Pilgrimage (The New World) (15 page)

When Ross and Jessica entered the room to conclude the visitation, Robert asked if he could see them both for a longer visit after everyone else had returned home. He had something that was very important to share with them, and he didn’t want anyone else to possibly interrupt. They agreed to his conditions, but were somewhat puzzled by the request.

Within an hour, all except Ross and Jessica were on their way back to nearby Rumley. The group of women had decided to try and make the most of a bad situation by throwing together a Thanksgiving meal at Elizabeth’s house, but Robert’s condition would have an impact on when, or if, the gathering would take place.

The doctors boosted the medication for Robert to keep him alert, posted a reliable sentry outside his door to prevent a disturbance, and informed Ross to let them know when he and Jessica had completed their private meeting with their father. With the room to themselves for however long was necessary, Ross and Jessica pulled up two chairs close to the bed to hear whatever Robert had to say. Jessica then removed a legal pad of paper from her backpack to take down any pertinent notes, and the session began.

In typical fashion for someone on their death bed, Robert listed all the things he had done incorrectly during his life, and what he would change if given the opportunity. He continued by adding how proud he was of both of them for their accomplishments, and how he intended to pass along the house and the few worldly possessions he owned to them and his grandchildren. At the conclusion of all the rhetoric that in no way needed a sentry outside the door for absolute privacy, the point of it all became clear when Robert began to tell Ross and Jessica the story of their mother Janet.

ROBERT BEGAN BY
asking Jessica to hand him the framed photograph from the bedside table. Both she and Ross knew the old black and white photograph well, as it had been at their father’s bedside since they were children. It was snapped only a few weeks before the accident that had taken Janet from them all, and it showed the four of them sitting together on the front porch steps with smiling faces. Not sure how much, if anything at all, that Jessica had remembered about her mother, Robert told the story of how he and Janet had met.

The year was 1947, and the place was the small town of Roswell in the southeastern New Mexico desert. Janet was a nurse stationed at the Air Force base hospital, while Robert had been flown in from his nearby posting at Fort Bliss. He had been assigned as part of a crew that was tasked with cleaning up debris from a rather unusual situation. A craft of unknown origin had crashed on a ranch just outside of town, and keeping said crash a secret from the public was imperative during the early days of what would become a decade’s long cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union.

During the first few days following the crash, Robert had the chance to meet Janet when he and his crew visited the base hospital for routine checkups. There had been some fear that the group of officers and enlisted men under Robert’s command may have been exposed to radiation during the cleanup process, and Janet was a member of the medical team that administered the necessary tests and treatment. Janet was not at all disturbed by that course of action, or the need for it, as she had been a firsthand witness to some of the contents that had been removed from the crash site. She had caught a few brief glimpses of the bodies that had piloted the craft, and it seemed highly unlikely they were of Earthly origin.

Although both Robert and Janet had been sworn to secrecy about what they had seen or heard during the course of the investigation, they knew they could speak of the event privately between themselves. The magnitude of the discovery made it necessary to discuss it with someone, so they used the opportunity to get to know each other a little better. Their relationship continued to develop, and a little over a year after their first meeting they were married.

Everything was perfect in their lives. Bolstered by his stellar actions during World War II, Robert was enjoying a fast rise in the military ranks. He had enlisted shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, and before the wars end had been accepted into OCS, or Officers Candidate School. Once a commissioned officer, Robert continued to shine and had been promoted from Second Lieutenant to First Lieutenant before meeting Janet in 1947. His seemingly meteoric rise continued as he was promoted once again to Captain before Ross was born in July of 1950, and attained the rank of Major, like his father, before Jessica had come along in January of 1955. Due in part to her college education and training as a nurse, Janet had been commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Air Force and had been promoted once to First Lieutenant before resigning to raise the children.

Both Ross and Jessica had heard the story of how their parents had met a few times over the years, but they had not known about the supposed alien spacecraft, or the visual account their mother had of the occupants. Robert informed them that both he and Janet would have been charged with, and most definitely found guilty of, treason against the United States had they ever spoken of what had taken place at Roswell. None of that mattered anymore though, as Janet was gone and Robert had only days or hours to live. The government couldn’t hurt him anymore, but he cautioned Ross and Jessica to keep that information, and what was to come, from the outside world or they would probably face consequences that could hinder their careers and freedom.

