I'm excited for you all to read this next bit. We get to see another wedding, experience a slice of the Hursts' life with twins, and get another proposal. I apologize in advance if I have made any errors with the few phrases of Brazilian portuguese I have included here. I don't speak portugeuse, so I am dependent on what I have learned from consulting sources online.

I know it is just a number, but I really want to get to 400 reviews for this story. Can you help me out?


XXXIX

Epilogue: Four Weddings and a Funeral

Part Two

As Mary told Henry on their plane ride back from their honeymoon, "I feel a bit guilty for being gone so long. While it was wonderful, of course," Mary smiled a special smile that was just for him, remembering just what a lovely time they had together as newlyweds, "I put the whole burden of seeing to Nana to everyone else while we were gone, which doesn't seem quite fair when they must have been swamped with all manner of last minute things to do for the wedding."

"You have no cause to feel guilty," Henry opined. "You take too much on yourself. Nana should have never been your primary responsibility. And besides, maybe it will make your father and everyone else appreciate how much you do. You deserved to enjoy yourself."

Henry took up Mary's hand and kissed the back of it in a courtly manner. Mary blushed in remembering everywhere else he had kissed her. Being married was wonderful!

The next day, Mary and Henry attended a family meal with her parents, the Bingleys, Darcy and Elizabeth. Mary asked, "As far as the wedding, what can I do to help?"

"Nothing," Elizabeth replied. "Almost everything is done. Darcy hired the services of a team of wedding planners and they have it all in hand."

"It will be lovely, I am sure, even if they couldn't do everything I wanted," Mrs. Bennet responded.

"What more did you want?" Mr. Bennet asked. "You ordered so many flower arrangements that I dare say no one else will be able to find a lily or a rose in the rest of the state. Are you still going on about the flamingoes? As I said before, we've not the climate for them, Elizabeth did not like the idea of importing them, and they would hardly have enhanced the garden wedding."

Among the attendees for the Bennet-Darcy wedding were Don and Louisa Hurst, the proud new parents of fraternal twin boys, their sister Caroline and her boyfriend and date Raimundo. Louisa had been a bit surprised to be invited to the Bennet-Darcy wedding. Louisa's invitation arrived when she was seven months pregnant and she immediately called to ask Charlie, "Did you put Darcy up to inviting me? Does he really want me to be there?"

Charlie replied, "No, I did not, although Darcy did ask me for your address, it was all his own idea. You know Darcy, he is such an introvert that he doesn't have a lot of friends and I guess with all the time he has spent with me and my family, he considers you his friends too. He purposefully set the wedding in October hoping you could attend. Oh, and he said you should definitely bring the babies, he will make sure you have a quiet room to nurse in and such, and is happy to get you a nanny for the occasion if you want." Louisa had declined the offer of paid help, but was left with warm sisterly feelings for the man who had been such a close friend of her brother's for so long, and a determination to make it to his wedding if at all possible.

While Caroline was a little surprised to receive the invitation, too, she almost immediately concluded that it was what she had always expected would eventually happen once she learned Darcy was dating Elizabeth, and especially after seeing them together at her brother's wedding, making moon-eyes at each other. She wondered, Can I attend and be happy for them?

Caroline was not usually one for much introspection, but over the next couple of days, Caroline carefully searched her feelings about the upcoming event. She concluded that while her past self's ego had been bruised from Darcy never responding to her overtures, only the smallest, most selfish part of herself cared about that now. She called Raimundo, explained about the invitation and asked, "Will you be my plus one?"

"Minha querida, let me see what I can do." Caroline knew he would do his best, and eventually he was able to find someone to cover for him that weekend.

Caroline's focus had shifted completely when she started dating Raimundo, which started the day after the wedding. He had said as the evening wore down, "I am in town until tomorrow evening and I know no one now that Charlie goes on his honeymoon. Please oblige me and let me take you to dinner."

