Fiction

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The air was crisp and clear with just the lightest breeze blowing. Today is going to be special, Samantha thought, as she slowly walked up the pathway to the gazebo, brushing a long strand of dark, curly hair from her eyes. The trees in the garden were bright green and the grass brilliant, with the dew sparkling on every blade. Even the colorful petunias along the walkway raised their petals in anticipation in the early morning sunshine. Today was her day, hers and Gene’s.

Sam looked around at the garden they had chosen. It was perfect in every way. The grapevines next to the garden were full-leaved and she could even see small clusters of grapes nestled among the leaves. The granite walkways sparkled in the rising sun, making it look as if there were millions of miniature rainbows floating in the air. The chairs were already set up on the grass before the small white gazebo where she and Gene would exchange their wedding vows in only four short hours. They were so lucky to have found this out-of-the-way vineyard not far from their hometown. It would make it easier for the guests to get here when they didn’t have so far to drive.

Sam and Gene had been planning for this day since they were children in Kindergarten together. Well, maybe not quite that long, thought Sam, but it sure seemed like it. She stood there in the bright sunshine remembering the day she first met him. He had stood in the doorway observing the other kids already in the classroom as Miss Robinson came over to greet his mother and welcome him to his first day of Kindergarten. Sam was already there, having arrived several minutes before him. She had heroically said goodbye to her mother without crying, but was still struggling to keep back the tears. After hugging his mother goodbye, Gene had walked into the classroom like he owned it. Sam still remembered how the sun from the windows had glinted off his hair like spun gold, so different from her own short dark hair. He was the most gorgeous boy she had ever seen and she had instantly fallen in love with him.

Sam smiled as she remembered her mother’s reaction when she had come home that first day from school. “Mom, when I grow up, I’m going to marry Gene!”

“Who’s Gene?” her mom had asked.

Sam had gone on to tell her mom all the awesome things that Gene had done that day: “He helped Katie find her doll that she lost and he made that awful Jimmy stop teasing Susie when she starting crying. He helped me cut out my color circles. Wow, is he fast with scissors, and he cuts everything so straight and stays in the lines when he colors and he’s got the most gorgeous brown eyes and I’m in love with in and I’m going to marry him when we grow up!” Sam’s mom had listened wide-eyed as Sam talked. She got a chance to say something when Sam finally paused for breath. “That’s nice, Sam. But why think about that now? You have lots of years ahead of you to decide who you want to marry.” But Sam had stubbornly insisted that she was going to marry Gene and that was the way it was going to be.

That was twenty years ago. Where had the time gone? They had been inseparable all through elementary and high school. Gene had stood up to the school bully when he had decided that Sam was fair game, teasing her about her “boy’s” name, even though Gene teased her himself, calling her Slim because she was so skinny. And when she struggled with grammar in English class, Gene was there helping her to understand the difference between an adjective and an adverb. And most important of all, he had shown her about God’s Love and Jesus’ sacrifice for her on the cross so that she might be forgiven of all her sins.

Gene had attended church all his life while Sam had never even heard of God. When Gene had first invited Sam to church with him they were both in third grade. There was a special Kid’s Club going on during the summer and Gene had casually asked Sam if she would like to go. When Sam asked her mom about it, her mom was skeptical at first, wanting to know exactly what went on at this Kid’s Club. “I don’t know, Mom, but Gene says that they play games and sing and hear about God,” Sam had answered, and then asked, “Mom, who’s God?” Her mother had mumbled something about some higher power which Sam hadn’t understood, but her mother had let her go.

When Sam had walked into the large church basement, all she saw was a sea full of faces and heard lots of voices talking and laughing. She desperately searched for Gene’s face as she stood just inside the door, excited but scared to go any further into the room. Suddenly Gene walked toward her out of the crowd. “I’m glad you could make it, Sam. Come on in and meet everyone.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the group. “Hey, everyone, this is Sam!” A chorus of “Hi Sam!” came from the group of kids. Sam had smiled shyly at the group as Gene pulled her toward some chairs set up at the far end of the room.

There had been lots of songs that first meeting. Even though Sam didn’t know any of the songs, she still tried to sing along quietly as she caught onto the tunes. It was easy with all the other kids singing so enthusiastically. Then they had played games. During musical chairs, Gene had allowed her to grab one of the last three chairs left by pretending to trip when he was actually closer to the chair than she was. Gene had shared one of his cookies with her during snack time, “You need to eat more, Slim. You’re still too skinny!” When the Children’s Minister, as Gene had called him, came up and shared the Bible lesson, Sam was all ears. She had never heard anything like this before and he made it so easy to understand.

