by David Connor
“You’re awake,” he said.
“I am.”
“Do you know where you are?” Patrick asked.
“In the big, strong arms of the sexiest, redheaded man in America, him in his underwear, me dressed as Batman, snowed in at Cost-Mart, and listening to ‘Let’s Get Physical?’”
“Close enough.”
“How am I wrong?” I could have moved but chose not to.
“You forgot about my turtle shell. I called an ambulance.”
“You didn’t!” I sat up.
“I’m on hold.” Patrick showed me his phone. “Get back down here.” He gently forced me to obey, then started stroking my hair again.
“How long was I out?”
“Almost two minutes.”
I laughed. “It felt much longer. I saw Jefferson and Calvin.”
“You did?”
“Uh-huh. I feel better.” Wrapping my arm around Patrick’s beefy thigh, I snuggled into his crotch, as if I was in bed and he was my pillow. “In fact, I feel fine. If you cancel the ambulance or just hang up, in case they’re needed for a real emergency, I’ll tell you all about my dream, or whatever it was.”
“I don’t know, Goose.”
“Do it.”
He sighed.
“I’ll stay awake. That’s what they’ll tell you, ‘Don’t let him fall asleep.’” I wagged my finger. “There’s nothing else to do. You know I’m right.”
“They can make sure—”
I took the phone and hit End Call. “There.”
“You’re stubborn,” Patrick said.
“Only sometimes.” Wilbur settled back down, and so did I. “Hand me mine, will you?”
“Who ya gonna call?”
“Ghostbusters.” The theme from the film had come on earlier, while Patrick and I were playing superheroes. “That song does ghosts a disservice, really.” I shut off the music blaring throughout the store from the smart app on my phone that controlled the receiver in the office.
“You can do that?” Patrick asked.
“Just on or off. To change stations, I have to be at the panel. There. Quiet time.”
“No sleeping.”
“I know. I just said that. As long as I’m talking, all is well.”
“Keep talking, then.”
“Well, wherever I was, however I got there, I got to hug Jefferson goodbye this time,” I explained, “but not Calvin.”
“Were they alive, or were they ghosts?”
“At first, it was hard to tell. I ended up back at Operation Cracker Line. We finished the bridge, Jefferson, his troopmates, and I, and everyone celebrated, like the winning team at a FIFA World Cup soccer match.”
“That’s a lot of celebrating.”
Someone got my reference. “Then Calvin showed up. When he and Jefferson kissed, everyone cheered again. I might have started it.”
“Good for you,” Patrick said. “Kisses deserve cheers.”
“I agree. Kiss me.”
He did.
“Yay!” We said it in unison.
“I kind of think I might have actually been in Heaven.”
“Wait!” Patrick’s smile faded. “You died?” He grabbed the loose gray Batman costume fabric at my shoulder. “I should call 911 again.”
“No.” I reached up to stroke his beard. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t die. The way things panned out, though, with Jefferson being reunited with those he loves, including Cavin, it had to have happened recently, I think. My latest waking theory is Jefferson comes to me when my mind is clearest, which is mostly when I’m asleep. There’s a lot of stuff up here, still.” I used Patrick’s finger to tap my forehead. “Even my dreams are controlled by my insecurities and racing thoughts sometimes.”
“I wish you didn’t have those.”
“Thank you. They’re better these days. I fidget and babble, but look at me now. I’m lying here, still as can be in your arms, watching the snow fall. Sure, I’m chattering like a chipmunk in the late afternoon, but I’m quiet in body and mind.” I was back to stroking Patrick’s beard.
“Are chipmunks particularly chatty in late afternoon?” he asked.
“They are. In summer, one or more outside my bedroom window acts as my alarm clock. Anyway, part of the time, it seemed as if I was in control of the narrative, but now that I think about it, there were a ton of details I couldn’t have known, and way too many memories for being gone just two minutes. Though I feel like I’m forgetting something important.”
“It’ll come back, maybe.”
