The Tick-Tock Between You and Me

by Kristy Tate

  “I’m heading to the hospital in Ventura. I don’t have time to take you home. You can either come with me, or I can drop you off at the bus station. Your choice.” Darby gunned the engine and sped down the street.

  “The bus station?” Grandma’s voice squeaked. “Why go all the way down town when there’s a bus stop right back there.”

  Darby stopped at a red light. “So that’s it? You’ve been taking the bus to my office and ‘borrowing’ my car?”

  “Well, don’t you think it’s silly that your car is just sitting in a parking lot all day? I’m doing you a favor by driving it, you know. So the battery doesn’t run down, or the clutch cable rusts itself shut, or the rubber on the tires rot.”

  Darby accelerated through the intersection. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s not good for cars to just sit! They’re made to be used. I’m doing you a favor by keeping your car healthy!”

  “Grandma!”

  “An object in motion stays in motion. That’s the first law of nature!”

  “That’s Newton’s First Law.” Darby shook her head. “But what about the law of the land?”

  “It’s not a big deal.”

  “It could have been! Do you even have a valid license?”

  “It’s not my fault no one will take me to the DMV!”

  “Huh. Why wait for someone to take you? Why didn’t you just drive my car?”

  “And wait around in those long lines? No thank you!”

  Darby held out her hand. “Grandma, give me your keys to my car!”

  “They’re in the ignition, you nit-wit!”

  “I’m the nit-wit? You’re the one driving without a valid license!”

  “Stop!” Grandma barked.

  “What?”

  Grandma waved at the curb. “I promised Henley and that handsome boy a ride. See? There they are!”

  “Wait. Henley knows you borrow my car?”

  “Where do you think I got the idea? She’s been driving your car for ages!”

  “Are you kidding me? You guys think I’m some sort of free local transit?” Darby pulled over to the curb to let her sister and Benjamin in the car. Mostly so she could yell at them.

  “You’ve been borrowing my car while I’m at work?” Darby asked as soon as Henley and Benjamin were settled in the backseat.

  “Who told you that?” Henley asked, shooting her grandmother a venomous look.

  “Who do you think?” Darby asked, pulling away from the curb. “I’m dropping all of you off at the bus station.

  “Why? Aren’t you going home?” Henley asked.

  “No. I’m going to St. Francis Hospital. Mr. George senior has had a heart attack and wants to see me. Immediately. I don’t have time to deal with the lot of you.” Darby glanced at her sister in the rearview mirror and saw her whispering to Benjamin.

  “Take us with you?” Henley asked.

  “What? No!”

  “Oh, come on,” Henley said. “Why not?”

  “Why would I? Why should I?”

  “Well, for one thing, with us in the car you can ride in the carpool lane.”

  “Good one,” Benjamin whispered, elbowing Henley.

  Henley looked pleased with herself.

  “Why do you want to go?” Darby asked.

  “A bloke I met at an audition is having a blowout party in Woodland Hills.” Benjamin said. “That’s on the way, isn’t it?”

  “But what about Grandma?” Darby asked. “She doesn’t want to go to your blow out party.”

  “Stop!” Grandma barked.

  “What now? Why?”

  “There’s Meg!”

  Meg? Darby spotted her sister standing on the corner hiding beneath an umbrella and waiting for the light to change. Meg saw them and waved.

  Darby pulled up to the curb and waited for her sister to climb in.

  “Whew! Am I glad to see you!” Meg’s face wrinkled in confusion. “So Darby’s driving today? This is a new twist.”

  “How do you figure?” Darby tightened her grip on the steering wheel. Her steering wheel. To her car. “This is MY car!”

  “Of course it is,” Meg said. “No need to blow a gasket. Just curious as to why you’re here and not at work like you usually are.”

  “This is what I’m going to do,” Darby said through clenched teeth as she pulled back into traffic. “I’m dropping Meg and Grandma off at the next bus stop.”

  “What?” Meg barked.

