by Julianne Lee
“You want your husband to live. I bet you want to be real good friends with me. I bet that’s why you’re here.”
“No, Samuel. I’m not offering that.”
“Then what are you offering? You know what I want.” He came closer, and she backed far enough to stumble against a chair. With difficulty she recovered her balance, but now was nose-to-nose with Daley.
“I want you to see the value of your friendship with Lucas.”
“I have no friendship with Lucas. And you know that. He ended it by pursuing you when he knew I needed you more than he did.”
“I never knew you.”
Again the injured look crossed his face, and it stayed. “I loved you.”
“I loved Lucas. I have never considered marrying anyone else.”
“Do you love him enough to give yourself up for him?”
The hopelessness of her dilemma choked her. An impossible choice had to be made, for there was no winning for her and not to decide was to decide. Life without Lucas, or life without his love and respect? Quickly she searched her soul for the answer and found there was only one possible choice for her for the alternative was unthinkable. She gave him a hard shove so that he backed away from her.
She said, her teeth clenched, “No.” Directly behind her was the small hearth to heat the room, and she reached for the fire poker. Wielding it like a baseball bat, she continued, “Stay away from me, Samuel Clarence. I’d give my life for him before letting you lay one grubby hand on me, for my life would mean nothing except for his regard. I couldn’t live if he thought for a second I would give you what you ask. You want under my skirts, Daley, you’ll have to kill me first. Come try me; I dare you.”
As Samuel opened his mouth to speak, the door slammed open and Lucas stepped through, leaning heavily on his cane. “Samuel Clarence!”
Daley whirled, shocked at the appearance and caught without a response. Lucas was panting with exertion and pain, but stepped in with his cane and walloped Daley with it, knocking him back into his desk. Papers went flying. Samuel let out a cry and held up his hands in defense, whimpering, as Lucas hauled off with the cane again. “She is my wife!” He whacked Daley across the shoulder, then reached to his belt and pulled out his service revolver. He held the loaded pistol against Samuel’s head, and the man in blue squeezed his eyes shut. Samuel more than likely figured he was a dead man, his face pale and sweaty.
Lucas said through clenched teeth, “There was a time when I loved you like a brother, Sam.” He leaned farther in, panting with his rage and clammy with the pain in his leg. “But there are just some things a man can’t tolerate, even from a brother. I ought to just shoot you now, ’cause after what I heard a moment ago there’s nobody on earth or in heaven will fault me for it.”
He paused a moment to let that sink in, and also to take a deep breath and calm himself down. Then he continued, “But, you know what, I’m not a-going to shoot you. I’m going to let you redeem yourself with an act of selfless generosity. I’m going to let you show me your deep, sincere, heartfelt remorse over your grievous error in judgment just now, by reaching over for that there paper and pen and writing out a parole with my name on it.”
Samuel frowned and shook his head, but didn’t speak.
Lucas screwed the muzzle of the gun into Daley’s face, and Samuel blinked in a flutter like he was waiting for the shot that would end him. “What’s that?” said Lucas. “Did I hear you say, ‘Why, yes, Lucas Robert, I’m purely grateful for the chance to not get my head blown off’?” He waited, and a moment later Daley nodded.
“All right, then. The paper is right there. And the pen and ink well.” He let up on the gun just enough to let Daley look and reach over for the writing implements. “Don’t you be moving too much. This gun might go off by accident, and that would be a terrible thing. Write what I say.”
Shaking visibly, Samuel waited with awkwardly poised pen.
Lucas said, “‘I, Captain Lucas Robert Brosnahan, C.S.A, Prisoner of War, do hereby give my solemn parole of honor not to take part in hostilities against the government of the United States until properly exchanged.” After a moment of thought and to let Samuel’s hand catch up, Lucas continued. “And that I will not do anything directly or indirectly to the disparagement of the authority of the United States until properly exchanged as I said.’ Leave me a space for my signature, then write, ‘Captain, Second Infantry Regiment, Army of Tennessee.’” He waited while Daley caught up, then added, “And below that you write, ‘I certify that L.R. Brosnahan gave the foregoing parole, and signed it in my presence.’ And you sign it and date it, then write, ‘The bearer, Captain L.R. Brosnahan, having taken the oath of parole, has permission to go to his home in Sumner County, Tennessee.’ The end, and we all live happily ever after. Even you.”
