An Eternity in a Moment

by K Carothers

  Erin slowly shook her head and laughed. The place looked pleasant, peaceful actually.

  A moment later a woman about her own age with short brown hair came out the front door and headed down the porch steps, waving to her.

  Erin paused uncertainly, but then waved back and walked up the driveway to meet her.

  “You must be Erin, Jenna’s friend from Boston,” the woman said, holding out her hand. “I’m Meghan Carey.”

  Erin returned the handshake. “I was just admiring your yard. Did you do all this?”

  Meghan nodded with a look of wry amusement on her face. “Yes, I’ve been working on it since April. My husband said I shouldn’t have bothered since we’re moving out later this fall. But I figured we’ll still be here all spring and summer, and I love doing it, so why stop now? And I’ll be leaving something nice for the next person to enjoy.”

  “Have you lived here long?” Erin asked curiously.

  “No, we moved here in March after our house sold. We’re in the process of building a new one, and it was either rent this place or stay with my in-laws until it’s done. I chose this place.”

  Erin chuckled. “Well, you really will be leaving behind a beautiful legacy. Jenna must love your yard.”

  “She gave me ideas for some of it,” Meghan said. “How is she doing, by the way? I wasn’t able to stop by this last week. My husband has been working on the house whenever he can, so I’m pretty much on my own here, and it’s just been one thing after another. Today it’s a teething baby who won’t sleep. I just laid him down before I came out, and I’m crossing my fingers that I get a little peace and quiet.”

  Erin smiled sympathetically. “Jenna’s taking a nap herself at the moment. But she’s been doing fine overall. In fact—”

  “Mommy!” a girl suddenly yelled from somewhere inside the house.

  Meghan heaved a sigh. “Well, there goes the peace and quiet. That’s my other child, Bella. She’s in the playroom upstairs having a tea party with her stuffed animals. I’m sure she hears us out here and is wondering what’s going on.”

  Erin raised her brows in surprise. “Wow, she has really good hearing.”

  “Yes, she certainly does. But she’s blind, so her other senses are a lot stronger.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Erin apologized. “I didn’t know.” Jenna hadn’t told her anything about the family, probably because they were living here. And she guessed Meghan didn’t know about her own childhood either.

  “Don’t be sorry. I’m not,” Meghan said. “I developed a pretty bad blood infection when I was pregnant and ended up delivering her at twenty-six weeks. The doctors hadn’t thought either one of us would survive, but here we are. And Bella doesn’t feel sorry for herself because she ended up blind as a result, so I guess I can’t either.”

  “Mommy!”

  “I’m coming!” Meghan called out, then turned back to Erin. “Do you have a minute? Bella would love to meet you. We were down at the pond last week listening to the swans with Jenna, and she told us you were coming to stay with her. Now all Bella’s been talking about is meeting the lady who’s a doctor in Boston.”

  Erin laughed nervously and glanced at the house, not missing the irony of the situation—it was the story of her life. She couldn’t have imagined any reason that she would willingly go into this house again. And yet here was one. “I would love to meet her,” she said sincerely.

  Meghan headed back up the front porch stairs, and Erin tentatively followed her inside. It’s just a house, she silently reminded herself. It’s just a house…

  The front entrance led into a beautifully decorated dining room. To the right was the kitchen, which was cheerful and modern. Erin would never have known she was in the same house.

  Then they went down the hallway and up the steep, narrow staircase to the second floor. And that’s when memories started to flash through her mind in bits and pieces. She could hear her grandmother’s voice just as clearly as she had twenty-six years ago. You’re even worse than your mother…You’ll burn in the fires of hell for your sins if you don’t repent…For the wages of sin is death…Get down on your knees and beg the Lord for salvation…Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven…

  Erin mentally squashed that angry voice in her head as she followed Meghan into the playroom—the room her grandmother used to pray in all the time. And the dark cloud that had settled over her on the way up there lifted when she got her first glimpse of the tea party going on inside.

