by David Connor
Home for good after my last deployment, I stood in my dress uniform right beside Rip again, watching with tears in my eyes as Grampa walked my sister down the aisle. I saw Gramma looking radiant as matron of honor, and noticed my wobbly knees, later at the reception. Though petrified to make the toast, even with only thirty people or so in attendance, I got through it.
“If I didn’t believe you two were meant for each other, I’d-a been objecting all up in that church, just so you know. I never had a brother, and my sister, she’s been my shoulder, my rock, my conscience, my heart. She’ll be that for you. You’ll be that for each other, and I’ll try my best not to get in the way.”
When I went to sit, I pretended I remembered something else I’d meant to say.
“Oh, yeah. It’s about damned time!”
I wanted to make more memories with them.
The day they had taken off for a week in Hawaii was the day I’d fallen in love with my Max.
“We found him on the street with a nametag,” Lorre from the shelter said. “When we called the number, his owners said they don’t want him back.”
“Hey, buddy.”
Crouching in front of the cage, I hoped he would lick my hand. It took quite a while. I spoke to him calmly, even told him the story of Charlotte’s Web when I ran out of words. I held my hand still so long, it started to shake.
I remembered, as I watched, it had started to shake because I’d started to cry.
After three or four sniffles, I felt his nuzzle, and then his tongue.
Already eleven when I’d adopted him, he’d only had one good year with me. Seeing it again, what a great year it was.
“Get the ball!” He was playful at the start, despite his age.
“That cloud looks like you.” Sometimes, we would just lie in the grass.
“Let’s go for a swim!” I barely fit in the kiddie pool alone, but sometimes, he wouldn’t get in unless I did first, so he could sit on my lap.
The second year was tougher to relive. Max could no longer walk. I’d wondered if being alive was always better than the alternative, for him and for me, as I’d continued to try to make things work with Tom.
“You too busy to scoop up dog shit in the yard all of a sudden, asshole?”
“Why can’t you?” I asked.
“Because I told you to do it.”
Smack.
There was Max at the door, when I came home in the morning after work. “Hey, buddy.” I picked him up, all eighty pounds, and carried him out to the yard, hunching over to catch him when his hips would falter. Once he was steadier, we took our time, waiting for Tom to leave for the day before going back inside. Right on the rug at the door, I gently guided him down to the floor.
“All set. Relax now.”
I’d curl up beside him for most of the day. We’d cherish the peacefulness, until Tom got home.
“Wanna go pee-pee, and then for a ride in the car?”
“Hi, Max. Hi, Max.” The woman at the drive-thru at the bank knew us by name.
“Hi, Max. Hi, Goose.” The kids at the drive-thru at McDonald’s knew me by a different one.
I had regrets, too, watching my life in review, present ones, not just concerning the past. I couldn’t wait to get away from Tom most days and stay away for as long as possible. Now, I cursed myself for any wasted minute I could have been with Patrick.
About a month after I’d lost Max, one day when only one of us had awoken from down on the floor, there I was in a flashback looking for another pup in need of some love.
“I don’t think you want this one,” a different woman at a different shelter said to me. “We’ll likely put him down in another week or so. He’s healthy enough, but he won’t grow to the size he should. Poor baby’s such a runt, he was even rejected by his own mother.”
“I’ll take him.”
As my breathing became labored, I prepared myself for the phone call I knew was coming just a few days after that, the next scene in my history.
“Wait. What?” I couldn’t have heard the police officer right.
“It started at the water heater,” he said to me. “The house is gone.”
“They’re okay, though…aren’t they?”
“I’m sorry.”
“They never even got to meet Wilbur.”
My heart hurt watching myself cry, but then, witnessing the day my grandparents had met my new companion, and even got to walk with us, I felt a bit better.
“See the yellow butterfly, Wilbur?”
I rubbed my jaw, and then my fist, trying to decide which hurt worse.
“I’m sorry we got so loud. It’ll be just you and me at home, now. I promise. He’s not coming back.”
A second butterfly joined us.
“Two!” They trailed behind the entire time.
I’d been certain those butterflies were messengers of hope, of a new life. Even if it had simply been Gramma’s way of letting me know they were okay, I’d believed it. I’d felt peace, for them and for myself. I got the same feeling now, at the side of the road, as two fluttered by at night in April, an impossibility, unless I was meant to follow them.
“I want Shelby and Rip to feel that when they hear about me, Gramma.” I wondered if I could visit my sister, like Jefferson did me, like a ghost, or maybe as a cardinal or butterfly.
Before long, I was seeing myself in the basement of the fancy Tennessee hotel in October of 2018.
Patrick is sexy.
The battle he’d spoken of looked as real as it felt, as Jefferson and I ran, floated, and cheered in the 1800s.
“The Cracker Line is open! Full rations, boys!”
Then, there I was in my living room, trying to convince myself my night with a ghost was all some weird, Sudafed hallucination. Shortly thereafter, I saw myself wondering if I was having another one, as I read new words, words that were appearing right before my eyes in the priceless Civil War artifact I had accidentally brought home with me from the reenactment.
I’m here.
“How?” I asked.
I don’t know.
