Timeless

CHAPTER 22

Q uinn stared at the bag of two food containers. She sat down at the chair by her desk and looked from the food that Abby had brought to the blackberry pie that Mr.Potter had dropped off earlier that day. Then, she sighed loudly as she slouched back into the chair. She understood what Abby was going through because she was going through it, too. Her own feelings were mixing with Harriet’s and maybe someone else’s, so it was hard to separate and know whose feelings were talking to her at that moment, but all of them were telling her that Quinn loved Abby or that she should love Abby.

That couldn’t be right because Abby wasn’t Deb. She’d been right about that. She was her own person and had her own feelings and memories, and Quinn was the same. Even though what Harriet felt for Deb was palpable to Quinn, that didn’t mean that she and Abby were meant to be together or could make it work. Deb and Harriet had lived in a different time and had their own challenges, some of which Quinn and Abby wouldn’t have to deal with, but Quinn and Abby would have their own set of challenges and their own lives, families, histories, wants, wishes, and desires that could clash and make something between them not possible.

Still, as she sat there, with a pie in front of her, she could only feel the loss. Abby had practically darted out of the shop because the idea of them being together, or being destined to be together somehow, had been too much. So much that Abby had suggested they skip it in this lifetime. She wasn’t sure how serious Abby was about that, but it had sounded pretty serious in the moment. Quinn had felt like someone, or something, had knocked her over. Not knowing if that was her own reaction or someone else’s, though, was part of the problem. What if it wasn’t Quinn and Abby at all? What if she was just feeling something for Deb as Harriet? Or as someone else entirely ?

The bell over the door clanged, and her eyes instantly went to the monitor, hoping it was Abby coming back to tell her that she’d been wrong and that they could at least try to see what could happen between them. But it wasn’t Abby. It was the driver, there to pick up boxes. Quinn didn’t even have to get up because he knew where to find the pile marked for shipping. From where she was sitting in the back office, she could hear the beeps as he scanned each box. Then, she watched him stack them up on his cart and wheel them out. She continued to stare at the security monitor for the next several minutes, thinking that maybe Abby needed an extra minute before she came back. When that didn’t happen, though, Quinn decided that with the packages shipped out, she no longer had a reason to be in the shop when no one else would be walking in. She gathered her things, including the bag of food that Abby had brought so that it wouldn’t go to waste, the pie, and her shirt, which still needed to dry, put up the closed sign, and locked up.

When she got home, she took a quick shower to get the sticky, sugary drink off her skin. She’d now always think of Abby when she had sweet tea. As she threw on a pair of clean old pants and a T-shirt, she thought about that. She could so easily equate honeysuckle with Abby because of Harriet and Deb, but now, she’d add sweet tea in the mix, and this time, it was because of them , Quinn and Abby, not some past life they still weren’t sure was one-hundred-percent real.

Quinn opened her computer, after sitting down on her couch, and pulled up the obituary for Paul. She stared at the image of a man who was much older than her, and she smiled because, in her visions, those were Paul’s eyes. She could see them so easily, even though her own parents hadn’t even been thought of when Paul was a little boy on the farm, playing with his toys, listening to adventure stories on the radio, and asking her – no, asking Harriet – questions about his father and Jacob after they hadn’t returned home from war.

She shook her head rapidly and tabbed over to the obit for Deborah Mary Stevens, née Wilson. It was definitely the woman from the photo, and she’d thought of her as pretty before, but as Quinn stared at her more now, she couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful she was.

“Oh, stop it,” Deb said and waved Harriet off.

Harriet smiled at her before she splashed water in Deb’s direction, making Paul laugh wildly. She pulled Deb into her, wrapping her up in her arms.

“I’ll never stop telling you how beautiful you are,” Harriet whispered into Deb’s ear.

“Will you show me tonight, after Paul goes to sleep?” Deb whispered back.

“Yes, I will.”

“For fucks sake!” Quinn said to herself loudly, picturing herself holding Deb in the river while they’d all played in the water.