  A child-sized table and chairs had been set up in the middle of the room, and Bella sat in the one farthest from them. Erin guessed she was about seven or eight years old, with long brown hair and brown eyes. Two teddy bears and a baby doll sat in the other three chairs, and Bella was pretending to fill a teacup for one of the bears. But when they walked in she set the pot down and looked toward them with unfocused, slightly wandering eyes. “Who’s with you, Mommy?”

  “It’s Jenna’s friend.” Meghan gave Erin an embarrassed smile. “I’m not sure what to call you. Would you prefer—”

  “Dr. Erin?” Bella asked excitedly. “Is that you?”

  Erin walked over to her. “Yes, and you can just call me Erin.” She squatted down next to the child and squeezed her hand. “It’s very nice to meet you, Bella.”

  The little girl shifted in her seat so they were facing each other. “I should call you Dr. Erin. And it’s nice to meet you too. Can I touch your face?”

  “Bella, where are your manners?” Meghan gently chided.

  “No, I don’t mind,” Erin said, patting the child’s forearm. “You need to put a face to the name after all.”

  Bella giggled, then reached up and began exploring Erin’s face with both hands. “You have soft skin.”

  Erin smiled ruefully. “Hopefully I don’t have bad breath. I made garlic shrimp for lunch today, and I went a little heavy on the garlic.”

  “No, you smell good, like flowers.” Bella lightly brushed her hands over Erin’s hair until she reached the ends. “You have nice hair, too.”

  “So do you.” Erin ran her fingers through Bella’s hair. “It makes me think of chocolate—rich brown and silky smooth.”

  Meghan chuckled. “Bella loves chocolate.”

  The little girl’s expression became thoughtful, and she touched her own hair. “No one ever told me that before. I thought it was like dirt and tree bark.” Then she slowly grinned. “My hair is like chocolate, too.”

  A moment later the baby started crying down the hallway, and Meghan groaned. “Oh boy, here we go again. If you need to leave, Erin, I understand. This might take a while.”

  “No, go ahead. If Bella doesn’t mind, I’ll join her tea party.”

  The little girl clapped her hands gleefully. “Yay! You can have Sunny Bear’s spot, and he’ll sit with me.” She felt for the bear and put him on her lap.

  Meghan left, and Erin tentatively sat down on one of the little wooden chairs, praying it held her weight. And when she was sure it wouldn’t splinter into a hundred pieces and send her crashing to the floor on her backside, she smiled at Bella. “Okay, I’m ready for tea. Would you like me to pour a fresh cup for everyone?”

  “No, I can do it, Dr. Erin. I won’t spill.”

  Bella picked up the teapot and reached for the porcelain cup in front of Erin, pretending to fill it. Then she set the cup back on its plate and did the same thing with two more cups for the bears.

  Erin was amazed at how well she managed without being able to see a thing. “What about your baby? Doesn’t she get tea?”

  An odd look crossed Bella’s face. “She’s too little to have tea, Dr. Erin.”

  “Of course. I don’t know what I was thinking,” Erin said sheepishly, lifting her own cup as if to drink. She had a feeling the child wou
ld call her on it if she didn’t. “I’ll bet you’re a very good big sister.”

  Bella nodded. “I like to hold Oliver, but he’s kind of boring. It’s more fun having tea with you.” She put a plastic cookie on a plate for Erin. “And I like you better than Miss Helen. She’s not much fun either.”

  Erin froze with her cup in mid-air. “Hel—Helen?” That was her grandmother’s name.

  “Uh huh. Mommy thinks she’s my imaginary friend, but she used to live here—well, until Walter pushed her down the basement stairs and she died.” Bella pretended to feed a cookie to the bear in her lap. “That wasn’t very nice, was it, Sunny Bear?”

  Erin set her teacup down on the plate with a clatter and sat there in shock. Her grandfather…

  She eventually gathered at least a few of her scattered wits and thought back to that time. Her grandfather hadn’t been able to use his right arm because of the stroke, but he’d still managed to get around with a cane back then. It was possible he could have pushed her grandmother down the stairs.