Once the paper was done, Lucas hauled Daley to his feet and shoved him across the room. Then he handed the pistol to Shelby before picking up the pen to make his own signature. Shelby pointed it at Daley and struggled with the urge to fire at him Just Because. Daley visibly relaxed now that she had the gun, probably figuring she wouldn’t have the nerve to pull the trigger, and that made her want even more to put a hole in him where it would hurt the most.
Daley said, “That paper was written under duress.”
“It was indeed.” Lucas blotted it and carefully folded it to slip into his shirt pocket.
“It’s no good.”
Lucas’s brow lowered and he leaned in to peer into Samuel’s face. “You’re not considering arresting me, are you? ’Cause you know you don’t want to do that. Even if you managed to take me, you’d still have her to deal with.” He pointed with his chin to Shelby. “She’d kill you. Something happens to me, she’ll come after you when you’re sleeping. Or when you’re eating. Or when you’re moving your bowels. She’s wicked with a fire poker, and would be quite pleased to shoot your ass if ever you should cross her. I’d be afraid, were I you.” Shelby stepped forward, with the gun in both hands leveled at Daley’s face.
He gave her an evil glare. “She’s a hellion.”
“She’s my wife.” Lucas’s voice was hard with anger, then it took on all the pride and respect Shelby could ever have desired. “She might be a hellion, but, by God, she’s mine. Now stand aside, Sam. We’re going home.”
Samuel Clarence obeyed, and allowed the Brosnahans to leave.
On the street, they climbed into the wagon and Lucas took the reins. She asked, “How did you get here so fast, walking?”
He pointed with his chin to a buggy standing by Pete’s barn. “Your father. He was passing by and gave me a ride. His buggy is a mite faster than this heavy wagon with only the one horse.” Making a circle to go back down the road the way they’d come, he said, “Do you know how dangerous that thing was you just did?”
“I do.” Her joints were all still trembling.
“You could have got us both killed.”
“I saved your life. Again.”
“I saved yours.” He shook his head, but there was a smile curling the corners of his mouth and he took her hand in his. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Let’s get your gimpy self into bed, and then I bet you’ll have some ideas.”
His laugh was joyful and long, and ended in a happy sigh.
Chapter 22
December 2004
It was amazing how much dirt and dust could find its way into a closet full of junk. Jason had to move an awful lot of his own stuff before he could even get to the really old boxes, and the dust choked him. Mary Beth hung back just inside the bedroom door, looking like she wished she could help, but unwilling to venture any farther. Her glance was attracted by something on the back of the door, and she swung it closed just enough to see, then reached out a finger to trace a mark on it. Jason had always taken it to have been made by a boot heel, though it had been painted over so many times as to blur it beyond positive identification. Besides, he’d never been able to figure ou
t how a boot heel mark had made it that high up on the door.
He called out from the closet, “You could give me a hand here, Mary Beth.” A big banana box filled with something incredibly heavy pulled him nearly off balance. The dust was making his nose itch something awful, and his enthusiasm for the project was waning with each second.
Her hands fluttered. “Oh, I’m certain I wouldn’t be of any use to you.”
“You’re a big, strong girl. Come on, these are heavy.” He let the box onto the floor and gave it a shove with his shoe. It hardly moved. This must be the box where all his free weights from high school had gone.
“No, sir. I wouldn’t care to.”
“Lazy.”
“Prudent.”
He straightened and peered at her for a moment as her reasoning sunk in. Almost to himself, he said, “This is my bedroom.”
“Indeed, it is. As can plainly be seen by the enormous bed in it.”
“You don’t want to come in here because it’s a man’s bedroom.”