Jessica informed Robert that she had a few fragmented memories of her mother, but had obviously remembered Grandpa Hank much more clearly. That was only natural as Janet had died in the automobile accident when Jessica was only two years old, while Grandpa Hank had been a major influence during the next four years of her life before his death. Ross chimed in by adding that he remembered several events with their mother, and had helped Jessica fill in the blanks whenever she had asked about her.

Robert smiled at the thought of those wonderful years when the four of them had enjoyed a good home life, and family picnics whenever possible. It was then that he asked his two children if they remembered the white station wagon with a thick red stripe on each side. It was the vehicle that Janet had frequently used for errands and such around town, and she took the children with her from time to time. Ross nodded with a positive response to the question, but was saddened at the memory of that being the car she was also killed in. He had never seen the wreckage of the car, but had always assumed his father had kept them away from it to lessen their pain. Robert then informed Ross and Jessica that the reason they had never seen the car again was because it had been taken away.

On what had been a rare opportunity for a summer overnight getaway without the children, Robert and Janet had arranged for the kids to stay with a family in town so they could enjoy a quiet celebration of ten years together. They had driven about twenty miles from home to a secluded location that had become one of their favorite spots throughout the years, and Robert parked the station wagon about one-hundred yards from where they would set up camp. From that spot they would have a nice view of a stand of old growth trees near the bend in a small creek that was an additional one-hundred yards away, and Janet felt strongly that it was possible Jessica had been conceived at that location.

Jessica blushed at hearing that news from her father and thanked him for telling her as she clasped his hand, but he was not yet finished with the story.

Robert continued by informing his children that it had been a beautiful afternoon, and the crystal clear night sky had provided the opportunity for some fantastic star gazing. He and Janet were enjoying a feeling of total freedom, and it had been wonderful to make love spontaneously a few times by the campfire without the risk of the children either hearing them or bursting into their bedroom unannounced.

To that comment Ross felt embarrassed, as he suddenly realized he had probably been guilty of that action a few times without knowing it when he was a small boy. He also felt he remembered the place that his father was speaking of, as he had probably been there with them a few times in his youth.

At some point during the course of the night Janet felt a chill and returned to the station wagon to retrieve some additional blankets, while Robert headed down towards the creek to get some water for the coffee pot. While he was there he moved behind one of the trees to relieve himself, and he never saw Janet again. With no warning of any kind, or sense of impending doom in the air, a huge cone shaped bright light suddenly appeared over the car and began to lift it skyward.

From his position near the creek roughly two-hundred yards away, Robert had no chance at all to prevent his wife’s abduction. Janet and the red and white striped station wagon were taken upward very quickly, and by the time he covered the distance to its previous parking spot on the old dirt road it was at least twenty feet into the air. Robert yelled for Janet to jump out, but it was to no avail as she was somehow paralyzed by the light source. He could hear her desperately screaming for help as the car floated higher and higher, and he felt completely powerless as there was nothing he could do.

A few seconds later the source of the intensely bright lights swallowed up the car and headed for the stars overhead. Robert ran down the dirt road in hopeless pursuit for a few seconds, and watched intently as the craft disappeared into the night sky. Just like that his soul mate was gone. He stood alone in the darkness until the stars all faded from view with the coming sunrise.

ROSS AND JESSICA
sat at the edge of their chairs as their father finished the story. They had some questions, and he had answers for all of them. Robert told them, “I have never fully believed that my wife is dead, she has just been missing for all these years.” Jessica was angry because she felt her father, and everyone else, had lied to her about her mother’s death for all those years, but her father quickly cut her off by asking her, “Have you ever heard me refer to Janet as dead?” Ross chimed in “Dad always said that mom was taken away from us. Oh my God, that explains so much!” Both he and Jessica had always just assumed that was how their father classified death.