She went to slam her laptop closed to try to get these women out of her mind, when her eyes stopped on the word ‘tornado.’ These women were two of twelve people who had died that night when a big tornado tore through a few of the town’s farms, according to the newspaper article related to the obituary she clicked on. Then, Quinn could see it.

“We’ve got to get to the cellar!” Deb yelled.

“I know! Where’s Paul?!” Harriet yelled back.

The wind had picked up worse than she’d ever seen it. They’d had the windows open, and the storm had hit too quickly for them to make it around the house to close all of them, so it was loud inside as they tried to close them all up to keep the rain that was coming in sideways from doing any more damage.

“Mama!” Paul yelled as he hurried down the stairs.

“Paul! We need to get to the cellar, baby!” Deb yelled.

“Hold on!” Harried yelled. “I’ve got him!” She picked up her son, whom she hadn’t picked up in years, clutching him to her body as tightly as she could. “Leave the windows! It’s too late! We’ve got to go!”

Deb hurried out the door and tried to close it behind all of them.

“Leave it, Deb! ”

Deb finally got it to shut. Harriet heard Paul scream in fear. He’d never been through a storm like this before.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you,” she told him as she hurried to the cellar by the house.

“I’ve got the door!” Deb yelled over the sound of the howling wind and rain. “Get inside!”

Harriet made her way down the concrete stairs into the dark and set Paul on the floor before she looked around for the lanterns they had inside the cellar since it didn’t have electricity.

“Paul, sit in the corner for me!” she instructed loudly. She wondered why she still had to yell and looked up. “Deb!”

Harriet rushed back up the stairs and held on to one of the doors while Deb tried to hold on to the other. The wind was so strong; she wasn’t sure how long they’d be able to keep their grip on the doors.

“We’ve got to hold ‘em,” Harriet told her.

“I know. Paul?”

“In the corner,” Harriet replied. “He’s okay.”

“Hold it for him,” Deb said.

“What?” Harriet asked, feeling like she could lose her grip any second.

“If it takes us, it won’t take him,” Deb said. “Paul, stay there! Don’t move until the storm passes!”

Harriet understood her then. She nodded at Deb.

“Okay, Mama!”

“We love you, baby! Your mamas love you!”

“I love you, too!” he yelled back.

“I love you,” Deb said to her then. “I love you,” she repeated.

“I love you,” Harriet replied, feeling the door begin to give. “I will find you.”

“Not if I find you first,” Deb replied and gave Harriet a smile that Harriet knew was filled with fear.

She returned it, hoping she was able to show as little fear as possible. When she knew for sure that she couldn’t hold on to the door any longer, she let go with one of her hands and reached for Deb. Deb took her hand in her own. Harriet leaned in and pressed her lips to Deb’s. Then, the wind took them both .

Quinn saw the whole thing. She felt the strength of the wind and her own strength giving out. She felt her love and concern for their son, who was about to lose his parents and would be on his own. She knew her brothers and sisters-in-law would take him in or that Delilah Lansing would. He’d be taken care of. But the pain of losing everyone wouldn’t be something that he’d easily be able to deal with.

“He’s a sensitive boy,” Quinn said to herself, recalling Deb saying that exact thing to Harriet one night when he’d cried because someone at his school had picked on him.

She could feel the love Harriet had for Deb; the fact that they were both willing to die for their son, holding on to that door for as long as they could to keep him safe while the tornado passed above them. Probably only another thirty seconds or so, and they would’ve been fine had they’d been able to hold on. Thirty seconds, and it would’ve been gone. They could’ve picked Paul up, gone back into the house and cleaned it up, gone to bed together, and after all that, they could’ve grown old and gray together.

Quinn didn’t feel her eyes well with tears. She only recognized that she was crying when she saw one drip down to her chin and fall to her shirt. But then, she had a vision of someone else entirely. It was a woman with dark hair, wearing one of those poofy skirts she remembered seeing in movies about the 50s and 60s. She wiped her cheeks and closed her eyes, watching the woman with brown hair walk away from her on a sidewalk, smiling, laughing, and reaching back to take Quinn’s hand. She knew that it wasn’t really her .

