Time Flying (38 page)

Jeanette's mood lightened a bit, the more we talked and I realized after all these years, she must have had a lot of practice, moving in and out of episodes of grief, learning to compartmentalize things pretty well. The alternative, I imagined, would be complete mental exhaustion, if not insanity. She fussed over pictures I showed her of Molly and Samantha, not sure if her response to seeing photos of my wife and daughter was sincere, or acting. How hard it must be for Jeanette to experience delight about something she had been cheated out of. Jeanette Tully had always been a genuine and warm person, who never hesitated to speak her mind. She always made sure her interactions with other people were appropriate, but she didn't hide her feelings, good or bad.

Eventually, the discussion drifted around to the dreams, though talking about them here, she seemed less etherial, more matter-of-fact.

“At first, they were just flashes and memories of Amanda…” Jeanette began, interrupting herself by taking a sip of her coffee. “But after a while, it was like she’d never died, and I’d have these dreams where she was happy, and living her life.”

Jeanette's eyes, locked with mine in the beginning of the story, soon lost their focus and she looked off to the right, remembering. “They got so REAL. I usually couldn't remember them, but would wake up knowing I had been dreaming about Amanda, and after a bit, I began to realize she was older at times and unhappy in some of the dreams.” At this point, Jeannette again appeared distracted, remembering an intense emotion. “A few times I've woken up crying, but about what, I can't remember.”

“Was the progression steady?” I asked, as casually possible, seeming to be interested in the concept. “Did it seem like her life in your dreams moved parallel with your life?”

“No,” Jeanette replied, shaking her head. “In one dream, she would be very young, then in another, she would have children, living somewhere far away from us. I somehow knew it wasn’t here, but where Amanda lived was beautiful, green, with lots of trees, and rain.”

Whidbey Island.

She paused for a few seconds, took a drink of her tea, and said. “I had a dream a couple months ago where she was old.” The corners of Jeanette's mouth turned up just the slightest bit, almost a smile and she said, “Even older than me. She was a grandmother.”

“How many kids?” I asked, taking a sip of coffee to cover my curiosity and growing uneasiness. She dreamed about Amanda living in Washington State, and as my mind scrambled for an explanation other than Jeannette somehow observed the life Amanda and I lived in Bellingham, I became concerned. The Tullys had never been to the Pacific northwest before Amanda I moved there for the Navy.

“Always two,” Jeanette answered. “Two boys.” Her eyes came back to mine, and though more than a hint of carefully hidden, quiet hysteria existed in her, assurance did, too.

“They were your sons, too. And you know that, don't you, Rich?”

I couldn't help but close my eyes and turn my head, the lump again rising in my chest, moving toward my throat.

“I’m not sure about anything, Jeanette,” I replied, after several seconds. Then, looking into her eyes, I said, “I’m sorry.”

We parted company a few minutes later, after retreating to safer, more mundane ground, talking about family and updating each other about people important to both of us. Talking about her family, in that other life my in-laws, people I knew well because of our connections through Amanda, but who in this life, I barely had been acquainted with, proved difficult. Amanda's father, Jeanette's husband Frank in the other timeline, had been one of my father's best friends. Here, I'm not sure they'd ever met. Jeanette told me about Gene's bout with cancer in the mid 1980s, which I had helped the family deal with in the other timeline. But here, I could express concern and happiness he had survived, but not much more. 

As I walked Jeanette to her car, she smiled at me, saying how good it had been to talk with me, but stressing “we're not done with this, Richard.”

“I'll be in touch,” I replied. “Let me figure out what I can figure out, and we'll talk.”

She nodded, got into her car, and rolled the window down, calling to me as I walked toward my rented car, parked a few yards away. “Rich, please don't say anything to Gene about this. We don't talk about it, anymore.”

I turned, seeing a look on her face that told of considerable conflict over this situation, and I nodded, making a mental note to respect her wishes. Gene had to be, in many ways, the same man who had been my father-in-law, and though I had enormous respect for him, he could be stubborn and unyielding to everyone but Jeanette, so if she had failed to come to terms with him about something, it was truly a lost cause for anyone else to try.

