Beyond the Storm (9780758276995)

by Pittman, Joseph

  She was lying down and staring up at the sky, but she closed her eyes to fend off the rain that continued to dampen her confused state. In her frazzled, rattled mind she tried to process what was happening and what had happened, how long ago . . . but nothing made sense to her. She was tired, for sure, and she was colder than she’d ever before felt in her life. What she wouldn’t give for Dominick’s lush villa on Lake Como, the blazing heat of the Italian sun bearing down on her tanned skin. But that was when? A lifetime ago, now just a passing memory. She’d been warm other times, she had to have been, sweeter memories . . . she thought then of the Forever Yours Senior Prom, when gawky Adam Blackburn had taken her in his nervous grasp for the first time to swirl her around the dance floor. She’d felt surprising warmth then. The dance, her date, her dress . . . Why was she thinking about those silly memories? Why . . . now, and then it hit her, of course, the reunion. She was headed to the reunion to see her long-lost friends who’d stayed while she’d run. She was going to see Adam, all grown up, and finally tell him everything.

  She stopped. She paused. Then she spoke.

  “Adam . . .”

  “It’s okay, miss, please, no more talking. Save your strength.”

  She didn’t understand, but she lay there like a good girl anyway while they attended to her injuries. A soft blanket covered her body in an attempt to stave off further chills. It didn’t help. They poked and they prodded, they applied bandages to her bleeding cuts. Nothing felt right, not her body, certainly not her mind, not anything she had ever previously known. Like she’d become someone other than herself, as though between the time of the accident and being rescued an unforeseen transformation had taken place within her.

  She could hear huddled voices murmuring around her, but she couldn’t decipher words, like she existed in a vacuum. Opening her green eyes, she saw people standing near her. Two men and a woman wearing official uniforms, firemen and EMTs. They were talking with a couple, both of whom appeared to be maybe fifty years old, not much more; she was dowdy and he was robust, and each of them had the look of people who had lived hard, honest lives. They were explaining how they had come to find the accident.

  “Laura’s folks . . . the Turners, they lived just beyond the bend in the road up there, big old farmhouse up on the hill. Her father passed away about six months ago and her mother had to be moved to a nursing home. Myra Turner . . . formerly Myra Ravens, she inherited the house from a kindly old gentleman . . . I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. The house, we don’t know what to do with it. We were coming to close it up for the rest of the season, and we almost didn’t come today because of the weather forecast. We knew thunderstorms were in the forecast, but still, Mom needed some of her belongings. As we were coming down the road, we couldn’t help but notice the skid marks, they looked so . . . fresh, then we saw a section of the cornfield had been mowed down, and not in a natural-like way. So we stopped and that’s when we saw the first car . . . the one where you found the lady. We called you immediately.”

  “Any idea how long ago the crash happened?”

  “Couldn’t say. It was five thirty when we came upon the scene.”

  Vanessa could hear it all, even if it sounded like she was underwater. She could tell them when it happened, the accident had occurred a few minutes after four that afternoon, so based on what they were saying she’d been alone in that car for only an hour and a half, the chill of the rain and the power of the thunder her only company while she waited to be found. But in her mind the timing didn’t seem right at all, surely more time had passed. She had the feeling something more had happened.

  “Well, thank you for stopping, for caring, Mr. and Mrs. Cross,” the chief said, shaking their hands.

  “Will they be okay?”

  “The man we found in the other car, unfortunately, there was nothing more we could do for him. The pretty lady over there, she’s gonna need some attention, so we’re gonna take her to Rochester, closest big hospital to handle what must be internal injuries. Can’t take a chance with a crash like this. But we’re hopeful. Feel free to call the station, ask us for an update. For now, why don’t you two get out of the rain and cozy up in that nice farmhouse of yours. I remember your folks, Mrs. Cross, nice folk. Sorry again to hear about your father. Sad day, all around.”

