title from "say yes to heaven" by lana del rey, again.
i stay clear
march 1921 (continued)
Shirley and Carl's cards and gifts arrived at Ingleside this morning, though they themselves aren't due until the evening train — they'd sent their things ahead of them just in case. Walter suspects Shirley would be relieved that they are opening his card without him; his ears always turned faintly red whenever they thanked him for gifts growing up.
Nevertheless, Shirley's card is beautiful — a vivid pastel drawing of Ingleside, the house in the foreground, a brilliant sunset and the trees of Rainbow Valley blurring into the distance. On the lawn are two small figures who must be Jem and Faith, rendered a little less faithfully than Ingleside — Shirley's always been good at drawing houses and planes, but people are not exactly his forte.
Of course, on the back, he's only written Congratulations & best wishes — Shirley. Jem chuckles as he carefully places the card on the mantle.
"It'll be good to have Shirley here again," Dad says absentmindedly, half his attention on his medical journal. "We won't be seeing much of him this summer, if he gets that post in Alberta."
"What post in Alberta?" Nan asks.
"Something about aeroplanes. They could use his experience from the flying corps — accepted him right away," he adds, his voice proud.
Jem grins. "Shirley would move halfway across the country and never bother to mention it."
"I don't see why that blessed boy has to go all the way to Alberta," Susan says with a sniff. "Surely they can get a plane off the ground just as well on the Island — or at least from Nova Scotia."
"I believe they're setting up two or three locations, but none so close to here," Dad says. "He wanted to go west. The terrain will make the work more of a challenge, he said."
Is that so, Walter thinks, wondering if that's all that's driving his brother. Perhaps Shirley thinks Walter has forgotten their brief talk this past summer — certainly his letters are not so forthcoming; only full of the usual news of classes and affirming that yes, he received their care package with Una's gingerbread, and good Lord, Susan is sending him food too, they don't need to stuff him.
But Walter remembers what Shirley said that night — perhaps the rarity of having a talk with his younger brother has burned it into his memory. Has Shirley changed his mind, then? Decided it doesn't matter, if people talk? Thinks the best of the people in the Glen, that they might not care after all? Walter finds that hard to believe. They'll be polite about it, of course, but they will care, deep down. Every small thing will become a reason — did you know, she's a Lutheran — and every not so small thing — did you know, her people are criminals — they're not like us, who knows what they really did in the war?
He sighs. Maybe he ought to give Shirley's troubles a rest, considering he has plenty of his own to think about at the moment. Una had been just a little stiff when she kissed him goodbye this morning, although if the reverend and Mrs. Meredith noticed, they didn't say anything.
He already feels badly over their argument. He shouldn't have snapped at her, he knows — should've explained himself instead of huffing and turning out the were both being childish; he will apologize and so will she, and all will be well.
But the memory still smarts: The Piper isn't real, Walter.
Has she really not believed him, all these years? Of all people, he never thought Unawould doubt him. She is his wife. Shouldn't she have faith in him? Were those not nearly the exact words that they wrote to each other, all those years ago?
And — yes — fine — perhaps the Piper is not a real, corporeal being — but the vision is true enough. What will come to pass. It's going to happen again one day. After everything, is he still the only one who understands what that means?
"…after supper's alright, Walt?"
"Sorry," Walter says, blinking. "What did you say?"
"I'm inviting the lads up to the new house tonight," Jem says. "I'll pick you up at the manse — after supper?"
Walter doesn't meet his eyes. "I'll just stay here with you."
Faith's cake is either a monstrosity or a masterpiece, depending on who is being asked — Gertrude Grant's opinion is the former, Susan and Rilla's the latter. Faith, for her part, cares as little for these details as she always has — any ostentatiousness is simply a deference to Susan's desires, for though half the Blythe children are already married, there's a certain joy in the wedding of the eldest.
The cake now in repose in a case on the manse kitchen shelf, Rosemary has gone to look over Faith's trunks one last time. This leaves Una and Rilla to work on the fruit tarts, and Mrs. Dr. Blythe has come to the manse, too, bringing flowers that will decorate the church and garnish the plates. (Anne, Una has to remind herself to call her Anne, at least to Mrs. Dr.'s face. "I never thought I'd be asking to be called by that name," her mother-in-law had laughed.)
