The Christmas Eve Letter: A Time Travel Novel (6 page)

The light from the lantern will forever symbolize our eternal and unceasing love.  Please, dear Evelyn, please light the lantern and remember me with forgiveness, and with compassion and love in your heart.

Eve folded the letter, holding the pages loosely in her hand, its words once again having a surprising and powerful emotional effect on her.  She thought about the regrets and old actions of her own life, wishing she’d made different choices—at least better choices—one of which was marrying Blake.  She regretted that and, oddly enough, she also regretted their divorce, for it signified failure, and Eve did not like to fail.  But Blake had been cheating on her.  The divorce had been a no-brainer.

Blake had often implied that the failure of their marriage was her fault. 

“You’re too much scientist and not enough romantic,” he’d said to her more than once. 

Had that been true?  Perhaps she’d never really been in love with Blake.  But then why had she married him?  She
thought
she was in love with him.  Her friends were all getting married and it seemed like it was time for her to, also.  He was a lawyer and she was a nurse practitioner, both professionals.  It seemed like a good match.  But emotional things had always confused her, and muddled her usually clear, precise thinking.  Emotions were unseen things, hard to catalogue things, mixed up and nebulous things.  That’s why Eve liked science, with its rules, procedures and documentation.  Of course there were things science couldn’t explain, but, even then, one could analyze, extrapolate or speculate. 

Love and emotion seemed to have no rules or practical procedures.  During her marriage, Eve had felt like a little sailboat lost in a tossing sea, without help or direction.  There were too many feelings she couldn’t understand, taking her into uncharted seas.

A few months after she and Blake were married, she began to feel lonely and empty, even when they were together.  It was true Eve had been working mega hours, including some weekends and holidays.  That certainly hadn’t helped the relationship, and it had made her mother question Eve’s commitment to the marriage. 

“Maybe you just don’t want to be with Blake,” her mother had said.  “Maybe you’re working to stay away from him and your marriage.  Have you ever thought about that?”

As the weeks and months passed, Eve would look at her husband from across the bed or the kitchen table, or from across a room, and she’d feel an aching in her soul.  She felt a cool distance between them that grew wider every week, until they’d become strangers, living together as if programmed in some sterile computer simulation.  Their love-making became perfunctory and almost tense.  Blake surely wanted more, and that was no doubt the reason he started an affair with another woman.  But why a married woman? 

“Because she’s there for me,” was Blake’s angry and accusing answer.  “Married or not, whenever I need her, she’s there for me.”

Of course Eve had to accept some blame for the divorce, and after Blake had moved out, she’d stared at herself in the mirror, struggling to understand what made her tick.  She’d even tried therapy for a few months. 

At one point, her therapist asked her, “Eve, have you ever been in a loving relationship with a man?”

Eve winced at the thought.  She didn’t like the question.  She recalled her sharp answer.  “Of course I have,” she’d said, no doubt sounding extravagantly defensive.

And of course it was a lie.  While she’d had a few relationships in college and one nine-month relationship before she met Blake, none had touched her or moved her, at least not in the way Evelyn Sharland and John Allister Harringshaw had apparently been moved.  Eve had never felt that depth of feeling those two must have felt, and this fact made her sad and confused. 

Eve blew a sigh from her pursed lips.  She wished she could read the letter Evelyn had written to her lover, John Allister.  It had moved him to tears, and he didn’t look like a man who was emotional or prone to easy tears.

Eve closed her eyes and recalled John Allister’s photograph.  He had been so very handsome and so very aloof.  Eve had often been attracted to aloof men.  What did that say about her?

She smiled a little.  She wished she could have met John Allister Harringshaw II.  If he was anything like the letter he wrote, he was a true romantic, perhaps of the old school.  Cool and distant in public but warm and spicy in private.  Eve chuckled to herself at the thought.  How many men today could write such a tender, romantic and heartfelt letter as John had written to Evelyn? 

The tragedy was that Evelyn had never received the letter.  She’d never lighted the lantern.  She’d never granted the forgiveness John Allister had prayed for, longed for, and asked her for.  Consequently, in a very real sense, their relationship had remained incomplete and their love for each other unrequited. 

How sad.  What a waste of love, in a world where love is so hard to find.

