Let's Make a Deal Pt. 19- Epilogue 03

"So, again, if I ask you for sex, and you're not really interested but you think that you can satisfy me without resenting me, I trust you to do that. If you want to do it differently, please tell me. If you really want not to be bothered, tell me that. I trust you in all this. If I feel that I need to insist anyway, well, last night you reiterated that you still feel that you've promised me, and I'll take that into account. But I'll still try not to take advantage of that to just be selfish all the time. OK?"

Martha stood up and then sat down in his lap and really kissed him. "Scott. Thank you. I know you won't abuse that. Really. I was wrong the other nights, and I mean that. Friday especially. I don't know why I was so worried about disturbing Jim and Darla, but—well, if nothing else, I could have eaten you up without worrying about that. I was the one being selfish, and abusing your promises to me. And if we don't get moving, I'll be insisting on trying to make it up to you now, and we can't afford the time. But I love you!" She kissed him again, and then they got the dishes soaking and brushed their teeth and left.

That day was a busy one for Scott, and really for Martha as well. She didn't make the call she wanted to before the offices newspaper closed, though of course there were actually people there all the time. If she'd known the right person, she might have gotten through. But after dinner Scott searched on line for an account of the dance. It was there, on the paper's site, and it was pretty big, with lots of pictures. He wondered whether the print edition had carried the whole article, given the way newspapers were going now. He read parts of it to Martha.

Anyone who missed the contra dance held Saturday night at Emmanuel Methodist Church lost the chance to hear music far out of the ordinary. 3 Bits A Dollar is one of the more popular bands around our area, but for the occasion they brought in Scott Davidson, who unexpectedly played with them last year. Those who were present on that occasion talked about little else for weeks afterward, leading the band to invite him to make a special trip just for this dance. This time, we expect the raves to continue for months.

Scott's mandolin and guitar playing added some depth to this trio, but that was the least of it. He is a magnificent musician in his own right. When he solos, the melody of the tune is always still there to be heard, but he goes far beyond it. He adds to the rhythm the dancers need, whether in the lead or backing up one of the others. But most of all, something about his playing seems to inspire the whole band to rise to heights we just don't hear very often. After more than one dance, the dancers were applauding and cheering long after they usually would be looking for that next partner.

"There's a lot more like that," Scott told her. "Read it for yourself if you want. I'm emailing you the URL rather than just leaving it for you, since you wanted to be able to pass it on. But listen to what it says about you! And there are some great pictures of you, too."

Last year when he appeared, Scott was in town with his beautiful bride, for their honeymoon. She came to dance then, too. But this year she was definitely the belle of the ball, very much sought after as a partner. The one time Scott put down his mandolin to dance, he made sure she danced with him, and they showed a lot of people how it should be done. A lot of people are hoping they both will come back again sometime. It won't be soon, they say; she is expecting their first child, and vigorous dancing will very soon not be practical, and then they will have an infant to think of. But they know we're looking forward to seeing, and hearing, them again.

"I think I need to clip that paragraph and post it on your dresser mirror. You see I'm not the only one who thinks you're beautiful!"

She laughed at him, but then said seriously, "I can see, a little, why you think what they said about you is so embarrassing, even though it's all true. I wonder if I can cut out all that about me somehow, when I pass it on." She came over to look at the screen over his shoulder. "What did they do to those pictures? That's me, but I don't look like that!"

Scott knew just what she was thinking. "They may have done something like removing redeye, if they used a flash, but nothing more. The hall was moderately well lit, but they probably used a flash, since the action is stopped so sharply. Although the only camera I noticed was a big, fancy one that probably avoided that problem.

