In Another Time

by Cate Buchanan

  Chapter 39

  A log crackled and rolled into the fireplace screen. Startled, Lillian jumped and her eyes sprang open. Sam moaned in his sleep and snuggled closer to her.

  “So it is real,” Lillian whispered reverently and stroked his cheek.

  Rousing, Sam smiled and opened his eyes. “Hello, beautiful,” he rasped sleepily. “Are you really here with me, or am I having the most marvelous dream?”

  Laughing softly, Lillian responded, “No, my love, it’s real. We’re really here together, at last.”

  He smiled again and searched her eyes. He loved her eyes. Amber sparks glinting in the firelight. Even the subtle crinkles of age enhanced their beauty. She was still the most stunning creature he’d ever seen.

  Her voice was tender as she brushed her lips across his cheek and said simply, “Tell me, Sam. Tell me what happened to you.” She snuggled against his chest and gazed into the fire. He kissed the top of her head then sighed.

  He told her everything, the entire remarkable story. Tears welled in her eyes and slid silently down her cheeks. Afterward, he turned her face up to his and watched the firelight flicker in her liquid amber eyes before kissing her shimmering cheeks.

  Raising her eyes to meet his gaze, she looked deeply into his and softly said, “How awful for Jeanette to have felt so desperate for her child to have a father. Do you remember that we have a child?”

  His crystal, blue eyes held hers. She reached up and softly ran her fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes and nodded.

  Just as he’d done so many years ago, he rose and walked over to his sports jacket that he’d flung haphazardly across a chair. Fishing in his pocket for a few seconds he closed his hand around what he’d been after then walked back on jittery legs, sitting down beside her.

  Reaching for her hand, he placed what he held in her open palm. She looked down at it and then back at him. With trembling lips and brimming eyes, she searched his face. Then her gaze fell upon the watch in her hand.

  The one with the inscription that read:

  7-25-1943

  To SAE

  Love,

  LME & baby

  Bringing her hand to his lips, he kissed each of her knuckles before gently pulling her to him and tenderly kissing her.

  Moving back, she examined his face and whispered, “I can’t believe you still have it after all these years.”

  Nodding, he replied, “It was the only thing in my pocket when I was taken to the hospital. For years, I rubbed my thumb across the inscription and wondered what it meant. They were my initials, even when I thought I was Sandy Austin Evans, but I couldn’t figure out the significance of the rest of it. I couldn’t remember someone with the initials LME and baby just confounded me. The date meant nothing to me. Sandy was born in January. Then, when I regained my memory, I took it out and I knew.

  He lay down next to her now, arms wrapped around her as she rested her head on his shoulder, her arm settled comfortably across his stomach. As he stared into the fire he asked, “Is Sadie my granddaughter?”

  “Mm-hm,” she replied. “Her dad, Aaron, is your son, our son.”

  Tears filled his eyes again and he kissed the top of her head. “His name is Aaron? Aaron, my middle name?” After a pause he rasped, “Was Jim a good father to him?”

  “He was wonderful with him. He raised him as his own son.” Lifting her head to look at him she added, “But Aaron looks so much like you, Sam. From the time he was ten years old, he noticed the differences between his sisters and himself. Not just the way they looked either. He sensed an internal, innate dissimilarity. He told me that he didn’t belong to us and asked what happened to his real family. It nearly broke my heart. When he began acting somber and distant, I told him about us, about you. The questions flew from him. He wanted to know everything about you. Learning how much he was like you, I think it fulfilled an unexplained wanting inside him. We cried together for the father he would never know. We never spoke of you again, and I don’t think he ever told another soul. I think he wanted to keep you for himself.”

  When Sam didn’t comment, she continued, “He wasn’t a difficult child, but he had a difficult time becoming an adult. He and Sadie’s mom married young, and Sadie was born a little over a year later. The responsibilities of being a husband and father were too much for him. He was so young and emotionally unprepared. Their marriage quickly fell apart. They separated before Sadie was two and eventually divorced when Sadie was three.

