I’m not going to lie to you. At first, it was a shock. My husband, who I last saw just over six months ago, suddenly standing in our kitchen.
And he was old.
70 years old.
If you had never met Rich, you would have probably thought hey, there’s a guy, about 60, who takes pretty good care of himself.
But to me, and even more dramatically, to our daughter Samantha, he was old. It was, to say the least, shocking. But at the same time, to see my husband, my partner, my love, the father of my beautiful daughter, here and safe, was a joy. I knew the exact time he’d be appearing in the kitchen, but I don’t think that was why I felt him here a couple seconds before I heard his voice.
“Hi sweetheart.”
I didn’t know where in the kitchen he would appear, so naturally, I wasn’t facing the right direction. I saw a little disturbance in the air to my right and then heard his voice. I spun around, startled, and saw him first check the clock. Rich reached into his pocket, pulled out a small notebook and a pencil and wrote something down. Then, before anything else, asked “what’s the date, honey?”
I told him, and he wrote that down too. Putting the notebook and pencil back in his pocket, he held out his arms and walked toward me. I met him halfway and almost knocked him down with a hug. We stayed that way in silence for a few seconds before we heard “DADDY!”
Samantha rushed in the kitchen and collided with us, still embracing. She was starting to cry, but I could tell there was relief in her emotion, not grief. As our daughter pulled back after a few seconds, though, and she really looked at her father’s face, concern came rolling over her. “Daddy, you’re old. What…?”
“I’m 70, munchkin. I’m here from 1952.” He smiled, and I have to admit that it caused a little flash of anger in me, that he would be so at ease and calm at seeing his family for the first time in over 20 of his years. I know how it felt for us, and it had only been 6 months since we’ve seen him. It made me a little mad. What kind of life had he been living in the past, I wondered. Obviously a comfortable one, I realized. Then, to me, Rich said “were you expecting me?”
I nodded. At this response, he closed his eyes, exhaled and smiled. “Dan found the box, then?”
I nodded again, a little confused at the priorities my husband was exhibiting here, and Samantha jumped in. “Uncle Dan’s almost finished the house you wanted him to build in Indiana,” she said.
Rich smiled a curious smile and said “excellent, honey. That’s great,” with a little chuckle. The strangest thought hit me at that moment that either there was a joke neither Samantha nor I was in on, or in some weird way (as if standing in your kitchen with your time traveling husband wasn’t weird enough), this wasn’t really my husband.
I looked back at him. “What?” I asked, shaking my head.
“Nothing.” Another smile as he replied. “Everything. Look, my dears, I don’t think I’m going to be here very long. Did Dan say just how long?”
“About two hours,” I replied.
“Okay. Let’s go sit down and talk,” Rich said, heading toward the family room. As he walked from the kitchen into the bigger, more comfortable room where we spent most of our time together, I caught him looking around as if he hadn’t seen the place in 20 years. Which, of course, he hadn’t.
Samantha got us lemonade from the fridge, and as she handed the glass to Rich, he looked at with a little smile on his face. It took me a couple seconds to again realize that he hasn’t seen this place in a long time, and the nostalgia had to be a little disorienting. But, he seemed to put it aside, took a drink from the glass and smiled at me.
“How have you been?”
How have I BEEN? I shook my head slightly and the ridiculousness of the question and replied “I haven’t seen my husband in almost 8 months! THAT’S how I’ve been!” I wasn’t exactly angry, but I have to admit, I was a little put off by his off-handedness.
Rich put his glass down on the coffee table in front of us, leaned in to me and putting his hand on my knee said “sweetheart, I know this is very strange. I know my behavior seems odd to you, but please trust me. This will all work out. I promise.”
I shook my head, sighing a little and looking over at Samantha, still standing in the middle of the room, hugging herself, clearly not sure what to make of all this. It was Sam who spoke next, after a few seconds. “You’re only staying for a couple hours, Daddy?” she asked, trying not to cry.
“Just a couple hours, I guess,” Rich answered, “But, I’ll be back next month. Not here, but I’ll be back.”
“What do you mean not here?” I asked.
“I’ll be at the house in Belton on August 17th. About 10am. I’ll be there for just over two weeks,” he replied.
“How do you know that?” Samantha asked.
“Because for me, that was 17 years ago,” he said. “I came here now from 1952. I’ll be going to Belton in August from 1935. I won’t know about this trip, because for me, it won’t have happened yet, but I need you to be there, at the house in Belton. The one I’m going to have Dan build.”
Then, he paused, shook his head and corrected himself. “The one he’s building now, I mean.”
“Okay,” I answered, “we’ll be there. Of course, we’ll be there.”
“And this is very important,” Rich said, his voice lowering. I looked in his eyes, still bright, but older. This was my husband, but a man who has been through some very different experiences than the one I saw last some 8 months ago.
I nodded.
“I’m going to ask you both to do something you’re not going to want to do, but it’s vitally important that you do it. It may be a little scary, but I promise you, it will all work out fine, and you will see that it’s the right thing to do. I’ve seen that, I assure you.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but this didn’t sound good. I looked up at Samantha, and she looked as concerned as me. I could tell that this was almost too much for her.
Rich continued. “I’m going to sound a little crazy when I suggest it to you, but believe me, the years I’ve spent since then have done nothing but confirm that what I believed was true. Please do what I try and convince you to do, okay?”
I nodded, since arguing about it here would just waste the short time we had for this “visit,” and the mood lightened after that. We’d have time to talk about this next month in Belton, apparently. My Rich, one much closer to the Rich who left here a few months ago would be there with us, and that would have to be easier.
We talked a lot about what we had gone through here. The phone calls, what I had been telling people regarding his sudden absence. I began to notice that anytime the conversation turned toward what he has been doing in the 19 years he’s lived since disappearing on that December morning, he would direct the conversation back to us. We were talking about what Samantha was doing this summer, and mid-sentence, Rich stopped, reached into his pocket and pulled out a small clear cube, about three inches square, made out of some acrylic-looking material. It had a small opening in the top. Rich handed it to me, saying “I don’t want to leave this in the ground. It’s durable, but I don’t want to take any chances. Dan will know how to use it. It’s to read a stick I’ll bury for him to find. Don’t mail this to him, take it with you when you go to Belton.”
I took the cube and nodded, turning it over in my hand. When I looked back up to Rich to ask him what it’s for, it was just me sitting on the sofa. I glanced at the clock on the mantle. Just over two hours. I quickly looked over at Samantha, and she was sitting on the carpet in the middle of the floor, her mouth open, eyes wide.
“He was there and then…He was…Just…Gone.” And she started to cry.
As I finish cleaning the portable BBQ, seal up the last of the dinner scraps (raccoons have been nosing around a LOT lately) and watch the citronella torches flicker, it’s time to fire up the laptop, read a little of today’s news and blog about what’s going on here. It’s easier to do when a lot has been accomplished during day. Which it was!
Rural America rocks, and is the USA’s future! I’ve spent the vast majority of my time either in a huge city, or spots so remote there’s virtually no civilization. While I build Rich’s house, I’m for the first time, living in a place that’s somewhere in the middle. Small town America is very cool.