note- every time i upload this chapter there are giant gaps between the paragraphs, and it won't let me fix it. sorry. keep scrolling lol. im sorry.
"I want him to see my wedding dress," Anne said, "But he can't, because it's bad luck for the groom to see before the wedding. I'm glad you can look; I'm dying for someone to see it!"
Emily gasped. "Oh, Anne, the sleeves! Rosebuds made of satin! My, did you make those? They're perfect down to the tiniest detail!"
"Marilla did," Anne said happily. "She found the pattern for it in Ladies' Home Companion and she spent hours every evening making them for practice, and tossing them out and starting over! We must have an enormous pile of them. She wouldn't add them to the dress until she felt she'd finally perfected the art!"
Emily was impressed. "My, that's commitment. Well, if you ever questioned whether or not she loves you, there you go."
Anne did not question Marilla's love for her; she had had five years to see that love grow and blossom. She sometimes wished Marilla were a bit more physically demonstrative, but she acknowledged that that had grown, too. Walter had helped: Marilla simply couldn't take care of a baby day to day without becoming an expert snuggler.
Anne put the dress back into the cupboard and lovingly patted it before she shut the door. "We're working on Clara's, too, because it'll be like a miniature version of mine. Rosebuds and all! I think she'll love it."
Emily shook her head. "Clara is more excited by having a new dress than she is by the wedding party. She's calling it her first dance! She keeps talking about Walter and the suit he's going to wear."
"Well, Walter thinks he can wear the same suit to his own wedding someday. It hasn't occurred to him that he's going to outgrow it." They both laughed.
As they went downstairs, they each privately thought that they might someday find themselves related through their children.
Later, Anne took Walter and Clara over to the school. She was going to help Gilbert work on some things for the upcoming year. She'd taken Walter along so that Marilla could have a break from him, and because Walter gobbled up every chance to be with Gilber. And Clara was along for company.
Anne got the children settled on the floor by a window with their art supplies. "Remember not to color on the walls or the floor," she said seriously. "Paper only."
"All my crayons are in half, mama," Walter said. "I want new ones."
"If you don't want to use broken crayons, then stop breaking them!" was Anne's reply.
When she looked back at them a few minutes later, there was a pile of shredded paper that was growing ever larger as Walter sat yanking the casings off all the crayons. Clara was drawing a picture of her favorite thing- herself. They were quite happy with each other.
"Thick as thieves, those two," Anne said, shaking her head.
Gilbert looked back at them, then asked Anne, "Do you think I ought to pull the desks out, the way Miss Stacy did, and have them sit on the floor?"
"I wouldn't in the very first week," Anne said carefully. "But maybe the second? It's going to be harder for you to establish yourself, remember." She explained, "We never knew Miss Stacy as anything but our teacher. But the younger ones here know you as Gilbert and they went to school alongside you...it might be a challenge for them to see you as a real teacher! I'd show them the very first week that you mean business- leave no doubt about being qualified to teach. Then maybe the next week you can be more friendly."
"Good idea," Gilbert said, letting go of a shaky breath. That was what worried him the most- the local children knowing him. If he was teaching in some other town, he'd be introduced for the first time as a teacher. What if the children here in Avonlea wouldn't listen to him? He felt awkward expecting the ones he knew to call him Mr. Blythe. But he couldn't continue being just Gilbert, not if he was to be regarded as a professional.
Once he made sure all his benches were in straight rows, he turned his attention to the windows. "I'd like to hang something in the windows...I don't know what."
Anne thought about this. "It's fall now, why not leaves? If we hang them up now, they'll still be colorful on Monday. I can come back to take them down once they've gotten crispy."
Gilbert nodded slowly. "I can take care of that, Anne. Do you want to organize the books?"
"I can do both," Anne said, picking up a basket and heading for the door. "Be right back."
Gilbert watched her from the window. He was worried.
But Anne didn't even hesitate. She bent down to pick up the red, yellow, and orange leaves and dropped them handful by handful into her basket. She moved easily around the school yard, seeming to delight in the fall leaves underneath her, instead of being traumatized by them.
