by Ann Tatlock
Once Beyond A Time
by
ANN TATLOCK
ONCE BEYOND A TIME BY ANN TATLOCK
Published by Heritage Beacon Fiction
an imprint of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas
2333 Barton Oaks Dr., Raleigh, NC, 27614
ISBN: 978-1-941103-90-6
Copyright © 2014 by Ann Tatlock
Cover design by Goran Tomic
Interior design by Karthick Srinivasan
Available in print from your local bookstore, online, or from the publisher at:
www.lighthousepublishingofthecarolinas.com
For more information on this book and the author visit: www.anntatlock.com
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are all products of the author’s imagination or are used for fictional purposes. Any mentioned brand names, places, and trademarks remain the property of their respective owners, bear no association with the author or the publisher, and are used for fictional purposes only.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tatlock, Ann.
Once Beyond A Time/Ann Tatlock 1st ed.
PRAISE FOR ONCE BEYOND A TIME
Wow. I can’t remember the last time I was so absorbed in a book. I LOVED this novel. I’ve always been taken with the idea of God existing outside of time and this book captured that so beautifully. Utterly engaging.
Sarah Loudin Thomas
Author of Miracle in a Dry Season
Ann Tatlock is a remarkable writer. I have not enjoyed reading a book this much in a long, long time. I was sucked along by the characters and their lives, by the uniqueness of the setting, and by the beauty of her language and storytelling.
Holly Lorincz
Editing and publishing consultant
Lorincz Literary Services
Once Beyond A Time is a novel less about time and more about healing and forgiveness. Even as the house transcends time, the themes Tatlock weaves transcend decades. We see, very clearly, how enduring our pain can be, and how sweet forgiveness can be. Highly recommended.
Aaron Gansky
Author of The Bargain, Firsts in Fiction, and The Hand of Adonai Series
This is the best book I have read in a long time and I read a lot! The characters became a part of my life and I wanted to step into the pages and become a part of theirs. The story was intricate but not confusing, deep but not underwater, weaving together several plots, mysteries and truths in a natural and fun way. You don’t want to miss this one!
Robin Prince Monroe
Artist and author of Devotions for the Brokenhearted
Ann Tatlock has served up a truly great story! Once Beyond A Time tugs at your imagination, pulls you into a captivating world of “what ifs,” and confronts very real conflicts in a very surreal manner – I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Denny Brownlee
Actor, voice artist and comedy writer
Once Beyond A Time is a window into the soul of every human; it’s a picture of what it is to live and love and hurt and struggle and triumph and rejoice. Hauntingly honest and beautifully written, I found myself emotionally drawn in to the lives of the characters.
Mike Dellosso
Author of Fearless and Rearview
There is nothing sweeter than the gentle hand of words when written by Ann Tatlock. Once Beyond A Time is no different. In this story, Tatlock draws you into her world and allows you to wander from age to age with her characters. A read that is “timeless.”
Cindy Sproles
Author of Mercy Rains
Part 1
Time is what keeps
everything from
happening at once.
——RAY CUMMINGS,
The Girl in the Golden Atom
1
Meg
Friday, July 12, 1968
MY FIRST THOUGHT now, of course, is that Carl will never come home.
Not really, anyway. Not to the home he left only a short time ago. When my son comes back from Vietnam—and please, God, let him come back—he’ll return to a place he’s never been, and where none of us really wants to be. Not Sheldon. Not I. Certainly not Linda, who makes no effort to hide her anger. Digger is the only one at peace with the move, and that’s because at eight years of age he’s simply too young to know any better. To him, leaving the familiar and landing in some remote corner of North Carolina is just another adventure.
That’s not to say this place is without its charms. I stand here on the wide front porch of the old house and look out over the mountains. Because we are up high and in a clearing, I can see for miles and, yes, the mountains, layers of them, are oddly blue. The Blue Ridge Mountains. After a lifetime spent in the flat farmland of southeast Pennsylvania, I have the same feeling of hushed awe I got every time I stepped into the Cathedral Basilica in Philadelphia. The ceiling was so high, and there was so much open space! I almost longed to sprout wings and soar upward to touch the pinnacle of that domed ceiling.
But here, the ceiling is infinite and endless and untouchable, for the dome is the sun-streaked sky, and the walls are a living landscape formed by the mountains. I think I might find it beautiful, if only I could see it without the pain.
But I can’t. Because the pain is at the heart of why we’re here.
Sheldon had an affair. Two months I’ve known, and yet I can scarcely bring myself to believe that this is my life, that I am the woman scorned. It’s something that happens to other women, not to me. I didn’t even suspect, though it was happening right under my own roof with a young woman who is my own cousin. I was so certain of my relationship with Sheldon, so secure, so proud of our twenty years with scarcely a bump in the road that I couldn’t even see what was playing out in front of my eyes.
Not until the whole thing was over, and Sheldon came to me in tears, did I know. The night he confessed, his words literally knocked me off balance, and I had to stumble to a chair and sit. My hands shook, and I couldn’t catch my breath. What was he saying? What was he asking of me? I shut my eyes, rubbed my temples with my fingertips.
