A Ripple in Time

by David Berardelli

  How about the corpse lying in the hall farther down?

  Was there actually a corpse lying there?

  I couldn’t see it, could I? I couldn’t see the bum, either…

  Was it all fabricated? Designed by my own paranoia to make it more realistic?

  Even if it all had been fabricated, what about those strange sounds that came about at the most perfect moment? Were they part of the fantasy, too?

  What about the street thugs? If they were part of the delusion, how did I get this lump on the back of my skull?

  And what about my loss of consciousness in the Challenger? The fact that I’d been found, picked up and brought to the hospital?

  How could I think for one instant that my imagination had been responsible for all that had happened?

  And how could anyone possibly explain E&S being contacted once the paramedics were called?

  As I thought about the whole thing, I came to the conclusion that it was real, and had actually happened. And since it had happened and I had awoken in a hospital bed, the only person who could have contacted both 911 and E&S was the same person who knew what happened, where I was, and what was going on.

  Someone who had seen it all.

  Someone who’d actually been there with me…

  And the only person, or presence, who had been there with me was the invisible young woman who’d guided me safely away from danger.

  I suddenly realized that I was much more exhausted than I thought. My head still throbbed, and all this rationalizing was taking its toll. My eyelids grew heavy. The moment I let them close, I drifted off into a warm state of soft gray.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The gray thinned just moments later and gradually disappeared, revealing a familiar two-story red brick house and a row of well-tended bushes spanning its front. Everything seemed hazy, almost like an old painting weathered by the elements and extreme age, but as I approached the house, the haze lifted, and the house and front yard grew much clearer.

  It was the house where my Uncle John and Aunt Evelyn had lived for many years. It stood in the center of a block of similar homes in an old section of South Hills, where my parents and I went quite often while I was growing up.

  Once the haze had disappeared, my cousin Johnny came outside. He was twelve again, as I was, and I realized when I glanced at the driveway and saw Dad’s two-year-old shiny black Blazer parked there that we’d come for one of our weekend visits.

  Johnny and I ran into the back yard and down the long hill, to explore the vacant property at the foot of the hill, where ten wooded acres separated their block from low-income tenement housing that went on for several blocks.

  “Let’s climb trees,” Johnny said as we entered the woods.

  “Sounds like fun.” I stayed close beside him, and the two of us began pushing aside low-hanging branches and loose vines as we ventured farther into the heavy brush.

  “You’re in your good clothes.” He was frowning at my outfit. My mother always made me wear my best jeans, a freshly-cleaned shirt and my favorite tennies whenever we went to visit relatives.

  “I don’t care. I wanna climb a tree!”

  There were several tall enough to challenge two twelve-year-old boys willing to risk their lives and personal safety to brag about who could climb the highest. We chose two oaks at least forty feet in height and about fifty feet from one another.

  It didn’t take me long at all before I reached the top. I was much taller than Johnny and considerably stronger. My long arms didn’t fail me when I jumped up to grab onto the lowest limb. I was also skinnier than my cousin, which helped in my ascent. From then on it was easy. I used the sturdy branches as steps, propelling myself upward while grabbing onto the limb above me for support and balance.

  It only took me fifteen minutes to reach the top. When I could go no farther, I wrapped my arms and legs around its narrow trunk and held on even though my weight caused the top section to bend at a forty-five degree angle. It didn’t matter. I was a kid; I didn’t care about broken bones, death or disfigurement. If I’d fallen, I knew it would be no big deal. Casts were cool. You could get them signed by everyone, and it got you out of chores for weeks.

  As I swayed dangerously just ten feet or so from the top, I saw that Johnny had only made it halfway up his tree. Just as he tried shinnying up to the next branch, his pant leg caught on something and he stopped cold. The moment he tried twisting around to see how badly he was hung up, he slipped and lost his footing. He held on for dear life, until he finally lost his grip. Then he fell to the ground.

  Luckily, his fall turned out to be just ten feet or so onto soft ground, but the branches had scraped and sliced his arms and stomach along the way, and he eventually had to admit defeat.

  As he trudged back up the hill to face intense examination, medical treatment and harsh scolding by Aunt Evelyn, I climbed back down.

  This was when I noticed someone watching me just beyond the clearing.

  A girl a year or two younger than me was standing in front of the bushes about twenty feet away. She had heavy dark-brown hair and the largest dark-brown eyes I ever saw. She was short and scrawny, and wore a dirt-smudged gray tee shirt, scuffed jeans, and beat-up tennies. Her hair was thick and long, and moved across her narrow shoulders when the afternoon breeze brushed against it.

  She was smiling at me.

  “Hi,” I said. I hadn’t liked girls much at that age but had recently discovered that I didn’t mind them nearly so much anymore. This girl seemed pretty cool. Her hair was nice to look at, the way it shined when the sun hit it at a certain angle.

  “You climb good.” Her voice was low and kind of husky for her age.

  I puffed up a little. “It was nothin’.”

  “You did better than Johnny.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t get a chance to climb at my place. Not enough good trees in the neighborhood.”