  “For the next few years, he wandered from job to job looking for something that would make him feel complete. I think he was looking to fill an elusive desire.

  “They say that children always want to know where they got their eye color, hair color, their height, even their mannerisms. I guess it gives them a sense of belonging. I think he didn’t have that.

  “You remember Jim, right? He and I had dated when my family had first moved to Harmony Glen, before you and I found each other. He was shorter and stockier than you, dark-eyed and not really the athletic sort. He was more of a thinker, a problem-solver, thus his actuary career. Aaron figured out very early on that he wasn’t anything like Jim. Everything about him was in such contrast to Jim. Aaron has sandy hair and bright blue eyes. He grew tall and lanky and was such a gifted, natural athlete. Sports were his domain and he lettered in three sports all four years in high school.”

  Sam sighed and said, “I can’t wait to meet him. Will he be in town soon? Sadie told me he has his own long-haul trucking business and even drives his own truck.”

  “Yes, he started his business several years ago. Made me so proud and I was so happy for him. He found his calling. I think he’s due back from the West Coast on Friday. I’ll have to ask Sadie. She keeps pretty good tabs on him,” she affirmed.

  Sam gulped and said, “Oh, my God. Sadie. How do you think she’s going to feel when she learns that I’m her grandfather? I was going to tell her. Actually, I think she’d figured it out and was about to ask me when you showed up at Comfort & Joy.”

  Lillian shrugged her shoulders and sighed. “I’m not sure. There’s something going on with her. I feel like she’s keeping something from me. Besides her meetings with you, I mean. I can’t put my finger on it. So, we’ll just have to tell her and see what happens.”

  It was beginning to get chilly in the room, so Sam sat up and nabbed one of the blankets at the foot of the bed which he used to cover Lillian after leaning down to give her a sweet kiss. Then reaching for another, he put it around his shoulders, stood and walked to the stack of firewood next to the fireplace and placed another log onto the fire.

  Sitting up, as she watched him walk back to the bed, Lillian excitedly said, “Oh, Sam, I’m so happy. This is just so—wonderful, exciting! We’ve been given a second chance at love, my darling. I know you can’t say the same, but I’ve never stopped loving you. I don’t know how this is going to play out, but I can’t stand the thought of losing you again. You promised me a long time ago, that you’d come back for me, and you have. You finally have, my love.” Then she tugged him down beside her. Wrapped in each other’s loving embrace, they stared at the roaring fire until they fell into a blissful sleep while outside the first, fluffy flakes of snow floated from the heavens and silently blanketed the earth.

  Chapter 40

  The following Saturday night, Sam proposed to Lillian over an intimate dinner at their table in Venturo’s. Lillian’s eyes shimmered in the candlelight as she looked adoringly at Sam and breathed, “Yes! Yes! Oh, my darling, a thousand times, yes!” He slipped the ring onto her finger, and they sealed it with a kiss.

  During Sunday dinner at Lillian’s, they shared the news with the family. Immediately, Joy, Holly and the girls began planning their wedding day.

  “Whoa, girls!” Lillian beamed. “We haven’t even set a date yet. We have so many details to work out first.”

  “Details? Mom, we’ll handle the details!” Joy exclaimed. “You just tell us when, and
we’ll take care of the rest. A wedding! How exciting!” She giggled gleefully with the rest of the girls and clapped her hands.

  Their reaction to the joyous news deeply moved Lillian. She promised that as soon as they could agree on a date, she’d let the girls plan the wedding, as long as they didn’t go overboard.

  “Oh, Mom, we’ll be conservative. Only a few hundred people, you know,” Holly said playfully.

  Sam called Donald at home that night after dinner to share his news. Donald and his wife, Rebecca, were thrilled for him and couldn’t wait to hear all about it. Sam promised to share everything with them when he got home.