He knelt at my feet, his hands folded in my lap. “Forgive me,” he said.
Forgive you?
I felt myself breaking apart like an old star giving out and floating off, bits and pieces, into space. Which part of me should forgive you, Sheldon? Which broken part?
Finally, I managed to string six words together and spit them out. “When did you stop loving me?”
I opened my eyes. He was shaking his head, looking horrified. “I never stopped loving you, Meg. I swear, that’s the truth.”
I didn’t believe him. You don’t cheat on someone you love. You couldn’t do that to someone you love.
From somewhere inside me, a scream rose up that seemed to go on and on. I pushed Sheldon away. We fought. Bitterly. For hours. That night he moved into the den.
The nex
t day, the deathly silence fell over us. The marriage which just twenty-four hours earlier had been my whole life, was now gone. Just like that. But there was more to come. Not only did the affair ruin our marriage, but Sheldon, in some misguided act of penance, allowed it to strip him of his life’s work. Quietly, without explanation, Sheldon resigned from his job as pastor of First Baptist Church of Abington.
“What will we do?” I asked.
“We will start over somewhere else,” he said.
I thought of leaving him. I thought of finding a job and an apartment and raising the kids on my own, but in the end, I couldn’t muster the strength and courage it would take to do it. And when finally Steve called and said, “Listen, Sis, one of my salesmen just quit. I’ll give the job to Sheldon if you all want to come down here. Just wait till you see this place; it’s beautiful. You’ll love it”—I went along with it. Sheldon took the job, and we left our home state of Pennsylvania to come down here to Western North Carolina where my brother ended up eons ago when he married a southern girl. Steve loves it here, and he thinks everyone should love it here. As I stand on this wide porch and look out over those far blue hills I think, maybe I would love it here too if I weren’t already as good as dead. I can hardly pull any of this mountain air into my lungs, much less allow the beauty to enter my soul.
I thought I had proved Mother wrong, but she was right after all. “Love always ends,” she said, “and men always leave.” Those were her words to me when Daddy left her for wife number two, whom he later left for wife number three and number four. It’s a wonder Steve has stayed with Donna all these years. How is it he didn’t end up like Daddy, while Sheldon did? Not in the leaving, but in letting love die.
My jaw clenches. I can’t give in to the anger right now. Steve and his family will be here any minute. I move down the porch steps and find Digger playing in the drive, digging in the dirt with his shovel and his bucket, making a race track for his Matchbox cars. He’s smiling, laughing to himself. He’s the only untroubled soul around here. It gives me a moment’s pleasure just to watch him; Harrison, my last-born, the surprise. Linda was nine and Carl ten, and next thing I know, I’m pregnant. A surprise, yes, but never “the mistake.” Never.
Harrison Benjamin Crane. From the day he was born, he’s been my joy.
Steve and Donna came up the summer he was two, and when Donna saw him digging in the garden, she exclaimed, “Well, look at the littlest Crane, out there digging in the dirt! He’s building himself a whole little town!” And then Steve added, “But isn’t that what cranes do? Work in the dirt and build things?” And we all laughed, and ever since, he’s been Digger. Now, it seems hardly anyone remembers his real name. Except me. Harrison Benjamin Crane, the only real joy I have right now.
A car horn honks and Digger jumps up and waves. The drive is so long I can’t see the beginning of it from the porch steps, but in a moment, there’s Steve’s car—a Chevy, of course—pulling up to the house. The car stops, and they all pile out: Steve, Donna, Jeff, and Marjorie. Come to welcome us on our first day in Black Mountain, North Carolina.
“Hey, y’all!” Donna calls.
Yes, we are in the South. Best get used to it, I suppose. I step off the porch and greet Donna with a hug.
“Welcome, Sis,” Steve says. He kisses my cheek and shakes hands with Sheldon, who has just stepped out the front door. Steve settles his hand on my shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. If he weren’t my older brother—and a man at that—I’d almost think he understood.
2
Linda
Friday, July 12, 1968
OH GREAT. I’VE died and gone to hell. Dad—oh yeah, that great man of God—turns out to be a hypocrite, and now all of us have to pay with our lives. The old man can’t keep his hands off Mom’s pretty, young cousin, and next thing I know, I’ve got to do my senior year down here in Barney Fife country, where the best-looking guy in class is probably as ugly as sin after ten generations of family inbreeding. I mean, if they’re all like those two bozos Uncle Steve sent up here this morning to help us unload the U-Haul, I’m as good as in a nunnery. One guy had brown teeth, and the other had an Adam’s apple the size of Texas.
My senior year! I was just starting to make some headway with Brian, too. I mean, at least he’d talk to me when he was high, and that’s something anyway. Another few weeks, maybe a month, I bet we’d have hooked up. I’d finally shed that preacher’s daughter stereotype stuff and was hanging out with the right people, the cool kids, and I bet I had a pretty good chance at homecoming queen this year and what happens but Dad announces we’re pulling up stakes and heading to hillbilly country. He wouldn’t say why we were moving, but later Mom told me the whole creepy story about him shacking up with Charlene. Yeah, Dad was pretty miffed about Mom spilling the beans and all, but hey, when it comes to being mad, I’d say Dad doesn’t have a leg to stand on. What he did to Mom is way worse than her telling me what he did.
