Epilogue

With the birth of the twins I choose to end my story. I will leave you with some final thoughts.

It's now August; the nineteenth to be exact. The day this story began a year earlier. The twins are fed and asleep in their crib in the master bedroom. The couple begins to reminisce.

It's Maria who begins. "A year ago today is when everything started. I remember it so clearly."

"So do I. I learned the real Elsa and you ran away. But I didn't know that when I stepped outside to get some fresh air I would be greeted by that traitor, Zeller and was soon bound and gagged and in a car headed to where; I didn't know."

"And I was in an Abbey seclusion room, crying and praying. In the morning, I couldn't believe my ears when Sister Margareta came to tell me a man from your villa was here to see me."

"And, Georg, I didn't hesitate one second to go with Max."

"And I had no earthly clue how to escape. I clearly remember hearing the sound of your whistle. At that moment I wasn't thinking it was you sounding it."

"And then our eyes met. And when you dropped down to me and we stood so very close, my heart was beating fiercely and I felt like I did when we danced."

"I felt the same way, Maria. I knew then I loved you."

"And then inside the Abbey we declared our love for the other. It was now the next day, August twentieth."

"And August twenty-first became our wedding day."

"And I believe August twenty-second was the day these babies were conceived with God's angels blessing their conception."

"God continued to bless us, Maria; with a wonderful home, a church community and most of all the children are happy and content."

"Let's ask both Fathers to say a Mass for us on the twenty-first. Then we can have dinner at the restaurant where I announced my pregnancy."

And so it happened. The twins were held by Isabel and Katia during the Mass. And to everyone's surprised the restaurant had cradles for them. So the second year of marriage began.

It would be the first of many, many good years. The growth of the twins help them weather the war years. They celebrated with the town's people both the end of the war in Europe and in the Pacific.

And most probably Maria had other pregnancies and each child kept the circle of life go on. I choose to really end my story on a high note; not mentioning how the verse from Ecclesiasticus, There's a time to die, also happened to this family.

The bright light of God had stamped out the darkness and my story is complete.