A Voice In The Night (13 page)

Chapter 28

Luke followed Dick’s advice, but after a week of waiting and listening, nothing had happened. He started to feel guilty about leaving the kids. After three more days he decided to go back to them, and maybe find Eileen there. He booked his flights, called Maggie and the parents and thanked Dick and Jennie.

The next morning he drove over to the university one last time and parked on the central street running through the campus. He sadly sat in the car and smoked one cigarette after another. He had failed, at least for now. His idea of coming back to their beginning wasn’t the answer. He watched the students walking back and forth between the student union and Carlson Hall, as he and Eileen used to do. For a break from the smoke-filled car, he got out and followed a group headed to class at the lecture hall at Carlton. Soon he was swept inside by the crowd, into the semi-circular amphitheater that held over 200 students. He chose a seat down front and off to the side. Soon the professor breezed in and started. He recognized her, Dr. Phillips, regarded as the worst teacher on campus. He remembered her incoherent lectures that were supposed to be Psychology 101. But invariably she would pull out an article she was interested in from some advanced professional journal and tell them about it for an hour and twenty minutes. Her random lectures had always been way over their heads, never appeared on exams, a complete waste of time.

Luke’s attention soon drifted, and instead he scanned the young faces in the room. He could see everyone from where he sat, their boredom, mixed with annoyance. But he also noticed lots of familiar faces from a few years ago, classmates he and Eileen had known at the university. How could it be? Why were they back in Psych 101?

Then, as his eyes continued to drift across the room, he saw
her
. She sat beaming her smile right at him. She looked just as she had on that very first day- beautiful, radiant and joyful. And he knew this
was
just like their very first day,
again
. Space and time. She nodded toward the door and they both scrambled from their seats and out to the hallway, into each other’s arms, whispering and crying and so very happy. “You found me,” she said. “I knew you would. Let’s get back to our little family, right away.”

“Right. We’ll get started today. I’ve got plane tickets booked, but I’ll have to add you.”

“Plane tickets? Why? We can just wish ourselves back home, and be there, all of us together again, in an instant.”

And they did.