Don’t die.
“I need to ask you something,” Jed says slowly. “Right before the accident, you said something about Minnie forgetting ground cloves. Lorraine said she had tried to borrow cloves and that was what she was going out to buy. Then, when Arnold drove by, you almost seemed as if…”
He trails off and looks at her, shaking his head.
“As if what?” she whispers.
“As if you knew what was going to happen.”
Clara takes a deep breath.
I have to at least try, just one more time.
“That’s because I did know, Jed.”
Clara’s words wash over Jed like a cold wave, leaving him sputtering, “But… that’s… that’s impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible, Jed,” she replies, wearing a cryptic expression. “If anyone is proof of that, I am.”
Wondering what she means by that, exactly, he points out, “Seeing the future is impossible, unless you’re… some kind of gypsy fortune-teller, maybe. Or… I don’t know… God. And no offense, but I don’t think you’re either.”
She doesn’t even smile at his lame attempt at humor.
He watches her brow furrow as her front teeth settle over the lower corner of her mouth. Clearly, she’s wrestling with something.
For a moment, the only sound in the room is the rattling windowpane and a faint creaking sound as the wind gusts outside.
Then Clara says softly, “The details aren’t important. What is important is that you’re willing to believe me, Jed—even if what I’m telling you sounds like the most bizarre thing you’ve ever heard. Are you?”
“Am I…?”
“Willing to believe me.”
“Oh, I… I don’t know.”
He knows what he heard, what he saw earlier, on the street outside the store. He didn’t imagine Clara’s inexplicable mention of Minnie, and cloves, nor her panicky reaction to Arnold’s car as it passed.
Still…
“You’re telling me you can see the future?”
“I’m telling you that I’m from the future.”
He stares at her for a long moment. Then he bursts out laughing. “You don’t look much like Buck Rogers.”
“I’m not kidding, Jed.”
“Neither am I. You don’t even have a space suit.” His mirth fades as he sees that she’s deadly serious.
He reaches out and brushes her hair back from her forehead, revealing the yellowish-gray bruise still visible above her brow.
“You’re thinking I’m delusional.” She pulls back. “Aren’t you? You’re thinking that this bump on my head has me imagining all sorts of things. You know what? I thought so, too, at first. I even thought I was imagining you.”
“I’m real,” he says gently, dropping his hand from her head to her shoulder.
“I know you are. And you’ve got to believe that I’m real, too, Jed. Because you might look back on this at some point and decide that I wasn’t.”
“Look back?” Dread seeps in. “Clara—”
“I’m going to tell you something that you have to believe, and you have to remember. Even after I’m gone.”
“No!” he says sharply. “You can’t go. I need—”
“I have to go back home,” she cuts in, and he knows somewhere deep inside it would come down to this. “I don’t want to… believe me, Jed, I want nothing more than to stay here with you, forever.”
“Then stay. Forever. We’ll be together, right here… or we can get a real house! I’m making over two thousand dollars a year, Clara! We can get married, and—”
“Stop it, Jed! We can’t get married, and I can’t stay.” She’s sobbing now.
He opens his mouth to comfort her, to remind her that even if she does have to go back sooner or later, the city isn’t on another planet. They’ll still see each other as much as they can, until they can work it out so that they can be together all the—
She stops him before he can open his mouth, laying a fingertip against his lips. “Shh, just listen. I knew Minnie Bouvier was going to be killed tonight, just like I know—”
“Killed? She wasn’t killed, Clara. She was alive. She’s in the hospital. I’m sure she’s going to be just—”
“She’s going to die, Jed. And… and so are you.”
Clara watches Jed’s mouth drop open in shock.
Oh, no, I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that.
But she had to get his full attention.
And you certainly have it now.
He seems incapable of speaking… and she feels the same way. But she knows she has to keep talking—has to make him understand.
“If you enlist in the army and go off to fight in the war in Europe, Jed,” she says, choosing her words more carefully this time, “you aren’t going to come home. You’re going to be killed.”
Relief swoops over his face, and he lets out a nervous laugh. “Is that what all this fuss is about? That’s what every gal says when her fella goes into the army. Listen, now that I have you, the last thing I want to do is enlist, so don’t—”
“You say that now,” Clara cuts in. “But you won’t feel the same tomorrow.”
He frowns. “Sure I will.”
“No, Jed, tomorrow we’re going to be at war. You have to believe me. The Japanese are going to attack Pearl Harbor.”
“How’s that?”
“Pearl Harbor. The Japanese are going to attack—”
“What is Pearl Harbor? And where is it?”
“It’s a military base, it’s somewhere in Hawaii, and hundreds of people are going to die, and I need to warn the president, or the police, or… or someone.…”
“Clara, you can’t do anything of the kind.”
“But maybe I can save—”
“Do you remember what happened in the store the other day, when Pete was there? I barely managed to convince him that you’re not some kind of spy. You can’t go running around now, calling the police or the government and making dire predictions about imminent military attacks. They’ll want to know how you know. And you’ll tell them…?”
