A Bungalow For Two

And then amid the cacophony of voices and laughter swirling around him, he heard a familiar voice.

“Daddy?”

It was his oldest daughter, Cassandra, in a mauve bridesmaid dress. She came slipping through the crowd with her handsome husband, Antonio, Juliana’s son. In her arms Cassie carried a precious bundle, Andrew’s first grandson. “Be happy, Daddy,” she said, giving him a hug, and squeezing one-month-old Daniel between them.

“I couldn’t be happier than I am today, Cassie. I’ve got all my family around me.”

He spotted his second daughter in the throng. His dear Brianna with Eric Wingate, her dashing groom. Beside them stood their soon-to-be-adopted daughter, Charity, looking like an angel in pink chiffon. Andrew strode over and swung the precocious two-year-old up in his arms. “How’s my beautiful little Blue Eyes?”

The child tossed back her blond ringlets and laughed. “I not little, Gampaw. I big girl!”

Matching her laughter, Andrew kissed her shiny hair, then set her down. “Yes, you certainly are Grandpa’s big girl!”

“Oh, Daddy, isn’t she the prettiest flower girl you ever saw?” Brianna said in her lyrical voice.

Andrew winked at his daughter. “No prettier than the bride who’s going to be her mother.”

Brianna swept into Andrew’s arms with a tender embrace, her ivory-white wedding gown swishing around her.

“I love you, Daddy,” she whispered, stepping back and blowing Andrew a kiss. “Isn’t this a glorious day…the four of us having a double wedding?”

“Wonderful!” Andrew crooned. “Nothing better than standing at the altar with my ravishing bride and my precious daughter and her intended.”

“We’re all going to live happily ever after, Daddy. Happily ever after…”

The dream darkened after that. The festive crowd in the wedding chapel receded behind a mist of swirling shadows. A storm was gathering, with voluminous clouds rolling over a shrouded earth. The noise was deafening, drowning out the sounds of celebration rising from the chapel.

“Where’s Frannie?” Andrew shouted through the gloom. “Who’s seen my youngest daughter?”

The murky darkness cleared, as if someone had pulled back a curtain, and Andrew saw her, his beloved Frannie, who had cared for him like a mother hen. She was dressed in black and kneeling at her mother’s grave, the grave of his cherished Mandy, gone seven years now.

Andrew held out a hand to his daughter. “Frannie, come! The wedding’s about to begin. Your sisters and I are waiting for you.”

She stared back with tears in her eyes. “No, Daddy. I can’t! I won’t!”

“Honey, please! It won’t be the same without you.”

“How can you do this, Daddy? How can you forsake Mom and marry a stranger? I’ll never forgive you, Daddy!”

“No, Frannie, it’s not like that.” Andrew reached out, but the shadows closed around his daughter, and she was gone.

“Come back, Frannie! I don’t want to lose you, sweetheart…!”

Andrew woke in a cold sweat, his heart pounding. Thank goodness, it was just a dream. A silly dream. Everything was okay. Normal as an old shoe. The double wedding had gone off without a hitch nearly two weeks ago, the first of July. And just last night he and Juliana had returned, happy and exhilarated, from their Caribbean honeymoon.

Now he was here in his own home again, surrounded by everything familiar, waking as he always did to the summer sun streaming in his bedroom window. But this time, there was one major exception. Lying in bed next to him was his sleeping bride, the sun casting gold ribbons across her ivory face and bare shoulder.

The warm sunlight reminded him that all was well in his life. Better than it had been in years. He had so much for which to be grateful…a devoted wife and two daughters happily married with families of their own.

He had kept his promise to Mandy. “Find our girls good husbands,” she had told him during their last hours together. It had been her dying wish. “And find a good woman for yourself, Andrew. You’ll need someone to look after you.”

Yes, he had done that too. God had given him his exquisite Juliana.

And now, with his two oldest daughters married, that left just one daughter. Frannie, his youngest. A chill rippled though him as he recalled his unsettling dream. Those shadowy, nightmarish images had captured his underlying concern for Frannie. She had taken Mandy’s death the hardest. With everyone else in the family married, she seemed so alone, at loose ends, drifting. Surely one of these days the right man would come along for her. It was one of Andrew’s most fervent prayers.

And until then, he didn’t want Frannie feeling abandoned, just because he had a brand-new family to fuss over. But the truth was, he would have his hands full with his vivacious Juliana and her grown daughter.

