Forever and Ever, Amen I Do Part Four

Forever and Ever, Amen

I Do – Part Four

by

Reagan Kavanagh

This work of adult fiction, loosely based on characters portrayed by Russell Crowe, includes adult language and experiences; you have been warned. No copyright infringement on original works is intended. © Reagan Kavanagh 2007

RANDY TRAVIS
We were set up and ready to go when the wedding party got to the Lake Palestine Country Club. I’d worked a deal with the Club's manager, and he’d brought in a juke box with Forever and Ever, Amen on it. He’d attend the reception and “start” the music for the first dance. What no one knew – not even Reagan and Dee – was that me and my boys were right behind the curtain where the juke box was …thing is, the box wouldn't be plugged into the wall outlet. The manager would pretend to drop in the quarter, and we’d start on the count of five. As soon as the first few lines of the song were done, he’d open the curtain.

I know Reagan and Dee had thought we’d do that one song and then be on our way, but I had another idea. Me and the band had a little talk after meeting all these nice people; we’d decided to stay for the shindig and play whatever anyone wanted as long as it was a song we knew. That would be our wedding present to the happy couple.

We’d done the sound check early – right after breakfast – and were ready behind the curtain when everyone arrived. We had a rough time not laughing through the toasts to the bride and groom, and then I heard Max’s voice – I'll be damned if he doesn't sound like I think a general would on a battle field – saying it was time for their first dance as a married couple. The manager walked to the juke box and dropped the quarter. We made the count and started playing but not as loud as we do at concerts. We wanted the couple to at least think the song was coming from the box until the manager pulled the curtain.

You could hear the gasps of surprise when the curtain went back. We caught the O’Reillys in mid-step, and they turned to see what had everyone’s attention. Dino missed his step, and Ellie's hands went to her face.

“Reags, oh my God, you didn’t!” I could hear Reagan laughing.

“Well, no, I didn’t …we all chipped in on it.” We stopped in mid-chord because we were all laughing so hard we couldn’t sing or play. We’d start the song over once the shock settled. The O’Reillys came over to shake hands and thank us for making the trip. Ellie had tears in her eyes.

“Honest to God, Mr. Travis, I didn’t think the day could get any better, but it just did!”

“Honey, why don’t you call me Randy? Me and your girlfriends have been on a first-name basis for some time now.” Her husband was next.

“Randy, thanks for this, from the hard rock bottom of my heart.” That got a hoot from Dee about being cheesy. Guess it’s clear he’s a fan.

We redid the song, and they got their first dance done; I stepped up to the mike and said we’d be doing all the music today, so I wanted requests. If we knew it, we’d play it. That got Dino to the mike, and he invited everyone else to the floor. I don't remember the last time I've had this much good, old-fashioned fun.

DINO
I don't know who was more shocked, me or Ellie. It was probably a toss-up. It didn't surprise me at all when Reags had the juke box cued up with “Forever and Ever, Amen” as our first dance. She knows Ellie and I love that song, and it was about as appropriate as anything could be for two people who'd waited until we were damned near middle-aged to marry; I'm not counting Ellie's first marriage, and neither is she. When the music started, I thought it sounded more full than you'd expect from a juke box, but what the hell …knowing Reags, she'd gotten a first class juke box in for the occasion.

We started dancing to the first couple of bars, and as I twirled Ellie around the floor and was facing the juke box, the curtain behind it opened. Randy-fucking-Travis and his band were behind the frigging curtain and playing their little hearts out. I missed my step and tripped Ellie. She gave me “the wife look” before I turned her around to look toward the juke box. Her hands flew to her face, and she almost shrieked.

By that time Randy and his crew were laughing so hard they couldn't sing or play, and they just gave up. My wife – God, I love saying that – had tears in her eyes when we walked over to thank them and shake their hands. Reags got a surprise at that point. Through a lot of phone calling and talking on her part, she'd arranged for our best friends to hire Randy and his band to come in just to do “Forever and Ever, Amen;” they had decided to stay and play the entire reception at no additional expense. Randy asked the crowd for requests, saying they'd play anything they knew.

I don't remember a hell of a lot about the rest of the reception, but that's okay. I'd finally managed to accomplish something I never thought I could. I'd met a truly good woman and fallen in love with her. Even better, she'd fallen in love with me. I'd more or less committed to her at Max and Reags' wedding, and then almost lost her through my own fucking stupidity in the affair with Melody. Ellie had forgiven me, and I'd asked her to marry me. For reasons known only to God and Ellen Marie Hughes, she'd said yes.