He smiled. She's going to be okay, he thought to himself.
When Clara had been taken home, Gilbert's little future-family walked hand in hand back to Green Gables.
Walter bounced up and down between them, holding his mama's hand on one side and Gilber's hand on the other. He was happiest when he had them both.
Saturday evening Anne and Gilbert had time alone, as Anne came over to his house to help him write lesson plans.
"I've never had to do this," Anne commented. "I had no idea how much you're supposed to fill out! I'm glad I can help you."
Gilbert smiled at her. "I appreciate it. I didn't realize, either. We had to do this for practice at Queens, but...somehow it didn't feel like as big a chore...once my Redmond courses pick up again, it'll be a struggle."
He sighed a bit, looking down at his paper. He had to give lesson plans to the school board every two weeks. He went down the list, checking to be sure he had filled out every part- the lesson's objective, the measurable skills, the academic vocabulary to be used, the introduction, engagement, conclusion, and assessment phase.
No wonder Mr. Phillips was always so grumpy, he thought to himself. ...I bet all of this just came naturally to Miss Stacy.
He glanced over at Anne's paper. Anne was working on a science lesson for him and she'd filled out every section easily. She'd already moved onto a second lesson.
"You have better ideas than I have," he told her, feeling a bit deflated. "I'm not sure what I'd do without you, Anne."
Anne stopped writing, looked over at Gilbert's half-filled page, and impulsively kissed him. "We're a team," she told him with love.
Monday morning was stressful for Gilbert. He changed his clothes three times, trying to choose something that would make him appear older.
He could not eat his breakfast, and dropped his lunch on the floor when he was packing it up into a basket.
When he finally did leave, he opened his door to find Anne waiting.
"Anne!" he said in surprise.
"I came to walk with you," she said, leaning in to kiss him.
"You did?" he asked, touched.
"You're going to have a good first day, and I want to be there to send you off," she said confidently. "I'm so proud of you. You're a real teacher now!"
They began.
"I can't thank you enough for coming to walk with me," he said quietly, squeezing her hand.
"You used to walk with me, remember?" she asked him, leaning in to touch his shoulder.
So much time has gone by, Gilbert realized. Those days I got up early to meet her so she wouldn't have to walk through the woods alone…was that really so long ago? How much we've grown…
Anne pulled him from his thoughts by saying, "When school is over I'm going to be back here to meet you so we can walk home together. I can't wait to hear all about your first day! Walter, too. He keeps saying he wants to go to school now because then he'll be with you all day! I hadn't the heart to tell him that by the time he starts school, you won't be teaching anymore."
"That's right, we'll be in Kingsport by the time he starts school," Gilbert realized. "I suppose he'll have to start there?"
Anne hadn't thought about that, and then else something hit her- "When we come back to Avonlea, he'll be new. I hope he can blend in easily...everyone else will already have friends here!"
"He'll have Clara," Gilbert reminded her.
But that made Anne feel worse. "He and Clara will be apart for three years while we're in Kingsport."
Gilbert patted her back. "We'll be back often to visit Marilla and Matthew. Walter can see Clara then. And we can help them write to each other."
"I suppose," Anne agreed sadly. But then she had a new thought. "Well, maybe it's for the best. They love each other, but maybe time apart will be good. I don't know how good they are for each other."
"What do you mean?" Gilbert asked.
"Well, they both have some...unpleasant qualities. And being together brings out the worst in each other. Clara is so vain, and Walter feeds into her vanity by telling her how pretty she is all the time. And Walter has a tendency to be destructive and Clara laughs at it which encourages him."
"They're so little; they'll be different people as they grow up," Gilbert said, brushing that off.
"When school is over lets come back to your house," Anne said, moving on. "I want to have a surprise dinner for you."
Gilbert felt warm inside, despite the brisk air of the early fall. He couldn't imagine if he'd been alone right now. A world without Anne would be a dismal place indeed.
When they reached his house again in the afternoon, he found that Anne's surprise dinner for him was a pancake feast with confectioner sugar.