Bruce has disappeared, more interested in searching for birds' nests with his friends than following Una around, these days. Rilla hums a song from a revue that she and Ken had gone to a few weeks ago as she spoons fruit out from their cans.
Una is rather less efficient in the kitchen than usual. She can measure and mix with her eyes closed, but she finds herself moving a bit slower, needing to pause and remind herself where she last put the sugar, the measuring cup. A small knot of a headache is forming behind her eyes.
"You look pale," Rilla observes. She bumps her hip against Una's. "You and Walter aren't staying up too late, are you? In the manse?"
Una gives her a look. "No. I just…didn't sleep well."
"You didn't, or Walter didn't?"
Una looks up, but Rilla is still spooning peaches. "Neither of us," she says calmly. "We had…a bit of a quarrel."
Rilla does look up then. "Oh, Una," she says. "What about?"
What about? Una has to pause to think of it. It wasn't quite about the baby, or about his moods, or...any of the things they said, really. It was just…that cursed Piper, the hold that vision, the war, still has on her husband…
Una has never before dared to object to the way he speaks about the war — she's never feltthe need to; she understands perfectly well that the war changed him, that he will never be able to forget it. She thinks of all the men lost, all those years spent waiting and praying, and she does not want to forget, either. But this — still seeing the Piper, convinced that his vision is the truth, that it might matter more than anything else…
Una can barely think the words, but she forces herself to: What if he'll always care more for the Piper than for her? What if one day he can't resist the Piper's call, and he goes somewhere she can't follow?
"Has Walter always…seen things?" she asks, pinching the tart crust more than is really necessary.
"Mmm. There's the Piper, of course. But there were other, little things. He swears he knew when I was being born — he walked six miles from Lowbridge in the middle of the night because he had to come home, he says."
"Do you think he really does? See things?"
"O-o-o-h." Rilla pauses. "I don't…well, Walter would never lie. And you remember Gertrude — she's had visions, too. She certainly would never pretend, either. And I couldn't explain…the way both of them always seemed to know things. But — well — I don't know. Father always told us that sort of thing wasn't real."
"My father says that God sometimes moves through men. But that's not the same thing — not to me."
"No," Rilla says, her brow wrinkling. "I don't think that's what your father meant, either — if I'm allowed to presume about a minister in his own house."
Una nearly smiles. "I only…I didn't know he still kept so much faith in the Piper."
"Oh, Una," Rilla says again. "He doesn't. You know how he gets when he's brooding over something. But you must know he adores you."
Una does smile this time. Sometimes it seems that Rilla has more invested in Una and Walter's marriage than they do themselves — she'd pestered them about when they'd be married almost as often as Miss Cornelia did.
"I suppose we'll just have to speak soon," Una says with a sigh. "We've already told the McAllisters we're coming to dinner the day after the wedding."
Rilla makes a face. "Lucky," she grouses. "That's the day I agreed to see the Reeses. Ah, well. Try to have fun, since I most assuredly won't. But I'll see Jims the day after," she adds, brightening.
Her joy is infectious, and Una smiles. "So you've decided to visit, after all?"
"Yes, Mrs. Anderson finally wrote back to say she's been frightfully busy and didn't have a moment to sort out which day I could come. I really was worried she was trying to say something with her silence." Rilla pauses. "I suppose…some part of me still wonders if it's really what's best for Jims — but I think you had the right of it too, that leaving entirely would be worse. So I am just going to go and be as unselfish of a chum and an auntie, maybe, as I can be, and we'll all be happy. It's possible — don't you think?"
"It's possible," Una repeats quietly, the words feeling strange and heavy in her chest, like they are trying to shift a place within her.
They put the tarts in the oven, and Una goes to retrieve the good china platter from the closet where it's been kept for years — initially because Bruce had begun to walk and it occurred to Rosemary to put delicate objects out of his reach (such a thing had never occurred to Una's father when Jerry and Carl were young). Over the years, though, it simply became habit.
