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"I don't know. She likes him. She told me the other day that he is one of the kindest men she has ever known and would like to get to know him better, but I don't think she's in a hurry to get married again."

"I would think not," Bill said. "How do you two get along?"

"We get along well – very well. We seem to have a special bond. Grace is like a surrogate mother or sister, someone I can turn to for guidance. I'm afraid Edith is not much use in that area. She's as worldly as I am."

"Grace looks a lot like you, that's for sure. She really could be your sister."

"Edith made the same observation yesterday, with an interesting addition."

"What was that?"

"She said Grace also looks a lot like you."

William laughed.

"Now, I've heard everything."

Lucy looked at him with serious eyes.

"Bill?"

"Yes."

"Please don't tell Grace that I told you about her circumstances. I'm sure she will tell you at some point or tell me to tell you, but I want it to come from her. There is something very sad and mysterious about her, something even more than her condition. I don't want to compound her troubles. I want to make her life better."

Bill smiled at the woman across the table and decided right there that she was the one. He knew that convention demanded that they date at least several more weeks, if not a few more months, but he now considered that time a formality. He would marry this girl and do it soon.

"I won't say a word," he said as he grabbed her hands. "Not now, not ever."

CHAPTER 49: GRACE

Kenmore, Washington – Saturday, December 21, 1918

As the days became weeks and the weeks became months, Grace began to take pleasure in the little things. She enjoyed playing chess with Penelope after school, making dinner three times a week, and even walking a quarter mile each day to the mailboxes on the Red Brick Road.

Getting the mail gave her an opportunity to get out of the house, get some air, and clear a head that needed clearing daily. Though Grace had resigned herself to the likelihood that she would never again see 2002, she never stopped thinking about the year or the people in it.

She had even used the quiet walks to think of ways to return to that time. The most creative and plausible plan involved sending a letter to Grace Smith at 2321 Wenatchee Avenue in Seattle and asking that it not be delivered until September 2002.

The letter would specifically warn a happy wife and mother of two not to enter the Palladium on October 5 or anytime the theater showed silent movies, particularly
Stella Maris
. It might even advise her to avoid theaters altogether and stick to HBO.

Getting someone to deliver the letter, however, might be difficult and, even then, there was no guarantee that the fate of the woman opening the parcel would be tied to the fate of the woman sending it. Grace knew why even deep thinkers tended to avoid the subject of time travel. Its possibilities could drive you insane.

When she reached the row of mailboxes at the end of a road that provided access to a dozen properties, Grace opened the second box on the left. As usual, she found something inside. The Greens typically received six to eight parcels a day, a number that had more than doubled since December 1 with the influx of Christmas cards and other holiday greetings.

Grace removed the day's bounty, put five new letters into the box, and flipped up a flag to signify that the Greens had outgoing mail. As she walked home, she went through the letters and noticed that one was addressed to John Walker. She considered taking it back to the appropriate box but decided instead to take it to his house.

Grace knew that delivering the letter personally involved an element of risk. She could run smack-dab into Caroline Walker. John's mother had not taken an immediate shine to "the woman next door" and might not be all that happy to find that woman on her doorstep.

Even so, Grace saw no harm in handing the Walkers a letter that had been delivered to the wrong box. Acts of kindness, she had found, were among the best ways to remove distrust, suspicion, and other social barriers. As it turned out, it didn't matter.

When Grace knocked on the door, neither Caroline Walker nor Robert Walker came to meet her. John Walker did. He seemed surprised but pleased to see his unexpected visitor.

"Hello, Grace," John said. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"An egregious error by the Postal Service. I found this letter for you in the Greens' mailbox and thought I'd remedy the injustice."

Grace handed the envelope to John.

"That's very thoughtful of you, Miss Smith, but you didn't have to make a special trip."

"I enjoy walking, John," Grace said. She gave him a warm smile. "I also enjoy seeing my neighbors."

John chuckled and returned the smile. He glanced at the small envelope and nodded before placing the parcel in his pocket and opening the door completely to his visitor.

"Thanks for bringing this. I've been expecting it. It's an invitation to a reunion of veterans in Seattle," he said. "Most of the men I know from this area are still over there, but they're already planning their get-togethers. More proof, I guess, that you never really leave the Army."

John motioned to Grace with his hand.

"Come in and get warm. I was just setting up a Christmas gift I bought for my parents. Maybe you can tell me whether I got my money's worth."

"I'd like to, but I really can't stay."

"Is something going on?"

"I'm supposed to make dinner for the Greens. They drove into Seattle to do some shopping and won't be back until six. It's Edith and Lucy's nineteenth birthday."

John frowned and looked at the floor before returning to Grace.

"Maybe next time," he said.

Grace tilted her head slightly, smiled, and slowly met his eyes.

"Are you going to give up that easily, Captain Walker?"

John laughed.

"I guess not."

"Good. I'd be happy to evaluate your gift. I can always spare a few minutes for a war hero."

Grace laughed to herself as she thought of the exchange. She felt a little guilty about playing with his heartstrings, but not too guilty. She figured if he could handle Germans with bayonets, then he could handle a blonde with an envelope.

John took Grace's coat, put it on a rack, and led her to the family room, where a roaring fire in an immense stone fireplace brought immediate and welcome warmth. He leaned his cane against the side of a cushioned chair, pushed away an upturned cardboard box that occupied the center of the hardwood floor, and extended his arm toward the far wall.

"Well, what do you think?"

Grace looked at him with puzzled eyes.

"What do I think of what?"

"What do you think of this?"

Grace took a closer look at the back of the room and noticed a phonograph. Housed in a polished Queen Anne-style wooden cabinet, it appeared to be fresh out of the box.