“Are you a ghost, Jefferson?”
So it would appear to be.
I thought I looked like a fool turning in a circle to better zero in on his voice once I could hear his words and not just read them. Wondering if he could move objects, like telekinesis, I’d asked him to try, so I would know where he was standing.
“Like what?”
“Anything. The closest thing to you, throw it on the ground.”
A large framed poster of the New York City skyline fell with a crash behind my headboard.
“Was that you?” I asked.
“Maybe. Are you angry?”
The snort that came with my jubilation was no less embarrassing a second time.
A third one came, as I experienced the scene all over again and mouthed both my words and Jefferson’s from back on that day.
“No. I’m elated.”
“Then, yes. I did it.”
I found myself wishing I could relive in actual time the road trip with Jefferson, Wilbur, and, Patrick, the one we’d taken to return the diary to Tennessee. What had lasted several days in real life, sped by in moments now. I would have done it all over again, even the thunder and lightning, which I’d hated at the time.
Patrick reached for my hand. “Tell me.”
“Tom. My ex,” I said, because it was easier to talk to a total stranger than to people I didn’t want to disappoint. “There’s a ringing in the ears feeling, like the sound when you put a seashell up to it, only way more intense. To someone else, it might be different. To me, it’s thunder.”
“Come here,” Patrick said. “I’d like to hold you…if you’ll let me.” When I didn’t move, he did, “I’ll come as close as you want,” settling with a bit of space between us.
I wished he was near me one last time, but then, managed another laugh, despite the excruciating pain from the accident, at what came next.
&nbs
p; Water began to trickle in on me from above. “Uh oh. We have a leak.”
“Slide closer.” Patrick shifted all the way to his right.
Wilbur was willing. He got on Patrick’s lap.
“That fear of cats doesn’t extend to small dogs, does it?” I asked.
“No. He’s as adorable as his daddy.”
When I sidled up, right against Patrick, Wilbur settled partly on him and partly on me. “There. Nice and dry.”
The beginning of our love story was now at its end, and I was falling for the man all over again. The next morning, the next memory in succession, we got wet on purpose.
It was warm, and the light of a new day that brightened just one corner of the horizon had the forest of mostly evergreens around us shimmering like Christmas trees in October. By the time I came upon a lake, a hundred feet away or so, my canvas shoes were soaked to my skin. “Good morning.”
Wilbur came running. I scooped him up, which got my shirt as wet as my shoes.
“Hey.”
Wilbur had been on the bank. Patrick was in the water.
“Isn’t it cold?” I asked.
“Surprisingly tolerable, once the shock wears off.”
“Your teeth are chattering,” I pointed out.
Patrick stood. He was naked, and the sight of him was stunning. A plethora of red hair covered his thick, muscular form. Every step he took toward me had something flexing, bulging, or swinging back and forth. His nipples had me believing the water was frigid. Other parts of his body made me wonder. “Want to come in?” He held out his hand.
“Do it,” Jefferson said.
Patrick was still standing there in front of me, not even trying to cover himself. “Look,” he said after a bit.
“Oh, I’m looking.”
Boy, was I smooth.
“We have a lake.” He stated the obvious. “Come on.”
“Do it.” I felt Jefferson nudge me.
It took a moment or two, but finally, “Why not?” I set down Wilbur, and then kicked off my shoes.
Jefferson told me not to be afraid.
“I’m not afraid,” I told to him. “A little self-conscious, maybe. He’s so tall and I’m so…not tall.”
“What’s that?” Patrick turned back just a second, to catch me in my underwear, but then looked away.
“Nothing.” The birds were noisy, but he’d probably heard every word. “Just talking to Wilbur.” I stepped out of my shorts and underwear but covered myself with both hands. “I’m ready.”
Patrick turned and held out a hand. I took it. Then he held out the other one.
“Ha. You’re clever.”
I laughed in the present at the replay as well.
“Just offering.”
The cardinal conversation came soon, right there at the lake, right there at the accident, right when I knew it would. The recent past was much easier to recall.
“The first time I was reading Jefferson’s diary, a cardinal landed on the window ledge right outside,” I said to Patrick. “Some people believe cardinals are messengers from beyond.”
“Some people do,” Jefferson said cryptically.
Once Patrick filled me in on what to listen for, with intense focus, I caught seventeen high pitched notes—seventeen—after the first two, like a slide. “That’s a cardinal?”
“Yes.”
“I hear them all the time,” I said.
“Your loved ones are around you,” Jefferson told me, or maybe it was Patrick. I was staring up into the trees, so I wasn’t sure.
“I was reading about ghosts recently,” I said in response, “and I really want to believe what a lot of the articles said, about how most souls pass over with no problem into peace.”
I wanted to believe it now, too, as I lay on the pavement, each breath more painful and difficult.
“Some experts claim spirits can come back and forth and send messages, and I’ve had some things happen recently that have erased any doubts I might have had.” I listened for the cardinals some more, and burst out laughing, not because it was funny, but because I was so happy. “Cool.” When I looked down, there were Patrick’s bright eyes and beautiful smile. I kissed him.
“Cool,” Jefferson said.
