Seventeen
Jessica Shane was strikingly beautiful. As Jim looked disbelievingly at his resurrected mother-in-law, it struck him just how much she resembled Simone. Same high cheek bones; an oyster-white complexion that needed no blusher or foundation; blond hair streaming to her shoulders, a streak of gray adding an elegant look to her already exquisitely chiseled features. Her soft blue eyes able to delve deeply into the soul of those she observed.
Her hug almost crushed his vertebrae to powder. “But…” he said, “But—”
“I know. I know,” said Jessica, her voice a soothing lullaby as she led a shocked Jim over to the sofa next to her chair. Leaning on the arm of her chair, she grasped Jim’s hands in her own and looked deeply into his eyes.
“I know you must have questions Jim, and I know that you are as confused as we are, so why don’t we just let Thomas explain what happened?” she said gently. “Okay?”
Of all the Kafkaesque events Jim had experienced during his first day in the past, this was the most bizarre, the most personal for him, overwhelming in its emotion. Afraid that if he opened his mouth his brain would simply stall and refuse ever to start again, he contented himself with a simple nod of acquiescence, and Thomas took that as his cue to begin explaining exactly what had happened.
“I was at my brother Jed’s in Miami.” An eddy of emotion rippled beneath the surface of Thomas Shane’s crisp accounting of the couple’s day and the resurrection of his long dead wife. A smile from Jessica allowed him to gather his emotions before continuing.
“He asks me every year, so this year I figured I’d take him up on the invite. The family was all there, we’d seen in the New Year and I was on my way upstairs to bed.”
Thomas paused before continuing. Jim knew he was rerunning that split second before the event through his mind. “Next thing I know, I’m in our back garden; it’s the middle of the damn day and I’ve got the water hose in my hand and I’m watering Jessie’s roses. I always loved to do that, ’cause of that look she’d give me when she saw me doing it. I thought I was dreaming. Thought maybe I’d had a stroke or some mental problem: something snapped inside here,” Jim tapped his forehead with a finger.
“Anyway, I had no idea how I got back home, but the sun was shining and the bees were buzzing and it was too real for it all to be a dream. And then here she comes, like nothing ever happened, like she’d never… never…” His words trailed away to nothing and Jessica reached out her hand, grasping her husband’s hand in her own and giving it a tight squeeze to accompany her reassuring smile.
Thomas squeezed his wife’s hand back and wiped the wetness away from his eyes. “Anyway, here she comes walking down the path towards her roses like she hadn’t been gone more than a minute. I guess that’s all it’s been for her after all, just a minute. She had this confused, odd expression on her face.”
“She just walks up the path and stands in front of me, looking straight into my eyes and I can’t say a damn thing.”
“His mouth was hanging so far open it about touched the ground,” Jessica interjected with a wry smile. “I swear, for a man who has so much to say he’s been pretty damn quiet today.”
Thomas continued as if he hadn’t heard the fun that his wife just poked at him. “Next thing I know my leg is freezing cold and soaking wet from the damn hose; that snapped me out of my dumbness and I just grabbed her.”
“You about broke my back you hugged me so hard you big brute you,” said Jessica throwing a playful punch at her husband’s arm.
“Jessica kept asking me what was wrong, over and over. I couldn’t speak a damn word — mouth kept moving but no sound came out. She was saying that she didn’t remember how she got home. That she might have had a blackout and all I could do was hug her and cry my eyes out like some big old baby.”
Jim’s father-in-law’s voice became sober; “But James, I knew that any second I was going to wake up, that I’d find out this was just a dream. But it’s not James, it’s a miracle.” Thomas’s jaw quivered, on the verge of tears again. “A miracle.”
Jessica took over: “The last thing that I remember before finding myself back at the house was taking the car to do some shopping. It was raining and I stopped at an intersection about to turn into the lot of the Albertson’s out in the village. There was a bang and I remember being jerked against my seatbelt and this… screaming sound. Next thing I know I’m standing in the kitchen peeling carrots and I don’t have a clue how I got there.”
Jim could still remember the Sheriff’s account of the accident that killed Jessica Shane; the driver of an SUV lost control as he approached the lights where Jessica had pulled to a stop. The SUV aquaplaned on the rain drenched surface right into the back of her Toyota with so much force that he slammed Jessica’s smaller car into the center of the intersection. She was hit drivers-side on by an eighteen-wheeler doing fifty plus — at least ten miles over the legal limit the Sheriff had explained — she didn’t stand a chance.
Died instantly, the Sheriff had assured them.
Jim went with Thomas to identify her body. He volunteered to make the identification himself at the morgue but Thomas said that he had to do it, otherwise he would spend the rest of his life never really knowing if it was her or not. The Deputy had already warned Jim that it might be best for him to make the identification rather than the deceased’s husband and he tried his best to persuade Thomas but the older man was having none of it.
He’d escorted his father-in-law to the viewing gallery and the attendant pulled back the sheet covering the corpse on the gurney. Thomas broke down, collapsing into Jim’s arms at the sight of his wife’s decimated body.
Now here she was. Remade. Looking just as she had years before she had died. It truly did seem to be a miracle.
Jim was still too stunned to comment.
Thomas had walked her into the living room, sat her down, poured them both a drink and insisted she finish hers before he sat down himself to explain what had happened. He explained to her about the accident; how she had been gone for so many years and how, every day he had prayed it would be his last. That he would be able to join her, so the pain that her absence left could end — because he loved her, he loved her more than he could ever possibly say.
“I told her that something wonderful had happened. That God had brought her back to me,” said Thomas.
“I don’t know if it’s a miracle or something else,” Jim replied finally finding his voice. “There’s so much death and destruction out there, that I have to believe that this is probably man-made rather than divine intervention.”
“Of course it’s a miracle. James, don’t you understand? Don’t you realize what this means?” said Thomas, a broad smile rising on his face.
Jim shook his head. “What are you getting at?”
Jessica reached out and took his hand: “Jim, if I’m alive then what about all the others who died between now and 2042?”
“What about Lark?” said Thomas.
The realization hit him like a hammer blow to the chest. “Dear God, almighty,” he whispered. “I’ve got to try and find her. What if she’s out there? What if she’s alone?” Jim was instantly on his feet. The panic that overcame him was total and choking. He was going to fail his kid again. She was out there somewhere in the night and he could do nothing to help her.