There is a countdown clock running. Every second that clicks away, means we’re a second closer to Rich leaving us again. He arrived here two days ago. I was in the kitchen, washing new glasses and dishes and putting the away, when I heard voices outside on the porch. I immediately knew that Rich was back. Putting the glass I was drying down, I crossed the front room in a few steps. It’s cool enough to have the front door open, with the screen door shut, and as I got there, I could see Rich and Dan both standing there, Rich’s back to me. The first thing I heard clearly was “I was trying to get to Molly. Damn it!”
I smiled and said “Looks like you found her.” The look on Rich’s face was wonderful, a combination of surprise and relief. He bounded up onto the porch and grabbed me in a hug. My husband was home. For a short time, anyway. Dan quietly made his exit, and we spent a few moments alone, not talking, just hugging, before going inside to find Samantha.
* * *
It’s late at night, two days after Rich’s return, and I’m the last one still awake at this place that Dan calls “Mobius Manor” I’m not sure exactly what it’s for, but Rich was insistent with Dan that he build it for him. It’s very nice, not exactly my taste, a log-cabin type style, but nice and comfortable. The setting is beautiful, in the middle of the woods, on a piece of property that Dan tells us the Rich who left the time capsule in 1952 purchased through a trust. Who is in control of the trust, I’m not sure, and no one’s talking. Both Rich and Dan claim they don’t know who is calling the financial shots, and I have to tell you, this concerns me a little. No, actually it concerns me a lot. I thought there were a lot of unanswered questions before, but that was just the beginning. This thing is getting deeper and deeper, and the only people who seem to know anything about it aren’t here. Richard Girrard obviously knows the whole story, but not the 50 year old Rich that’s here. The Rich he’ll become knows it, but he doesn’t exist in 2009, so I don’t have access to him. I guess that I, like everyone else here, has to wait for time itself to reveal the story.
In two days, Dan’s mother, also named Samantha (we named our Sam after her) will be here. We haven’t seen her in a number of years, but there are always Christmas and birthday cards. We used to see her often, but once Samantha got to about age 3, things seemed to change. She was still as attentive, just from a distance, by phone and later, email. Her husband, a successful attorney in Chicago, had died that year, so we attributed her withdrawl to that. Dan had no explanation, either.
Dan swears he hasn’t told his mother what’s going on with us, but I suppose it’s possible that she’s reading this blog. Samantha does email, but at her age, I’d frankly, be surprised if she was all that web savvy. Maybe I’m wrong. When Dan told us last night about his mother coming, it was obvious he didn’t know why. Samantha and I were shocked, as was Rich at first. We had just finished dinner, and were having some wine. All of us were in extremely happy spirits, but Rich’s mood changed when the information sunk in. He wasn’t upset, you could just tell that he was considering something complicated.
What would Dan’s mother have to do with that?
Anyway, Rich snapped out of it 15 minutes later, and our conversation turned lively again, as my husband told us about his adventures in the thirties. He’s got several notebooks of information – notes, stories, and information. It’s been 3 years (for Rich) since he typed on a keyboard, but he said he’d do a blog post in the morning. I told him how much the audience of The Time Traveler Blog had grown, and how many emails we’d gotten, and Rich was floored. He was a little uneasy about the story being so widely known, but both Dan and I assured him the number of cranks were few. He loosened up about it at that point.
Hopefully, more from Rich tomorrow.