  “Thank you. They lived full lives when they moved to Danton Hill. They always wanted a house like the one they found. My mother once took care of the old man who built the house, and when he died she inherited it. We never met him, it was before Laura was born. Retirement was good for them. Some nights, they would just sit on the porch swing and watch the world go by.”

  An image flashed in Vanessa’s mind.

  Finally, words that meant something filtered deep into her soul.

  And then she saw the porch swing.

  She saw a couple sitting beside each other.

  They were not elderly. They were ageless, spectral . . . but they belonged together.

  They were . . .

  “Adam,” she spoke, her strained voice a whisper, all she could muster. She wanted to scream it aloud, but she didn’t have the energy. Did she even need to? Surely they . . . no, not them, him. Surely he could hear her.

  “I’m here,” she heard inside her mind, like sounds being telegraphed across the wind, and that’s when Vanessa opened her eyes again, wide, surprised, the world before her fuzzy. He was leaning over her. “You’re going to be fine.”

  “No, I can’t be.”

  “Of course you are,” he said. “Vanessa, I don’t know how you can see me. But you can, right? You can see me?”

  A smile crossed her face. “Yes, yes, I can.”

  “Who am I?”

  “Aidan . . . no, you’re Adam.”

  He bent down, pressed his lips against hers. “Right.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “You can feel my kiss, can’t you?”

  “Yes. It’s like magic, your touch.”

  He gripped her hand, pressed hard, as though even her weakened pulse could heal him and restore his breath. She recalled the farmhouse, and now she remembered the sirens howling in the morning, how their intrusive sound had made her run from the house. She remembered the blazing fireplace and the sweet creak of the swing, the wine and the fresh burst of corn and the way Adam had touched her . . . she remembered it all, the letters and the story of Aidan and Venture. Venture, she thought, and then she gasped with sudden pain. She felt, she remembered it all, the events of the recent past coming back to her like a flood in these cool rains. Cool, she thought . . . cold. Her body shivered.

  “It’s okay, Vanessa. Just hang on.”

  “Not without you,” she said.

  “Don’t be silly. You don’t even know me. I’m just some kid you went with to a dance.”

  “No, that’s not true,” she insisted. “You waited for me, somehow, all these years. I didn’t know, I didn’t believe. Inside, you knew . . . how did you know? Adam, you and I, we danced, yes, back then, but we also danced yesterday or today or whenever this now is. We danced on the porch, and there was no music except between us, and you kissed me and you held me and you made love to me, and we talked, and you learned about what I had done, what I denied you. What the world denied me. You convinced me that I was more than just me, that my heart was yours and my soul was Venture’s. Adam, how is any of this possible?”

  “I don’t know, I can’t explain anything. Perhaps when tragedy strikes it allows life the time to clear your mind before you pass . . . before you’re ready for whatever waits on the other side. Maybe it gives you a chance to reconnect with who you once were before you become the who you’ll forever be. We’re free now, I know what happened and I have no regrets. Nor should you, because it’s time for you to put your demons to rest and finally be free of them. Live your life, Vanessa Massey.”

  “Not without you. Not after what we shared.”

  “No.”

  “I can’t.
We just found each other. After all these years.”

  “It wasn’t real,” he said.

  “But it was, I felt it. You did too.”

  She heard him laugh. “But I’m dead. I can’t feel anything.”

  “I don’t believe you, Adam Blackburn. Aidan Barton.”

  “That I’m dead? Or that I’m some old man who wrote endless letters to the woman he loved and lost?”

  “You’re both, and you’re one and the same. I don’t believe that you can’t feel anything, otherwise you wouldn’t be here by my side. You came back for me. Just as I felt last night . . . that Venture came back to Aidan. I saw her . . . in my reflection. All of us, we found each other in that farmhouse because we’re all the same.”

  “You can’t be sure.”

  “I am.”

  “Vanessa, no, I came to say good-bye.”

  “I’m cold.”

  “Vanessa, hang on.”

  “I don’t want to,” she said. “I want what we had. I want to know if it’s all true.”