"But anyway, you're wrong, honey. The problem is that if you look in a mirror, or if you know someone is planning to take your picture, you're not happy about it, and you see your face as you look when you're not particularly happy. You don't like it even when you're just aware that someone is looking at you. But this is what you look like when you're really, really happy. Trust me. And at both of those dances you were glowing, and you really looked like that. The first time, because it was our honeymoon, and you spent most of that whole week looking just radiant. But this time, with all the attention, all the welcome, on top of enjoying dancing, you were as well. You were walking on air. Go look a little more closely at the pictures from after our wedding. I think when you've looked at them, you've ignored yourself and looked at the people who were talking to us, but they're mostly just the same. Really! I know you don't want to believe it, but it really is true."

Martha did call the newspaper the next day, and she tracked down the person she needed to talk to. She described the article and mentioned some of the local dancers who had gone, and a story subsequently appeared. It was shorter, but included one of the original article's pictures and (in the online version) a link to the original story and the earlier notice, as well as enthusiastic comments from two dancers who had traveled to the dance. It had fewer details about the band, but still enough to make them sound very good. Both Scott and Martha talked to those responsible for setting up dances, suggesting that this would be a good group to bring in some time. Scott put in cautions about his own schedule, trying to insure that if it happened it would be at least a couple of months after Martha's due date.

Brian and Lynda hadn't wasted any time moving ahead with wedding plans. Their engagement was a couple of months longer than Scott's and Martha's, but only because they decided on a bigger wedding and reception than Scott and Martha had wanted. Scott and Martha were best man and matron of honor, and they also gave Lynda away, and Scott also played and sang. Brian and Lynda insisted, having agreed between them that this was a lot more important than trying to have everything flow as smoothly as possible.

Lynda invited her parents, telling her mother that Scott and Martha were giving her away. She was right that her mother fully understood why. To Lynda's surprise, both of her parents did agree to come. She didn't ask her mother how her father had been convinced. But earlier, she had brought Brian to her parents' home to meet them, and the two men had liked each other right off. She thought this probably helped, and she was probably right. But the changes in her mother were also having an effect on her father, even before Brian met them. He had always, as long as she could remember, been a bitter, cynical, very opinionated and closed-minded man, and that was changing, slowly but very steadily. They all kept on praying for her parents, daily.

Scott thought that probably Lynda's willingness to keep in contact, and to forgive her parents, was also a big part. He thought perhaps she had left home so hurt and embittered that her father had also been hurt, though she hadn't recognized it. At any rate, the adult daughter who was reaching out to him was very different from the angry teenager who had left, and he had been forced to recognize that people change and to begin to see her differently.

Lynda had already begun to learn Martha's job, and they continued sharing it. Scott had to recognize that it really was more than one person could handle, and found two more people on his staff who he thought could learn it, and had the women begin training them as well. He was looking ahead—they didn't get the title, responsibility, or pay that went with the job, but they understood that they might well have those before long.

The wedding went off well. Scott had already known that Brian would be good for Lynda, better than Scott could have been. He was normally calm and unflappable no matter what happened, steadying her when she became emotional, and there were lots of occasions leading up to the wedding when she felt frantic enough that Scott knew he would have been all wound up too, were he in Brian's place. Brian gave her support and affection, but just went ahead with whatever needed doing, and it calmed her down wonderfully.

At the reception, Lynda's parents were seated right next to Scott and Lynda. Scott spent most of the dinner talking with them. Martha also took part, but the seating made this a little awkward, and she was mostly content to listen. They later agreed that Mrs. Rohr was a sweetheart, and that the changes in Mr. Rohr's attitude toward his daughter were miraculous. He still tended to grumble about things, but not constantly. He even laughed at the clowning of a couple of Brian's younger brothers.

Mrs. Rohr insisted that Scott and Martha call her Nancy. She pointed out that she and her husband were about Scott's age—which made him feel old, somewhat unreasonably—and thanked them more than once for all they had done for Lynda. She seemed so different from the rather downtrodden and oppressed woman Lynda's descriptions had led him to expect that Scott wondered whether Lynda's memory had tended to give her a warped picture of their relationship. If not, he wondered, were the changes only recent, catalyzed by the events since Lynda's baptism, or had she begun changing years earlier, possibly in response to Lynda's leaving home? Clearly, though, both parents took to Scott and Martha, who urged them to come and visit Brian and Lynda once they were settled. They offered their own spare bedroom, if Brian and Lynda settled in a place without enough room for guests. Scott thought that very unlikely, but the newlyweds hadn't made any long-term arrangements for larger quarters yet.