Eve absently fingered the heart-shaped pendant that hung around her throat.  She’d forgotten to take it off after she’d arrived home.  For some reason, she’d felt compelled to wear it every day since she had bought it.  It comforted her somehow. 

It made her think of Granny Gilbert.  She reached for her phone, touched the number, and waited until she heard her daughter’s quiet voice.

“It’s Eve Sharland, April.  How is your mother?”

“She’s a little better.  She can’t talk easily, but she seems to understand what I say to her.”

“I’m so glad she’s better,” Eve said.  She paused for a moment.  “April, is your mother well enough for me to read her something?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“When I was there the other day, I promised to let her know what was in an old envelope I found at the shop.  It was a letter.”

“Oh, she’d love that.  My mother always loved history and old things.  It might cheer her up.  Hang on a minute.  I’ll take the phone to her.”

A few minutes later, April was back.  “Eve, I told her what you said.  She’s very excited.  I’m going to put the phone to her ear.”

Eve spoke slowly.  “Granny, it’s Eve Sharland.  I hope you’re feeling better and that you have a speedy recovery.”

Eve pressed the phone more tightly into her ear.  She heard Granny’s small, brittle voice, straining to get the words out.  “Thank… you.  The letter…read.  The letter.”

“Yes, Granny.  I think you’ll find it fascinating.”

Granny coughed into the phone and then struggled to speak.  “The letter… the same name.  You have the same name…Evelyn.”

Eve waited, surprised.  “Yes, Granny.  Yes.  We have the same name.”

“Read it...” Granny said in a hoarse whisper.

Eve started reading, slowly and carefully pronouncing each word.  At this reading, Eve felt the power of the letter even more keenly, felt the sentiment and emotion more intensely.  When she was finished, she was quiet for a moment.

“What do you think, Granny?”

Eve waited.  “Are you there?”

April came back on the line.  “Yes, she’s here, Eve.  She had tears in her eyes.  Hang on a minute, she’s trying to tell me something.”

Eve adjusted her position in the chair and switched the phone to her other ear.

“Eve… my mother just said, thank you.  She said she wished they had had their chance.  She said they deserved their chance at love.”

“Yes,” Eve said.  “Tell her I feel the same way.  And tell her how much I loved her shop and how much I love the heart pendant watch.”

April said, “Granny wants you to find a good man and get married.”

Eve laughed a little.  “Okay.  Tell her I’ll work on it.”

After Eve hung up, she took in a deep breath, closed her eyes and whispered a little prayer that Granny Gilbert would be returned to health.

Later, after a glass of white wine, Eve sat in her chair, glancing about the living room, smiling with satisfaction.  Everything was neat and clean, the bookshelves perfectly arranged, the floors glossy, and the sense of order and tidiness giving her a sense of well-being.  Georgy Boy lay sound asleep, his nose twitching.  He was probably having a dream, chasing a squirrel or a rabbit.  She had a good home, a pleasant and comfortable home.  There was only one problem: she was alone.  For a while, after the divorce, she’d been content to be alone.  Now, it was getting old.  Now, the nights seemed longer and emptier.  Now, she seemed too secluded and tucked away in some back closet, away from the close touch and intimate whisper of a friend and lover.

Eve finished her wine and drifted into a sinking melancholy, feeling a familiar tug of isolation.  The radiators hissed, her mantel clock ticked, Georgy slept and the apartment seemed an island surrounded by a vast dark sea.  She looked down at the letter that lay in her lap and gave it a sweet, dejected smile.  Granny was right.  It was too bad that Evelyn and John Allister never had their chance at love.

She nodded off to sleep.  Minutes later she was jolted awake by an idea.  It was one of those dreamy ideas, vague and shadowy. 

Why didn’t Eve do what Evelyn had not done?  Why couldn’t Eve light the lantern?  Why couldn’t she open the letter and remember John Allister with kindness and forgiveness?  Why couldn’t Eve wish the doomed lovers the happiness and reunion they’d so longed for but were denied in life?  After all, weren’t Eve and Evelyn related?  Yes, of course.  It was a splendid idea!

