DISCLAIMER: Sound of Music isn't mine!
EPILOGUE
The sky was painted a somber grey, and the world outside ceased to be as colorful as it should have been that morning as rain poured relentlessly, lashing against the windows of the car aggressively. Her eyes flitted down consciously—the blue of her irises seemingly dulled, emotions swirling in whirlpools. Her lower lip trembled as she slid on the gloves sitting quite calmly on her lap. The car came to a halt, and she took in a deep breath. This was it.
It wasn't supposed to end this way, she thought.
"Darling, are you sure you'll be alright?"
"I don't know," she replied honestly, slumping in her seat. Was she going to be alright? All this time— "I know that you—it's—"
"I understand, I always have," he kissed the crown of her head, holding her as her body shivered in his arms. "Now go," he urged her.
Taking another deep breath, she tried to compose herself—trying to look the part—calm, cool, collected—as the door to the car was opened for her, and she was escorted to the world outside. People holding umbrellas lined up perfectly as she walked to the entrance of the building. She tried to ignore the flash of cameras, perhaps for the photos that would be featured in the papers tomorrow morning. She tried not to grimace at the absurdity of it all.
The slow clacks of heels against marble echoed loudly—deafeningly as the past years played in her head. It was unfair, she thought. It was not supposed to end this way. She took another breath to calm her pounding heart.
Sometimes she wished that she had stayed instead, and there were times that she thought to herself that what she had done was, indeed, the right thing, yet—
She had spent the last twenty-eight years thinking of what could have been if she had stayed, or if she took the Reverend Mother's advice and told him that she loved him, plain and clear. She had been so cowardly. Oh, those three words—she had been so afraid—trying to gain courage to say it to him, but it had been too late when courage surged her veins. Things had changed—she had changed.
"We have to stop escaping into our dreams, imagining how things could have turned out. We have to stop living in fantasies in our mind and just… make do with what we have."
She wished she believed what she begged him to think.
Hypocrite, she screamed.
Distant calls of her name pulled her from her thoughts, and she made her way to the children—should they even still be called children? She managed a half-smile. Well, she thought, they will always be the children who captured my heart first.
It was true—she had loved the children first—stealing her heart and teaching her what a true family was. Now, they were all grown, each of them having families of their own, and just like she had with the children—she had tried spoiling all her so-called grandchildren. She remembered grimacing at first, telling Liesl that she had been too young to be called a grandmother, but Liesl had insisted, telling her that she would refuse for Maria to not be acknowledged as such.
She had been extremely hesitant upon hearing Liesl's request, immediately letting her eyes flit to him. "If your father approves, of course," she said, twisting the ring on her finger, perhaps to remind herself of the circumstances she had landed herself in.
"You can if you want to, Liesl," he replied, and she remembered her jaw tightening at the sound of it. Suddenly, at that moment, she felt as if she were wearing the lovely dirndl she had sewn on her own, standing outside the ballroom, Herr Detweiler protectively grabbing her arm, an uncomfortable expression on her face. Her eyes had stared at him pleadingly, begging him to save her from the ferocious glare burning the back of her head, yet in all his power, all he had done was say "you can if you want to."
But Liesl hadn't taken the statement as badly as she had. The moment that he had uttered those words, Liesl jumped up and enveloped Maria in a tight hug that had her gasping for air afterwards.
"Grandmother, it is, then!" Liesl had exclaimed excitedly, and Maria was left with no choice but to nod and smile. It wasn't as if she could refuse Liesl anything, anyways. Taking the little baby in her arms—Agathe, she was named—Maria caressed the little one's cheek. Sweet little Agathe had smiled, and Maria knew—she was hers for life.
Through the years that Maria watched the little girl grow, she had grown increasingly fond of her. It was true—she was her grandfather's little girl, spending more time with him as she did with her mother or her father, or her aunts and uncles. But there were days that Agathe was her little girl. There were days that Maria would be phoned, and Maria would gladly care for the little girl that she had come to love as her own.
Maria knew that like the girl's Uncle Kurt, she liked apfelstrudel more than any dessert, like her Aunt Brigitta, she loved books and telling stories, and like her Aunt Marta, she liked everything pink. Little Agathe would tell her stories of the many adventures of her aunts and uncles—most of which Maria already knew—that were told to her when she was being tucked into her bed, then she would tell Maria of stories of her grandfather at sea, and beam widely and say "he was decorated by the emperor!" just like her mother had.
She spoke of her family in great detail, but not much of her grandmama. When her grandmama was the topic of discussion, little Agathe would scrunch up her nose and say, "she doesn't like me, you love me more than she does," adding a saucy little huff afterwards (that Maria was certain she had learned from her grandmama). Maria would console her and say that her grandmama loved her very much and just as much as Maria did, though she didn't show it often. Agathe would shake her head, and Maria knew—that was the end of the discussion.
