Enlightened

by A. L. Waddington

  “Excuse me, Miss Jocelyn. May I speak with you for a minute?” Her voice both startled and surprised me. Maryanne was the last person I expected to approach me.

  “Of course.”

  Both Elizabeth and Laurie gave me an inquisitive look, but I shrugged and followed Maryanne a short distance back into the school building for some privacy.

  “What can I help you with?” I couldn’t imagine anything she would have to say to me after her little stunt.

  “I wanted to apologize for my behavior. I’m sorry that I acted so rudely towards you and your family.” Maryanne looked down at the ground and fumbled with her books.

  “I appreciate that. However, I believe that you owe my brother and his wife an apology rather than I.”

  “I know. But they have not been at Sunday services in a long time and I have not seen them in town lately. I promise that I will apologize to them the first chance I see them.”

  “Maryanne, you know where I live. All you have to do is come by.” I knew that going over to my house was something she would find impossible to do.

  “Yes, I know. I only was not sure how I would be received.” Her voice dropped down an octave almost sounding as if she was honestly sincere.

  “No one in my house would be rude to you. I believe they would appreciate an apology.”

  Maryanne nodded, still looking down.

  “Why did you say those things, Maryanne? I know you have never been the best of friends with Miss Olivia, but you were friends and for you to treat her that way in front of everyone was just so….well, it was cruel.”

  A part of me wanted to tell her exactly how cruel I believed her actions had been over the years and that I completely agreed with Dimitri in his assessment of her and her mother, but I did not want to stoop to her level of insults.

  “I was just so angry with Miss Olivia,” she muttered.

  “Why? She did nothing to you.”

  “I saw her speaking with Dimitri on several different occasions and once I saw her hug him when she was crying.” Maryanne looked up at me with pure hate in her eyes. “It seemed to me she was trying to take him away from me.”

  “Dimitri was Sean’s best friend. The two of them were like brothers. Olivia went through a horrible time when she lost Sean and I know that she leaned on Dimitri a lot after his death because she knew he was going through the same thing she was. But they are only friends, nothing more. She would never do something to directly hurt anyone she cares about. And she cared about you. She was grieving and so was Dimitri. Sean’s death brought them closer together, but not in the way that you are accusing,” I attempted to explain.

  “Perhaps, but it was inappropriate for her to hug him and cry on his shoulder.” Her eyes narrowed and I knew that her apology was anything but sincere. She had not changed at all.

  “I am sorry to disagree and I hope that you never have to experience the kind of loss the two of them have.” I started to walk away having nothing more to say to her.

  “Jocelyn?” she hollered. I paused a moment and turned back to face her. “Do you not understand, I have. I lost Dimitri.”

  “No. You have not. Mr. Dimitri is still very much alive and well.”

  How could she possibly make such a comparison between a break-up and the death of a loved one?

  “Well, I am not with him now, am I?” she fired back.

  “Maryanne, you are not with him because of the way you treat people. Not because he died!”

  “But I lost him just the same!” She walked up to me with her hand on her hip and nearly shouted. People nearby turned to look at us with curiosity.

  “I am not going to argue with you. If you would like to apologize to my brother and his wife, you know where we live.” I started to walk away again.

  “You are so incredibly selfish, Jocelyn,” she hollered at my back.

  I could hear whispers behind me as I walked back over to Laurie and Elizabeth. The audacity of Maryanne never ceased to amaze me. Some apology.

  ***

  I stopped in my house to drop off my schoolbooks before I headed back over to Jackson’s house to speak with Emily. I found Olivia working on her cross-stitch by the fire in the front room. She was listening to the phonograph and humming softly to herself. I hesitated a moment in the doorway, not wanting to interrupt her contentment. I considered telling her about my altercation with Maryanne but immediately changed my mind. Perhaps she was better off not hearing of all the little trivial events that happened at school with our friends. As much as I knew she still wanted to be included in everything with our group of friends, maybe it was for the best that she wasn’t.

  “Are you having fun?” I smiled over at her, and her face lit up as I approached.

  “A little bit. I keep trying to find ways to occupy my time while you are at class. I get so bored,” she sighed deeply, placing her needlework aside.

  “I am sorry. I know it must be driving you crazy being around here all day.” I sat down in the rocker across from her.

  She smiled politely and began to work once more on her cross-stitch, although the expression on her face told me that her thoughts were elsewhere. She looked almost as if she were about to cry at any second.

  After dinner, I excused myself to visit the Chandlers. I told my mother we were doing something special for Jackson for Christmas and I wanted it to be a surprise. That way I knew she would not want to follow me over.

  The rain had picked up and was coming down sideways in sheets. It was as dark as midnight despite only being early evening. The trees stood bare and were shivering in the cold breeze. I pulled my shawl over my head and tighter around my shoulders. Then I pulled up the hem of my skirt a bit and ran as fast as I could over to the Chandler household.

  “Miss Jocelyn, good evening, I was expecting you earlier,” Emily greeted me with a cheery smile.

  “I am sorry. I was held up at my house,” I apologized.

