A Time in Heaven (25 page)

As they lay asleep in each other’s arms, o
ut of nowhere Sadie came to them tail wagging. 
She gave them each big, wet dog kisses.
“Sorry, girl. We sort of left you out of the festivities, didn’t we?” Jesse
laughed as he
hugged the dog.  He got up and put out his hand to help Katie from their wedding bed. The three of them walked back to the cabin, where the newlyweds planned on continuing their honeymoon.

For the next couple of weeks, after pledging their lives to each other, Katie and Jesse seemed to view the world through new eyes. Happiness enveloped them.  They still remembered the hard times of the past winter,
especially the death of their son,
but now there seemed to be a renewed hope.
They openly talked about Matthew which helped the healing. 
Heaven didn’t seem so much a prison
any more
but as their
home, their
future.

With
the middle of August, the couple celebrated their first year in Heaven.
They decided to do some fishing – the reason they had both come to the island in the first place.  They had only really fished at the pond, but after Bruno had attacked Jesse, they hadn’t been back.  Today they would try fishing off the dock in the bay.  Katie made a picnic lunch while Jesse gathered their fishing gear.  All the activity excited Sadie, so they decided to take her along for the special day.
  Jesse took the shot
gun.

The day was ideal for fishing.  The sky was mostly cloudy but the sun shone through occasionally.  There was only a slight breeze.  As they walked to the dock, they could see that the aspen trees were
just
starting to turn yellow.  Autumn was just around the corner.

Katie was the first to catch a fish.  It wasn’t a trout, but a large king salmon.  She was excited and yelling for Jesse, but he also had caught one of the big fish
and was doing some yelling of his own
. 
When they landed their fish, it looked like Katie’s was a bit bigger, so he challenged her saying that his next one would be bigger.  They kept this up until they had six big salmon.  At this point Jesse realized that the king salmon must be running
, and the bay must be full of them
.  They decided to catch as many as they could and then smoke them.
  It would be a good start to building their stock for the winter ahead of them.

They fished
every day
for the next few da
ys.  Big salmon were biting faster than they could reel them in
.  At the end of the day
the catch was taken to the fish-cleaning shed
.  Some of the
cleaned fish were smoked, some were dried and some were
froze
n. They didn’t freeze all of the salmon
since the electricity could go off at
any time
and their winter food supply would be gone.

When they thought there were enough salmon to provide them with food for the coming winter, they didn’t go fishing much.
Both Katie and Jesse agreed that as much as they loved to fish, they had had enough for now.

With the extra time, Jesse started thinking about h
is music again. 
He started going to the lodge every day.  Songs were coming faster than he could write them down.  How he yearned for an audience to share this music with.

One bright, sunny summer morning, Jesse had left early to go to the lodge.
Katie had been cleaning all morning.  There wasn’t a speck of dirt left in the entire cabin.  The clothes were washed, dried, folded and put away. There wasn’t a dirty dish to be found.  She was getting really bored with her role as homemaker. Since Jesse
was away so much
to work on the songs he was writing,
she
had not much else to do.

She looked around at her handy work.  She had always hated doing housework.  Things were different now.  She had a husband to care for.  She laughed a little as she thought of her hubby going off to work at the lodge.  Not many wives can lay claim to sending their spouse off to work with a shotgun and a guitar.

Katie d
ecided to pay her new husband
a visit.  She would surprise him by making him lunch at the lodge.

She looked for Sadie.  The lab was asleep on their bed.
She looked so comfortable and content,
Katie decided to let her sleep.  She didn’t think she would be gone too long.
She was just going to fix lunch for her and Jesse, and then come back to the cabin so that he could work.

Katie set off up the path toward the lodge.
She hadn’t taken a gun
. She convinced herself that she didn’t need one
since she wasn’t going very far.
She had almost reached the turn in the path, when she heard a crashing sound.  Suddenly Bear and her two cubs charged down the path. She had to literally jump out of their way.  She watched as they disappeared.  She thought it was a little strange, but she continued toward the lodge.

All at once she remembered the last time she saw Bear act this way.  “Bruno!” She screamed as she started running for the
safety of the
lodge.

Upon reaching the lodge doors, Katie took a deep sigh of relief
.  She quickly went inside and slammed th
e door.  As she turned and opened her mouth
to yell for Jesse, the ol’ grizzly came out of the dining room.  He was in bad shape.
Katie wondered how he had survived this long.
He had obviously not eaten
in
a long while.
She could see his ribs through his thick, matted fur.
The infection had spread to most of his face, making him look like a monster.
  The smell was overpowering

Katie and the bear stared at each other for a moment before the bear charged.  A shot rang out, and then another.  The bear dropped to the floor
without a sound
.  He was still.  Katie looked
at the old bear
in disbelief.  Then, she saw Jesse standing on the stairs holding the shotgun.

Jesse had been working on a song in the dining room when the bear broke through the back door.  He ha
d grabbed the gun and ran up
stairs.  Being out of sight,
he thought
maybe the grizzly would just leave.  He never thought that Katie would come to the lodge
.
  When he saw the bear charging Katie, he shot without taking time to think.

