The Mine (33 page)

"Where's your watch?"

CHAPTER 65

Seattle, Washington – Saturday, June 3, 2000

Joel looked at his dinner and laughed.

He loved fried chicken. He craved it, in fact. But his mother had never put it on her table. She had never prepared it. She had never bought it – not in recent memory anyway. Cynthia Smith did not serve fried chicken. Yet when her son came home for the first time since returning from Yellowstone, she did just that and in the process created a humorous scene. Instead of delectable wings, thighs, and drumsticks, Joel found Sunday supper at the Carters and déjà vu in a bucket.

"I hope you don't mind, honey," she said while hurriedly setting the table. "Our tennis match with the Larsons ran long and this was convenient. I'll do better tomorrow."

"It's no problem, Mom," Joel said, still laughing. "I love this stuff. I eat it at school all the time. You should do this more often."

"I will if you
come home
more often," she said as she removed his cowboy hat, wagged a finger, and put his dinner-inappropriate souvenir on a coat hook.

Fried chicken was not the only reminder of the trip that never happened. Furniture stores conjured images of ventilating mattresses. When Joel picked up a book, he thought of Grace and the Crypt. He associated Army recruiting advertisements with Tom.

Yet he no longer believed that he had traveled back in time almost sixty years. The disappearance of his watch was a problem, to be sure. So was the presence of three crisp 1934 series hundred-dollar bills in his wallet. But to believe that he had passed through a portal to his grandmother's time, spent six months building a new life, and then returned to the present while his friend twiddled his thumbs on a boulder was a bridge too far. Joel Smith, man of science, subscribed to Occam's razor and therefore had a professional obligation to support the theory that made the fewest assumptions. And that theory was that he had had one hell of a nap.

His skepticism had grown following a Tuesday visit to the yearbook section of the university library. Grace Vandenberg had not been pictured or listed among the 1938 graduates of Westlake High School or the 1942 graduates of the university. He could find no evidence that the blue-eyed blonde had ever walked the earth. Nor could he, with the same resources, prove the existence of their friends. Someone had removed several pages from the 1941 and 1942 university yearbooks, including the portraits of the seniors.

Joel planned to investigate the matter further at some point but was in no hurry. With each passing day, he thought more about graduating, finding a job, and getting his summer under way than the highlights of his excellent adventure in Colter Mine. By late Saturday afternoon, he thought only of his stomach. He glanced again at his dinner, inhaled its distinctive aroma, and dove in. He was glad to be home.

"Did you have a good trip, son?" Frank Smith asked.

"I did."

"That's quite a hat you have there. It reminds me of the one I had the summer I worked on a ranch in Idaho."

Joel looked at Cindy, smiled, and then turned back to the graying but remarkably fit fifty-three-year-old to his right. His old man had his undivided attention.

"You worked on a ranch?"

"I did, for several months, before I joined the Navy, before I married your mother. It was a lot of hard work but one of the best experiences of my life."

Joel laughed to himself. He hadn't lied. He was a rancher's son, after all.

"How come you never mentioned that before?"

"You never asked."

Cindy beamed.

"Grandma used to needle your father about that job. She said no daughter of hers was going to marry a cowboy. She meant it too."

"She didn't like cowboys?"

"Oh, I don't know about that. But she did like to interrogate my boyfriends. Your father didn't meet her expectations for quite a while. Grandpa liked him, though."

"Your mother didn't miss much," Frank said, shaking his head.

Joel smiled and stirred the food on his plate. He loved learning little tidbits about his parents and the grandmother who was no longer around to defend herself.

"Are there any other sordid family secrets I should know before I graduate?"

"No," Cindy said. "I think that covers it. Your father gave up the life of a cowboy for the Navy. It's kind of a shame. He looked good in that hat."

Joel looked at his dad, who clearly wanted to steer the conversation in a different direction, and then his mom, who clearly did not. Like many women, and all good wives, she knew how to keep her man on his toes. Just like Virginia Gillette Jorgenson –
and Grace Vandenberg
.

