Wishes & Tears (12 page)

Faith took the photograph. Her eyes focused on it in total disbelief. It was a family portrait of the Forresters posed in front of 92 Sacramento Street. The husband was standing tall in his suit and bowler hat, the wife in a simple shirtwaist with a plumed hat perched on her head. Two young children stood in front of them. The little boy was a duplicate of his father. The little girl with the curly locks was barely out of diapers. Faith yearned to scream but put her knuckles in her mouth to suppress the urge.

“Your grandparents, huh?” Harry asked. “You’re the spitting image of your grandmother.”

Faith stared, eyes transfixed on the photograph. There was no denying it. The woman in the photograph was she. She was Mrs. Ian Forrester. She was the one Doctor Forrester held about the waist. Andrew was holding hands with his sister, her child. She had a child, the little girl she dreamed of and thought she’d never meet. The house was their house. Faith began to shake so badly she could hardly stay in her seat.

“Is something wrong?” Harry asked, concern wrinkling his brow.

“I … I’ll be fine. I’m just shocked, that’s all,” Faith mumbled.

“It’s against policy but I’ll go get you some water anyway. I won’t have you fainting on me.” Harry said.

When he left, Faith stashed the family photograph in her deep jacket pocket, covering it with a tissue. So Harry wouldn’t notice, she neatly rearranged his file of archival information and photographs.

She drew a deep breath and opened her notebook. She had enough information to continue her search if she so desired. There were burial plot numbers, names and addresses. After what she learned, she wondered if further research was necessary. There was no doubt in her mind. She had, indeed, traveled back through time. With her discovery came more confusion. If her destiny was back in the San Francisco of 1906, what was she doing in the San Francisco of 2006?

“Sure does look like you,” Clarice said, comparing the woman in the photograph to Faith, seated at her side in her car.

“It is me.”

“This is strange. I never would’ve believed you if I hadn’t seen this, the writing on the back, and the photocopy of the obituary.” Clarice shook her head.

“Well, do you believe me now?” Faith asked with a grin.

“It doesn’t seem possible. The resemblance, though, is remarkable. The name is more than coincidental. The little girl even has my name.” Her eyes met Faith’s, bewildered and puzzled.

“That’s why I want you to go with me to the cemetery today.”

“You know how I don’t like cemeteries.” Clarice tapped the steering wheel with her long airbrushed nails.

“Look on the bright side, you aren’t being buried there.” Faith chuckled.

Clarice rolled her eyes and laughed. “I’ll tell you, this has to be the strangest stuff I’ve ever heard of or seen. Now tell me, what are you gonna do when you see your name on the headstone? Have the body dug up?”

• • •

At the cemetery, they hiked over grassy knolls on a mission. Faith perused a plot map she obtained from the cemetery’s office. She and Clarice stepped over the modern, flat headstones, avoiding the old projecting ones in search of the Forrester family plot.

“Let’s see, Row 2, Section 5,” Faith said.

“After this, I think I’m gonna ask to be cremated,” Clarice said, drawing her trench coat closed tight against her chest.

The breeze was kicking up and a misty chill filled the morning air. Fitting weather for a stroll through a deserted cemetery. Weekday mornings, between holidays, were quiet except for the occasional parade of limousines, hearses, and mourners.

“Aha!” Faith squealed upon sighting a granite monument of an angel with spread wings protecting the plot beneath. The inscription at the base was engraved FORRESTER.

Clarice moved to Faith’s side. Faith pointed to the row of headstones and became somber, her bottom lip trembling as she read the names.

“Ian Andrew Forrester,” Faith said. “He was eighty when he died.”

Clarice set her hand on Faith’s shoulder.

“Faith Donahue Forrester,” Faith read, feeling nauseous. “She was seventy-five and died shortly after the doctor.”

“Of a broken heart?”

Faith looked up, tears swelling in her eyes. “Clarice, I’m going to die at age seventy-five.”

Clarice scoffed. “This is ridiculous. How do you know? That Faith died years ago. You’re alive now, standing here with me.”

“But, if I go back in time I’ll live until age seventy-five. Can’t you see?”

“This isn’t making sense. Pretty soon I’ll be losing it.” Clarice turned away.

