Between Now and Forever

by Margaret Duarte

  After flinging open the door, Joshua circled my waist with both arms and pressed against me with the enthusiasm and innocence that make eight-year-olds so lovable. “You’re taller,” I said, unable to express the elation I felt. Okay, so his head fit higher against my chest than last time he’d given me such a selfless hug, but was this all I could say? You’re taller.

  Joshua straightened and gave me a gap-toothed smile. That’s how it was with him. No matter what I said or did, I was his hero. Only a major screw up on my part would diminish his admiration and love. My only consolation was that my intentions were good, screw-ups and all.

  “Hi Gabriel.” Joshua stroked the cat struggling to escape my grasp.

  Though he preferred not to be held, Gabriel went limp and purred when I released him into Joshua’s arms.

  I’d felt Morgan’s presence the moment I entered the house and knew he was as eager I was for a kiss and hug. Yet he held back, allowing Joshua to bask in my attention. “Hi, Morgan,” I said, once the cat had claimed ownership of Joshua’s world. Then I stepped into his arms for that long-awaited greeting.

  He smelled like home.

  “We were worried about you driving in the fog,” he said, still holding me tight.

  Not half as worried as he would have been had he known I’d taken the levee roads in.

  “Sit down, dear, before your pancakes get cold,” Morgan’s mother called from the front of the stove.

  Morgan kissed my cheek and ushered me through the large open dining room to the kitchen table. Actually, it was more of a booth, like in a restaurant, a leather bench curved around a kidney-shaped table. I scooted in and Morgan slid in next to me. Joshua crawled in from the opposite side. Morgan’s father grinned over his newspaper from one of the captain’s chairs at the open end of the table, as though accustomed to the role of silent observer. Two Border collies rested at his feet.

  “Maple syrup, blackberry syrup, or sugar?” Carla asked as she set a plate of crepe-like pancakes in front of me.

  I smiled at my future mother-in-law, feeling as though I’d just been wrapped in a warm blanket. “Maple syrup will be fine.”

  ***

  Carla refused my help with the dishes, suggesting instead that I go check out the progress of our future home. “See if all is going according to plan,” she said, as though I’d even think of voicing my opinion. My position as Morgan’s future wife and newest member of the van Dyke clan was still too precarious for that. Her blonde hair was styled in a short bob that required only a quick comb through to look neat and stylish. Her face was free of makeup, rosy with good health. She wore jeans and a chambray shirt, her body fit and trim. She had to be in her mid-fifties but looked more like forty. Farm life agreed with her. A good sign.

  “We have a surprise for you,” Morgan said as we headed out the door.

  The fog had lifted like a curtain on a stage, and the sun felt warm on my skin. I took in a deep breath, appreciating the earthy farm smell.

  “We’re sleeping in the new house tonight,” Joshua blurted, “and looking at the stars.”

  I hardly considered a slab foundation with rough framing a house, though the solidness of this load-bearing portion of the structure had transformed a blueprint of confusing lines, symbols, and numbers into reality.

  “Like it?” Morgan asked as we neared the stark frame of my future home.

  It was hard visualizing the completed house, considering it currently looked like a bunch of Popsicle sticks glued together. “Love it.” When we’d picked out the plan, I found the project generous to the extreme. According to Morgan, dairy farming was not the most lucrative of businesses, considering most of the profits were reinvested in land, equipment, and repairs. The house under construction resulted from much sacrifice, not only on Morgan’s part, but that of his parents, brother, and sister-in-law. This project would set the business back for years, and I vowed to make it up to them.

  Morgan pulled me into an embrace and kissed the top of my head. “A dream come true.”

  I returned his kiss. “For both of us.”

  Joshua squeezed in between us. “How about me?”

  “You,” I said, “are the center.”

  “You,” Morgan added, “are the king.” He tousled Joshua’s hair. “But even kings get tired, so how about rolling out the sleeping bag in your tent, so all is ready in case you conk out during our stargazing?”

  I laughed, noticing two tents separated by vertical two-by-fours. “Bedrooms without walls.” There would be no privacy for us tonight.