At the end of the hallway, the door opens, and Mrs. Dr. — Anne — bustles in, arms full of crocus blooms.
"What do you think?" she asks, eyeing the flowers critically. "I brought these over from the Ingleside garden since they bloomed early…I feel I ought to use them, since it's such a stroke of luck — but we've never been very good friends — not like the primroses we were planning on. They're terribly showy."
They are, but Una supposes Faith is showy, too — not intentionally; she simply can't help it. "If anyone is equal to those flowers, it's Faith."
"They do smell lovely, although it often seems like they know it," Anne says, taking a deep inhale, then offering the bouquet to Una. The scent of still-fresh grass and flowers makes Una's headache twinge, and she frowns before she can stop herself.
"You don't like them, Una?" Anne asks.
"No, they're lovely," Una says quickly. "I'm only a little tired. I might lie down when we're done here."
"Are you ill?" Anne asks, her face creasing with concern. Then her eyes light up. "Or…" Her eyes flick significantly to Una's midsection.
"Oh!" Una's face grows warm. She has been so used to speaking of this with the new brides of her own age, she'd forgotten that of course Mrs. Dr. Blythe would notice more quickly. "Yes," she says, smiling in spite of herself. "I didn't wish to distract anyone, but — yes."
"Oh, how wonderful." Anne's arms come around her. "Let me see — we didn't give Nan all of our old baby things — we've still some gowns and blankets, you must take them with you — choose which ones you'd like — and you haven't told Rosemary, have you? We'll have to tell her once she comes back."
"It's all so early," Una protests weakly, quailing in the face of her enthusiasm.
Anne pulls back, brow furrowing. "If you already know, it's not that early," she says. "And it's never too early to plan — and dream."
That Una does not agree with, but she bites her tongue, looking down. She feels Anne's eyes on her and studiously rearranges the flowers, tucking them more neatly in their bouquet.
"Did Walter ever tell you," Anne says, after a moment, "about his older sister?"
"Only in passing." It had been shortly before their wedding, when they'd been sharing their family books and photos, learning the obscure branches of Blythes and Merediths who would be sending well-wishes — Father's aunt (or was she a cousin?) still in Maywater, the various Keiths in Avonlea, who are not relations of Mrs. Dr. Blythe's — only distant relations of the Cuthberts who took her in — but of course they are family in all the ways that matter…
Una had opened a journal with pages of pressed flowers, one for the birth of each Blythe: a pansy for Rilla — Walter said he'd been allowed to choose the flower, being the first of the siblings to meet her — a forget-me-not for Shirley, asters for Nan and Di, a hyacinth for Walter. Una had flipped through it, pausing when she passed Jem's daffodil and landed on a seventh flower, pressed against the first page — a fragile, faded iris, a shaky ink frame drawn around it.
"Mother and Dad had a girl, before Jem," Walter had said. "They don't speak of her much."
Anne's gray eyes gleam for a moment, though she's facing away from the window. She reaches out to brush Una's cheek, her smile wistful. "Time spent hoping and loving is never wasted, dearest. I think Rosemary could tell you that, too."
Una stares down at the flowers until they begin to blur. "I'm afraid of disappointing people," she murmurs finally. "I'm afraid of being disappointed."
"It's a terrible thing to be too afraid to dream," Anne says, kindly. "And to go through it all alone. I hope you'll let Rosemary and I help — you could never disappoint us — you must know that."
A shriek comes from the kitchen, and Anne wraps an arm around Una's shoulders. "Now, let's go," she says, "before Rilla burns the tarts. She could never disappoint me, either — but I do feel the need to keep an eye on her cooking."
"You think anyone will see us?" Walter asks.
"We didn't pass anyone on the way up here," Jem says easily, bracing himself on a rock as he peels off his trousers. Despite himself, Walter mirrors him — right down to balancing on the opposite leg; Jem's limp is on his right.
"If anyone comes by, just tell them you're swimming for your health," Jerry says with a laugh. "You're the doctor now."