I begged Mom to let me stay in Abington and live with Monica for our senior year. Monica’s parents even said it was all right, but Mom wouldn’t give in. She’s already lost Carl to the war, she says, and she’s not going to give up another child right at the same time. Like we have this close mother-daughter thing going on or something. And anyway, Carl’s just a company clerk, for crying out loud. Like, what, he’s going to die of too much typing? Bleed to death from too many paper cuts? It’s not like he’s out on the front lines where the killing’s going on. Plus, he wanted to go, the psycho. He’s seventeen when he graduates, and then he goes and works at that two-bit Woolworth’s job until his eighteenth birthday so he can sign up for the war soon as he’s old enough. I mean, there’s guys out there burning their draft cards and running off to Canada, and my brother the weirdo wants to go to Vietnam like he’s signing up for some sort of cruise ship vacation or something. Anyway, Mom’s wasting her time worrying about him. He’s probably having the time of his life, smoking all the weed he wants and meeting pretty little Vietnamese girls in the back streets of Hanoi. That’s more than I can say for myself, down here in Hicksville. Oh man, my life is ruined.
So this dump is supposed to be my bedroom? At least we’re not in some church manse for the first time in my life, but that’s about the only good thing I can say about this house. This place is so old it looks like it’s falling apart around our ears, and the furniture hasn’t been changed since the last century. It’s been sitting here, moldering, for decades. I mean, I wonder how many old geezers have slept in this very bed. I don’t know, but I think I can still smell their sour sweaty flesh like they just got up and didn’t bother to change the sheets. And look at that old chair—it’s got doilies on the arms! And the dresser—sheesh—the mirror’s so bad, I can hardly find a spot in it that shows my whole face at once. That might be fine for some old lady who doesn’t want to see herself anyway, but it’s not going to work for me. I mean, putting up with the furniture in all those manses was no picnic, but this takes the cake. I got to get my boxes unpacked and get my Grateful Dead posters up on the wall. Maybe that’ll help. But I doubt it.
There’s a door here in my room, leading out to the upper porch. We got a porch downstairs and a porch upstairs. “Well, isn’t that nice,” Dad says this morning when we pull up in front of this oversized shack that’s supposed to be our new home. Yeah, so, whoop-de-do. We can all sit out here in our rocking chairs like the bunch of hillbillies we are now and smoke our corncob pipes and drink moonshine from a jug. Like two porches make up for an entire senior year. It’d be all right if I could step out here at night and hear Brian calling to me from down behind a tree, and then I’d sneak off … but, no, forget it! Brian’s a thousand miles away, along with all my friends and every other good thing that used to be my life.
Good grief, look at Digger, will you? Down there playing in the dirt. That’s all he ever does. He’s like Pig Pen in that Charlie Brown comic strip, the guy with the dust cloud following him around. Dirt up to his elbows,
on the back of his neck, down his pants. If he’s dirty, he’s happy. That’s my kid brother. How embarrassing.
“Hey, Digger,” I yell down to him. “Why don’t you go play in a riptide somewhere.”
Digger stands and looks around. Then he looks up at me. His face is all scrunched up because he’s squinting against the sun. “I didn’t know there was any ocean around here,” he says.
Stupid kid.
He goes back to playing in the dirt. Mom is on the porch below me. I know she is. I can hear her footsteps. I hear her sigh. She is big-time mad at Dad, and I don’t blame her. “Why don’t you just divorce him, Mom?” I asked. I mean, anyone else would. But Mom? She doesn’t even answer. She just looks at me like I’ve told her to go jump off a cliff. I guess she thinks she has to play the devoted wife, like this is The Donna Reed Show or something. Of course, if this were The Donna Reed Show, Dad wouldn’t have been sleeping around.
Oh great. Look who’s here. It’s the Clampetts. Jed, Granny, Jethro, and Elly May. Okay, so Aunt Donna doesn’t look anything like Granny, but she waves her hand and yells, “Hey, y’all”and I know I’m not in Pennsylvania anymore.
Well, I for one am not in the mood for company. I slip back into my room and plop down on the old stuffed chair with the doilies on the arms. It smells musty, and it’s all lumpy like it’s stuffed with a sack of potatoes. I let my head drop against the back and shut my eyes. Oh God, if you’re up there, just kill me now.
I open my eyes, and there’s cousin Jeff, standing in the doorway of my bedroom. I haven’t seen him in a couple years, and he’s grown about a foot and sprouted a boatload of pimples since we were last together. He smiles and shrugs like I asked him a question or something. “Hey,” he says.
“Is that how you say hi around here?”
He shrugs again. “I guess so.”
He’s not a bad-looking kid, except for the acne, but he’s two years younger than me, and he’s still a year away from getting his driver’s license, and he’d better not get any ideas that we’re going to be friends or anything. I’m in a place where there’s not going to be any friends. But just one year, I tell myself. Just one year and I’m outta here.