Once Beyond a Time

by Ann Tatlock

  Carl’s presence in the house is a great solace. He plans to stay with us a while, and I’m grateful. I’m not ready to let him go again. Not so soon. He plans to apply to the University of North Carolina in Asheville, which he can attend on the GI Bill. One reason I think he wants to stay here is to see if the house has anything for him—anything to tell him, anything to give him. I hope he won’t be disappointed, but I think we’ve gained all we’re going to gain, and—for me, at least—that’s enough.

  Linda will graduate from high school next month and plans to follow Carl to UNCA. She too will continue to live with us. Her choice. Imagine. I have my daughter back.

  I lift the cup to my lips and sip; the coffee has grown cold. I must start Sheldon’s breakfast anyway. Scrambled eggs, toast, bacon—I want to send him to work with a full stomach. It may be a long tiring day. Maybe I’ll send a thermos of coffee with him too.

  The dregs of cold coffee swirl in the bottom of the cup. I’m reluctant to move away from the sink and start the day because it takes a certain strength to live, sometimes more than I have. It’s still hard to get through the days without Digger.

  But we do. We will live through today and tomorrow and the day after that, and maybe one day it won’t hurt so much.

  I will allow myself one more look out the window before I turn to the stove. One more glance at the morning before I begin the day. Lifting my eyes to the glass, I gasp and forget to breathe. Both cup and saucer fall from my hands and shatter in the sink.

  “Digger,” I whisper.

  My knees weaken, and I have to clutch the edge of the sink to keep from falling. I shut my eyes, open them again; he is still there.

  Digger is playing in the backyard, his arms extended as though they are wings. He climbs up the big rock, bends his knees, leaps. His laughter fills the air.

  My right hand briefly settles over my heart then rises to my lips. He’s wearing a white-and-green striped shirt, brown shorts, white socks, blue sneakers, and a clover chain necklace. He is wearing what he wore on the day he disappeared. And I know what that means. I’m seeing that day all over again. I am seeing into time, seeing him as he was on the day he left. I’m incredulous and sick at the thought. Of all the good this house has done, this one thing is cruel beyond words. I don’t think I can bear it.

  His arms outstretched, he climbs the rock, leaps, laughs. Then he sees me. He sees me watching from the window.

  “Hi, Ma!” he hollers as he waves.

  My hand drops from my mouth; I rush to the door and into the yard.

  But what if he isn’t real? What if he too is only seeing into time?

  I stop and look at my son. “Digger?”

  He stands still and looks at me. His arms fall to his side. “Yeah, Ma?”

  “Digger?” I say again.

  “What? What’s the matter, Ma? You don’t look so good.”

  I’m trembling, terrified he will disappear. “Digger, give me your hand.”

  “But why?”

  “Just do as I say, please.” I extend my hand, reaching for him.

  “You’re shaking, Ma. Are you cold?”

  I bend down, both knees on the grass. Please God, let his hand be solid. Let him be real.

  Digger looks at his hand. “I got dirt on me.”

  “It’s all right. Really it is. Just—just let me touch you.”

  My hand hangs in the air, waiting. Digger rubs his palm against one hip. Then he reaches for me, his dirty little-boy hand slicing through air, his fingertips sliding down my fingers until his palm comes to rest in mine. I grab hold. His flesh is solid. He is alive.

  Crying out, I pull him to me, hold him tight against my breast. “Digger! Digger, you’re here! You’re really here.”

  He struggles against my embrace. “Let go of me, Ma. What’s the matter? You’re smothering me.”

  I let him go, cup his dusty, dirty, beautiful face in my hands. Tears run down my cheeks. “Digger, where have you been?” I ask. “Where have you been?”

  He looks puzzled. He’s trying to pull his face from my hands, but I don’t let go. “What do you mean, where’ve I been? I’ve been right here playing. Where do you think I’d be? Why are you crying, Ma? You act like I been gone forever.”

  Oh Digger, you were. You were gone forever, and you don’t even know it.

  I lift my apron and wipe my eyes. “I’m sorry, Digger. I’m just so happy, is all.”

  “What are you all happy about? Did something good happen?”

  “Oh yes, something good. Something very, very good.”

  He shrugs. “Did Marjorie go home? ’Cause if she did I can take this stupid necklace off.”

