Gwyneth was four years older than Sybil, but in many ways, seemed more innocent and more protected. Bert handled all the practical details of their life and shielded her from everything unpleasant, which was his role, while Gwyneth ran his home flawlessly, as she had for twenty-four years, and took care of their children. They had faced Magnus’s death together twelve years before, and given each other the courage they needed to go on. They were a strong couple, and their roles were well defined as to what a man did and how a woman complemented him. It was all more confusing in Blake and Sybil’s time. She had to be powerful and sturdy in the world, and yet make adjustments for him, and not lose her own sense of womanhood. Gwyneth didn’t see the nuances and was impressed by the freedom Sybil had to work, make decisions, travel, and do as she chose. She liked Sybil enormously, and envied her to some degree.
“I wish I could have a job,” she had said longingly.
“What would you do?” Sybil asked her, curious about how she’d respond.
“I’m not sure. I’d go to university and study art history. I think I’d like your job. It sounds so interesting and varied. Or I’d like to teach art.”
“I used to think about teaching too.” Sybil smiled. “Jobs are so crazy these days. There are so many elements combined. And you can design your own. With computers, you can work from home or anywhere in the world.”
“I don’t really understand them,” Gwyneth admitted, looking embarrassed.
“I don’t either.” Sybil smiled at her. “And I’m not very good with them. It’s like a box with a small typewriter in it,” she explained. “You write whatever you need to on the keyboard, you can even send photographs or designs, or music on it. It shows up on the little screen, and then you hit a button, and it goes to anyone you send it to, who has one of those little computer boxes. It always seems like magic to me, and it’s incredibly fast. It gets to the other person seconds later. It makes it very easy to work from far away. You can even draw on it with a special program.”
“What an incredible invention. I thought it was remarkable when Bert got us a telephone, although I don’t use it very often. Or I didn’t. I don’t use it at all now.” And they both knew why.
“I can show you my computer when I get back, if you like.” Gwyneth’s face had lit up at the suggestion. And when she was away, Sybil downloaded several art programs for her.
It snowed while Sybil was in New York, and it was beautiful for a night, and after that it was a mess, with slush everywhere. She was relieved when she got on the plane to go back to San Francisco, and she was happy to see Blake and the children when she got home. She had missed them, but had gotten all her work done.
“How was New York?” Blake asked, as he kissed her when he got home from work. He had missed her too.
“Noisy, dirty, messy, exciting, lonely, fun.”
“That about sums it up,” he laughed.
“And it didn’t feel like home anymore.” She sounded surprised. “The apartment was depressing without you and the kids. I couldn’t wait to get back.” He looked pleased. He’d been afraid that she’d fall in love with the city all over again. “And I missed the house. I’ve gotten spoiled,” she admitted with a grin. It was all good news to him. He was enjoying his job and in no hurry to go back to New York.
“I ran into Bert in the garden this morning, and he invited us to dinner tonight, if you’re not too tired.”
“I’d love it.” She smiled at him, and she couldn’t wait to see Gwyneth and start their computer lessons. She was anxious to show her the programs she’d downloaded for her. She’d been playing with them herself, and had done some drawings that looked like pen and ink. There was a painting application too.
Both families were delighted to see each other when they met for dinner that night. The young people were particularly pleased, and Sybil got a few minutes alone with Gwyneth before they sat down.
“Come up to my office tomorrow afternoon,” she told her. “We’re all set.” Gwyneth didn’t want Bert to know and said he’d be upset, but she wanted to learn to use Sybil’s computer. It sounded like a magical invention to her. And after dinner, Gwyneth looked excited when she and Sybil said good night. Blake asked her about it when they went upstairs.
“What was that about between you and Gwyneth? You two look like you’re up to mischief.” He knew Sybil well, but she didn’t want him to tell Bert. The two families had a tacit agreement not to interfere with each other’s lives and respect the dimensions they were in. Blake had been adamant about it. To Sybil, that meant not telling them what was going to happen in their lives in the future. It didn’t mean not teaching Gwyneth computer skills, just like Charlie teaching Magnus to play videogames, which Bert didn’t want him doing either, but the boys had a ball with it, and Sybil was sure Gwyneth would with their lessons too.
