My eyes started to glass over, and he pulled me in for another hug. “Here we go again. You’re always trying to help everyone else. Even I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. And you wouldn’t know the truth if you hadn’t been ready to jump off a bridge for a stranger. I still don’t think it’s a good idea, but if you feel she’s really going to do it, and you want to help her, then I’ll understand.”
He looked completely doubtful, but I appreciated his support more than he would ever know. I just hoped it was the right decision if it came down to it.
Chapter 4
SACRIFICES
After our discussion, Wes ordered Chinese food, and I went to the guest room to see how Dawn was doing. She was on the bed, lying on her back, completely still. I would’ve thought she were sleeping had I not walked over to find her eyes open.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” she responded, still looking at the ceiling.
I sat down next to her and curled my feet under me.
“So, what did Jackson say this time? It looked like he was being a jerk.”
She let out a huff. “Yeah. I’d say so.”
“Same old, same old?”
“Yup.”
We were quiet for a moment. “I would’ve gone over there too, you know. You did the right thing.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a little late for the right thing.”
“No, it’s not. Not really.”
She finally turned her head in my direction. “What do you mean?”
“Well, Jackson is wrong, and you shouldn’t let his reaction determine what you’re going to do.”
She shook her head. “Sophie. It’s really not about him. I don’t want a baby either. My mom and dad will flip if they find out. And I never pictured myself playing house. But somewhere inside, I just wanted Jackson to care. To show support, you know? Not act like a selfish jerk.”
“But you said yourself, you can’t imagine—”
“What I meant was that I can’t take care of a baby. My family already has enough issues. It would only make things worse for everyone, including the baby. Can you imagine me carrying it around the bookstore? Really, Sophie? And where would we live?”
There was so much I wanted to say to reassure her, but I was the last person to know about assurances. Besides, we would have gone back and forth about them. Dawn was more stubborn than me, so I needed to pull out some real artillery.
“Dawn. Remember when I got stabbed with that needle last year?”
“Yeah?” Her eyes narrowed in confusion.
“Well, I never told you that the needle was carrying HIV.”
She lifted her head a few inches off the pillow. “What?”
“I became infected.”
“Sophie. You never said anything,” she whispered.
“I know. It was because Wes’ lab conducted an experimental cure on me. It was confidential, and it worked, but—”
“It worked?” She pressed, now sitting up completely.
“It worked, but now I’m having side effects from the medicine.”
Our eyes locked, and hers were full of shock and concern. Suddenly, Dawn’s focus was directed at something else besides her dilemma, and that’s when I realized that she might not need to know the whole secret to understand.
“What kind of side effects?”
“So far, just nosebleeds.”
Her mouth fell open. “Why didn't you say anything all this time?”
I shrugged. “I guess for the same reason you didn’t.”
“Wow. Some friendship, huh?” I chuckled. “So why tell me now?”
“Because, Dawn. I want you to see what’s important. Don’t you get it? I could die.”
“Don’t say that, Sophie.”
“No, I mean it. It’s the truth. And it could be soon.”
She slid herself away from me, like she was afraid. “Stop saying that.”
“Dawn. I’m not trying to scare you. I’m just trying to show you that there are much worse things in life than having a baby.”
“Sophie, I can’t even believe what you’re telling me right now. Do you hear yourself?”
“Unfortunately.”
She opened her mouth and closed it several times, like there were a million thoughts floating through her head and she didn’t know which one to focus on.
“Look,” I said. “I can’t even begin to imagine how you’re feeling, but I know that life is a gift. No matter what. And if the worst thing that happens to you and Jackson right now is having a child a few years too soon, then I think you’re lucky. And that’s the truth. There are much worse conditions that your mom and dad could have to accept about you, so don’t worry.”
“I’m seventeen.”
“You’ll be eighteen in May.”
“I can’t take care of myself. I’m needy. I’m spoiled. I’m dependent on my parents.”
“Well, that sounds pretty much like that baby of yours.” I looked down at her stomach. “You guys already have things in common.”
She glanced down at her lap. When she looked back to me, there was a different, softer look in her eyes. Then she sighed. “Sophie, are you messing with me?”
“What do you mean?”
“About your illness?”
“No, I’m not. I mean, I don’t know if anything is wrong for sure. We’ll find out tomorrow, but I feel it. You know?”
“Damn it, Sophie. You’re not making this easy for me.” She studied my stoic expression before standing up. “I gotta pee.”
When she left, I felt myself breathe a little easier. It was by far one of the most tense and important moments of my life. She’d choose one way or another, and at that point I’d feel like a failure if she didn’t see the possibilities I hoped for.
Just as she came back into the room, the bell rang from downstairs. Her face tensed until I told her it was the food delivery. To my surprise, she sighed with relief. “I’m starving.” And as if turning over a new leaf, she raised her shoulders up and pulled me downstairs toward the source of the aroma.
I expected her to eat with Wes and me, but she asked if we’d mind if she ate in the guest room.
