by Kurt Winans
At that moment a few doctors and nurses came into the room and fired off a military salute to Commander Ross Martin out of respect for his rank and recent achievement. The news of his arrival had undoubtedly been reported by the nurse who had informed him of what room his father Robert was in, and he hoped that the media hadn’t been notified as well. Ross returned the salute before asking them to update him on his father’s condition, while also requesting that the hospital staff refrain from such saluting action in the future and the media not be informed of his location on the base.
Without any level of “sugar coating” the doctors informed Ross of what they had told Jessica the previous day, and it wasn’t good news. Robert had a fast moving form of cancer that was inoperable, and he had a week to live at best. It was Monday the 25th of November, and Thanksgiving was only three days away. Robert who had been sleeping soundly a few minutes before was now beginning to stir with the commotion of all the people in the room, so Ross and Jessica moved to his side. He smiled at the sight of his now fully grown children standing over him, and turned his head away briefly to gaze at a photograph on the bedside table. It had been many years since he last saw them both at the same time, but was relieved that he had the opportunity to do so.
After talking with their father for a few minutes before he nodded off to sleep again, Ross and Jessica ventured outside of the room into the hallway for a moment to converse with the doctors. They brought Ross further up to speed by informing him that although Robert now slept most of the time, they could keep him awake with medication if it was so desired. Ross and Jessica wanted Robert to remain as peaceful and pain free as possible during his final days, but liked the idea of medicating him to full consciousness should anyone in the family wish to have a final visit. They also gave the doctors all the latitude they needed to keep him alive beyond Thursday, because it would be a shame to have him pass away on Thanksgiving Day. Assured that the medical team would do their best, Ross headed for the pay phone down the hall to contact Patty with the news. If anyone wanted to see Robert one last time before his death, they had better make it quick.
Twenty minutes later Ross returned to the room to find Jessica at their father’s side once again, and asked her to come back into the hall for a discussion. He informed Jessica that Patty and her mother Elizabeth would be arriving later that night with the girls, so she should go get some sleep and a shower before they all arrived. Patty and Ross had agreed that the drive up from Houston would be easier at night because the girls would sleep most of the way, and they knew that the whirlwind pace associated with the events of the last few days had already taken a toll on them. It was important that Aurora and Rachel make the trip because they had only seen their grandfather a handful of times during their short lives, and this would indeed be their last chance to see him.
The following morning the entire family arrived at Robert’s hospital room to find Ross asleep in the corner chair. He had used his new found celebrity status to arrange for much more comfortable accommodations on base for the rest of the family, but he had wanted to stay by his father’s side. Patty woke him with a kiss on the cheek before the girls rushed to his side, and Jessica thanked him for taking over her spot in the chair. She had spent the previous two nights in the same spot, so she knew all too well about how uncomfortable the night was that her brother had just endured.
As had been promised by the medical staff, Robert was soon fully awake with the assistance of some medication and ready to take on what the next few hours would entail. He had the opportunity to see both of his young grandchildren, which reminded him of when Ross and Jessica were that age. He instantly flashed back in his mind to the glorious times they all had before his wife Janet had been taken from him, but that was now over twenty-eight years in the past. After talking with the girls for several minutes and hearing them both giggle a few times, they were taken out into the hall so he could speak with each of the adults privately.
Patty was first in line, and Robert thanked her for her support of his sons’ dreams to fly jets and become an astronaut. He knew that she had missed Ross very much when they were apart, and was well aware of the pain that one feels when their soul mate is absent. Next was his old neighbor and friend Elizabeth, and Robert was respectfully apologetic towards her. She had done so much throughout the many years before to help with the raising of both Ross and Jessica after Grandpa Hank had suddenly passed away, but he hadn’t always recognized her for it. He also realized that Elizabeth had made gestures of wanting to perhaps take their relationship to a romantic level, but he had never fully been able to get over Janet and wouldn’t walk down that path. Then of course there was his ongoing battle with the bottle, and he knew that she felt he had crawled inside it far too many times as the years went by. All those factors had made Robert somewhat of a “son of a bitch” in her eyes, but it was of great comfort to her that he had come clean and apologized to her in his final days.
When Ross and Jessica entered the room to conclude the visitation, Robert asked if he could see them both for a longer visit after everyone else had returned home. He had something that was very important to share with them, and he didn’t want anyone else to possibly interrupt. They agreed to his conditions, but were somewhat puzzled by the request.
Within an hour, all except Ross and Jessica were on their way back to nearby Rumley. The group of women had decided to try and make the most of a bad situation by throwing together a Thanksgiving meal at Elizabeth’s house, but Robert’s condition would have an impact on when, or if, the gathering would take place.
The doctors boosted the medication for Robert to keep him alert, posted a reliable sentry outside his door to prevent a disturbance, and informed Ross to let them know when he and Jessica had completed their private meeting with their father. With the room to themselves for however long was necessary, Ross and Jessica pulled up two chairs close to the bed to hear whatever Robert had to say. Jessica then removed a legal pad of paper from her backpack to take down any pertinent notes, and the session began.
