Beside a Dreamswept Sea
Page 34
He wasn’t needed.
Mary Beth had come to help Cally.
He’d breached the rules and not been punished, though if Cally had lost faith, he’d have had to watch Suzie die, and that would have been so painful he couldn’t imagine it.
He’d felt the physical. In a dream, he’d felt the physical. He’d assumed because he’d broken the rules by interceding in Suzie’s dream, he’d be punished. He wasn’t. But only when Suzie had asked him if he’d believed had he realized he was being rewarded.
The first time he’d interceded into Suzie’s dream, he hadn’t realized the potential personal sacrifice. That he and Hattie could be separated forever. Which is why he’d had to be tested again.
And he was. Two nights before Thanksgiving. When Mary Beth had come and officially warned him not to intercede, warned him that the repercussions would cost him everything. Would cost him Hattie.
Yet he had known himself, and his beloved. Had known that if he’d refused to help Suzie, he would forfeit his self-respect, and Hattie’s respect. And so he’d willingly sacrificed all for the child. In doing so, he’d earned a reward—or so he’d thought.
As he watched his beloved sleep, the truth of the matter settled onto him. These special guests were here to heal, but they were also here to help Tony and Hattie heal. Being separated from each other grew harder each Thanksgiving, more painful for both of them. But because they did what they could for others, reaching out as best they were able, they were being rewarded. Sunshine, Mary Beth Ladner, had come to show Tony a way that he and his beloved Hattie could touch, could hold, could—at least, for a time—be together.
Words he’d once said to Suzie came tumbling back through his mind. Sometimes when we want something a lot, we tell ourselves we don’t want it, so then if we don’t get it, it doesn’t hurt so much.
He’d believed in miracles for Suzie, but not for himself. And certainly not for him and Hattie. Because he hadn’t believed miracles possible for them, he’d misread the signs.
Now, he understood.
Hattie lay dreaming. In the dream, she stood out on the inn’s front lawn, her hand cupped over her eyes, blocking out the brilliant sunlight, looking up toward the attic room. Toward his room.
He fingered the petals on the yellow carnation, loosened it from his lapel, then held it in his hand. His heart rocking against his ribs, he stepped into his beloved’s dream.
He came up from behind her. Heard and felt the gravel on the drive crunch under his heels. All sights and sounds and smells seemed magnified a hundredfold. “Hattie.”
“Tony?” She turned, gasped, clasped her hands to her face. “Oh, Tony!”
His age. His beloved appeared the same age as he, and she ran to him as he ran to her. Tears streamed down her cheeks, down his own. He caught her in his arms, clamped them tightly around her, smothered her with kisses; her face, her chin, her shoulder—wherever his lips deigned to touch. “Oh, God, Hattie.”
She laughed through her tears and lifted her face for his kiss. “I prayed you’d come back to me. I prayed so hard.”
He kissed her as if starved, unleashing the longing that had built inside him during their fifty-one-year separation. And when they paused to draw breath, he drew back enough to hand her the carnation. “I had to come walk with you on the cliffs.”
“Just like we used to.” She smelled the yellow petals that had been their link to each other for such a long time, her eyes sparkling with so much love. So much love, and so much joy.
Hand in hand, they walked together, across the craggy cliffs to the special oak where they’d first confessed their love; where Tony first had proposed, and Hattie had accepted; their arms entwined, their hearts beating contentedly as one; and, inside his mind, Tony heard Suzie’s laughter, her voice. If only one has the courage to believe, miracles can happen beside a dreamswept sea.
“I believed, Suzie,” he silently whispered to the child who’d taught him the power of faith and magic and love.
The power of Seascape Inn.
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About Vicki Hinze
Vicki is the award-winning author of 24 novels, 4 nonfiction books and hundreds of articles, published in as many as sixty-three countries. She is recognized by Who’s Who in the World as an author and as an educator. For more information, please visit her website.
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