The requests for different songs flew at the band. I couldn't believe Randy was so willing to play so many songs that weren't his, even though a lot of the requests were for numbers he'd made hits. Let me give you a partial play list …Achy, Breaky Heart (Billy Ray Cyrus made that popular back in the late 1980s, and a resurgence in line-dancing evolved as a result) and On the Other Hand (one Randy did about a guy tempted to play around on his wife …thank God Ellie didn't ask for that one). What amazed me wasn't that everyone was line-dancing to Achy Breaky Heart, including Dee and Reags, but that Max and Terry were out there on the floor with their ladies. I'd expected Reags and Dee to know line-dancing because Reags was born in Texas, and Dee's been here for a long time. What floored me was how good my partners were at it. Just watching them, you'd think they'd been at it forever.

Ellie and I didn't have the uptown, formal, high society wedding Max and Reags did. I'd asked Ellie early on if that's what she wanted; I still laugh when I remember her answer.

“Are you fucking kidding me? Reags' family was like royalty in this town, and she has a social – and professional – position in Dallas society to uphold. She's a lot more formal than I've ever wanted to be, and that's fine. That's her life, and she's happy with it; it doesn't work for me. If I had to go through what she did when she was putting their wedding together, I'd kill someone, and you'd have to marry me in prison because that's where I'd be after the mayhem I'd have committed somewhere along the way.

“Dino, no one really cares what attorneys do as long as we don't screw the judge or have ex parte communications with the defendant or someone on the jury. To be perfectly honest, if a Church wedding wasn't important to my mother, I'd be real happy to have Bobby Presley marry us.”

That's making it pretty plain, and I was relieved. I can't see me getting into the monkey suit like Max and having four groomsmen. My mom and dad, though still alive, didn't come to the wedding. They were in their forties when I was born, and a trip to Texas is more than they felt they could undertake. I'd promised them I'd bring Ellie home next summer, and they're happy with that. They've talked to her on the phone, and I think my wife and my parents are looking forward to meeting. That's more than good enough for me.

By five that evening Ellie and I were on the road to Dallas. We'd spend the night in my condo and fly out for Shannon, Ireland, the next morning. There aren't any direct flights from Dallas to Ireland, so we'd be making an interim stop. We'd leave Dallas at 0910 on American flight 710, change to flight 738 at New York La Guardia, and arrive in Shannon at 0600 the next morning, Shannon time. It was 14 hours and 50 minutes in the air, and thanks to Ireland being six hours ahead of Dallas time, we'd get there before the sun rose. We had a five-hour and 20 minute layover in New York before heading for the Emerald Isle. We'd probably sleep between New York and Ireland. God knows neither of us had slept much for the past week.

I'd originally figured I'd leave my car at Ellie's in Palestine, but we decided the day before the wedding to drive it back to Dallas and cab it to the airport. That way I'd have my car to get to work when we got home. Ellie would spend the week with me in Dallas, and we'd start looking for a house in the evenings before I took her back to Palestine over the weekend. She'd already started closing down her practice, selling it to Lucas Everett, the attorney she'd turned her case over to when I was in the hospital.

We hadn't decided if we wanted to buy or build. I suppose we'd make that decision based on what we found in properties for sale in town. We had made the decision to live in the city; neither of us is interested in the commute Tio and Max have, and we'd keep Ellie's house in Palestine in case we needed to get back to the land. I'd called a realtor a few weeks back, and the agent would have a few properties lined up for us to consider when we got home from Ireland. We wanted three bedrooms – we hadn't made a definite decision yet on having kids, but neither of us was opposed to the idea. Three bedrooms would give us room for a couple of kids, and if we outgrew the house, we'd move.

Shannon, Ireland

ELLEN MARIE HUGHES-O'REILLY
I'd decided to hyphenate my name after Dino and I married. Texas frowns on female attorneys dropping their maiden names if they were licensed to practice in that name but has no problem with hyphenation to add the husband's name. I guess I'm like Reags …I'd waited so long to marry – to marry happily that is – that I wanted the world to know I was married to a wonderful man.

It was still dark when we landed in Shannon; I was disappointed when I couldn't see a frigging thing out the window of the 747 except for runway lights and the airport off in the distance. I think Dino was, too, because this is his first trip to Ireland, even though his heritage is here.