In typical fashion for someone on their death bed, Robert listed all the things he had done incorrectly during his life, and what he would change if given the opportunity. He continued by adding how proud he was of both of them for their accomplishments, and how he intended to pass along the house and the few worldly possessions he owned to them and his grandchildren. At the conclusion of all the rhetoric that in no way needed a sentry outside the door for absolute privacy, the point of it all became clear when Robert began to tell Ross and Jessica the story of their mother Janet.
ROBERT BEGAN BY asking Jessica to hand him the framed photograph from the bedside table. Both she and Ross knew the old black and white photograph well, as it had been at their father’s bedside since they were children. It was snapped only a few weeks before the accident that had taken Janet from them all, and it showed the four of them sitting together on the front porch steps with smiling faces. Not sure how much, if anything at all, that Jessica had remembered about her mother, Robert told the story of how he and Janet had met.
The year was 1947, and the place was the small town of Roswell in the southeastern New Mexico desert. Janet was a nurse stationed at the Air Force base hospital, while Robert had been flown in from his nearby posting at Fort Bliss. He had been assigned as part of a crew that was tasked with cleaning up debris from a rather unusual situation. A craft of unknown origin had crashed on a ranch just outside of town, and keeping said crash a secret from the public was imperative during the early days of what would become a decade’s long cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union.
During the first few days following the crash, Robert had the chance to meet Janet when he and his crew visited the base hospital for routine checkups. There had been some fear that the group of officers and enlisted men under Robert’s command may have been exposed to radiation during the cleanup process, and Janet was a member of the medical team that administered the necessary t
ests and treatment. Janet was not at all disturbed by that course of action, or the need for it, as she had been a firsthand witness to some of the contents that had been removed from the crash site. She had caught a few brief glimpses of the bodies that had piloted the craft, and it seemed highly unlikely they were of Earthly origin.
Although both Robert and Janet had been sworn to secrecy about what they had seen or heard during the course of the investigation, they knew they could speak of the event privately between themselves. The magnitude of the discovery made it necessary to discuss it with someone, so they used the opportunity to get to know each other a little better. Their relationship continued to develop, and a little over a year after their first meeting they were married.
Everything was perfect in their lives. Bolstered by his stellar actions during World War II, Robert was enjoying a fast rise in the military ranks. He had enlisted shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, and before the wars end had been accepted into OCS, or Officers Candidate School. Once a commissioned officer, Robert continued to shine and had been promoted from Second Lieutenant to First Lieutenant before meeting Janet in 1947. His seemingly meteoric rise continued as he was promoted once again to Captain before Ross was born in July of 1950, and attained the rank of Major, like his father, before Jessica had come along in January of 1955. Due in part to her college education and training as a nurse, Janet had been commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Air Force and had been promoted once to First Lieutenant before resigning to raise the children.
Both Ross and Jessica had heard the story of how their parents had met a few times over the years, but they had not known about the supposed alien spacecraft, or the visual account their mother had of the occupants. Robert informed them that both he and Janet would have been charged with, and most definitely found guilty of, treason against the United States had they ever spoken of what had taken place at Roswell. None of that mattered anymore though, as Janet was gone and Robert had only days or hours to live. The government couldn’t hurt him anymore, but he cautioned Ross and Jessica to keep that information, and what was to come, from the outside world or they would probably face consequences that could hinder their careers and freedom.
Jessica informed Robert that she had a few fragmented memories of her mother, but had obviously remembered Grandpa Hank much more clearly. That was only natural as Janet had died in the automobile accident when Jessica was only two years old, while Grandpa Hank had been a major influence during the next four years of her life before his death. Ross chimed in by adding that he remembered several events with their mother, and had helped Jessica fill in the blanks whenever she had asked about her.
Robert smiled at the thought of those wonderful years when the four of them had enjoyed a good home life, and family picnics whenever possible. It was then that he asked his two children if they remembered the white station wagon with a thick red stripe on each side. It was the vehicle that Janet had frequently used for errands and such around town, and she took the children with her from time to time. Ross nodded with a positive response to the question, but was saddened at the memory of that being the car she was also killed in. He had never seen the wreckage of the car, but had always assumed his father had kept them away from it to lessen their pain. Robert then informed Ross and Jessica that the reason they had never seen the car again was because it had been taken away.
On what had been a rare opportunity for a summer overnight getaway without the children, Robert and Janet had arranged for the kids to stay with a family in town so they could enjoy a quiet celebration of ten years together. They had driven about twenty miles from home to a secluded location that had become one of their favorite spots throughout the years, and Robert parked the station wagon about one-hundred yards from where they would set up camp. From that spot they would have a nice view of a stand of old growth trees near the bend in a small creek that was an additional one-hundred yards away, and Janet felt strongly that it was possible Jessica had been conceived at that location.
