“Up until now we’ve had no reason to doubt her,” Bradshaw added.
“She’s my angel,” Charles said. “She can do anything she wants.”
Annie rolled her eyes and climbed back into the chamber.
Chapter 79
June 18, 2007
The next time Annie climbed from the chamber, instead of Charles blocking her way, it was Aunt Gracy. Past the point of being surprised by anything, and trying to act as nonchalant as possible while avoiding the old woman’s eyes, Annie rubbed her hands together, felt her cheeks and then brushed snow off her butt and legs. “I should have worn a coat. Fell in a snow bank. The temperature was in the twenties. Could have been worse, I guess. So many things one has to think about when she time-travels.” She pushed around her aunt. Patrick was not in his usual spot. “I need to go stand out in the sun.” She opened the door and called back over her shoulder. “Go ahead and shut it down, guys. I’m fairly certain we’re done.”
“You’d the hell best be done, young lady,” Gracy said just before the door closed.
Annie stood on the landing looking for Patrick. Only Uncle Henry sat watching her. She went down the steps and walked over to him.
“You’re covered with snow,” he said.
She brushed at it. “Just when I called for my wormhole taxi, I slipped and fell in a snowbank.” Noticing his perplexed look and realizing he likely had no idea what she was talking about, she said, “I’m sorry Uncle Henry.” She waved her hand in the air. “For all of this.”
“You didn’t do this, Annie. Your grandfather did.”
“But I feel like I need to apologize.”
“And that you do, but not for this. How long have you known us?”
“My entire life.”
He nodded his head. “Have you ever not been able to trust us?”
Annie shook her head and dropped her chin.
“Sit down, Annie,” Gracy said from behind her.
Annie stiffened and then walked to her pink chair and sat. Her aunt pulled a chair around to face her; Henry adjusted his so that they both faced her.
After a minute of uncomfortable silence, Annie said, “I’m sorry Aunt Gracy.”
“For what?”
Annie raised her head up to meet her aunt’s eyes. “I . . .”
“You have no idea, do you?”
Annie started crying as she shook her head.
“When you were returned to us in November of 1987, a tiny, screaming baby, and then your mother didn’t make it, we vowed to guide and protect you for as long as we were mentally and physically able to do so. I don’t believe we are senile enough yet that you would need to write us off. Otherwise you wouldn’t have called us.”
Annie’s tears continued to flow.
“Right?”
Annie nodded. “Yes.”
“You trusted us enough to call, but once we got here you no longer trusted us.”
“But you said it had to be shut down.”
“We spent our lives in Washington saying the things we felt needed to be said, even if they were not the popular things to say. But in the end, before we cast our votes, we looked at all the corners of every issue and took what we felt was the most prudent action, the best for our country. We’re no different now than we were then.
“Of course we arrived here saying this needed to be shut down, which it still does and I was glad to hear you say it, too, just a minute ago. But we would not have taken any action until we heard all the facts because it would have to be shut down timely and safely. We were upset because you didn’t trust us in that, and kept going behind our backs.”
“Oh,” Annie said, wiping tears from her cheeks. “I really did think you would put an immediate end to it all and I knew there was more that had to be done.”
“All you would have had to do was tell us that, lay it all out for us, how it came about, where you thought it was going and why.”
Annie took a deep breath to try and clear her crying. “I really am sorry.”
Gracy relaxed back in her chair. “I have to apologize, too.”
“For what?”
“For not understanding what you’d just been through; your husband and then your grandmother and grandfather.”
“We weren’t being very sensitive,” Henry said.
Annie wiped away the last of her tears. “It’s okay.” She looked at her watch. “I still haven’t fixed my watch. It feels so weird that I lost two days. It’s like I’m several paces behind everybody else. I still keep thinking it’s Saturday.”
“I’m sure it’ll all settle out. It’s 5:22.”
Annie fooled with the buttons on her watch until she got it set. “I’ve got one more thing to do.” She held up her hand. “Nothing to do with time-travel; just have to put into motion something I just set up in February. Where’s Patrick?”
Henry pointed toward the river. “He went that way.”
Annie stood to go look for him.
“Your neighbors, Mary and Richard have been asking about you,” Gracy said.
With everything that had been going on, Annie had forgotten about them. She hadn’t talked to Mary since Thursday, and now here it was . . . Monday!
“What did you tell them?”
“That you flew back to Boston to take care of some unfinished business and that you’d return in a couple of days.”
“Thank you.”
“Your dad talked with Chuck West at Grizzly Ranch. He continued to stay in your cabin. Your uncle and I have accommodations in Kalispell. None of them know about these guys here, or your grandfather. We believe you’re all covered.”
Annie nodded her head. “Okay.” She looked over at the RV. “How is Grandfather?”
“As best as can be expected. He became angry when we arrived about thirty minutes ago and retreated to his bedroom.”
“I’ll go see him in a bit.”
“Patrick seems to be a good kid,” Henry said.
“Do you think it might be too soon, though?” Gracy said.
“Too soon?”
“You and Patrick.”