“Just girl stuff,” Sybil said vaguely, and asked Blake to help her unzip her dress, and he rapidly lost interest in whatever secret the two women shared.
—
Gwyneth came to Sybil’s office the next day, on the floor above their bedrooms. She walked in shyly and sat down at Sybil’s desk, where Sybil showed her how to turn on the computer and how to operate it, and then explained the art applications, as Gwyneth stared at the screen in disbelief.
“How can you do that with a machine?” She tried it herself and was in awe of the pen and ink app, and was amazed at the brushstrokes she could achieve with the painting application. And they both had fun trying it out. They played with it for two hours and Sybil printed the results out for her, as Gwyneth noticed Sybil’s cellphone on the desk.
“What do you do with that?” It didn’t look like anything she’d ever seen.
“That?” Sybil looked surprised. “That’s my phone.” Gwyneth looked amazed as she picked it up.
“It’s a telephone?”
Sybil showed her how it worked and Gwyneth laughed in astonishment. It had been an exciting day for her, and they decided to put her artwork in a file in Sybil’s office. She asked if she could come back the next day.
“You can come back every day if you want.” She had an old laptop she could dedicate to her, and Gwyneth looked thrilled as she hugged Sybil and thanked her, and she left a minute later. Sybil waved from her office doorway as Gwyneth headed for the stairs and disappeared. It had been a wonderful afternoon for both of them.
They didn’t have dinner together that night, but Gwyneth came back the next day, ready to practice the painting application again. She was already addicted to the computer and the miracle Sybil had introduced her to. A whole new world had opened up for her, a hundred years ahead of her time.
—
Gwyneth continued to come back every afternoon after that. She diligently worked with the art applications while Sybil did her work. And Gwyneth was fascinated watching Sybil do her emails. Sybil taught her how to email and showed her how to Skype, although no one could see her except Sybil. Skype was not made for ghosts. They sent an email to Blake, and Gwyneth laughed at Blake’s response. He thought he was emailing Sybil when it was really Gwyneth writing to him, and both women laughed. Gwyneth was learning her lessons well. Her artwork was beautiful, and Sybil was sorry she couldn’t show it to anyone. It was their dark secret. And Gwyneth was proud of what she’d learned.
Sybil showed her Facebook one afternoon just for fun, and Google, and eBay. The possibilities were endless. But what Gwyneth loved most was creating art on the computer. And she was impressed by how seriously Sybil worked and the volume of emails she dealt with.
“You need a secretary,” Gwyneth said practically one afternoon, and Sybil nodded. She’d had an assistant in New York, but didn’t want one here.
“I do it all myself. I don’t want to train someone to do what I do, but sometimes I get overloaded, especially when I have an article due, or a museum show to organize and curate, with things coming in from all over the world.”
They were talking about it when Alicia ca
me upstairs to offer Sybil a cup of tea and heard her talking to Gwyneth, although Alicia could see and hear only Sybil.
“I’m sorry, are you on the phone?” she whispered.
“No, I’m finished, and I’m fine, I don’t need anything, but thank you,” Sybil said, and the housekeeper went back downstairs. She had noticed that the whole family talked to themselves a lot. They were a little eccentric. The children did it, and Mrs. Gregory. She’d never known people who talked to themselves before, and after she was gone, Gwyneth and Sybil burst into gales of laughter. “She thinks we’re all crazy,” Sybil explained. “Who knows, maybe we are.”
“No, you’re not,” Gwyneth said gently. “You’re a remarkable woman, Sybil. You’ve given a whole new meaning to my life with the computer.” The earnestness with which she said it touched Sybil deeply, as though she’d given her a priceless gift. It cemented their friendship as nothing else had. They continued to meet every afternoon in Sybil’s office. They talked about life, and their husbands and children. Their fears and their dreams. Gwyneth was desperately worried about America getting pulled into the war and Josiah getting drafted. And the subject came up at dinner constantly too.
