well, the Vanderbilt game is on tonight. I’d love some company. Sarah is baking. And she’d love someone to eat.” Sam patted his belly. “My youthful physique is barely hanging on.”

  Jack laughed in spite of himself. In his late fifties, Sam was in good shape. Reaching for a folded lawn chair, Sam snapped it open and sat down, his manner and way so peaceful and confident. When he sat, he watched and waited.

  “You do this to me, you know,” Jack said, waving his gloved hand at Sam. “Get me off guard, talking about football and baking, then sit and wait.” He leveled a punch at the bag and the ghosts swirling in his head.

  “Blame it on doctor training.”

  Jack hooked his hands over the top of the bag, breathing, resting, trying to overcome the rattling of fears in his ears. “Taylor’s pregnant.”

  “And that’s what this is all about?”

  Jack gave the bag a light punch. “Do you not know me? H-how can I be a good father when I was never fathered?” He shook his head. “Sorry, Sam. You were there for me.”

  “What’d I teach you about punching, Jack?”

  “Pray. Punch and pray.”

  “Because you can punch that bag all day long and maybe do your physical heart some good, but exercise won’t change you, cure you, or heal your hurts.”

  “But praying will?”

  “You got anger? You talk to the Holy Spirit. ‘Help me. Give me Your peace, Your joy.’ ”

  “It’s not as simple as you make it, Sam.”

  “That’s right. It’s not simple. You have to stick with it. Lean into the Spirit like you’re leaning into those jabs and upper cuts.”

  “I’m not in the mood for a sermon.”

  “What sermon? You break into my garage—”

  “I used the key.” The one he kept on his ring, though he’d not been in Sam’s garage for a long time. The sad part about leaving Heart’s Bend and not looking back was leaving the Gillinghams. They’d visited him in New York twice but he’d only been home, here, once in about five years.

  “—and beat up my punching bag. Looks like you’ve been keeping in shape in New York.”

  “There’s a gym in our office building.”

  “I see you’re doing the physical work, but how about emotional? Spiritual? You were never good at dealing with your emotions.”

  “Gee, I wonder why . . .” Jab, jab, cross, cross.

  “You know that excuse worked when you were fifteen. Even eighteen. I even gave you a pass when you were twenty and figuring out who you wanted to be. But now, Jack, you just look silly. You’re thirty years old and you’ve not reckoned that your earthly father has let you down.”

  “Gee, Sam, I didn’t realize I was ever supposed to be okay with that.”

  “Is that what I said? Son, you’re hearing what you want to hear. Reckoning with it doesn’t mean you approve it. Your heavenly Father hasn’t let you down. Do you seek His approval? His advice? When was the last time you prayed? Worshipped?”

  “I’ve gone to church recently.”

  “I didn’t ask you when you went to church.”

  “Then I don’t know. A few months.” Six? Seven? A year?

  “No wonder this baby news got to you.”

  “This should be a happy time, Sam, but I don’t want to be a father. I’m not ready to be a father.”

  “Too late. You already got a little one on the way. Jack, the good Lord has freely given you everything you need to heal from such a deep hurt, but you choose to keep walking around wounded. Eventually you’ll walk further and further off the straight and narrow. One day, you’ll be old and wonder where it all went wrong. Or worse, you’ll be too far gone to even notice you’ve strayed, thinking God ga
ve you a bum rap.”

  “I thought I was over it. Life was fine in New York. Then I ran into Taylor and bam! Everything turned upside down.”

  “Sarah and I were delighted when you called to say you’d eloped. Very romantic.”

  “Or very foolish.” Jack reached for a folding chair and popped it open, sitting with a hard sigh, sweat trickling down his back and sides. These slacks were going straight to the cleaners. Sam was right—exercise alone couldn’t heal him.

  “How’s it going with Taylor otherwise?”

  “It’s hard because I’m not good at telling her how I feel. What she means to me.”

  “What does she mean to you?”

  “You sound like Taylor.”

  “Well?”

  Jack knew Sam’s game. He was good at getting him to talk by just waiting, being patient, listening.

  For a moment the only sound in the garage was Jack catching his breath. He shifted his gaze from Sam to the garage floor, then to Sam.

  “I think of her during the day.” Once the first words spilled out, the rest came easy. “I love the idea that when I go home, she’ll be there. Or evidence of her is there. But the moment I see her, I pull back. Clam up. And I walk past her like she’s a bother instead of a joy.”

  “All right, you’ve identified the problem. How are you going to fix it?”

  Jack glanced over at Sam, tapping his gloved hands together. “I don’t know.” Ah, there, he’d voiced it.

  “So you keep one foot out the door. That way you can run first if it all goes south. But because you have one foot out the door, you’re all but guaranteeing it will go south.”

  Jack jumped to his feet. “Don’t you know, Sam, it always goes south! Even living here with you and Sarah . . . I turned eighteen and had to leave.”

  “Who said you had to leave?”

  “The system. My case worker. Pack up, go to college, because I was one of the lucky ones—ha!—who earned a scholarship. Time to be on my own. I was done, out of the system. Besides, I didn’t really belong here with you.”

  “But you had a place here. We told you.”

  “Yeah, but you and Sarah . . . had your own lives. You didn’t need me—”

  “Is that what you thought?”

  Jack exhaled. “Yeah, I guess. Your friends and family didn’t want me to be a permanent part of the clan.”