They'd all gathered for dinner tonight, the last night before the wedding, at what will be Jem and Faith's house in Four Winds. Jem will take Dad's patients over here; relieving them both of the long, late-night drives to the village and back. They'd toasted and caught up with each other, Jerry red-faced and proud and a little anxious over Nan's pregnancy.
Then they'd ambled up the lane and found themselves near the shore, and Ken had suggested swimming, "for old times' sake."
The water is cold, but not freezing, and they acclimate quickly. They've swam in colder, besides — always a point of pride; Walter remembers swimming in a lake with the English men during training, the Canadians bragging that the cold water was nothing to them.
Carl unfastens his eyepatch, leaving it with his clothes on the shore. Underneath, his once-blue eye is pale and marbled from his lost sight, the area around it misshapen from the surgery done to save the eye. It makes Walter feel rather like a character out of Poe when he looks at it for too long.
Jerry and Ken cut through the water in large, swooping laps, Jerry a little slower than Ken. Jem and Walter float near the bank, gently touching the pond bed then bobbing back up. Shirley is swimming back and forth between the sandbar and the big, smooth rock that the older boys used to call Hazard Head, after the pate of their old schoolteacher.
"Alberta, huh, Shirl?" Jem asks after a moment. "Congratulations. It sounds like they really need you out there."
Shirley shrugs, water lapping around his shoulders as he comes to a pause. "It's good work," he says. "I'd like to keep working with planes — designing them, maybe flying them for civilians. We'll see."
"West sounds like a good idea," Carl says.
"You'd go out there too, Carl?" Jerry asks. "Thought that Gardner girl wanted to settle down with her folks in New Brunswick."
Carl makes a face. "Turns out she wasn't that enthused about marrying a fellow with only one eye. It's alright," he adds, before any of them can say anything. "I wasn't that enthused about living in New Brunswick. I might travel a bit after graduation — see the prairies — start a treatise about the flora and fauna of western Canada. Say, Shirl, you think we can make the trip in a plane instead?"
"I dunno, your journals and bugboxes might overload it," Shirley says. Carl splashes him.
Walter watches Shirley as he drifts a little closer. He doesn't say anything, just observes, wondering.
Shirley's ears turn pink under Walter's gaze. "Aw, quit it."
"Uh-oh, what'd you do?" Jem calls. "Walt's got that look on his face."
Shirley is silent for a moment, but when he speaks, his voice is even. "Might have a girl out there. We'll see about that, too."
Everyone whistles, and the whole story comes out short and blunt, the way Shirley is wont to tell things. Jem shakes his head.
"Her folks don't speak English? How're you going to talk to them?"
"Hey, we learned some words over there," Ken says. "Scheisse, verdammt…"
"Sure, that'll impress them. You should propose with that, Shirl."
Carl snickers. "So that's why you used to come back to the boarding house smelling like perfume. I just thought you'd developed a sudden fondness for lavender — "
This time, Shirley is the one to splash Carl.
Jem grins. "Well, at least she's not a real Prussian — although I bet if you'd brought a girl back from overseas, Susan would force herself to sing the Kaiser's praises, just for you."
"I hope their women are better looking than their men," Ken jokes. Then he and Jerry are off again, and the conversation drifts back to sports and work and reminiscing about university.
Shirley resumes swimming, stopping only to clap Walter on the shoulder, just briefly. "Thanks, by the way."
"What'd I do?"
"Got my head straight about it. Talking with you made me think — I was saying all those big words about doing our duty, and I was, what, afraid to stand up for a girl? Turns out it didn't make much sense to me. I started writing her again. So."
Walter can't help but smile. "It's brave of you," he says, wonderingly, a little bit of the old thrill coming back at the romance of it all. Even Shirley has a streak of it, it seems.
"Nah. If I were really brave, I would've done more at Redmond — when everyone was talking. People have mostly forgotten now, haven't you noticed?"
He leaves Walter to float, pensive. Yes, people are forgetting — that is what he fears, isn't it? That they are not building a better world for their children at all — they are only giving them more battles to fight, born from their own weakness.