“It doesn’t matter, because I’m right. They’ll see when everything I tell them comes true tomorrow.”
“Which is when they’ll arrest you on suspicion of treason.”
She falls silent. He’s right.
“But, Jed, you have to believe me about Pearl Harbor. You do, don’t you?”
He rakes a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to believe.”
“Listen to me. After the attack, FDR is going to declare war, Jed. And he’s going to make a speech on the radio and say that December 7, 1941, is a day that will live in infamy. That’s tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” he echoes flatly.
Clearly, he has no idea what to make of any of this.
“You’ll just have to wait and see.”
“So let me just make sure I’ve got it straight. The Japs are going to attack tomorrow”—he begins to tick off items on his fingers—“and we’re going to war, and Minnie Bouvier is going to die. Is that it?”
“It?”
“Those are your predictions? All for tomorrow?”
“Yes. Oh, and your friend Arnold’s wife is going to have a baby boy,” she remembers, “and they’re going to name him Denton.”
Jed throws his head back and laughs. “No, see, now I know you’re joking around. The Wilkens baby is going to be a girl called Daisy.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Maisie said so, and Maisie is never wrong. Anyway, what kind of a name is Denton?”
“Jed…” Clara swallows hard. “Please… if everything I’ve said comes true tomorrow, will you believe me then?”
“Believe that you can see the future? I guess I’ll have to… if everything you say comes true.”
She exhales in relief, ignoring the dubious look on his face. Once he has proof that she knows what she’s talking about, he’ll agree not to enlist. He has to.
She refuses to believe that she’s powerless to change his destiny.
Maybe she just couldn’t save Minnie because she left too much to chance. She probably should have come right out and told the old woman not to go out tonight, no matter what.
Yes, and would she have obeyed?
I could have made sure that she did. I could have come right out and told her that if she left the house, she was going to die.
Well, with Jed, she’s already been straightforward.
Too straightforward, judging by the worried gaze he’s fixed on her.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks.
“Poor Minnie.”
“She’s going to pull through, Clara. You’ll see. That’s what the ambulance driver said to her.”
“He was just trying to keep her calm. You don’t really think he’d tell her she wasn’t going to make it, do you?”
“No,” he admits, “I don’t. But even if Minnie doesn’t pull through, Clara… she’s in her eighties. She’s lived a long life, and she’s been lonely without her husband. He was all she—”
He breaks off as somewhere beyond the cozy little room, a board creaks.
“Is that you, Doris?” Jed calls, looking toward the door.
No reply.
He stands and strides over, opening the door with a flourish. “Gotcha!”
Clara watches him stick his head out into the darkness of the garage.
“Huh. No Doris. Must have been the wind,” he says, and closes the door. He locks it, then turns to look at Clara.
“Tomorrow is a long ways away,” he comments.
Clara shrugs, knowing it’s going to come all too soon—and when it does, she won’t be the only one wishing the clock could be turned back.
“What are we going to do in the meantime?” Jed asks slyly, returning to the bed and draping his arms around her.
Clara’s heart quickens despite her somber mood. “I don’t know.…”
Jed kisses her, lightly. “Say,” he says against her mouth, “I’ve got an idea.…”
And for a little while longer, at least, there is nothing but the here and now.
CHAPTER 17
Jed?”
Pounding footsteps up the stairs, an urgent knock at the door.
“Jed!”
“What is it?” he calls, hurrying over, legs weak with apprehension. “What’s wrong?”
He opens the door to find his kid sister standing on the top step, bundled in a black woolen coat, a thick yellow muffler, and an old velvet hat of Penny’s that ties with frayed ribbons beneath her chin.
“Come on, let’s go get the tree!”
He groans. “Hold your horses, Doris! I thought something terrible happened.”
Yes, thanks to Clara and her dire predictions for today.
“The only terrible thing that’s happened,” his impetuous sister informs him, “is that you’re not keeping your promise.”
“What promise is that?”
“The one where you said we’d go get the tree first thing.”
“And we will, just as soon as Clara is ready.”
“But that won’t be first thing. That’s more like last thing.”
He sighs.
Doris has been pestering him since six, when she descended on him as he slept on the sofa. Of course, she didn’t know that he had arrived in the house less than a half hour before, having spent the better part of the night in his own bed with Clara.
He didn’t want to leave her.
He never wants to leave her… but he especially didn’t last night. Not after the way she acted, the strange things she said.
Does she honestly think she can see into the future?
Can she see into the future?
He would almost believe it, based on her actions just before Minnie’s accident.…
If it weren’t impossible.
Nothing is impossible, Jed. If anyone is proof of that, I am.
What did she mean by that?
“Come on, Jed,” his sister pesters.
“Doris… be patient.”
“I am being patient. You said to give you fifteen minutes.”
“That was five minutes ago, toots. Why don’t you go read the Sunday funnies or something?”
“I already did. Twice. There’s a new one today—John Carter of Mars. Now come on!”
“It’s okay. Let’s go, Jed.” Clara has come up behind him.
Doris’s eyes widen. “What kind of coat is that?”
