Where did you get the inspiration for the character of Rebecca?
Great question.
Rebecca came from a couple different places and she was created for 2 specific reasons.
I first introduced Rebecca in book 3 Love Endures at the hospital in Germany where Mike and Bill were taken. She seemed nice enough, but I felt something was off with her. She was distant with Mike and I never felt her connect with the rest of the family like Mike did. She seemed to look at Mike as an obligation and through the next few books, I figured out why.
Rebecca wasn’t really in love with Mike and he wasn’t in love with her, but the level of guilt at leaving Rebecca with a baby on the way and going off for so long was something Mike struggled with. It didn’t help that he saw how devoted Julie was to Bill and how passionate Bill was about Julie. Mike never had that and he looked inward as the reason why. He felt he wasn’t enough. He wasn’t attentive enough or good enough or man enough for Rebecca. He allowed himself to be demoralized by her and it has deeply damaged him.
Rebecca was a means to an end. I needed to get Mike to a point where he realized that he needed to wake up and the way to do that was to make Rebecca the leak in the case. Mike was completely floored by her betrayal of not only him, but his best friends. It was akin to Bill finding out his father was a rapist. Mike couldn’t understand how he didn’t see it. In his mind, he had utterly failed the man who had saved his life.
Rebecca is a vile character and the way she used Jimmy to hurt Mike was something I struggled with. I went back and forth about having Mike adopt Jimmy and in the end, I felt it was best to keep Mike alone. Losing Jimmy was also the turning point for what happens at the end of Our Legacy.
I guess to answer your question, Rebecca comes from the same place Janet does. They are both evil characters who have no sense of any kind of moral code. Rebecca is a jealous vindictive woman who didn’t know how to handle her life. She took everything good in her life and threw it out the window. She doesn’t know how to love and she doesn’t deserve Mike.
Rebecca was necessary for Mike to evolve as a character. She was integral to Jade coming out of her shell and she allowed the family to rally around those they love and show just why they are a family by choice.