“I hope so,” I said. “Either way, something other worldly was involved. Oh. There were kids. Henry, Lewis, Charlotte, and…another boy, whose name I can’t recall.”
“Charlotte?”
“Yeah. They were cheerful enough eventually. It’s sad if they died, but it’s nice they went to Heaven with their parents.”
Patrick had one hand on Wilbur’s tummy and one on my back.
“The two families were friends of Calvin’s. People he knew. I’d never heard of any of them before, so they have to be people he and Jefferson wanted me to know about for some reason, right?”
“Sure.”
“Unless none of it was real, and I made it all up. I refuse to believe that, though.”
“Tell me what else you remember, and we’ll worry about the logic of it later.”
“Well, we headed northward as a group once released from our war duties, the two families, Jefferson and Calvin, and you and I, to Jefferson’s hometown in Massachusetts. You and I haven’t been there yet in this realm. It’s not far. We should go sometime.”
“Definitely.”
“Maybe Daniel and George—the two fathers—died fighting beside Union soldiers and were just being reunited with their families in my vision,” I said, ignoring Patrick’s earlier directive about deciphering logic. “How many heroes from that day and time haven’t received any recognition? You have to wonder, right?”
“Yes. History doesn’t always note everyone who’s deserving.”
“After saying goodbye to Jefferson, the first time, I did a ton of research on what life might have been like for Calvin. I came across these incredible letters written by slaves after they were freed. Some were emancipated because of the government, while some managed to get away on their own. Henry Bibb’s story is particularly fascinating. He was born into slavery, eventually fled, and then helped form the Refugee’s Home in Canada to help others who escaped or had nowhere else to go. John Boston is another name you should look up.” I took a beat. My heart was hurting. “It’s sad that we’re taught in school to believe The Emancipation Proclamation made everything better. The end. It wasn’t like that at all, though. Obviously, it wasn’t. History books skip over a lot of years between the Civil War and the start of the civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties.”
“Yes.”
“Some slaves were fortunate enough to be taken in by Union soldiers. A very small number were treated well by the families they lived with, like Calvin. Sadly, that wasn’t the norm at all. So many were left to face incredible hardships. I read one piece that stated up to twenty-five percent of freed slaves died prematurely from disease or starvation. Twenty-five percent.”
Patrick brushed a tear from my cheek.
“I’m not at all shocked to learn Calvin would have done his best to help others right from the start,” I said.
“I bet he would have.”
“Jefferson wanted me to know that about him. Maybe Heaven is a continuation of life from where it left off, with only good things. Wouldn’t that be great?”
“I think it would. I can definitely imagine Calvin acting as a guardian angel, leading people to a better place spiritually, if not literally, or literally as a spirit.”
“Yes. An angel. I like that, Patrick.” I kissed his tummy, just like I sometimes did with Wilbur. “Imagine all twelve of us showing up on the doorstep of Earl and Myrtle Eaves. It was mid-October, one of those days th
at start off crisp but end quite warm. The smell of fallen leaves and wood smoke barely tinged the air. We were greeted by Jefferson’s entire family. Later, half the town was there. The celebration was huge. I met Jefferson’s baby sister, Nancy. I told you about how she was sickly and everything, I think.”
“Yes.”
“She was little, still, but not unhealthy. Man, was she happy to see Jefferson come home. His brothers were, too.” I looked out again at the falling snow, so peaceful, so beautiful. Lying there with Patrick, feeling his belly move with every breath, listening to his heartbeat with my ear right against his body, I felt as if I was in Heaven myself. “Where was I?” I’d gotten lost in it all.
“Brothers.”
“Oh. Brothers. Get this. Something bad happened during the party, something that makes me wonder if it was Heaven at all.”
“Oh no.”
I told Patrick about Thomas and his brothers. “It ended well, at least for the time being. There could be a message in all of it I’m supposed to remember, considering the state of the country right now, or maybe Jefferson just wanted me to know forgiveness is possible, if the other person is sorry and willing to make amends. What if Heaven is a place to learn lessons, and Thomas learned his faster than his brothers?”
