Something To Dream On (37 page)

“Everyone, gather around,” Jensen announces. “We have something very important that we want you all to witness, legal or not.”

A river of hope coats my eyes. Oh, please, Jensen. Yes. I want this so badly.

Jensen pulls Etta’s collar, along with a picture of her, from his pocket. He asks Griffin to hold them. He then kisses my engagement ring, and I add my apparitional hand to the grip, so that our three left hands are joined. My chest tightens as the man I will love for all of eternity shows the world one of the many reasons why I feel the way I do.

My tears build before his first word forms. “There isn’t a doubt in my mind that Lizetta can hear me. I made a promise, and I am going to keep it.” His tone of resolve breaks as the true sentiment of the moment takes over. “Lizetta, I take you to be my wife. To love, honor, and cherish for all of my days here on earth and for all that follow. No matter where you are, I will somehow be by your side, like I know you will be by mine. Please stay here, and continue to grace our lives with your beauty, but if you can’t—” His voice shudders. The words are locked in by emotion, but love forces them out. “I promise to uphold your memory, to lift you up, to show you honor and dignity in any way that I can.” The tears land on my sheets, covering me in a blanket of dreams half fulfilled. “I love you, now and always.”

I’m in awe—floored by the level of love in this room that shows in bittersweet smiles and tight holds on loved ones. Mom is secure with Paul. Etta is here in spirit under Griffin’s care. What really gets me though is how Jimmy not only has an arm around Arlene, but also how she and Griffin hold hands, having never been introduced. My family is giving me one last gift in showing they will stick together after I am gone. There is really only one thing left of importance.
 
Lord, if I truly have to leave now, then please, at least let Jensen somehow know how I feel.

My heart races and breaks at the same time, as I make my vow to Jensen while having to accept he won’t hear it. “Jensen, the day I met you, I became real. My heart may have been open, but my soul was closed. Then you showed me the light. Through that I grew and became whole. I take you to be my husband. To love, honor, and cherish for all of time. Someway, somehow, I will remain by your side, just as I know you will be by mine.”

No kiss could seal this more than our hearts have. I step into the space where Jensen stands, and finish the process that began long ago—joining our souls as one. “I will love and be with you, always.”

My wife of three hours lies in her hospital bed while her life slips away. Does she know that in the eyes of everyone here we are married? I have to believe that she does, else my sanity may flee.

Just outside the room, Griffin and Mom are involved in deep conversation. Her concern is so indiscreet that I can't even head to the bathroom without her following in fear that I'm going to slip off and ingest something off limits. I don't blame her. Hell, I'm freaked out about what lies ahead for me, too.

What will become of my relationships with these people? They accepted me into their family long ago, and while they have accepted my marriage to Lizetta, will my welcome last or will I become a painful reminder of what they have lost?

I plop down next to Jimmy in our usual seats by Lizetta and take her hand. He looks at me, and although his shoulders don’t move, I know he is shrugging in resignation to waiting for the worst. I slump back in the chair to stare at the ceiling. “Band names. We need to settle on one.”

“You still want to do it? No matter what?” It’s nice to hear hope in someone’s voice again.

“No matter what, brother.” I put out my hand, and he low fives it before mirroring my slouch.

“Okay. Let's do this. No screwing around this time.”

Pain tears at my lower back, and my shoulders are tight even though I have none of those things. The cord that tethers me here has faded and thinned, going from silver fettuccine to glimmering angel hair.

Jensen and Jimmy brainstorm band names, and some of my fears about moving on release. My heart aches when I touch their shoulders, knowing they will make so many great things happen, and that I will miss every one of them. “Don’t let my leaving end your kinship.” Their conversation halts. How they swallow in unison is a sign of hope for their brotherhood that I accept with gratitude.

“You get that?” Jimmy asks.

Jensen nods and they stare at each other a moment before resuming talk of the future.

Mom sits with Paul. I can't look into the red orbs of my mother's pain. The decisions she has faced have been devastating. With a touch to her shoulder I tell her I love her. She curls into Paul's arms, sobbing. “Mothers are not supposed to bury their children. This can't be happening. I'm supposed to get to spoil the dickens out of my grand babies. What kind of god lets life work out this way?”

I want to give her words of wisdom—to comfort her in this awful time, to let her know it's not God's fault, and that in an odd way I brought this upon myself—but all I can do is say, “It's all right, Mom. God's going to take care of us all. I love you.”

My touch to Paul’s shoulder is accompanied by a simply stated, yet complex, message. “Thank you, Second Dad. I love you.” Paul has always given me pearls of wisdom, and I have nothing to give back other than a whole lot of love to the man who saved a little girl from growing up a distraught, traumatized wreck after losing her father to a disease. Paul taught me how to trust. Without him, I never would have accepted Jensen. I may not have even accepted myself. A tidal wave of love flows out of my heart and through my touch to convey how grateful I am that Paul came into my life.

