Once Upon Another Time (20 page)

My father groaned.
 “She wasn’t a mind reader.  It was more like thoughts from other people would
somehow pop into her head.  Nothing she could control.”

“Um, do you know
if that was preempted with a bump to her head?”  I asked, as Little Swiss
Miss’s yappy poodle charged across the lawn toward my foot, retrieved the raw
piece of chicken and took off running toward the beach.

My father gave me
a quizzical look.  “At first, we thought Millie was a little touched,” he said,
tapping a finger to his temple.  “But once she started blurting out things that
people were actually thinking, we knew she had a special gift.”

“Gift?  It’d be
more like a curse!”

As I watched Sallie
wrestling the raw chicken thigh from the dog’s mouth, suddenly everything made
sense.

“Aubrey?”

I looked at my
father and tried to read the expression on his face.  “Yes?” 

“It’s nothing to
get worked up over,” he said, eyeing me suspiciously.

“Me worked up? 
Nah.  By the way, is that kind of thing hereditary?  Not that I believe in that
sort of stuff.”

My father stared
pensively at the hot white charcoals lining the bottom of the grill.  “Hmm, I
never thought about it.” 

“Everyone speculated
that was why she threw herself off the Brooklyn Bridge,” said Mother under her
breath.

“Aunt Millie
committed suicide?”  

“We were
devastated,” my father said.  “We kept it a secret how she died.  But I don’t
think it had anything to do with hearing people’s thoughts.  Fact is she had
lots of problems before that ever happened.  She ran off and lived in a commune
for a while and never felt secure in who she was, never felt accepted or
appreciated.  Never fit in with the rules of the
establishment
.  Not
that your mother and I fit in,” he added quickly, while glancing at my mother. 
“But it seemed to have affected her more.” 

“Too much pressure
from society?”  I asked, while wondering if my Aunt Millie’s
gift
so to
speak was temporary or permanent.

“Yep.  In a way,
the hippy movement even affected you.  My father motioned for Nicholas to help
him set the table with napkins and glasses.  “There were times when you could
be quite rebellious.”

I had a flashback
of those days.  I resented having flower children for parents, and I’d get
angry watching people point and make fun of them behind their backs.  Sometimes
my anger would build and I’d do things that would get me in trouble.  Like the
time I threw a rock for no reason at all through the window of the old geezer’s
house next door.  At times, I considered running away; thinking being on the
lam wouldn’t be so bad.  I’d had enough of the vegan life.  I wanted to feast
on greasy burgers, fries, and chocolate Easter bunnies--lots of them! 

“Aubrey?  Aubrey! 
The chicken is flaming up,” my father bellowed, as he snatched the tongs from
my hand to rescue our meal.

My mother placed a
hand on my shoulder.  “What your Aunt Millie had is not hereditary, she said.  “Look,
you turned out just fine.  Nothing weird about you--thank God.”

* * * *

The sheets felt cool
on my bare shoulders as I drew them up under my chin.  I couldn’t sleep that
night thinking about Aunt Millie.  I didn’t want to be tortured like that.  I
just wanted to be normal.

Like that could
ever happen. 

I reached over to
my night table, picked up the heart-shaped pendant bracelet I’d lost so many
years before, not understanding how it could suddenly appear, and wondering if
Matt really did materialized at the cemetery.  Lying on my back, I dangled the
bracelet above me, watching the pendant twirl and glint as it caught a glimmer
of moonlight.  I rubbed my thumb over the inscription on the back.  “Where are
you Matt?” I said under my breath, and seconds later, I heard the gentle tinkling
of wind chimes.

I shot up in bed
and set the bracelet back on the night table.  The sheer curtains billowed like
sails on a boat, as a breeze blew in through the open window.  The feeling of warm
breath on my face and a light brush to my cheek had me leaping from my bed.  My
heart thrummed as I scanned the moonlit room.  A faintly jumping shadow cast
from a tree limb, danced on the wall.

“Hi Aubrey,” I
heard Matt whisper.  When from behind me, I felt a movement and spun around to
look, my breath stalling in my chest at the sight of him mere inches from me, and
his skin glistening like smooth, white pearls. 