  “Don’t you like your tea, Dr. Erin?”

  Erin mentally shook herself and took another pretend sip of the tea. “It’s very good. But Bella, who told you that Walter killed Helen?”

  “Miss Helen did. She tells me stuff sometimes. But she’ll only talk to me when she sits in the rocking chair in Oliver’s room holding her babies.”

  Erin looked uneasily around the playroom. “There’s a—a rocking chair in Oliver’s room?”

  Bella gave the other bear a drink of the invisible tea. “Mm-hmm. It used to be in here when we first moved in, but Daddy put it in Oliver’s room.”

  For a moment Erin didn’t know what to think. Was this all the vivid imagination of a child who’d overheard a conversation about how her grandmother had died falling down the basement stairs? Or was it the very real experience of a child who hadn’t yet learned what should or should not be? And the fact that Bella had mentioned the rocking chair…No one else would have known how attached her grandmother had been to it. Erin hadn’t even discussed it with Jenna.

  Then something else that Bella had said struck her: babies. “Has…has Helen said anything about her babies?”

  The child nodded, setting the bear’s teacup down. “She talks about them a lot, and it makes me sad. They all died in their sleep.”

  “How many babies died?” Erin asked in surprise. Her grandparents had never mentioned any other children besides her mother.

  Bella picked up the doll and put Sunny Bear in the chair instead, then held a fake bottle to the doll’s lips as she cradled her. “She had one boy and two girls. She found the baby boy dead in his crib, and she kept the other two babies with her all the time and held them in the rocking chair every night, but they died anyway. Walter buried the second baby girl in the woods by a big rock ‘cause he said people would think they killed her. And Miss Helen is still mad about that. She said God would have wanted Anne Marie in the cemetery with the others.”

  Erin stared at the little girl, completely stunned. Anne Marie was her mother’s name. And there was indeed a very large rock deep in the woods. She’d discovered it herself years ago—along with a cross made of sticks right next to it. “Did Helen…Did she say anything else about Anne Marie?”

  Bella set the bottle down and pretended to burp the doll. “Miss Helen said God helped her find another baby girl to replace Anne Marie. But that girl was naughty all the time and ran away and had a baby when she wasn’t supposed to. Then the second Anne Marie died too, and Miss Helen’s granddaughter came to live with them.” A brief grin crossed Bella’s face. “She had the same name as you—Erin. But she wasn’t nice like you. Miss Helen said she was even more naughty than Anne Marie, and the police even had to come over one time. I feel bad that Miss Helen had to take care of her.”

  Erin’s head spun. If that was true about her mother… “Bella, did Helen say where she found the second Anne Marie?”

  The little girl shook her head and turned the doll to sit in her lap. “No, she wouldn’t tell me. She was too afraid Walter might hear ‘cause he told her never to talk about it.”

  Erin glanced hesitantly around the room again. “Where—where is Walter?”

  “I don’t think he’s here like Miss Helen thinks. He hasn’t ever talked to me, and Willy said he’s learning lessons in Heaven.”

  “Who is Willy?” Erin dared to ask.

  “He’s Walter’s big brother. But he fell out of the hayloft in the barn and died a long time ago. He sometimes talks to me over there. Miss Helen said she never liked him, but I do. He’s funny.”

  Erin couldn’t believe it—and yet she could. Another ghost. “Why didn’t Helen like him?”

  Bella started to pour tea for them all again. “Miss Helen said it wasn’t fair that Walter loved Willy more than her, even after Willy died. She was scared of living in the country, but Walter wouldn’t sell the farm ‘cause he said it belonged to Willy. And he got mean if she talked bad about Willy. Miss Helen thinks God was punishing Walter ‘cause he loved Willy too much, and that’s why all their babies died.” Bella set the teapot down. “You should drink your tea before it gets cold, Dr. Erin.”

  Erin lifted her cup. “Has Willy said anything about Helen?”

  “No, he only talks about the farm and what he and Walter used to do when they were kids. He told me how they milked cows. It sounds really gross.” Bella made a face—one Erin hadn’t even known a child blind from birth could make.