Caroline had hesitated before agreeing, but dinner had been just as good as the dancing was, and they had lingered over coffee and dessert until the restaurant closed. Their romance was not without obstacles of course. It was difficult to be a five-hour drive far away from one another; she had her job as a graphic designer and he had patients who needed surgery, often on an emergency basis, but when he got his two days off, he always drove to see her, stayed as long as he could, often going straight from driving to his next shift.

The way Raimundo would look at her when he saw her in person each time again, made Caroline feel special, like she was some kind of rare flower or newly unearthed treasure. And treasure her he did, spoiling her in all sorts of little ways, like texting her goodnight ever night, always having her favorite flavor of gum in his car, taking her to do things that she wanted to do. Caroline had soaked his attention in, like a wilting plant eagerly soaks in water.

And best of all, Caroline really liked how she was around Raimundo and how he was around her. He had this way of knowing when he needed to lighten her mood with some teasing, and oh how they teased each other. It was almost impossible to be in a bad mood around him. Although she would have never visualized herself with someone like Raimundo, all her imaginings of the future had him in them and she was already wondering when it might be her turn to marry.

Forty minutes before the ceremony was set to begin, Louisa and Don sat in Pemberley's game room, with Louisa tandem nursing her boys. This was the first time since their birth that she and Don had taken them anywhere save for doctor appointments and a few walks around the block pushing their double stroller. They had brought all manner of supplies with them, so much stuff in fact that Don had complained, "That will never all fit in the van." There was the pack 'n play, two bouncers, the boppies, the huge diaper bag, a king sized pillow, the spare clothes diaper bag, the double stroller, two front packs, a playmat and a swing.

Eight weeks earlier, about three weeks before their scheduled due date, Louisa had a planned c-section after it became obvious that the boys had no plan of aligning in an ideal delivery position. It had been so strange to feel tugging and then have her first baby appear above the short screen that spared her from seeing the actual surgery. Don had been pale, but bravely held her hand through everything.

The larger boy was named Donald Jr. (who they called Donny). He was so named because of the two he more closely resembled her husband with his fat cheeks and dark hair although he was born second.

The smaller boy was Lewis and he had been born almost bald, with a fuzz that reminded Louisa of the downy feathers of a little chick and was similar to the hair that Charlie had in his baby pictures. They just called him Lewis, because as Louisa said, "'Louie' just makes me think of one of Donald Duck's nephews and it also isn't any shorter." Originally they had planned to call him Michael after Louisa's dad, but Louisa had changed her mind and Don was not about to argue with her when she explained her reasoning, "I'm not sure I am willing to go through this again and I deserve a namesake, too."

The recovery hadn't been too bad, which Louisa attributed to following the advice given in the planned c-section class about getting up and walking the next day and generally being active, but her tummy was still tender, so she was nursing them in an arm chair with the big pillow over her lap, with each boy propped in the football position, one in each arm. She found that while she had mastered nursing both of them at once, she needed help getting them positioned in the first place and taken away afterwards, and with all the diapering and soothing. While Don had taken vacation days when the babies were born and could take additional unpaid family leave, he did need to return to his job soon.

Don had suggested hiring help, but Louisa hesitant about trusting her beloved newborns with just anyone, and spending many hours a day in the company of a live-in stranger, no matter what her prior references. She had seen those Lifetime movies when everything seems great with a new nanny before everything goes horribly wrong. Instead, Louisa proposed that they see if Caroline might be willing to move in with them to help for at least the first few months.

Louisa had hesitated to ask Caroline, both because she did not have much experience caring for babies and because the arrangement would likely require Caroline leaving her job, but she also knew that Caroline had started to pick up some freelancing illustration projects and might welcome time to paint. Caroline had agreed, transitioning from full-time work to freelancing and still working on a few graphic design projects for certain clients when she had time.

