Kathleen Creighton: One More Knight

And through the golden shimmer of her tears she could see Troy’s lips saying them, too, at the very same moment:

Yes! Yes…I do.

I love you.

From the diary of Charlene Elizabeth Phelps

Final Entry

(So much has happened between my last entry and this one, it would take a book to tell it all. Maybe I will do that someday-write a book about it-who knows? Stranger things have happened!)

October 5, 1998

Dear Diary: (Okay, it still seems hokey to me, this business of writing to an inanimate object as if it were a living, breathing person, but I suppose customs must be adhered to.)

I came home today. Home to-are you ready for this?-Mourning Spring, Alabama. That’s right, the very same place I ran away from over twenty years ago, swearing never to return.

Home. What an amazing thing. How could I not have known that home isn’t a place at all? But a state of mind-or perhaps I should say, of the heart-a safe haven created by the people we love, and that love us. Yes-love us. I, Charly Phelps, am loved! Is that incredible, or what? Even more amazing, I am loved even though I have done nothing whatsoever to deserve it! I am loved in spite of myself. This is a truly incredible and humbling thing, and I am having trouble even now believing that it is true.

But it is true, Dear Diary. Today, a few hours ago now, right down there in the backyard of the house where I grew up, where Colin and I used to play, I officially became something I never in a million years ever thought I’d be. Yup, I am now the wife of an honest-to-God Southerner. Who’d a’ thought, huh? Wow.

My wedding day. Could it possibly have been more beautiful? The sky was so blue and the sun so warm, and for a backdrop, the woods where Colin and I once hid notes to each other, looking as though they were on fire. (Poor Bubba just about had a fit because he couldn’t get loose and chase after the squirrels!)

It was a very simple ceremony. Naturally, we had Bella and Jimmy Joe stand up with us, although I sort of hated to impose on Bella, what with all the trouble and worry she’s having over her sisters (especially Summer with that no-good ex-husband of hers still missing-and if you ask me he’s probably dead by now-and Evie off somewhere in South America filming giant reptiles or who knows what.) But you know Mirabella. Not only was she my maid of honor, but she insisted on planning the entire wedding, down to the nth detail! All I can say is, it’s a good thing Jimmy Joe is a patient man.

I can’t believe how many people were there. All of Troy’s kinfolk came up from Georgia, which is a good-size bunch right there! And most of the town of Mourning Spring, it seemed like. (Kelly Grace bawled her eyes out, wouldn’t you know.) Anyway, I guess the town’s forgiven me, especially since the judge came through his bypass surgery and is out of the hospital and doing so well. He-my dad-was right there in the front row, and he looked pretty impressive, if you ask me, even without his robes. (Troy had the idea of having him marry us, but Dobie wouldn’t hear of it, and insisted on a preacher.) Anyway, he sat there the whole time holding Dobie’s hand, right in front of everybody. (’Brina, he calls her-my stepmom. Wow.)

He looked proud. PROUD. Of me. Can you believe it?

And right next to him was Cutter. Cutter, my beautiful, miraculous, grown-up son. Still very much a stranger to me, but then I can’t expect to make up for the twenty years I’ve missed overnight. At least we’re talking, getting to know one another little by little. Who knows? Maybe one day we’ll get to be friends. It’s getting easier, these days, to believe in miracles.

I walked my own self down the aisle. Hey-what did you expect? I’ve been on my own most of my life, it wouldn’t make much sense to have somebody “give me away” at this late date, would it? Anyway, I did it, walked down the aisle-which by the way was an actual white carpet, Mirabella’s idea, which she says she learned the hard way after trying to walk on grass in high heels at her wedding!-and down there at the other end, there was Troy, waiting for me.

Oh boy. I’m not sure I can find the words to tell what I felt then. What I still and will always feel, for as long as I live. I remember that I couldn’t feel my feet touching the ground. I remember that I felt as if I were flying, and at the same time like I wanted very much to cry. I’m still not sure I deserve to be so happy. But you know what? Dobie said all those years ago that God had something important for me to do, and I know now that she was right. It was this and only this: to love and be loved by this man.

Troy says that I am his compass, his magnetic north. I understand, now, what he means by that, because today I found out that he is mine as well. It was at that moment when I put my hand in his that I knew I had found my way home.

Well, Dear Diary, I guess this is it. It’s time to say goodbye. Troy is waiting for me to finish this so we can begin our life together. (Yes, he, too, is a patient man!) We’re going to the South Pacific for our honeymoon, can you believe that? We are such a cliché! When we come back-and we are in no hurry, believe me!-we are going to be hanging out our shingles in downtown Atlanta (I forget the name of the street, something with Peachtree in it, probably) not far from the capitol building. That’s right, I said “shingles”-plural. Troy’s decided to go into the investigations business. He’s going to specialize in finding missing children and reuniting broken families, isn’t that cool? And one of his first clients is for sure going to be the law firm of Charlene Phelps-Starr, right next door.

We’re not going to live in the city, though. No way. We’ve bought a place north of town near a lake, about halfway between Troy’s folks and mine, with enough room for Bubba to swim and roam and chase all the squirrels he wants. Room for kids, too. Lots of them.

Funny how things happen, isn’t it, the twists and turns in life’s pathways that bring us full circle back to where we began? Maybe Dobie was right, and everything that’s happened is, if not the Will of God, at least just part of some complicated structure called My Life, each part necessary in bringing me here, to this:

Home.

Oh yeah-almost forgot-Thought for the Day: I was wrong about knights. Yes, there are still a few around. Well, at least one.

And you know what? He doesn’t look anything at all like…you know who.

has roots deep in the California soil but has relocated to South Carolina. As a child, she enjoyed listening to old-timers’ tales, and her fascination with the past only deepened as she grew older. Today, she says she is interested in everything-art, music, gardening, zoology, anthropology and history, but people are at the top of her list. She also has a lifelong passion for writing, and now combines her two loves in romance novels.