William quickly replaced the mug into the cupboard and shut the door. "I was just getting a mug. That's all," he said defensively.
"Looking at that mug won't bring her back, Dad," Sandy said. "Going over to her place and begging her forgiveness might, though."
William shook his head in exasperation. "Sandy, we've been over this before. I'm not right for someone like Annie. She already has a full life. She doesn't need me gumming it up."
Sandy sighed. "She misses you, too."
William looked up, his brows raised. "How do you know that?"
"I had coffee with her today on my lunch break."
"Did she say she missed me?" William asked hopefully.
"No. But I know she does. This is stupid, Dad. Do you really want to be alone for the rest of your life just because of some ridiculous, outdated ideas you have?"
William poured his coffee and stared into his mug for several seconds. He thought back to the words his mother had said after the graduation party. "I think it's a shame that she didn't have the time to pursue her painting. Imagine how far she could have gone with it." He knew she hadn't meant to bring back the guilt he'd felt for so long after Sara died, but her words had done just that. His resolve grew stronger to not do the same thing to Annie.
"Annie's better off without me," he finally said, then turned and headed back down the hallway to his den.
Sandy gave up on her dad and headed up to her room. Over the past few weeks, since her disastrous night when she'd called Annie to pick her up, Sandy had gone out less with friends and spent more time at home. When she wasn't working at the art gallery, she spent time cleaning her room and packing up most of her depressing artwork. Annie's words the night they had looked at her mother's paintings had stuck with her over the past weeks. Maybe Annie was right. Maybe the reason she hadn't found her niche in art yet was because her niche was landscapes and seascapes, the two subjects she had avoided on purpose. She'd always thought she could never live up to her mother's talent.
Her mother's painting of Fairy Falls stared out at her from the corner of the room where she had set it against the wall. It truly was beautiful. The water practically spilled off the canvas, and the moss and trees were so real she could almost smell them. It was too beautiful to sit unfinished in a room where no one could appreciate it. All of her mother's paintings were too beautiful to sit unfinished in a dark closet.
As Sandy stared at the waterfall painting, she thought of her dad and Annie. Her dad thought he would stifle Annie's creativity by being with her, just as he believed he'd done to her mom, but Sandy knew that wasn't true. Yes, her mother had loved painting, but she also had loved her family enough to put it aside until she had more time to devote to it. Her mother hadn't given it up grudgingly. She'd willingly put her family first. Why couldn't her dad understand that?
The unfinished corner of the painting called out to Sandy. Some of the leaves and rocks in the waterfall also needed a little additional color to look complete. Even though Sandy didn't know exactly what her mother had intended, she could see with her own artist's eye what needed to be finished.
Sandy pulled out paints from her desk drawer and chose several colors she thought would work for the painting. After testing them on a separate sheet of paper, she placed it beside the painting to make sure the colors were perfect.
Maybe, if she finished this painting, her father would see that her mother's life hadn't gone unfinished, that her art would live on for her. And maybe Sandy would find absolution about the way she'd treated her mother that last day of her life if she finished her mother's work.
Sandy tipped her desk light over her work area and sat down in the chair. Tentatively, with soft strokes, she slowly began to mix the colors and add them to the painting. A brush of green here, a slight smudge, a touch of light green there. She could do this. The colors came to life in front of her eyes. She could make her mother proud of her by finishing this beautiful painting.
As Annie walked into the coffeehouse to meet Cherise for a late lunch, she noticed Sam sitting alone at a table in the back room. For a moment, she thought about leaving him alone because he looked deep in thought. But when he looked up and saw her and smiled, she walked over and greeted him with a hug.
"It's so great to see you, Annie," Sam said, his voice sounding so much like his father's that it tugged at Annie's heart.
"You, too," Annie said, sitting down in a chair opposite of him. "Are you waiting for friends?"
"No, they all just left. We had lunch after golfing nine holes this morning."
Annie nodded. "You looked so serious sitting here. I didn't know if I should come over and bother you."
"I'm glad you did," Sam said. "I was just thinking about my friends and how much I'll miss everyone when I go away to school."
"I suppose you will all be going in different directions, to different colleges," Annie said. "Will any of your friends be in southern California?"
Sam shook his head. "No. Most will be in Portland or in Washington, and a couple of my teammates will be in Arizona. Between golf practice, tournaments and classes, none of us will have time to get together until next summer."
The sad look in Sam's eyes made Annie's heart go out to him. She understood what it was like to move away to a completely new place and make new friends, but in her case, she'd been drawn to Seaside and wanted to make the change. For Sam, however, it was only a choice because of college and his sport.
"I'm sure you won't have trouble making new friends, especially with the members of the golf team," she said, trying to sound reassuring.
Sam sighed. "Yeah, I suppose."
Something in his tone made Annie wonder if he was worried about more than just missing his friends. "What's really bothering you, Sam? You're so outgoing with people, I have trouble believing that you're just worried about making new friends."
