A Gift of Time

by Beth Flynn

  Less than fifteen minutes later, he was on his bike. First, he had to ride a few hours out of his way to a garage that he’d rented. He would retrieve the car he’d left there, along with more clothes, personal items, cash, and a burner phone he could use to contact Anthony. After setting up a way to see Bear, he’d toss the phone.

  He looked at the credit cards that had been set up with his new identity and knew he’d never use them. He was putting them in his wallet when he pulled out his license and realized he no longer looked like the man in the picture. His hair had grown in over the past several months, and he’d trimmed his beard significantly. Anthony would be able to get a new picture for his new identity.

  His new identity. Another fucking name to have to answer to. Dammit. But at least they gave him that. James Kirkland screamed “boring alias” as much as it screamed average American Joe. It would do. Besides, they’d held up their end of the bargain. He was told Jason “Grizz” Talbot’s DNA and fingerprints had been replaced in the system by counterfeits. He was getting a clean slate, and if James Kirkland’s DNA and fingerprints were run, the searches would come up empty unless James Kirkland did something to get himself in trouble.

  Point being, if he found himself in hot water with the law, there would be nothing to connect him back to a dead Jason Talbot. It wouldn’t be an issue. He planned on staying clean.

  He was now a widowed father of two non-existent children who’d made a living as a heavy equipment operator until he suffered a back injury on the job. Shit, they even had the government sending disability checks to James Kirkland’s bank account. You couldn’t get any more vanilla than that. He’d tested his new identity early on when he purposely ran a red light somewhere in Georgia. The cop ran his bike’s license plate and came back with a warning. He checked out. He was James Kirkland.

  He turned up the radio as he drove south and pondered whether he should do anything to get Blue out of town for a while. More than likely, Blue would be concerned about Tommy, Ginny, and their children and might even put a detail on them to make sure they were safe. Grizz still had no way of knowing if Tommy’s shooting was random or planned. He heard them mention on the news that Tommy was supposed to testify in Rockman’s trial, but Grizz was certain it wasn’t a testimony that would make or break Matthew’s case. Blue had made sure the evidence planted in Jan’s murder pointed to Rockman.

  He shook his head as he remembered another detail. When he’d questioned Tommy’s loyalty at the end, he’d allowed some evidence to look like it could’ve pointed to Tommy. He was going to drop the ball on him if he thought he’d been deceitful, which he hadn’t been. Fuck me. Why couldn’t I have just left it alone? What if Tommy was shot because of something to do with Rockman’s trial? Shit.

  He allowed his mind to wander back to what, or rather who, he’d found in Louisiana. He had no doubt he’d met Kit’s twin sister. He smiled when he thought about the note he could have Carter anonymously deliver to Blue: “Grizz’s last order before the execution, specifically to be delivered to you several months after his death. He left something for you in a diner called The Green Bean. You will find this diner in Chinkaw, Louisiana, and you’ll know the package and what to do with it when you see it.”

  Grizz laughed when he thought about Blue meeting Kit’s twin sister, Jodi. But he also knew he’d never have the message sent. The last thing he needed to do was have Blue drag Jodi back to Fort Lauderdale to meet Ginny while he was trying to see her. No. He’d save this surprise for a future day and for now do everything he could to avoid Blue.

  He was listening to Pink Floyd’s “Run Like Hell” and enjoying the rumble and power of his 1972 Chevelle when he was hit with a wave of grief so profound it almost took his breath away.

  He let up on the gas and turned down the radio. He’d never experienced anything like this before, and he didn’t know how to react to it. He slowly took in his surroundings. He was on a stretch of highway that was desolate. He couldn’t see any cars in front of him or behind him. Cows grazed lazily in green fields dotted with patches of dry, dead earth. He felt a weight so enormous, so thick, he wondered for a second if he was having a heart attack.

  No. He wasn’t feeling a physical chest pain. It was a pain of the soul. A pain of loss. He hadn’t even felt this at his own execution.

  Kit.