“I like the sound of that, too.” Patrick took a turn watching the snow fall. “There has to be something after this life, Goose. So many people don’t find their way here. So many don’t reach their potential. Whether it happens up there,” he pointed toward the source of the flakes, the night sky, “on a world of fluffy white clouds and streets of gold, or in some other dimension, who knows? Albert Einstein said, ‘The distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent. Time is not at all what it seems. It does not flow in one direction, and the future exists simultaneously with the past.’”
“He did?”
Patrick smiled down at me. “He did. I had to memorize it for school a hundred years ago, and only now does it come in handy. Even if he didn’t mention an afterlife specifically, it’s possible we might live one life, two, six, a hundred times, on and on and never ending, with déjà vu and new lessons, new adventures, and new loves.”
“I want Jefferson to be Calvin’s only love, and vice versa.”
“It could work that way.” Patrick nodded. He liked that idea as well. “I don’t know everything.”
“You don’t?”
“Not quite.”
We met halfway for a kiss.
“I do know I’m falling hard for you, Goose. The snow, your warmth, your Wilbur, I can’t think of another place I’d rather be.”
“Well, how about a slightly warmer one?” I reached up his shirt to stroke his soft, red belly fur. “In my vision, once everything settled, the four of us found that pond Jefferson liked to swim in naked.”
“Mmm.” Patrick purred. “Tell me more.”
“It was nice,” I began. “A New England Indian summer, better than the day you and I first got to Tennessee a couple months back. Everyone was naked before we got to the water. Jefferson wasn’t timid at all. Neither were you. You and I went in the pond right off. Jefferson and Calvin stayed on the bank to fuck.” I smiled up at Patrick, and then retold the raciest part of the story in fine detail. “They were loud and really liked being watched as they did it.” A bit further in, I began to feel self-conscious. “Calvin topped. Jefferson squirmed and grimaced, taking every inch of his hard dick.” Cheap stretchy light gray tights did little to hide my raging boner. Noticing that, or the story itself, got to Patrick as well. “They did it raw, and the noises Calvin made when coming in Jefferson’s ass were really hot.” I felt Patrick grow thicker and harder under my cheek. “We were both hard watching it.”
“Imagine that.” He pushed at his hardness now, and then brushed my cheek, which was right there next to it. “You, Goose Tucker, are as fine a storyteller as you are an artist.”
“We didn’t fuck.”
“No?”
I sat up. “I couldn’t even go through with it in Heaven. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Nothing is wrong with you, Goose. Something was done to you. Do I want to fuck you? Hell, yeah. Will I wait until the time feels just right, just right for you? Absolutely. Lie back down. Your head hurts.” He kissed the sore spot, then lowered me to his lap again.
“It’s not that bad.” I turned onto my back. From that vantage point, I could see the monitor that showed the parking lot.
“What happened after the pond?”
“Well, we had Halloween. You were a bear.”
“No shocker there,” Patrick said.
“Jefferson was cow. I dressed Calvin as an owl.”
“What were you?” he asked.
“Nancy and I were both bunnies. She got the biggest kick out of Jefferson bobbing for apples. What a sweet little…”
“Little what?”
I stood and moved toward the security screen to get a better look.
“Easy, Goose. You promised to rest.”
“Angel.” I ran to the window.
“Goose!”
“It’s them.”
A blast of cold hit me immediately as the huge double doors up front slid open. I’d never locked them, apparently.
“Goose! Where are you going?” Patrick was quickly on his feet as well, and he followed me outside.
“I saw something. I think I did. Snow.”
“Um, yeah. It’s been snowing for hours. You’ll freeze! You’ll fall!” he said. “And your head.”
I was out in a blizzard wearing a Batman costume a couple sizes too big. Wilbur had come along, too, but he stood under the awning just below the name of the store. Wilbur wasn’t a fan of inclement weather in any form. He liked snow on the ground, not so much from the sky.
