The House Near the River (22 page)

“I can’t say you’re making a mistake. At least you’re trying to go on. But I’m not ready to give up on Ange, not by a long sight.”

She stepped away from him, looking up into his face. “Will you ever give up on her, Matthew?” she asked, her look full of pity.

He grinned, though he didn’t  find any of this in any way humorous. “Reckon when St. Peter comes to call me to the golden gates, I will walk up there looking for her,” he said simply.

She nodded, hesitated a second, then wrapped him in a hug. “Let’s make a pact that no matter what happens we don’t give up . . . you know, that way.”

She meant not to exit life by her own hand. He was more afraid for her than he was for himself. He nodded. “It’s a pact,” he said solemnly.

He watched her get back in the car and drive away, lost in silent prayers for her well-being in this new life she was choosing.

When she was gone, he turned to stare at the school.
Maybe she was right and he was wrong, but
no matter
he had no choice but to keep on trying to reach Ange.

Angie supposed she should have known. If you wanted to find a needle in a haystack, set a small child to looking. Before long that child would be trying to put the needle in his
mouth
.

She remembered Grandma’s story of how after many years of marriage, she’d  looked in dismay to find the small diamond missing from her engagement ring. Since she’d covered many miles since she’d actually seen it that morning, she considered it hopelessly gone.

But Grandpa, wise in the ways of little boys, announced a ten dollar prize to any sharp-eyed youngster who could find the diamond. Soon their visiting nephews were scouring the farm inside and outside, looking for a speck of light.

By mid-afternoon the tiny diamond was located in the living room rug by an enterprising six-year-old who gloated over his ten dollars in front of his brothers.

Not that she knew an item was hidden away for her to find. Such a thought
had
occurred to her as she spent days dreaming over the possibility that Matthew was, in some sense, close to her. Other days she was sure she was imagining things, but when David came to her, jangling a chain with what looked like
dog tag
s
on the end of it, she felt a tingle as if electricity had run through her body.

Dog tag
s
, she thought.
Like you put on dogs so they could be found if lost.

Dog tag
s
. Like soldiers wore around their necks so they could be identified if the worst came to the worst.

She grabbed for
them
, but David jumped out of her reach. “It’s mine,” he said, “I found it.”

She knew her smile was shaky. She knew. She just knew this was important. “Where did you find it, David?”

“It fell out of the wall. It was in some junk where they were working on the wall in the kitchen. It’s okay if I keep it. Nobody wants it.”

Behind the plaster! Just where he might have chosen to hide it to send as a message to her.

Come on, Angie girl, you’re imagining things again.

She smiled her sweetest smile. “Won’t you let me look at it, David? I promise to give it back.”

He thought a minute and then decided to trust her. “If you’ll promise to give it right back.” He handed it to her and her fingers burned.

She was almost afraid to look. When she did, she saw his name. Matthew’s name, a number, some information about immunizations . . .

She blinked tears from her eyes. It was real. He was here. He had come to her.

“Give it back,” David demanded.

She hated to let it go from her hand, the chain that carried the dog tags he’d had with him throughout the war, but she had no choice. She had  promised.

Angie gave the dog tags back to her brother.

All day she negotiated with him, offering anything she thought he might desire in exchange, but he resisted temptation. “It’s my found treasure,” he said, frowning at her.

She was so afraid he would lose the dog tags.

Finally he agreed to give her the tags if she would take him to town and let him select any toy he wanted from the Dollar Store.

“Two toys,” she promised hastily.

She immediately drove him to the nearest town where he spent a long half hour selecting a small truck and a bottle of bubbles. Only when she placed the sack containing his purchases in his hands, did he release the tags to her.

She drove back to the inn, conscious of the tags she’d put in her purse. Inside she felt a kind of humming, a sense of contentment as though she’d made a great stride forward.

At home, Dad took charge of David, a slight frown of puzzlement on his face at something he saw in Angie, though he asked no questions.

Angie stood on the porch, pleased to finally be alone with her treasure. She took the tags out and caressed them, then touched the cold metal to her lips in what was almost a kiss.

But now what? How did this help her to find him. He had sent her a message,
‘
I am here.’ But how did that change things.

Never had she seen even the glimmer of an opening such as she saw all the time at the farm in Oklahoma. Not here.

There she was so troubled by visions that she could hardly get on with her life. Here she felt dumped out and left abandoned.

And then she remembered that painful moment in Belgium when she had inadvertently stepped away from an injured Matthew. The opening had come and gobbled her up. She might never know why.

But it proved one thing. Time portals didn’t come
for
her only at the house
near
the river in Oklahoma.

Openings must be all around her and everyone else. Maybe when those moments came when she thought she knew how someone in the past felt, when she felt particularly close to a long
distant
relative, she had slipped just for an instance in and out of one of those openings. Maybe that happened to everyone now and then.

Somehow she seemed to have a special talent that allowed her to cross more easily than others. She saw things other people could not see, blessing or curse which
ever
that might be.