  “Why?” Grandma asked.

  Darby didn’t answer them. “And then I’m taking you two,” she glanced at Henley and Benjamin in the rearview mirror, “to Woodland Hills, because you’re right. I’ll be faster with you two in the car, but be warned, I’m ditching you on the side of the freeway. You’ll have to get an Uber.”

  “An Uber? But that costs money!” Henley said.

  “Oh well! So do cars! And I have one and you don’t.”

  “But it’s raining!” Henley said.

  “Rats,” Darby said without a hint of remorse.

  #

  Chad stood at the hospital window watching the rain skitter down the glass. The drizzle changed everything to a watercolor world. His grandfather’s death would change everything. He could move out. Go back to UCSB. Apply to veterinary school. But was that what he wanted? He liked working at Canterbury. He enjoyed teaching and coaching. Sure, it wasn’t what he had planned, but maybe it was better.

  But what about the ranch? He squared his shoulder. It would break his heart to see the property converted into a hotel or a day spa, but that would be his father’s decision—one that Chad would have to make peace with.

  His gaze wandered to his father and stepmother sitting in front of the TV. His dad stared absently at the sitcom on the screen while Elaine typed on her phone. Cecelia sat huddled in a chair across from them and flipped through a magazine.

  His thoughts drifted back to when his mother died. His dad had returned from the hospital late. Cecelia, only nine-years-old, had crawled into his bed sometime during the night complaining of nightmares. His dad had come in to tell them the news. He hadn’t flipped on the bedroom light, but the light from the hall cut into the darkness like a glaring wedge. Chad couldn’t remember if his dad had actually said anything. His crying had told them everything they needed to know.

  Chad glanced at Cecelia and then his dad, wondering if they were also remembering that night and the nightmarish days that had followed. The funeral arrangements. The service itself with his mom looking wax-like and cold in the coffin. The comforting words of the priest, To everything there is a season.

  His grandfather had been blessed with many more seasons than his mother. He had enjoyed a long life and had spent it doing what he loved to do. Chad hoped it wasn’t over, but he wondered if that was a selfish thought. Would his grandfather be happier to be reunited with his beloved Martha?

  Darby blew into the waiting room. Her hair was wild and curly from the drizzle outside, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright. She was beautiful and everything he needed. He opened his arms and she rushed to fill them. He buried his face in her hair. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  Cecelia stood and wrapped her arms around Chad and Darby. They made a tight circle of grief. Chad wanted his dad to join them, but he watched from a plastic chair with tired eyes. Beside him, Elaine continued to look at her phone.

  Darby pulled away first. She picked up Chad’s hand and then Cecelia’s. “What can I do to help? Have any of you eaten?”

  Dr. Jenkins appeared and motioned for them to join him. Chad, Cecelia, and his dad followed the doctor down the hall.

  “Bern had a close call,” Dr. Jenkins said, “but we hope he has turned a corner. He would like to speak with each of you, but one at a time. Please be gentle with him. He may have some hard things to say, but just listen to him. Don’t argue, even if you disagree. Now isn’t the time. If you think you can’t listen without arguing, then please wait to see him.” Dr. Jenki
ns paused, and looked sternly at Bernie. “Are we all agreed?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Bernie, your first,” Dr. Jenkins said and motioned for Bernie to enter the room.

  “This might take a while,” Chad said. “I think I’ll ask Darby to wait for me at the house.”

  #

  At first, Darby found the stillness of the ranch unsettling. Her footsteps echoed on the Mexican pavers and she heard the sound of her own breath. Suddenly, she felt homesick for her parents’ home. She missed all the people, the noise and commotion. She missed Wheezer.

  This place needs a dog, she thought. And more people. She sat down on the sofa, and without anything else to do, she pulled a notepad and pencil out of her bag and began to sketch out event ideas for the ranch that the woman in her dreams had given her the night before. A pumpkin patch and haunted house in the fall. An Easter egg hunt and tulip gardens in the spring. Apple picking and hayrides in September. Horseback riding all year round. Weddings and other events as often as they could be booked.

