My Deja Vu Lover

by Phoebe Matthews

  CHAPTER 23

  That shocked us both into silence. All those shelves of boxes in the basement of the library, it would have taken days or weeks to find the obituary. Tom and I stared at each other, knew we both were thinking of the old newspapers at the library.

  We watched Mrs. Thornton stand slowly and walk to the beautiful desk in the corner, a desk with a glass-doored bookcase on top and a drop-leaf writing surface on the front. She opened it, reached in, took out a heavy leather photo album and carried it over to Tom.

  Leaning over his arm, she opened the book and pointed. “There. That’s it.”

  Tom took the album from her and lifted out a rectangle of yellowed paper. He read aloud, “A tragic automobile accident has claimed the lives of Miss Millicent Edith Pedersen, age 20, and her brother, Mr. Dion Archibal Pedersen, age 23. Mr. Pedersen was visiting his sister in Los Angeles, California, at the time. Miss Pedersen and Mr. Pedersen were the children of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Archibal Pedersen of Spruce Road. A memorial service will be held at the Lutheran Church next Saturday.”

  There were dates and lists of relatives and other details that Tom would remember. My mind couldn’t let go of that other name.

  “I don’t know why my mother cut that out and pasted it in our family photo album. But she liked to paste things, arrange the pages. Do you know, that’s getting very popular again? The young women call it scrapbooking. They make up scrapbooks for all their trips. Back when I was a girl, we had scrapbooks and we pasted in practically everything, birthday cards, flowers, pictures we cut out of magazines, any old thing, but not photos.”

  “Her brother? Her brother was there?” I said again.

  Mrs. Thornton nodded. “You know what is very strange, no one ever understood? There were five people killed in that crash. The Pedersens finally did get a report. Millie and another person were in one car and Dion and two other young people were in another car. And the two cars ran head-on into each other. I don’t know who the others were, not from around here, any of them. But isn’t that the strangest thing? Dion and Millie being in different cars and running into each other? It’s not like there was traffic back then the way there is now.”

  She continued discussing traffic on the freeways and road trips she had taken and I don’t know what all else because Tom carried on the conversation with her. My mind was stuck on the brother factoid.

  Tom said to me, “This is a great collection of photos. Come look at them, April.”

  I did, stood behind his chair and leaned over with my hand on his shoulder. He held the leather bound album in his lap and slowly turned the pages. The heavy black paper was disintegrating on the edges. The photos were mounted with little black corners. The photos were slightly yellowed but still sharp and clear. There weren’t a lot of pictures but one showed a frame house with a small girl sitting on the front steps of the porch.

  “That must be you sitting on the steps,” Tom said to Mrs. Thornton.

  “Oh yes, that was my Sunday school dress.”

  It was summer in the photo and a paved sidewalk ran past the house, the route that Millie must have walked to go to school.

  I didn’t recognize anything. I kept looking, thinking that perhaps something would look familiar, and afraid that if I did see something I remembered, that would bounce me right into one of those trances. But I didn’t see anything at all to tweak my memory.

  Tom turned the page and there was a longer view of the house that included the lawn and side garden. Not familiar. Of course, it wasn’t Millie’s house, it was the childhood home of Mrs. Thornton.

  Maybe Millie had never been aware of the town she lived in, never paid any attention to the neighborhood, and blocked it out completely the day she climbed into that train.

  “Are there any Pedersen descendants living around here?” Tom asked.

  “Oh my, no, dear,” Mrs. Thornton said. “Millie’s father died a year or two later, everyone said he died of a broken heart but I suppose he had a stroke. And her mother just kind of faded away, spent years out at the nursing home. They’re both in the cemetery.”

  “The cemetery, where is that?”

  “Across the street from the Lutheran church,” Mrs. Thornton said. “Let’s see, their graves, southeast corner, I think, past the big Hendrick memorial. Yes, I am quite sure, three small markers, one for each of them and one for Mr. Pedersen’s mother. She used to live with them. She died long before Millie ran away. I don’t know who put up the money for the markers. Maybe there was something left over from the sale of their house.”