“Not at all,” I replied, more concerned than hurt.
My expression must have given me away, because she stopped a moment and gave us a soft smile. “I’m good, guys. Really. I just want to think this through.”
Wes and I ate, and he was obviously relieved that Dawn didn’t know everything. I was too. That would have been way too much for her to reconcile with, considering her ordeal. So I felt a little bit more at ease, and made it a point to enjoy my dinner and the time with Wes. The relief was enough for me to fall asleep a whole lot easier that night, though staying that way was a whole other matter.
Sometime during the night, I was awakened by the bed jostling. Startled, I turned over to find Wes tossing and turning. “No!” he mumbled loudly, bolting into a sitting position.
I sat up too. “What is it? A bad dream?”
He looked at me, still breathing heavily. “Um…yeah.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good.” He patted my knee. “Sorry. Go back to sleep.”
I ignored his prompt and flipped on the small lamp. “What was it about?”
“Nothing.”
“So you’re going to be a hypocrite right now?”
He turned his head in my direction, his eyes still adjusting to the light. “What?”
“You get upset when I keep something from you, yet you’re doing the same thing.”
“No, I’m not.”
I raised my brow. “Then tell me what it was about.”
He stared at me for a long moment. “You don’t want to know.”
“Seriously?” I tilted my head to the side, and he eyed me.
Turning his body toward me, he sighed in submission. “I had a dream about us.”
“And?”
“And…your house was on fire.”
“You
mean our house?”
“No, we weren’t living together. It was different.”
Yikes. I placed my hand on his back. “What a strange dream. At least that’s all it was. Right?”
He shook his head. “No, I think it was a memory.”
Now he had my full attention. “Why?”
“Because it was from the past.”
“I don’t remember that happening.”
“Because I think it was before my transfusion. It looked like it was during the Revolutionary War.”
“What? The war? How do you know?”
He paused a long moment and looked at me. “I was wearing a red coat and my regiment was the one that burned your house.”
Chapter 5
THE FIRST DREAM
We both sat quietly for a moment, reflecting on his words. I should have been used to Wes’ flashbacks by now, but this one caught me off guard. I asked him whether he remembered anything else. He told me he'd been trying to fish out memories of a possible life before Amelia and Wes ever since he’d started to think there was such a past.
He said he’d only had a couple of other dreams, but that this one had been the most vivid. He expressed frustration with having a hard time deciphering his thoughts, because he had so many memories already. One hundred years’ worth of true memories made it nearly impossible to separate fact from fiction when it came to a dream. He reached across me, turned out the light, and rolled over. If he saw anything else, he wasn’t sharing.
The following morning, he dressed quickly and holed himself up in the study. Dawn and I moved about much more leisurely. By ten, we were eating cereal, still in our sweats. My plan was to let her lead the conversation and feed off of her, hoping she was in a positive state of mind.
It was awkward, but after a few minutes of crunching, she spoke first.
“Are you afraid?” she asked.
The question took me by surprise, and I had to think about it for a moment. That’s when I knew the answer was no. I shook my head.
“You’re not?” she asked incredulously.
“No.” I shrugged. “I mean, I’ve cried, gotten angry, moped. You name it, I’ve felt it. But, now I’m just trying to focus on the positives: my family, Wes. And he’s working on a cure, so—”
“So that’s it? No worries.”
“I guess I’m just trying to look at the bright side. That’s all we can do, right?”
She smiled and looked down. “Thanks.”
I didn’t know whether a “you’re welcome” was in order, so I paused.
“Thanks for making me focus on what’s important,” she added.
I smiled. “You’re welcome.”
“Well,” she said, standing. “I gotta go.”
“Where?” I asked, a little too quickly.
“My house. I’m going to tell my parents while I still have the nerve.”
“I think that’s a good idea.”
We gave each other a hug and she was on her way. No sooner had the door closed than Wes swept me over to the lab.
Everything I’d hoped to avoid was happening before my eyes. Plus more.
My weight and vital signs were checked, and about six vials of blood were taken. Wes tried to entertain me by playing me in various phone apps while we waited, but I just wanted to go home. There’s nothing pleasant about spending extended periods of time in any medical room.
Finally, after three hours, Dr. Carter came in with the news. I had some antibody called U1-RNP present. At the mention of it, Wes turned around and faced the window.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Dr. Carter patted my shoulder. “Well, it’s not certain yet. I’ll know more when further results come back, but for now, it indicates that your immune system is attacking itself. We may have a connective tissue disorder developing. It’s good we caught it now.”
I was having trouble concentrating, with just one thing on my mind.
“Could I die from it?”
At that point, Wes turned around. “No,” he answered sharply.
I looked at Dr. Carter for confirmation. “It’s too early to tell, but we’ll start you on steroids and anti-inflammatory drugs, and we’ll monitor you frequently.”
Wes didn’t look happy, but he did his best to hide it. He offered me reassuring smiles that didn’t touch his worried eyes, but what could I do? You just go with it, and that’s what we did. Dr. Carter wrote my prescriptions, and we left, grabbed a bite to eat, and went home.
