Once Beyond a Time (31 page)

He looks back at me. “Do you want to tell me what it is?”

“No.” I shake my head. “I’d rather just show you.”

“All right. The doctor says I should be out of here in a couple of days.”

“That’s good. So that means you’ll be okay, right?”

“Sure, I’ll be okay,” he says. Then he adds, “For a few more years, anyway.”

Yeah, I guess none of us lives forever, huh? But then, that’s kind of what I want to talk to Austin about, once he gets out of this place where everyone’s dying.

Sunday, April 20, 1969

I
STEP INTO
my room and find him sitting there, staring intently into that machine of his. His profile in view, I see now what I didn’t see before. He looks familiar because he looks so much like me. He is my son.

“Hello, Gavan,” I say.

He turns from the machine and smiles. “Hello, Sheldon. Haven’t seen you for a while. How are you?”

It seems the most redundant of questions in the face of what I have to ask him, but I answer anyway. “I’m fine, thanks. And you?”

“Doing well. I’m reading another letter from my wife. She’s coming home soon.”

I nod slightly. “Wonderful news. My son Carl is coming home from Vietnam himself this week.”

“Very good,” he says. “We have much to be thankful for, then.”

“Yes.” I move to the bed and sit. I am so close to him I could reach out and touch him, if I were able. If he were solid to my touch. But he is not. “Gavan?”

“Yes, Sheldon?”

“You’re my son, aren’t you?”

I hear his sharp intake of breath. He leans his elbows on the arms of
the chair and clasps his hands together. “So you know, then.”

“Yes. Your mother told me.”

His head moves up and down as he thinks about that. “Yes, I knew she would come. I just didn’t know when.”

“Why are you here?” I ask. “In this house?” I wave a hand.

He leans toward me. “I wanted to meet you.”

“You never meet me in your time?”

“No.”

I don’t ask him why. “How did you know I’d be here?”

“Linda told me.”

“Linda? My daughter Linda?”

He nods. “She sought me out. We’ve become friends,” he says. Then he adds, “In my time, not yours.”

“How did she find you?”

He nods toward the machine. “Internet. Something called Facebook.”

“Facebook?”

“Yes. It’s fairly new. It—”

My raised hand stops him. “Never mind,” I say. “Your world is too much for me. I just want to know why you chose to come to this house.”

He frowns, moistens his lips. “Well first of all, like I said, I wanted to meet you.” He looks at me a moment; I nod for him to go on. “And second, I wanted to tell you something you otherwise wouldn’t know.” He looks down at his hands, swallows hard.

“I’m listening.”

His eyes find mine, and he smiles. “I just want you to know that I’m glad to be alive.”

I have to stop everything, even the sheer act of breathing, to let those words sink in.

“You see,” he goes on, “I know the circumstances surrounding my birth, that it was something of a surprise. Well, I suppose that’s an understatement.” He pauses to smile apologetically before going on. “I
imagine it was very hard for you, something you wish had never happened. But I can’t help being thankful that it did, of course. Mother married Aidan Valdez when I was four years old, and he was a very good man and a very good father. He gave us a comfortable life. But I knew early on he was my stepfather, and I always wanted to know who my biological father was. Just to meet you and to tell you that as hard as it was for all of you, I’m glad to be here. I’m trying to live a life that would make you proud of me.”

So many feelings rise up in me that my chest aches trying to hold them all. I wish I could touch my son, clasp his hand, put my arms around him. And yet, this seeing him, this hearing his words—this is a gift, and it is enough. “I
am
proud of you, Gavan. More than I can say.”

He smiles fully now. “Thank you.”

“And your mother? Is she … was she happy?”

“Yes. Very. She’s still alive, still married.”

“Do you think she forgave me?”

“I know she did. She’s the one who taught me to love you.”

“She did?”

“Yes. It took her some time, but she came to respect you.”

“Respect me? For what?”

“For not leaving your wife, when you might have easily done so.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“You can believe it because it’s true.”

I rise from the bed and walk to the window, shaking my head. Staring out at the night sky, I can scarcely gather my words, but at length I manage to mumble, “I wonder why we were chosen? Meg, Linda, and I—we’ve all wondered why we were chosen.”

I turn around to find him looking at me quizzically. “Chosen for what, Sheldon?”

“For this house. For this gift. I know now beyond all doubt that’s what it is.”

He shrugs and shakes his head. “I have no answer for you there, I’m
afraid. Sometimes gifts are simply given out of love.”

“Because the giver loves us?”

“Yes.”

I raise a hand to my chest, feel the pounding within. “Grace,” I whisper.

He cocks an ear. “What was that?” he asks.

But I don’t respond. I am thinking about the gift. “Think of how it would be if we could all see into time and know the things we need to know, to know all that God knows.”

“But we can’t.” He cocks his head. “We’ve been allowed to come here and to see in part, but not fully, not the way he does. Still, we don’t have to know what God knows. We only have to know God.”

I nod slowly. “And so we trust the one who sees all.”

“Yes. It’s called faith.”

“I know of faith. I remember it.”

“You’ll know it again.” He stands, pushes the chair under the desk. “Sheldon, come with me. I want to show you something.”

“All right.”

I follow him into the hall and next door to Digger’s room. In the quiet glow of a night-light, I see the sleeping child in the bed, a boy about three years old. Gavan and I stand beside the bed and listen to him breathe.

“Nicholas, my son,” Gavan says. “Your grandson.”

“My grandson,” I repeat, a measure of awe in my voice. “He looks very much like my own son Digger.”

Gavan nods, smiles. “As a very wise man once said,” he whispers, “‘God makes all things beautiful in his time.’”

