~*~
Garret closed the door of his English roadster with a deliberate action, slowly turning to view the quaint cottage with the barn and the old Chevrolet station-wagon in the driveway. On the mailbox were painted hummingbirds and the name Burke in cursive white letters. A story-book white picket fence decorated with vines of painted ivy and an occasional pale blue blossom surrounded the lush grass of the front yard. A miniature gazebo embraced by blooming roses as well as a lilac tree on one side had been set in the back left corner of the yard led to by a brick walkway branching from the main.
The effect was perfect.
Garret took in a deep breath and released it slowly. Then he smiled and stepped forward. He passed through the gate of the white picket fence, accepted the greeting of the old German shepherd that licked his hand, and made his way along the walkway border of pansies and primroses to the covered verandah with the pine bench-swing and white screen door.
Garret’s smile widened as he stared past the screen into the house full of memories and stories. The home was filled to the brim with adventures and anecdotes he would soon discover, Amy’s smiling face and soft voice beckoning him into that special place of shared moments. The thought of being together with her within her home’s walls of warmth and songs and love and happiness soothed his aching spirit at her loss, but it was enough that she lived. It would be enough that she could teach at the high school, such being her dream all these years.
Garret knocked. A petite woman appeared in the hall at the sound. She had white hair, slim glasses, and an eager smile. Mrs. Burke was a vision of aging loveliness such as what Garret envisioned Amy to be in the future. Now he would have the chance to witness it.
Mrs. Burke pushed opened the door and motioned into the house. “Mr. Harrison!” she greeted. “You’re a day early!”
Garret chuckled as he stepped into the hall. Mrs. Burke took his wool coat and driving gloves. “Yes, Mrs. Burke, I am. I could not stand another day of letters, phone calls, and the sobs of those executives who simply cannot understand why I would leave the life of New York for Aspen Grove High School.”
Mrs. Burke laughed, and it encompassed warmth, encouragement, and the song of happiness. She hung his coat on the rack fastened to the wall, set his gloves on the hall table, and then gestured toward the back patio. “She’s out getting some sun and reading the latest book of sonnets you sent her. She’ll be thrilled to see you.”
Garret placed a kiss on his soon-to-be mother-in-law’s cheek. “Thank you, Mrs. Burke.” Then he made his way down the hall to the French doors leading onto the deck made by Amy’s father.
Garret quietly closed the door behind him, leaning against it as he watched her profile and the loveliness and intensity of her face and eyes that would now forever be his. Amy turned the page and began to softly nibble her fingernail. Amy had been carefully placed within a specifically designed lounger to keep the pressure to her back and spine to a minimum. While the doctors did not want to hold to the hope that she would walk again, Amy was determined to do all she could. Garret loved her more because of her tenacity at not relinquishing her hope.
Garret smiled and stepped quietly forward, leaning down to place a kiss on her throat. “I have not tarried in the caverns of dragons nor listened to the murmurs of damsels. I have come to be with you, sweet sweet muse.”
Amy looked up, her green eyes twinkling. “Then come and stay, poet mine, that we might rest in the warmth of the other.”
.: Thirteen :.
Happy Ever
Garret looked to the clock from his leather-bound volume of Hamlet. He closed the book, smiling as he changed his gaze to the teens in the lecture room at Aspen Grove High. “Ladies and gentlemen, it seems our time has come to a close,” he said as the collection of 15 students began gathering their paraphernalia. “Finish reading the scene. Then be prepared for class discussion Monday morning. Also, have those journal entries typed and ready to turn in to me next week. Wednesday, I should think.”
Garret straightened from where he leaned against his old wood desk at the high school. “Have a wonderful weekend, ladies and gentlemen. When I see you Monday, I will be a married man. I do apologize, ladies.”
Girls and boys alike laughed as they bid him farewell, filing out of the small lecture room with well-wishing, congratulations, and/or promises to attend the reception that evening. Garret returned each with a nod and a smile as he gathered his class notes, books, and papers he needed to somehow correct over the special weekend. Any student that lingered with a question, worry, or something similar, received an appropriate response and a card that held his cell phone, home number, and email. The students had long-since become accustomed to these cards and loved receiving them. It made them feel important.
To Garret, they were.