Faith reached out and grasped her by the shoulders. “Please, Clarice, I had to let you know about this. Someone has to know. When I vanish next time you’ll know where I am and know that I’m safe and leading a long life.”

Clarice spun around to face her. “You plan on disappearing again?”

“I don’t know how or when. The obituary, the photograph, the headstone all seem to say that my destiny is back in 1906.”

“It seems to say. Isn’t there anyone who’s alive who can settle this once and for all? You’re relying on a bunch of old papers and stuff.”

“Well.” Faith turned toward the row of weathered headstones. “Our daughter died just fifteen years ago. If only I could have known her as a grown woman.”

Faith drew a deep breath of misty air, feeling sickened by all the death and grieving, all of the morbid thoughts filling her confused mind.

“Wait, there isn’t a headstone for Andrew. I wonder what happened to Andrew.”

Clarice grabbed her arm. “Oh, please. Let’s get out of here. This situation is getting creepier by the minute.”

• • •

Harry at the library had dug up information on another survivor. Andrew Forrester was still alive. Though partially deaf and blind, he had lived independently until about ten years ago when a hip fracture sent him to the nursing home.

Hospitality Home was nestled in the suburban environment of commercial businesses and restaurants outside of Oakland. Surrounded by the living, the home was inhabited by those closer to dying. Faith viewed nursing homes as a sort of purgatory for those hovering between life and death. Though Hospitality Home was lovely and well-managed and neither reeked of urine nor had patients strapped in wheelchairs, the mood was still depressing.

Faith strolled past rooms of patients lying in near vegetative states, those whose bodies were gone but memories were alive, and those with neither body nor memory. The home’s supervisor had been hesitant in letting Faith visit. She wasn’t a relative of a patient but because of Andrew’s advanced age and alert mind, she felt no harm could be done. Faith said she was an old friend. How could she explain that she was his step-mother? The elderly needed all the friends they could get.

A nurse led Faith down the shiny, checkered-tile corridor, Faith’s heels the only sound in the empty hall. The nurse pointed to a room with a half-open door and smiled.

Faith could see a figure slumped in a wheelchair, his form silhouetted against the bright sunlight streaming through the window. As the nurse rapped on the door, the figure sat up, startled, his head turning to face the door. A chill ran up her spine as Faith gazed at the elderly man who was really her stepson, as preposterous as it now seemed. She had left him as a sweet young boy with a blanket and stuffed bear.

“Doctor Forrester, you have a visitor,” the nurse announced.

Doctor? Andrew had apparently followed in his father’s footsteps. A lump formed in her throat.

As Faith entered the room, the elderly man squinted to get a closer look. Though the hair was cottony white, the face parched and wrinkled, the eyes still sparkled with mischief. Faith’s gaze locked on to his, tears forming in the corner of her eyes.

“Mom? You look like my mother,” he said in an aged, raspy voice.

“Andrew, you remember me?” Faith asked, a trembling smile on her lips.

“Faith … Faith.” Andrew reached up his frail arms.

The nurse pushed a wooden chair next to the wheelchair and motioned for Faith to sit. The nurse nodded and left the room. Faith grabbed Andrew’s withered hand and held it clasped in hers. She closed her eyes for a moment to regain her composure as the emotions of lost time swelled within her. The warmth of his hand felt comforting and reassuring. Andrew was real and alive.

“I … I always believed you. Now I know, now I know. After all these years I finally know.” Andrew stared at her. “Look at you, as pretty as when we met, and how long has it been?”

“You know?”

“Oh, yes. I knew there was something special about you when you vanished in front of Dad and me after the earthquake. I later found your things that Dad and you had hidden away. The family secret.”

Faith squeezed his hand. “It’s so good to see you. Now I know for sure that all of it was real. I’m not crazy. I did go back in time.”

“And you must go back again. You must,” Andrew urged, a fire of determination glowing in her eyes.

“Andrew, there’s so much I don’t understand.” Releasing his hand, Faith reached in her pocket and pulled out the yellowed family photograph. She showed it to him.

He eyed the portrait, a smile radiating from his face. “Our loving family.”

“Is it me? Am I really the woman married to Ian Forrester?”

He nodded. “Yes, of course, that’s why you must return.”

“I don’t understand why your father would marry me. He was in love with Miss LaDue?”