After that first Kid’s Club meeting, Sam couldn’t get enough. She didn’t miss a meeting and even started to attend church on Sunday mornings with Gene and his family. During the last meeting of the Kid's Club that summer, Sam had gone forward and committed her life to God when the Children's Minister had asked if anyone wanted to accept Jesus. It changed her life forever.

After a while, Sam's mom started attending church too. “I can’t have my kid going to some place I haven’t been to,” was her reason for starting to attend. It was during the Christmas Eve Candlelight Service the year of Sam’s thirteenth birthday that Sam’s mom went forward and accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior.

Sam remembered the changes that had taken place after that memorable Christmas Eve service. Her mother had vowed to Sam to stop drinking and smoking. It hadn’t happened overnight, but with God’s help, she finally kicked both habits. Life wasn’t perfect after that, but it was so much better than before. The summer before Sam’s junior year in high school, Samuel came into her mom’s life and they were married a year later. She chuckled as she recalled the confusion of having two Sams in the same house. Samuel was the second best thing that had happened to her mom, the first being God. Her mom and Samuel had met at church during a singles outing. Her mom had been so reluctant to go, but Sam had talked her into it telling her that she would have fun. “But, I’m too old to go. Everyone else there will be in their 20’s and here I am an old woman in my 40’s. They don’t want me there.” But it had turned out that she wasn’t the only “old person” to attend. Samuel had been there too.

Before Sam could get further in her thoughts of the past, she heard halting steps behind her on the walkway. She knew that walk. She spun around with a delighted grin on her face. “Gene!”

“Hey, Slim, you ready for the big day?” Gene’s voice was gravelly and deep as he looked at Sam, his eyes shining with love for her. She would never, ever get tired of looking into those beautiful brown eyes of his. He didn’t need words to say what he felt.

“I’ve been ready for this day since we were both five years old!” she answered with a laugh and smile. She walked into his arms and hugged him, careful not to knock the cane out of his hand. She had accidentally done that the evening before during the rehearsal and his best man had barely kept him from falling. She still felt bad about that. You would think she would have learned after all this time to be more careful. He was still so unsteady on his feet and sometimes her enthusiasm got the best of her and she would forget he wasn’t still that agile young athlete from their high school days.

So much had happened since high school graduation. They had wanted to attend the same college, but her scholarship was to a college on the East Coast and he was accepted at his father’s alma mater in their hometown on a partial football scholarship. He couldn’t afford to live on campus, so he lived at home and commuted to college. Even though they were hundreds of miles apart, they talked on the phone every day and sent numerous emails and texts to each other. It was hard to be apart, yet they knew it wouldn’t be forever.

The day before she left for college, they had hiked to their favorite spot overlooking the river valley. Sam had packed a huge picnic lunch into her backpack which Gene had insisted he carry. “I can’t have my girl carrying this heavy pack when she’s got a strong man to do it for her,” he had told her as they had started out. “Gene, I am perfectly able to carry it myself,” she had argued half-heartedly, knowing she would let him carry it anyway. She felt cherished when he showed his “macho” side. He never made her feel inferior or less than capable of caring for herself. In fact, he had encouraged her to apply to colleges all over, not just in their home state, knowing she had the ability to excel wherever she went.

As they relaxed after their picnic lunch, they had talked about their future. After they both graduated, they would find jobs in their respective fields and get married as soon as possible. They would get a small apartment and save for a house someday when it was time to start a family. They hoped to be able to start their own business together after a while; his business degree with her marketing skills would give them a boost into the world of entrepreneurship. They would find a wonderful church and teach Sunday School and sing in the choir and live a wonderful life together for God.

That was before the fire that changed their lives.

Gene was raised to give back to the community. Like his father before him, he joined the volunteer fire department before he had even graduated from high school. As soon as he turned 18 he was in the captain’s office signing on the dotted line and joining the new class of recruits. He kept a pager on his belt day and night and was ready to run to the firehouse the minute it went off. Most of the time it was either a false alarm or some small kitchen fire; easily contained and put out. Then came the 5-alarm fire during his junior year at college. He had explained to the captain that if he was in class he would not be able to respond to a fire, but any other time, he would be the first one there. He just happened to be at home when his pager went off that fateful evening.

When the fire truck arrived at the apartment building, the top 3 floors were completely engulfed in flames. In five minutes they had the hoses attached to the hydrants and water spraying into the flames. As Gene was standing as second man on hose number two, he thought he heard a voice calling from the building. He called another volunteer over to take his place on the hose and ran over to the captain. “I think I heard something. There’s someone still in there.” The captain looked around, and, realizing that everyone else was busy, told Gene to grab an oxygen mask and follow him.