  She tapped her pencil considering. Would she rather be an event planner than an accountant? What would Chad or his grandfather think of her plans? Of course, she couldn’t show any of this to anyone. It was premature.

  She frowned and listened to the ticking clock. Why had she come? Why had Bern asked for her? She lay back into the pillows, curled her feet beneath her, and fell asleep.

  #

  Chad’s dad exited his grandfather’s room looking shaken and pale. “He wants to see you now,” Bernie said.

  “Is he okay?”

  Bernie nodded. “I think he’ll be fine. For now.” He cleared his throat. “What he has to say may shock you. But I want you to know, I’m okay with his plan as long as you are.”

  “What does that mean?” Chad asked.

  “He’ll tell you,” Bernie said over his shoulder as he made his way toward Elaine who sat waiting in front of the TV.

  Chad slipped into his grandfather’s room. Bern rested on a hospital bed facing the window overlooking the brown rolling hills. He looked gray and shrunken, a shadow of the horseman Chad had grown up with.

  “Where’s Darby?” Grandpa Bern asked in a quiet voice without opening his eyes.

  “I asked her to wait for me at the ranch.” Chad edged closer to the bed and pulled up a chair.

  “That was silly. Why would I ask for her if I didn’t want to see her? She has some good ideas for the ranch. She might hesitate to show them to you. But you need to listen to her.”

  “How do you know she has ideas for the ranch? Have you talked to her recently?”

  “Your Grandma Rose told me.”

  “Grandma Rose?” Chad echoed.

  “She came to me in a dream and told me what she’d told Darby.”

  “Okay,” Chad said slowly. “And you think Darby knows about this?”

  He nodded. “There’s more,” Bern said, but he fell silent.

  Chad watched the slow rise and fall of his grandfather’s chest as he waited.

  “I’m leaving you and Cecelia the ranch,” Bern said.

  Chad slowly stood. This was what his dad had been talking about.

  “I love your dad, and I know he thinks he knows what’s best for me and the family…” Bern’s voice trailed away. “I don’t want to be a burden on you or Cecelia. But I want to leave the ranch to those who will love it and care for it.”

  “Grandpa, I don’t know…”

  “Darby knows,” Bern said. “She’ll know what to do.”

  It stopped short — never to go again —

  When the old man died.*

  CHAPTER 16

  Darby woke with a start. She must have fallen asleep. With a racing heart, she sat up and found Chad sitting near her feet and looking at her sketches.

  “You weren’t meant to see those,” she said, grasping for her papers.

  Chad moved out of her reach. “Why not? I like them.” He stood. “I think Grandpa and Cecelia would be interested in them, too.”

  Darby flushed and sat up on her knees. “It’s too soon. It’s wildly presumptuous of me.”

  “No,” Chad said slowly as he looked from one page to the next. “I think these are wonderful ideas. Where did you get them?”

  “They, huh, just came to me.”

  “Just came to you, hmm.” He sounded as if he didn’t believe her, but she wasn’t ready to tell him about her dream. Of course, she hadn’t been ready to tell him about the plans either.

  “Are you thinking we’d hire Jackson?”

  Darby didn’t flinch but met Chad’s gaze. “He was interested in renting out some fields.”

  “He wants more than that. He wants to buy ten acres.”

  “Oh, that’s great. That will give us some capital.” She bit her lip when she realized she’d used the word us.

  “Yes,” Chad murmured. “And Maggie?”

  “For the catering, yes, assuming she and Jackson can get along.”

  Chad grinned and shook his head. “It would be a lot of work.”

  “But so much fun, right?”

  He took her in his arms. “More fun than being an accountant?”

  “So much more fun,” Darby said with a sigh, laying her head against his chest. “But I don’t think it could support me.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Why not?”

  “Well, it would take a while to get the business on its feet. And we’d need capital for advertising, and then there’s all the logistics, like where will I live?”