Bert was increasingly concerned with how badly the war was going in Europe. He didn’t see how President Wilson was going to keep the country out of it, and by March it was even worse. Bert was predicting that America would enter the war in the immediate future. Blake didn’t offer what he knew, nor did Sybil, that Josiah would be enlisting in the army soon, and the country would be at war.
It finally happened on April 6. President Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war on April 2, and four days later, war was declared, and the families shared a somber dinner in the dining room that night. Two days later, Josiah told his family he had enlisted, and Sybil felt her heart sink, knowing what would come next. Gwyneth saw it on Sybil’s face and whispered to her at dinner.
“Is there something you’re not telling us?” And after a long, long pause, Sybil nodded.
“He mustn’t go,” Sybil said urgently, and Gwyneth understood.
“But how can we stop him? All the boys his age will be going now.” He’d been one of the first to enlist, and Bert was very proud of his son. “Bert thinks he should,” Gwyneth added.
“Is there nothing you can do to stop him?” Sybil looked so sad.
“He’ll be labeled a coward if he doesn’t go,” Gwyneth said, and Sybil realized again that she was powerless to change it. Gwyneth stopped coming for her computer lessons, too worried about her son for frivolous distractions.
Two weeks later, they had a farewell dinner for him. The Gregorys were there, and when Sybil said goodbye to him and hugged him, she told Josiah he must be very, very careful, and not take any undue risks. “Don’t be a hero, just come home!” The men smiled at each other over her warnings, and Blake mentioned it when they went up to bed. Sybil was deeply moved by saying goodbye to Josiah, and had prayed that her warning was enough to change something just a little.
“He’ll be fine,” Blake assured her, as though Josiah were still alive, forgetting the truth about them, that none of them were “fine” anymore, even though they seemed to be. They had all died long ago and were now ghosts.
“No, he won’t,” Sybil said to Blake with a pointed look, and he understood, and seemed shocked when she reminded him. “Unless something happens to change the course of history, he won’t be back. Or, he will, but the way Magnus is, as a spirit.” It was confusing at times remembering who was meant to still be alive and who was dead among them.
“He was killed in the war?” Blake had forgotten. Sybil nodded and Blake looked sad too, wishing he could say something to Bert to alter it. But what could he say? It was already done, a century before.
“I keep wishing we could change things. It’s not fair that we know what we do, and they don’t and have no warning,” she said sadly. Her computer lessons with Gwyneth had brought them even closer.
“But that’s the way life is, isn’t it? None of us are ever warned. And even when we are, we don’t believe it,” Blake said wisely. “They probably wouldn’t do anything different even if they knew.”
“But what if they did? What if we could make a difference?”
“By now, a hundred years later, something would have killed them. We don’t have a right to interfere with their destinies. Perhaps in small subtle ways. But would you have him called a coward when the country went to war? It would break his father’s heart. Would you want that for Andy?” he asked her honestly.
“Yes, I would,” she said emphatically. “I would want my son alive, whatever it took.”
“Bert was very proud of him tonight,” Blake commented, remembering the look of pride on Bert’s face.
“If someone knew something that could help me change the course of history to save my son, I would want to know it,” she said fiercely.
“I’m not sure people would listen. Perhaps it will work out differently than you think.” She shook her head, knowing the truth, and there were tears in her eyes when she went to bed that night, thinking of Josiah and the grief that lay ahead for all of them. She wondered how long it would take him to come back to them, after he died. She was in a world of phenomena she didn’t know or understand, and neither did Blake. “Magnus seems to be all right, in spite of what happened to him,” Blake tried to reassure her.
“He’s not all right, Blake. He’s dead,” she said, and blew her nose.
“They’re all dead,” he reminded her, and she laughed through her tears.