He turns to see that Clara is wearing her puffy red parka again, with the red knit hat and mittens. And the dungarees she had on that first day, plus her white rubber shoes.
“If we’re going out into the woods,” Clara says simply, “I want to make sure I’m warm.”
Jed notices uneasily that she isn’t looking at him.
Well, Doris is the one who asked the question.…
But it’s almost as though Clara is avoiding eye contact with him.
Or is he just paranoid today?
I am, thanks to her.
Today is Sunday, December 7. The day Clara claims will live on in infamy… to quote the president’s mythical speech.
Well, it’s already midmorning, and there’s been no word of an attack yet. When Jed asked Clara what time she thought the Japs were going to start dropping bombs on Hawaii, she said she wasn’t sure.
So here he is, unable to shake the feeling that something is about to happen. Something awful.
But it has nothing to do with the war or Minnie Bouvier.…
No, it’s Clara. He’s going to lose Clara.
He still doesn’t know why, or when, exactly.…
But she’s going to go. She told him.
So? You’ll see each other again. And she can move up here, or eventually, after Gilbert comes back, you can move down there.…
But what if she goes, and he never sees her again?
Oh, come on, what are you thinking, Jed? You aren’t going to just let her… go.
But what if…
What if it isn’t up to him?
It won’t be.
It wasn’t with Carol, and it won’t be with Clara, either. Somehow, he knows that.
Somehow, he’s certain that this time, when Clara leaves, she’ll have no intention of finding her way back to him. Ever.
And you know this based on what? he asks himself angrily. An irrational hunch? A groundless fear?
He isn’t sure what’s driving his pessimism.
But now, seeing Clara standing there wearing the same clothes she had on when she got here on Wednesday, his dismal state of mind isn’t exactly eased.
“Come on,” Doris prods again, though she’s still looking over Clara’s clothing with an inquisitive eye.
“Just let me get the keys and my coat, and then I have to go downstairs and look for Pop’s axe.”
“I already found it in the garage, Jed, see?” She swings it up to eye level.
“Jeepers creepers, Doris!” Jed grabs the handle to steady it in her hands. “Give that to me.”
“Why do you get to carry it?”
“Because I’m the grown-up.”
“Well, so am I.” Doris sticks out her tongue at him. “Oh, and by the way, Mother wants you to take her to the hospital later to visit Mrs. Bouvier.”
Jed looks at Clara, who refuses to look back.
“Has Mother heard anything about her this morning?” he anxiously asks his sister.
“No, that’s why she wants to go. She called the hospital, but they wouldn’t give out any information over the phone. Now she’s worried.”
A chill slips over Jed. “Maybe we should stop there ourselves, then, on the way to get the tree.”
“No!” his sister and Clara protest in unison.
He glances from one to the other in surprise.
Clara shakes her head slightly at him. She doesn’t want to bring Doris to the hospital, Jed realizes, because she’s afraid something�
��s happened to Minnie.
“Children aren’t allowed in the hospital,” Doris informs him.
“Oh? Well, I thought you were a grown-up.”
“I am a grown-up. Except sometimes, I’m a child.”
“Only when it suits you, though,” Clara says with a grin. “Right?”
“Right,” is Doris’s cheerful reply.
Jed rolls his eyes.
“Let’s go get the tree. O, Christmas tree, o, Christmas tree…”
“Must you sing that again?” Jed grumbles at his sister as they all head down the steep steps.
“It’s my favorite Christmas carol.”
“Then we’ll teach you a new one, and that can be your favorite instead. Listen: I’ll… be home… for Christmas,” Jed sings, then breaks off to coax with forced enthusiasm, “Come on, Clara, let’s make it a duet.”
“You… can plan… on me.”
But he can tell her heart isn’t in it either, and her thoughts are a million miles from here.
You’re slipping away, Clara… and I have no idea how to bring you back.
For a few hours, at least, Clara was almost able to forget the harsh reality of today.
Tromping through the hushed, alabaster-carpeted woods north of town, singing Christmas carols with Jed and his sister, she temporarily relinquished the burden of knowing what’s coming, locally, globally—and being powerless to do anything about it.
Now, however, as Jed pulls the DeSoto into the driveway back on Chestnut Street, toxic trepidation is once again corroding her from within.
Even so, she clings to a shimmer of hope.
Maybe Jed was right about Minnie Bouvier pulling through after all. Maybe she didn’t die. Maybe—
“Look, there’s Mother,” Doris announces. “What is she doing out there? She must have been watching for us.”
Yes, Lois Landry is stepping out onto the back stoop wearing a thin housedress, heedless of the flurries in the air.
Clara doesn’t dare look over at Jed, beside her in the front seat. But she can feel the tension that suddenly clenches his body as profoundly as it does her own.
Something is wrong.
“Mother, look at the tree!” Doris bounds out of the car, gesturing at the evergreen lashed to the roof. “We got the biggest, best one ever!”
“Doris, go right inside,” her mother commands, anxiously twisting the dish towel in her hands. “It’s snowing.”
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