Generally, Don performed most of the non-nursing related tasks when he was home (he joked with Louisa, "While you are in charge of keeping their tummies filled, I am in charge of keeping their bottoms clean") and Caroline assisted Louisa during Don's work day. Louisa had been pleasantly surprised at how helpful Caroline had been and how quickly she had accepted that being spit up and shat upon, was just part of life with babies.

In the evenings, Caroline worked on her watercolor painting. She had a whole collection she was working on to illustrate a children's book. She was producing them on spec, with no guarantee they would be selected, but Louisa thought they were some of her best work to date. She had always thought that Caroline should have majored in art instead of art history with a minor in graphic design.

Charlie and Jane helped with the babies, too, committing to spend the weekend with them twice a month, to give the other adults a break. While Louisa needed a break the most, it was a challenge for her to be gone from them for even a couple of hours.

During the Bingleys' first weekend of babysitting, the first day was taken up with socializing in between Louisa and Caroline teaching them everything they thought the Bingleys needed to know. The next day, Jane urged, "Go out, do something fun Louisa, you too, Caroline; we've got this and if we have a question you are only a phone call away."

Louisa was still nervous about leaving her baby boys, but finally that afternoon made plans to go out with Caroline to get in some post-maternity clothes shopping as Louisa was too big still to fit into her regular clothes but didn't want to wear clothes that still looked like she was expecting babies. Even though she planned to return before their next feeding, she left the Bingleys with plenty of expressed milk.

At about the two hour mark, Louisa was still shopping but beginning to feel anxious about being gone too long. But when she discussed leaving, Caroline said, "Remember, you left milk; there is no need to hurry back."

Perhaps Louisa should have mentioned to Caroline that her chest was starting to feel heavy, primed as it was to deliver milk to the babies every two to two and a half hours or so. But Caroline had selected a promising outfit for her and Louisa reasoned that at least she could at least try it on before leaving. As Louisa was making her way back towards the changing rooms with a few items, she heard another baby in the store cry and immediately her front began to leak. But she wasn't too worried as that was what nursing pads were there for.

"Uh, Louisa, maybe you were right that we should leave," Caroline noted, vaguely gesturing to Louisa's chest. Louisa looked down and saw that she had two wet blotches on the front of her shirt. It was then that Louisa recalled that while she was wearing nursing pads, they were the cloth, washable kind, rather then the disposable ones with the plastic backing.

Louisa hurried to the dressing room with the clothing, not pausing for the attendant to count her items. Caroline was left to explain the situation. Louisa was fortunately carrying her battery operated pump in its bag that resembled a diaper bag, and immediately hooked herself up. She reasoned it was far better pumping there then in the restroom. Afterwards, she dried off her bra as best as she could, put in new pads and then debated what to do about her soaked shirt. Louisa found one of the tops she tried on was a great fit, and emerged wearing it after ripping off the tags, her stained shirt stuffed in the pump bag.

The attendant gave Louisa a look when she came out but said nothing. Louisa had an irrational desire to just walk out of the store then, and see if she could get away with just taking the top, but instead she dutifully stood in the checkout line. The clerk seemed confused when just handed the tags, but Louisa explained, "It's like with buying shoes. When I find the perfect item, I just have to wear it home."

Louisa had timed the boys' feedings well on Darcy's wedding day and she was pleased that it had worked out that the boys nursed, fell asleep and were successfully set down in the pack and play just before the ceremony began. Don stayed in the house with them while Louisa dashed out just in time to make it to her seat next to Caroline before the flower girl (a cousin of the bride) came walking down the wide grass aisle.

Louisa thought Darcy looked quite handsome in his dark suit, but wondered at him standing there with only two attendants, Charlie and Darcy's cousin Rafe (while Louisa had met Rafe before, but it wasn't until she looked at the names listed in the program that she learned his actual name was Richard Alfred Fitzwilliam), when the program indicated that Elizabeth had four: matron of honor Jane Bingley, and bridesmaids Mary Long, Georgiana Darcy and Charlotte Lucas. Louisa was unclear how a recessional was supposed to work with such a mismatch of groomsmen to bridesmaids, but forgot all about that during the actual ceremony.