We forget because we must. Ah, who had said that? It was a poem he'd learned from Mother's friend, Mr. Irving. Walter had recited it one day at school, proud that his literary tastes extended beyond their Royal Reader. Because we must. Because it's too much to hold, isn't it? Too much, to look back and remember the war as it really was. How those men, memorialized in statues and plaques, really died. What men like Walter were really capable of. Too much, to remember how easy it was to turn against each other, how girls thrilled to hand out feathers and boys laughed while breaking their neighbors' windows.
But — they aren't quite repeating their past, are they? How easily the rest of them had accepted Shirley's story, will accept his wife — and he is going to marry this girl; Walter suddenly sees it as clearly as he saw Ken returning to Rilla, the night before Courcelette. If it were up to them, nobody would give a damn — they've done their fighting, they don't need to prove anything with more hatred. And — Walter has to chuckle — some of them have kissed too many French girls to pass much judgment on the sanctity of the good, English Blythe name.
Is it up to them? Is the world still theirs? So often it feels as though it has passed them by — that they are only reenacting their ghosts here in this cove. The lads in the years behind them had arrived while they were gone, silently stepping into their empty places. The world is whirling around, dancing, forgetting…
We forget because we must. Arnold — that was it, that was the poet. Absence. It all comes back to him in that moment. And the next stanza — I struggle towards the light.
Walter sinks beneath the water, lets the moon refract and break strange and white across his vision. What more does he want? The answers circle him, pale creatures in the dark water. To remember — to forget — to shame all those who have forgotten — to beg forgiveness. He wants to keep fighting — he wants to stop fighting, wants to be quiet at Una's side.
So much that he wants, so many things that contradict each other. There is no simple path. There is only what he can do.
I struggle towards the light.
Faith and Jem's wedding is beautiful — could it be anything but? A reporter from the Enterprise has come and Walter expects she is surprised to find that the country wedding is worthy of the paper's society column — Faith is luminous and Jem is tall and distinguished; the church is draped with flowers. Grace Clow plays the piano with as many flourishes as the traditional wedding march will allow. Though he'd been fenced into the church's side yard and couldn't see a thing, Dog Monday had started barking with joy when Jem kissed the bride, causing the rest of the church to burst into laughter. Walter catches the reporter making a note of it — the story of the faithful dog up at Four Winds Harbor has entered Island legend.
Walter's own wedding had been quieter — he and Una did not invite nearly so many friends and acquaintances, for one, wanting only a small circle of those they knew best. It had warranted a write-up in the Enterprise nevertheless, which had been copied in a few other papers: Wartime Poet Marries in Countryside Wedding. Una had blushed furiously over the reporter's description of her as small and lovely, like a doll.
How happy they had both been. Emotion swells in him, pressing against his ribcage, at the memory of how Una had looked at him that day. She had been placid as ever, and some of the Glen ladies had whispered about that, but Walter had known — her soft, serious gaze, the way it never wavered from him — the momentary, beaming smile that only he had seen when he'd pulled back from their kiss — her joy was as great as his.
Next to him, Una gives a little sigh, and Walter takes her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. After a moment, Una presses his hand back, a tacit acceptance of his peace offering.
But there is no time to speak — they are pulled apart as soon as the wedding is over; Walter whirled with the wedding party to Ingleside, Una caught up in thanking guests for coming and taking down ribbons from the floral arrangements to give away as favors. The only moment they have together is at the house, when everyone gathers for photos, first Dad at the camera, then Ken.
"Everyone kiss!" Ken calls, to whoops from the younger set and sighs of resignation from the older. Walter turns to Una, and her face softens as she tilts it up to him. Ken gets his photo and everyone is cheering. Then someone calls Una over to take a photo with the women, Nan seated at a table to conceal her belly.
The sun is going down by the time Walter makes it back to the manse, Jerry driving the reverend's automobile. Reverend Meredith doesn't use it much, according to Una, but keeps it on hand for emergencies and to attend the outer reaches of his congregation. Jem and Faith are long gone on the ferry, then to the train station that will take them to the States for their honeymoon — they have both seen enough of Europe for now.
Rilla meets the car at the gate, joining Ken in the back seat. "I detest these slippers," she says with a groan. She looks at Ken dolefully. "Why didn't you stop me before the last dance set?"
