Now and Then

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgement

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Epilogue

It cannot be touched, tasted,

smelled, seen, nor, heard.

It is measured, yet has no substance.

It flies but does not move.

It controls the movements of everyone

on earth, yet it exists only as a concept.

It is honored in poetry and song,

and is both loved and hated.

Children long for it, youth scoffs at it,

old age despises it, but all believe in it.

Who can say that there really

is any such thing as time?

Dedication

For my friend Nanette who understands the boundless and timeless nature of love, and knows that no one is ever really lost.

Acknowledgement

I want to thank my friends David Anderson and Merrellyn Stark for their invaluable advice, and help in editing. I would also like to say thank you to my family and friends who listened to me during the process of writing this, my first novel.

Chapter One

Abby was both excited and apprehensive. She had planned this trip for days and was ready to get started. It was only a three hour drive to her hometown of Dawson and it was always fun to go home to see her family, but this time she wasn’t going for fun. Her brother, Timothy, was shipping out for Vietnam next week and she was going down to see him before he left. She could not quell the anxiety that caused her stomach to feel a little queasy. The weather wasn’t exactly cooperating either, but she was hoping for the best. Now that she was on the road she wondered if she should have listened to her friend, Janna, and just stayed home.

She gripped the steering wheel peering through the curtain of snow that seemed to part only slightly as the beams from her headlights probed the white night. The trees on each side of the state road bowed beneath a heavy blanket of snow, and the surface of the road had long since disappeared. Flurries, the weatherman had said before she started out this afternoon, but the storm that swirled around her was more of a blizzard than a flurry.

Don’t go, Janna had begged her. Wait until next weekend. The long range forecast says it is supposed to be cold then, but sunny.

I can’t, she had argued. Timothy is only going to be home this weekend. He leaves for Vietnam on Wednesday and I promised Aunt Ellen I would go down this weekend to say goodbye. You know that Timothy and I have always been close, and besides, Aunt Ellen needs all the support she can get right now. I think Baby Grace will be a big help to all of us. Aunt Ellen loves her so, and I think Grace will help take our minds off the fact that Timothy is going to be over there for a year.

Janna watched as Abby slipped a thin volume of seventeenth century poetry into the diaper bag. A very old volume, she kept it in an acid free envelope, but couldn’t resist taking it out carefully on rare occasions to read the inscription inside the front cover. Written in an old fashioned script were words that were her only link to a mother she had never known. The message someone had written a long, long time ago said:

Love knows no boundaries. Neither time nor space can contain it.

Now why are you taking that? Janna asked her. You are only going away for the weekend.

Abby shrugged. I don’t know. I just feel like taking it with me, she said as she lightly ran her fingers over the cover.

Gathering her purse and diaper bag, she reached for Grace, but Janna held on laughing. If you insist on going, then I am going to carry this bundle of joy to the car for you. You can carry the bags.

She backed her old VW Bug out of the driveway, and waved as Janna ran to her own car to head for home. Janna was her dearest friend. Their relationship did not change after she and her husband, Jeffery, were married. Jeffery too, was a very good friend, and Abby thought the two of them were fortunate to have found each other. When Abby had broken off her relationship with Jeffery’s best friend, Luke, neither Janna nor Jeffery had been angry with her. They reluctantly accepted her decision, not understanding, but loving her just the same. Luke had been hurt and angry, but they did not take sides. The strange set of circumstances, for which she gave little explanation, would have chilled, if not killed, most friendships, but Janna and Jeffery had remained supportive in spite of everything. They never expressed disapproval and did not judge her, and they could have, Abby thought, they had every right to.

Abby and Janna had been friends since they were roommates in college. They had formed an immediate bond, and were best friends from the very beginning. They had remained roommates until graduation. Abby was a slim brunette with eyes the color of a clear summer sky. Her dark curls were a contrast to Janna’s thick, straight, blond hair. When Abby smiled, and that was a frequent occurrence, she flashed dimples in both cheeks. Janna was a green-eyed beauty whose picture would not have looked out of place on the cover of a fashion magazine. Both serious students, they were light-hearted and fun-loving. Abby was a little more serious than Janna, a little quieter and a little more reserved. Janna laughingly called Abby The Mind Traveler because she could be here one minute, and in another century the next. Abby would merely smile and remind Janna that those mind trips of hers had helped them both immensely when they were studying for history exams.