While Jane and Charlotte entered before the bride, in soft blue gowns, Mary and Georgiana were already standing behind a baby grand piano which was on a platform on the grass, apparently having entered sometime earlier. Mary played the piano as Charlotte and then Jane came forward. As Louisa watched Jane walk up, she noted that if she was not mistaken (and she did not think she was, given how slim Jane was), Jane had the beginning of a baby bump. As Charlie had openly discussed that they planned to wait five years to try, she was curious as to whether they had changed their minds or if it was a surprise, but she was not going to say anything to anyone until an announcement was made.

Mary then made her way over to join the other bridesmaids as Georgiana played the wedding march for Elizabeth. Elizabeth was wearing a slim gown that Charlotte had helped pick out; she would have been overwhelmed in a ball gown.

While Caroline watched the ceremony with interest, her focus was distracted by the man sitting beside her, who even then was holding her hand. Darcy and Elizabeth had written their own vows. Most of what Darcy said was nice but forgettable from Caroline's point of view. It was only at the end, as obvious emotion made his voice crack, that she really took note of what he said: "My dearest Elizabeth, my love, my bride, I vow to love you with all my heart and soul all the days of my life, although this is more an expression of what is and what will continue to be the truth than a promise, although I promise it as well." Raimundo squeezed her hand tighter and Caroline imagined what it would be like to have Raimundo say such words to her.

Elizabeth's vows began, "When I first met you, Will Darcy, I didn't think I liked you. I found you arrogant, prideful and high-handed. I couldn't imagine ever wanting to date you, and the longer I knew you, the more my antipathy grew based on suppositions attributing all the worst motives to your actions."

Louisa and Caroline joined in the nervous laughter some of the guests had then, and beside her Caroline heard a little gasp from Raimundo who let go of her hand and then leaned toward her and murmurred in her ear, "How can she say such things?"

Elizabeth waited until it was quiet once more to continue, "I judged rather than trying to understand. I condemned rather than asking. It wasn't until I saw how kind you were to my sister Mary, when she was going through a health crisis, that I finally began to understand you, to know that you were a good man, someone who was fiercely loyal to those he cares about, so kind that you were even able to forgive my idiocy. As time went on, I found you were the best of men and fell so hard for you. Given our rocky beginning, sometimes it feels like this is a dream and I will wake up to realize that none of this is real and I lost my chance at so much happiness. So I vow to you, Darcy, to now think the best of you and not the worse, to do my best to understand you, to ask and be patient when I am frustrated and above all to love you as you deserve to be loved, even when I am not in a loving mood."

And then, in what seemed to be a spontaneous addition, Elizabeth said, "Darcy, loving you and being loved by you is more than I could have ever imagined, to be gaining a husband who is also my best friend, who it will be my privilege to spend my whole life with." During this part of Elizabeth's vows, Raimundo once again grabbed Caroline's hand, which she interpreted as some sort of agreement on his part.

Such an outpouring of emotion deserved a response and simultaneously Darcy and Elizabeth sprang together and embraced, although they did not kiss. Elizabeth was dwarfed by Darcy, her head against his chest.

It was anticlimactic when Darcy and Elizabeth separated to exchange their rings while some verses about love were read by the minister. When Darcy and Elizabeth finally kissed, Darcy had to hunch his body so much that Louisa thought it would be very uncomfortable to do that on a routine basis. It seemed awkward and weird, although not as weird as seeing some of the kisses between Caroline and Raimundo, a similarly mismatched couple.

After Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were presented, Georgiana hurried to the piano to play the recessional music; the bride and groom waited until the music began to walk past the guest. Then when the song finished, Georgiana resumed her place at the front. Louisa's question about how the recessional would work was answered when she saw that each groomsman had a bridesmaid on each arm. Charlie had Jane and Mary, while Rafe had Charlotte and Georgiana. They walked out in silence, with no one playing the piano.