Other than taking regular medication in the following weeks, and Wes hovering whenever he could, most of the action was happening at the bookstore. Dawn did follow through and tell her parents, so Mr. Healey walked around like a zombie for a few days. Then he redirected his displeasure from Dawn to Jackson. Once he thought it through, he was not only angry that Jackson had been so irresponsible, but that he'd left Dawn feeling high and dry. To make sure he wasn’t going to get off scot-free, Mr. Healey called Jackson’s parents.
At that point, Dawn was indifferent to Jackson and said she could care less if his mom and dad flipped. She seemed more focused, and, though still scared to death, she felt ready to grow up and be responsible for once.
When it came to me, I coped as well as I could until the meds Dr. Carter prescribed started making me tired. I worked and went about my days as usual, but whenever I was home, I slept more than I ever had before. My body called for it badly. So badly that sleep became boring. So boring that I decided to try my hardest to have dreams. The kind of dreams that would hopefully be memories, like Wes said he was having.
I'd had flashbacks before, about Lenny’s accident and about Amelia helping Wes during his transfusion, so now I just hoped to have more.
The new dreams started on a night when Wes was late at the lab, and I knew he was up to something. And I was pretty certain it had to do with him wanting Dr. Carter to transform him back to “normal.” He insisted that he believed it would set our destinies back on track.
His long absences made my mind spin. He had to be working on something serious. So lying down, I decided to focus on his idea that we knew each other many lifetimes ago. Because if we did, then maybe he was right, and just maybe I wouldn’t be so worried about what he was planning.
To help jostle the possibly suppressed memories from another life, I thought of Wes’ dream about the fire. I focused on the details, knowing that if they really were in Wes’ subconscious somewhere, then they had to be in mine too.
I started with what he'd said about being a redcoat, and about the house burning. I tried picturing him in uniform, with an army. I engraved that image in my brain and kept it there until I could no longer keep my eyes open, and that’s when I slowly slipped into a deep sleep. At first it was dreamless, but then I found myself helping my mother prepare dinner. Only she wasn’t my real-life mother, but someone else entirely; yet somehow I still knew her to be my mother.
Her dark hair was tied up in a bun that was starting to loosen as she bent over the wooden table, kneading something.
“Phoebe?” she called, her voice soft and inviting, but also authoritative. “Can you fetch me a bucket of clean water from the spring, please?”
“Yes Mother,” I found myself saying. Part of me wanted to protest, to ask what was going on, and how she was my mother, and why I was answering to Phoebe, but my body willed itself to move obediently. Before I knew it, I’d grabbed the pail and my shawl and headed outside.
“Phoebe?” my mother called, stopping me short. “Take your father’s gun with you.” For the first time, I felt myself tense, knowing something was not right. “I just have a bad feeling,” she explained. “The war is getting too close for my liking.”
At first I wanted to question, “What war?” But then, I knew. Phoebe's memories somehow became my own. Without hesitating any further, I walked over to my father’s cabinet and pulled down a gun. Strangely, I knew easily how to work it. I checked it for bullets and, when satisfied, I headed d
own to the spring for fresh water. It was about a quarter-mile walk along a dirt pass. A few horsemen trotted by, but it seemed serene and quiet.
I would’ve liked to use the time to wrestle with my understanding of whether this was a dream or a memory, but my thoughts were overtaken by other faces. As I walked, images of a young, dark-haired boy and man crossed my mind, and I remembered they were out gathering firewood. They were my family too, and thoughts of them made me smile.
I felt calm until I approached the spring, and then excitement took over.
A girl my age, with long red hair, was already dipping her pail into the water. She squealed when she saw me. “Phoebe! Where have you been?”
I was surprised to realize that I knew her name.
“Charity? You’re better?”
“Yes. All better. The dreadful cough is gone, and I’m free. Free as a bird. This is the first time Mama has let me out of that awful, dull house!”
She hugged me tightly. “I missed you,” I whispered in her ear.
“Me, too! I can’t wait to come visit you soon. I’ll be by later. She’s already put me to work. But I’m not complaining this time.”
We smiled and filled our pails. On our way back, we passed a few other friends, including two lads who bumped into us on purpose, causing water to splash on our shoes.
“Watch it!” Charity barked.
“What are you going to do?” The taller, lanky one shouted. Something told me I knew his name once, but I couldn’t quite recall it.
“I’ll sic my brother on you if you keep it up,” Charity warned.
Both boys laughed and went on their way. It was then that I remembered how close a friend Charity was. We'd spent all our free time together, running the hills and navigating the forest. In those times together, I'd known her to be like me. Restless. We knew there was a big world out there, and we wanted to be a part of it while we still could. To see what the world held. And those rambunctious lads were of no interest to us.
When we got to where Charity would normally turn off, she suggested we follow the path up the hill between our houses. That way we could walk together longer, and when we reached a certain point, she would walk down one side and me the other, to go our separate ways.