  “That is all right. I made some peach cobbler this afternoon. Come on in, I will have Susan bring some in.” I followed Emily back into the front room where Robert was sitting by the hearth looking over some legal briefs.

  “Good evening, Miss Jocelyn. It is good to see you. How are you?” Robert stood as we entered the room.

  “Good evening, Mr. Chandler. I am doing very well, thank you. How are you this evening?” I took a seat on the lounge by the fire and Robert sat back in his chair. The blazing heat from the fire felt incredible after being in the cold rain. I rubbed my hands together trying to warm them as Emily sat down beside me.

  “Did you have a nice day at school?” she inquired.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Susan came in carrying a tray with three saucers of peach cobbler and silverware, napkins, and hot tea. She placed them on the coffee table and excused herself before exiting.

  Emily poured the tea with lemon and handed out the cobbler. She settled back in her seat looking like a picture of loveliness.

  “I am sure you are here with a thousand and one more questions,” Robert laughed.

  I blushed, thinking of how much I had grilled them last evening. I had listened for hours to them talking about Prohibition, the Titanic, automobiles, and all the amazing inventions that were still to come in my life here.

  “I am sorry. This EVE thing is very difficult to comprehend and just thinking of this new world with all the differences is a little bit overwhelming.”

  “I know it is darling. Have you had any other visions?” Emily politely asked.

  “Yes, I wake up with them every morning and even have them when I sit quietly unfocused. I know it sounds strange, but I am feeling things from my other life, emotions that I cannot explain, but have a strong intuition about.” It was difficult to explain in words all the unique events that were now unfolding.

  “Such as?” Robert was clearly intrigued.

  “Well…like I know Jackson told me that my family there is now aware of us getting married this summer, but I t
old him that I knew Ethan was not happy about it.” Both of them nodded but said nothing. “And well…I get the feeling that my mother is extremely upset about it also. I have this horrible feeling that she is being very hurtful to me, but I cannot explain it.”

  Robert and Emily exchanged a strange look that I didn’t understand. “Yes, she is struggling with you getting married so young,” Emily said in a low voice. “But I do believe that in time, she will come around. Your father is being very supportive,” she tried to brighten her voice.

  “Sunday, Jackson tried to explain a few things that did not make sense to me. I know that once I have full awareness everything will be clear. However, at this point it is all very frustrating.” I took a bite of the cobbler. It was so sweet and delicious.

  “What in particular?” Robert asked.

  “Everything,” I laughed. “Mainly things like the Civil Rights movement, the Women’s Movement, the two World Wars, Vietnam, the Korean War… rock-n-roll?” I shook my head. Such strange concepts. Both of them laughed, making me feel all the more embarrassed.

  “The 1960s and ‘70s were an interesting time in American history. I can see why Jackson wanted to let you understand it for yourself once the barrier is down. Those things that you mentioned changed the lives of everyone in America in more ways than we could possibly explain to you.” Robert shuffled his papers and put them back in his briefcase.

  “That is what Jackson said,” I added.

  “It probably is better for you to wait until the barrier disappears. These things would take a long time to explain. Plus, the foreground you would need to understand everything would take us longer to explain than the time it would take for you to come to realize them for yourself,” Emily said much to my despair.

  “But I want to understand.”

  “I know this is incredibly aggravating for you, but you have to understand that some things are better left for you to understand on your own. I realize that it makes the images you are seeing rather confusing, but I do promise that once you have full awareness, you will understand our hesitation in telling you too much too soon.” Robert acted like it was no big deal, which only heightened my frustration at being left in the dark.

  “I appreciate the fact that you both have my best interest at heart. However, I am at a place where I feel that I am unsure as to what is real and what is purely my imagination. Is there not something either of you can tell me?”

  Emily placed her hands over mine. “I am sorry, Jocelyn. Time is the only thing that can make a difference now.”

  I wanted so badly to cry. The aggravation was building within me and I felt as if I was ready to explode. Yet sitting here next to my future in-laws, the two people with whom I held the upmost respect for, I knew I had to maintain my composure and behave like a lady.

  “Well, then I guess I should say that this is absolutely the best peach cobbler I have ever had.” I tried to laugh it off just to keep the tears from breaking through.

  “Do not worry so much about it, Jocelyn. I do promise you it will get easier,” Robert said with a comforting smile.

  CHAPTER 17

  Tuesday, November 17, 2009

  I CRAWLED OUT OF BED feeling like I’d been hit by a Mac truck and dragged for several miles. I had fallen asleep on top of my uncle’s notebooks. I’d become so engrossed in them and had read my way up to the second year of the Civil War. I could not get over the amount of detail and emotional anguish that screamed through the words on each page. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before and his words made me feel as if I was living the experience with him. The vivid descriptions of his fellow soldiers, their personality characteristics, his commanding officers, and the horrid battles that surrounded him left little to the imagination of how it really was to fight every day to stay alive.

  I had studied American history since the third grade and each year we covered the Civil War. Last year I took a history class that concentrated on the causes leading up to the war, the battles, and the aftermath. The course was interesting and gave more detail than any general American History course before it yet, but everything that I’d studied had never given me the emotional side of what it was like to live everyday fighting for the cause.