“It was whoever I became after I was Harriet,” she said to herself, opening her eyes.

She smiled then. Harriet and Deb were gone, yes, but whoever Quinn was envisioning now was a new version of Deb, and she was reaching back for her version of Harriet. They were teenagers again, too, and to her, that woman was Abby. Quinn closed her eyes again and allowed the vision to carry her away. The film behind her eyes was a silent one, and she let herself be pulled into the backyard of a house, through a thicket of bushes, and into an open field that never seemed to end.

“Sunflowers,” she said to herself.

Then, the film was no longer silent.

“Let’s just sit out here all night,” the girl said to her.

“We can’t sit out here all night. You know that,” she replied.

“Then, for a few minutes, at least.”

“We can’t get caught.”

“I know. But I had to go all week without kissing you.” The new Deb sat down in between two rows of flowers. “I’d like to kiss you now, please.” She smiled up at her.

She, or the new version of Harriet, sat down next to her, reached for her chin, and connected their lips.

Quinn smiled softly. Deb and Harriet had perished, but these two, whoever they were, had lived, and they’d been in love.

She stood up and decided that while she’d still respect Abby’s need for space, that wouldn’t stop her from taking a walk around her own neighborhood. And if she happened to see Abby outside her house, she could tell her what had just happened, what she’d discovered, and maybe even what it all meant. She put on her shoes, grabbed her keys and phone, and pulled open her front door.

“You’ve been crying,” Abby said the moment Quinn took one step outside.

“What are you doing here?” Quinn asked.

“I’ve never had blackberry pie,” Abby said. “But now, I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“So, you came here to steal a piece of my pie?”

“You’ve been crying, Quinn,” Abby repeated.

She was standing on the path from Quinn’s driveway to her front door, and she took a step toward Quinn.

“Technically, it wasn’t me.”

“What?” Abby tilted her head.

“I saw it, how Deb and Harriet died.”

“Oh, Quinn…” Abby let out and took another step to ward her. “You… saw it?”

“And I felt it, too. I felt her, or maybe me, leaving that body. I felt the love she had for Deb and Paul. I watched them try to keep him safe.”

“They did. He survived.”

“But they didn’t. They loved each other so much, Abby.”

“Tell me about it. I’ve been writing their story for days now, trying to convey just how much.”

“Did you change your ending after finding out what happened?”

Abby shook her head and said, “No. I might have to change the names of my characters because I didn’t realize they were real people, but I’m not changing their ending. I have a new problem, though.”

Quinn swallowed and said, “Yeah?”

“I stole another picture out of the box.” Abby held up a quarter. “I owe you this.”

“What?” Quinn asked with a little chuckle.

“I’m not a thief, but I couldn’t not take it. Then, I also couldn’t go back to tell you that I’d taken it. I walked all the way to the diner to get into my car, felt awful, turned around, walked all the way back, and saw you leaving the shop. So, I just walked back to my car again, went home, and stared at this.” Abby pulled a picture out of her back pocket. “Two teenage girls from 1958.”

“Is there a date on it?” she asked as she walked over to Abby and took the picture from her.

“No.” Abby shook her head. “I just know this time.”

“Poodle skirts,” Quinn said as she stared, remembering the name of the skirts she’d seen earlier. “They’re in love, aren’t they?”

“Cheryl and Diana.” Abby pointed from one to the other.

“You know their names?”

“It just came to me when I started to write.”

“Wait. You’re writing about them now, too?”

“I can’t focus on Harriet and Deb anymore. I don’t know if it’s because it hurts too much. I just know that now, all I can think about is Cheryl and Diana and their story. So, I started writing it, but I stopped when I remembered that I’d stolen this from you. I also think it wasn’t just because I stole it. I…” Abby held out the quarter again.

Quinn smiled at her because she knew that Abby was trying to tell her that she had needed to see Quinn to tell her about Cheryl and Diana in the same way Quinn had needed to see her to tell Abby about what she’d seen.

“Would you like a piece of blackberry pie?” she asked.

“I would love one,” Abby replied.