  “Here.”

  Darby shook her head.

  “Too soon?”

  She nodded.

  “How about I move into the main house and you can have the bunk house?”

  “Is this something you really want to do?” Darby asked him. “It would be a lot of work at first.”

  “If it means I get to be with you.” He tipped her chin so that his lips were aligned with hers. “Absolutely.”

  He kissed her, and somewhere close by, a clock began to chime and in its music she thought she heard the whispered prayers of all the ancestors before them and all their future posterity who would come after. With every ringing chime, she heard the whistling bombs falling on London and felt Gustave’s shaking hopes that somehow his clock would outlast his feeble lifetime and that someone would recognize and appreciate his gift. Her thoughts drifted to her dreams of Rose and her ideas of how to save the ranch, and then, as Chad’s kiss grew increasingly insistent, she heard her unborn children’s laughter as the played on the wide lawn surrounding the hacienda.

  Her fingers curled in Chad’s hair. “It’s going to be a wonderful life,” she whispered in his ear. In large part, she thought, because of all those who loved and came before us.

  “How do you know?” Chad asked.

  “With you, how could it be anything else?”

  The End

  *My Grandfather’s Clock, by Henry Clay Work

  In the mid 1800s, a large clock stood in the lobby of the George hotel in Piercebridge, England. The Jenkins brothers, both bachelors, managed the hotel and took great pride in their clock’s unusual accuracy. But sadly, when one of the brothers died, the clock began to fail.

  A few minutes here, a few minutes there, but by the time the last clocksmith tried to repair it, the clock was losing more than an hour each day. The clock’s incurable time lapse became as talked about as its unusual precision had been. Some said it was no surprise that, though fully wound, the old clock stopped when the surviving brother died at the age of ninety.

  The new manager of the hotel never attempted to have it repaired. He just left it standing in a sunlit corner of the lobby, its hands resting in the position they assumed the moment the last Jenkins brother died.

  About 1875, an American songwriter named Henry Work happened to be staying at the George Hotel. When he learned the story of the old clock he composed a song about the fascinating coincidence that the clock stopped forever the moment its elder ow
ner passed away. Henry came back to America and published the lyrics that sold over a million copies.

  If you enjoyed Tick-tock Between You and Me, you’ll also like Dreaming of You and Me. Sign up for my newsletter at http://www.kristytate.com to receive a free book and learn when Dreaming of You and Me is available.

  DREAMING OF YOU AND ME

  I can't remember the first time I had this dream. So long ago, it seems a part of me, or a part of my collective history, more memory than dream. The interesting thing is I know I was a child when the visions first began, and I must have been a child, but the starring roles, myself and an unknown boy, aged as I grew in my real life. There we are on the same river bank, the shimmery sun—as eternal as the earth—buttercups and daffodils dot the lawn beneath our feet. A fluffy, black and white dog sits beside us. We talk about the adventure before us. "What if I get lost?" I ask him. "I'll find you," he replies, and I'm comforted because I believe him. He is incapable of lying. He is to leave before me but takes nothing with him. I watch him cross the river. He disappears before he reaches the other side, and other than the dog, I am alone, already lost, even though I have yet to start my own adventure.

  From Nora's dream journal

  Chapter 1

  Nora had known this day would be hard, but she didn’t think it would be this hard. She stepped out onto the patio, away from the noisy party, to watch the gulls wheel and cry over the harbor. Boats bobbed against the moorings. Her parents’ newly purchased yacht, The Dream Catcher floated nearby.

  This was supposed to be a happy occasion for them—her dad’s retirement. She couldn’t ruin it for them, could she? But she had to know. She couldn’t just let them sail away for six months while curiosity burned in her belly like cheap whiskey. Could she?

  “What are you doing out here, sweetie?” Crystal Clare, her mom’s best friend stepped through the French doors that separated Nora from the party’s laughter and music. “Hiding?”