Outside the room, Griffin and Arlene are locked in conversation. “I tell you,” Griffin whispers, “we are missing something critical.”

“Something has been bothering me since Lizetta and I met,” Arlene says. “She triggered the tip of a memory that I haven’t been able to form. Is there anything you've left out?”

Griffin taps his lips. “Psychic … Read the cards … Pull an extra card for clarification … No, that's all. Believe me, we were hanging on every word that woman said.”

“Something isn't right here,” Arlene muses.

“What was it Lizzie said that got you all tweaked out?”

“That's the thing. When I heard the seriousness in her voice, a memory flashed, but I couldn’t grasp it. It had something to do with the patches in the painting.”

“Are you talking about the patches of different colored grass?” Griffin asks.

“Yeah, do you remember something?”

“Not really.” Suddenly he grips her arm. “Do you think the two different types of grass have something to do with the two influences? If Lizzie was the first, who is the second?”

Arlene’s hand flies to her mouth, and my heart jumps in hope. “While I was painting, Dad went on about everything being one cohesive unit. Did the psychic say anything about two being one?”

Hope fades. None of that sounds familiar. I don't remember a single thing that Zolta or Harold said that could lead me to believe that.

Griffin shakes his head. “Nada. All I know is Lizzie was so freaked, that when we hauled ourselves out of there, it was like she had two left feet. When she tripped over the leg of the table and knocked a bunch of cards onto the floor, she just about lost it.” Griffin smacks Arlene’s arm. “Sitting straight up on the top, there was one card that you could not help but notice. If it had a voice, it would pierce your eardrums. It was some game show thing with freaky creatures around it.”

Arlene reminds me of a teenager as she gasps, nearly breaking her whisper. “The Wheel of Fortune?”

“Yeah, that's it!”

She grips Griffin’s arm, and I’m giddy with hope again. “Upside down or right side up?”

Confusion blankets Griffin’s face. “Up so she could see it. How else would she know what card it was?”

“No!” Arlene smacks his arm. These two are peas in a pod. “Was the card’s number at the top or at the bottom for her?”

Excitement tickles my veins when Harold appears in the corner and winks. “Listen to a mother’s wisdom,” he reminds me, and then disappears.

“I saw it dead on, so it was upside down for Lizzie.”

“That’s what I couldn’t remember! They're not patches, they are spokes in the wheel of the Four Ages of Man, but in reverse of the way it normally turns. Griffin, you and I are messengers! Go distract Jensen.”

Griffin casually approaches Jensen, asking how Etta is handling everything. Meanwhile, Arlene leans into my ear. “Lizetta, the dream is about phases. The answer lies in the past. Whatever you find there will change your soul forever.”

Phases? Reverse spokes? What does …
 
And suddenly it hits. The painting feels like it is moving left, or rather, counter clockwise. Time is the key. We want more of it because we think of it as something that is limited, but that only applies to our bodies. To our souls, time is boundless. Harold flicked me out of Zolta’s house and into this room. A moment later Jensen walked in. He and Bertha peeled out of the parking lot in frustration, which means he would have been driving fast. But when he walked into the hospital, he was moving slowly. If he had been racing Bertha, he would have been charged with adrenaline. When Jensen gets angry, he takes time to calm himself. Since I was thrown into the future, I didn’t see how that was possible.

Then there was early this morning, when Harold brought me to Laura. I thought it had been over half and hour since she sent that text; yet her finger was still on the phone.

A stagnant beep permeates the room. Nurses flood in. “What's going on?” Jensen asks, his voice racing with fear.

His plea is ignored while a nurse mutters something about cardiac arrest. Someone rattles off vitals and a pit crew with a crash cart rolls in with the precision of this being an expected event. The doctor enters and looks to Mom. “You still want us to act?”

Mom hesitates. She can’t back down now! I need more time. I turn to Griffin and rattle him, because he gets that some kind of puzzle is being put together and it creates a picture bigger than us all. “Don’t let them stop, Griffin! Don’t let them stop!”

“Yes!” Griffin yells. He turns to Mom. “Judy, please, go with my gut on this!”

“Yes,” Mom tells the doctor.

Another person tells my family to leave as the doctor commands, “Let's go. Everybody, clear.”

“This can't be happening,” Jensen utters. “Engagements are supposed to be the beginning, not the end. Lizetta, I'm so sorry.”

There must be a way to stay, or Harold wouldn't have been paying me the visits he has.

Jensen is right. What we had was supposed to be the beginning. That reminds me of Laura last night. What was it she said? The beginning is the end. It seems so fitting, but then—

I keep hearing about time.

The nurse tells Jensen he really shouldn’t watch, but he refuses to go. “No. Marriage means promising to be with someone until the very end, and that’s what I promised when I did the thing that robbed her of her life. I should have waited to propose. I should've—”

“Dammit, Jensen! Stop blaming yourself! And stop talking so much. I can't hear myself think!”