Jessica blushed at hearing that news from her father and thanked him for telling her as she clasped his hand, but he was not yet finished with the story.
Robert continued by informing his children that it had been a beautiful afternoon, and the crystal clear night sky had provided the opportunity for some fantastic star gazing. He and Janet were enjoying a feeling of total freedom, and it had been wonderful to make love spontaneously a few times by the campfire without the risk of the children either hearing them or bursting into their bedroom unannounced.
To that comment Ross felt embarrassed, as he suddenly realized he had probably been guilty of that action a few times without knowing it when he was a small boy. He also felt he remembered the place that his father was speaking of, as he had probably been there with them a few times in his youth.
At some point during the course of the night Janet felt a chill and returned to the station wagon to retrieve some additional blankets, while Robert headed down towards the creek to get some water for the coffee pot. While he was there he moved behind one of the trees to relieve himself, and he never saw Janet again. With no warning of any kind, or sense of impending doom in the air, a huge cone shaped bright light suddenly appeared over the car and began to lift it skyward.
From his position near the creek roughly two-hundred yards away, Robert had no chance at all to prevent his wife’s abduction. Janet and the red and white striped station wagon were taken upward very quickly, and by the time he covered the distance to its previous parking spot on the old dirt road it was at least twenty feet into the air. Robert yelled for Janet to jump out, but it was to no avail as she was somehow paralyzed by the light source. He could hear her desperately screaming for help as the car floated higher and higher, and he felt completely powerless as there was nothing he could do.
A few seconds later the source of the intensely bright lights swallowed up the car and headed for the stars overhead. Robert ran down the dirt road in hopeless pursuit for a few seconds, and watched intently as the craft disappeared into the night sky. Just like that his soul mate was gone. He stood alone in the darkness until the stars all faded from view with the coming sunrise.
ROSS AND JESSICA sat at the edge of their chairs as their father finished the story. They had some questions, and he had answers for all of them. Robert told them, “I have never fully believed that my wife is dead, she has just been missing for all these years.” Jessica was angry because she felt her father, and everyone else, had lied to her about her mother’s death for all those years, but her father quickly cut her off by asking her, “Have you ever heard me refer to Janet as dead?” Ross chimed in “Dad always said that mom was taken away from us. Oh my God, that explains so much!” Both he and Jessica had always just assumed that was how their father classified death.
It certainly explained some things such as why they had never seen the car again, or their mother’s body before the funeral. They had been told by the authorities that her body had been so badly burned in the accident that a farewell viewing wasn’t possible, and come to think of it they were military representatives. As Ross spelled this all out verbally, he silently wished he had been privy to the information before encountering the alien species while exploring the Moon. He could have asked them if their previous scout missions had anything to do with his mother’s abduction or not.
Ross paced back and forth across the room, and continued to connect the dots by realizing that the heavy burden of deep secrecy from 1947 and 1957 had taken an incredible toll on his father. It probably explained why the bottle became Robert’s source of comfort more often throughout the years, and why he had never gotten truly close to Patty’s mother Elizabeth. From Robert’s point of view his wife Janet was still alive someplace, so he felt he would be unfaithful to her by taking another woman into his arms.
Returning to the reality of the present moment, Ross asked his father if anyone else knew of this shocking revelation. Robert shook
his head sideways to signify the negative, but uttered that Grandpa Hank had taken the secret to the grave with him. The drugs to keep Robert awake were now losing the battle with the ever strengthening cancer inside of him, and he began to fade. Before falling asleep a few minutes later, Robert told his children that he knew it in his heart and soul that their mother was still alive somewhere. He didn’t know how or when, but Ross and Jessica should never give up hope of her someday being returned to them.
Fighting through the tears of pain and confusion, Jessica looked at Ross for comfort and guidance. She asked him what he thought of their father’s claims, and wondered if the medication had somehow created this delusion. Ross told her that he didn’t think so, because Robert had clarity in his eyes that he had never seen before. He continued by saying “I visibly noticed how dad felt a sense of relief at finally being able to reveal what he had been keeping inside for so many years, and everything about all his claims made sense.” She gave Ross a quizzical look after his final statement, so he checked to see if their father was indeed asleep before returning to his chair next to Jessica. He then leaned over towards the person he trusted more than anyone else in the world, and whispered into her ear “I have something incredible to tell you!”
HAVING MOVED HER to a position in the room that was as far away as possible from both the door and their father’s bed, Ross once again leaned into his sister and began whispering into her ear. Before actually weaving the tale of the events that had taken place on the lunar surface, he demanded that Jessica keep the information she was about to hear in strict confidence. There was no way that he could risk anyone else, including his wife Patty, knowing what had happened to him and Dennis at this juncture, and he would need more time to evaluate whether he could ever release the information to the world. Jessica could tell by the look in her brother’s eyes, and the added precaution of moving away from the door, that he was deadly serious about keeping the upcoming information a secret. Based on what she had witnessed about the news of Ross’ presence on the base, she knew that secrets in this hospital did not exist.