30. Epilogue
Epilogue
Justin
Christmas one year later...
“Thank you, Ms. Doyle for coming out to the farm. I appreciate your flexibility in agreeing to notarize the documents here at Mr. Wagner’s house instead of making him take the trip to the bank.
I’ll take these documents to the lawyer myself this afternoon.
” We shook hands and she went to her car to leave.
I returned to the living room and sat in the late Mrs. Wagner’s rocking chair to the right of Mr. Wagner’s well-loved leather recliner.
“Okay, Walter. I’ll bring you a copy of the finalized sale documents after they are filed with the county and the plat survey of your land is attached.
The money will be wired to your bank this afternoon.
I’ll warn you that Clay plans to remove all of the old machinery from the property as soon as possible so nobody gets hurt.
He’s planning to start plowing next week. ”
Clay and his mother were purchasing Mr. Wagner’s house and land to add to the farm’s holdings. It was more to benefit Mr. Wagner so he could move into an assisted living facility closer to his doctors in Kansas City than Clay’s desire to do more work.
Clay, Pansy, and I had done our best to take care of Mr. Wagner after his sister, his healthcare worker, had passed away last year. The previous winter, Mr. Wagner’s diabetes had progressed to the point that he lost some toes.
It was clear he needed more supervision when it came to taking his meds, but he wasn’t easy to negotiate with. Clay had given up trying altogether, and I didn’t look forward to dealing with Walter, but Pansy was the one who really stepped up until it became too much for her.
Clay and Miss Pansy bought him out, and the price they gave him, which was overly generous, would afford him a nice small apartment without a roommate. It reminded me how beautiful their hearts really were.
“Will I be able to take my furniture to this place?” he asked for the tenth time, just as there was a knock on the front door.
“Yes, Walter. I’ll schedule the movers and get everything set up for you at the apartment. You’re going to come stay with Clay and me for a few days so I can get everything organized for you.” I walked to the door, happy to see Clay.
“Come inside and try to help me make him understand that all his things are going with him, will you?” I pulled Clay by the hand to get him through the door.
“Sure. Hey, Walt. How are ya?” Clay began a conversation with Mr. Wagner about the weather, which I’d heard about more than nearly anything else over the last year.
I carried our coffee cups into the kitchen and cleaned up the coffee and cookie mess from when Ms. Doyle dropped by. When I returned to the living room, Clay was sitting on the arm of Mr. Wagner’s recliner holding his hand as the old man cried.
“Jeez, what’s going on?”
Mr. Wagner handed Clay a small box before he wiped his eyes.
“We’re just talking,” Clay said. “I told him I’d come get him in the morning and we’d get him settled at the house before the movers come on Monday to take his stuff to Franklin Hills. It’s going to be fine, Walt.”
Mr. Wagner smiled at me. “Make all our lives a little easier and agree, okay?”
I wanted to ask what he meant, but Mr. Wagner said shit all the time that I didn’t understand. “Okay, Walter. Good night.”
Following Clay out the door, I locked it from the outside, pocketing the keys and going down the steps behind Clay. He took my hand and we crossed the field and the road to the farm.
The Christmas lights outside the house were beautiful. The big fir tree in the front yard was also brightly lit, which made me so happy.
“The lights are beautiful. Thank you for putting them up, sweetheart.”
Clay wrapped his arm around my waist and kissed my temple. “Hey, I was just too lazy to do it until I had someone to enjoy them with.“
“So, what do you want Santa to put in your stocking?” We’d agreed not to buy each other gifts because of the purchase of Mr. Wagner’s land and the slow growth of my fledgling bookkeeping and financial planning business, but we’d agreed stockings with cheap gifts were okay.
I bought Clay some small things like a new pocketknife, some battery-warmed socks he could use in the winter when he was out in the fields, and a few gift cards from around town.
Oh, and an engagement ring—not a cheap stocking stuffer at all, but absolutely necessary.
Pansy helped me pick it out and order it from a jeweler in Kansas City.
We’d been together for sixteen months, but I believed when we met, we knew we were right for each other right away. We had the rest of our lives to learn everything else about each other.
“So, I need to tell you something before we move Walt in with us tomorrow. I love you, but you know that. What I want to say is that I you’ve been so damn good to Mama and now Walt. You and I are meant to be.”
Before I knew what was happening, Clay dropped to one knee, pulled a box from his pocket and opened it. “Will you please marry me? We can do it when you want or how you want. I just want to be married to you.”
I knelt in front of him. “God, yes. I’d love to be your husband.”
Clay wrapped me up in his arms and kissed me. In the morning, I was going to put a ring on his finger in return, and we were going to have a beautiful life.
Looking back to the days of my possession by Ramon Blanco, I remembered how ridiculously insane it seemed at the time, but now I could admit the benefits of having a shared mind far outweighed the inconveniences.
The beginning of this adventure had started in New Orleans, and it had come full circle. At first I’d regretted going to The Big Easy for my birthday the previous year, but when I left the second time, I had my future in front of me, and every day I had with Clay was better than I ever imagined.