  “You don’t know that forever is what we’ll get. It’s too great a leap. If you give up now, we can’t guarantee where the world takes us next. We . . . you, you can’t take that chance. I think the letters filled our minds with crazy fantasy, that the love that existed between Aidan and Venture could inspire us to head to tomorrow. But there’s no tomorrow for me, only for you. You have way too much to live for, the world is out there for you to discover.”

  “I’ve seen it, more than I ever dreamed. What I have left to discover is you, rediscover,” she said, gazing into his blue eyes that sparkled like the azure sea. What she saw beneath them was sunshine, white clouds that blazed across a blazing sky, no more rain and no more thunder, just a new morning filled with promise, a fresh start. In her mind they were beside the lake, and the water was lapping against the sandy shores and they were together, safe and secure and free of the rocky terrain that loomed nearby. She desired what those knowing eyes revealed, a window to some other place she’d never thought possible, where they could be together . . .

  “We need to be together. All of us,” she suddenly said.

  “Vanessa, no, we had our time . . .”

  A smile widened across Vanessa’s face. “I’m cold.”

  “No . . . Vanessa, fight it.”

  But his voice was fuzzy again, a hazy glaze settling over her eyes. She allowed them to close and then she felt a jerk of her body, a violent seizure that knocked her eyes back open. She looked up to find the medic hovering over, scrambling, screaming for help.

  “She’s going into cardiac arrest,” he yelled, “somebody get over here . . .”

  She felt the cold sensations rip through her body. She saw things, so many things. In her mind, flipping, flickering images of the dance, of Danny’s funeral, of Adam in New York, of Reva and Mrs. Stillwell-Abramson and the beautiful capitals of the world in which she’d lived and thrived and died a little death, and then quaint old Danton Hill and the rocky pier called Mercer’s Point where she and Adam had once decided they no longer wished to stake a claim to innocence, where they came together in a tender, desperate moment that maybe never should have happened, except it had and the result was . . .

  Her eyes closed. She felt hands upon her, pumping at her, hitting her chest.

  They were reviving her.

  But they wouldn’t, that’s what she decided.

  She would take a chance.

  She would take that leap of faith into the netherworld. She would follow her heart. She would do as Venture would have done.

  She had to believe, to trust that whatever had happened to her had all been for a reason. The screaming voices of those misunderstood folks trying to revive her echoed in her soggy brain, their sounds fading like the sirens she’d heard earlier today when she’d awakened in the farmhouse after sleeping in the strong arms of the man whom she . . .

  . . . say it, she thought, say it. He has to know, even though you couldn’t say it before, it wasn’t the right time but now it had to be done. Here was the defining, ultimate moment of her life and perhaps its last one too, its final breath. That’s when she again opened her eyes and what she saw, well, it was the most beautiful thing ever.

  Sunshine, bright, glowing,

  For the first time, warmth.

  There she saw a face shining down on her.

  “Adam,” she said. “It’s you . . . Aidan.”

  He smiled and it was the smile she’d waited so many months to see, as she sat upon the beach and stared at the quiet waters of the lake. A smile she never thought she would see again. Not in this lifetime or those she’d patiently waited through.

  “Yes, Aidan, that’s me. But I’m Adam too.”

  “Am I Venture? How can that be, how can I be anyone other than Vanessa?”

  “You are Venture, and you are Vanessa, and perhaps you’ve been others too.”

  “You found me.”

  “More like you found me, saved me, after all this. Sitting in the homeroom class so many years ago. I couldn’t be sure, because how could I? I was just a kid, and what did I know of love in this life, much less a love that defied the ages? But I knew I had to know more about you, and that one day our paths would cross again. Who could ever have imagined how . . .”

  “Or why.”

  “No, we know why, we know because destiny mapped out our lives even when we couldn’t see it, or listen. The world meant for us to find each other, to be together . . . someday, one day, when both of us were ready to believe. Are you, Vanessa, are you ready for what was denied us all this time?”

