Lost Melody (12 page)

“I have a treat for you.” Jill pulled the two envelopes from her purse and held them out for Mom’s inspection. “I was going through some stuff in the attic yesterday, and I found these letters to you from Daddy. I thought you might like to hear them.”

No reaction on the slack features.

Jill opened one of the envelopes and slid out three pages, each covered front and back with even, cramped writing. “This first one is dated March 27, 1982. That’s a year before you were married, when Daddy was stationed on the destroyer, right?”

She glanced up. Mom’s eyelids blinked in slow motion, as if she might nod off again in a second. Jill had hoped the letters would spark a flame of recognition or something, but she wasn’t even sure her mother knew what a letter was anymore. Or even who she was. With a sigh, Jill began to read.

Jill gave Mom a tender smile. “He certainly was romantic, wasn’t he? I hope he doesn’t say anything you don’t want your daughter reading.” She chuckled and continued.

Jill’s voice stumbled over the last word. The hair along her forearms prickled to attention as she reread the sentence, and then continued.

Jill fell silent as she skimmed the rest of the letter, searching for some other mention of her father’s dream. There was nothing, only a description of the book his friend had received and more romantic protestations of his undying love for “my beautiful Lorna.” Jill’s eyes were drawn back to that one short paragraph, and she read it again.

Realization penetrated her brain like a bullet. Her father had dreamed, too.

Fingers trembling, she put the first letter back inside its envelope and slid out the second. This one was much shorter. The writing covered only one side of a single page. The date at the top read March 31, four days after the previous one.

Jill’s fingers were so cold she could no longer feel the paper she grasped. The pain in her father’s words clawed at her throat and squeezed, choking the breath out of her. She leaned forward and buried her face in her hands. She didn’t want to feel the same guilt, to bear the burden her father had suffered.

When she looked up, she found her mother’s gaze fixed on her. All signs of drowsiness were gone. In its place, a spark of awareness sharpened the normally dull eyes.

“You knew.” Jill’s whisper held a touch of awe. “Yesterday when I told you about my dream, you remembered that Daddy had dreams too, didn’t you?”

“Eyuah, eyuah, eyuah.” Mom’s right hand shot upward from her lap to wave sporadically above her head. “Eyuah, aaaahhhh.”

Her nonsense shout filled the room and echoed down the hallway.

“Mom, calm down.” Jill leaped to her feet and grabbed at the wildly gesticulating hand.

“Eyuah, eyuah, aaaaahhhhh.”

The nurse ran into the room, followed by an aide in pink scrubs. “What’s going on?”

“She’s trying to tell me something.” Jill dropped to her knees in front of the wheelchair and clasped the frail hand between both of hers. “We were reading an old letter from my father, and she got excited.” She didn’t dare mention her father’s dream, or the nursing home staff would think her insane for sure. “What is it, Mom? What are you trying to say?”

Tears filled Mom’s eyes. “Eyuah, eyuah.” The unintelligible words came out in a sad whisper that twisted Jill’s heart in her chest.

“I think Lorna needs to finish her nap. That way she’ll be fresh and alert for supper. Isn’t that right, honey?”

The nurse’s high-pitched voice grated against Jill’s nerves. She ignored the woman and instead searched her mother’s face for the spark of intellect that had been there a moment before. Had she imagined it? Mom’s cloudy eyes did not focus on her, but stared off into the distance as though at something visible only to her. Her lips moved, but no sound came.

“She does usually sleep before supper,” the aide said from the doorway.

The nurse patted Mom’s shoulder. “We’ll just help her into bed and put her music back on. That always soothes her.” She spared a brief not-quite-smile for Jill. “Maybe when you come back tomorrow she’ll feel more like visiting.”

Swallowing against a painful lump in her throat, Jill nodded. She gathered her father’s letters, kissed Mom’s cheek, and got her coat from the bed.

Her tears held off until she left the nursing home.

T
HE WIND HURLED SNOW INTO
Greg’s face with the force of a BB gun during the short run from the driveway to Jill and Ruth’s front porch. Tuesday night dinners at Ruth’s table had become a tradition in the year since Jill’s accident. He twisted the knob and shoved, eager to put a barrier between him and the weather. The handle didn’t budge. Unusual, because Ruth normally left her door unlocked when she knew he was coming. He rang the bell, and when a particularly fierce gust of wind slapped with stinging force at the back of his neck, hunched his shoulders and knocked with a gloved fist.

Ruth opened the door. “Come on in. Goodness, it’s getting nasty out there.”

“Tell me about it.” A welcoming warmth enveloped him when he entered the house. He shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the stand while Ruth shut the door and twisted the deadbolt. “What’s up with the lock?”

“We’ve had some visitors this afternoon, and a few of them have gotten a little pushy.” Her lips drew a disapproving line as she bustled past him. She pointed toward the living room. “Jill’s in there. I’ll get you something hot to drink.”

“Thanks.” She disappeared into the kitchen. Just inside the living room, he stopped short. “What’s all this?”

