“Looks like you have someone to play ‘B’ ball with, Bibby,” Becky said as she strolled out with her son’s dozing head over her shoulder, rubbing his back, trying to get him to burp. “Be careful now. We’re just going to sit here and watch, so don’t go making any of your crazy shots, okay?”
“Okay,” Benji and Bibby answered at the same time, all four of them laughing at the obedience to the mother figure. Jim picked up his head from his mother’s shoulder and joined in the chuckle, finally able to produce a hearty belch that got the group laughing all over again.
Ж
Meanwhile, down the road a bit…
There was never much traffic this far away from the main highway, but today two cars approached the side road from opposite directions at the same time. Gregg leaned his head out the window and hollered, "After you, son."
The dark-haired man in the red Toyota Hilux pickup truck waved the couple through and said, "Age before beauty," then brought his arm to rest on the window frame, his knuckles under his smiling chin to show he would wait patiently for them to proceed. "Besides, I dinna want ye eatin' my dust!" he added when he saw that they were willing to wait, too.
Gregg went ahead and pulled in, but rather than proceed down the drive, pulled forward fifty feet, stopped the car, and turned off the engine. He got out and opened the door for his wife, then waited for his son-in-law to approach.
"What's wrong," Jim asked, as he drove up behind the classic Renault Dauphine and followed Gregg's lead in shutting off the engine.
"Are you sure they're here?" Gregg asked, his arm reaching out to hold onto Mona. Ramona Pomeroy MacKay snuggled her face into her comfort cloth, the fist-held, wadded-up, white and blue embroidered handkerchief. She wiped at her nose again, sniffing back the tears.
Jim got out of the truck and stood next to the nervous pair. "Weel, I can see ye doubtin' me and my waim, but it was Bibby who called ye, aye?" Gregg and Mona nodded at the same time. "And when was the last time she was wrong about seein' things before they happened?" he asked with a big smile of paternal pride.
He was excited and eager to meet his wife's brother, but also knew that this was a traumatic time for his in-laws. They hadn't seen their son in over twenty years and had no reason to believe that he would be here now other than their four-year-old granddaughter’s prognostic proclamation.
"You're right," Mona said. "I mean, it was a lot of money involved flying back from Rome and canceling the trip to Greece and all, but if Benji is really here..." she said trailing off, the sobs beginning anew.
Big Jim reached into his truck and brought out a box of tissues. "Here, I dinna think yer hankie can handle all those tears. Now, I was told to be here no sooner than noon and," he paused and looked up to the sky and then pulled out his smartphone to verify the time, "it's half past twelve now. I'm sure they've had a bit of time to see Becky and the babies. Now it's yer turn," he said, as he ushered the anxious pair back to their car.
Gregg opened the door for Mona, then turned around to face his son-in-law. His mouth opened to speak, then shut without a sound. He tried again, but the words just wouldn't come out.
"Dinna worry about talkin' to him," Jim told his panic-stricken father-in-law. "Jest hold him and let him hold ye. And be glad he's here, even if he is about twenty years late!" he added with a grin. “After you,” he said again, this time certain that they would proceed. After all, there was no turning back now.
Ж
Gregg pulled in next to the shiny silver rental car and felt the tears start. He had been able to hold them off so far—Mona had been crying enough for the two of them. He grabbed a double fistful of the tissues and stuffed them into his jacket pocket, then pawed another big handful and blew his nose. Nobody, but nobody in this region had a rental car. This had to be the one Benji came in. Normally, family would be called to pick up friends or relatives at the airport, and rentals wouldn’t be needed. But, Benji hadn’t called; at least neither Jim nor Becky had been told that he was coming.
It was the little big blessing, Bibb Elizabeth, named after her great-great grandmother so many times over on the Melbourne side, who was the reason they were here today. Bibby was foretelling events even before her words were intelligible. Mona was skeptical when her daughter called and told her that Bibby would point to the telephone and a couple of seconds later, it would ring. “Becky, it must have rung once or twice already, and you just didn’t hear it. Ten-month-old babies can’t have ESP,” she said.