  Morgan held up a canvas tarp. “Wall.”

  Confining. Freeing. “Guess beggars can’t be choosers.”

  He twitched his eyebrows like Groucho Marx, though sexier. “When there’s a will, there’s a way.” And when I took in his green eyes, full lips, and the dimples in his cheeks, I sensed a definite will on my part to put a temporary wall, no matter how flimsy, between one small eight-year-old and his adult companions.

  But that wouldn’t be for a while.

  I looked up at the sky and wondered if the fog would descend again and obscure our nighttime view. But I said nothing, not about to destroy the moment.

  Chapter Ten

  “WE HAVE ANOTHER SURPRISE, don’t we, Morgan?” Joshua said, his eyes glimmering like brown orbs. “Can I tell her?”

  “Might as well.” Morgan waved at his brother David who’d just driven up to the farmhouse in his white Ford pickup. I’d met David when he was studying at Saint Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park. Morgan and his family made regular trips from Elk Grove to visit him and often celebrated Mass at the Church of the Nativity, which I also attended. Eventually, David left the seminary and his younger brother, John Phillip, became the priest instead. The priest who would officiate at our upcoming wedding.

  “We’re going to ride horses to the woods so you can see the Cosumnes River,” Joshua said, a bundle of energy that fueled me. “The water makes lots of noise, like a water fall.”

  On a previous visit, Morgan had told me about the woods that stretched for miles behind their property, land left undisturbed since the time of the Native American. The owners, an elderly couple in San Francisco, planned to donate it to the Nature Conservancy after their death. Until then, Morgan’s family and a few neighbors had sole access.

  “Last summer, I got to swim in the river,” Joshua said. “Without a life jacket.”

  In response to my inquiring gaze, Morgan explained, “During the summer months, the river runs low and the current is practically nonexistent, just strong enough to keep the water from going stagnant. There’s an ideal spot for swimming with its own little beach.”

  “Where we swing from ropes and jump from trees,” Joshua added.

  Although this was exactly what my Indigo students needed, open space, freedom, and fresh air, I gasped at the thought of Joshua swinging from ropes and jumping from trees.

  “Uh, Joshua,” Morgan said. “We weren’t supposed to share that bit of information with Marjorie, remember?”

  “Sorry,” Joshua said.

  Before I could complain about their antics, Carla called from the house. “Wait up. I packed you a lunch.” That meant she’d been in on the surprise, too. The van Dykes were one big happy family, and part of their intimacy came from sharing. Too much emphasis placed on privacy and self-protection, by their way of thinking, built walls that led to mistrust and misunderstanding.

  “Thanks, Mom.” Morgan took the insulated lunch tote from her and handed it to me. “Time’s a wasting, Josh. We’d better saddle up if we want to get back before dark.”

  Carla scooped up Gabriel with both hands, his butt facing forward in a football carry, a sign of her familiarity with cats and their need for a secure hold. “Better leave Gabriel with me. He disappears on long excursions, which upsets Joshua to no end.”

  I shook my head. Some things never change.

  ***

  I wasn’
t prepared for the silence.

  Not on land between two major freeways and two growing towns. Morgan called it the Cosumnes River Preserve. I dubbed it the Land in Between.

  We entered the woods using the winding dirt road that connected it to Morgan’s farm and experienced complete and utter silence. Sure, we heard the clip-clop-clip-clop of horses’ hooves, along with the occasional squawks and songs of birds (over 200 species according to Morgan) and the sporadic movement of animals concealed behind bushes and trees. Otherwise, it was so quiet I could hear myself breathing.

  No one spoke, deciding by some unvoiced agreement to advance as if on sacred ground. As we wove through the canopy of valley oaks, I inhaled the musty air with the greed of someone long deprived of oxygen, recalling the time we’d spent together in the Los Padres National Forest. It had been peaceful there, too, until a lightning storm had triggered events I hoped never to repeat.

  The sound of rushing water broke the silence.

  “We’re almost there,” Joshua said.