  My uncle’s words touched my soul. He wrote of his true love who I knew he eventually married and left his life in the 1990s for in order to exist only on one plane with her since she had not inherited EVE. He spoke of coming across my other father at the makeshift military hospital where Patrick was covered in blood, scrambling about and hectically trying to save as many men as possible. His choice of words allowed me to almost see my father standing over a table by the light of poorly luminous oil lamps. I could almost see him digging ball shots and shrapnel out of men as young as sixteen years old while they hollered out in pain and an assistant continuously poured whiskey down the patient’s throat while others held them down.

  Uncle Monte had only been home once for Christmas in those last two years. It was so difficult to hear him describe my brothers and I, and how much he had missed out on watching us grow and change. It was obvious from his words that he loved us all. His deep love and affection for Vivian jumped off the page and enraptured my heart. He left me in tears describing his last moments with her, holding her tight on our front porch never wanting to let her go. My father in that time period had managed to join him that holiday and he and Annabelle had sobbed in one another’s arms while my brothers and I had cried around them, holding tightly to our father’s pant legs. The image he painted ripped the heart from my chest leaving me gasping for air. It was as if I was standing there again holding onto my daddy for dear life begging and pleading him not to leave me. However, I knew it was impossible for me to recall such a memory even if the barrier was completely down. I was barely two years old when this event took place and in 2009, I had no memories of that age.

  What I found so difficult to read was Monte’s deep worry for their younger brother Nicholas. They had spent the first nine months of the war fighting side by side but then Nicholas had gone missing when he and several other men in their battalion went out on a search party for food. None of them had returned. After their visit home for Christmas, the despair grew deeper after Monte learned that no letters had arrived home from Nicholas since they had separated. He continually asked every group of soldiers he encountered but no one knew anything about him. Monte feared he had been captured by the Confederates and was being held in a Southern prison. He had heard numerous horror stories about one in Andersonville where the men were dying by the dozens every day from starvation and disease. All he could do was hope and pray that someday he would see his younger brother again, but with each passing day his faith diminished a little more.

  ***

  I climbed into the shower wondering again if I had made the right decision in not sharing the discovery of the journals with Jackson and his parents. I hated to think what they would say about them or maybe I was afraid they would warn me against reading them. I considered how they were impacting my view of this foreign world that I was rapidly becoming more aware of and how witnessing it through my uncle’s eyes made me yearn for simpler times in days long forgotten. I thought about how his words could impact not only me, but the rest of the world if his journals were ever published. It had changed my perception completely on all that I thought I knew about the Civil War and I knew it would do the same for anyone who read them.

  All day long his journals haunted me. I couldn’t wait to get back home and engross myself in them. I repeatedly tried to concentrate on my schoolwork, but it was pointless.

  Caitlyn and Zak were arguing loudly once again outside his locker right after the lunch bell rang. She had overheard him joking with some of the guys on the basketball team and stupidly referring to her as a trophy. She went ballistic. Her face was bright red and her words grew louder and louder with each second. Poor Zak looked like he was ready to crawl into his locker from the embarrassment. Like all immature bo
ys, Ethan and Cody stood behind him snickering as Caitlyn ripped Zak a new one.

  As soon as Hilary realized what Cody was doing, she approached him with a stern look, smacked him on the arm and pulled him towards the lunchroom. I immediately followed her example and pulled my idiot brother away as well. They already had enough people watching the spectacle and didn’t need us witnessing it too.

  Ten minutes later, Zak cowered into the cafeteria looking like a beaten puppy. He slumped down in the chair beside Cody and stared down at his tray of untouched food. Hilary, Jenna, and I all exchanged looks, wondering if Caitlyn was going to follow him in or if we should go looking for her.

  “I can’t believe she got so pissed. It was a compliment for crying out loud,” Zak muttered under his breath.

  Cody let out a giggle and Hilary quickly smacked him again on the shoulder. “It’s not a compliment,” she scowled.

  “I’m going to go find Caitlyn.” I leaned over and gave Jackson a quick peck on the cheek before I climbed out of my seat. He smiled and nodded.

  Hilary and Jenna got up as well and the three of us headed back towards the bathrooms by Zak’s locker. I figured that was where she was hiding.

  Sure enough, Caitlyn was crouched down in the corner with her knees drawn up in her arms, crying when we walked in. The three of us knelt down around her.

  “Sweetie, don’t worry about him. You know how Zak is. In his mind, I’m sure he did believe it was a compliment.” Jenna rested her hand on Caitlyn’s shoulder.

  “I’m so sick of this crap with him. I’m not a trophy and if that’s how he really thinks of me, then I don’t want to be with him,” Caitlyn sobbed.

  “I know, but honey, he’s just an immature little boy. You know he has the maturity level of a twelve year old, just like Cody,” Hilary added, trying to reassure her.

  “Kyle and Jackson don’t act like that,” Caitlyn nearly shouted through her sobs. “They would never make a remark like that about either of you.”