Jesse slowly walked
down the steps and across the room
to Katie
but he was staring at the dead bear
the entire time
.  She thought he looked like he was in shock.

“You killed Bruno,” was all Katie said.

Jesse
looked slowly from the dead bruin
to Katie’s eyes. “I had to Katie. I had no choice.”

“I know.  You saved my life.” She kissed him.  “The poor old thing.  He must have been suffering something awful
for all this time
.  He smells like death.”  She put her hand on his arm to reassure him that he did the right thing.

“Did I do the right thing? I don’t feel like it.  I took a life just now.  That can’t be right.”

“You did it for me.” She hugged Jesse. He dropped the gun and held her, too.

Several minutes passed before they separated and stood back looking at the great bear.  “We
have to bury him. It would
be
the respectful thing to do
.” Jesse said as he picked up the gun.

Katie
looked at the gun.  She
still hated guns but if Jesse hadn’t had this one today, it might be her lying dead on the floor.  “Thank you, Jess,” she told him quietly.

Even though the grizzly hadn’t been able to eat for a long time, he was still a big animal.  It took all their
strength to roll him in the rug
on which he had fallen.  They dragged him out of the lodge.  It was decided to bury him in a clearing just a little distance from the lodge.  Over the next two days, they were able to get the body to the site, dig a hole and bury Bruno.

Jesse felt he needed to say something to the old grizzly since he was the reason th
e bear was dead.  “Sorry, pal
.  Katie here tells me you’re in a better place.  I hope you aren’t in pain anymore.”

Katie took his hand and they started to walk back to the lodge. Storm clouds were moving in and there was thunder
echoing through the mountains,
so they took a short cut through the aspens.  A path that led them past Matthew
’
s grave
. Neither of them had b
een to the site
since Jesse buried their son last winter.
Neither of them could bring themselves to be there.
They had wanted to think of their son with the angels and not in the ground.

Katie wished that they had gone another direction.  She didn’t know if she could stand being where Matthew was in the ground.  It seemed so harsh.  Still, as bad as she felt, she knew that Jesse was feeling it more.  Deep down he was stilling experiencing a lot of guilt.

It started to rain softly as they were standing near the baby’s grave.  A tear ran down Katie’s cheek.  Jesse noticed and kissed it away.  Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to be here.  It seemed to put some closure on their loss. They hugged and silently went back to the lodge.

COMING HOME

September was cold and rainy. The aspens had turned a golden yellow.  When the su
n
did shine, it seemed that the l
eaves
were made of gold. The sounds of geese migrating filled the evening skies.  Jesse continued wor
king on his music at the lodge.  I
n the evenings he would share what he was working on with Katie.  She wasn’t much of a critic.  She loved everything he wrote.

One late September evening it was warm enough to sit on the porch.  Jesse felt like singing some of his old son
gs.  Katie listened to his crystalline
voice fill the mountain
air.  She started to hum along;
after all she knew
every one
of these songs by heart.

“Sing with me,” Jesse said.

“No that’s okay.  I’ll just listen.” Katie was a little embarrassed.

“Come on.  You know you want
to.  I saw you
humming and mouthing some of the words,” Jesse said encouraging her.

“You might be sorry.”
Katie giggled.

Jesse start
ed to play. Katie softly began
to sing along.  “You sing real good!” Jesse laughed and started to sing himself.  They sang together f
or most of the evening. 
They were both high with
sharing the laughter and the music
.

“You know Jesse. 
To sing with you was once one of my fantasies. Thank you.”
Katie said to him as she stood to go inside. 

Jesse then stood up and kissed her in his favorite spot. 
“I love you Babe.”

They went insid
e.  Tonight they would go to sleep
curled up in each other’s embrace.

The next morning, Katie and Jesse were enjoying the sunrise, while finishing their morning coffee.
The five wolves were crossing the meadow when they stopped and began to howl.  Sadie j
oined her masters on the porch.  She
sat quietly beside Katie and listened to the wolf song.  The lab had become accustomed to the big canines.  The pack suddenly ran for the pines.  Sadie looked to the sky.
  Katie heard it before Jesse
.
It was the engine of
a low flying plane
. It
came into view.  “It’s going to land in the bay!” Jesse yelled.

Could it be that they were going to be rescued at last?
They both grabbed their coats and
ran
up the path.  They could still hear the engine of the plane. As they got to where they could see the bay, the plane
was
disappearing over the mountains to the east.
Out of breath, they stood together watching
, thinking just maybe the plane would come back.  It didn’t.  They walked back to the cabin in silence.

Jesse finally said
as they walked up onto the porch
,
“Katie, if another plane comes, it comes.  This is our home and to be honest, I’m not in any hurry to get back.”  Jesse kissed her hand as they walked onto the porch of the cabin.
Although they both missed their families and friends, living here with each other was where they really wanted to be.

“I
agree.  As long as I have you,
I have everything I need.”  Katie kissed him on the cheek.  Katie called for Sadie and they all went inside.