The heirloom music
box adorned with beautiful cast silver dragonflies, sitting on the night table,
began to play “Moon River.”  The pinging of musical notes blending with the
mystical tinkling chimes created an atmosphere of a very surreal world.  The
kind of world found only inside the pages of a magical book of fairytales.  

It was as if Matt were
standing on a dark stage with a brilliant spotlight shining down on him.  I
could see every feature of his face in detail, and his smile was like the warmth
from the sun.  I gazed at him in all his bewildering perfection, at every thick
wave of his blond-streaked hair, how the outer corners of his smoldering amber
eyes crinkled, the slight indentation of the dimple in his strong chin, and
full lips that used to cover mine. 

“Aubrey, our son
is an amazing little boy.”

Covering my mouth
with my hands, I felt that surely I must be dreaming.  At the same time, I
wanted to dash into Nicholas’s bedroom and rouse him from sleep to see this
spectacular sight of his father.   

Lowering my hands,
I felt it difficult to find my voice, but finally managed.  “Yes, and he looks
just like you,” I said, barely able to grasp the remarkable phenomenon of
conversing with a ghost.  Slowly raising my hand to touch his face, I suddenly
pulled back.  Gripping the front of my nightgown, I was afraid that my touch would
somehow throw off the balance of the spirit world.  That Matt would shatter
like fine crystal dropping on concrete.

“So it
was
you at the cemetery,” I said, as I relaxed my arm to my side.

He nodded.  “I’ve
also watched him sleep.  I’ve watched you sleep, too,” he said, in his beefed
up New Jersey accent, while smiling at me like a TV anchorman.

The giddiest
feeling bubbled up inside me, feeling as if I could stay in this moment
forever.  “You really
are
here!”  I marveled at the ridiculous notion
that it was like being at the seaside village of Whitecliff having a
Ghost
& Mrs. Muir
moment.

“Matt, how is this
possible?”

 “I don’t know,”
he said, shrugging his shoulders.  “I have no control over it.  All I know is
that I’m supposed to be here, but only for a very short time.”

In that instant, I
felt a sense of urgency to speak the most important words of my life.  My heart
was racing so fast, it was as if it were tripping over itself when words rushed
from my mouth. 

“Matt, please
forgive me for being so angry at you that morning.” 

My chest was
heaving, as I swallowed past the lump in my throat.  “I blame myself for your
accident.  It was because of my actions and--”

 “Aubrey, stop.”  Matt’s
expression turned sympathetic.  “Hey, what happened was
not
your fault. 
I had let you down that day, many days.  You were right.  Although not
intentional, I made promises I didn’t keep.  I was mad at myself for letting
work interfere with our lives.  You had every right to be angry and I ran
off--”

“But I was the one
who shouted at you to leave.”

He shook his head,
and thrust his hands into his pant pockets like two dead weights.  His body
seemed to be fading, his features becoming muted. 

“I could have
stayed and talked.  Instead, I ran to blow off some steam, not angry with you, angry
at myself.  I ran until my lungs burned when finally I came to my senses.  I’d
made up my mind I was going to call work and tell them they’d have to finish
the building design without me.”

“Oh, Matt,” I
moaned, like some wounded animal.

“I stopped
running, but it was so foggy, I couldn’t get my bearings.  I knew I was close
to the ocean.  I could hear the waves crashing.  I pulled the cell phone out of
the pocket of my sweat pants to call and tell you that
you
and our
son
are the most important things in my life.  I didn’t realize what was happening,
until it was too late and the earth gave way under my feet.  That’s all I
remember.”

I tried to keep it
together, but Matt being from somewhere out in the universe known to mere
mortals as heaven, I was sure he felt my anguish.  “I’ve never stopped loving
you,” I said and lowered my head, not wanting him to see my eyes well up. 

Matt pulled his
hands from his pant pockets and put a finger under my chin.  I felt a soft,
tingling sensation like static electricity against my skin.  My eyes met with
his as the spotlight over his head began to dim.  “Mon petit chaton, I will
love you for all eternity.  It’s important that you remember these words.  And
now, you have to move on with your life.” 

The thrilling
ripple of his deep voice was like gin on the rocks to my ears. 

“Just be sure to
find me,” he said.