  “Yes. Yes,” I say, laughing. “She went home a long time ago.”

  He tugs at the necklace and tosses it aside. “I’m hungry. When are we going to eat?”

  “Soon, but first, I have a surprise. Carl came home. Carl’s here.”

  His eyes grow wide with surprise. “He is? He came back from ’Nam?”

  “Yes, he came home. That means we’re all together now.”

  Digger throws up his hands. “Hooray! Let’s celebrate and have a party with cake and everything. Can we have a chocolate cake, Ma? Can we?”

  “Of course we can. But first, let me call Carl out to see you. And Daddy and Linda. All right?”

  “Sure! I’ll holler with you.”

  He begins to holler. I turn back to the house and see Sheldon standing in the doorway, motionless and wide-eyed. He looks at me with fear on his face. “Is he …”

  “He’s real, Sheldon. He’s back. Digger’s back.”

  Sheldon gives off a cry that almost sounds like a cry of pain, but in the next moment he’s in the yard, and Digger is in his arms, and they are both talking and laughing at once.

  Once Sheldon loosens his grip, Digger leans back, puts two fingers in his mouth and fishes out a small white pearl. “Look, Daddy, you knocked me around so much you knocked my loose tooth clean out! Can I put it under my pillow tonight and get a nickel?”

  Sheldon takes the tooth, bloody at the root, and lays it in the palm of his hand. He gazes at it for a long while as though it’s something unknown, something he’s never seen before. And indeed, maybe it is. Because it is evidence that while time passed for us, it didn’t pass for Digger. Sheldon lifts his eyes to me. We share a look of puzzlement and wonder. “I don’t understand, Sheldon,” I say quietly. “Where has he been?”

  “I don’t know,” Sheldon admits. “Outside of time, maybe? But I don’t know where that would be.”

  “He told me he hasn’t been anywhere, that he’s just been right here all along. I think he thinks it’s the day he disappeared.”

  “You suppose he has no memory of … anything?”

  “He doesn’t seem to.”

  Digger tugs on Sheldon’s sleeve. “What are you guys talking about? Why are you saying I disappeared and don’t remember?”

  His wide eyes flit between me and his Dad, looking fearful. Sheldon kneels in front of him and puts a hand on his shoulder. He starts to say something, stops, shakes his head. “We have some explaining to do, Digger,” he says quietly. “Something has happened, and we’ll tell you all about it. But don’t worry, everything’s all right. Everything’s fine now.”

  Digger’s face relaxes and he shrugs. “Okay,” he says. He points to the tooth in Sheldon’s hand. “So do I get the nickel or don’t I?”

  Sheldon closes his fist over the tooth and laughs. “Of course you do, Digger,” he says, hugging the boy to himself again. “We’ll put the tooth under your pillow tonight.”

  Our joy is interrupted by a scream and Linda running toward us in her nightgown. “Digger!” she cries. “Digger, you’re here! I can’t believe you’re really here!”

  She too kneels in the grass and throws her arms around her brother. Digger scrunches up his face and tries to wiggle away. “Hey, knock it off,” he mutters. “What’s the matter with you anyway? You’re—”
He stops and his eyes grow wide. “Carl!”

  Carl is coming toward us now, walking barefoot across the grass, wearing only a pair of shorts and an undershirt. Instead of shouting like Linda, he is quiet, like someone in shock. He reaches Digger and drops to the ground, his naked knees making dents in the grass. He looks from Digger, to Sheldon, to me. “Then it’s true,” he says. “About the house.”

  “Yes,” Sheldon says.

  Carl smiles and takes Digger’s hand. “Hey buddy, you’re home.”

  “I’m home?” Digger replies. “You’re funny, Carl! You’re the one that came home. I didn’t even know you were coming back. Why didn’t somebody tell me you were coming?”

  “I don’t know, Digger. I guess we wanted to surprise you.”

  “Well, you sure did! And now we’re all here and we’re all together! Isn’t that great? Ma says we can have a party!”

  Carl reaches out and ruffles his little brother’s hair. And then he pulls Digger to him and wraps him up in a hug so tight it looks like he’s never going to let go.

  Sheldon reaches for me and takes my hand. Linda’s arm is around my shoulder. My sons are hugging each other; their laughter fills the morning air.

