“I want to be a doctor,” she said. “I’ve done a lot of reading.”
“Mr. Lewis suffered very little damage to his heart, even though he had an arrest. That’s due to you, Mrs. Grisham. Few victims have someone knowledgeable who can step in as soon as the arrest happens.”
“I’m glad he was in the kitchen instead of out in the fields,” she said. “Are you recommending the usual protocol with meds and diet?” she asked.
Dr. Stallings looked at her hard then. “Are you sure you’re not a doctor?” he said. Then he laughed.
“Yes, Dr. Grisham,” he joked. “The usual protocol. I’m guessing I don’t need to explain to you what the usual protocol is because I’ve got a feeling you already know.”
She smiled at the doctor. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”
“I hope we see you working at our hospital one day,” he said. “Have a nice day, Dr. Grisham.”
Chapter Nine
Grandpa returned home after three days in the hospital with a new lease on life. He turned over the major running of the farm to Tommy. “Make it organic, son,” he said. “It’s all but yours now.” But Grandpa didn’t give up working completely. He still rode the tractor occasionally, he checked the fields every single morning, and Tommy was sure to consult his grandfather about things he needed to and things he didn’t need to.
“I want Grandpa to know it’s still his farm and that I still need him for what he knows,” Tommy told her one night while they were lying in bed.
“You’re doing the right thing,” Jamie said. “A large percentage of men die within a couple of years after they retire.”
“How do you know so much about it?” Tommy asked. “You’re like a walking medical encyclopedia these days.”
Jamie laughed. “Granny and I watch TV in the mornings,” she said. “Morning talk shows and stuff like that. They cover everything.”
Tommy started to drift off. “I love you, sugar,” he said drowsily.
“I love you too, Tommy. Forever and ever and beyond time and space.” He was already asleep by the time Jamie said that. As she began to drop into sleep, Jamie wondered if she would ever tell Tommy about her time travel. Because by then she knew that she wasn’t in a dream. She had traveled through time and was changing the lives of people she loved.
She dreamed about Nate. He was putting a sapphire ring on her finger, smiling at her. “I can’t accept this,” she said. “I’m already married to Tommy.” Nate’s face fell. “Who’s Tommy?” he asked her. She woke up in a cold sweat and reached over for Tommy. He wasn’t there. She looked around the dark room. It was hard to see, but she saw enough to tell her she was in her childhood bedroom.
Jamie jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom. The face in the mirror was no longer her eighteen-year-old baby face. It was the gaunter face of her thirty-year-old self. Her hair was shoulder length. “No!” she wailed. She fell onto the bathroom floor whimpering. “No,” she whispered.
“Jamie, are you all right?” Her mother was standing in the door of the bathroom. “I heard you scream.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I had a nightmare and came in here to splash water on my face.”
Her mother held out her hand and Jamie took it and stood up from the floor. “I’m just going to get back in bed,” Jamie said. “I’m okay.”
“Okay, honey. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Jamie lay back but she couldn’t go back to sleep. She felt her hand, but there was no sapphire ring there. Had she lost it somehow? How much time had passed since she had been living back in time with Tommy? She didn’t know anything.
She got up when the sun rose thirty minutes later. Her mother was already in the kitchen making her father’s oatmeal and drinking a cup of coffee. Jamie poured herself a cup and sat down at the kitchen table.
“How’s Dad?” she asked.
“He seems to be doing fine,” her mother said. “I think he’s starting to take his cardiac event seriously and wants to do everything he can to prevent another one.”
“That’s good,” Jamie said.
“I ran into Mrs. Grisham the other day,” her mother said as she stirred the oatmeal. “She said to tell you hi.”
“I ran into her, too. At the grocery store. Things have been really rough on her.”
“What do you mean?” her mother asked.
“Well, with Tommy and her father and then her husband.”
“What about them?”
“You know. How they all died,” Jamie said. Why didn’t her mother know what she was talking about?
