Chapter Six

Angie looked up at the monitor and then at Peter. She held his hand as he laboriously breathed his last breaths. His two children, mother and several friends were circled around the bed. The doctor said Peter was in the dying moments of his life…a matter of minutes. Several of his organs had already shut down and a bluish tinge covered his once robust ruddy skin.

“Angelika where are you…? Peter uttered as his hand searched for his dear wife’s hand.

Angie immediately clutched his, “I am here, Peter. You haven’t called me by my full name in a long time.”

“I have always loved your name. You have always been an angel to me…so accepting of my faults.”

“You are too hard on yourself, Peter. There is no other man that could have made my life more complete. And, yes, I do like it when you call me by my Christian name rather than the way my friends have shortened it.”

Peter squeezed Angie’s hand and squirmed painfully more of a guilt ridden conscience than of the physical body. He began to mutter…

Angie strained to hear his last words.

“Forgive me, Jenny, for what I did. I pray you find our daughter and she forgives me too…Oh, Father, I have sinned so grievously…”

“Peter, the Lord has forgiven you. You above all people should know the Lord’s compassion and endless mercy. A sincere repentant heart is always heard by the Father. He erases our transgressions and forgets these sins. They will never be used in our final judgment.”

Tears emerged from Peter’s eyes and rolled down his cheeks. “…it was good for the Lord to let me see my daughter. I know it is Camilla, Henry’s daughter-in-law. It eases the pain in my heart when Henry told you that Camilla thinks she was adopted. My heart and soul told me that it was so even though she claimed other parents…”

His blood pressure was falling. The monitor recording his heart beat was faltering…a steady line showed, but then a blip and then another. Peter strained to utter what could be his final words…

“Angelika, it is right for you and the children to know Camilla and include her in our family. She has the right to know her father and step-family…thank you for accepting my past and the child that I fathered…without you and your love I would have died a long time ago…”

The blip on the monitor fell and a steady line ran across the screen…then a blip came back. It was hopeful for but a moment…