Gene’s memory of what happened next is sketchy, more like very vivid, still pictures in his mind. He can see the captain in front of him as they make their way into the building. He can see the young boy huddling in the corner of a second story bedroom. And he can see the burning beam falling. After that, nothing until he woke up in the General Hospital’s burn unit several days later.

Standing there in Gene’s arms, the bright sunshine didn’t quite dissipate the memory of the cold shock that had gone through her when Sam received the phone call telling her that Gene had been seriously hurt in a fire. She had left school immediately and driven home in her dilapidated green Corolla. She needed to be there for him, just like he’d been there for her so many times before.

Her worried face and bright blue eyes swimming with unshed tears was the first thing he saw when he woke up. “Did we save him? Is he alright?” he croaked out with a voice rough from the smoke. Sam told him that the boy had survived and that it had taken four of his fellow firemen to lift the beam off of him to get him out of the burning building. “How bad am I?” he asked her. “You were pretty badly hurt, Gene. The doctors said they almost lost you. You’ve got some bad burns and your leg was crushed under the beam.” She told him gently.

Gene looked down at his leg and saw it encased from hip to toes in white plaster. Well, looks like football is out for a while, he thought to himself. Then he noticed the bandages on his arms and realized he had more bandages on the left side of his face. “The doctor says you’ll be needing some skin grafts after you’ve healed more and are stronger.” Sam told him. “And there will be several more surgeries needed on your leg, and extensive physical therapy, too.” Gene closed his eyes realizing that the dreams and plans he and Sam had built together over the years had all come crumbling down. O, God, why did this have to happen? Why me? Then he opened his eyes to look at the love of his life sitting there by his side. “Sam,” he started to say, “you don’t have to stay-” Sam stopped him in mid-sentence: “Don’t you dare, Eugene Tyrone Weber! Do you think I would just up and leave just because you’ve had a small accident? No way, mister! I love you!” As he looked into her flashing blue eyes and saw the tears running down her cheeks, he took her hand in his, closed his eyes and prayed, “Thank you, Father. We don’t know why this has happened, but we trust that You will get the glory in it all.”

For the next three years, Gene would undergo several surgeries for skin grafts and several more to rebuild his leg. Through it all, Sam was by his side encouraging him when he was discouraged, praying with him when he felt he couldn’t handle it any longer, and loving him with all her heart. He insisted that she finish college so that at least one of them would have a degree, so she transferred her credits to the local college in town and completed her marketing degree. She got a job with a small up-and-coming company as the sole employee in the marketing department and loved it. Sam finally persuaded Gene to finish his college degree also, and he had taken a management position with a large department store chain.

As Sam stepped out of Gene’s arms, they both realized at the same moment that time was running away from them. Their guests would be arriving soon and they weren’t even dressed. Sam tucked her hand into Gene’s arm as they slowly walked back up to the main building together, his cane making a tap-tap on the granite walkway. After they walked through the open double oak doors, Sam reluctantly turned to the right to head to the room assigned to her and her bridesmaids. As she turned to look at Gene one last time, she saw the sheen of tears in his eyes. She stopped. “Are you ok?” “Yes, perfect,” he answered her with a smile. She began to walk backwards watching him. “See you later.” Then with a wave, she turned and quickly ran up the stairs.

An hour later Sam walked towards the heavy oak doors on the arm of Samuel, her step-dad. She smiled up at him. “Thank you so much for walking me down the aisle, Sam. You don’t know how much this means to me.” “My pleasure, Kiddo,” he answered with a smile of his own. “Any time.” Kiddo had been his nickname for her since he had started dating her mom and she loved it. As they paused on the doorstep, she looked out over the guests in their colorful summer dresses and suits. They looked like a field of wildflowers blowing in the wind as they talked among themselves. Then someone saw the two Sams standing there and the talking died down as slowly they turned one by one to look at her. As the string quartet struck up the Wedding March, everyone rose to their feet.

At first Gene was just a blur standing there under the gazebo as she tried to see through the tears forming in her eyes. Then she blinked them away fiercely. I will not cry, I will not cry! Sam told herself sternly. She stood tall as she got closer and closer to this wonderful man she was soon going to marry. The people on either side of her slowly faded away as she had eyes only for him. Then she watched amazed as he turned to his best man and handed him the cane. When she reached him, he held out both hands to her and she reached out to take them.

The ceremony was short. They hadn’t wanted a lot of words. They had written their own vows, pledging their lives to each other and to the Lord. After the minister announced them husband and wife, Sam reached up to gently cup Gene’s scarred cheek. “I love you.” Gene smiled back and said, “I love you too, Slim.” And he slowly bent down and kissed her.

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