Her mother looked at her. “Do you have a fever, Jamie?”
“What do you mean, Mom?”
“Honey, you know Tommy got remarried. Mrs. Grisham told me they’re expecting their third baby any day now.”
Jamie looked desperately around the room, trying to find something that would ground her in this new reality. She noticed that the kitchen cabinets had been updated to a light maple. The floors were ceramic tile. The appliances were stainless steel. This was not the same worn-out kitchen she had come to on her first visit home. The same kitchen she had grown up with that her parents never changed. It looked fresh and contemporary. And Tommy was alive and married to someone else.
“I didn’t know he had gotten remarried,” Jamie said shakily.
“Of course you did,” her mother said. “What’s wrong with you? You divorced him after you went to college.”
“What about his grandfather?” Jamie asked.
“He’s still getting around. He and Granny moved into the house with Tommy’s parents and gave the farmhouse to Tommy.”
“And Tommy’s father?”
“Well, now, he did die last year. Had a massive stroke. But I told you all of this, honey. We emailed. Remember?”
She had been emailing her mother? That was different. It finally began to dawn on Jamie that she had returned to 2013, but it wasn’t the same as the 2013 she had come from. It was vastly different.
Jamie looked down at her hand. “I can’t find my ring,” she said.
“What ring?” her mother asked.
“The sapphire ring I had on when I got here. You said it was beautiful.”
“I don’t remember that.” Her mother sat down at the table that Jamie now realized was not the same glass-topped table from her childhood. It was a sleek verdigris iron table with a beveled glass top.
“Honey, you’re saying things that don’t make sense, and I’m worried.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I guess I didn’t get enough sleep last night because of that nightmare. I’m fine, I promise.”
Her dad walked into the kitchen and straight to the coffee pot. “I need some coffee,” he said.
“Your oatmeal’s ready. I’ll get it for you,” her mother said. “Hon, what do you want me to make you for breakfast?”
“I’m good, Mom. I’ll make something myself in a little while.”
She left the room and headed for the stairs. “Did I put that soup up that I made?” she called to her mother.
“I put it up because you were so late getting back,” her mother said.
So, Jamie had still made the soup. One constant in a world that felt wishy washy and unreal. She hurried up to her room and put on her jeans and a t-shirt. She put on her sneakers since she would be in the woods. Jamie knew she had to get back to the overhang. That’s where the magic was.
“I’m going to take a walk,” she told her parents as she headed for the kitchen door. She walked outside and her mother’s garden was in the half-grown state it had been in when Jamie first arrived on that May day, months ago. It was still May.
She ran through the pasture to the opening in the woods. She ran down the path, pushing branches out of her way. She slid down the embankment of the lake and pushed aside the willow branches. She crawled inside the overhang.
The blanket was still there, untouched for all those years. Jamie pulled it out of the plastic bag and spread it out behind her. She
sat down. She waited.
No matter what Jamie did, sleep would not come to her. She lay back on the blanket but she couldn’t turn her mind off. Somehow, she had gone back to 2013, but it was a different 2013 than the one she had left. Everything was different, and she was lost. She wasn’t even sure if she worked at the clinic in Grahamville. If she couldn’t get back to Tommy, she didn’t even know where to go.
Jamie sat there on the blanket for hours. When the sun started to go down, she realized she was going to have to leave. She got up and moved the willow branches. Her hair did not get caught that time. It was much darker in the thick woods and she used her iPhone flashlight to guide her down the path. When she walked into the kitchen, her mother was not making fried chicken. She was roasting a chicken and making brown rice on the stove.
“Mom, do you know where I work?” Jamie asked from the doorway.
“You work at a clinic in Grahamville,” she said. “You know I know where you work! I’ve been there to visit you!”
“I wasn’t sure if you knew the name of it, that’s all,” Jamie said sitting down at the table. “In case you can’t get in touch with me or something.”