I longed for Patrick’s lips in the present, for them to be against mine if the breath I was taking was my last.
“I shouldn’t have—”
Before I could finish my sentence, Patrick kissed me, a long, lingering kiss that took my breath away and tickled me everywhere, all up and down my naked body.
I held on in the present, unsure if I was fighting to stay or to go, still aware enough to see the replay of events that had our bodies pressed together, chained to a tree. The fight with the owner of the ice cream shop, the harassment by the burly, angry ice cream eaters, everything from those two days flew by, until the memory of letting Jefferson go, presumably forever, broke my heart all over again.
“Don’t go,” I said. “Not yet.”
“I’ll try not to. This can’t be for nothing. I know you have feelings that have started to emerge.”
“Yes.” I couldn’t deny it.
“They should be for Patrick,” Jefferson told me. “He likes you. You like him.”
“Yes, but…”
Patrick was pretending not to listen. Still, I tried to keep my words at one or two.
“I belong with Calvin, for many reasons,” Jefferson said. “We…”
“Jefferson?”
He didn’t answer me.
“Are you still here?” Now, I didn’t care who could hear. “Jefferson!”
“I have to go, Goose.”
“Not yet. We haven’t finished. There has to be more we can do to save your tree.”
“I’m not sure there is.”
“But where? Where are you going? To be with Calvin or trapped still?”
“I don’t know. I’ll try to return. I’ll let you know how it all works out, and that I’m close.”
“How?”
“I’ll sing. I’ll sing…”
“‘Amazing Grace,’” I suggested.
“The whole song?”
I smiled.
“The first line, Goose.” I could barely hear him now. “If I’m able. Will that do?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Twelve notes. A-a-ma-zi-i-ing grace…”
I only got seven. “Jefferson? Jefferson!”
The unexplained phenomenon that had happened next—unexplained except to me—brought chills all over again, as did my actions afterward.
I had a small knife on my keychain, which I pulled out of my pocket. “Would the tree mind, Jefferson?” I desperately wanted to hear him. Nothing came, though, until the trill of a cardinal. “At night?” I questioned the sky, not my sanity. The bird performed the slide whistle tone twice, and then trilled twelve times. Twelve. It wasn’t the right tune for “Amazing Grace,” but it was the right number of notes. “Thank you,” I whispered.
One night in April, nearly six months later, a cardinal whistled again. I kept track of his notes. Twelve. Jefferson was with me out on that street with Tom, and that eased my suffering, even as I got to the part in my history when I’d decided to take a train back home from our October Tennessee adventure, leaving Patrick behind and disappointed.
“I was kind of looking forward to spending another couple of days with you on the road,” he said.
“Yeah. I just figured…You know…Halloween.”
“Sure. Halloween.”
It would have been nearly over by the time we’d driven back. I loved Halloween, but what a fool I had been. Had I not been aware of how things had turned out, I would have been cursing myself.
“I’ll keep in touch,” I promised.
“I hope so.”
I was going to try to be true to my word. “Oh, definitely.” My hands stuffed in my pockets, Wilbur’s leash around my wrist, I said, “Goodbye, Patrick.”
He hugged me like that. “
Bye, Goose.”
“You kept playing matchmaker, though, Jefferson,” I said toward the sky, each word, each breath a chore.
On Halloween night, Patrick had come knocking, to bring me a souvenir I’d left behind in Tennessee. I’d still been reluctant and had almost let him get away a second time.
“Well, good night, Goose. Happy Halloween.” He turned to go.
“Wait, Patrick.” I held out my hand. “Would you like to come in? They’re playing scary movies ‘til morning on AMC.”
Patrick took my hand. “Come in?”
“Yes.”
“Sure. I…I’d like that.”
“Good.”
He took a step, then paused. “Will you hold me if I get scared?”
I pulled him all the way in and shut the door. “I’ll hold you even if you don’t.”
It had taken months in real life before Patrick and I had gotten to be together in bed, but our first dates flashed in my mind, the very first, after our night watching scary movies, had been grocery shopping.
“I wanted to take you someplace you’d feel comfortable,” Patrick said, standing there in the aisle where Cost-Mart segued from an everything store to a grocery store. “Plus, I’m doing Thanksgiving for forty, and could use all the help I can get with this part.”
He complained about cold hands after digging through all the turkeys to find three of the biggest the store had.
“My hands are cold. Would you hold them?”
I smiled. “How will we push the shopping cart?”
“Hmm. I think if you hold one, that’ll warm up both.”
“How does that work?” I asked.
Patrick shrugged. “Are you arguing with a guy who took ten thousand hours of Biology and Anatomy?”
“Certainly not.” I took his hand.
Our snowy night at Cost-Mart after the holidays was one to remember fondly, dressing the mannequins as Jefferson and Calvin, donning superhero costumes ourselves and flying through the air on the stock ladder. My vision, in which I’d visited with Jefferson and finally got to meet Calvin, made me wonder about the era of my own Heaven.
“If I go to Heaven, Jefferson, will you be there?” I asked the cardinal I could hear but couldn’t see. “Will Calvin and the Porters, so I can ask them about any relationship to Carrie? Would they know?”