  “That’s all the family they had?” Tom asked.

  “Hmm. Like a bit more tea, dear? Are you warm enough? I know how much a knee can ache. Now let me think. Now you mention it, I don’t know where Henry Pedersen’s father is buried. His mother was a widow when they moved here, I guess. Before my time. And Edna, that was Mrs. Pedersen’s name, Edna came from somewhere else, oh dear, I have forgotten her maiden name. It’s awful the way I forget things,” she said and sighed, then bustled around Tom, pouring tea and asking if she could get him anything else.

  Wicked Tommy didn’t discourage her. He gave her his best grin. “We don’t want to put you to any trouble, Mrs. Thornton. You’ve been so generous with your time. And the sandwiches were wonderful.”

  “Maybe you’d like a few cookies to go with them.”

  “Cookies? You have cookies?”

  She gave a chuckle of delight and said, “Of course I have cookies, young man.” She patted his hand, then turned toward the kitchen.

  “Can I help you?” I asked.

  “No, dear, you two look at the album and I’ll be right back.”

  We went through the pages, Tom turning them with care, they were so fragile. Most of the photos were of people standing in stiff groups, smiling at the camera, holding up a blanket wrapped baby, holding out the skirts of an obviously new dress, that sort of thing. Mrs. Thornton’s relatives. Generally the only background was that same house and garden.

  She came back with a plate of cookies for Tom. I didn’t for one second think she meant them for me.

  “Oh look at me,” she said. “I’ve forgotten fresh napkins. My memory is shameful.”

  If I had half that woman’s memory capacity, I’d have sailed through university, but I didn’t say so.

  “We’re fine,” Tom assured her. “It’s you we came to see, so don’t go off again.”

  That won him all sorts of smiles from her while I thought piggie, piggie, as I watched him munch cookies.

  I said, “So the Pedersens had only the two children?”

  “That’s what killed them both, I expect. The parents, I mean.”

  When we were in the front hall and Tom was busy zipping up his jacket and wrapping his scarf around his neck, Mrs. Thornton caught my hand. In a low voice she said, “Your young man is a dear. You take good care of him and don’t let him be walking around too much on that knee.”

  Oh yes, Mrs. Thornton, who was well into her nineties, had more wits than the librarian or the desk clerk. She had probably noticed, within two minutes of our crossing her threshold, that we didn’t wear wedding rings. That we might be married and not wear rings was apparently not something she considered. Another small town custom? Or was it more fun for her to think of Tom as single?

  She added, “And you bring him back to see me if you have time. It is so nice to have company.”

  When we were in the car I told him, “You now have another stalker, Prince Charming.”

  CHAPTER 24

  We made a brief stop at the cemetery, following Mrs. Thornton’s directions. It was right in town, maybe a mile from her house, and I managed to raise the speed to ten miles per hour and go through intersections after a slight slow down but without a full stop.

  “God, I’m brave.”

  “You’re getting scary,” Tom said.

  He had no idea. I was quaking inside.

  He’d fiddled with knobs on the dashboard so th
at by the time I parked next to the cemetery gate, the heater had done a good job of warming the car interior. “I won’t try to get out if you don’t need me,” he said.

  As that wasn’t like Tom, missing a chance to study something as historic as a small town cemetery, I knew the pain pills were wearing off.

  “I could skip this.”

  “No, you go find their graves. Otherwise all we have is other people’s stories.”

  “You’re sure? I could take you back to the hotel now.”

  He grinned at me. “Lovey, it’s nice and warm in here and I’m fine. Go ahead. Take all the time you want. Just watch where you’re walking and promise not to fall.”

  While I headed on foot along the cemetery paths, he waited in the car. The cold air hurt to breathe but felt so clean against my face, it made me feel alert and alive. Ice glittered on overhead branches and a thin layer of crisp snow made crunching sounds under my boots.