David stumbled into such openings, but might it not be simply her
proximity
that put him at risk.

If so, might she not extend such an ability to Matthew, either to go to him or have him come to her.

As she thought, Dad came out without David. “You have that look,” he said.

“What look?” She smiled warmly at him. Poor Dad he put up with a lot when it came to his daughter.

“Like you’re going wandering again. Promise me one thing, Angie. Promise me that if you ever go away and stay, you’ll do the best you can to get word to me that you’re all right. I couldn’t stand living the rest of my life not knowing if you were all right.”

“Scout’s honor, Dad.”

“Hey!” He pretended to dismay. “You were never a scout, young lady.”

They smiled at each other in a rare moment of complete understanding.

After he went back inside, she began to walk the property. In restoring the red brick building, her mom and dad had done everything they could to keep the original character of the school house. The modern kitchen was placed where the children had eaten their meals, the classroom with their cloakrooms became bedrooms with adjoining baths. The auditorium where children gathered for plays and programs was now an entertainment center.

But outside must be very different, Angie supposed. Once children had played out here. She stopped to look at an artistically laid straw stack.

But when Mom and Dad bought the old property, it had been a working farm surrounding a deserted building. Had this once been Matthew’s farm?

She peered around, hoping to find a way to him.

Clemmie said they’d married and were expecting a child. For that to happen, they had to find each other.

She wandered out to the graveled  road that led past the inn and began strolling down it to the south. Sometimes walking helped get her brain going.

Today wasn’t as hot as the days that had passed recently. Probably not more than ninety nine degrees. Hot enough. She wouldn’t be able to walk far.

The Hereford cows that normally grazed on the farm just down the road stood in the
shade
of a small grove of trees
. A real estate agency’s for sale sign stood just outside the fence. She didn’t need a crystal ball to see into the future of this property. It was destined to either development into acreage lots for building, or as the site for a mini-mansion.

She’d bet on the development. Build
ers
had more
to invest
than those individuals who wanted a private mansion in the country. People with enough money
were
looking for small properties where they could keep a horse
along country roads
close enough to the cities for a commute
. She sighed, feeling sure the future for the Prairie
House
as a sampling of country life was strictly limited. Maybe Dad was right and it was time to sell out.

All the openings into time had been at Grandma’s farm until that
one that led to
Belgium, she reminded herself again. There had to be some kind of clue in that.

Matthew’s presence. He had been there and in danger.

She didn’t want him to ever be in that kind of danger again, but surely he needed her, longed for her as she longed for him.

Angie had a sense that he was close to her, that she could almost reach out and touch him.

Then she saw him, leaning against a wooden fence that hadn’t been there a moment before.

Their eyes met. His face, that beloved face that looked so much more sad and worn than when she’d left him at the farm, brightened with joy.

She started to him and then, as though it were an envelope being sealed, the opening closed and he was gone.

Angie screamed out her anger and frustration to the empty air around her.

Matthew felt like a statue. His muscles wouldn’t work, his joints wouldn’t bend or turn. He was a figure leaning against the wooden corral, staring at a woman who was no longer there.

In those seconds when she had appeared, he had memorized everything about her. Dark hair worn loose so that it blew in the breeze, long-lashed dark eyes fixed on him
.
Sh
e’d been wearing
short
pants that showed most of her long, lovely legs and a top that didn’t reach her middle.

Clothes for some other day than this cold November
weather
in 1946.

He gulped down his disappointment that she had vanished before he could even reach for her
and stood there, fixed in place, hoping desperately for a second appearance.

After a couple of hours, he could stand no longer. His legs were ready to collapse under him so he found a seat on the dry winter grass and continue to watch. He knew she  would try to find the way back and he meant to be here waiting for her when that time came.

But at dark the cow and calves were calling and he had to lock in the hens or predators would get them. His body was stiff and cold as he started to the barnyard to care for his animals. By the time he’d finished his chores, the temperature had dropped below freezing and he knew he couldn’t keep up his vigil outside all night long.

He went inside, heated soup and ate it without tasting, then went outside again to look for her. He kept going out into the cold night at intervals until about midnight when he fell asleep in his chair next to the dwindling fire in the little stove.

Hope was almost harder to bear than despair. He had seen her. She was real and nearby. But how could he reach her?

Angie had never been more determined in her life. Instead of standing around waiting for Matthew to reappear, she went back to the inn and, finding her father alone, told him in a few choice words what had happened and what she was about to do.

She was going to find Matthew and they were going to get married at Grandma’s house in Oklahoma.

His mouth opened, then closed again. He stared at her.

“In the past,” she added that relevant piece of information.

By now there wasn’t much she could say that would surprise her dad for long.

“I didn’t want you to worry.”

He nodded, then reached for her, hugging her close. “You won’t be gone forever?”

She had to be honest. “I seem to have a gift for this and I think I can learn to make it work. If not, look in the old albums. I might be there.”

“You love this World War II soldier that much?”