While Louisa had been prepared to possibly need to duck out just after the ceremony, her phone had not vibrated once during the proceedings, so she went ahead and followed the other guests into Pemberley proper and into the large hall where the reception cocktail hour was being held. Louisa was able to chat with a few people, congratulate the groom and wish the bride happiness (the Darcys had opted to forgo tradition and take all of their photos that morning so they could enjoy their wedding and guests), and get a few munchies as well as prepare a plate for Don and get him a cold beer.

When Louisa came back to Don and the boys, she found Donny awake in his bouncy seat and Lewis asleep against Don's chest, as Don dozed, too. Louisa set down the plate and beer, retrieved Donny, who was making tiny fussy sounds, and carefully sat down on the couch next to Don, shoulder to shoulder with him. She felt overcome, awash in memories of her own wedding and feeling so happy about having her three guys. Snuggled next to Don, Louisa fell asleep too, for twenty blessed minutes. The next thing she knew, Lewis was crying and it was time to feed them again. Afterwards, she and Don helped each other place them in their front packs and each wore a baby during the reception dinner.

After a third feeding in the game room by their mother, Caroline and Raimundo took over caring for the babies. Caroline had been pleasantly surprized that Raimundo wanted to help, but thought it was likely he simply wanted to spend more time with her and would not be much actual help. But in this she was proved wrong. Raimundo went to work holding Lewis and gently swaying as he walked around the game tables. Soon enough, Lewis slumped in Raimundo's arms and he patiently waited until Lewis was firmly asleep before gently setting him down in the pack 'n play on his back, next to his brother.

Right after that, Caroline beckoned Raimundo closer, to join her on the couch beneath the photographs of the Darcys, "Come here, you."

Raimundo sat on Caroline's lap, which made him just the right height to comfortably kiss her. It was an arrangement they had stumbled on only weeks into their relationship. They kissed with obvious delight for several minutes until Raimundo pulled back and said, "I've been waiting for the right time, but with only seeing you a couple of weekends a month since we started dating, and the romance of this wedding day, I cannot wait any longer." He slid off of Caroline, stood up and then dropped down to one knee before her. "You are quite a woman, Caroline, and although I know you wanted to find a taller guy, besides this, I think I was made for you and you for me.

"You see, I was always restless as a boy. I could not sit still at home. I had to go new places, try new things. In this I was like my bisavô, my great-grandfather who brought his family from Sweden."

Caroline nodded, she had heard about Raimundo's family history, the mix of more recent immigrants with native born brazilians who were derived from portuguese who had intermarried with indigeous people generations earlier. Before she had dated Raimundo, she had not understood what a vibrant culture there was in Brazil.

"Charlie was the only exchange student we had ever hosted, and at first I was determined to find him beneath my attention; after all, he was only in high school while I was attending university, but you know Charlie, he could make friends with a rock. He would tell me little stories about his life and I would imagine myself in his stories. When his school year with us was up, I kept dreaming about going to America."

"And I am so glad you did," Caroline leaned forward and down, putting her arms around him for a quick hug. She did not even like to think of an alternative universe where Raimundo might have never come into her life. When she let go of him, he resumed talking once more, seemingly anxious to get his whole account out.

"I started investigating ways I might come to America and a helpful advisor told me there was a demand for foreign doctors in rural communities, that if I studied medicine in the U.S. and really worked on my English, that I might have a chance to stay there. I worked hard, harder than I ever had in my life to do all the pre-med classes, changed my major to chemistry and molecular biology and amazingly I got accepted to a medical school in Texas. I knew there were a lot of places I could eventually end up and they would be small and poor, and when I ended up where I did, sometimes I was so frustrated that I just wanted to go back to Fortaleza.

