The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 1): First Time (33 page)

"Today, I have seen your love for me in a hundred different ways. It has shown in your patience with me, the way you look at me, and in your touch. I can envision falling in love with you myself. But tonight, I can't sleep with you. I'm not talking about, uh, sex. That's really—" he exhaled his breath with a blow and shrugged. After a bit, he spoke again, "Right now, I just couldn't even sleep in the same room with you. I'd be cheating on Sarah and I hope and pray you can understand."

She nodded and told him, "I think I can. I could do nothing other than wait for you."

"Why?"

"Because I know the man I married, the father of my child," she placed a finger on his chest, "Is in here. I've heard him, I've felt him, I've seen him. I don't understand it, but I know—somehow—that he's still here. I made a vow before him—you—and God to always be faithful, always protect, always stand by you. There's nothing in the world that could change that. I love you, Garison."

"You are—" he hesitated and rephrased what he intended to say in the form of a question, "Are you a Christian?" Memory seemed to tell him he already knew the answer, but he was not yet ready to begin trusting the facts his memory gave him.

"Yes, Garison," she replied. She asked, "And you? I've wondered all day. I know the communists of our day are not. I mean, most of them aren't. Maybe all. I wondered if you were."

They were still in a hall outside the bedroom and he leaned against the wall, watching her as she was backlit against the bedroom lights. Again, as with so many times in the previous hours, he was struck by her beauty. And, as much as he hated to admit it because it reminded him again of Sarah, he was realizing that Heather had even more beauty on the inside than she did on the outside. He replied, "Yes, I am. Before I...went back in time, I believed in God. I didn't know him, but I knew he was there. It was not the Soviet way, but I had seen too much evidence to believe that the universe was chance. I came across—well, a friend gave me—a Bible and I read it through twice, as one would read a novel or any other book. Then on the second trip through I copied it all down in preparation for passing it on to someone else. I never got the chance," he broke off for a moment, realizing that chance was something that not only didn't come, it never would, and never existed in the first place. "I didn't really understand all that was in it, but I knew it made sense." He smiled and added, "I was like the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts. I liked what I was reading, but I needed someone to explain it all to me. There just wasn't anyone back then.

"It was Sarah who really introduced me to Christ, though. As a personal savior, you know? She was just like Philip to me and opened up the Bible and its meanings—with her words and her life. That was just in watching her, and how she dealt with the way the town treated her. Before I had said two dozen words to her in real conversation, she had already witnessed to me with her life. Then, the other people at our little church in the barn helped, too. I saw that Jesus was what my life had been missing for so long. And it was His love that allowed me to love Sarah all the more. I believe the same is true with you and me, isn't it?"

"Well, sort of," she nodded.

"What do you mean?"

She hesitated, as if looking for the easiest words, before saying, "You've never been real big on church. I mean, you go with me most Sundays, but it's never taken much for you to find an excuse to stay home."

When she stopped, he somehow knew from the look on her face that she was thinking something else. Something else she hadn't said. He prompted, "What?"

"I don't know if I should bring it up."

"What? I want to know."

She shifted her shoulders as if something uncomfortable were on her back and finally told him, speaking as if she were being diplomatic about a sore subject, "My interest in religion has often been a focal point for our arguments."

"Really?" he asked, obviously very astonished.

"Really. I mean, you aren't a bad guy or anything. I think you believe in God and Jesus and the Bible, but you've—uh—you've often accused me of being...fanatical."

He shook his head and said sincerely, "I'm sorry. I—I can't imagine being upset with someone over that. That's just so foreign to everything I believe."

There was a happiness building up inside her that she could not have explained, especially since this little revelation was so in contrary to the man she loved and had married. It had been proven to her several times over the previous days that this was her Garison Fitch; but it was as if he had dimensions he had never possessed before. And this most recent dimension almost brought tears to her eyes for it was something she had wanted for a long time.

Their marriage had been a somewhat rocky one from the beginning. While it had never neared divorce, it had had its unpleasant times. Somehow, deep inside her, she felt that that had suddenly changed. Through this experience, they were both going to grow closer together, she told herself. She had told herself that before, and it had never come true, but she felt like this time would be different. Perhaps, she thought, it was just because this episode was going to force them to get to know each other—all over again and for the first time. Maybe this time they would do it right.

"Where do we go to church?" he asked.

"The Christian Church in Mancos," she replied.

"Where is that? I don't believe I've heard of that town. There was no such town in my day."

"It's west of the canyon," she replied.

"Near the Japanese border?" he asked, before remembering that Japan was a lot further away.

"Utah border," she corrected with a smile. "We started going there when we first moved out to the canyon," she told him. "Back when we lived in town, we used to go to the First Christian Church in Durango. You didn't care for that church for some reason, but were a little more open to the one in Mancos. I was just excited to go anywhere you would go with me."

He laughed and said, "I expect I am in for a change. I have been attending an eighteenth century Scottish church for the last five years. Whatever this church of ours is like, it's bound to be substantially different."

"That very well could be," Heather laughed. "Someday, you've gotta tell me what an eighteenth century Scottish church is like. I've read books on church history in America, but to talk to someone who was actually there! Were there Puritan services in your town?"

"Yeah. Biggest church in town, actually."

"Oh, I can't wait to hear what that was like."

"Services often lasted for hours, and they sometimes whacked you over the head if you fell asleep," he said, with a yawn. "At our little church we just volunteered anyone who fell asleep for clean-up duty."

"You look like you need a whack on the head right now—or a good night's sleep." She looked at her watch, "I guess we had better go to sleep, huh?"

He nodded and started to turn away. He turned back when she called softly, "Garison?"

"Yes?"