Tuesday, April 22, 1969

W
E STAND ON
the station platform under a cloudless sky, waiting for the train to pull in. It should arrive any minute now. I’m wearing a new dress, a sleeveless blue eyelet, and a pair of new white pumps bought especially for the occasion. I need things to be new. I need life to begin anew when I welcome my son home.

Linda is sitting on the bench, her long legs crossed, one leg swinging nervously as she looks out over the rails. Sheldon is pacing. He keeps looking at his watch. There are others on the platform and inside the small station house. They look bored, caught up in routine. Maybe they’re meeting someone, or maybe they’re waiting to take the train themselves; either way, the day is an ordinary one. Unlike mine. For me—and for Sheldon and Linda too—today is a day of joy. God knows there are only too few of those.

Sheldon stops abruptly. “I think I hear it,” he says.

Linda rises and walks toward me. I listen. “Which way is it coming from?” I ask.

“That way,” Sheldon says, pointing.

My gaze is riveted to the tracks as though I’m willing the train to appear. And then, there it is. The engine comes into view, leading the way. Inside one of the cars that follows is Carl.

Linda slips her arm in mine and rests her chin on my shoulder. “I never thought I’d want to see Carl so much,” she says with a laugh. I nod and draw in several deep breaths to steady myself. Sheldon takes my hand and squeezes it. I allow it because for the moment, I’m happy. I imagine Carl watching for us from the train window. He will see the three of us here together, waiting for him. I hope it’s a picture that fills him with happiness.

The lights of the train engine draw closer. The wheels clack over the rails, steel against steel, rattling, easing themselves into the station. The platform trembles under our feet. A gust of wind, the clanging of the engine’s bell, a squeal of brakes, and the train sighs to a rest.

Men and women begin to disembark. My eyes scan the crowd for a familiar face. For one terrified moment, I wonder whether he didn’t come, whether he missed the train, whether it was all a lie and he never came home from Vietnam at all. But then … there he is: the tall young man who seems to tower over everyone.

“Carl!” Linda calls. She waves both arms excitedly.

I drop Sheldon’s hand and take a step forward. Carl sees me. He waves, smiles, rushes toward me. All else around me falls away as I find myself in his arms. He lifts me up; my feet are off the ground. My heart floats.

Thank God, my son is home.

Thursday, April 24, 1969

G
AIL GIVES ME
a strange look when she answers my knock on the door. “So why are you taking my grandfather up to your house?” she asks.

“I told you,” I say. “I want to show him something.”

“How come I can’t come?”

“I told you that too. This is between me and Bim.”

“How can anything be between you and Bim? You’ve never even acted like you like him.”

“Yeah, well, this has nothing to do with whether or not I like him. Even though I do. Like him, I mean. Well, you know, as much as I can like an old guy.”

Her scrunched up face scrunches up even more. “You’re acting really weird, Linda,” she says.

Yeah, well, I’d like to see how you’d act if you could talk to your grandfather when he was eighteen years old and living in 1916. Weird happenings make people act weird.

“Is he ready to go?”

“I think so.” She looks over her shoulder and hollers, “Grandpa, Linda’s here. You ready?”

I’m still standing on the front step under the porch light as she hasn’t
invited me in. Not that I mind. I want to get going.

Finally, I see Bim shuffling down the hall, his daughter fussing over him and insisting he wear a sweater. The daughter named Linda who was named after me.

“All right,” Bim says, “I’ll wear the sweater if it’ll make you happy.” He slips it on, walks to the door and says to me, “Let’s go before she tries to make me wear galoshes too.”

“I’m just looking after your health, Dad,” the other Linda says. “The nights are still chilly, and you’re just getting over a heart attack, you know.”

“Thanks for the news flash, darling,” Bim says. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Bim steps out into the night, and together we head to my car, parked at the curb. Or on the curb as usual. Before we’re halfway down the walk, Mrs. Leland calls to me from the front door, “Don’t keep him out too late, Linda!”

Sheesh! Like we’re going on a date or something. “I’ll bring him home in half an hour,” I holler back.

Once we settle in, and I start the engine, he says, “You know, I haven’t been to the house in fifty years.”

“No?” I say. “Well, it looks pretty much the same, except probably older and more run down.”

“And just what is it you want to show me, Linda?” He looks at me, and once again I see Austin’s blue eyes. They sparkle when they catch the headlights of passing cars.

“I’ll show you when we get there,” I say.

He settles back in the seat. “All right. Will I get to meet your parents?”

“No, thank heavens,” I say. “They’re over visiting with my uncle Steve and his family. My brother Carl is there with them. I was there but left to come get you. They think I went home early to finish my homework.”

“You didn’t want them to know I’m coming to the house?”

“Not really.”

“Why not?”

“I’m just not sure how to explain.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him nod. “So Carl’s come home,” he says.

“He’s been home two days now.”

“And he was in ’Nam, you say?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“War changes you, you know. When a man comes home, he’s not the same man who left.”

“Yeah? Well, Carl spent his time typing up reports, so it wasn’t like he was blowing people up or anything. And I’ll tell you what, Bim, right now he’s facing something a whole lot harder than anything he ever faced in ’Nam.” I glance over at him and see that he’s looking at me. He doesn’t say anything, but he’s just sitting there waiting for me to go on. So I say, “He knows now that Digger’s really gone.”

Bim swallows hard, his huge Adam’s apple going up and down his wrinkled old throat. He still doesn’t say anything, but his face looks like somebody died. Which I guess somebody did. Even though we’ve never seen the body or had a funeral.