  I found the Pedersens, after several winding misdirections. Three sad little stones almost up against the low metal fence, but at least it was winter. The snow hid the ground around them, so if the plots were neglected, I couldn’t see it. The stones were gray with age and edged with green stuff that looked like mold.

  “Okay,” I told Tom when I returned to the car and climbed into the driver’s seat, “enough of that. I’ve had my nature walk, admired snow and more snow. I don’t think there’s anything else here to find.”

  He nodded. “We do know that there was a Millie who lived exactly the life you remember. That’s pretty amazing. I’m sure Mac thought we would hit dead ends and discover the whole thing was your imagination.”

  “Did you think that?” I had to ask.

  He leaned toward me, brown eyes so wide, they were somehow all I could see. “I never doubted you, April. I don’t think you ever confuse imagination and reality. The challenge was in figuring a way to find the whole story. Now we have.”

  “I know she was real but I don’t know why this is happening to me.”

  He ran his fingers down the side of my face and sometimes when he did that, it almost felt like being kissed. “I know, lovey, and we’ll keep working on it. We’ll find answers.”

  “So now we go home?”

  “Oh hell.” He leaned back, becoming himself again. His face was tight as he drummed his fingers on the dashboard. “Okay, let’s head to the hotel and the phone. This is going to take some doing.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “I drove us here from the airport. Do you want to drive us back?”

  Stupid question, did I want to attempt a two hour drive on the highway? Instead I spent the rest of the day chauffeuring Tom around town. We found the bus terminal, got the times and rates for buses that had the airport on their route.

  Then we stopped by the bank to use the ATM. Then stopped by the doctor’s office to get a prescription for the painkillers and the sleeping pills, then stopped by the pharmacy to get those filled.

  I stumbled in and out of the car feeling like a walking sleeping bag, I had on so many layers, and once inside a building I had to pull off the scarf and gloves, then wiggle out of Cyd’s down jacket to keep from breaking out in a sweat.

  Added to that, I had to practically lift Tom in and out. He tried so hard not to lean too much weight on me, that added a whole lot of anxiety and guilt. I was reaching the don’t give a fuck about anything else point, and saying so, loudly. I was hitting the brakes too hard, turning out from curbs without remembering to look behind me first. Fortunately there was almost no traffic and none of it going by when I did dumb stuff.

  Finally Tom said, “Okay, that’s it. We can go back to the hotel now.”

  Only four thirty and the sky had stopped shining and turned lead gray. And my patience and my vocabulary were sinking toward unacceptable. I managed a very crooked park in the hotel’s lot, pulled out the keys and tossed them in the air.

  Tom reached out and caught them, then said, “Okay, one last request.”

  “Huh?”

  “Paste on a smile for ten more minutes.”

  “Why?” I demanded, ready to start an argument about anything at all.

  “Don’t want you scaring the clerk. They might ban us from the dining room and I really want dinner tonight and I don’t care what’s on the menu.”

  “Deal,” I said, took a deep breath, then walked around the car and helped him out.

  “We’ve done good.” Tom gave me a wide smile.

  If I was tired, I knew he must be exhausted but there he was, acting all cheerful and nice. Shame drove me to slide my shoulder under his arm and wrap my arm around his waist.

  “You’re a sweetheart,” I said.

  “Oh good. You noticed.” He kissed the top of my head, and then we stumbled into the hotel.

  I had no idea how we were going to get to the bus station or what we were going to do with the rental car, but that was tomorrow’s problem.

  Turned out it wasn’t a problem. Tom made a few phone calls and learned he could leave the car at the bus station, so that was as far as I needed to drive. He also arranged our airline tickets.

  When we returned to the room after dinner, Tom put in a call to Mac. I didn’t bother asking what it was about.

  Mac had sent us on this trip to prove I was insane.

  When I mentioned that to Tom, he said, “And you aren’t going to forgive him.”

  “I only look sweet and helpless. I am actually very good at holding a grudge.”

  “C’mere.” He patted the space beside him on the bed.