One day, as Maria and little Agathe baked cookies in the tiny, cozy kitchen, Agathe rolled a piece of cookie dough and popped it in her mouth, and in between bites exclaimed, "it was grandpapa's time to tell me a story last night!"
"Was it?" Maria leaned on the countertop and scooped a little cookie batter with her finger, and pushed it into her mouth.
"Mhm! And then he told me a story of the king and the princess," she exclaimed excitedly, and then giggled when Maria wiped her forehead with a damp cloth.
"I don't think I've heard of that one yet," Maria wiped her fingers on the damp cloth, and then started shaping the cookies and putting them onto the tray.
"Once upon a time, there was a nice king who ruled a kingdom," Little Agathe began. "Everyone loved him, and he had a loving queen, and had seven wonderful children with him. But then one day, the queen got sick and then she died. Then the king stopped being nice, and he stopped minding his seven children. Since he was busy, he asked people to take care of his children, but then the people would always run away and tell him that his children always played mean tricks on them and they didn't want to go anywhere near them. One of the people ran away after two hours!" Agathe giggled. (Fraulein Paula, she remembered)
"Then one day, when he was very angry, his fairy godmother showed up, and he asked her to send him someone who could take care of his children and help them stop being mean. Then in a poof, there was a young woman dressed in the ugliest dress he had ever seen. (Maria rolled her eyes at that one, thinking "it wasn't that ugly, really.") He didn't like her at first, and he complained to his fairy godmother because he said that the woman was annoying and very disobedient (another eyeroll), but the fairy godmother only smiled and told him to be patient with the girl."
Her eyebrows shot up. Had he really talked to the Reverend Mother?
"But he was a mean king who got mad at everyone who didn't follow him, so one day when his children went out to play and fell in the lake without permission, he got really angry at the woman, because she was supposed to be following his schedule, but she didn't. But just when he was going to keep getting mad at her, she told him that his children didn't even like the schedule, and then shouted at him, (another eyeroll—she didn't even shout at him until he provoked her!) and told him that he was a mean king and a mean papa to his children and that he should love his children because they love him. He was so angry that the woman was shouting at him so he wanted to efile—ek—ecr—" the little girl looked at Maria with curious eyes.
"Exile, darling. E-X-I-L-E."
"Ex—exile" she repeated. "But what does it mean?"
"To make someone leave and make sure they're never allowed to return," Maria explained as she placed the first tray of cookies in the heated oven.
"But why would the king want the woman to never return—OH, I know! Because she didn't follow him!" her eyes lit up in recognition. "Okay, but then suddenly, the king heard his children singing, and he suddenly remembered the queen, and how she would feel about how he treated his children. He listened to his children singing, and then he realized how much he meant to them, and started singing with them. He realized a lot of things when he was singing—like how much he loved his children, and he also realized that the woman was right, but that he ordered her to leave. The guards already took the woman away, and was going to send her away on a boat to another place, but the king wanted to make things right. He rode his horse to find her, and he was able to stop the boat before she left, and he was able to bring her back."
How I wish that it were that dramatic, she thought to herself.
"And what happened next, sweetheart?" Maria asked, though she knew the rest of the story, but she really had wanted to hear Georg's version of it—or at least, his idealized version of it.
"Grandpa said he'll continue the story later!" Agathe clapped excitedly, especially because at the same time, the oven ding-ed, and the aroma of freshly-baked cookies wafted to their noses.
"Gramma?"
"Yes, darling?"
"Do you think they lived happily ever after?"
Maria was silent, wordlessly removing the tray of cookies from the oven and placing it on the counter, then sliding a new batch in. How was she going to answer the girl?
"Well, you would have to wait for your grandfather to finish his story when he tucks you in tonight to find out, hmm?"
Little Agathe just nodded sadly, but then her eyes brightened when Maria told her that they would make cookie frosting together (which Maria vowed never to do again because it ended in chaos—powdered sugar everywhere!).
She flipped through her scrapbook that night—the one gifted to her by the children. She traced his sharp handwriting with the tip of her finger, sighing sadly to herself.
"Do you think they lived happily ever after?"
She never heard the second half of the story, at least, of the story about the king and the princess, because the following month, little Agathe had started school, and they were never left alone again. She knew what happened next though, but then again, that wasn't the king and the princess' story—it was her and Georg's.
"Gramma?" A voice pulled her from her thoughts, and she was brought back to the present. The services were over. She stared blankly at the urn in front of her, then to the source of the voice—and into the source's clear, blue eyes, so similar to her grandfather's.
"Yes, darling?"
Silence.
She pursed her lips and fidgeted with her fingers, frame slightly trembling.
"Remember that story I told you in your kitchen?" She cast her eyes down, speaking slowly, trying her hardest not to shake. "The one about the king and the princess?"