We were both exhausted by the time we got through Customs – and I was stunned at how friendly everyone was so early in the morning – and got a cab for the Oakwood Arms Hotel. It's on the airport proper and about 20 minutes drive from the terminal. It's a beautiful place, old and stately though recently remodeled, and what I'd imagined as a child when I thought of Ireland. It made me think of a miniature castle. We were checked into our room and showered before piling up in the bed amidst the feather pillows and comforter. Hopefully, we won't pay a price down the road for failure to consummate our marriage on the wedding night or our first 'night' in Ireland. We were both just too frigging tired. Besides, we did have the rest of our lives.

I awoke slowly with the sunlight streaming into the room; the clock indicated it was just after eleven. Dino was standing beside the window looking out into the distance, a smile on his face. The light was filtered through his sleep-rumpled hair making it look like red halo because of the nimbus of sunlight. I stretched, and he turned to face me.

“Top o' the morning, Mrs. O'Reilly. I love you.” I held open my arms as he walked toward me and lay beside me, pulling me close.

“I love you, too, Mr. O'Reilly.”

“Did you ever think we'd make it to this day?” I laughed.

“Yes, I did, but I think you had a few doubts for a while there.” He snorted at me.

“I never had any doubts about wanting this, but I did expect you to kill me for a while there ….”

“Wouldn't have done any good …your ghost would have haunted me. I know when I'm beaten.”

“You do, huh?”

“I do.” That got me a positively evil chuckle.

“You know what I think?”

“Haven't a clue ….” Like Hell I didn't.

“Being the good Catholics that we are, I think that if we don't consummate this marriage soon, we may be kicked out of Ireland before sundown.”

I was still laughing when his mouth closed over mine.

DINO
I groaned as I slipped inside of her. My wife. The one woman I'd prayed I'd find one day but had no true hope I ever would. She didn't have to even try and find my rhythm, she just moved up on my second downstroke, her hands on my ass and urging me on. She was so hot and wet and tight. She's always been like that, but it seemed somehow better now.

I knew I wasn't going to last long; I wanted her too much now, this first time making love to her as my wife, and the excitement built faster than I'd anticipated.

“Baby, I can't wait any longer!” Her voice was muffled in my shoulder, but I heard her.

“Don't …now, Dino, now!” I felt the explosion moving through me as I shot so deep inside her …my Ellen, Ellie, the one woman I'd love until they put the pennies over my eyes. I heard her soft cry as I exhaled.

“Oh, God, Dino. I love you so much ….”

“No more than I love you, Ellie; it's not possible to love anyone more than I do you.” For the first time in my life, I was absolutely positive that a woman loved me as much as I did her. I'd told Sheri I loved her, and I had, but that was the love of a boy, not that of a mature man, not the love I bear my wife, not the love I have for Ellie.

I rolled off her and pulled her into my side, looking down at her as I brushed her hair away from her face.

“Do you have any idea how beautiful you are right now?” Her laugh bubbled in my ears.

“I hope to Hell I look beautiful because I feel hot and sweaty.” I laughed with her.

“Yeah, me, too. Race you to the shower!”

We had a late lunch in the bar at the hotel, then sat in the big chairs in the pub until almost dark, just talking about what we wanted in life. We'd done that before, but it was different now; now it was real, and it was ours.

“I'm so glad you aren't back in Nigeria right now instead of here.”

“I'm glad Dee didn't have to stand in as best man if I'd had to leave Terry and Max in Lagos.”

“Well, it would have been a wedding for the record book in Palestine. I think it was anyway …somehow, I don't think there's been a wedding there before that featured Randy Travis at the reception!”

“I doubt if there's been one anywhere that had him sing at the reception!” We raised our glasses of Guinness and clicked them together.

“Right you are!” The bartender came over to tell us our table in the dining room was ready. I'd moseyed over to the restaurant a while earlier and asked the maitre d' to have someone let us know when they had an empty table. November isn't the tourist season, but we'd been warned when we checked in earlier in the day that if we planned on eating in the hotel tonight, we'd better let the maitre d' know because the restaurant was popular with the locals. I believed him when I saw the crowd in there. You couldn't have stirred them with a stick.