  Sam and Lillian spent every evening of the next week planning how their upcoming union was going to work with them having residences and businesses on opposite coasts. Knowing their employees were competent and reliable, they agreed to split the years living on each coast. Fall and winter were the tree farm’s busiest time, so they’d reside in California for those seasons, and since the bookstore’s business thrived during spring and summer, they’d live in New York during those seasons. After that was decided, they agreed on a wedding date. Since Sam didn’t have to return to the tree farm until the new year, they choose a Saturday in mid-January. The last detail was to choose a honeymoon destination. Paying homage to where they’d been when their romance began in January of 1943, they elected to spend a week in Paris, France. Laughing, Sam had said, “Then we’ll be able to add, ‘We’ll always have Paris’ to our farewells!” Lillian rolled her eyes and smacked his shoulder playfully.

  Epilogue

  Sitting on the edge of the bed in the same room he’d rented three months earlier almost to the day, Sam found himself recalling that day he’d returned to Harmony Glen. It was almost six o’clock. He checked his attire in the mirror, and unlike that day, this time the mirror didn’t mock him. Instead, it cast back at him the confident, blissful countenance of a man who was deeply in love. The antithesis of the one he’d seen that first day staring back at him; the day when he’d gotten cold feet and nearly missed the chance to meet Sadie. The day when he’d mistakenly thought that Lillian was gone forever and he’d missed his chance to reconnect with her. The day when he’d begun sharing with Sadie the stories of his and Lillian’s life together in another life. The day his new life truly began.

  Since that Monday evening when Lillian had taken him by surprise on the dock, so many revelations had come to light.

  First, there’d been the look of shock on Sadie’s face the next morning when she opened her door to find Lillian and him standing hand in hand outside her apartment. Sam thought they must have looked like a couple of nervous school kids informing their parents that they were in love and wanted to get married. Which brought to mind the day he and Lillian had faced each other in the small chapel in Albany three days before he’d left to report for duty in 1943.

  On the night they’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms at the lake house so many years before, Lillian had awoken just as the sun was breaking on the horizon. When he opened his eyes minutes later, she was looking at him so lovingly and intently. She raised up on an elbow, and lazily ran her finger up his arm. When she reached his lips, he kissed it. Speaking softly, she said she’d been thinking about their situation. She’d insisted they get married before he left for training, adding that that way when he came home, they’d already be married. He’d shaken his head and told her that he couldn’t cheat her out of a church wedding in front of their families. Her parents just wouldn’t hear of it. But she was emphatic that it didn’t matter to her. They could have a church wedding when he returned if her parents forced the issue. She swore that all that mattered was being his wife. Now. They’d argued about it briefly before he’d finally given in. After all, he’d reasoned, she was everything to him. He wanted to marry and spend his entire life loving her. It might as well be sooner rather than later.

  The next day they’d driven into Albany, and in a tiny wedding chapel, they’d exchanged wedding vows in front of a justice of the peace. Because Lillian had been certain that her parents would make her get an annulment since they’d gotten married outside the church and without their knowledge, they’d agreed to keep their nuptials to themselves until Sam returned home to her.

  Only, he never did return home to her.

  Later, while he was days from being finished with his training and waiting to be deployed for his first mission, he’d received the pocket watch and letter in the mail from Lillian. It was July 21, 1943, just four days before his nineteenth birthday. That’s when he’d learned that she was pregnant with their child. Those had been four of the happiest days of his life. He was married to the love of his life and he was going to be a dad. How could life get any better?

  Barely able to speak that night when he’d phoned her, being so overcome with emotion, his voice croaked when he’d repeatedly asked her how she felt. Her deep, throaty, infectious laugh in response to his repeated inquiries had him grinning ear to ear. He blubbered about how happy he was as he laughed and cried at the same time. He wasn’t even embarrassed when his fellow soldiers made fun of his blubbering before he got hold of himself and shared his joyous news about the baby. Then four days later, on his very first mission as a gunner in an air attack over Hamburg, he’d lost them both.

  He’d lost everything.

  As they shared this and several other details with Sadie that morning, she grinned, hugged them both, and told them she was so happy that they’d found each other again. Sam felt the weight of the world lifted from his shoulders, and he knew that he was finally home. This was his home. Lillian was his home.

