A/N: Well, it's been 18 years since I finished this story and recently my muse has awakened. I went back to read over my old stories, while popular, they aren't that good. The plots were intriguing, I feel, but the structure was terrible.
I have just finished revising Once Upon a Dream and tightened it up a bit. I'm sure there is still a typo or two in there but I'm happier with it. I plan to do the same with this story, though the rewrite here will be more extensive. There are a lot of jumps and holes I would like to fill in. I'm going to begin posting the newly worked chapter tomorrow, and hope to get 2-3 a week. I'm posting this ending snapshot because when a chapter is replaced, there is no alert. I'm hoping those who have enjoyed the story before will like the new version. Please check on it every couple of days. If you'd like me to PM you when I replace a chapter, drop me a message.
Enjoy!
Stowe, Vermont
1944
Maria rolled over and reached out to grasp her husband's hand. Since the birth of their three children, she had begun to be the first one to wake up in the morning. She would reach back and grab onto Georg's hand and he would slowly come awake and greet her with a warm smile and good morning kiss. It started her day off right.
This morning though she only felt the cool smooth sheets. He hadn't come to bed at all, and she knew why.
With a sigh, Maria slipped out of bed and pulled on her robe against the morning chill. She inhaled the cool, brisk air, April mornings were still damp and cool in Vermont just like back home. Even after six years, she couldn't think of this place as "home."
Maria peeked into the younger boys' bedroom, Lucas and Johannes were sleeping soundly. Then she peered into Josie's room, their newest young one was also still sound asleep.
Maria made her way to the kitchen and wasn't surprised to find Georg had started the coffee. She liked it when he made the coffee even if it was so strong it was impossible to drink. There was something romantic about that small gesture that warmed her heart.
He was sitting very still; he'd taken in the milk but hadn't put it away. He had his newspaper on the table but wasn't reading it. He was, instead, staring at an old, worn copy of their wedding picture, the one they had taken with Max and all the children just before leaving for Paris, just before the world got turned upside down.
Maria had hoped he would be busy today, that he would sleep in and that his work and the children would take up so much of his time that he would forget. But how could he, how could he possibly ever forget his oldest son? Maria so wanted that for him because every April just like clockwork, he would relive it and grieve all over again.
That's what he was doing now. She could tell by the set of his jaw and the slump of his shoulders, that even now the guilt and the pain still weighed on his soul.
When this happened, and it happened every year, there was nothing she could say, nothing at all that would help him get through the day without some flare of temper that ended up with him in tears. She forgave him his explosions on this day, when any other, she would put him back in his place quick enough.
Every other year, she would go about the morning like nothing was different, like they had woken up together, like he was going to go to work, normal, natural and it always ended badly. This year, she had decided, she was going to change her tactics.
Maria took a deep breath and walked slowly over to her husband. She pulled out the kitchen chair next to his and moved it closer before simply sliding her hand into his. He looked up at her, his eyes bloodshot and tired, he'd been here all night, quietly letting it all build up inside of him. Her heart broke for him, as badly as she felt at this loss, as heavily as it weighed on her, she couldn't ever know what it felt like for him unless she experienced it herself. She prayed she would never know his pain, for if she did, he would have to feel it with her, and she knew he could not bury another child.
"That was a nice day," Maria recalled fondly. "You looked so handsome, and when you reached your hand out for me, it was like you were pulling me into this cocoon of love and safety I'd never had before. I had loved you for months already at the time, but in that moment…If I had any fear or nerves getting ready that day, they were gone."
"I was so nervous that day," Georg confessed. "Max had to put my medal around my neck, my hands were shaking so much. I was certain you were going to rethink the idea and stay in the abbey. I had nightmares about Sister Berthe coming out and telling me you decided to take vows of an entirely different sort."
"Never," Maria replied. "I never had a second though, Georg. I never felt for one moment that we'd made the wrong choice, and I have been in agreement with all of the choices you have made for the sake of this family, my darling. Please remember that, especially today."
Georg closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath. "I was just sitting here thinking if I had made a different decision when I got that telegram, Friedrich might still be alive."
"You can't think like that, Georg," Maria said so hastily she forgot her vow not to say such things and fuel the fire today.
"Let me finish," he replied calmly. "Friedrich might still be alive, but we might not have Lucas or Johannes or Josie. I might not have you, Maria, and if anything saw me through the grief and the anger of losing my son, it's been my love for you, our love for each other. You had such a difficult delivery; you would have died if you hadn't been with Wlad that day. He was probably the only doctor we would have encountered with the skill to deliver Lucas safely and keep you alive to tell the tale. Why do you think I have had him up to the lodge every time you have been due?"
"Georg, you aren't that mysterious," Maria replied. "I know why, and I love you for that. It's true, Lucas' birth was hard, the hardest of the three and I barely survived it. When the news came that you'd been injured and so badly, that you were so ill, I was…I think we can understand the fear and the worry for each other, and I know the depth of a mother's love Georg. I love all of the children, born of my body or not, with all I am, but I know I can't understand your loss, your pain. I keep trying to soothe it, when what I really need to do is just let you feel it."
Georg looked at his wife, her eyes were shining with tears. "I look at this picture every year, the one with all of us together, and I have thought, that was the last time we were all happy. That this is memorializing that von Trapp family somehow, but, holding our three youngest on the bed the other night, singing to them and laughing…even with the mess Josie made, it's not. We have been so happy Maria, we have a good life here, good friends, our grown children are settled and married to semi-respectabe men, we are going to have a grandchild…It occurred to me that all these years I've been blaming myself, feeling the guilt and the anguish…that's not what my son died for."
Tears were beginning to fall down both their cheeks, could it be, was he finally healing? "That moment on the bed, my walking Liesl and Louisa down the aisle, that insane man in town with the dirty talking parrot, Gretl and Marta clomping around here in tap shoes…that's what Friedrich died for, Maria. He died for every single moment, and he would not want me to waste a minute, let alone a day, year after year, not recognizing that"
Maria moved closer to Georg and slipped her arms around his neck. He kissed her tears as he held her closer, and the pair began a slow rock to and fro. "I must stop mourning him, I need to start living for him. That's how people go on forever because someone takes them along."
Maria pulled back and met Georg's eyes. They were exhausted, but they were dry and held no anger, no frustration, none of the emotions always present on this day. This is certainly not how she planned this next move, but it felt so right given his mood thus far. "We need to bring him along on the next leg of our journey, my love. And you best see what Wladyslaw and his family are dong in October."
"Why would I need to ask…" Georg began, then it dawned on him. "Maria…oh, Maria!"
He enveloped her in his arms once again, this time smiling brightly.
"I was going to wait to tell you, but it felt like the right moment," she whispered. "I want to bring Friedrich with us too, my darling. I know he's here now, watching over us, and he'll be there when this baby comes and for all the good and bad things after that. You can stop mourning him, Georg, and not stop loving him. That's why you were so afraid, wasn't it? If you stopped hurting, you'd stop feeling…"
"You've always known me too well,' Georg replied. "Now, there's coffee brewing, I'll go get some eggs, we can have an early breakfast before the children wake up."
Maria rose and went to pour the coffee as Georg got the egg basket to go out and see what the hens had given them overnight. It was a big change, his resolve to start to let go of a grief he had long buried, but it was a good one, and she knew down deep in her heart, it was a change he was making for the sake of the family.