  Meghan walked into the playroom just then. “Oh, Bella, I hope you’re not telling Dr. Erin about those imaginary friends of yours.”

  The child let out a mildly annoyed sigh and leaned toward Erin, whispering, “Some people just don’t get it.”

  “Hey, I heard that, young lady,” Meghan said, though there was amusement in her voice.

  Erin awkwardly got up from her chair, still a little dazed by what had just happened. But she knew one thing for sure—she needed to find that rock in the woods again. “Bella was telling me some interesting things about this place. Do you mind if I look around outside a little before I go?”

  “Of course not,” Meghan responded. “Explore all you want.”

  Erin squatted down next to Bella and gave her a hug. “Thank you so much for the tea party. I’d never been to one before. Next time you’ll have to come over to Jenna’s house, and we can have a party there. You’re welcome anytime. And I would love to sit by the pond and listen to the swans, too.”

  Bella clapped her hands. “Yes, I want to! When can we, Mommy?”

  Erin smiled and stood up. “I’ll leave the two of you to discuss that. I can find my own way out.”

  She gave Meghan a brief hug goodbye and left the room, glancing down the hallway in the direction of her old bedroom. The door was partially open, and she could see the end of a crib inside. Oliver’s room. She thought about taking a quick peek at the rocking chair, but then goosebumps started to form on her arms, and she hurried down the stairs and out the door instead.

  On her way to the woods she stopped by the barn, pondering it for a moment. Unlike the house, it had been left to war with the elements—and the elements were definitely winning. It was weathered gray, with gaping holes in places where the boards had either fallen off or were rotting, and parts of the roof were missing as well. It really did look like it had been through a war, and Erin felt a deep sadness for Willy.

  She turned to face the house and looked up at the window to her old bedroom, remembering all the times she’d climbed out and sat there reading on the back porch roof. Had he been watching her from over here? Maybe those old books in the closet had been his.

  Her eyes fell to the tiny basement window she’d escaped from so long ago, and a memory struck her. She’d only found the window because she’d heard a strange noise up there—a tapping sound. She’d thought it was a mouse, but at tha
t point she hadn’t cared. She would have eaten a mouse to get out of that basement. She’d never seen a mouse, though. And now she wondered if it might have been Willy who’d helped her.

  Erin shifted her gaze back to the barn and quietly said, “If that was you, Willy, thank you. I owe you more than I can ever repay—and for the farm, too. But now I think you should leave here and go to Heaven. You deserve to be happy.”

  She started walking toward the woods again, laughing softly. Not only did she believe in ghosts, now she was talking to them.

  Then a creaking noise made her stop. She turned around and looked up in the direction of the sound. The old rusted weather vane on the edge of the barn roof was spinning. She thought back, but couldn’t think of a single time in all the years she’d lived there that it had ever moved. And there wasn’t any wind.

  She continued to watch it in amazement. And when it finally stopped spinning, she headed to the woods, determined to find that rock.

  * * *

  “So where do you think Wayne and Jesse went?” Scott asked, sitting in the passenger seat of the police car as they drove back to New Dublin.

  Luke shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road in front of him. “Your guess is as good as mine. But no one’s reported seeing them in the Eagle River area, so they were probably picked up at the rest stop by someone they knew. And I’ll bet it was Zeke Raabe.”

  Luke had interviewed Wayne’s older brother Zeke, who was one mean son of a bitch. He’d said he had no idea where his brother was, but then had outright admitted that if he did know he wouldn’t tell them. And the rest of the family hadn’t been any more pleasant, much less helpful.

  “I’ll have to call it a day when we get back,” Scott said. “The wife has another to-do list a mile long waiting for me, and I’ll catch hell if I don’t get some of it done today.”

  Luke glanced at Scott. Since the episode at the bar, his friend had been even more withdrawn and irritable than normal—or at least what had become normal in the last month or two. “Scott, I really think you should talk to someone, maybe a marriage counselor—”