“I’m okay.”
Wilbur barked and ran to me when I did go down. I hadn’t fallen by accident. I’d flipped over onto my back on purpose.
“Goose Tucker!” Patrick scolded.
“Goose Tucker.” I mimicked him, laughing my ass off, as Wilbur licked me all over. “I’m fine. Be careful!”
“Me be careful? Of what?” Patrick asked standing over me.
“Look.” I pointed to my left, from where I lay spread eagle in the snow. “They were here.”
Patrick took a step. “No way.”
“Why do we keep doubting?” I looked up at him, like an angel himself, aglow in the parking lot lights. “Why do I?”
“Come on.” Patrick held out his hand. “Get up.”
I didn’t budge. Wilbur did, back to the dryness under the overhang.
“Goose! Your head. The cold. You’ll catch pneumonia.”
“No. You come down.” I tugged on the leg of Patrick’s long johns. “We need four snow angels, yours, mine, Jefferson’s, and Calvin’s.”
Patrick stared at me a moment, his red hair already mostly white, his beard, too, his glasses spotted with water drops. We could have been inside a snow globe someone had just vigorously shaken.
“I bet it’s snowing there, too,” I said. “I bet they can see us. Get down here.”
“Okay.”
I knew he would.
From his knees to his back right beside me, Patrick and I added two more snow angels to the empty parking lot to make a heavenly angel quartet. I almost started singing.
“I love you,” I whispered, instead. Then, I shouted it. “I love you, Patrick O’Hanlon!” I turned slightly to see his face. “When we were there, at the pond, Calvin wondered how soon was too soon to feel it and say the words.”
“What did you tell him?” Patrick asked.
“I didn’t tell him anything. You had something to say, though. ‘There are as many theories on that as there are lovers. Is it an instant or a lifetime? Do we only know when we look back?’”
“I said that?”
“Yup.”
“Damn, I’m good.”
He made me laugh. �
��Yes. Yes, you are. I love you, Patrick.”
He looked at me a moment, totally silent, his mouth ready to speak, but no words coming out.
I feared the worst. When I sat up, he did, too, to take my hand and put it on his chest.
“There. It got to my heart,” he said. “Ears, to brain, to heart. It doesn’t take that long, but I wanted to feel it before I answered, to speak it from here.” Patrick placed my other hand atop his, and then made it four, mine, his, mine, his. “That’s how much it means. I love you.”
The wind was noisy. We had to be loud.
“I love you, too, Goose.”
We kissed. His beard was already starting to freeze.
“He loves me, Calvin and Jefferson!” I got even louder. “He loves me!”
One of the big lights outside blinked.
“I think they know that,” Patrick said.
“And I love him, too. I had to tell them.” I stood quite carefully, and then offered assistance to Patrick. “And I won’t take it back this time.”
“Take it back?” With his hand in mine, he leaned in for a kiss, once up on his feet. “You took it back?”
“In my dream. In Heaven. Because I was scared.”
“Ah.” Patrick gently brushed some snow off my nose. It did little good. I felt more land there almost immediately. “And now you’re not?”
I took a breath. We were starting to look like flocked Christmas trees, the kind that made a mess all over the floor. “A little, but it finally feels like I’ll be able to deal with it. You make me believe anything is possible.”
Chapter 5
It took Patrick a while to convince me to go back inside.
“The angels will be covered in snow soon,” I said. It was still coming down, like confetti in Time’s Square at the stroke of midnight at the start of a new year. “Just a few more seconds.”
I was soaked to the skin, teeth chattering, as I stood there in a bargain bin Halloween costume that left nothing to the imagination underneath the harshness of the outdoor mega wattage as those seconds passed.
“Now, Goose?”
“Okay. Now.”
When we finally did reenter the store, the snow globe simile was reversed. Our eyes were at the glass, and outside the store, it looked as if we’d turned things upside down, and then upright to get the white moving.