  He pressed down on the accelerator.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Tommy

  2001, Fort Lauderdale

  He could hear her. Her voice was breaking through his consciousness.

  Where am I? Why couldn’t he answer her? He thought he felt a gentle caress on his hand. It was so light it felt like a dusting of air. Her voice was doing battle with some other noise. It sounded like a hiss. And the beeps. What were those beeps?

  He tried to let her know he could hear her. He was certain now she was holding his hand and lightly stroking it. He wanted to reach for her, but his arm felt like it was encased in cement. Ginny, I can hear you! I can hear you telling me you love me. I love you, too. Why can’t I say it? Why can’t I reach for you?

  The memory came back then. The gas station. Coffee. A robbery. He’d been shot, and now he was in the hospital. He felt an incredible weight as the reality of what had happened to him started to sink in. His mind was starting to clear. Remembering the gunshots, he wondered how he could be semi-conscious and yet feel no pain. Must be the miracle of modern drugs.

  Then he heard another voice. One that concerned him. Sarah Jo.

  “Why don’t you take a quick break and let me stay with him a minute, Gin?”

  “Thanks, Jo, but I can’t. I think he might be coming around. I swear he tried to squeeze my hand before.” He could hear the hope in Ginny’s voice.

  “Oh, Gin, that’s wonderful news!” Jo said.

  If Tommy didn’t know Jo so well, he might’ve thought her response was sincere.

  “I know you haven’t left the room in hours. Why don’t you at least go use the bathroom and grab a coffee. Stretch your legs. I promise I won’t leave his side.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right. Jennie promised me another piece of banana bread. Maybe I’ll run to the restroom, then grab a coffee. Oh, you got your mother’s necklace back! Carter told you Bill would get it fixed for you.”

  What Ginny was saying about Jo’s necklace didn’t make sense to Tommy. Even though he couldn’t see her, he was certain Jo was clutching the pendant nervously. He’d watched her do it a thousand times.

  “And Carter was right. I got it back after just a few hours. It’s right as rain. Now, go. I’ll stay and talk to him.”

  “I’ll be right back. Do you want something?”

  “I want you to take a break and know I won’t leave his side until you come back, okay?”

  Tommy couldn’t hear Ginny’s response so she must’ve nodded. He felt her lift his hand to her mouth and softly kiss the inside of his palm.

  Don’t leave me, Ginny. His mind was racing, yet a calmness and peace he hadn’t expected settled over him. He felt his other hand being lifted and heard Sarah Jo’s voice.

  “Stan and I had just returned from Sydney and were visiting friends in Atlanta when Mimi called me. I was doing what you said. Pushing Stan to interview in other countries. But, circumstances change, don’t they?” There was a pause. She couldn’t possibly have expected him to answer her. “Tommy, do you know how easy this would be for me? All I’d have to do is squeeze one of the tubes on your ventilator and stop the air flow.”

  He realized then that he wasn’t breathing on his own. The hiss he’d woken to was a ventilator machine.

  “Or I could slip a syringe out of my pocket and inject insulin right into your IV. I’d have my back to the nurses, and they wouldn’t know what I was doing. You’re already being given a certain amount of insulin, so if they ever did an autopsy, which I doubt they will because of the seriousness of your wounds, they’ll never look for an insulin overdose. It would be so easy. Too ea
sy.”

  Tommy knew he should’ve been panicking at what Jo was saying, but he wasn’t. He felt a peaceful bliss come over him. He’d never felt anything like it. It certainly wasn’t earthly. Jo was standing over his hospital bed threatening his life, and he knew with every fiber of his being she could get away with it. She was the director of nursing, and her husband was the chief of surgery. They were close personal friends. Nobody would suspect or even guess that she had caused his death.

  He should’ve cared. He should’ve been frightened. But oddly, he wasn’t.

  He felt an unexplainable pull. A calling. He felt like he was being called somewhere. He suddenly became aware of a light and wanted to be near that light more than anything he’d ever wanted in his life. Even his lifelong quest for the woman he’d always been in love with didn’t tug at him like the light did. The woman he loved. Ginny. His children. Mimi and Jason. He could see them now.

