The Fourth Sunrise (20 page)

“
Joel, I know who you are. I didn’t mean to say: ‘Did you kiss my ass.’ I was going to ask you did you...did you...kiss my mom?”

“
Your mom? Why would I kiss your mother, sweetie?” Then, as the words rolled out of my mouth, I realized what she was trying not to tell me. Not directly.

“
Oh! Your name isn’t Sharee, is it?” I asked.

“
No. Well, it’s my middle name.”

“
Your first name is Megan, isn’t it?”

“
Yes.”

“
The daughter of Captain Jack.”

“
Yes.”

“
And Christine Norquist.”

“
Her last name is Connelly.”

“
I know.”

I looked at this beautiful young woman and felt sick to my stomach. I had been bamboozled, fooled. I even felt violated. I was speechless and we stared at each other for long moments. I suddenly began to see the familial resemblance with Christine, and with Captain Jack, too. It was all I could do to hold down my feelings of betrayal.

“Can I ask you one question, Joel? I need to know this answer to this one question and then I want to really tell you what I think of you.”

“
Great. I get to answer a question even before you chew my head off. I guess you are her daughter, so you’re entitled to a question. Just for the record, even if you weren’t Christine’s daughter, I’d have given you a question.”

“
Did you ever consider her family? Not even her kids, but her husband? When you were telling a married woman how much you loved her, did you ever consider her family?”

“
Of
course
I did.”

“
Even my father?”

“
Your father was the reason why I never came to Virginia. I respected him too much. I respected her family too much. And maybe I wasn’t strong enough to never see her again, but I always considered your family. To be honest, it is the only part of the story I’m not proud of.”

“
But you’re proud of the rest?”

“
Yes.”

“
Why?”

“
Because I love your mother more than life itself.”

Megan was quiet and then she had the most amazing, beautiful smile and said to me, “I know you do. And I think you just might be the only person who can help her.”

“
Help
her?” I asked, alarmed. “Has something happened to her?”

Megan was quiet. Too quiet. Especially quiet. I could tell she was steeling herself to tell me something about Christine. “Then she said, “Joel, you need to understand. I didn’t come here to comfort you, nor did I come to judge you. My mother is a beautiful creature who loved and adored her family very much. If loving you from afar allowed her to love us the way she did, I thank you for it. You made my mom’s life a better place.”

Megan’s eyes drifted off, away from my face.

“
Sweetie, what is going on with your mother?”

“
Joel, my mom is in a coma.” Tears dripped from Megan's eyes as she drew back deep inside herself, visibly shrinking after she told me.

My heart sank. I felt faint. “She is alive?” I asked.

“Yes, Joel, she is. Some days, we think she just might come out of it.”

“
How is your dad handling it?”

“
He isn’t.”

I looked at Megan with curiosity in my eyes. “Tell me what happened.”

“Joel, three months ago, my parents were walking on the sidewalk in downtown Aspen, Colorado.” Megan paused and I knew this wasn’t going to be good. “Right there in broad daylight, in front of the whole world, a drunk in a car...he jumped the curb at three o’clock in the afternoon and hit my parents, smashing both of them up against the wall that was directly behind them.” Megan paused. This one was a lot longer than I knew what she was going to tell, but I knew she had to be the one to say it: “My dad died instantly.”

As she said the words, my heart broke, knowing that he had died. Now he wasn’t Christine husband. He was, for the first time in forty-seven years, Captain Jack to me. And he was
gone
. I took a deep breath and nodded to her.

Megan continued, “He was directly in front of my mother. As the car hopped the curb, witnesses say he jumped in front of my mom as the Volkswagen smashed my dad up against my mom, taking the brunt of the car crash. My mother was smashed against the wall with the back of her head hitting first.”

“Three months ago!” I asked, horrified.

“
Yes.”

“
She is still alive?” I asked again.

“
Yes, she is and some days I think she just might come out of it. Then there are days when I don’t think she will ever wake up.”

My heart ached on levels I never thought imaginable as Megan described Christine’s injuries in more detail. Tears dripped from my eyes, but I refused to show any more emotion just yet. I was in an all-night coffee shop at 4:00 in the morning. But I couldn’t keep the tears from falling.

“Why this way? Why tell me like this, Megan?”

“
My mom needs you.”

“
How? How could you know that?”

“
Joel, when the accident occurred, my brother and I knew instantly that my father had died and that was devastating to hear. But the only thing we had to hold onto is that my mother is still alive. We see her and every so often, she comes back to us.”

“
She wakes up?” I asked.

“
No, she doesn’t wake up. She hardly even moves. But I know. I can’t explain it. My mother and I have always had the most unbelievable connection, and I can feel her even though she is asleep. I can hear her voice.”

“
What is she saying!” I asked.

“
I’m not hearing words. I’m feeling her heart. I can feel her longing. I know I sound like a crazy woman, but I’ll take that title if it means I can bring my mother back…one more time.”

I didn’t know what else to do other than reach out and give Megan a huge hug. She resisted it at first, but gave in and eventually collapsed in my arms.

“Joel,” Megan said in my truck. “My mother loves you. You are the love of her life. I know she loved my father, but I am certain in my heart of hearts that she has always been absolutely in love with you.”