He was tempted to delve more into his father's wrangler past. He could picture Frank Smith working on a ranch. He could picture him enjoying it. But Joel was far more interested in digging into the life of someone he had not seen in five years. Despite his conclusions about the mine and his real or imagined journey to 1941, he had thought a lot about his grandmother in the past few days and had many new questions about her. Ginny's apparent distaste for cowboys only fueled the fire.

"Mom, did Grandma leave any personal things behind when she died?"

"Like what?"

"You know, the usual stuff – pictures, letters, scrapbooks, things like that."

"She did. I haven't gone through all of it. But I know there's a large box in the attic full of keepsakes from her college days, including dozens of photographs."

Joel swallowed hard, lowered a drumstick to his plate, and stared blankly into the kitchen. He suddenly had a lot more to chew on.

"Do you mind if I see it?"

"Of course not. But don't you have to study for your finals?"

"I do. But I can get to that tomorrow."

Joel took a breath, pushed his plate away, and faced his mother.

"I'd really like to see that box."

* * * * *

Twenty minutes later Cindy Smith carried a sturdy cardboard container into the shrine of a bedroom that was her son's home away from home. Joel sat on his waterbed, surrounded by trophies, books, a vast array of consumer electronics, and posters of rock bands, sports stars, and supermodels.

"This is all I could find, but I think it's everything."

"Thanks, Mom."

"Let me know if you need anything else."

"I will."

When his mother left the room, Joel opened the box and found most of what he had expected to find. Ginny Gillette had saved a lot from her college career, including letters, photographs, programs, pressed flowers, newspaper articles, and what looked like the stripes of an Army lieutenant.

Joel started with a score of letters and cards that had been bundled and plopped on top of the heap. He read several dull notes from Ginny's parents from 1939 and 1940 and more informative correspondence from 1941, including a tersely worded message that mentioned a man named Tom. Victoria Gillette did not seem particularly enthused about her daughter's new interest and counseled "patience."

When the wellspring of letters ran dry, Joel moved on to the articles. He handled the brittle, yellowing clips, loosely arranged in a manila folder, with the care of a surgeon. He found one story about poverty on campus and another on the fight against polio. Two more pieces examined the lives of Japanese students at the university. Near the end of the second story, Ginny quoted a senior named Katherine Kobayashi – the colorful, humorous, and opinionated president of something called the Hasu Club.

Joel pushed the box away as his stomach knotted and a sinking feeling he thought he had left in a dusty mine near Helena, Montana, came rushing back. Could he do this? Could he finish the box? He looked out his bedroom window to the well-heeled street beyond and decided he could.

The photographs provided no reprieve. He picked up one and saw Ginny with a sorority sister that looked like a date from his make-believe past. Joel wondered whether the girl with the engaging smile, freckles, and long hair had a first name that started with "L" or another letter of the alphabet.

Another picture showed his grandmother with a young man who had heretofore existed only in his mind. He appeared a bit shorter than Joel and a few pounds heavier but was an otherwise nice-looking guy with a baby face, strong jaw, and short hair that was parted to the side. Several more photos followed, including one of Ginny with the man at the ocean. Written on the back of that snapshot was the name Tom Carter.

But the worst was yet to come. As Joel dug through the dozens of prints, he came upon several of Virginia Gillette with a sunny blonde. He did not know whether her eyes were crystal blue or whether she was the daughter of missionaries or liked movies or holding hands, but he did know one thing: He had seen her before.

He delved deeper and found a composite photo of the Kappa Delta Alpha sorority from 1940-41. In the middle of the third row was the picture of the same blonde, a young woman named Grace Vandenberg. Additional photographs brought more of the same: "Grace in dorm room," "Grace and Linda at Lake Union," "Grace at rush dinner," and "Grace and Paul at spring dance."

Joel stared at two posters on the far wall. Cindy Crawford looked better than ever. So did Naomi Campbell. But his mind was not on models of the 1990s but rather on a figment of his imagination from the 1940s that he had left on a cold, wet doorstep.