"Yes, but darling Agathe, what—"
"The king found out that she was a princess, taught a lesson by the fairy godmother about life and how it goes about—that maybe, when she went into the outside world, she'll know what would be expected of her. The details are hazy now, but this I know—the king and the princess fell in love along the way, though they didn't want to admit it at first. He first fell in love with her when she sat on a pinecone at her first dinner in the palace, and then again when he stopped the boat at the port, and then again and again and again."
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"I—" Maria couldn't help but pull dear Agathe into her arms as tears rolled down her granddaughter's face. "He loved you, gramma," Agathe cried as she clutched onto her grandmother's blouse. "He loved you, it tore him apart to see you leave. It tore him apart when he married grandmama, wishing it was you. It—"
"Hush now, darling. It's no use," she traced soothing circles on Agathe's back. "Besides, it's over now. There's nothing we can do except cherish his memory and whatever memory we may have had together."
"We have to stop escaping into our dreams, imagining how things could have turned out. We have to stop living in fantasies in our mind and just… make do with what we have."
o0o0o0o0o0o
The moonlight poured into the room, softly illuminating the yellowed pages that Maria thumbed. Agathe drove her home after the service. Before dropping her off at the house, gave her a small crate filled with leather-bound journals stacked one atop the other—each one similar to the scrapbook in her drawer. She had refused to take the crate at first, of course, but Agathe had insisted. And if there was one thing Maria couldn't do, it was to refuse her granddaughter. Hesitantly, she took the crate in her home and placed it gently on the floor, right beside her armchair in the library.
Tears welled in her eyes and threatened to fall down her cheeks as she followed the illustrations on the page—each one still vibrant, refusing to fade. She smoothed the petals with her hands—each one dried and lasting forever, saved where time is forever preserved. She read each word with her eyes, yet heard them in his voice—the familiar baritone voice silky, yet melancholic and bittersweet. She flipped the page, realizing that she was nearing the end of the journal, and that moonlight had begun to fade. She watched, slightly defeated, as the weak rays of the sun began to fill the earth.
Sometimes, I wish that we had finished the laendler. Sometimes, I wish that I had caught you leaving, or that the Reverend Mother allowed me to see you when I visited the abbey. Sometimes, I wish I hadn't proposed to Elsa just because I felt that it had been the right thing to do when it clearly was not. Sometimes, I wish that I had ended it with Elsa instead, and saved all of us from the cruel and cold hands of fate and misfortune. But most of all—I wish that I could have told you how much you truly meant to me—how much I love you. One sentence—perhaps two could never encapsulate how deeply I had felt for you—and I how I still do.
You are to be married in the morning, my dear, and I could wish you nothing else but happiness. I pray that he loves you the way you wish to be loved, and that he cherishes you the way you deserve. Difficult as it may be for me to let you go, you have told me that I must, and perhaps it is time to move forward. It pains me to write this, darling, for you will always have my heart, but I let you go with it—and I beg you to keep it with you always.
Perhaps in another life.
Maria closed the journal, slumping slightly and letting herself go slightly limp against the chair.
Perhaps in another life.
She tried to stand and make her way to the gramophone, shaking off the numbness of her legs, watching as the record turned. A familiar tune had begun to play, and though she was without a partner, she was determined to dance.
Take a walk—one, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three.
Step together.
Step, hop, step, hop, now turn under.
Hop, step, hop, and under.
"Do allow me, will you?"
She gulped as she fought the tears that threatened to fall down her face, and though her vision was blurred, she carried on dancing with her invisible, ghost Captain. She did still feel the warmth of his hand on hers, and she could still smell him around her.
She stood still.
The last few notes of the familiar music hung in the air, and she couldn't help but close her eyes and bring herself back to that night, when as they danced, nothing else mattered, and the world around them completely dissolved. They were two souls wandering in the night, finding each other, finding love in the wrong moment—in unfortunate circumstances, yet that didn't matter.
But all of it faded as the sun began to rise, and finally resume its rightful place in the heavens.
Don't leave me, please.
Perhaps in another life, my love.
END.
Hello!
Oh my, writing this was excruciating, honestly, and I'll be honest and say that I'm quite glad that this is over.
The thing is, writing something that would showcase the turmoil in them—to do what they possibly deem as morally correct in completely unfortunate circumstances posed as a wonderful challenge that my angsty self just had to accept and write (what a smug little—). Although I had laid everything out when I first started, I have changed and grown so much since then, especially the criticism that I've received—both personally and as a writer. And I wish to thank you all for your unending support! I believe that I couldn't have done this without all of you. Thank you for putting up with my angst, I guess, is what I meant to say. I'm seriously so glad that many are so accepting of it even if it's not the "usual" whatsoever. Honest! I really hadn't expected anyone to read this and it warms my heart that people do and that there are people out there who are as angsty as I am HAHAHA.
Thank you, really, from the bottom of my heart,
H :)