Becky tried telling her mother several times about her psychic sweetie, but Nana remained skeptical. Grandpa was less dubious. “I guess it is possible,” he said. “I mean seers are real. ‘The sight’ is a gift that has been around since histories were shared, oral or written. I suppose it has to start sometime in their lives. It’s just that I’ve never read about a toddler lettin’ Mommy know that Nana is on her way over for a surprise visit.”
Mona interrupted his cautious acceptance of their granddaughter’s gift. “You must have slipped and told her something about us coming,” she insisted.
“No, Mom, he didn’t. I hadn’t talked to Dad for a couple of weeks. And, you said yourself that it was a spur of the moment decision. I think you had just better accept that we have a little seer in the family. Now all I have to do is make sure she doesn’t tell people more than they need to know!”
“Yes, and lots of luck hiding Christmas presents from her,” Grandpa Gregg laughed.
Ж
Jim saw that his in-laws were an emotional mess and needed a guide for their re-acquaintance encounter. “Come on, I hear them at the basketball court. At least, I hope that’s Benji. I wouldn’t expect that Bibby’s voice has changed that much since last week!”
Jim’s joke was met with a couple of weak chuckles and a new wave of tears from Mona. Neither she nor Gregg had ever heard Benji’s ‘grown up’ voice. He was still a squeaker when he was abducted. He was tall for his age, had a little peach fuzz on his cheeks, and his voice was in transition. His youthful singing voice broke and cracked at inopportune times, causing him to be bashful. He was his father’s pride and joy with his love of song. He used to sing whenever he had the chance, but resorted to humming as puberty began, embarrassed at his unpredictable notes. Even his humming was erratic, but he refused to give up vocalizing his Beatles tunes. Benji wasn’t a quitter.
“That, that has to be him,” Mona said, her eyes red-rimmed from the tears that wouldn’t stop. “He sounds like you used to,” she said to Gregg, and turned into him for the comfort of his plaid sports coat.
“Hmm, I sounded pretty good, then,” Gregg said stoically. He gave Mona a full body swing, picking her up as best he could to swing her back and forth like he did with Rebecca, his little Becky, when she was stressed about boys or zitz or a bad hair day. This was a major ordeal, and it probably wouldn’t work for his tall wife, but it was worth a try.
“There, are you all better now?” he asked like a father to a daughter after setting her down.
“Yes,” Mona answered meekly. “You always seem to know the right thing to do. I mean, if I’m acting like a child, then a child’s remedy should fix me, right?”
“…falling, yes I am falling…” Benji’s serenade to his dark-haired ladies continued in the background.
“Right, dear. Come on, we don’t want to miss his finale. And, I want to see who he’s singing to. Bibby did say he had a wife…” Gregg’s voice trailed off as he walked up to the edge of the concrete court with his wife and son-in-law in tow.
“…and kept out of sight…” Benji quit his soliloquy when he saw his mother and father, realizing that the words he had just sung pertained to this moment like no others could. “But I kept out of sight to save ye,” he said, his head hung down in shame as he walked slowly toward his parents, his arms slack at his side.
“What? You don’t give your mother a kiss hello?” Mona blurted out, then rushed into his arms.
Benji’s hands reached around
to pull both parents into him, his eyes now just as wet as his mother’s. The sobs continued for at least three minutes, muffled into each other’s shoulders, faces moving side to side in attempts at wiping wet cheeks and snotty noses on each other’s clothes, nobody caring about the saline and mucous messes they shared.
As the happy trio started to calm down and dry out, a sweet, high voice called out. “I told you so!” Bibby sang. “Aren’t you glad I called you, Nana?”
“Oh, yes, dear,” Mona said, and dipped down to pick up and cuddle her dark-haired little wonder. “We all are.”
Jim dashed back to the car, grabbed the box of tissues, and handed it to the still entwined trio plus one. The adults all wiped eyes, noses, and chins, trying to compose themselves with the cellulose sheets.
“Ahem, ahem.” Jim cleared his throat to get the group’s attention. “I think that a few introductions are in order,” he said boldly with a comedic twist, sidling over to the tall stranger who he assumed was the wife Bibby had foretold. “Hi, I’m Jim, yer brother-in-law, I assume. At least, I am if yer Benji’s wife.”