  She nodded but didn’t say anything.

  I wondered how long she’d been watching us.

  “I’m Jenna.”

  “I’m Bill.”

  I moved closer.

  Then I saw that her left eye was discolored.

  “How’d you get the black eye?”

  She stopped smiling and pushed some hair in front of her face to cover her eye. “I fell.”

  “Really?”

  “I gotta go.” She spun around and scurried back through the woods. In just seconds she was gone.

  Everything turned fuzzy again.

  I opened my eyes and realized that I was still lying in the hospital bed.

  My head had already resumed pounding again.

  ***

  That night, just before the nurse came in to check on me, I found myself totally distracted by my memory of a little girl I once knew very briefly as a child. I discovered that, for some strange reason, I’d been trying to remember every single detail about her. But as hard as I tried, I found my memory failing in every aspect.

  Perhaps it was because I had no idea why I was thinking of her. Had I dreamed about her? If so, why? I’d only seen her two or three times during those few years, and hadn’t seen or heard anything about her since I grew up, left home and began my professional career in Florida.

  Why, after all these years, was I suddenly obsessed about a little girl I didn’t even know?

  My eyelids began to grow heavy. I could feel my body relaxing. Long before I realized it, I’d nodded off. For an instant I thought I caught a glimpse of a scrawny little girl with dark-brown hair standing a few feet from the bed, watching me. But just as her face grew clearer, I felt someone placing a cold hand over my wrist.

  I snapped awake.

  It was the nurse. She was smiling at me as she took my pulse. “Good dream?”

  “What?” I was a little groggy, and had no idea what she was talking about.

  “You were smiling.”

  “Damn. I hate when that happens.”

  “You don’t remember it?”r />
  “You woke me up.”

  She looked concerned. “It must’ve been a doozy.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Your pulse is over a hundred.”

  I sighed. “You probably did that when you woke me.”

  “I guess I scared you.”

  “Just a little.”

  “Sorry, but I’ve got to do my job.”

  “Scaring me?”

  “You’re funny.”

  I nodded and lay back.

  While she checked my vitals, I tried remembering the dream. After about a minute or so, I realized it was no use. I had absolutely no recollection of what I’d been dreaming.

  The nurse finally straightened and draped her stethoscope around her neck. “By the way, who’s Jenna?”

  “What?”

  “You said, “Jenna,” just before you woke up. Girlfriend?”

  Jenna. The little dark-haired girl was named Jenna Caulfield. The mere mentioning of it should have started up a slew of memories, but I found that I remembered little else…

  “Not really. Just a little girl I saw a couple of times growing up.”

  “That’s odd.”

  “Howzat?”

  She shrugged. “Having a great dream about a little girl you only saw a couple of times growing up. It just seems to me that there should be more to it.”

  “That lump on my head must’ve done more damage than we thought.”

  “I doubt it. According to your chart, you’re recovering nicely. Your concussion was extremely mild.” She took my pulse again. “It’s settled down now. And so should you.” She put her hand behind my head and gently raised it to adjust my pillow. “Let us know if you need anything. I’m just a button away.”

  “Thanks. If I’ve learned anything during the last twenty years, it’s how to press a woman’s buttons.”

  “Like I said, you’re a real comedian.” Shaking her head, she left without another word.

  Sighing, I relaxed and stared up at the ceiling. In moments I drifted right off to sleep.

  Then I had another dream.

  My cousin Johnny and I were sitting on the patio out in back of his South Hills home when I saw Jenna again. It was the middle of summer, and school would begin in just a few weeks. She was dressed in shorts and a red-and-brown plaid shirt at least two sizes too large. She was peeking at us from behind an oak tree in the woods at the bottom of the hill.

  I looked up from the video game we were playing. “That girl…you know her?”

  “Yeah.” Johnny didn’t raise his eyes from our game.

  “Her name’s Jenna, right?”

  Johnny scowled. “She’s weird.”

  “She come here much?”

  “I see her in the woods once in a while.”

  I watched her a little longer. Her knees were dirty, or all cut up. I couldn’t see her face very clearly; her hair hid most of it. Besides, she was too far away. I remembered her black eye from when I’d last seen her and hoped it had healed all right. “She gets hurt a lot,” I said.

  “Her family’s weird.”

  “Whaddya mean?”

  “It’s all messed up. Her stepdad drinks. Her mom left home a while ago. So did her brothers. I hardly ever see her in school.”

  It took me only a moment to understand what he’d just said. “Her stepdad beats her up?”

  Johnny shrugged. “Who knows? You gonna play or what?”

  I stared at him and wondered why he sounded so cold. He seemed concerned only about our game.

  Then I turned back to where Jenna had been peeking at us. I raised my arm to wave.

  She’d already disappeared.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Brittany Sanderson came to pick me up at the hospital at around eleven o’clock the next morning. I was still a little weak, but the throbbing in my head had ebbed considerably, leaving me with just a slight headache.