Sam looked up at Annie, his eyes wide. "What if I'm not as good as the other golfers?" he asked. "I mean, I'm the top one here in our small town but in San Diego? What if I'm the worst player on the team? What if I can't cut it?"
Annie hadn't known Sam for long, but she knew one thing for certain, Sam was a hard worker and capable of doing almost anything. "I understand why you're scared, but you're good at what you do. And if for some unknown reason you aren't as good as the rest of the team, I know you'll work hard to succeed. You can do anything you set your mind to, Sam, if you work hard enough at it."
Sam looked into Annie's blue-green eyes. For an instant, as she said those last words to him, he thought he saw the same spark in her as he had in his mother's eyes. He smiled slowly. "You know, that's exactly what my mother used to say to me. That I can do anything I set my mind to."
Annie sat back in her chair. "Well, it's true."
After a moment, Sam looked directly at Annie again. "Do you mind if I say something?" he asked.
"Of course not."
"I miss you not being around the house anymore," he said softly.
"Oh, Sam, that is so sweet of you to say. But we both know you just miss the cookies I used to fill the jar with," Annie said with a wink.
Sam smiled. "Yeah, I miss those, but it's more than just that. When you were there, the house felt full again, like it used to when my mom was alive. Now, there's an empty space, and the house seems sad again. You made our house feel like a home by just being there."
"Oh, Sam." Annie tried hard to hold back tears. "I miss being there around all of you, too."
Sam lowered his voice. "He misses you, a lot. I just wish Dad would admit to himself that he needs you so he won't be lonely anymore."
After Sam left, Annie sat at the table for a long time thinking about what he'd said. Both he and Sandy had said that William missed her. But he was the one who had broken off their relationship. He was the one who didn't want her anymore.
"You should tell him." A voice came up from behind Annie, and she jumped in her seat.
"Geez, Cherise, are you trying to scare me to death
?"
Cherise sat down in the chair vacated by Sam. She set down the tray with their sandwiches and soft drinks. "You need to tell William everything. The dreams, how you died on the same day as Sara, and how you're somehow connected to his dead wife. Maybe then he'll understand that you two are meant to be together and he'll stop fighting it."
Annie frowned. "Yeah, or maybe he'll think I'm crazy, and he'll run away as fast as he can."
Cherise looked adamant. "Annie, something strange has been going on for years that neither of us understands, and maybe we aren't even supposed to understand it. All I know is you're in love with William, and he is in love with you. You both need to be together." Cherise stared hard at her friend, her eyes pleading with her. "You were so happy with William. I want that for you. I want you to be happy and have your fairy tale ending."
Annie shook her head but didn’t say another word. Silently, the friends ate their lunch, each pondering on what the other had said. Cherise had been right about one thing, Annie didn't understand all the strange things going on, but she knew one thing for certain. If William didn't want her, she had to live with that.
Chapter Twenty-One
The colors above bid her welcome, but a force was keeping Annie from rising up to meet them. "Let me go," Annie said to the being who held onto her tightly. "I want to be one with the colors."
"You have to go back," the beautiful figure with the golden hair said, her voice lyrical in Annie's ear. "You're not meant to be here yet. You must go back and find your one true love."
Annie stopped fighting the ethereal creature beside her. "I have no one to go back to," she said, staring into her beautiful blue-green eyes. "I'm all alone down there. I want to stay here, where it's warm and welcoming."
The lovely being smiled at Annie. "Don't you understand? You are meant to be with someone. A wonderful person who will fill your life with happiness. You and he are meant to be together, just as he and I were."
Annie frowned at the misty figure. "But I don't know who he is. Who is this person I'm going back to?"
"Oh, you'll know him the minute you see him," the being said, pointing down below, past the room where the doctors worked frantically over Annie's worldly body, over to a place Annie had never seen before. There, on the deck of a beautiful seaside home, Annie saw him, standing there, staring out at the ocean beyond.
"Who is he?" Annie asked.
"He's your soul mate," the lovely being said. "He's the man of your dreams."
As Annie watched, the man looked up into the night sky as if searching for something he'd lost. It was then that she saw the face of the man she would soon love. It was then that she saw William for the first time.
Annie awoke from the dream, not startled or scared, but with a feeling of complete contentment. William. That was when she'd first seen him. That was why she'd been drawn to his strip of beach and his home the very first time she'd walked there.
"I wasn’t just dreaming about him," Annie said aloud to the dark room. "I was sent to him. By Sara."
Pulling her blankets and comforter tightly around her, Annie lay back against her pillows, closed her eyes, and tried to bring back the dream and the heartfelt feelings it had evoked. The reality of the dream hit her as she lay there in semi-sleep. Sara hadn't been trying to push her away from William as Annie had thought. Sara was pushing her toward him. Sara couldn't come back, so she had sent Annie to take her place. But why? Annie was nothing like Sara. Why would Sara send her to William? Then a thought occurred to her. Maybe she wasn't a replacement for Sara. Maybe she'd always been meant to meet him at this time in her life.