We settled in at our table and ordered another pint to keep us wet until we decided what we wanted for dinner and could decide on wine. The waiter brought menus, and we had a look. Norwegian smoked salmon served with minced red onions, capers, hard boiled egg, homemade Irish soda bread and cream cheese looked good for appetizers, and we ordered that, followed by leek soup with onions and hickory-smoked bacon. It wouldn't have seemed like I was in Ireland unless I ordered corned beef and cabbage au jus with herbed red potatoes and carrots, topped off with horseradish sauce. Ellie settled on a salmon fillet with scallops, shrimp, mushrooms, onions, piped potatoes and topped with sherry sauce. We hadn't eaten since the reception, and that had been 24 hours earlier. We completely forgot about wine.

We were groaning when the pastry chef rolled up with the dessert cart. I topped off dinner with Irish Brown Bread pudding …homemade spiced and sweetened soda bread baked with raisins and apples, covered with vanilla ice cream and drowned in caramel sauce. Ellie went for what they called Colm's Sundae, Guinness ice cream with raspberry syrup, nuts, whipped cream, and cherries. I couldn't remember the last time I'd eaten that much.

We were back in bed and asleep ten minutes after getting back to our room.

“Wake up, Lazy Bones! We have places to go and things to do.”

Jesus. I cracked open an eye and looked at her. She was dressed, and her bags were packed. My clothes for the day were laid out on the cedar chest at the foot of the bed. My one lonely bag was still open on the luggage stand; I guess it was waiting for my slippers. I learned a long time ago NEVER to run around barefoot in a hotel room. You can catch a lot of nasty little bugs that way.

I hauled my ass out of bed and gave her a whiskery kiss as I padded off to the shower, calling over my shoulder for coffee and lots of it.

“Room service is on their way. I waited to call until I was ready to wake you. We can have breakfast somewhere on the road. I've already been downstairs and rented a car.” Oh, boy. This was going to fun …I've driven a right-wheel drive, but it's been a while, and I'm out of practice. Well, if Reags can do it, so can I, and Ellie can learn. Even though we started off with me driving, I might want a nap while we were en route to one of our chosen spots. We were out the door and in the car 15 minutes later and on the road to Bunratty to see the Castle; we'd spend tonight in Limerick.

Bunratty Castle is one of the older castles still standing in Ireland, and was originally the site of a Viking trading camp in 970 AD. The castle standing today is the fourth to stand on the site and was built around 1425; it was restored between 1945 and 1960. Okay, enough history for that castle ….

We'd been on the road about an hour when my wife – I don't think I can ever say that enough – started moaning about being starved to death, and I pulled off the road at the next restaurant she saw. We had a “traditional” Irish breakfast which should have been enough to fuel us for the next 48 hours …two eggs, toast, baked beans (AKA, beans-on-toast, and Terry would have loved it), roasted tomatoes, Irish bacon, Irish sausage, and Black & White pudding. I'm not sure what's actually in Black and White pudding, and I probably don't want to know. I do know it's a little greasy for my taste, almost as if it had suet or beef fat in it. I'll have to ask Reags if she tried it on the occasions she's been in Ireland. I will say that neither of us was hungry until almost eight o'clock that night. If we keep eating like this, the gate crew will have to roll us off the plane we get home.

From Limerick, we went to Tralee in County Kerry; that's on the Ring of Kerry on the lower tip of western Ireland, and the entire area is just heartbreakingly beautiful. We had a reservation at the Ballygarry House Hotel in Tralee. Reags had suggested it and had stayed there a couple of times herself over the years. We took a walk around the town square just before sundown and stopped in at one of the pubs. I hadn't realized until we got inside that Irish pubs are family gathering places instead of just watering holes. They have the common room in front where the families gather, and there's a back room for the singles and couples.

After a pint in the common room, we headed to the back room to get away from the kids chasing each other around the tables out front. We'd been there about 15 minutes and were working on our pints when the barkeep came over and bent down to speak softly in my ear.

“I'm sorry, Sir, but ye need to take your Missus and leave.”

Leave? What the fuck? Ellie heard him and put down her glass, shaking her head at me when I opened my mouth to object. Okay, no point in upsetting the Missus with my temper, so I stood and followed her out the door, through the common room, and on to the street. We walked to the corner, didn't see anything that direction that looked interesting, and started back toward the pub to see what was down the street that way. Just as we got almost even with the door of the pub, it flew open, and two guys came rolling out on their butts with the barman from the back room behind them.