"It's beautiful."

"It's more than beautiful. It's functional. It's a Victrola XVI, the newest model on the market. I picked it up this morning, after my folks left for the day. I hadn't planned on setting it up until tomorrow night, but I decided that I couldn't wait."

"Don't your parents already have a phonograph?"

"They used to," John said with a smile. "It was an older model that didn't perform as well. I donated it to one of the local schools."

"It's a lovely present. Your parents are lucky to have such a thoughtful son."

"They are," John said. Both laughed. "Of course, I couldn't buy a new Victrola without buying some new recordings to go with it. My mother loves Irish ballads, so I started there and worked my way back to Beethoven."

Grace walked over to the massive phonograph and wondered what John and others from this time would have thought of the MP3 players of 2002. A lot had changed in eighty-four years, but one thing had not: people still loved their music.

"Are you going to play something for me?"

John grinned.

"I thought you'd never ask."

The captain pulled a paper sleeve from a freestanding wire rack, removed a black disc, and carefully placed the disc on the turntable. He gave the crank on the side of the cabinet a few turns and then moved the brass tone arm, with its rigid steel needle, onto the recording. Within seconds John McCormack was singing "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" and John Walker, with smiling American eyes, was extending a hand.

"Would you care to dance, Miss Smith? One song is all I ask."

Grace gave him a suspicious grin. She knew a setup when she saw one, but she didn't mind. Dinner could wait for a dance or two. She put one hand in his, put another on his waist, and was soon moving in circles on a hardwood floor.

Dressed in a white tea dress, Grace laughed as they moved around the cardboard box and John tried to compensate for a leg that did not yet allow graceful movement. She appreciated the effort, just as she appreciated his interest in the girl next door. She wasn't sure where any of this was headed, but she did know that she liked the attention.

The experience conjured images of the last time she had danced in a house. She remembered every detail of that memorable Thanksgiving night in the still memorable year of 1941.

She remembered taking Joel to his place to get money for a movie but never making it to the show. She remembered dancing in his kitchen to music that streamed from a battery-operated radio and moonlight that streamed into a house without power. She remembered waking up in his arms. It had been the most romantic night of her life and her defining moment as an adult.

Grace snapped back to the present when the "Irish Eyes" recording, barely three minutes long, gave up the ghost. She thought again of MP3 players and compact discs and how nice it would be to have even a long-playing album to enjoy.

John Walker did not let the limits of technology ruin the moment. For the next hour, he mixed marches and waltzes with classics and jazz, an African American music style that had migrated westward from the South and was just now taking hold in Seattle.

Grace told John that she loved jazz but did not explain that she had developed that love in the late 1930s or that she had last heard the music on an iPod while pushing Ginny and Katie in a double stroller in 2002. She merely asked to hear as much of it as possible.

The captain had his own favorites. He insisted on playing songs from local Hawaiian guitarist Helen Louise Ferera, John Philip Sousa marches, and fast waltzes.

The fast songs produced comic moments as the wounded warrior and his dance partner tried to keep from falling down as they maneuvered around the box and large pieces of furniture. Twice Grace laughed so hard she had to stop dancing.

The slow songs, which came toward the end, produced something else. When John put an arm around Grace's back and moved her around the family room, he neither laughed nor talked. He did not fall down. He instead gazed into his partner's eyes like a man falling in love.

Grace did nothing to discourage the looks. She knew it was wrong to even think about another man when she was still mourning the memory of her husband, but she didn't care enough to stop the moment. She liked being held. She liked laughing again. She liked
living
.

When the last of five slow waltzes concluded and the stylus on the Victrola slid from music grooves to scratchy grooves in the middle of the disc, John brought the dance to a stop and gazed at his neighbor. He moved his lips to within inches of hers but stopped when a grandfather clock in the back of the room chimed four times.

Grace stepped back, sighed, and smiled nervously.

"I think . . . I think I should go. The Greens are expecting dinner," she said.

She slowly released John's hand and watched him display the wistful smile of a man who had been denied but not defeated. She knew he'd be back to woo her again. She knew she would not mind. The question, as always, was where to take their growing affection.

CHAPTER 50: GRACE

Monday, December 23, 1918

If there was one thing mechanical that Grace Smith missed about the twenty-first century, it was its washing machines. She did not miss computers or cell phones or even dishwashers, but she did miss devices that allowed her to clean clothes without turning a crank by hand.

She stopped for a moment to wipe her forehead with a small towel. Despite temperatures outside that hovered in the thirties, it was warm in the basement of the Green house.

"I can take over," Edith said. "You've had quite a go at it."

"I think I can go a bit longer," Grace said. "Besides, I like turning this crank. It reminds me of the beauty of life and how it runs in circles."

"You don't mean that," Lucy said.

"You're right. I don't."

Lucy laughed.

Grace smiled as she watched Edith fold sheets and Lucy hang wet undergarments from a clothesline that stretched the width of the musty, utilitarian basement. She did not like doing laundry, but she did like spending time with the teenage versions of her aunt and mother.

"How are you and Bill getting on, Lucy?"

"I think I love him," Lucy said matter-of-factly.

Edith turned to face Grace.

"That's what she says to all the boys after two matinees."

"He also took me to dinner, you prig!"

Lucy lifted her nose and switched to a softer voice.

"That means he loves me too."

Grace laughed. She loved Lucy's spirit almost as much as her West County lilt. She could not believe her mother had ever been this young. She
could
believe she had always been this adorable. When she saw that Edith had no intention of contesting Lucy's claim, she returned to the crank and the drudgery.

"Grace?"

"Yes, Lucy?"

"Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"

"No. Not at all."

"Do you mind if I ask you a
very
personal question?"