Find Wonder in All Things

Epilogue


Fifteen years later

Asheville, NC

James sat on the couch noodling his Mountain Laurel melody. It always helped him think when he ran across a particularly thorny programming glitch. He had spent the last four months working on an interactive software program with funds from the Elliot-Marshall Foundation — the organization he and Laurel founded the year after they married. The software he was currently developing was a pet project of his: using computers to teach music to children. The Foundation funded some of Laurel’s favorite causes too: reclaiming strip-mined land, art classes for children and adults, and education and treatment for people with depression.

For years, James had watched in admiration as Laurel’s confidence and poise rose to meet each new challenge. Never comfortable putting herself on display, she had learned early in their marriage that speaking and mingling would be a necessary part of her life. She had worked hard to develop those skills, but her inner grace was the root of all her inter- and intrapersonal strength. He’d seen ample evidence of it over the years: demonstrating her work, accompanying him to social gatherings for the various software companies he contracted with, and handling the devastating news that she was unlikely to conceive a child.

That had been a blow, but after many tears and long discussions, they reached a decision — no fertility treatments. As she told the doctor, “We’re going to let Fate decide this one. After all, Fate has been very kind to James and me.”

James had to agree. Fate had been kind in ways he never expected and knew he didn’t deserve. And their lives were full with their families, including Laurel’s nieces and nephews, and their friends — like John and his wife Marissa, Eric and Millie and their kids.

So, the Marshalls had both poured their energies into parenting the world in a variety of ways, and life had gone on as it had since the day they found each other again until one morning about four weeks after their ninth anniversary. Laurel met him at the door of their bedroom with a tearful smile on her face and an EPT in her hand.

He, of course, had panicked — as he usually did where she was concerned — but she quietly carried out every special medical instruction for moms over 35. He worried how a new little person would fit into their well-ordered life, but she calmly reassured him that everything would turn out fine . . .

* * *

A blur of black cape and blue pajamas whizzed behind him and leapt over the back of the couch, summoning him out of his memories.

“Whoa there, buddy! You almost impaled yourself on my guitar.”

“What’s ‘impaled?’”

“Fell and stabbed yourself with it. You need to look before you jump, Elliot.”

“Not Elliot! I’m Batman!”

James chuckled. “Riiight.” He thought for a second. “Did you know that Batman plays the guitar?”

“Like you?”

“Yep.”

“I never seen that.”

“He keeps it secret . . . but Alfred knows.”

“Nuh-uh.”

James shrugged and said, “I could show you how, but . . . I guess you’re too little anyway. It’s for big kids.”

“I’m a big kid!” Elliot was indignant as only a four-year-old could be. “Show me!”

And that was how Laurel found them when she ventured up from her studio twenty minutes later: James fingering chords and Elliot strumming and singing in an angelic voice. The boy could carry a tune — even at four.

She leaned against the doorway, and James’s eyes met hers for a long, silent moment, during which they said a multitude of sweet nothings to each other.

“Hey, big guys, whatcha up to?” she asked, coming in to sit beside them on the couch and putting her chin on her husband’s shoulder.

“Playing music,” James answered.

“Like Batman,” Elliot piped in, wriggling into his mother’s lap. James gave Laurel a lop-sided smile.

“Batman plays guitar? I like it. I always knew Batman had a sensitive, artistic side.”

James rolled his eyes, and she gave him a radiant smile before addressing their son.

“Elliot,” she began, “how would you like to go to Uppercross and see your cousins for a couple of months?”

“Yippee! See Aunt Susan and Uncle Gary too?”

“Yep, them too.”

“I wanna go. Daddy says Uppercross is the best place, ’cause it’s where there’s mommy’s broom.”

Laurel looked at James, confused.

He squelched a laugh. “No, Elliot — not quite — Uppercross is the best place,” he leaned over to kiss his wife on her clay-spattered cheek, “because it’s where the Mountain Laurels bloom.”

The End