If ever a young woman needed a father, it was shy, skittish Belina. She had already endured enough trials and heartaches for a lifetime—the car crash, her father’s death, her own disability and disfigurement. But with surgery, counseling and rehabilitation, she had come a long way over the past two years.

Andrew hoped against hope that Frannie would take Belina under her wing and become a real sister to her. Of course, Frannie was stubborn and headstrong and didn’t warm to just anybody. She was possessive and overprotective, too, but that was partly Andrew’s fault. He had been so needy after Mandy’s death, he had allowed his youngest daughter to pamper and mollycoddle him. While he had thrown himself into his ministerial duties at the church, she had taken over the cooking and household chores like a faithful little trooper.

Even when his two older daughters began making lives for themselves, Frannie was the one who dug in her heels and refused to budge. She was going to stay home and take care of her daddy, no matter what. No wonder she had resisted the idea of him bringing home a new bride and stepdaughter.

But Andrew was just as determined as Frannie. With Cassie and Brianna married now and establishing homes of their own, he would encourage Frannie to find in Juliana and Belina the motherly and sisterly companionship she missed.

It was a long shot, to be sure. In temperament, Frannie and Juliana were like oil and water. Add to the mix Belina’s reclusive personality, and you had a recipe for trouble. But, as he had learned long ago, with God all things were possible. More than once, Andrew had staked his life on that Scriptural principle.

Another unmistakable reality confronted Andrew. The Rowlands household was going to be a very different place from now on. How drastically it had changed in the past seven years, starting with Mandy’s death, then Cassie’s marriage, then the double wedding of Andrew and Juliana and Brianna and Eric. And now Brianna had moved out just as Cassie had, and Juliana and his new stepdaughter had moved in.

Andrew rolled over and gazed again at his sleeping bride. Lightly he caressed a strand of her shiny black hair that rippled over the pillow. He yearned to sweep her up in his arms, but she looked so peaceful, he was reluctant to startle her.

It still hardly seemed possible that God had blessed him with two remarkable women in one lifetime. Naturally, Juliana was nothing like Mandy; they were as opposite as night and day. Mandy had been quiet, self-assured, delicate, refined. Juliana was fun-loving, flamboyant, larger than life.

Andrew rested his arms under his head and looked up at the ceiling. Over the years he had grown so accustomed to talking to Mandy in his mind that it was a hard habit to break, even with Juliana lying beside him.

Mandy, he mused with a wry half smile, can you believe it? Here I am with Juliana. My wife. She isn’t like you, nothing like you. But, oh, I love her. It doesn’t mean I loved you any less. No one can replace you, Mandy. But Juliana’s a delight. She’s full of laughter and exuberance and song. She’s impetuous and unpredictable.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever keep up with her. I’ll never corral her spirit, but that’s part of why I love her. She isn’t you, Mandy. I knew you like I know my own soul, and I’ll never forget you, darling. You taught me what love is all about, showed me how to open my heart and cherish a woman. Because of what you taught me about life and love, I believe I can make Juliana happy. Do I have your blessing, Mandy? I’d like to think I do.

Juliana’s drowsy voice inquired, “Andrew? Are you okay?”

With a start he looked over at his wife. She had propped herself up on one elbow, her ebony hair cascading over her milky-white shoulders.

“Sure, I’m fine,” he said, running his fingers over her arm. How could he confess to his lovely bride that he had been carrying on a mental conversation with his long-deceased wife?

“You looked so deep in thought. A million miles away.”

“Yes, at least that,” he conceded.

“Pleasant thoughts, I hope.”

“Absolutely. What else on a sunny morning with my new bride beside me?” He reached over and gathered her into his arms. She nestled her head on his bare chest and he caught the scent of magnolias. How good she felt in his arms. He could hold her like this forever!

Being a man over the half-century mark in years, he hadn’t expected to feel such a rush of what could only be described as youthful emotions. What a power there was in love. Falling in love was an indescribable intoxicant. With Juliana in his arms, he felt ageless, invincible; there was nothing he couldn’t accomplish. He turned her lovely face up to his and kissed her soundly.

When she caught her breath, she murmured, “Andrew, dearest, what a wonderful way to start the day. Maybe we should skip breakfast and spend the entire morning—”

A determined knock on the door jarred them both.