He moved quickly to the smoking gun. At the bottom of a stack of photographs stuffed in an envelope was a snapshot that brought his world to a crashing halt: "Grace and Joel at Seaside." The college-age man in the picture had wavy dark-brown hair, chiseled features, and a boyish grin that Joel had often seen in a mirror.

Joel closed his eyes and leaned back on the bed's headboard as he tried to put down a fresh round of nausea. He spread his arms across the covers for balance as his mother knocked gently on the door and slowly pushed it open.

"I'm sorry to bother you, honey, but I just heated up some apple crisp and wanted to know if you'd like some. Your father and I are going to watch a movie."

Cindy Smith opened the door wider and took a closer look at her son. His face was white and his eyes were closed.

"Are you all right?"

Joel took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and turned to face his mother.

"No. I'm not all right. I feel sick to my stomach."

"Can I get you anything?"

"I think I can manage, for now. But I want you to stay."

"OK."

Cindy stepped into the room and walked to the waterbed. She sat on the hardwood frame, leaned toward her son, and put a hand on his clammy forehead. She saw several photographs of Virginia Gillette scattered on top of the covers.

"Did you learn anything interesting about Grandma?"

Joel pondered the question and did not know whether to laugh or cry. He thought of the things he could tell his mother, the things he could tell a lot of people, if only he could retain his sanity.

"I did. She had quite a life."

"Yes, she did."

"Did she ever say much about her college days?"

"No. That was one thing she rarely talked about, at least to me. I think it had a lot to do with Tom Carter, her fiancé. I told you about him once. He died in the war."

"Yeah, I remember. But did she ever mention her friends or the things she did?"

"No. I asked her about them too. I asked her a lot of questions about college when I was a high school senior, but she would talk only about academics and the newspaper. She never discussed her sorority or her social life."

"Did you ever wonder why?"

"Of course. She was my mother. But there was no point in pestering her. I figured that she had probably had a bad experience and did not want to talk about it. Who knows? But whatever the reason, I suspect it went beyond Tom Carter."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because she was tight-lipped about everyone, even her girlfriends. Years ago, when you were just a baby, I saw a photo, like some of these here, at her house. She was sitting next to two girls her age. I'm sure it was from college. But when I asked her about the picture, she ripped it from my hands and said it was none of my business."

"She really said that?"

"She really said that."

Cindy picked up a few of the prints and looked them over until she saw one that caught her attention. Undated and unmarked, it showed Katie, Ginny, and Grace sitting on lawn chairs on a deck behind a house that still stood on Klickitat Avenue.

"This is the one. I remember the lawn chairs."

She handed it to Joel.

"Do you know who the other girls are?" he asked.

"I'm almost certain the one on the left is Katherine Saito. I met her at the funeral. She was an old friend of Grandma's, a very nice woman. I haven't seen her since, but she sends us a Christmas card every year. She lives in Portland."

Joel held the photo in front of him with both hands and ran his right index finger over each of the three smiling subjects. He let the digit linger over the blonde at right and then tossed the picture in the box.

"I miss her," he said.

"I do too."

Cindy again put a hand to Joel's forehead, fluffed his pillow, and then slid off the edge of the bed. When she got to the door, she looked back at her son, the last to leave the nest, and asked if he wanted lemon-lime soda for his stomach.

"No. I'm good. I'm feeling better now. Thanks."

"OK. If you change your mind about the apple crisp, let me know."

Joel watched his mother give a reassuring smile as she closed the door. When he heard her reach the end of the hallway and start down a flight of creaky stairs, he pushed the photos and letters off his bed and did something he had not done in five years. He wept.

CHAPTER 66

The stone had changed little since last he had seen it. The elements had marred its polished finish and dirt had collected in a few of its recessed letters, but the marble monument was as impressive as ever. A tiny American flag, stuck in the ground nearby, flapped in the gentle breeze. Put there by volunteers on Memorial Day, it was a reminder that Joseph Jorgenson had served proudly in the United States Marines. But on the sunny spring day before he graduated from college, Joel Francis Smith focused on the other half of the marker, the one dedicated to Joe's wife, Cindy's mother, and a woman who had done two tours of duty in the life of a mixed-up man.