"You were having too much fun," Ken says, tweaking her hair.
"Ah, well. I think there was a jar of goose grease in the pantry," she says, already starting to yawn. Ken pulls her to rest against him, even as he mouths Goose grease? to Walter.
Walter smiles and kisses his sister on the cheek and claps Ken on the shoulder, then turns up the path to the manse.
A gentle, wistful melody reaches him as soon as he opens the door. Una is still awake, seated at the piano in the parlor. Her shoes are kicked off underneath it, hair falling out of its intricate updo and over her shoulders. A lump grows in his throat. How beautiful she is.
Silently, he comes to sit next to her on the piano bench. Una's fingers slow on the keys, repeating the same few bars again and again.
"What song is that?" he asks finally.
"It's called 'Kelvingrove'," she says. "It's Scottish. A woman in Maywater used to play it — I'd forgotten the name, but I hummed it for Rosemary and she taught me how to play it, years ago."
"It's beautiful." He brushes a finger across her cheekbone. "You look beautiful too, by the way."
Una smiles faintly, playing a quick flourish. "Rilla spent half the dinner running to her old room to get pins for my hair. She was a little too ambitious with it, I think."
Walter smiles too, then they fall into silence. Una's hands go still on the piano keys.
Walter takes her hand, turning it over to lace their fingers together. "I'm sorry."
"So am I," she says, almost before his own words are out.
Walter looks down, running a finger over her wedding ring, wondering how to explain it all.
"When my grandparents died," he finally says, "I remember someone in Avonlea said we Blythes always set our affections too much on earthly things."
Una's brows draw together just slightly, but her gaze is only inquisitive.
"It has been…so peaceful, these past few years, with you," Walter says quietly. "I never thought I could know such joy again. I couldn't bear the thought of losing it."
"Losing it to what?"
"Anything — everything — I don't know." He looks up at her, silently asking her to understand. "I feel the world settling into a sort of…complacency. A desire to move on. I feel it in myself. There were times — at the front — times when I found I didn't care if I saw a dead man, that I could walk past him and think nothing of it. I don't wish to become that man again. And I worry that I might."
"I know," he adds, when Una doesn't say anything, "that if the Piper comes…it will be something bigger than any of us. It can't be stopped. I only…I couldn't stop thinking of it."
Una's touch is gentle as she pushes a lock of hair away from his forehead, her fingers brushing his ear, the burned skin of his neck. "I wouldn't ask you not to think of it," she says, "nor think less of you for it. But…I wish…"
Walter peers down at her and is alarmed to see that tears are forming, trembling on her dark lashes. "Una?"
"I believe you, about the Piper," she says quietly. "I don't mind that you see things — know things — in ways I can't understand. It's only…do you put so much faith in him? More — more than us?"
She means more than me; Walter hears it although she has not said it. He reaches for her other hand.
"No. Una, no. I swear it. The Piper…I don't keep faith with the Piper. It only felt — like a reminder. Of all we could lose, all we still have to carry. Because…" He hesitates, what he has to say heavy on his tongue. "I want to still carry it. I know I would be a better man if I let myself forget. But I think…it's my duty to remember. The world will move on and…we'llbe forgotten, one day. But we were there — us men who went, and you girls who waited for us. I think — if I have a calling at all — it must be this. Even if it's a Sisyphean task. You understand that, don't you?" he asks, thinking of the faded gray dress that hangs in their bedroom closet.
"Of course I do," Una murmurs.
"And yet," Walter prompts. She is still holding herself so stiffly next to him, staring down at the piano keys, pressing them so deliberately that they don't make a sound.
Una's eyes are glassy, even as she looks up at him with a shaky smile. "It's nothing. I'm only trying not to be afraid, too."
Guilt unfurls in him, that he should not have noticed Una struggling — he, who prides himself on being able to read her better than anyone else. "Are you so frightened, sweetheart?"
"Sometimes. Sometimes I think that…the things I want always come to me in the most horrible ways — and happiness can't come that easily — and that…if I want it all too badly…"
Her hands open and close over his, and Walter holds them steady. "I know."