“I daren’t.”
“You don’t trust me to not try to jump you?”
“You’re a man.”
“I’m a man, not a criminal. You’re as safe in here as you are anywhere else on the planet, and safer than most places. Besides, you and I...well, Shelby and I, have been alone before and I never so much as kissed her.” He shrugged. “Nor she me, for that matter.”
“What sort of woman is this Shelby?”
“Oh, she was very cool.”
“No wonder you didn’t want to kiss her.”
He had to think for a moment what she meant by that as he bent to drag the banana box into the bedroom. When he straightened, he said, “No. Not ‘cool’ as in unfriendly. I mean, she was a good woman. Fun to be with. Straightforward. And I did, too, want to kiss her. I just didn’t, because she didn’t seem to want to kiss me.” A thought stopped him. “Huh. I wonder what happened to her, if you’re not her.” His mind started turning, grasping, but not quite catching. “In any case, you’ve got nothing to lose by at least coming over here so I don’t have to shout to talk to you.”
Finally she obliged and stepped closer to the closet. “I’ve never been in here before.”
“I don’t expect you have.” At this point, he couldn’t imagine her doing anything that could be frowned upon by her father. He waded back into the closet and hauled out another large box from behind the first. This one had on it in black marker: “Archive.” The box was aged and the writing faded to a pale brown. It had been packed by his grandmother forty years ago, and the single glimpse he’d had of its contents had been when his parents had inherited it along with this house. “Here it is.”
Mary Beth’s interest perked. “What do you have in there?”
He shrugged as he set the box on the floor before her. “I don’t really remember. Some of this stuff is from more recent years than the Civil War. My grandfather’s parents. But I know a bunch of it is from your time. Here.” He knelt and loosened the cardboard flaps. The box itself was so old after forty years that it had nearly become the dust around it. One of the flaps came off in his hand as he opened it.
Photographs and more photographs. His father as a small boy; his grandfather in uniform; someone he didn’t recognize, also in uniform. Same era—World War II—so it may have been a great-uncle, one of Grandfather’s brothers or brothers-in-law. Mary Beth helped him sort through the things, and as they dug deeper into the box it was like moving slowly backward in time. There was a certificate of marriage for a Brosnahan groom, and though the names were unfamiliar to Jason the date indicated the couple were either great or great-greats to him. Matthew and Harriet Brosnahan. But the date was well after the Civil War, so he set the paper aside and reached in again.
His hands closed around a framed photograph and he lifted it out. A daguerreotype. The frame was tarnished silver, absurdly ornate and oddly beautiful in its shabbiness. There was a gritting of glass as he lifted it, and discovered a crack in the corner. He remembered this photo from when he was a kid, with all the fuss his parents had made over the picture of the ancestor who had fought in the Civil War. There had been some discussion of putting it on display, but in the end it was thought better to keep it out of the light. He looked at the soldier in gray, his translucent blue eyes bearing a sadness Jason had never been able to grasp as a boy. Now he thought he understood.
“Is this your Lucas?” He handed the frame to Mary Beth.
Her mouth dropped open when she saw it, and she reached for it with gentle hands. “Oh, my Lord.” It was him, all right. A finger reached out to touch the image as if it were a living person. “Lucas Robert.”
There was more in the box. At the bottom, wrapped in newspapers dated in the fifties, was a smallish wooden box. An ancient cigar box that by now smelled less of tobacco than of decaying wood. Jason lifted it out and with utmost care opened it.
Inside, wrapped in a silk handkerchief, were some letters. Frail and flattened with time, the ink on the letters appeared nearly liquid with fading. But the address on the top one was legible. It was addressed to “Mary Beth Brosnahan, Hendersonville, Tennessee.”
“Well,” said Jason, “looks like you did marry him. Unless he happened to fall for another Mary Beth.” He nearly made a crack that Amos might have left his wife for her, but decided it would not be well received and kept it to himself.