  We guided our horses down an inclined path to the edge of the swiftly moving river. Morgan pitched his voice to be heard above the water’s roar. “The Cosumnes is the last undammed river running from the Sierras into the Central Valley. The sandy beach I told you about is a side arm of the river, dry in the summer but now covered with water. Swimming here can be dangerous this time of year. The water looks calm on top, but the undercurrent has enough power to tow even a strong swimmer along for miles, totally at its mercy.”

  Like my new job, I thought before I could suppress it.

  “There’s whirlpools,” Joshua said.

  I felt my own undercurrent, that of fear, and wondered if we should back our horses up a bit. As if sensing my concern, Morgan turned his mount and headed back up the incline. I was about to do the same when I glimpsed someone standing on the opposite bank of the river. “Morgan. I think I see one of your neighbors.”

  He twisted in his saddle. “It’s usually just us…”

  I pointed toward the man with long black hair, naked, except for a loin cloth of grass or bark fiber and an animal pelt over his shoulder. He held a stick in one hand and what appeared to be a dead jackrabbit in the other.

  Morgan looked in the direction I was pointing. “I don’t see anyone.”

  The man was short, five-foot-four tops, with dark, deep-set eyes and a wide nose. “There,” I said, jabbing my finger at the solitary figure. “Looks like he’s been skinny dipping.”

  “Do you see anyone, Joshua?” Morgan asked.

  Joshua sat on his mount, head erect, eyes wide, as he’d appeared when I first met him in Dr. Mendez’s office, engrossed, even amused. “He’s from before.”

  A shiver shot through me. I should have been accustomed to my intuitive gifts by now, but my logical mind rejected what I saw. “An Indian?”

  “Probably a Miwok,” Morgan said. He’d grown accustomed to Joshua and my psychic abilities by now without understanding or trying to change them. “Of the Cos-os tribe that once lived in this area. They gave the Cosumnes River its name. One of their burial mounds was discovered near here in the sixties.”

  “They may be our ancestors, Joshua,” I said before realizing this was unlikely. Though we were both half Native American, my mother and Joshua’s father were descendants of the Esselen tribe, otherwise known as the Ohlone/Costanoan Esselen Nation, located in Carmel Valley and Big Sur. The Miwok and Esselen were distinct tribes, therefore didn’t mingle.

  “He sees us,” Joshua said.

  “And we’re probably a scary sight sitting on horseback, especially me with my blonde hair flapping in the breeze. You’d think he’d be running for cover.”

  “He thinks he’s dreaming,” Joshua said. “To him, we’re like spirits. Let’s sing a song, so he’ll remember us when he goes back to where he came from.”

  “Good idea. Like a healing incantation. What do you suggest?”

  “Something easy, like Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”

  Little did Joshua know the symbolic significance of the song he’d chosen: the boat representing our lives, with ourselves at the oar; the stream representing the stretch of time; Merrily, merrily indicating it’s all about attitude; and Life is but a dream suggesting we don’t see what we see, but what we want to see.

  I turned to Morgan.

  He chuckled. “Let’s do it.”

  We repeated the song three times, while the slack-shouldered Miwok listened in silence.

  I glanced at Joshua. His face beamed with an inner glow.

  When I turned back to the Miwok, he was gone.

  “We were looking into the past,” Joshua said, “and the Miwok was looking into the future. It’s all mixed up, isn’t it, yesterday, today, and tomorrow?”

  Mixed up? Hell, yes. So many unanswerable questions: Do we exist in time, or does time exist in us? “I think so.”

  “Ready to go?” Though Morgan had accepted the reality of Joshua and my psychic gifts, he kept his feet firmly planted on the ground. “I know of a great spot to eat lunch. Under a giant oak over eight hundred years old.”

  I winked at Joshua. “Might as well picnic under a tree that spans the past, present, and future and once provided our Miwok friend with acorns and shelter.”

  “We’re family,” Joshua said with such conviction I believed him.