“I guess that’s true.” She smiled. “They just don’t look or act dead, and they don’t seem to know it.”
“No, they certainly don’t,” he agreed. They seemed as alive as any friends they’d ever had, and the two families had come to love each other and gave each other strength. Blake vowed to himself to be there for Bert in the months ahead. It was all he could do. Despite what they knew, they were unable to interfere, and he wondered if maybe that was how it was meant to be, as cruel as that seemed to them.
—
Josiah left the next day. He was being sent by train to New Jersey for basic training, and then would embark for Europe. They wouldn’t see him again before he left for the front, by troop ship from New York. He wouldn’t be allowed to tell them when he was going, but Bert thought they would train him for combat for about a month, or a little longer, which would land him in Europe in early June. The war was chewing up all the young men in Europe, and they were hoping that fresh troops from the States would turn it around.
There was no dinner with the Butterfields the night he left, and they didn’t come to the dining room for two days. Gwyneth was trying to be brave, but she looked ragged when they dined together again, and even Augusta was subdued, missing her grandson, and there suddenly seemed to be a huge hole at the table where Josiah had been.
Bert and Blake talked business that night, as Blake explained to him how the progress at the start-up was going. There were a few problems, but he wasn’t worried about them. Blake felt that the two founding partners were too fearless about taking risks, but he hoped they knew what they were doing. They’d been successful before. It seemed insignificant now compared to Josiah going to war, but at least talking to Bert about work was distracting. Sybil and Gwyneth were conversing quietly. Sybil had just said something to Gwyneth about coming back to her office in the afternoons, when she happened to look down the table toward Augusta and saw her turning purple, while Angus stared at her in a panic. There was no sound coming from her, and she was obviously choking. Her airway was blocked by something she had eaten, probably a piece of meat. They’d had leg of lamb for dinner that night. Sybil watched her for an instant and then ran down the length of the table to where Augusta was sitting. The old woman looked terrified, she was getting no air and could make no sound. Sybil knew she would be unconscious shortly.
“I’m going to help you,” Sybil said as calmly as she could, hoping
she could do the Heimlich maneuver on a woman her size. Augusta had a voluminous body, and Sybil pulled her up from her chair, stood as closely behind her as she could get, put her arms around her, formed one hand into a tight fist and curled the other around it, and plunged them into Augusta’s abdomen sharply, as everyone at the table stared in shocked horror at what was going on and what Sybil was doing. Sybil, Blake, and their children had taken Red Cross classes many times, and Sybil was certified in advanced first aid and CPR. She made the classic movement twice, trying to force the object to pop out as the air in her lungs would propel it upward. Augusta was fighting her, but on the second try it worked, and the piece of lamb that had been stuck in her throat flew out of her mouth, shot across the table, and landed in front of Magnus. Augusta spluttered and coughed then, but her airway had cleared. She looked mortified and turned to Sybil, still standing behind her, and waved her away.
“How dare you put your hands on me, you wicked girl!” she berated her. “You tried to strangle me, while I was choking.” She looked outraged. “You nearly broke my ribs!”
“No, truly, I didn’t try to strangle you, Mrs. Campbell. It’s called the Heimlich maneuver, to keep people from dying from choking. It saves a lot of lives. My children know how to do it too.”
“Heimlich. Foreign, naturally. And German, that’s even worse than French. The Germans are probably using it in France to kill British soldiers.” Gratitude was clearly not part of Augusta’s make-up, and she was obviously fine now, so Sybil apologized for manhandling her and went back to her seat, relieved that it had worked.
“Mother, Sybil was trying to help you,” Gwyneth said, attempting to defend her friend. “You were choking.” And Phillips had already removed the offending piece of meat that had nearly killed her. She glared at Sybil several times from the opposite end of the table, but as they left the dining room that night, she walked over to Sybil and spoke to her gruffly.
“I’m sure you meant well, but don’t ever do that again. I’d rather choke than have you break all my ribs.”
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