  As he reflected back on the life he’d lived, he was given the gift of feeling every joyous moment he’d ever experienced with all of them. It was beautiful, and it almost pulled him back, but it didn’t compare to the light. A light that was so brilliant it should’ve blinded him.

  Ginny.

  He couldn’t leave. Wouldn’t leave. They needed him. He needed them. He tried to turn away from the light then, and that’s when he saw it. Just like the gift of instantaneous joy he’d felt seconds earlier, he saw a glimpse of a future for his family. He saw their grief about his death. And as much as it pained his heart, he knew it would be replaced with eventual acceptance and peace. He knew they would be cared for. He knew they would live happy and full lives. He knew he would always have a special place in their hearts.

  And he knew in his own heart he needed to let them go. To let her go.

  Ginny.

  He’d forced something that wasn’t meant to be. Did he think saving a pair of potholders or stamping her initials on a Bible would carry any weight in deciding their future? Did he really believe anything he did, calculated or otherwise, was because he was in charge of a fate that could be manipulated to his advantage? Should he have moved on after Grizz married her? Should he have gone on with his life and given another woman a chance?

  He knew the answer was no. He’d spent the best fifteen years of his life married to Ginny. Being her husband and raising their children was a privilege, and he wouldn’t have traded it for anything. He now believed with all of his heart that, for the short time he’d had her, she was his. Ginny loved wholly, honestly, and unconditionally, and he knew that if he woke up, she would spend the rest of her life with him. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to wake up.

  Ginny.

  The shooting was random. What spiritual force had pushed him to convince her to wear the bandana the day before? His mind wrestled with his motive. He even remembered questioning his own sanity when the idea came to him, but he couldn’t let it go. Was it his final move in the chess game he’d started so long ago and later abandoned? Was he so prideful that he couldn’t just accept Ginny’s word that she wanted to be with him? He’d forced the last move to prove what? To have the satisfaction of looking Grizz in the eyes and seeing the pain that Ginny’s rejection would inflict?

  The euphoria that felt like liquid peace being poured into his soul gave him the miracle of seeing into his own heart. No, his insistence that she wear the bandana one more time wasn’t his pride or a challenge to Grizz. It was something bigger.

  Grizz. His nemesis for as long as he could remember. But all of a sudden, Tommy no longer saw him that way. It was as if a veil was being lifted, and instead of the heartless criminal, Tommy saw the man who’d come back, if Ginny allowed it, and care for and protect his family. The man that one day Mimi would accept and Jason would look up to. Tommy knew his earthly self would have been appalled by that thought. But his soul knew differently. Was he seeing truth, or was he seeing what his subconscious wanted to see so he could step over into the light and not take guilt or fear with him? He then realized there would be no fear or guilt inside the light.

  Ginny.

  Every negative feeling he’d ever experienced was instantly gone. There was no jealousy, no despair, no depression, no grief, no fear. No hatred. Even his newfound disdain for Sarah Jo had evaporated. Extinguished itself. She was still standing by his bedside talking, but he was no longer hearing her. He caught a glimpse of the little girl he remembered from their childhood. He saw her sloppy pigtails and freckled nose and, more than anything, he saw her grief.

  Then he felt something he hadn’t expected. He felt the pain she’d endured at the loss of her mother. He felt the little girl who’d cried so long and so hard her eyes swelled completely shut. He could hear Fess’s gentle voice as he held his only daughter. “You’re my number one girl now, Sarah Jo. Now that Mom is in heaven, you’re my best girl, and nobody will ever take your place.” No matter how misguided, Tommy now understood why she’d done the things she had. And he forgave. How? How was he seeing and feeling these things?

  Ginny.

  The light was warm. It was beautiful and inviting, and he no longer wanted to resist, but he felt he needed to. Because of her. Because of his children.

  Then he heard a voice.