Abby didn’t just study history, she became emotionally involved. She belonged to the history honor society, Phi Alpha Theta, and she, along with several other honor students explained their methods of studying history to a group of freshman history students. She told them that because her study time was limited by work, she had to think outside the box to remember facts and dates.

Whatever period of history I am studying, I put myself there. If I can become emotionally involved, then I am going to remember the important events of that time period. When she finished speaking, her professor stood up.

I have never heard of that method, but I can see where it might work, she told them. The key is to try the suggestions you have heard this evening and find something that works for you.

It had worked for Abby, as she had aced all of her history classes. But then, she did well in all of her subjects. She loved college, and found the lectures and class discussions stimulating. She enjoyed life on campus with all the social activities it offered, and while so many of the students were experimenting with drugs, she avoided them because they simply did not tempt her. It would be stupid to alter reality when she enjoyed reality so much, she said to Janna when they were getting acquainted. Janna was not a party girl either, and they got along well from the first.

The snow-covered road was treacherous, but she continued to let her mind wander. She thought about the little volume of poems she had placed in the diaper bag. It was her oldest possession. Aunt Ellen had given it to her when she was a child and explained that it had been found in her mother’s rented room after she had died. The book and a few articles of clothing were all that her mother had brought to town with her. According to Aunt Ellen, it was a cold day in mid-December the first time she had seen my mother. She was walking home from the bank where she worked when she saw a young woman entering the boarding house on Delmar Street. She was carrying a baby, and as Aunt Ellen watched, she dropped a bundle she was trying to balance under one arm. Aunt Ellen stooped and picked up the bundle as the young woman, who looked to be only a girl, reached for it.

Let me help you, Aunt Ellen offered.

It’s okay, I can manage, the young woman said softly.

Aunt Ellen noticed how thin and pale she was, and insisted on helping her with the bundle. She followed her up the stairs, and as she opened the door, the infant she carried began to cry. A look of weary distress crossed her face, and Aunt Ellen quickly took the baby from her, and got her to sit down. The girl told her that her name was Sara, and the baby’s name was Abby. Finding her to be feverish, Aunt Ellen got her lie down on the bed, and tried to assure her that her baby was going to be fine. Too weak to resist, she allowed herself to be covered with the thin quilt on the bed and a shawl that Aunt Ellen found on a chair. Aunt Ellen went out and called down the stairs to see if she could rouse the land lady, all the while holding the fretful baby who sucked her fingers hungrily. Mrs. Lancaster started up the stairs, but Aunt Ellen suggested that she see if Mary Tuttle was home next door. Mary was an RN and Aunt Ellen wanted her come up and take a look at Sara.

She’s home, Mrs. Lancaster said. I saw her come in a few minutes ago. I’ll go and get her.

Mrs. Lancaster returned in a few minutes bringing Mary Tuttle with her. Mary hurried upstairs and found Sara semi-conscious and unable to give her any information. Mary could tell by touch that Sara had a very high fever.

Call an ambulance, she instructed Mrs. Lancaster.

As Aunt Ellen waited for the ambulance, she looked around to see what she could do to help the wet, crying baby she held in her arms. There were a few diapers hanging to dry on a chair in front of the window. Taking one down, she lay the baby on the end of the bed while she folded the diaper, and she soon had her dry and wrapped in a soft warm blanket. Mrs. Lancaster located a couple of bottles, and the two of them went downstairs to fix the baby a bottle.

"Do you have milk? Aunt Ellen asked. When Mrs. Lancaster took a quart bottle from the icebox, Aunt Ellen filled the bottle and warmed it in a pan of water on the stove. Mrs. Lancaster was trying to comfort the baby she had taken from Aunt Ellen, and by the time the ambulance arrived, she was sucking hungrily on the bottle. Aunt Ellen left her with Mrs. Lancaster, and she and Mary Tuttle went to the hospital with Sara.

Sara died