 “About that
statement, I don’t understand what you’re--”

Matt leaned
forward and pressed his soft lips to mine.  My eyes closed, while his kiss sent
a tingling sensation to every part of my body.  The love I felt was amazing.  I
could feel his body pressed to mine, his arms around my waist, my fingers
running through his hair.  He was real, as real as any person alive could feel
and he was there by some miracle, some supernatural phenomenon I couldn’t
understand. 

An exhilarating
energy swept through me like the winds of time swirling and lifting me off my
feet.  All sense of time had vanished, while a flickering slideshow flashed wonderful
moments of our lives spent laughing, our first kiss, the day we got engaged,
our romantic vacations, the joy we felt knowing we were going to have a baby,
all of it, every moment of our lives lived out as we kissed. 

 My eyes opened
slowly like the blossoming of a flower.  The music was no longer playing, and
Matt was gone.  I crashed onto the bed and sat for a while in near exhaustion
of my heart beating like I’d just swum ten laps in an Olympic sized pool, when
my hand hit on something beside me.  I switched on the bedside lamp.  Lying on
the bed was the book Matt had so cleverly used to leave clues for me.  I looked
at it thinking there were a million questions I had wanted to ask him.  And
then I felt the most overwhelming feeling inside me, like I’d gotten the gift
of a fresh new start. 

I fell backward on
the bed as if someone had shoved me, while bracing the book to my chest.  As I
stared up at the shadows across the ceiling, tears rolled from the corner of my
eyes, wetting the tips of my ears. 

The past had
always seemed like an old door creaking on its hinges, not able to keep closed
but not able to open completely either.  That night, the closing of that door
was bittersweet.  Although my heart was on the mend, my husband was gone forever--for
the second time.

Breathe
I
kept reminding myself during the two hours of preparation for my first date
with Gavin.  I felt as if I was about to go on a bungee jump instead of a
date.  I stood over the bathroom sink and watched with horror as my last
anti-anxiety pill fell into the sink.  It circled like a tiny spinning ball on
a roulette wheel--once, twice, and dropped into the drain. 

Probably for the
best, a repeat performance of the night I’d first met Gavin would have him
running for the hills.  I ran my fingers through my hair and winced.  My skin
felt tender from the scalp scorching I’d gotten while blow-drying the frizz out
of my hair. 

I peered down at
the lavender soap bar in the china holder.  The scent tickled my nose and made
my stomach feel queasy.  Although terrified, I thought back to the strong role
models I grew up with like Dynasty’s Krystle and Alexis, and like Madonna,
although my hair was dark, I used to have blonde ambition when it came to
dating.

I straightened my
posture throwing my shoulders back. 
To hell with my scared feelings.
  I
unbuttoned my white silk blouse to show a hint of cleavage.  Attitude--that’s
all I needed.  I grabbed my makeup brush.  As I applied one more sweep of blush
to my cheeks, a loud knock to the bathroom door startled me.  The makeup brush
flew out of my hand and plunked into the toilet bowl.

“Aubrey, I heard a
car pull into the driveway.  I think it might be your date.  Should I let him
in?”

“No Mother, I’ll
get the door.  You go sit with Dad in the living room.”  I watched as the brush
sank to the bottom of the bowl like a naval submarine on dive.  I bolted from
the bathroom, then slowed down to straighten the front slit on my slate blue
silk skirt, hoping it wasn’t too short.  The only thing worse than knobby knees
was having exposed knobby knees.   

In the foyer, I
stopped, took a deep breath, grabbed the pewter door handle, and hesitated. 
Suddenly I imagined Matt saying, what are you waiting for
?
  I took one
more glance in the foyer mirror and with much resolve, quickly opened the
door. 

“Aubrey,” Laura
said, as she shot in past me.  “I saw the black Escalade parked out front and
figured it must be Gavin’s.”

“Escalade?”  I
glanced at the stainless steel Waring Blender she was holding. 

“I happened to
remember that I forgot to return this,” she said, as she shoved the blender
into my arms, and craned her neck to see over my shoulder into the living
room.  “And since I hadn’t had a chance to really talk to Gavin, other than
that awkward, confusing moment in your office, I thought I’d drop by and maybe,
um, just say hi.  I promise I won’t keep you.”