  Hesitation played no part in her decision. She nodded. She said, “Yes.”

  She reached out, touched his cheek. Her hand felt like it went through him. “Are you real?”

  “Real enough. For you, for me,” he responded.

  “I love you,” she said. “Adam.”

  “I love you too, my sweet, effervescent Vanessa,” he said, and she felt his kiss.

  She allowed his strong arms to encircle her. She realized she was no longer held captive on the gurney, or by the sea for that matter, she was free of their hold, perhaps free of all worldly constraints. And yet here he was, and here she was, they were together, and the horror of the accident was gone. She could barely remember the hard impact or being rescued, nearly being brought back to the living. This moment was perfect—this was how it should be. She kissed him back, and he kissed her again, fiercely, their embrace like one more dance, and this time she actually thought she could hear music, real music that allowed her heart to swell and her body to sway and for the man she adored to sweep her off her feet and into a world of reds and purples where nothing existed but the two of them. The four of them.

  Yet they weren’t alone.

  A sound came toward them, feet upon the soft ground.

  They turned.

  From out of the wild, ripened cornstalks came a small figure. She was adorable, with a smile that brightened everything around them, her hair shimmering with the color of golden wheat and her cheeks apple-like, red and rosy. She extended her hands, both of them, waiting for them each to take hold of her.

  “But who are you?” Vanessa asked, bending down to gaze upon the beautiful girl.

  “Of course you know,” the girl said.

  Vanessa gasped, holding her hand to her beating chest. Her heart, ceaseless in the other world, threatened to leap from her body, so filled with an overwhelming love was it. She wasn’t alive but somehow she was, vibrantly so, she could feel and she could touch and she could reach out and hold this lovely little creature. She could feel her heart swell with pride and amazement. She could feel tears fall from her cheeks like rain and she did nothing to stop them.

  “Elizabeth Grace,” Vanessa whispered. Tremulous, heaving sobs escaped her mouth, yet, combined with joyous laughter, managed to echo across the sky. “My lovely little girl, it’s you, and . . . my . . . how perfect you are.”

  “So beautiful,”
Adam breathed, his face filled with the wonder of just what was possible in this world, “just beautiful . . . both of you . . . my God, this is . . . can it be real?”

  “I don’t know how. But yes, it’s as real as we want it to be.”

  “Come with me,” said the little girl, turning to gaze up at Adam. “Both of you.”

  “Me too?” Adam said with some surprise to his voice.

  “Of course, how silly. That’s how it’s supposed to happen, that’s how it was supposed to be long, long ago,” she said with an innocent but knowing giggle that sounded so much like her mother’s. “Now, take hold of my hand. I’ve been waiting too long for your loving touch. Let’s go, it’s not very far. I have a place to show you. Do you like swing sets?”

  Adam nodded. “Very much so.”

  “But, sweetie,” Vanessa said, crouching down so her expression met the little girl’s eyes. They were emerald green too, a mirror of her mother’s. “Where are you taking us?”

  What she said was so simple, but so telling, and so very right.

  “Someplace where it’s warm and the sun shines all the time and there’s happiness, where stars beam when you want them to and comets soar past you.”

  “And where is that?”

  “Easy,” the magical child said. “Beyond the storm.”

  And that’s when she placed herself between Adam and Vanessa, scrunching her tiny nose up at the both of them, a miniaturized, glowing version of the woman named Vanessa Massey. Vanessa took hold of the little girl’s hand, and the man named Adam Blackburn followed her lead, and together, the three of them began to walk, venturing toward the cornfields, which right now—in this very moment in time—glowed in the encroaching sun, opening up and welcoming them into a world where nothing was known and everything was new.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Beyond the Storm exists because of the generosity of many people.

  Much of the first draft of the novel was written in Brussels, Belgium, and so I send huge thanks to Steven Tallman and Yuri Michielsen for the use of their gorgeous apartment in the Saint-Gilles neighborhood and for providing Vanessa a haven.