“Miss La Doo-doo,” Andrew snickered. “You have to go back so that he doesn’t marry her. I always hated her. In time, you and the Dad will discover that only by being together will you find the happiness you both so desperately seek.” He returned the photo to Faith.

Faith looked at the photograph. “I find it all so difficult to comprehend.”

“Just go back and you will see how love can transcend time itself.”

“How?”

“What fun would life be if we knew all the answers?”

With age came wisdom. Faith reached out and hugged the frail man, feeling more bones than flesh. Releasing him, Faith looked into Andrew’s eyes. “Has life been good to you?”

“I’ve lived this long, haven’t I?”

Faith smiled. “I’m glad that you have.”

“Married once myself and fathered some wonderful children. I’m not telling you about them or my wife now. You’ll just have to go back and find out for yourself.” He winked.

“Andrew, you were a sinister little boy and now a sinister man.”

He laughed. “Think I’d change?”

Faith shook her head.

“Will you promise me something?” Andrew’s tone became low and serious.

“What?”

“When you go back, don’t tell me my future. I want to live life day by day. Please promise me.”

“I promise.” Faith took his hand and squeezed it.

“I’m getting old and tired. I can’t go back. Wouldn’t want to. Lived long enough already.” He sighed. “So glad to see your face. I can now die in peace knowing what I believed all along was true.”

“Don’t talk about dying. We’ve just been reunited.”

“No, we’ll be reunited when you go back. You will go back. You must. My life depends on it.”

“Faith, Faith!” his voice rang out amidst the whirlpool of people gathered in Lafayette Park. Attired in various stages of dress and undress the men, women, and children were reaching up to him. Faces contorted with anguish were begging for help. Fingers grasped at his tweed suit, clawing at the fabric.

“Come back, Faith! I need you!” Doctor Forrester cried out, eyes darting through the crowd in search of one who could not be found.

A dense fog crept up from beneath his feet, enveloping his legs, his chest, his neck, until his face vanished within its thickness. The crowd disappeared with him.

Out of the fog came a whimper, “Miss Donahue, where are you? I miss you! I miss you!”

Andrew’s tearful voice choked out the words, his face unseen, hidden in the murky fog. The fog turned from gray to black until there was nothing left but darkness and the echo of voices, far away voices.

The voices shattered the stillness of the night. Faith jumped up in her bed, shaking. Her nightgown was damp with cold perspiration. She had the urge to answer the distant voices, to call and assure them. The silence of her bedroom made her realize that it was just a strange dream. If not for the library research, the visit to the cemetery, and the conversation with Andrew, she would have thought herself crazy. She reached over to flip on the bedside lamp. In the light, she saw the framed photograph of the family who stood lovingly close. She touched her finger to the woman who was the spitting image of herself and to the man who had his arm about her waist, Dr. and Mrs. Ian Forrester.

“How can I come back to you when I’m a hundred years in the future? I don’t know how,” she wondered aloud, haunted by the photograph and the memories.

She lay back against her pillows, holding the framed photograph in front of her. How do I go back? The idea of returning to 1906 seemed impossible. She shook her head, hoping that the thought would somehow fall away like cobwebs being brushed aside. Instead, the desire to go back grew stronger in her mind.

She could envision herself in the San Francisco of 1906 building a new life out of the rubble of her old life. Whether she was in 1906 or 2006, she would be starting over. Her marriage was over. Years of mistakes, misconceptions, of assumptions, and broken dreams could not be relived. The San Francisco of 2006 held no real future for her, only reminders of what was and what could have been.

“Just go back and you will see how love can transcend time itself.” Andrew’s words rang in her mind.

Love? She sighed. After all the hell Brad put her through, how could she ever trust a man again? How could she ever love again? She couldn’t allow herself to become that vulnerable again. The sickness called love was something she needed to avoid.

As she looked at the photograph, the image smiling back at her made her tingle. Serene contentment radiated from her face. The glowing eyes, the secure, comfortable stance. Doctor Forrester’s hand grasped her waist as they stood intimately close. His eyes beamed at the camera, his happiness evident in his tilted head and confident pose. Little Andrew held the hand of a little girl, a duplicate of Faith herself. A little girl. Faith had always dreamed of having a little girl. As she had grown older, she had given up the hope of ever having a child. In going back, she would have the opportunity to have the family she had so longed for.