“Oh! Don’t worry, Aunt Gracy. I’m not ready, though I’m much better than I was a week ago. I think Patrick and I are going to be nothing more than very good friends for a while.” Annie started to add something onto that and then closed her mouth.
“Does he know that?” Henry asked.
“That’s part of what I still need to do. I think he’ll be okay.” With that, Annie stood. “I’d better get to it.”
She found Patrick not far up river, sitting on a rock, staring out across the moving water.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
No room on the rock, she plopped onto the ground, cross-legged, not sure if the silence was comfortable or uncomfortable.
“So,” he said, “you all done?”
“Yes.” And then she remembered, looked at her watch and said, “No. We’ve got someplace to go and I think they close at six.” She jumped to her feet and grabbed his hand. “Come on. You’re driving.”
At three minutes after six Patrick swung his Blazer into a parking spot in front of Pack It In Sports. He looked at Annie. “Are you going to tell me now what we’re doing here?”
“Let’s go in.”
“They’re closed.”
“I know for a fact that they’ll open up for me.”
Patrick squinted and furrowed his brow. “What are you up to?”
“You’ll see.” She got out and headed for the door. It was after six o’clock and the sign in the window to the left of the door had been turned to read, CLOSED; however, the door was unlocked. Annie held it partially open until Patrick joined her and then they entered together.
Bill and Cassandra Small stood side-by-side in front of the checkout counter, two smiling faces full of apprehension.
“Bill and Cassandra,” Annie said, “I hope you remember me.”
The couple looked at each other, relief flooding over them. Th
ey turned back and Cassandra said, “Of course we remember you, Annie. We’ve been expecting you, or at least were hoping you’d show.”
“Sorry about that thing three weeks ago. I . . .”
Bill held up his hand. “We understand. You didn’t want your mother to know what you were up to.”
“My mother?”
“I had a hard time getting my foot out of my mouth. I hope I didn’t cause you any trouble. But you did warn us. I was just so surprised when suddenly, there you were. You didn’t tell us you’d be with your mother, though.”
Annie thought about that for a few seconds. Mary! “No, that wasn’t my mother. I guess I’d forgotten to mention that I’d be in with my friend Mary. I was joking with her when I called her, mother.” Since Annie’s conversation with the Smalls had happened barely an hour before, on her clock anyway, she knew exactly what she’d told them. She’d come into the business brushing snow off her butt, mad at herself because she didn’t think about landing in February in Northwest Montana.
“I’m interested in purchasing your business,” she’d told them. As she’d expected they’d laughed at the notion, not at all taking her seriously. Still, she persisted and they talked for a time. She told them where she was from and that she had recently lost her husband in Iraq. She convinced them that she was for real and had the funds for a full cash purchase and that she really wouldn’t want to start the ball rolling until June 18th, when she’d return. They promised they’d give it some thought, more as a way of humoring her, she was sure. But she had planted the seed. She’d told them she’d pass through on May 28th, but warned them that she would not be at all inclined to talk, would probably not even acknowledge that she had been by three months before, that they should treat the visit, and her purchase of a backpack, as nothing more than a confirmation that she was still serious, no matter what she said to them. They’d found that odd but continued to humor her. She’d told them that when she arrived in June, she hoped they’d have a figure ready for her, and that she would counter offer immediately.
“So,” Annie said after a bit of silence. “What I mentioned back in February is still on the table. My impression from my visit three weeks ago is that you have thought about it and have changed your mind.”
“Yes, we have.”
“Do you have a figure?”
Bill Small extracted a folded piece of paper from his breast pocket and handed it to her. Annie opened it and looked at it. Her eyebrows went up. “May I borrow a pen?”
Cassandra reached across the counter and came back with a pen, the words, “Pack It In” engraved on the side.
Annie drew a line through Bill’s figure and wrote a new one above it. She handed it back.
Bill and Cassandra looked at it together. Both of their eyebrows went up. “This is $50,000 more than what we asked!”
“It comes with a condition.”
“And that is?”
“Your current employees stay in place and you two phase out over the next three to six months as you train my manager. The additional $50,000 is to pay his salary during that time. The quicker he catches on, the quicker you’ll be fully retired and the more of the $50,000 you’ll be able to keep.”
The couple looked at each other for a few seconds, seeming to come to a wordless agreement, a skill developed over decades of marriage, Annie guessed. She had seen it between Mary and Richard as well and for a very brief second wondered if she’d ever achieve that with someone.
Bill held out his hand. “I think you have yourself a deal.”
Annie accepted his hand. “Would one month from today be enough time to provide a full inventory and have all the legal mumbo-jumbo drawn up?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“I’ll have the $50,000 wired to you by week’s end as a down payment. Can my manager come on board a week from today.”
“Who will your manager be?” Cassandra asked, her eyes drifting over to Patrick.
Annie turned around to Patrick, whose mouth hung half open, a sliver of drool hanging on a lip. “You interested in the job? I’ll pay you twice what you’re making at Wal-Mart.”
“What?”
“I certainly hope you are because I just agreed to purchase a business and I sure don’t know anything about hiking boots and fishing rods. Is a week notice to Wal-Mart enough, you think?”