Garret retrieved his briefcase from the desk and exited the classroom to the hallway, talking with other students from his varying classes along the route out of the school. At Aspen Grove High School Garret taught Literature, Drama, and Poetry. Amy hadn’t been allowed to take up her teaching position, per doctor’s orders as well as lack of time due to her rigorous physical therapy schedule. Garret had stepped into the position instead, and after six months at the small high school, he didn’t regret the decision. Encouraging and teaching the students at Aspen Grove never failed to teach him something new of Literature, Poetry, and life in general.
They gave him a new perspective.
Garret exited the high school, made his way down the brick steps, and then along the walkway to the faculty parking south of the main administration building. It was a remodeled house separate from the old brick building of the high school. He tossed his briefcase into the backseat of his roadster, put the top down - the early spring sunshine just beckoned for it - and then started up the roadster to an accompaniment of hoots and hollers from the students. Garret chuckled with a slight shake of his head as he backed out of the parking lot and squealed toward home.
The cell phone in his jacket pocket on the passenger seat of the roadster blared Toccata & Fugue. Garret took up the earpiece, which he always inserted into the phone when he drove, and tucked it into his ear before hitting the ‘talk’ button. “Harrison here.”
“Hi, Harrison. Burke here.”
Garret smiled. “Hello, Amy. How was your day?”
“Great,” she answered in a bright tone. “How about you? Did you keep the kids busy until the last bell?”
“Would I do that?”
Amy chuckled. “Yes. You do it every day.”
Garret checked his rearview mirrors before passing a tractor on its way home from bailing the fields of alfalfa hay. “I have yet to hear a complaint.”
“That’s because they love you to death, you big softie.”
Garret chuckled. “Yes, dear.”
Amy laughed. “Anyway, I wanted to let you know that mom and I picked your tux up from the cleaners. Dad’s gone to get extra chairs for the backyard, and he’s going to pick up Pastor Gary on the way back. Oh, and did you get a confirmation on that Bed & Breakfast?”
“I did.”
“I really appreciate it, Garret. Thank you.”
One side of Garret’s lips twitched. “I am honored you called upon me to help. Here I was terrified I would only be in the way.”
“You’re never in the way,” Amy said in a soft voice.
There was a moment of silence, and then she released a slow breath. Garret could almost visualize her lying on her stomach on the couch flipping through a bridal magazine as she held the phone to her ear. Then she would push the magazine aside and tuck her hand and arm under her as she smiled into the phone.
“The silence beckons my spirit home,” he said softly.
Amy sighed. “Garret, I feel like I’m stuck in a dream. Are we really getting married today?”
Garret’s smile softened as he turned down the somewhat graveled driveway. “Yes, dearest muse, we are to be married today.”
> “And you really don’t regret leaving New York? Not for a second?”
“When I do, I have but to pack you off to the symphony or the opera for a weekend, sweet. That will be enough to remind what I have escaped.”
Amy sighed again, and Garret could nearly see her very carefully positioning herself onto her back - a strict no-no that she sometimes forgot. “Dad wanted me to tell you that he’s giving you a 5-acre plot of land for a wedding gift. He’s hoping you’ll build a house on it, complete with dog house for Bernie.”
Garret pulled up to Adam Burke’s home two miles south of the elder Burke’s residence. Garret had been living there since moving to Aspen Grove nine months previous. He turned off the ignition. “I am honored, Amy, and you and I can begin choosing a house design as soon as we return from our wedding weekend. Will you tell him?”
“Sure.”
Garret could hear the broad smile in her tone. Adam stepped out of the house onto the front porch - he was nearly 6 foot 4 with a brawny build and tousled caramel curls that never stayed out of his face - and waved a greeting.
Garret returned the wave and then leaned back into the leather seats of the roadster. “I must away, sweet muse, but only until this evening.”
“Alright. I love you.”
“As I love you.”
Silence. “So… I’ll see you later?”
Garret smiled. “Yes. You will.”
“Alright. Bye.”
“Good bye, Amy.”
Sigh click
Garret tucked the phone away, leaving the rest of his paraphernalia in the roadster as he climbed out and headed toward the house. “Did your mother perchance bring my tuxedo?”
“Yup. Hanging in your room. She wouldn’t let me touch it.”
Garret chuckled and passed into the house to change.