Jill sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor, a paintbrush in her hand. Black paint splattered her jeans and the white sheet beneath her, and a smear stained one cheek. For one moment he saw nothing except the smile she turned up at him — a little sheepish, but full of the impish humor that had surfaced so rarely in the year since the accident. Warmth seeped into his heart. If she’d keep smiling at him like that, he could stand here all day.

Then he noticed the partially painted sign in front of her. Black letters on a white background proclaimed in words that slanted downhill, EVACUATE SEASIDE COVE. Completed signs leaned against the furniture and the walls, and covered much of the empty floor space. The dire warning was repeated dozens of times: Evacuate the Cove by ten o’clock in the morning on December 6.

A chill froze his spine like an ice cube down his shirt.

She rose from her position on the floor with a grimace, and favored her injured hip when she crossed the three steps to the doorway to plant a kiss on his cheek. “We’re making yard signs.”

“I see.” Safe response, though untrue. He didn’t see. Not at all.

“I know what you’re thinking.”

If she did, that would make one of them. His thoughts were a blur inside his own brain.

She pulled him into the room and led him to the couch. “You’re thinking I’m three eggs short of a dozen.” Her clear gaze held his. “I’m not crazy, Greg. And I can prove it.”

From her jeans pocket she withdrew two envelopes and handed them to him. Then, with a smile, she gave him a gentle backward push onto the couch. He obediently sat on the cushion, while she returned to the floor and her unfinished sign.

He examined the top envelope. “Letters from your father to your mother?”

She dipped her paintbrush in the can and nodded. “Read them.”

He did. At the mention of her father’s dream, the prickle of spider legs crept across the back of his neck. He glanced up at Jill, and she gave him a serene smile and nodded toward the second letter, then returned to her painting.

Ruth bustled into the room as he opened the second letter. “Here you go. My special hot cocoa, guaranteed to put the zing back in your zipper.”

“Thanks, Ruth.” He took the steaming mug from her and sipped. Delicious, as usual. Sweet and ultra-chocolaty, with a touch of vanilla and cinnamon.

Within a few words, the second letter drew his attention away from the drink. Michael King had experienced a prescient dream, very much like his daughter. The guilt lay heavy in the words Jill’s father had penned, and it slapped at him as he digested the somber message they carried.

He looked up from the letter to find Jill watching, her paintbrush poised over the sign and an anxious expression on her face. “You see now why I can’t sit by and do nothing, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t call last night
doing nothing.
Have you seen the newspaper today?” He tried to filter the frustration out of his voice, but apparently failed because she winced.

“I’ve apologized for ruining your meeting. I really am sorry.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m saying you warned people already. Don’t you think that’s enough? Why is all this necessary?” His wave took in the paint and signs.

Ruth bent over a sign in the corner, testing the paint with a finger. She straightened and looked at him. “That’s probably my
fault. The girls and I were trying to think of ways to help, and this seemed like an easy and inexpensive way to get the word out.”

“The signs are reusable,” Jill added. “When this is over, we’ll repaint them for your campaign.”

Her grin drew a reluctant answering smile from him. She looked more relaxed, more at peace, than he’d seen her in days, like she’d come to terms with whatever had been tormenting her. Wasn’t that a good thing, even though her actions weren’t … well, normal? Uneasiness kept his thoughts in turmoil as he refolded the letter and slipped it back in the envelope.

He just didn’t buy it. The idea that Jill, or anyone for that matter, could foretell a disaster was too big a stretch. And what about these letters? Evidently Jill’s father had experienced something that affected him deeply, but they knew nothing about the circumstances surrounding an accident that happened more than twenty-five years ago. Even if that proved to be a valid incident, it had no bearing on Jill’s dream. Admittedly, Greg was no expert on prophetic dreams, but the idea that the ability to predict the future could be an inherited trait seemed pretty farfetched to him. Whereas mental instability …

He thrust the thought away and set the envelopes on the end table. A thought had occurred to him during a long court session this morning.

“You say this disaster is going to happen on December 6.” He cleared his throat. “You realize what that date is, don’t you?”

Quizzical lines appeared between her eyebrows.

“It’s not only two days after the anniversary of your accident, Jill. It’s also the anniversary of the Halifax Explosion.” He spoke gently. In 1917 a tremendous explosion in Halifax Harbor crippled the city and destroyed businesses and homes. Sixteen
hundred people were killed in the worst disaster Nova Scotia had ever experienced.

Jill’s face went white. Clearly, she hadn’t remembered the date’s historical significance.

“Maybe you’ve been subconsciously aware of that,” he said softly, “and if you add to it the stress you’ve been under lately …” He lifted his shoulders.

For a moment, a struggle took place on Jill’s face. Then her expression cleared. “What about my father’s dream? It came true. You read his letters.”

Ruth crossed to the center of the room and stood beside Jill, her eyes boring into Greg’s with unvoiced disapproval.

Greg ignored her. “Maybe you knew about your father’s dream too.” Jill shook her head and opened her mouth to respond, but he held up a hand to forestall her. “Again, subconsciously. Maybe he told you about that incident when you were little, or you heard your parents discussing it. You put the two together, along with everything else you’ve been through, and came up with a dream.”

