Christmas Epilogue

Epilogue

“…conceive and give birth…”

Luke 2:31

Agatha Tabitha Freefrompride prodded the smoldering logs on the hearth as she prepared Christmas dinner—her first Christmas married to the boy, now man of her dreams. She paused and leaned on the mantle as a montage of memories played in her head to the soundtrack of Stephen Curtis Chapman’s “I Will Be Here.” The song had to repeat several times to accommodate all the scenes that had taken place over the last year. The last memory playing in her mind was a slow motion scene of she and Clark’s wedding; what a beautiful day it had been full of long gazes into each other’s eyes, solitary tears, and friends and family looking on with love with their heads tilted to the side and their hands clasped at their chests.

As her memory montage faded to black, Aggie realized she still had much to do to prepare for the day. After shaking off her characteristic tension headache, Agatha began finishing up the rest of her holiday preparations. Her apron draped over a growing bump on her waste, a new life on the way, a testament of her and Clark’s love, a bun in the oven. Clark didn’t know yet, the doctor had just confirmed that their bundle of joy would be coming in the next 4 or 5 months (Agatha thought she’d just been putting on weight for the first several months). Agatha had waited for today, Christmas, to break the wonderful news to her love Clark, her father, and Clark’s family. A smile spread across her face as she looked at the small parcels under the proud Christmas tree that Clark had cut down for her. She had festooned the tree with strings of cranberries, and bows made with the extra fabric from her latest calico dress.

She kneeled at the hearth to stir the mashed potatoes in her sturdy Dutch oven, catching a whiff of the turkey roasting on its spit over the warm flames. As she knelt down she felt a slight movement in her stomach that caused her to jump. She held her right hand to the spot she had felt the movement. She wondered if she was so excited that her very body was responding with joy, but then she realized it was her little bundle, her precious package, the littlest Freefrompride.

“What’s the matter beloved?” Clark stood in the doorway, surveying his wife’s surprised face and her bent figure clasping her stomach.

“Nothing my groom, just excited for our dinner. Is everyone here?” Agatha was proud of her quick wit.

“Yes my prize, they’re all here, should we gather around the tree in a picturesque semi-circle and open an inaugural gift before Christmas dinner?”

“That sounds lovely my best companion and constant provider, I have just the one. Usher them in!” Agatha could barely contain the blush of excitement spreading over her cheeks.

As they all gathered around the tree creating an image that only Thomas Kinkade could render with enough love and light, Agatha handed Clark the present she had prepared for this moment. Clark read aloud the gift label: “To my dearest friend and lover Clark, with love, your bride and servant Agatha. Thank you dear one,” Clark met the soft eyes of his wife as he began to tear apart the parcel’s brown wrapping. Folded gracefully in the small package was a neatly embroidered handkerchief. Clark read aloud the scrolling blue text, “Awww, thanks honey. It’s a handkerchief, and it says, ‘expectant father’ on it….that’s….now wait one second. Have I gone and opened someone else’s gift, because I’m not an expectant father, not that I know of.” A bewildered but expectant Clark looked up at Agatha for help who simply nodded and smiled.

“Well, give me one second to go kiss my beautiful wife,” Clark got up off his chair with the biggest smile on his face and a solitary tear of joy falling down his cheek; he went to Agatha, picking her off the ground and spinning her around in a circle. “I can’t believe it we’re having a baby!!” The rest of the family present clapped and laughed as they all celebrated together, discussing due dates and plans. They all chided Agatha for keeping the secret as long as she did, but they all agreed it was the best Christmas present they had ever seen. Even Bart Freefrompride, who had also changed his last name, let loose a solitary tear.

Clark and Agatha could barely contain their happiness as they sat through Christmas dinner, both steeling long smiling glances at one another. Indeed, God has been good, very very good to them. As they celebrated the birth of the Christ child surrounded by family and friends, and amidst the aromas of a holiday meal and the faint scent of pine and cinnamon, Clark and Aggie celebrated the upcoming birth of their own darling son or daughter. The real question remains whether Agatha will be able to hold onto her faith during the pains of childbirth.

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

“I got the joy, JOY, joy, JOY, joy, JOY…”

From a Sunday school song

Clark and Agatha had remained frozen in their spots across the inn dining hall for at least another 5 minutes, just looking each other and gathering the proper amount of emotion for a Christian Romance Novel reunion. Both of their eyes welled up with tears that didn’t dare fall, but rather made them both misty eyed. This Providential happening overwhelmed Agatha (Providential because it happened in Providence Station). Agatha let up a brief prayer to the God she had a rollercoaster relationship with (rollercoasters also had also not been invented):

You brought us together. I don’t know how God, but you did, you really did. Oh gee God, you really did, you did, you did, you did.