  A big guy with a shaved head and one thick black eyebrow helped me into a wheelchair. He wheeled me out of the room and into the area where I was to be discharged. Brittany waited patiently while I signed several insurance forms. Then I was wheeled down the hall and into the elevator, and we went down to the parking garage.

  “I can walk, you know,” I told the guy holding onto my wheelchair.

  “Hospital policy, sir,” he said flatly, sounding bored.

  “Just take it easy,” Brittany told me. “You’ll be back in your hotel room in twenty minutes. Once we get there, you can walk around all you want.”

  Moments later, the hospital guy helped me into the passenger seat of Brittany’s silver Lexus. I began feeling better once we got out of the parking garage. I could feel my limbs recovering and hoped that in a day or two, I’d be my old self again.

  “Can we stop at a bank?” I asked. “I’ll feel better once I can withdraw some money. I’m sort of destitute right now.”

  “Mr. Erikson already took care of that. He got with Mr. Crosley and two thousand dollars was wired into our personal account. I’ve got the money in my bag. I’ll give it to you when we get to the Fairmont. I’ve also been instructed to draw out more—up to ten thousand—if you need it.“

  “That was awfully nice of you guys to do that.”

  “It was no trouble. As I’ve already said, we feel just awful about what happened.”

  “I hope you realize how much I appreciate you carting me around like this.”

  “It’s the least we can do.”

  “Judging by how I’m feeling, I’ll probably want to go ahead with the meeting a day or so after Christmas.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “I’m pretty confident I’ll be feeling better and ready to go in two or three days.”

  “What are your plans for tomorrow?”

  “I’ll probably have dinner at the hotel and spend the evening quietly in my room with some wine. The room has a widescreen, so I’ll be okay. I’m sure they’ll be showing some decent movies.”

  “You don’t mind being all alone? On Christmas?”

  I shrugged. “It’s not like I have much of a choice. The cops have my rental car; they’ll probably keep it until they crack the case. I can’t rent another car without sufficient IDs, and since those little idiots took my wallet…”

  She sent over a half-smile. “I’m available...”

  I didn’t reply. A beautiful woman I didn’t even know telling me she was available was every man’s dream. I was at a loss for words.

  She stopped at a light and watched me curiously. “Nothing to say? How about, thanks, Brittany, I appreciate the gesture?”

  “You don’t have plans for Christmas day?”

  “Of course I do. I can cancel them.”

  “Why would you want to?”

  “Well, like everyone else, I feel badly for what happened to you and want to do whatever I can to make amends.”

  “This wasn’t your fault, you know.”

  “It still happened, didn’t it? No reason why we shouldn’t at least try and make things a little better for you. It is Christmas, you know.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know what to say. Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  “It’s really no big deal. I was supposed to spend Christmas with my family, but since this came up, I decided to put the company first.”

  “Where’s your family?”

  “North Hills.”

  “How often do you see them?”

  “Just about every week. They’d like it much better if it was every day, and I’m sure they’d really love it if I lived across the street…or moved back into my old bedroom. But they’ve learned to deal with my independence. I am over thirty. I have to remind them of that almost constantly.”

  “You have brothers or sisters?”

  “Both. Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  “So? Do you want to spend Christmas with me?”

  “Do you usually do this for visiting clients?“

  “No...”
>
  “Then why are you doing it?“

  “Is that a yes? Or a no?”

  “It’s a yes, but—“

  “All right, then. I’ll come over tomorrow morning and pick you up. When will you be ready to leave?”

  “I usually get up around eight o’clock on my off-days. Tomorrow I’ll probably sleep in, so I most likely won’t want to get out of bed until nine.”

  “I’ll pick you up at ten. Will that be all right?”

  “That’ll be fine.”

  The light changed; we started moving again.

  “Would you mind making a stop on the way to the hotel?” I asked.

  “Not at all. Where?”

  “The closest state store. I’m gonna need some port wine to help me relax this evening.”

  “No problem.”

  ***

  The state store on Penn Avenue buzzed with people stocking up for their holiday cheer. I grabbed a bottle of Taylor Port while Brittany picked up a small bottle of Benedictine Brandy. While we waited at the end of the long line at the counter, I tried focusing on things other than my aching joints and back, as well as the pain in the back of my head. At least I was able to lean against the counter to ease some of the pressure off my spine. The prospect of having Christmas dinner with this beautiful lady also lifted my spirits.

  “How excited were you—I mean really—about having Christmas dinner with your family?” I asked.

  “We’ve been doing the usual family get-together thing with the folks and relatives ever since I can remember. Why?”

  “I can’t help feeling guilty for keeping you away from them…”

  “Don’t. I’ll probably have New Year’s dinner with them, so…well, just don’t, okay?”

  I could tell she wasn’t lying to me, so I just smiled. “Any thoughts about where you’d like to have dinner?”

  “I thought we’d be better off if I just fixed something at my place. The restaurants here are murder on Christmas Day.”

  “As I recall, nearly half of them are closed. The really good ones that are open are booked solid.”

  “It hasn’t changed much at all.”