Annie crawled out of bed and sat at the table. She opened her laptop and clicked on the folder that held the personal photos she kept separate from the professional ones. Inside that was a folder named 'William', and she opened it. Staring back at her were all the photos she'd ever taken of him, from the beginning on the beach before she knew who he was to the day they spent walking the trails around the waterfalls.
Annie enlarged a photo of William standing on his deck, looking up into the sky. "Just like the dream," she whispered to herself. He had looked so sad those times she'd caught him with her telephoto lens. She then enlarged a photo she'd taken of him in front of Fairy Falls. He looked so happy, so carefree. He was happy that day they spent together, and she had been, too.
Annie sat back and stared at the two photos side-by-side on her computer screen. She didn't believe in fate. She didn't believe in fairy tales. But it seemed like both concepts had hit her straight on the minute she met William.
Her old self would deny all of that. Her old, unbelieving self would tell her the dreams were just a reflection of what she believed she truly wanted, and not a reenactment of what happened to her when she'd died. Of course, that didn't explain why she'd had the dreams of colors in the sky before she met William, or why she'd been drawn to Seaside to begin with. But the logical part of her brain had to at least accept the fact that Sara, the ethereal being, hadn't appeared in her dreams before she'd met William. The truth was, though, that her new self wanted to tell the old self to shut up. The dreams were real. William was real. And her love for him was definitely very real. But what on earth could she do to make him see that?
William opened his front door and looked into the very determined face of Annie's friend, Cherise. It was ten o'clock on a beautiful August morning, and he'd been working in his den on a new house project. When the doorbell rang, he'd been surprised but not as surprised as he was now staring into Cherise's big, brown eyes.
"We need to talk," Cherise said bluntly, walking past him without waiting for an invitation to come in. She held up a square white box. "I brought coffee and muffins."
"Okay," William said, baffled by her sudden appearance.
"Where's the kitchen?" Cherise asked, then stopped short when she saw the sunken living room and the view of the ocean beyond. "Wow, this is beautiful." She looked around her, saw the kitchen to the right, and headed in.
William had no choice but to follow. As he walked into the kitchen, the fresh aroma of coffee greeted him as Cherise popped the lids off the cups at the table.
"Plates?" she asked, pointing to the oversized blueberry muffins.
William obliged and brought two small plates to the table as well as napkins, then the two sat opposite of each other.
Cherise looked directly into William's eyes. "Why are you breaking my best friend's heart?" she asked bluntly.
William's mouth opened, but nothing came out. He was not only shocked by the question, but he didn't have an answer.
"That's what you're doing, you know."
William found his voice. "Did Annie send you here?"
"No. Are you crazy? She'd disown me as her friend if she knew I was here. But you two have been apart long enough, and it's time to straighten a few things out. And if she isn't going to do it, or you, then I am."
William sat patiently as Cherise tore off a piece of muffin, popped it into her mouth, and followed it with a sip of coffee. Then, she refocused her attention on William.
"What makes you think you're going to screw up Annie's life by being with her?" she asked.
Again, William was taken aback, but this time, he had an answer. "Because I've done it before. I don't want to keep her away from the work she loves like I did to Sara."
Cherise rolled her eyes, a reaction that surprised William.
"What?" he asked.
"I think you're just using that as an excuse because you're afraid. I don't know what you're afraid of, but that's a silly reason to not be with the woman you love. And you do still love Annie. I know you do," Cherise finished, her tone insistent.
William frowned. "And just how would you know that?"
"Because Sandy and Sam say you do. They say you've been miserable ever since you walked away from Annie."
"They told you that?" He was shocked that his kids had been talking to Cherise about his relationship with Annie.
"Oh," was all William could muster. He wasn't mad that his kids had said that, because it was true after all, but he wished they hadn't.
Cherise leaned in closer over the table toward William. Her tone became soft. "You're wrong, you know. You're not going to take anything away from Annie that she won't let you take away. I didn't know Sara, but from the little I've heard, I don't believe you took anything away from her, either. Sara loved you enough to make you the center of her life, and Annie loves you enough to make the relationship work between you, with neither of you giving up the things you love. It really is as simple as that."
William sat back in his chair, shaking his head. "You just don't understand."
Cherise pursed her lips. "No, it's you who doesn't understand, William."
William's brows rose in question.
"It's time you knew about a few things that have been happening that I know Annie will never tell you. It's time you knew the truth."
"What are you talking about?"
Cherise took a deep breath. If she didn't lay it all on the table now, she would never see her best friend happy again. She shook her finger at William. "You can never tell Annie I said any of this, understand?"
William nodded. She had his full attention.
"I know Annie has told you about her appendectomy years ago, but did she tell you she died during surgery?"
"Yes, she told me that."
"Did you know that she and Sara had the surgery and died on the exact same day?"
The color drained from William's face. "How do you know this?"
"Because Annie dragged me to the cemetery, and we saw the date your wife died on her headstone. Don't you think that's kind of odd, them both dying on the same day?" Cherise asked.
"Yes. It's a weird coincidence, but Annie lived," William responded as a chill ran up his spine. He could try to sound as logical as he wanted, but this one fact was very strange.
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