“Goodbye, Jeanette,” I said.

She smiled at me and said nothing. Jeanette's way of reinforcing her statement “this isn't over.”

I drove away from the cemetery, heading back toward my hotel. My back was starting to hurt again, the accident creating some damage I was worried wouldn’t completely go away, but this time I worked hard to stay away from any pain medications I couldn't buy over the counter at Walgreens. I had a 20 pill bottle of Oxycodone, however, and would often down 2 or 3 Ibuprofen, or if things were really tough, some of the hated, liver killing acetaminophen tablets sold as “Tylenol” and hold the Oxy bottle for comfort, knowing if I had to, I only had to open the bottle and take one, but so far, had resisted the impulse to do so, even though I could never completely forget about the pills.

Once an addict, always an addict, the saying went.

For my physical body, seven months had elapsed since the accident, a time period that seemed about right. At the same time, my mind had experienced almost 16 years since the day I drove to Belton, met Annie Bennett and left the present for the past. I realized my mind and memory were a bit like an Escher drawing, detailed and familiar, yet impossible in perspective and function. The longer I spent here in 2007, the more logical my memories of everything seemed. 1976 didn't seem as far removed in time as it had before my accident, but yet everything made perfect sense. The more I examined it, the more I realized the impossibility of my experience.

I hadn't been back to my hotel room for more than 10 minutes, when the knock came. I knew without checking the security peep hole Jeannette stood on the other side, so my opening the door wasn't even preceded by a resigned sigh.

"Hi, Jeannette," I said, stepping back into the room. The hotel was a modern chain business hotel in a pre-fab leafy area just off Interstate 465, I’d picked because of its proximity to Indianapolis International Airport on the western edge of the city. The night before, driving around in search of a meal, I stumbled into the Noble Roman's Pizza restaurant, the setting for the beginning of my time with Amanda, and in a way, what almost ended our life together. I sat and ate by myself, across the room from the table Amanda and I spent two different evenings at, and happily, Nicky Collins wasn’t present.

Amanda's mother had obviously followed me back from the Starbucks where we had coffee, and I was surprised to realize her doing so didn't bother me at all. Amanda may have died in this timeline, but I still considered her mother family, and I think she sensed this, accepting the unspoken invitation to enter the room, a determined expression on her face.  After pausing for a second, she turned around.

Jeannette stood for four or five heartbeats before her resolve and defiance melted and she relaxed. For the most part, considering her physical appearance, she remained the Jeannette I remember, but something all of a sudden, seeped out of her, and she seemed to sag.

"I'm sorry, Richard. I don't..."

"I know, Jeannette," I said softly. "I'M sorry. I should have told you everything. Please sit down." I pointed at the sofa behind her, to the lounge/"office" area of the small suite.

She sat, not bothering to unbutton her coat. I didn't bother asking her if she wanted anything to drink. She wasn't here for a drink, instead thirsty for information. I began to try and quench her thirst.

"A few months ago, my company needed me to go to Cincinnati for a few months..." I began.

45 minutes later, I paused, standing up to dispose of the two empty water bottles I had emptied and stretched, glancing over at Jeannette. She had hardly moved while I told my story, but looking at her, I was confident the decision I had made to tell her everything had been the correct one. Years had been lifted from her face, and the hint of a smile touched her lips. She had listened to my story, only stopping me a few times to ask for more detail about something, the color of Aaron's eyes, where we stayed on a particularly happy vacation in Hawaii, or what activities we enjoyed when Jeannette and Gene visited us in Washington. She also asked me to tell her about my accident, how I felt in the seconds before and as I traveled to 1976. But mostly, she listened intently.

"That is an incredible story, Rich," she finally said, staring out the window of my first floor room. The sun was bright, the air clear and crisp, and though there were no leaves on the trees, it was...pretty. "Thank you for telling me. Do you really believe you will go back to nineteen…” she trailed off.

“Thirty-three,” I said, completing her thought. “I don’t know. After what I experienced in the coma after the accident, nothing seems impossible.”

“It must worry you,” she said simply.