“Now begone with ye until ye can behave like gentlemen!” He turned and saw us standing there and stood aside.

“Ye can come in now, Sir and Madam.” I looked at him and shook my head.

“Why did you ask us to leave earlier?” He looked at me like I'd lost my mind, then nodded toward the two who were picking themselves up off the cobblestoned street.

“Them two …they're right troublemakers, they are, and they were about to start throwing fists. Didn't want a nice lady from America getting the wrong idea about us, so I asked ye to leave until I got them sorted. Please, Sir, come back in, and the next pint's on the house.”

We spent the next two weeks driving all over Ireland, and Ellie got her visit to the Waterford Crystal Factory in Waterford. I hadn't ever thought about it, but that stuff is hand blown, stem by stem. Fucking amazing to watch them, and I was praying that the poor bastard blowing through the tube with molten glass at the far end didn't inhale. We watched them make the cuts for the various stems and bowls – they were doing their Clarendon pattern when we were there – and then do the polishing. We saw the process of how the workers go through their apprenticeship, and how many pieces they break in the process of learning. We saw one guy break a bowl when he made a cut that was too deep, and he tossed it into a bin behind him. Ellie leaned over and asked him if he'd get in trouble for breaking the bowl.

“No, Mum. It's part of the learning process, and what's broken just goes back into the fire and is reused.”

Before any cutter advances beyond apprenticeship, he has to make an Apprentice Bowl. That little sucker has every single cut on it that Waterford does, and the result is beautiful. Ellie had to have one in addition to buying 12 stems of each piece in – you guessed it – their Clarendon pattern. It should be waiting for us when we get home …and the post office will let us have it as soon as we pay the import duty; Reags had warned me about the duty, saying it was almost as expensive as the crystal. We ended the tour in the show room, and as we were walking out the door, one woman asked the guide where the “seconds shop” was. He turned and looked down his nose at her before clearing his throat and answering.

“Waterford does not have a seconds shop, Madam. Anything less than absolute perfection is returned to the fire. Perhaps you wish to check with Corning Glass back in America.” Now that's what I call a first class put-down.

On leaving Waterford, we made the tour on to Blarney Castle (Ellie said she'd divorce me if I kissed the Blarney Stone), up to Dublin and Black Rock, then on to Belfast, and headed back west and south to Galway Bay. We spent a couple of days in Galway and then drove back to Shannon for one night before catching our flight home. We both slept all the way from Heathrow to Dallas.

ELLEN
We dragged into the condo after arriving at DFW at six-fifteen in the morning. I'm not sure which of us was more tired; I know we were both exhausted. We'd scheduled our return for Friday morning so both of us would have the weekend to recover from the jet lag. Dino would be back in the office on Monday, and we poured over the weekend papers looking at real estate ads; I called the realtor Dino had engaged and asked her to add a couple of properties to the list she already had. I was taking the coming week off to start house-hunting.

“Mrs. O'Reilly! How as the honeymoon? Are you ready to start looking at properties?”

“It was wonderful, we're both dead on our feet, and yes, I'm ready to start screening so that the only ones Dino sees are the ones I could stand looking at for the next 30 years.” She laughed.

“I'll need to make a couple of calls for appointments, but I think I can have two ready for you to see this afternoon. Will that work?”

“That'll be fine. Give me a call when you have times arranged.”

House-hunting. Somehow that made it seem even more real, more permanent. Buying a house was a 30-year commitment, and we were both ready for it.

This concludes “Forever and Ever, Amen.”

NOTES

The hard rock bottom of my heart	Another of Randy Travis' hits.
Ex parte	On behalf of or involving only one party to a legal matter and in the absence of and usually without notice to the other party, i.e., having communication of some sort with the other side of the party involved in the dispute and without the knowledge of both attorneys, the judge, etc. This is a BIG “no-no.”
Pennies over my eyes	Gaelic tradition in death is to place pennies on the closed eyes of the deceased. Eyes open naturally in death, and before the modern morticians' trick of stitching the lids closed, pennies kept the lids down and avoided giving everyone at the wake a fright.
Black and White Pudding	A baked and then fried concoction of fresh pigs' blood, barley, oatmeal, bread cubes, skimmed milk, beef suet, salt, pepper, and mint. No, I did NOT try it when I was in Ireland …I already KNEW what was in it!
Stirred them with a stick	Another Southern colloquialism meaning it's really crowded.

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