Brian prevented any surprise upgrades to their honeymoon arrangements by the simple expedient of not telling anyone—even Lynda—what those arrangements were. She was startled when he took her to the same resort to which Scott and Martha had gone, and in fact the same honeymoon suite. They both were more interested in spending time together than in going anywhere fancy with lots to do, and this turned out to be perfect for them. Lynda later reported to Martha—without going into detail—that the wedding night was blissful beyond her expectations. Martha had expected this, but Scott had been a little worried.

And Lynda also reported another first of sorts. She had heard from Martha about both of the dances Scott had played for, and when she saw that 3 Bits A Dollar was playing for a dance while they were there, she convinced Brian to take her.

Now, Brian had never danced at all. His grandparents' generation had viewed all dancing as sinful, and while his parents didn't accept that, they had never felt any need to dance or to encourage their children to do so. Some of his cousins, and one of his married sisters, did enjoy dancing—mostly couple dancing, but some square dancing as well. Brian was reluctant mostly because of unfamiliarity, but at Lynda's urging he was willing to try. She pointed out that in contras, there was really no footwork to think about—the dancers mostly just walk. And she told him how much fun her first time had been for her. She also explained that normally dancers had different partners for each dance, but said that people would understand if she explained that they were on their honeymoon and that it was also her husband's first time dancing.

She reported, later, that the band had been really, really good, but that she thought that Martha (and most everyone else) was right that Scott had kicked them to a higher level somehow. But the hall had still been pretty full, and people she asked agreed that attendance had mostly been higher with this band ever since Scott had played with them.

Lynda made sure they got there a little earlier than the announced time for beginner instruction, and sure enough, the caller and some dancers were more than happy to start early. Brian, rather to his surprise, found almost all of the figures easy and natural to learn. Where he had a little trouble, especially as the evening progressed, was remembering on the fly what came next, and he observed that even experienced dancers suffered from this.

At the break, Lynda took him over to speak to the band. When she said that they were Scott's and Martha's friends, they wound up talking long enough that someone had to come remind the band to go get ready to play. She particularly told Jim—and Darla, who was also there—how much Scott and Martha had said about their hospitality. Everyone told her how wonderful it had been to play with Scott, and asked her to pass along their greetings and thanks.

In the end, Brian told her that he had really enjoyed the whole dance. He said, "I probably won't ever suggest something like this as something to do, but I'd be more than glad to go with you sometimes." Lynda told him that if they did, he'd have to dance with other partners too, and he said that after seeing how it went he could manage that—but that he was glad that this time he'd been able to stay with her.

Sheila and Martha kept in touch, and Sheila had a lot of unused vacation time accrued, so she came a week before Martha's due date, planning to stay for at least two weeks after the baby was born. She helped coach during the delivery. Scott was happy to turn this over to her. He wasn't sure that he could have been much help, with seeing Martha in pain. The delivery went quickly and easily, but he kept imagining things going terribly wrong.

They named their daughter Hannah Grace. Scott habitually pronounced "Hannah" as the Hebrew name, but insisted that the spelling be the usual English form. Giving her a name almost everyone would have trouble pronouncing from the spelling, and that almost no one would recognize as familiar, didn't seem to him to be a good thing, but he was definitely thinking both of the Biblical woman and the root meaning of the word. As time went on, he introduced her to people with the English pronunciation, but he usually addressed her with the Hebrew.

Scott left Lynda in charge at the office for two weeks to stay home with Martha and Hannah—and Sheila. They spent a lot of time talking. Scott and Martha had discussed what to tell her, and had decided to tell everything about them—in general terms, of course—but to completely omit Lynda's part as far as the sexual relationship went. They expected Sheila probably to guess some of that. And they had of course to make it clear that Lynda knew and accepted everything. They warned Lynda ahead of time, and she came over sometimes while Sheila was there. They didn't disguise the fact that Lynda had been the first to ask about Biblical matters, and initially the driving force behind their regular study together.