A long, uncomfortable silence made Annie realize she should have talked to Patrick before putting him on the spot. She hoped she didn’t make a huge mistake. And then she saw something in his eyes and started to reach out for him. “Patrick!” But it was too late. She got a hold of his arm but managed little more than keep him from slamming his head against a display rack as he crumpled to the floor.
“Oh my God!” Cassandra declared. “I’ll call 911.”
“No!” Annie said. “He’ll be fine in a few seconds. He’s done this before.”
After a minute she and Bill helped Patrick sit up. It was another minute before he was fully aware of where he was and what happened. He looked at Annie. “I’m as bad as you. Look what you’ve done to me?”
Annie tilted her head. “So, is that a yes?”
Patrick shook his head. “You’re something else. You’d be one hell of a woman to live with.”
“This isn’t a marriage proposal, Erik Patrick O’Reilly, Junior. This is a job offer. Yes or no?”
Patrick turned his head to the floor and shook it back and forth.
Annie stood and said to Bill and Cassandra. “Sorry. I really thought he’d be onboard. I’m going to have to put a call out for resumes.”
“Yes!” Patrick interrupted from the floor. “Yes! I’ll take the job.” He stood. “You are one crazy woman!”
“You know,” Cassandra said while she and Annie watched across the length of the store as Bill led Patrick about, pointing out this and that, “we were concerned that we would wind up selling out to some rich, east coast investor and having it turn into a cold and impersonal box store.”
“You’re not worried about me doing that? I’m east coast.”
“You never stuck us as being that way. I trust that your agenda is honorable.”
Annie continued to watch Patrick, impressed by the fluidity of his motion. Suddenly he looked at her and grinned. What exactly was her agenda? “I like what you and Bill have built here, Cassandra, and I’m going to rely on Patrick to keep it that way.”
Cassandra put her hand on Annie’s arm. “Please don’t do that. It’s a good business but it needs to keep up with the times; be brought into the twenty-first century.”
Annie just nodded her head.
“When you showed up here out of thin air, four months ago, announced your intent and then disappeared just as mysteriously, I knew something special had taken place.”
“You did?”
“Remember the movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where Richard Dreyfuss becomes obsessed with visions of a mountain?”
Annie shook her head. “Don’t recall that movie.”
Cassandra looked at her. “Oh dear. Way before your time. Talk about aging myself. Anyway, Dreyfuss has these visions that lead to a spectacular event . . . the arrival of a huge alien mother ship.”
“Sounds weird.”
“You had to have been there, I guess. Well, it’s been sort of like that for me.”
“You’ve had visions?”
“Not visions; more like feelings . . . anticipations. Prior to February 17th we’d been quite content in our day-to-day existence. No, not content; definitely not the right word. Resigned. We were resigned that we would run this business until we couldn’t anymore, and then we would die. Our punishment.”
Annie started to ask, punishment for what, and then thought better of it. She’d recognized the similarity between Bill & Cassandra and Richard & Mary, a sadness that seemed to wrap them. She wondered if Bill and Cassandra had lost a child as well.
“And then you showed up like an angel out of the blue.”
The second time in one day Annie had been called an angel.
“Bill wrote you off as a freak or some such thing, but not me. Like I said, I had feelings and if Bill hasn’t learned anything else in our 35 years together, he has learned to not ignore my feelings. We talked about you for several weeks after your visit and then on March 1st decided to begin preparing to sell. Have to say, though, that Bill wasn’t completely on board until you showed May 28th. After that he counted the days along with me. And today, I was on pins and needles. Gave the employees the day off because we didn’t know what time you’d show.”
“When 6:00 came and I wasn’t here yet, I can only imagine what you were thinking.” Annie couldn’t believe she’d generated that much excitement by just saying she wanted to purchase the business.
“Bill’s shoulders were drooping but I still had hope.” Silence filled the space for a few moments and then Cassandra said, “So, I imagine you guys will have some fresh new ideas.”
“I do have some thoughts on expansion.”
“Like what?”
Annie considered the conversation she and Patrick had had only a few hours before. “Building on a classroom. Do you hold classes of any kind?”
“No, but we have talked about it; just never got it going.”
“What would you think to being hired back now and then to teach?”
“I don’t know about me, but Bill would be thrilled. To be truthful with you I think he is going to go stir-crazy if he doesn’t get out of the house now and then. You’d be doing both him and me a favor, if you know what I mean.”
Annie looked at her blankly. “I guess I don’t know what you mean.”
“After thirty-five years together there are still times I wish he would go away. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about giving up our marriage, just some breathing room. He can be so smothering sometimes and the thought of being stuck together in the same handful of rooms for the rest of our lives . . . what I’m saying is that two people, no matter how much they love each other, need time away regularly so that they can appreciate their time together.”
“But you guys are always together here.”
Cassandra shook her head. “Not by a long shot. He runs this business, eats and breathes it. I work in the store dealing with customers at max 12 hours a week, another 8 on premises keeping the books. The rest of my bookkeeping duties I do from home.”
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