by Freda, Paula
Mary Juliette had stood there speechless, while every word Hennessey spoke soothed her fears of rejection and humiliation, and sent her own feelings soaring. He really loved her, and he liked her. Mary Juliette, plain, naive, eccentric, silly girl. Whatever did he see in her? Yet hadn’t he just told her? Unable to restrain herself any longer, she lifted her arms and with a tenderness that she had reserved all her life for just this moment, she returned his kiss.
Much later, when the two lay on the grass, side-by-side, awash in words of love and tender embraces, and future plans, Hennessey pleaded, "Do me a favor." He tweaked her nose playfully. "Don’t paint junior until he arrives." When her eyes mirrored guilt, he asked, "You already did?" She gave a small, helpless shrug. Hennessey groaned and shook his head in exasperation. "I’m beginning to believe what Connors said about your sketchbook. Having prophetic powers. You’re not a psychic, or a witch, per chance?"
"Neither, just a dreamer," she said.
Hennessey was not sure he believed her in this instance. "You know, I showed Connors the sketches you made of Florence and himself. I left him in New York yesterday morning. He went looking for her."
"Well, I had this hunch about them—"
"Like you had about me."
She did not dare mention her hunch about finding her mate-to-be in South America.
"We’re going to have a good life together," she told him.
"Yes, we are," Hennessey affirmed, and feeling exhilarated, he leapt to his feet, taking her with him, lifting her off the ground, and swinging her around and around. Trixy barked and leaped and ran circles around her mistress and her mate. She wagged her tail wildly in sheer delight as Mary Juliette squealed and laughed and cried, her head thrown back, her heart overflowing with happiness.
Epilogue
In New York, it was raining. A steady stream of pedestrians and umbrellas blanketed the streets and sidewalks. Traffic was bumper to bumper, and hailing a taxicab was paramount to hailing a shuttlecraft. Florence waited inside the lobby of the Banker’s Trust Building. She had just left the office where she had worked as a secretary for the past five years. She sighed wearily. This, her first week back from her vacation in South America, tonight she planned to grab a cab to Lord and Taylor’s; then dinner at her favorite Chinese restaurant near Macys, and perhaps a walk down Fifth Avenue. She didn’t splurge often, living from paycheck to paycheck. But since her return she had felt depressed. A small splurge might lift her spirits. She had no need to call and say she would be late. No one waited for her at home. She lived alone. She had no living kin. A cab pulled up to the front of the building. She ran toward it, trying to outrun the other ten adults starting toward it. She stopped as a tall black robust man climbed out of the cab. She was about to comment to herself how very much he resembled Connors, when she realized, it was Connors, and he had seen her and was coming towards her. When he stopped in front of her and smiled, she thought, I’m hallucinating! When he introduced himself as Brian Stamford Connors, and said without further ado, that he had come to America to find her, Florence was certain, she was hallucinating. She would go on thinking that for a long time, during the dinners and the walks, and the formal courtship, and her wedding and honeymoon. But after a while, when she had moved to South America with her husband, and joined him as his assistant at the mission hospital, it began to dawn on her that this was reality. And when the first of three sons was born, and placed in her arms, and Connors was there, faithful and completely devoted and committed to her happiness, she knew that a miracle had occurred, and love had at last found her.
The two couples did meet again, often. They exchanged visits during vacations. Mary Juliette continued to paint, and one day she was acclaimed a fine artist. Hennessey became her manager and the father of her children. Their first was a boy. He bore a striking resemblance to the child in the picture MJ had sketched long before. After this, the original Sketchbook was kept in a fine glass case in their living room, and became a legend.
The End