Though they kept their account fairly general, it took a while, as Sheila raised questions about almost everything they said—chiefly seeking to be clear about their feelings and motives as things went along.

Scott took time to reassure Sheila about his feelings regarding her relationship with Martha. She had taken Martha from being a lonely, unhappy young woman who found her life lacking in purpose to being reasonably happy, fulfilled, and productive. He did take time out to explain, briefly, what he understood scripture to say about homosexuality. He tried to avoid prying into her own history, but she recognized what he was doing and raised the issue herself, in response to something he said.

She told him, "You're quite right that for some girls it's just women who attract them, from the beginning, while others are like Martha, late in developing a strong interest in the opposite sex, and they are repelled by their treatment at the hands of some man or men—or women I suppose in the case of men. Then circumstances put them in contact with someone who offers another alternative, and their habits thereafter follow that pattern. Sometimes, also, they are seduced by someone who wants her—or his—own pleasure enough to try to change them."

Scott said, "I know from Martha that you tried to be very careful to avoid that—any kind of pressure at all. As she also did with Lynda. I presume, again from all she said, that you found her attractive and were interested in her, but she says you made it very, very clear that you were offering yourself, not trying to make her offer herself to you. And I thank you for that. I gather that Helen might have been one who wasn't so careful."

"Yes. Well, as far as I, myself, went, I think I just matured late, I hadn't really been aware of the kind of romantic feelings most girls have, toward either men or women, but my few close friends were girls. And so I was teased for being a lesbian, when I was no such thing, just because I didn't go after the boys, or run after them when they called. And this made me a bit of an outcast—except for a few girls who really were lesbians. And, well, friendship eventually went further. Perhaps if a boy or two had been interested in me just as a friend, and we had become close, things might have been different. I'm a bit like Martha in this, I think, except that she had early attractions, all for boys, and they just weren't as strong as those most girls felt.

"Of course you know as well as I do, that even today with all the pressure they are given, little boys tend to gravitate toward other boys as friends, and little girls to other girls. In my day this was encouraged and considered normal, and nearly universal, and I think I'm not that much older than you, for things to have been different for you. I did not have as many close friendships, either way, as most girls, and somehow didn't navigate until later the transition to adult interests which normally begins with puberty. And the way that happened for me took me to women."

Scott told her, "You know, I didn't set out to reform Martha's sexual interests. Urging people out of sinful behavior is a good thing, as far as it goes, but the behavior is not the real issue. Of course, those who attack others have to be stopped, but that's not what I'm talking about. When Martha and Lynda and I talked about these things, it was in the context of what a proper relationship with God is. If that gets restored, all kinds of other things must change as well, and this is one of them. If you ever find yourself wanting to discuss the larger issues, please feel perfectly free to talk to me, or to Martha. But outside of that context, I'll never do more than tell you that I think your behavior is wrong, and that would be just as true if you were living with a boyfriend, particularly one who was merely the latest in a long series. God hasn't given me the job of reforming the world, in this area or many others, for which I'm very grateful. But I'm also thoroughly grateful for your friendship and affection and support for Martha, at a time when she desperately needed all of those and no one else was offering them to her."

Scott did also read the letters they had written to each other, back and forth in chronological order, as the women mostly sat and talked, among all the chores of taking care of a newborn. As he had expected, they provided him with a lot of insight into Martha's character, as well as Sheila's. He read them bits that struck him, or that he didn't understand. He commented on many things they had written. He did feel a little uncomfortable as he read portions dealing with Martha's other lovers. In his eyes, this amounted to listening to gossip, though it also gave him valuable insight into Martha's present feelings. But really, in most cases there was little inappropriate information beyond the women's names. The exception was Helen. He mentioned all this to them.