  We were both feeling reasonably mellow after a good dinner and a great bottle of wine in the warm dining room. The wine effect helped him upstairs. Between us we managed to get off his shoes and outer clothing. Actually, I had the boy stripped to a sweat shirt and boxers, with a light blanket covering him from waist to toes. A long blanket.

  I settled down beside him, careful not to bump his leg. He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me against his side, then let out an “oof!”

  I sat up straight, moving a few inches away from him.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “I’ll bet you are, lover. Sure you didn’t crack a rib?”

  “The doc didn’t think so. No, it’s just bruises. They’ll go away.”

  “I could check to see what color you’re turning.”

  “Huh. And I thought Sandra was a stalker,” he said.

  “If I can’t hug you and you won’t let me play nursey, we might as well watch television.”

  He laughed, but I think even that hurt, because he had these tight little lines around his mouth. “Never thought I’d turn down a hug,” he admitted.

  About halfway through a so-so comedy with too many commercials, he slid slowly down on the bed, tucked a couple of pillows under his head, and stretched out full length on top of the quilted spread.

  “We can turn that off.” I waved at the TV.

  “No, it’s all right. I can see it fine this way.”

  Only if he kept his eyes open. Within five minutes he was sleep-breathing, with that little hum he always did on each exhale. I edged off the bed and carefully arranged the blanket over him. Then I leaned over and kissed him softly.

  “Good night, Tommy.”

  “Um hmm,” he murmured.

  Next morning there was a wheelchair waiting at the Minneapolis airport when we arrived by bus, and suddenly I was surrounded by people who seemed not only able, but actually eager, to help. When he booked the flight, Tom had explained about the injured knee in a brace.

  We were put in front seats on the plane, the ones with extra leg room. Not comfortable, but also not unbearable for him.

  “So that’s how to get these seats,” he said to the flight attendant. “All I need to remember is to bust a knee every time I fly.”

  She giggled, then rounded up a pillow and blanket for him.

  “You’re really milking this,” I told him.

  “I do my b
est,” he said, all serious-faced, but his eyes twinkled.

  And of course when they wheeled him off at SeaTac, with our backpacks on his lap and me tagging along behind the efficient attendant, Macbeth was at the gate and ready to take over.

  Sometimes life works.

  CHAPTER 25

  Efficient, yes, agreeable, no.

  Mac drove, I rode shotgun and Tom stretched out his leg across the back seat.

  “So how’d it go?” Macbeth asked as we drove out of the airport and headed north toward city and home.

  Happy me, off the plane, out of the driver’s seat, gabbing brightly. “Fantastic, imagine, we honestly met a woman who remembered Millie. Okay, she’s pushing one hundred but believe me, her mind is sharper than mine.”

  It occurred to me, from Mac’s silence, that maybe he didn’t consider that much of a recommendation, so I added, “And she had a copy of Millie’s obituary and she pointed us to Millie’s parents’ graves.”

  From the back seat, Tom added, “And bless her heart, she fed me.”

  I swung around as much as possible in the seat belt and grinned at him. “Oh yes, lady-killer has a new admirer.”

  “One who makes me sandwiches.”

  “That’s all it takes? Gosh, I should clue in Sandra.”

  “And end our friendship? I’m gonna miss you, woman,” Tom said.

  In the middle of joking with Tom, I think we both started to notice Macbeth was unusually silent. He seemed agitated, then annoyed, then angry when we explained the trip and what we’d discovered.

  Looking back at Tom through the space between the front seats, I rolled my eyes toward Macbeth.

  Tom shrugged, clearly as puzzled as I was. At Tom’s house Mac helped him out of the car and held his elbow while they walked to the front door. I followed along behind them lugging Tom’s backpack.

  The door flew open and Tom’s mother rushed out, stared at the cane and the knee brace, and then her face softened to the edge of tears.

  “Oh darling, you really are hurt!” Turning to Mac, she added, “Mac, how good of you to bring him home. Did you go all the way out to the airport? We could have done that. Tom, why didn’t you call us?”