“I guess I don’t know the official name of it,” her mother said. “But I’m in touch with you all the time. We email, we text, we talk on the phone. We’re in touch all the time, honey.”
Apparently, in this 2013, Jamie had not abandoned her parents. She was in touch all the time. She must have made visits over the years.
“How’s Bobby?” she asked.
“He’s good. He likes his job. I can’t believe he’s getting married.”
“When is that?” Jamie asked.
“August 17. You know that, honey. Your memory’s as bad as mine.”
“And where is it going to be?”
“Over in North Carolina. Winston-Salem. Where Cathy is from. I guess it’s good we just have to show up. I don’t know how I’d handle it if I had to plan a wedding from here.”
Her mother sat down at the table. “You are going to be able to come to the wedding, aren’t you?” her mother asked.
“Of course. I’ll bring Nate with me.”
“You mean that nice doctor you work with at the clinic?”
“Yes.” Jamie realized that her mother knew nothing about her engagement to Nate. Jamie clearly hadn’t told her about it. And she had no ring to prove it.
Jamie helped her mother with supper and the three of them sat down in the dining room to eat. Her mother had brought out the fine china.
“I want it to be special since you’re leaving day after tomorrow,” her mother said. She was leaving! But she couldn’t leave. She had to get back to Tommy and their cottage. She had to get back.
Jamie cleaned up the kitchen and then told her parents good night. They were watching a movie, but looked up at her. “Don’t you want to watch the movie with us? It’s Lincoln and it’s good,” her father said.
“I’m tired,” Jamie said.
Upstairs, she put on her gown and got into bed. She prayed that when she woke up, she would be back with Tommy. Sleep did not come easily for her, but finally she began to drift off. When she woke up the next morning, she immediately felt her hair. Shoulder length. She cried jagged tears, calling out Tommy’s name.
Jamie stepped into the hot shower and shampooed her hair. She blew it dry, looking at herself in the mirror. She didn’t know who she was anymore. The brown eyes that looked back at her were filled with pain and uncertainty. Her eyes were puffy from lack of sleep and crying.
Jamie dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and put her sneakers on. Her parents weren’t up yet, so she crept silently down the stairs. In the kitchen, she found a bottle of sleeping pills that had been prescribed for her father. She opened the bottle and shook several out into her palm. She put them in the little pocket in front of her jeans. She grabbed a bottled Sprite out of the fridge. She wasn’t taking any chances today in the overhang.
She crossed the pasture and entered the opening in the woods. This time, when she got to the midpoint in the lake and the overhang, she leaned her drink against a tree and kept walking. She walked for several minutes until she reached the opening at the other end. The opening to Tommy’s farm.
She stood and looked out over the land. The rows and rows of corn were growing tall. She heard the chugging of a tractor in the distance. The sound of the tractor got closer and closer. Jamie didn’t move. She looked to her left and saw the tractor moving down the outside of the rows of corn. She stood there watching, waiting. The tractor was moving closer. In a few seconds, it would be right in front of her.
She couldn’t see yet who was driving the tractor. It inched by and she saw a bearded man looking over at her. The tractor stopped abruptly. It was completely silent then. She stared at the man. He got off the tractor and walked around it, toward her.
“Jamie?” he said. His face looked so different with a full beard. His hair was long, almost to his shoulders. But his hazel eyes were the same. Tommy’s eyes.
She wanted to run to him, throw her arms around him, kiss him. It had only been a two days since she had been with him, in their marital bed in the cottage. But she knew this world was different.
“Tommy,” she said.
“What are you doing here?” Tommy asked her in an incredulous voice. “Why are you standing here?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I came home because my dad had a heart attack. I guess I just wanted to see everything.”
“Well, you see it’s pretty much the same,” Tommy said, sweeping his arm out toward the fields. “Only it’s all organic now.”
“Yes,” she said.
