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Ruffling Feathers Chapter 24 - Love Changes Everything
"For whithersoever though shalt go, I will go: and where thou shalt dwell, I also will dwell. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." Emma Gilcrest finished her reading, stepped down from the pulpit, smiled at her sister, radiant in bridal white, and resumed her duties as maid of honor. Jodie Gilcrest was marrying Henry Alvarez on a clear November afternoon in Pińon's little stone chapel. Annie Edgerton had pulled out all the stops to give Jodie the best that Queen Anne's Lace could muster, and the result was the storybook wedding that little girls dream of. The best man read from the Beatitudes, and then Annie nodded to Amy and Jenn to approach the altar. It was the first time Amy had been to the chapel since Ed Hutchins's funeral the previous summer. She had been nervous to go, afraid of being overwhelmed by sorrow again. Instead, she felt a gentle peace permeate her body as she sat in the chapel and smiled at old friends and listened to ancient words of love. She squeezed her husband's hand, and then quietly walked with Jenn to their place next to the altar. The chapel filled with music as Kris Cox and Martin Hutchins began to play the prelude. Paul Donovan gazed at his wife, standing in a ray of light, waiting to sing. He thought he had never seen her look as beautiful as she did now, this very instant. Somehow, she looked different from before. And then he realized why. The light streaming in through the tall narrow windows of the chapel illuminated her so that he now could clearly see what Addie had seen when she met Amy the night of the gala fundraiser in Carlisle Point. Addie had, indeed, looked into the future. As Paul beheld the face of the woman he loved, consecrated by the shadow of a loving heart, he knew that her's was a heart tempered by time, tested by faith. Amy Donovan and Jenn Landry lifted their voices in a love song for the couple standing at the altar. "Love," they sang, "love changes everything—hands and faces, earth and sky. Love, love changes everything—how you live and how you die..." Paul thought of his parents and the achingly blue Colorado sky they fell in love with so long ago. He thought of mountains and white caps, quahogs and columbines. He thought of Ellen Crowe, valiantly trying to protect young Addie from the shadows of a future that frightened her, shadows through which hearts that love must pass. And he thought of Amy. Vibrant, lovely Amy. Willing to ruffle a few feathers to make the world she loved a tiny bit better as she braved the shadows and held onto the truth. Because love, like ruffling feathers, takes courage. But love…love changes everything—hands and faces, earth and sky. The
End
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