I shrugged. “Yea, it does, I suppose. I just can’t figure out how what happened to me relates to it. It *has *to be related.” Then, getting back to our discussion, "Does it all make sense, Jeannette? Does what I’ve told you feel right, considering what you have experienced the past several years?"

She continued to gaze out the window, but after a few seconds of consideration, she nodded and the hint of a smile on her face grew larger and she nodded. "It makes perfect sense, Rich."

Then, turning to look at me directly, Jeannette said, “But your accident was only a few months ago, but I've been dreaming about Amanda and the boys for years.”

I shuddered a little at her mention of "the boys," the words a strange echo of how Amanda and our families had referred to Michael and Aaron. She said the words in such a familiar, easy way, it took almost no imagination to hear the Jeannette in my other timeline saying the same words the same way.

"I don't know, but I'm pretty sure time isn't quite what we think," I began, not sure of where I was going with this, but forging ahead anyway. "I think we experience it in a very small, limited way, and there is a lot more going on than we are aware of.” As had happened many times since my accident, the cold pain of despair over losing Amanda and my sons, and to a lesser extent, Pat, Tony and my other shipmates, reappeared and seeped into my thoughts. I felt a little guilty at this, since I left Amanda alive and well and living with her two sons, the rest of her family healthy and happy. The Jeannette in front of me had buried her Amanda years ago, which clearly installed a shroud over her life, keeping her from ever again being truly happy.

"Does your wife here know about this?" Jeannette asked suddenly, startling me out of the reverie.

I looked up at her, seeing her eyebrows arched in a questioning way, and replied, "Some of it. I've shared part of what happened to me," I answered, warily.

"Are you happily married, Rich?" Jeannette asked, sounding a bit like a prosecuting attorney in a court of law.

"Yes, Jeannette, I am. Very happy," I replied.

"Then why did you have a relationship with my daughter when you went back to 1976? Why didn't you pursue your wife, so you could be with her again?" Jeannette's tone was still soft and friendly, but her words...

The blood rose into my cheeks, and my brow furrowed in thought, or maybe the beginnings of anger, but when I realized what the answer to her question was, I a strange flood of relief poured into me, giving birth to another lump in my throat. I sat back into the chair from which I'd told Jeannette my story, and buried my face in my hands, unable to stop the jumbled rush of emotion made up of love, pride, anger, revenge, devotion and crushing despair. The proverbial gates opened and I lost control, sobbing for perhaps a minute. This was a new thing for me, the terrifying loss of control shook me up badly. At some point, I became aware of Jeannette's hand on my back, and a few seconds later, her embrace. I returned the hug, which sent me further down into the complicated soup of emotions.

After a time, I regained control, and my meltdown subsided, like rainwater retreating from the hight point in the middle of the road. I opened my eyes to Jeannette kneeling in front of me, her coat still completely buttoned, her eyes rimmed in red, and a light trail of tears tracking down each side of her face.

She smiled. So did I.

I sighed. "I loved your daughter, Jeannette. I did things differently when I had the chance, not because I don't love Molly and Samantha," I said, a sudden stab of emotion I had to shove back down when it threatened to derail me again. "But because I wanted Amanda to
live
. The biggest regret in my life was not something I'd done, but rather something I
hadn't done.
I wasn’t strong enough to tell your daughter  I loved her, I thought she hung the moon and that she was the single most beautiful thing I ever saw.”

Jeannette was getting close to crying again, but as much from happiness as anything, so I continued. "When I got a second chance, I did tell her, and she spent the rest of my life proving to me I was right."

We sat for several minutes, not talking, until Jeannette stood up, removed a tissue from her handbag and dabbed her eyes, even though they'd already dried. I stood up, got another bottle of water, offered her one, which she refused, and sat back down.

"Rich, I am so happy we met today," she finally began. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a suspicion you'd be at the cemetery today. How in God's name I knew, I have no idea, but I did. Rich, I am grateful beyond words to you."

Jeannette had been gazing out the window again, but now she turned her attention directly to me and said, her voice solid and sure, "When Amanda died, most of me did, too. I didn't consider continuing to live in any way a good thing, and my life was a sentence. I failed my little girl."