  Thank God. Thank God.

  We are all home now, and we are all together.

  Epilogue

  To God let votive accents rise;

  With truth, with virtue, live;

  So all the bliss that Time denies

  Eternity shall give.

  —John Quincy Adams, The Hour-Glass

  Celeste

  Summer 2007

  DIGGER SOMEHOW SLIPPED in between time or out of time or above time or perhaps even below time—we don’t exactly know, and it doesn’t much matter. What matters is that he came back, or was allowed back or was brought back. We’re not sure of that either. Digger had no memory of what happened for a long time. When he was grown, his mind began to offer up snatches of something he said was beyond his ability to describe, though he did say it was like nothing he’d seen before or has seen since. I for one believe that from his vantage point somewhere out of time, what he saw was heaven—from a distance, of course, just a glimpse of things to come.

  Digger’s unexpected return made him something of a legend in his own time as he slipped back into the routine of life in Black Mountain. The townsfolk were understandably amazed that, after so many months, he was alive, unharmed, and very much the same little boy who had disappeared without a trace. Not only in our own town but also across the county, he became known as The Miracle Boy Who Survived the Mountains. Of course, it wasn’t that at all, but who could explain? His parents—rather like the mother of Jesus—had to ponder certain mysteries in their hearts without giving too much away to others.

  The day Digger came home was the day the star disappeared for good. That night, as a family, the five of them stepped out after dark to take what would be their last look at the star. The star had already faded some, like Meg said, as though it were being pulled back into history. But that night, even as they gazed at it, its light simply vanished like a candle blown out. It had finished what it came for.

  The Cranes stayed in the house until 1974 when Sheldon accepted the call to pastor a church full-time in Asheville. After that, he left the used car lot for good and never looked back. He and Meg moved with Digger to Asheville, where Sheldon served the church until his death in 1999. Over the years, the house in Black Mountain was rented out to a number of folks, but no one spoke of anything strange happening there, and thankfully Vernita Ponder was able to die without her hometown being overrun by curiosity seekers. Not until 2005, when Gavan Valdez bought the house, did anything unusual happen within its walls, but Gavan for one wasn’t about to let the news get around town. When Mrs. See sent me to him and he hired me to take care of Nicholas, I assured him I would keep the secret.

  I worked for Mr. Valdez until the summer of 2006 when his wife came home from Iraq. Having fulfilled her duty, she left the National Guard to raise her family, which came to include two more children over time.

  That same summer I got married and went on working for the elderly woman in Asheville, who Meg thought of as Mrs. See. Funny thing was, it wasn’t Mrs. See—it was Mrs. “C,” which was what I always called her. The C was short for Crane. For Margaret See was, and is, Meg Crane; for some reason the Meg of 1968 was allowed to speak to the Meg of 2005, through me. Or perhaps vice versa, as Mrs. C was the one offering advice to Meg, knowing full well she was talking to herself—or rather, the person she had been some thirty-five years before.

  Which was a gift perhaps many of us could use, if only we were allowed to hear words of comfort and advice from our future selves. But we are not, most of us. Most of us must live by blind faith, so to speak, because these temporal eyes of ours can’t see the future. We can live in the now and remember the past, but we have to trust the future to the One who is already there, and who has at least told us in his Word that we’re moving toward a happy ending. That’s all we’re allowed to know, but it’s enough, don’t you think?

  So now I’m pouring a couple of tall glasses of sweet tea for Mrs. C and myself, as it’s a hot summer day, and she’s already waiting for me to join her in the rocking chairs on the porch.

  “Celeste?” I hear her call.

  “Yes, Mrs. C?”

  “Digger just sent some more pictures of the grandkids to my phone. You’ve got to come out and see them!”

  “I’ll be right there!”

  I carry the tea to the porch where I find Meg Crane peering at her cell phone and smiling over the grandchildren that once upon a time she thought she would never have.

  “Well now, aren’t they the fine-looking crew,” I say as I sit in the chair beside her.

  We will no doubt be out here for much of the afternoon where we like to drink our tea and talk and remember and wonder and marvel and just spend time. So long as the clocks are ticking, we will spend our time gratefully, knowing the hours have wings that carry us home.