With an expression much like an embarrassed little girl, she asked, "Could I come kiss you good-night—on the cheek?" After a moment, she added, "Please?"

He smiled and said, "I think that would be all right."

She came over and kissed him on the cheek. He took her in his arms and hugged her before letting her return to her room. He couldn't decide in his mind whether he were hugging her from friendship or because she was his wife. Either way, he was almost embarrassed as he found he liked the feel of the hug. And was there a light in her face that had not been there previously, he asked himself. He also realized that he somehow recognized the hug—as real as any memory that had surfaced that day.

She started to go into the bedroom when he said, "Oh, there was something you said earlier that I wanted ask you about, but then I almost forgot because we were talking about churches at the time." He hesitated, then asked, "When you said something about me being the father of your child, you meant that metaphorically, right? Because I'm you're husband, I'll one day be the father of your child, right? I mean, you already said we don't currently have any children, didn't you?"

Heather bit her lip as she inhaled through her nose rather uncomfortably, but didn't answer the question. When she seemed to remain at a loss for words—as if they were inside her but she couldn't get them out—Garison reached out and put his hand gently on her shoulder, "Did we lose a child? I'm not forgetting a child who—who passed away, am I?"

Heather shook her head and mumbled, "It's nothing like that."

"Then what—" he started to ask, before a light went off in his head and he looked from her head to her abdomen to her eyes again. She nodded and he asked nervously, "Are you..." It was his turn to be unable to get the word out.

Heather nodded again, but still said nothing. There was a tear running down her cheek and Garison somehow knew immediately it was because the husband of her child was not quite all there. He pulled her to him and, as she began to quietly sob, he asked, "Is this a memory I haven't found, yet, or did I just not yet know?"

She wiped the tears from puffy eyes and said, "You didn't know. I used one of those home pregnancy tests the night before the experiment because I thought I might be. It came out positive. I'm probably just six or seven weeks along, maybe less. You were so busy and all, I thought it would be a great thing to tell you when we went out to celebrate the success of your experiment. When things—when things happened like they did, I just didn't know how to tell you."

"Oh boy."

Trying to add a little levity, to keep herself from crying again, Heather responded, "Might be. Might be a girl, though."

Excerpt from
A Fitch Family History by Maureen Fitch Carnes

Franklyn Fitch, oldest grandson of Julius Fitch, gained a small amount of fame as an officer in the Civil War. He rose to the rank of colonel in the Union Army and was at the second battle of Bull Run. At the completion of the war, he was one of the few men to remain in the service. Reduced in rank at the end of the war to lieutenant (which was better than many officers, who were forced to become enlisted men if they chose to remain in the service), Franklyn was sent to the frontier to fight Indians. The recipient of the blonde hair and blue eyes that sometimes ran in his family, no one ever suspected he was one eighth Indian himself. Had the word gotten out, it could have been detrimental to his military career in some circles.

Chapter Twenty

Garison's Journal

March 17, 2005, 11:31 p.m.

I miss Sarah. There is no denying that. With her gone, and knowing how far gone she is, there is a hole in my life.

It's strange, though. At the same time I am feeling this awful ache, which threatens to drive me to the floor in sackcloth and ashes like the prophet Job, I find myself in love with Heather. It's not a matter of falling in love with Heather. I am already in love with her and have been for some time—since before I came back in time, actually.

This, in turn, causes more confused feelings. I feel as if I am betraying Sarah by loving Heather. Yet, I also know that the two are completely unrelated. The me who is in love with Heather has known Heather for three years and has been in love with her that whole time. I have known Sarah for five years and have been in love with her almost that whole time. The two are irreconcilable, yet there they are right in front of me. Heather is right that, sometimes, two apparently contradictory facts can both be true.

I can explain particle physics without hardly even having to think, but I can't explain what's going on inside my head at all. And now, I learn that I am going to be a father—again. Sarah's Garison is not the father of Heather's baby, but Heather's Garison is, and Heather's Garison and Sarah's Garison are the same person. It's almost like the old joke about pants being both plural (at the bottom) and singular (at the top). I am both plural and singular.

Right now, Heather's Garison and Sarah's Garison are the same person, though it seems that once they weren't ("once" being an inaccurate word as it relates to a temporal state and this entire situation defies temporal logic). I never doubted that I could be a good father to my children by Sarah, but can I be a good father to the child Heather is carrying? Maybe I did have similar thoughts right before Justin was born—I think all fathers-to-be do—but this is all so complicated. I am not this baby's father, but then again, I am.

The next day, Garison awoke with more memories than he had gone to bed with. He could not remember whether they were dreams or reality, but they were there in such force and with such realism it seemed as if they had to have been actual events. Some seemed so strange (like the ones of some near-sport called bowling), that he thought they had to be dreams, whereas other new-found memories fit like a glove.

Suddenly, he remembered in detail his wedding to Heather. His wedding to Sarah had been a large affair for the town of Mount Vernon—and he cherished that memory—but the wedding to Heather had been an enormous thing by anyone's standards. He remembered that there was some irony there for his father-in-law didn't care for him. Still, Henry Dawson II wasn't going to let his only daughter get married in anything less that top style.

Garison and Heather had been married in the large Valley View Christian Church in North Dallas. Heather had been introduced to the church by Bat Garrett, who had been a deacon and Sunday School teacher there before moving to Arizona. And, while it gave him reason to cast suspicion on the memory, Garison remembered that the pianist for the service had been the man Hecht who served on the Texas Supreme Court—and who had been President of Texas in the "old days". His best man had been a friend from his baseball days—whose name he could not yet recall—and Heather's matron of honor had been Jody Garrett, the woman in the picture. As with all grooms, though, the thing he remembered most about the wedding was the way his bride had looked as she came down the aisle.