  “Tommy.”

  It was a voice he’d only heard over the course of a few weeks, and that was more than thirty years ago, but he recognized it as if it’d only been yesterday. A voice that had once been snippy and pushy and mean.

  “When you’re finished folding towels you need to clean Grizz’s bathroom and write down anything he might be running low on,” she’d snapped. Yes, he remembered that voice.

  He looked to his left and smiled.

  Moe.

  She reached for his hand, and he gave it to her. He looked down then and saw the commotion. The people standing over him trying to bring him back to life. Even Sarah Jo looked like she was trying to help. He peered through the glass walls of his hospital room and saw two men holding Ginny back. He could hear her screams, see the coffee that had been splattered on the floor.

  “He squeezed my hand! He heard me talking to him! He squeezed my hand!” she was screaming at the top of her lungs. Tears were streaming down her face. She was taking on two large orderlies and winning as she clawed her way back into his room.

  He immediately felt her world, the one he was leaving behind, and sensed he was moving back down toward the hospital bed. Toward the cold reality and harshness of an earthly life. He gazed upon the sterile hospital room. The cold metallic sharpness that was in complete opposition to everything he knew to be within the light that awaited him. His heart ached for the reality that Ginny would be facing without him. The grief she would experience with his passing. But with that knowledge came the peace that this wasn’t the end for them. Something deep inside him stirred, and he knew Moe’s next words to be true.

  “She’ll find you. They’ll all find you, Tommy. They’ll find us.”

  “How do you know?” He didn’t actually speak the words, but he heard his own voice asking her.

  “Because I found you,” was her reply.

  He looked at Moe and started to feel himself being pulled back up, away from the hospital room and toward the light that was eternal life. The light that was full of an unconditional and all-encompassing love. Love. He thought he knew about love. He had been wrong.

  “She’ll be okay, Tommy. They’ll all be okay.”

  It was then that he thanked God for the miraculous gift of tranquility and complete knowledge that what Moe said was true. It was then that he told Ginny one last time that he loved her and their children. It was then that he resigned himself with a peace beyond human understanding that it was his time.

  Then, he reached into the depths of his soul and allowed himself to see a truth he’d always avoided. She was never meant to be just his and he realized, as Moe subtly nodded toward the light, that for the first time in his entire life, he was finally at a place of acceptance, peace, and pure l
ove.

  “He’s waiting for you,” Moe whispered.

  He nodded and smiled at her. He was ready.

  Part Two

  “Sometimes our lives have to be completely shaken up, changed, and rearranged to locate us to the place we’re meant to be.”—Unknown

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Grizz

  2001, Fort Lauderdale

  He carried his groceries into the small efficiency apartment he’d rented on the beach. He’d been back in Fort Lauderdale for two days, and in that time he’d been unable to meet with Carter, but he’d learned from the local news that Tommy had succumbed to his wounds and died—at almost the same instant he’d had that overwhelming sense of grief while driving.

  Had he been sensing Kit’s pain? He wanted to believe he had that type of connection with her. But he quickly reminded himself that people that did the kinds of things he’d done didn’t have those types of experiences. It was probably heartburn from the chicken salad he’d eaten.

  Now there was nothing to do but sit and wait. He couldn’t go to Ginny, and he certainly couldn’t have her brought to him. And he didn’t want to approach Anthony until after Tommy’s funeral.

  He was eager to talk to Anthony. He wanted to know what Anthony might’ve heard on the street. Had it been a random act of violence toward Tommy, or had it been connected in any way to something else?

  He put away his groceries and made himself a sandwich. Sitting down, he reached for the remote. He scanned the local news channels and paused at one showing a sketch. It was a rendering of the alleged perpetrator in the convenience store shooting. The newscaster explained that the convenience store didn’t have surveillance cameras, so they had to rely on a few eyewitnesses. That sketch looked like every Joe Schmo between Miami and West Palm Beach.

  If he could just get to Anthony, he could find out more. The street was always more reliable than any news station.