"But then Charlie invited me to be a groomsman at his wedding, and you know the rest." Rather than stopping then, Raimundo continued to explain, "I had first learned of you from his stories as the annoying little sister that he used to pick on until your big sister would put a stop to it. On his Facebook, I had first seen your pretty face. And as the years went by I saw pictures of you and accounts of what you were doing so many times that it felt like I knew you, but then when I met you, as I had longed to do, and you dismissed me because of my being short, well fala sério! I do not know why I did not anticipate this; other women have had this same reaction, but still I couldn't really believe it and it hurt. But then, when I got you to dance with me and I saw you were actually having fun, well then I had hope again."

Raimundo paused and pulled a black velvet ring box from his suit coat pocket. Although Caroline had an idea of what Raimundo was up to when he had gotten down on one knee, to see that box there, waiting for when he would pop the question, it was too much, too soon. She had this idea that she should tell him that, but all the words were caught in her throat as she waited to see what he would say.

"I think now, that everything my whole life has been leading me to find you. I don't know if it is fate or the guiding hand of God, but I know that I want to be your husband, to spoil you as you deserve even if I do not make that good of money now.

"These past few months, only getting to see you for a day or two at a time, when I would come here or you would go there. Que saudade! Oh how much I miss you, so much that it hurts! I know you need to keep helping with the babies, just moved in with your sister recently and I do not want to take you away from your sister or my good friend Charlie, but I want you with me, too. I know there would be many details that we would need to work out and we could not be together for some time, but Caroline . . . I love you so much. Please, won't you marry me?"

He opened the box which held a diamond solitaire. It was perhaps a half-caret, which was a reasonably sized engagement ring, but nothing to the diamonds which her sister-in-law Jane and Elizabeth had, or even Louisa's not-quite-a-caret ring. It wasn't the huge ring Caroline had dreamed of when she had hope that Darcy might one day be hers, but it was also a ring that had been bought for her by someone who loved and wanted her as much as she loved and wanted him.

Caroline hesitated. She really wanted to say yes, in seeing all the love in Raimundo's grey-green eyes, which seemed to plead for her answer. She meant to give a reasoned response, something along the lines of "No, I can't, at least not now, not yet. I love you, too, but it is too early to decide whether what we have is for our whole lives." But she did not want to disappoint him, or herself either, for there was a growing feeling within her, that marrying Raimundo would be right.

The saying that "Good things come in small packages," ran through Caroline's mind and in reflecting on that for a moment, she decided that it was definitely true when it came to Raimundo. She found that her lips would not form a "no" and instead spoke a single, "Yes."

Raimundo slipped the ring on Caroline's finger. It fit and he noted, "Louisa let me borrow one of your rings, to get the size right." Those were the last words they spoke for several minutes while they kissed once again.

They were interrupted by a little whine from Donny. Caroline picked him up and from the tone of his whining she quickly figured out that he needed burping. Although she expertly caught the first spit-up with the burp cloth, she wasn't prepared for the second which tagged her lap. While she quickly wiped it away, she knew she would now smell like sour milk for the rest of the night, but she wasn't too bothered by that.

Then Lewis started crying and Raimundo picked him up and sorted out his diaper while Caroline cuddled Donny, who while recovered from the pain of stomach gas, had joined in his brother's wails out of sympathy. She rocked Donny and then gave him a pacifier.

Once Lewis was changed, Donny took that as his cue to loudly fill his pants. Raimundo said, "I've got it," and exchanged Lewis for Donny. When Donny was in a new diaper and outfit, having ruined the previous one with his sudden outflow, Raimundo brought Donny to Caroline.

"You are so good at that," Caroline noted.

Raimundo shrugged, "As the elder brother, I used to help with the little ones." Then he went off to wash his hands.

When Raimundo returned, he spent a few moments watching Caroline with the boys. She had one baby in each arm and was gently swaying back and forth with them from her spot on the couch. Donny was mouthing the material of her sleeve and Lewis was just looking up at her with his unfocused baby eyes, his mouth softly opened in what might have been a rudimentary attempt at a smile. "Que linda. How beautiful, how you care for them. You are so good with them and will make a lovely mother some day."