  *****

  In the suite of connecting rooms across the hall, Lillian was surrounded by her daughters and granddaughters. They’d been in there dressing, styling their hair and artfully applying their makeup all afternoon. Their jubilant voices and hushed giggles served to entertain and enchant Sam, who’d heard them across the hall. He imagined their joyful, radiant smiles and hand-covered silly giggles. He couldn’t suppress his own deliriously happy smiles.

  He knew the very moment that Lillian was presented to the group as dressed and ready. It was as clear to him as if he were in the room himself. Total silence befell the room for seconds followed by delighted gasps of appreciation and breathless oohs and aahs.

  The image of her in the tiny chapel in Albany graced his memory. She’d worn a simple knee-length coral peach sheath cinched at the waist. Around her neck were the pearls her mother had given her on her eighteenth birthday. Her tiny feet were enclosed in peep-toe heels. And her luminous auburn locks flowed loosely on her shoulders. She was a vision of elegance and beauty.

  Harmony Inn had been decorated to the nines for their January wedding day. The small, intimate affair was comprised of family and close friends and the inn offered the ideal location for their nuptials. Outside, Christmas lights still twinkled merrily along the eaves and in the fresh greenery potted in the two enormous Grecian urns that bedecked the entrance. Inside, swags of fresh greenery garnished with twinkling lights adorned the staircase, foyer, parlor and dining room where the reception would be held. In the parlor, an antique metal arch was draped with boughs of grapevine brimming with masses of creamy champagne roses, cedar boughs, English ivy, tiny, sparkling lights and shimmery gold ribbons. In the dining room, chandeliers sparkled above creamy linen clad tables that boasted opulent gold vases spilling over with an abundance of champagne roses and fresh greenery. Place settings consisted of gleaming, gold-rimmed crystal stems, delicate fine bone china and polished silverware atop peach-colored linen napkins. Every detail had been given careful attention by Holly and Joy who’d insisted on perfection for their mother’s wedding day.

  For the reception, Joy had surpassed any elite catering company with a multitude of mouthwatering offerings. On the buffet table a charcuterie bar brimming with meats, cheeses, fruits and breads was complemented by the display of crudités complete with an assortment of dipping sauces. The pastr
y bar offered a diverse selection of delectable sweets. A magnificent three-tier wedding cake with a cascade of champagne roses shimmered in the center of the wedding party’s table.

  The tap on Sam’s door caused him to jump. He’d been so consumed by his memories and the pleasant sounds wafting from across the hall. “Come in, it’s open.” He cleared his throat and tried to regain his composure.

  “Hi, Granddad,” David said cheerily. “Man, you look sharp!” he said with a low whistle.

  “You clean up pretty nicely yourself,” Sam declared. “Although, I don’t think I’ll ever warm up to that lock of hair that’s inevitably dangling in your eyes.”

  David ran his hair through his glossy waves and said, “At least I’m not into mullets.”

  Sam smirked and retorted, “I don’t even want to know what that is.” He smiled as he patted David on the shoulder. “Thank you for being here today. I’m sure the last couple of years have been extremely difficult for you. So many changes have occurred in our family. But you know, I did love your grandmother. We shared a lifetime of joy, and you and your parents were a huge part of that joy, Dr. David Evans.

  Chuckling David replied, “Okay, stop with the doctor nonsense. It’s not like I’m an M.D. Just a Doctor of Science.”

  Sam grabbed him by both shoulders and facing him he said warmly, “I’m so proud to be your granddad. I don’t care if you’re a Doctor of Tiddlywinks. You are a wonderful person and a perfect grandson. I’m so fortunate to have you in my life.” He pulled him in for a tight hug.

  When they parted, David joked, “Granddad, stop with all the mushy stuff now or we’ll both be bawling like babies. How would it look if we stood up in front of everyone with red and puffy eyes?” Then he added sincerely, “This is your big day, Granddad, and I’m so happy for both of you. Lillian is a lovely lady. I’ll be proud to call her Grandmother.”