Clark looked upon the love of his youth feeling like ten thousand burdens had fallen off his back, and were still rolling away like tumbleweed across the Western frontier. Her beauty overwhelmed him, and finally the romantic tension between them built so much that it could have lit the Freegrace’s new barn on fire, causing Agatha to have another existential crisis about God and suffering, and Clark ran towards Agatha. Agatha ran towards Clark. They stopped a yard away from each other to extend the final moments of the book. “Agatha, I should have told you it was me all along,” Clark said the words as a convicted criminal, as the guilt ridden Prodigal son.

“Oh Clark, I’m only glad that it is you. I thought God was really throwing a wrench in my plans to have the ‘marry the love of your youth’ life story when it seemed the ‘marry the tall dark stranger that comes into town’ plotline was playing out,” Agatha grabbed Clarks hand sending lightning bolts up Clarks arm, which actually doesn’t sound that pleasant come to think of it. “And whatever else it is that you don’t want to tell me, I’m ready for it, I won’t leave you for anything now that I’ve found you again.” It was at this point that the writer of the story considered messing with Agatha and Clark’s lives again, but decided that this story was starting to make her nauseous, so she might as well let them stay together.

“Agatha, the only secret I had was my true identity, well, and there is one other thing I oughta’ tell you,” a smile of joy started to spread across Clarks face.

“And what is that Mr. Dangerpride,” Agatha knew it was a good secret, and so she answered with a flirtatious line of dialogue.

“Well, Agatha. When I was at your house, I was talking to your Dad, and I’ve had a lot of time to think and…,” he paused as he tried to gather his words.

“And????” Agatha’s excitement was building.

“Well, you see, I think God’s been pursuing me all along, from when I was a little kid, and even when I was out on the frontier, and all those scripture embroidered handkerchiefs you gave me. And well, I just find myself praying in italics in my head sometimes, and when I’m sad lately, I feel like God wipes away my solitary tears,” a healthy amount of emotion for a man filled Clark’s voice as he poured out his soul to the girl he’d loved from his childhood, who he’d left behind, came back to find, fell in love with again, left again, came back to find, found she had gone to find him, which had prompted him to go find her, which had led him here to this very dramatic moment.

“Clark, I think He’s been after me too, through it all. Its all brought me to you…er him,” Agatha had hoped Clark was winding up to a proposal but this was the second best thing. She wouldn’t have wanted to explain to her father that she was planning on being unequally yoked in marriage.

“And Agatha, I want to follow God to together.” He grabbed her other hand, and as if drawn by some force bigger than them, they slowly lowered to their knees, their hands in each other’s hands, facing one another. The rest is a blur of conversion on their knees and intermittent making out, and telling each other how much they loved each other and God (the fitting conclusion to any story really).

“God take our hearts, like you took the heart of my grandfather A.T. Freegrace when he traveled West to bring Your word to the settlers of the prairies and also the mountains,” Agatha spoke through tears.

“Agatha I love you so much,” Clark pressed his lips to Agatha’s forehead, and wiped away as many of her tears as possible.

“Clark I love you too. Lets pray some more,” Agatha was so filled with love and joy.

This scene went on for most of the day until Hope had to ask them to clear out because she was closing up shop. The two Christian lovebirds left Providence Station that night to clear up any confusion about sharing inn rooms, and rode on their respective horses, hand in hand, all the way back to Sunshine Salvation Valley in Abundance County Oregon. That night Agatha went to bed with her characteristic perma-smile back on her face among the mountains and prairies she loved, with the love of her life sleeping in the next room:

Thank you for my hunk of a fiancée. He is seriously so attractive, that I can’t stop thinking about him. And thank you that I like you again too God.

As she was falling asleep, she looked at the mysterious pattern on her grandmother’s quilt, laid across her bed. All of a sudden, she had an epiphany looking at its design and she jumped out of bed, “It’s a CROSS! The brown sticks are actually a cross, and the red shape on it is a HEART, and those aren’t just random scribbles on the heart, its embroidery that reads: ABOUNDING LOVE GRACE, HOPE, and JOY!” It had had all fallen into place. She’d have to tell her dear Clark Dangerpride, who had decided to change his last name to Freefrompride. She understood even more now, all these things, love, grace, hope, joy, were all found on the cross, and although the writer of this book judges Agatha for never noticing this obvious pattern before and for countless other things that seem flawed in Agatha’s 2D personality, she agrees with her conclusions about the cross.