Doubt clouded her eyes, and Greg hated himself for being the cause of the return of that haunted look. But somebody had to be the voice of reason here. Obviously, that wasn’t going to be Ruth, who took her role as supportive grandmother too seriously.

Ruth planted her hands on her hips. “I never heard Michael mention the dream, or Lorna either.” The set of her jaw dared him to contradict her.

With slow movements, Jill set the brush on the open paint can lid, picked up a splattered rag, and scrubbed at a drop of paint on her wrist. “I know it’s asking a lot, Greg, but I really hoped you, of all people, would believe me.”

The disappointment in her voice pierced him like a dart. An answering stab of anger threatened. First, she commandeered his
meeting without regard to the effects of her actions on his career, and then she expected him to buy this crazy idea that she’d somehow inherited the ability to predict disasters through her dreams?

He drew in a slow breath and didn’t bother to hide his frustration. What did she want from him? Blind acceptance of this crazy idea?

He ignored Ruth’s stern glare and leaned forward, his hands on his knees, to hold Jill’s gaze with his. “Jill, you’ve been through a lot in the past year. It’s understandable that there would be some lingering …” He grappled for a word, “… effects from the accident.”

Her eyes widened. “So you think my dream is a result of post-traumatic stress from the accident?”

So she’d thought of that too. Relieved, he nodded. “It would be completely understandable, given what you went through. It’s partly my fault too. I thought our engagement would help you quit obsessing about the past and look ahead, but all I did was add more stress to your life.”

Her eyebrows inched upward. “Obsessing about the past?” Her voice held more chill than the wind that blew against the front window.

Uh-oh. Poor word choice.

In a completely uncharacteristic move, Ruth slipped out of the room without a word, leaving them alone.

Greg made an attempt to control his rising temper. “Okay, obsessing isn’t what I mean. Of course you’d be upset after losing your whole career. It’s understandable that you’d be depressed about that. All I’m saying is I was trying to help you get it out of your system and move on.”

“Get it out of my
system?”

If her eyes were flamethrowers, he’d be burnt toast. Greg leaned
back against the rear cushion as if slammed there by an invisible force. What’d he say?

Her mouth a hard line, she picked up the paintbrush, placed the lid on the can, and smacked it with such force that he jumped.

“If you think music is something I’ll
get over,
then you don’t know anything about me.”

“What?” He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just that —”

She stopped in the act of rising to her knees, paintbrush and can in one hand and the finished sign in the other. Any words he might have spoken evaporated from his brain in the face of her piercing stare.

A flame of anger flickered to life and smoldered along the edges of his thoughts. He wasn’t in the wrong here. She was putting words in his mouth.

He forced a calm, reasonable tone. “Look, you’re obviously upset. Let’s talk about this another time, when we can discuss it rationally.”

The moment the word left his mouth, he knew it was a mistake.

Her spine stiffened, and breath sucked into her lungs in a hiss. “So now I’m irrational?”

There was only one thing he could do. As his father was fond of quoting,
He who turns and runs away lives to fight another day.
A wise man knew when to retreat.

With an iron control on his own rising temper, Greg stood. “I just remembered some work I need to get done before a meeting in the morning.” The statement didn’t really feel like a lie, because they both recognized it for the lame excuse it was. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at five thirty to go to my parents’ house.”

“Fine.”

She followed him to the door and maintained a chilly silence while he donned his coat. Stepping through the door into the frigid wind was almost a relief. The door shut behind him before he could turn for a final good-bye. He heard the deadbolt click, and tried not to imagine it slid home with more force than necessary.

Hunching his shoulders against the wind, he hurried down the porch steps. He hadn’t been free for dinner on a Tuesday night in months. Tuesdays were meatloaf nights at the café. Not his favorite, but he’d rather eat meatloaf served with a generous helping of Rowena’s friendly smile than continue the verbal sparring match with Jill. Stubborn woman.

Anger buzzing in her ears, Jill twisted the deadbolt and turned to find her grandmother watching her from the kitchen doorway.

“Greg’s not staying for supper?” Nana maintained a carefully bland expression while she wiped her hands on a tea towel.

“No, he’s not.” Her voice came out louder than she intended, and she smiled a quick apology. “He remembered some work he had to do tonight.”

“I see.”

By the sympathy in the eyes that watched her, Jill knew Nana did, indeed, see what had happened. She’d probably heard their raised voices from the other room. Correction. Jill’s raised voice. Greg had maintained a trial lawyer’s composure throughout the entire encounter, which had served to inflame Jill to the point that she lost her temper.
Irrational,
he’d called her.

No, he didn’t. He said we needed to have a rational discussion. And he was right. I wasn’t acting rationally.

Time for a feelings inventory. Anger and frustration, but the overriding emotion she felt was …

Her anger evaporated like a drop of water on a hot griddle. Disappointment. She’d picked a fight with Greg because she was disappointed that he didn’t believe in her dream.

She sagged against the door, her shoulders drooping. “Oh, Nana, I wanted him to believe me.”