"Your mother told me it's never a waste to have hope. I'm — " Una inhales. "I'm trying to believe it."
"Joy is harder, I think."
Una nods, leaning against him. Walter turns to press a kiss into her hair, inhaling the faint scent of rose water. "If you are trying, then so shall I," he murmurs.
When he pulls back, a tear has formed at the corner of Una's eye, hesitating. Walter reaches for her, but she smiles first, the tear spilling over.
"So you've told my mother, then?" he asks.
"She noticed," Una admits sheepishly. "I suppose I should've expected her to. It'll be nice to have her to talk to — and Rosemary — I was only so worried about making a big fuss during the wedding…even now…"
"Perhaps we want to fuss over you," Walter says, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
Una smiles and blushes, looking down at the piano again. Before she can speak, a low purr announces Pearl's arrival, right before she leaps up onto the piano bench, into Walter's lap.
"She likes you better than me," Una says, a little ruefully.
"She likes Carl better than both of us."
"Well, that's to be expected." Una watches him for a moment, as he idly strokes Pearl's small head with his finger. "You're so gentle with her. That's why I always thought you'd be a good father."
Walter looks up, surprised. "Always?"
Una turns bright pink. "Well — " and Walter has to laugh. He leans in, touches his forehead to hers.
"I do want to live," he murmurs. "I want all of this, with you. You must know I keep faith because of you." The words are quiet, but they fill the space between them. Then he kisses her, slow and yearning — perhaps not entirely appropriately, in the parlor of a minister's house. He wants to be closer to her, reach deeper, show her the truth of his words.
Una touches his face when they part, her gaze intent — the way she has always looked at him, like she is trying to memorize him even though he's right in front of her. Her fingers brush his cheekbone, his jaw, his lips. "I have faith in you, too, you know."
Walter tries to put Pearl down, but she won't hear of being displaced, and so he places her on his shoulder, then opens his hand to Una.
"You know," Walter says idly, pulling her against him as they walk up the stairs, "I was thinking…if the war hadn't happened — if we weren't already married — we would have found each other, just like this. I would have seen you over Faith's shoulder at their wedding…"
notes n fun facts:
- me, typing "something about airplanes": haha gilbert is ben gibbard
- i tried to pick flowers that kind of vibed with the various blythes' personalities, but didn't stick too strictly to their Official Meanings. my reasoning is that ofc the kids were just infants, and there was no way of telling the full extent of their personalities when making a baby book. also, much like anne's view of pearls, i can see her having her own meaning for flowers and not feeling like she had to stick to the "proper" interpretations of them.
- shirley's flower being a forget-me-not was thought up by gogandmagog on tumblr, which i thought was too funny (what happened was, i uh, did in fact forget to give him a flower in the original draft. the shame! let's pretend i was trying to channel LMM by totally forgetting shirley existed). then i googled and saw that it's actually pretty apt (respect, loyalty, etc. seems very on-brand for shirley, who's described as "wholesome". also the original name of the flower is german, which tracks for this version of shirley who has a german gf) so i rolled with it. thank you gogandmagog! :3
- carl's eye injury was based on an article from the halifax explosion detailing some of the eye injuries and treatment. i didn't know if it was possible for 1910s eye injuries to be treated without total removal of the eye, and it turns out they could be. since rilla calls the wound "slight", i based carl's injury on that. (also had a gr8 weekend googling images of iridectomies). the article is called "The Halifax disaster (1917): eye injuries and their care" and can be found in the National Library of Medicine.
- the poem walter is thinking of is called "absence" by matthew arnold, from 1857. it is referenced at the end of "the blythes are quoted", although jem doesn't remember the author's name.
- "kelvingrove"/"kelvin grove" is a scottish song from the 1820s (according to wikisource anyway). churchgoers/catholic school kids (hey-o) might also recognize it as the music of the hymn "the summons."
- "the blythes set their affections too much on earthly things" (or something like that) is said by mrs. lynde in anne of ingleside, referring to gilbert's mother dying the year prior. walter would've been born at that time, although he would've been pretty young. i can also see someone in avonlea just repeating it as sort of an adage about the blythes as time goes on, too.