“
How do you know that?”

Megan smiled. “Because, this isn’t the first time I have ever heard this story.”

I looked at Megan, confused.

“
Joel, I told you that I am a romance writer.”

“
Yes.”

“
This story that you obviously lived is a hundred percent true.”

“
Of course it is. It is my life.”

“
Joel, the world already knows it.”

“
Huh?” I was completely confused.

“
Joel, my pen name is Fannie Hogan. I have probably one of the greatest love story series going today.”

I was confused how any of this mattered. “Okay...”

“Joel, you are the main character in my Jon Sullivan series. Remember the one that you said didn’t sound too romantic?”

“
Huh? How was I supposed to know it was me?” I was numb. I didn’t know how to wrap my mind around what I thought she was trying to tell me.

“
Joel, my mom came to me when I was trying to get my book published. I was having a hard time writing romance because I hadn’t really lived it myself. But I wanted to write romance so desperately. So one day, my mother came into my bedroom and told me that she always had a story, and she wanted to tell it to me. She told me she thought it was romantic enough. When I asked how was it that she had this story in her, she told me in a woman’s heart, there are many tales of love and only one of them that she was actually living.”

“
So, what happened?” I asked.

“
My mother had me take notes. We had one rule. I was to never reveal to anyone that I was getting this story from my mother.”

“
But you are telling me now?”

“
There is a huge reason for that. As you will soon see, my mother began to tell me a very similar story of a woman who lived in Buena Park, California, and it wasn’t Deltarado Days. It was Silverado Days. And the main characters weren’t Christine and Joel. They were Annie and Jon.”

“
I am Jon? In your book?”

“
Yes, you are. Joel, you are many women’s fantasy. Now that I met you in person, you are everything and more of a man than who I created in my story. The real you is far more fascinating than any fictional character I could have ever created.”

“
This is overwhelming. I am having a hard time processing this. Please bear with me. What kind of facts are in the book?”

“
Nothing damaging. Just your physical features and the essence of the man that my mom was able to capture about you. I thought I did you justice. But after meeting you, I realize I haven’t. I have known about you for ten years. I just never saw you face to face. To be honest, there was always a presence of you as my mom told me the details of the stories that made me certain she was living it, not imagining it.”

“
Let’s go outside and take a walk. I need fresh air.”

Megan and I went outside and I asked the obvious question. “What hospital is your mother in?”

“She is at the Memorial Hospital in downtown Aspen.”

“
That’s about two hours away. Let’s go,” I said plainly.

“
Now?” Megan asked, surprised.

“
Yes.”

“
Really?”

“
Yes,” I insisted.

“
Do you want to ride there together?” she suggested.

“
Of course I do. I’ll drive. Get in.”

I walked around and opened the truck door for Megan and we made our way to Bridge Street and then got on the Co. 133. We were to take it to the Co. 82 and it was about a forty-five minute drive from there.

Chapter Twenty-five

So, here we were, driving to Aspen, Colorado, to see Christine Norquist Connelly, the only woman I had ever truly loved. The events of this particular evening were only lost on me in regard to fatigue. As far as the activities, the situation was almost mind-blowing, and now I had a drive in front of me. It was in the middle of the night so I knew traffic would be light. I might even speed a little.

After a long bout of silence, a silence where my mind tried its darnedest to comprehend what was indeed happening to me at the present moment, Megan asked, “What happened?”

“When?” I asked.

“
When you got back to the hotel? You rushed over that part.”

“
Well, don’t you know?” I asked. “After all, you wrote the story,” I teased.

“
Joel, the story isn’t finished. It is a three-book series that ends after the third night they met. My mother was also vague about what happened when the two of you went to the hotel. Why is that? Something happened there. My mom ended it with an open-ended statement that basically had us telling the readers that just maybe, there was more to come. If all of us together wished upon a falling star in the heart of winter, maybe, just maybe there will be a
Fourth Sunrise
.”

“
Are those the titles of the books?” I asked.

“
Yes. Book one:
The First Sunrise
. Book two:
The
Second Sunrise
. Book three:
The Third Sunrise
. My readers are dying for
The Fourth Sunrise
. What they don’t know is that the true author, my mother, never had a fourth sunrise.”

As I stared at the road, I kept thinking about Christine and praying that I could help somehow. I also didn’t want Megan to fall asleep. I needed the company so I asked her an obvious question: “All the details I said to you in my stories. Are they in the book?”

“Not every detail. Remember, my readers have only heard it from my mother’s point of view.”

“
You wrote it in first person?”

“
Yes. From Christine’s perspective. Tonight was the first time I heard the point of view of Jon Sullivan, but from the real hero, Joel Murphy.”

I smiled at the word she used to describe me. “Is it different than your mom’s version?”

“The text and essence of each night is there. My mom related the three nights to me in a very similar way to your version. It’s just from her point of view, the woman’s perspective and what she perceived that you were thinking. The truth is, my mom was pretty right on with what she thought you were thinking. She has always been extremely intuitive. The one thing you added, which is the real gold of the story, was about my dad being your C.O. Until tonight, I never knew that you knew him. My mom left that out, too. She found out on the third night, but she left it out of the story that she told me. I’m not sure why.”