That morning, Eve had been excited by the prospect of lighting the lantern, and so she’d taken it to a local hardware store to buy oil and new wicks.  She knew the owner and he was happy to replace the wick for her, showing her how to make sure the wick fit snuggly in the burner sleeve.  Then he trimmed it with scissors.  Finally, he showed her how to load the oil, which was easy enough, but something she’d never done before.  She’d never been on a camping trip in her life and, besides, this was an antique lamp. 

On hands and knees at the hearth, Eve carefully filled the oil lamp font to seven-eighths capacity, as instructed.  Georgy stirred, watching her sleepily as she put the burner with wick in the lamp and allowed the wick to soak for ten minutes, while she read the letter again.  Then she placed the lantern back on the hearth and opened one of the four, now cleaned, panes of glass.  She reached for a box of kitchen matches and, just before she struck it, she paused, feeling a fluttering in her stomach and a dry throat.  She sat back on her knees, amazed at herself, because she was not the new-age type, or a believer-in-the-occult type.  But somehow, it seemed like the right thing to do, to perform a kind of personal ceremony honoring two lovers who’d been denied the chance to come together and express their love. 

She, Eve Sharland, had found the lantern and the letter and this one simple act of lighting the lantern might finally put to rest Evelyn Sharland’s and John Allister’s longing and unrequited love.

Eve lifted forward, struck the match and watched it blaze.  With perfect concentration, she reverently lit the wick.  To her surprise and delight, the wick took the flame and flared.  Eve closed the open glass window pane and stared, entranced, as the lantern glowed, its light illuminating the room.  Her eyes opened in wonder and satisfaction, her sharpening eyes lowering onto the open letter that lay next to her.

“Okay, Evelyn and John.  This light is for you.  And John Allister Harringshaw the Second, I am remembering you with kindness and with forgiveness.  Rest forever in peace.”

Suddenly, Eve felt a cold draft of air blow in.  It startled the candle flames.  They flickered and danced.  Eve wrapped her arms around her chest for warmth, glancing about, trying to locate the source of the draft.  The windows were shut tight and the front door was closed and locked. 

She felt light-headed—her vision began to blur.  She blinked and wiped her eyes and, when the room seemed to tilt and sway, she placed her hands on the floor to anchor herself.

Another draft of wind swept in.  She shivered.  It was a cold wind, nothing like anything she’d ever experienced before in this room.  Maybe she had left a window open somewhere.  She tried to push to her feet, but the room shifted and swayed.  Eve dropped hard to the floor.  An earthquake!?

The room stilled.  Silence.  Dead Silence.  A loud quiet that hurt her ears.  She thought,
I must be coming down with some virus
.

When the fireplace began to melt from view, when the walls shimmered with a kind of bluish sparkling light, Eve stared in dazed astonishment.  She looked down and the floor seemed to be dissolving beneath her, swallowing her up.  What was she sitting on?  Another puff of frigid wind tossed her hair. 

Eve was terrified now.  Her body tensed.  She glanced about, watching the room glitter with bluish light, feeling dizzy and disoriented—she didn’t feel properly anchored in her body.  Then she threw a darting glance toward Georgy Boy.  He had vanished!  She frantically tried to reach for him, but she couldn’t move.  She was a block of stone.

She snapped a look at the lantern, and her eyes were drawn into its bright, buttery flame.  Yes, the flame.  It had all started when she’d lit the lantern.  It must be that.  The flame.  The light.  Had to be.  She had to put out the light.  Now!

With great, struggling effort, she got to her hands and knees and reached for the lantern.  It took all her straining effort to lift the pane.  She clumsily reached for the candle snuffer near the candelabra.  In slow motion she struggled and wheezed and finally capped the flame.

The lantern went dark, gray stringy smoke rising toward the ceiling in twisting curls. 

Eve flopped backwards, bracing herself with her hands, her breath coming fast. 

The shimmering lights vanished, the floor felt solid under her, and the room became warm and comfortable.  Georgy Boy was there, gently sleeping, as if nothing had happened.  Eve shifted her gaze to the candles.  The flames were steady and calm.

Eve swallowed away anxiety.  She stared soberly, not blinking.  What had just happened?  It took all her courage and strength to look at the lantern.  It sat inert and still, an old relic from another time and place.  But was it just an old relic?  What the hell had just happened?