Mary Beth took the letter, and seemed to deflate. Tears rose to her eyes. Jason hadn’t known what he’d expected from her with this news, but this wasn’t it. “I must find a way home.”
“I thought you didn’t want to marry him.”
“I belong there. If I don’t find a way to get back, I can’t marry him. Then our children won’t be born. You won’t be born.”
“Sure I will. I’m here.”
She frowned, puzzled. But then she shook her head. “No. I must get back. I must think of a way back.” She rose with the daguerreotype pressed to her chest, and looked around the room as if something in it would provide the answer. Then she returned the photograph to the box and went into the closet to begin rummaging. She seemed very upset.
“Mary Beth...” He wasn’t entirely sanguine about her going through his stuff, but the letters in his hand caught his attention. He let her go, hoping she would either find what she was after or get out, and in the meantime unfolded for perusal the second letter in the stack, addressed to Capt. Lucas R. Brosnahan of the 2nd Tennessee Infantry, dated October 1862. It had been written and signed by Mary Beth Brosnahan, and as he read he realized something was very wrong.
The woman who had written this letter was not the delicate flower pawing through his closet. This was written in a modern voice, using modern slang in some places. This was Shelby’s writing, and it told of an attack by some Confederate raiders. As he read, he became more convinced the woman who had written this letter was not Mary Beth at all. This woman had swung on her attackers with a fire poker, then killed one of them with a captured pistol. Jason looked toward the closet, thinking how Mary Beth was prepared to live her entire life with a man she didn’t love just because her father wished it. Nope, now he knew where Shelby had gone when Mary Beth arrived.
“Mary Beth, what are you doing?”
“I’m looking for my diary. If I married Lucas Robert, and saved our love letters, more than likely I also saved the diary. It’s got to be here, and I’m betting...” her voice trailed off, and there was a sound of tearing paper from the closet.
Jason climbed to his feet to investigate. “What are you doing?” He found her with a square piece of sheet rock in one hand and the other reaching into a hole in the wall. “Mary Beth...”
“It’s not here.”
“Of course, it’s not. It’s in the box.” There was a small, leather-bound diary, packed away beneath the bundle of letters.
Mary Beth hurried to look. “You see, if she was standing in the same spot I was when it happened, with the diary, maybe that’s wh
y it happened. Maybe, if I return to the very spot where I was before...” At sight of the little book, she gave a cry and swooped to carry it off. Jason made a disgusted noise and took the piece of sheet rock to set it back in the hole where it belonged. He also made a swipe at putting the old pieces of tape back to secure it, but they were hopelessly dried out. He’d have to get someone to replace this dry wall. When he returned to the room, Mary Beth was gone.
“Mary Beth?” Had she found a way to return to the past so quickly? Alarm surged. She had the diary, and was about to use it. “Mary Beth!” The thing that had been bugging him finally came clear. Shelby was his ancestor, not Mary Beth. Shelby had been the one to survive the attack, and had been the one to marry Lucas Robert before the war instead of making him wait. If Mary Beth managed to undo Annie’s spell, she would also undo everything Shelby had accomplished. She wouldn’t survive to marry Lucas, and would be nobody’s mother or grandmother or anything else. He hurried down the stairs, calling. “Mary Beth!”
She was standing in the foyer by the front door, the diary open, her finger on a page, and her lips moving.
“Stop!” His heart was in his throat. He held out a palm to her, like a traffic cop trying to make her slow down.
Mary Beth looked up. “It’s the talisman, Jason! This is the place where I was standing when I changed times. If I do it again, on this spot, it will return me to the moment I left, as if nothing had happened. I might not even know I’d left!” Terror filled him, and he held out his hand to stay her as she continued, “I can return to my own life!”
“But it’s not your life any more.”
Panic whitened her eyes. “It’s my life. It was taken from me.”
“You asked for a better one. And I think you got it. You’re here, and I think you belong here.” It wasn’t until he’d said it he realized he truly believed it. She belonged here, where the world excited her and she could be free to pursue her own goals.
There was a long moment as she thought about that. “I belong here?”