Jane was ill at ease with the close proximity of the stranger with the unbridled sense of humor and familiarity. She grinned as she realized that he reminded her of a dark-haired Benji. “Yes, I’m Jane, Jane MacKay, your sister-in-law.”
Benji’s eyes widened as he walked away from his parents to his newfound brother-in-law. “Jim? Jim Melbourne?” he asked, although he had figured it out from the last names of his sister and her children, and the man’s short introduction to Janie. “Good God, man, yer tall!”
Jim couldn’t help but laugh, bending over at the waist to keep from being too loud in his surprised reaction to the first words he had heard from his wife’s brother. He stood back up and looked at Benji. “Well, ye’d ken a bit about bein’ tall, aye?” he asked, as he neared the red head. “Not too many people I can look in the eye while I’m standin’ up. Six seven?” he asked.
“Aye,” Benji replied. “And my itty bitty wife is a mere six four,” he replied dryly.
“And that’s why they call him Big Jim,” Bibby crowed. “We don’t have to call my brother Wee Jim or Little Jim, just Jim, because Daddy’s already Big Jim.”
The group shared another laugh, then settled down. “Where’s yer mother?” Jim asked, suddenly uneasy about her absence.
“She was just here,” Gregg answered, then joined the frantic search. “I wouldn’t think that she’d miss this for the world.”
“Mommy!” Bibby screamed. She looked all around and then to her father for help. “Mommy, Mommy!”
“I’m right here, sweetheart. I just had to change your brother’s diaper. Oh, I see your father has met his brother-in-law. Shoot, I missed it. And it looks like it was quite the wet reunion with you three. How about a refill? I made a big batch of lemonade and some scones earlier today on the advice of my daughter. That ought to hold us over until the ham is done.”
Benji reached out for Jane’s hand, then reached around his mother. “Shall we, Dad?” he asked the patriarch of the family.
Gregg sighed with contentment as he put his hand on his son’s shoulder, “We shall.”
49 Genealogy Lessons and Questions
“S o yer a Melbourne,” Benji said to his new brother-in-law, “but not from America, I take it.”
“Nae, I’m from the line that originated with a James Melbourne who sailed from Great Britain over to Australia on The Alexander way back in 1788. He was one of the first white men over there. What a claim to fame: my ancestor arrived with The First Fleet, but he came over as a prisoner, not a marine or an officer. How ironic,” Big Jim added dryly.
“Um, am I missin’ somethin’?” Benji asked.
Big Jim snorted, “I’m a cop! Go figure. I mean, it canna be in the genes; I’m descended from a criminal,” he said and chuckled.
“Weel, the Melbourne I ken in America is a cop, too. Hmm, I wonder if his adopted son—he’s my godson, Mac—will be a cop? Genetics are only part of the equation. Environment makes a big difference. Was yer Da a cop, too?”
“Not really,” Big Jim said solemnly, not wanting to speak of his father. Instead, he changed the subject. “What’s that ye have there, Bibby?”
Bibby picked up her yard long bundle of yellow yarn strands and set it on her Uncle Benji’s lap. “Mommy made this for me so I could learn how to braid. Can you braid?” she asked.
“Aye, but I’d like to use this fer something else. I want to talk about my family with this.” Benji looked up and saw the confused looks on everyone’s face, including the little seer Bibby. He definitely had their attention.
“Most people have a family tree, but keepin’ track of our kin requires somethin’ with more flexibility than wood. So here,” Benji illustrated as he held up the bound end of the yard-long strings of yellow yarn, “the start of our kin, fer my purposes today, begins with Grandpa Jody’s father Raymond.”
“That’s who Nana’s named after, huh?” Bibby interrupted. “Oops, sorry,” she apologized when she realized her rudeness.
“Aye, and one other, but I dinna want to get ahead of myself. Here’s Grandpa Raymond. He had two children who lived to have bairns of their own,” Benji split the hank down the middle, “Jody Pomeroy and Elly Kincaid.”
Benji smoothed out the long pieces and continued. “Elly had four children who lived to have children of their own,” he said as he split one section into four, “and Grandpa Jody has had five children, two of them who I ken have had children.” He pulled out two strands and set them out.