Tommy kept looking at her, but he didn’t say anything else. She realized that in this world, she had left Tommy, divorced him. He must have been so hurt. He didn’t need her around screwing up his new life.
“I just want to tell you, Tommy, that I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left like I did. I should have stayed where things were good. I should have stayed with you.”
“Jamie, that was a long time ago,” he said. “I’ve moved on now. I’ve got two kids and another one on the way.”
“I know. Mom told me. I’m happy for you.”
Tommy walked up the little hill to stand next to Jamie. He put his arms around her and hugged her. Jamie could smell him, Tommy’s smell, a mixture of shampoo and soap and sweat. She hugged him back and didn’t let go.
But he released her.
“It’s good to see you, Jamie,” he said walking back down the little hill. He got on his tractor and started it up. The chugging sound filled the air. “Good luck,” he shouted. He waved as he drove down the outside of the rest of the field.
I love you, Tommy, Jamie thought. Beyond all time and space. Forever and ever. When she couldn’t see the tractor anymore, she turned back to the path and walked to the midpoint. She got the blanket out in the overhang and spread it on the floor. She sat down and opened the Sprite. She dug the pills out of her pocket and took two of them. There was no way she wasn’t going to sleep with that much. The sun shone down on the lake. Jamie sat and stared at the water through the willow branches. She sat until she began to nod off. Then she lay back on the blanket and fell asleep.
It was late afternoon when she woke up. “Tommy?” she said. There was no Tommy. She felt her hair and it was shoulder-length. Jamie cried then for a long time. She knew she needed to get back home, but she needed to cry for every lost life she had experienced. Finally, she crawled out of the overhang and walked down the path toward home.
“Honey, where have you been?” her mother asked when she walked through the door. “I was getting ready to call the police. You didn’t answer your cell all day.”
When would Jamie learn to stop worrying her parents? It seemed that no matter which life she was living in, she was worrying her mother.
“I fell asleep down by the lake,” she said. “I’m just not very rested these days.”
Her mother put
her hand on Jamie’s forehead. “You don’t feel like you’ve got a fever,” she said. “Jamie, are you ever going to tell me what’s going on with you?”
Jamie wished she could tell her mother, but she knew if she did, her mother would want her to seek psychiatric counseling immediately. Her mother could never understand what Jamie had been through. Jamie didn’t think anyone could understand it. Or believe her.
“We’re having broiled salmon tonight with asparagus and brown rice,” her mother said. “Your last supper here. I wish you could stay longer, but I know you need to get back to your clinic work.”
Jamie nodded, but she didn’t know what getting back to the clinic meant. She had not tried to call Nate because she didn’t even know what her status was with him in this 2013. She clearly did not have a sapphire ring in this world.
Jamie watched Argo with her parents after supper. Apparently, in this 2013, her parents watched a lot of movies. Her mind was whirling and she couldn’t concentrate on it. But she stayed anyway. It was her last night with them.
She noticed for the first time in this new world that her comforter was a paisley print and the room was painted a golden color. Her mother had redecorated and Jamie’s pink rosebud spread was gone. She missed it. She wanted to bury her head in it and cry herself to sleep. She changed into a gown that she didn’t recognize and went to bed. She prayed for the second night in a row that she would wake up in her bed with Tommy.
But she didn’t. She woke up and her hair was short and the room was gold and the comforter was paisley. At least the blue tiles in the bathroom were the same. She took a shower and dried her hair. She packed her suitcase with clothes that she didn’t recognize and walked downstairs. Her parents were in the kitchen laughing and drinking coffee. Her mother jumped up and poured Jamie a cup and added a little cream, the way Jamie liked it.
“I’m sorry I have to leave today,” Jamie said. “I wish I could stay longer. I can stay longer if you need me.”
“We always need you,” her mother said. “But you’ve got your own life and you need to get back to it. I’m sure they’re missing you at the clinic.”
Come Down In Time (A Time Travel Romance) Page 9