  ***

  We returned to the ranch house for dinner—steak, mixed green salad, and baked potatoes. But this time Carla had help: David, his wife, Linda, and their sons, Todd and Jon. All pitched in to lighten her load. David and Morgan’s father, Leonard, sat at his usual place at the kitchen table with the two Border collies at his side. He looked up and smiled. “Have a good time?”

  “Wonderful,” I said.

  Morgan glanced at Joshua and winked, the Miwok sighting remaining our secret.

  Linda put her hands on her jean-clad hips with an exaggerated sigh. “Well, Todd and Jon were fit to be tied when you slipped away without inviting them. Next time they’ll be watching.”

  “Next time, they can come, too,” Joshua said. He and his cousins exchanged a high five.

  Linda’s cropped hair, pert nose, and saucer-sized eyes made her look like a pixie. But there was nothing pixie about the way she took to the role of mother and farmer’s wife. She drove tractors and trucks, fed calves, even milked cows in a pinch. “Marjorie has to put up with a bunch of clowns like you when she returns to Menlo Park. Don’t you think she needs a break?”

  “No,” Todd and Jon said as one. They also had farm duties. On weekends and during school breaks, they helped feed calves and herd cows for milking. Plus, they assisted their mother and grandmother with household chores when needed.

  “Marjorie likes kids,” Joshua said.

  Linda glanced at Morgan and laughed, her sense of humor refreshing.

  David slid his thumb and index finger across his mouth in a my-lips-are-sealed gesture, as if he knew what lay ahead for Morgan.

  Todd and Jon followed the exchange wide-eyed. As far as I could tell, they were polite and attentive to Joshua. They called him “cuz” and taught him everything about farm life from the perspective of a kid, like how to vault over baled hay in the field and build forts once the bales were stacked in the barn.

  After dinner, Morgan, Joshua, Gabriel, and I headed for our future home to camp beneath the stars. Once we’d settled onto blankets on the plywood floor, framed by wall studs and roof rafters and warmed by a pagoda fireplace, I told them about my future class of Indigos and their special talents.

  Seeing Morgan frown, I asked, “Is something wrong?”

  “Could Joshua be an Indigo?”

  “It’s possible,” I said, having wondered the same myself. “I’ll know more by June. Meanwhile, why not treat him as such?”

  “Which is how?”

  I smiled at Morgan’s look of concern. What a kind and loving father he’d make for Joshua and our fut
ure children. “Exactly, as you’re treating him now.”

  Joshua bundled next to me with Gabriel curled at his feet. No sooner had Morgan pointed out Orion, The Hunter, and Taurus, The Bull, then the child’s head dropped to its side.

  Morgan’s eyes glistened with a promise of what lay ahead.

  ***

  With only Popsicle sticks and a tent separating us from the outside world, the following morning started early—2:00 a.m. to be exact—with the milker herding cows to the barn, whistling and calling “Ándale! Ándale!” Bulls blared in protest of the disruption to their harem, followed by the steady hum of milking equipment, which lulled me back to sleep. The next sound to wake me was the tractor loading grain, silage, and hay into the box of the feed truck, followed by the grinding of truck augers. On and on came the reassuring sounds of a dairy farm coming to life.

  Morgan had been awake since five, the normal start to his day. “Sleeping when your body’s programmed for action takes some getting used to,” he said. “I’m alert to the cows’ moos, which tell me what’s going on. Happy cows are quiet cows. But when their moos get loud and high-pitched, something’s wrong. If a cow escapes the corral, her herdmates moo as if singing in a choir before following her out. And if a cow is in trouble, the herd makes a different sound, like blares of sympathy, recognizable to any dairyman worth his salt.”

  Joshua slept through it all.

  “He’s used to it,” Morgan said. “Plus, he knows he’s safe and surrounded by people he loves.”

  If Joshua was an Indigo, he was getting exactly what he needed—love and a solid emotional foundation. The farm and its occupants had a similar effect on me, but I wasn’t yet ready to commit to that kind of security. Morgan visualized me as a butterfly, beautiful and fully formed, while I saw myself as only emerging from my cocoon. I needed time to integrate the changes going on inside, which meant more time in Menlo Park to prepare for my first flight.