“Five!” Gregg, Mona, and Becky all exclaimed at the same time.
“Weel, the first one, Hope, dinna make it. Then there’s ye, Wallace, and the twins. But, I dinna ken about them havin’ bairns; they were too small to be marrit when I left.” Benji saw the shocked looks and realized that they didn’t know about his wee uncles. “Ye dinna read about them in The Letters?”
All three heads shook back and forth slowly. “Ach, those must be The Letters they had in the second batch. Grannie did say somethin’ about not putting all her eggs in one basket. Quick answer is ye have two more brothers: Wee Julian and Raymond. They’re the same age, or were when I left, as Jim there. Zodiac twins, right Bibby?”
Bibby Liz bobbed her up and down rapidly; they had spoken of her wee uncles earlier.
“Over on this side, yer Great Aunt Elly’s side, we jest want to be concerned with one of her children, Ian Kincaid.” Benji pulled out the clump of yarn representing him, and tossed the other tresses back. “And, here is his son, Wee Ian.”
“And, over on Grandpa Jody’s side we start with Ramona and her daughter Becky and her two children, Bibby and Jim,” he said, and wiggled the one strand that represented Bibby, winking at her. “Then her son, me, but I dinna have any bairns yet.”
“Except for your godson, huh?” Bibby Liz interjected.
Benji shared a quick look of shock with Jane. She put her head down quickly and squeezed her eyes shut. Benji took a quick breath, ignored the remark, and then continued, “And, accordin’ to ye, Miss Bibb Elizabeth, yer Aunt Janie and I will have six children, but we’re not concerned with me and my line right now,” he said, dismissing her embarrassing revelation.
Benji saw the look of shock on his mother’s face and subtle smirk on his father’s; they both knew something was up, but were genteel enough to stay mum.
“So next here,” he said as he pulled out another length of yellow yarn, “yer Uncle Wallace who is marrit to Evie. They have, or had when I left, three bairns a little over a year old, an adopted daughter, Jenny, about eleven, and a grown up daughter, Leah, who was, is, marrit to James Melbourne.”
Benji watched Big Jim’s face fall as he made the revelation. During his little genealogical lesson, Big Jim was polite, but hadn’t been rapt like the rest of the family. After all, they weren’t his blood kin. Or so he thought.
“Melbourne?” he squeaked in shock, then cleared his throat
and tried again, this time an octave lower. “James and Leah Melbourne?”
“And ye see,” Benji started grandly, then took it down to almost a whisper as he asked his sister, “he kens, right?”
“He’s been told,” Becky said with a slight tinge of disgust and a glance at their parents. They nodded in agreement with what she was saying, “But he doesn’t believe.”
“He thinks we’re a bit dotty,” Gregg said with an eye roll and sneer. He didn’t like being tolerated, but at least his son-in-law accepted that they believed in time travel and didn’t try and make them feel small about it.
“Actually, James and Leah went back to Grandpa and Grannie’s from this time, a little over a year ago. Their first child, Bibb Elizabeth Melbourne, was born six months ago in 1782. And since James and Leah were born in the mid 1980s, that means they were, what, negative 200 years old when she was born?”
“James Melbourne, my great-great however so many times grandfather, was born in the 1980s?” Jim asked softly, then pulled in his neck and scoffed. He had believed Benji for a split second, but no longer than that. This line of reasoning was creative fabrication, homegrown science fiction with a twist that included his family name in order to try and drag him into the fantasy.
Benji cleared his throat and looked first at his parents, and then at Jim. Gregg and Mona both had furrowed brows of recollection. They remembered the horrific pain they had endured traveling through the stones, the Stonehenge-type formations that were the portals to the past. They had gone through them to be with her 18th century parents, and then went through again to come back to the 20th century.
Big Jim looked curious, but was not convinced. Yup, he was probably a good cop, Benji reckoned, because he wasn’t gullible. Hard evidence would be needed for this man.
“Yes, and that same James Melbourne’s brother is the father of my godson back in North Carolina. So, how do you explain that one?” Benji asked with pride. “What kind of uncle is he to ye: yer great-great however so many times over, or just a plain uncle?”
The Great Big Fairy Page 41