Fare Forward Read online

  "Gabriella!"

  And then, I am coughing. Pulling his life force into me. Taking what he offers.

  Breathing.

  I open my eyes and see the sky, the stars framed in the black velvet blanket that shelters our earth, and then—I see him. The beautiful face with unforgettable eyes looking down at me.

  "Benjamin." The instant recognition that he has pulled me from the water all makes sense. "It's you." The words whisper out of my mouth.

  He is shaking, tears of relief come down his cheeks as he hears me speak. His face is so close to mine. His hands touch my matted hair, which has been twisted by the sea. He pushes it away from my eyes and pulls himself up onto one elbow as he turns to face me.

  "I can't lose you, I won't ever let you go again, Gabriella."

  I am unable to move, too weak to even respond or question his words or what they mean. I close my eyes tightly in response to the crushing pain in my shoulder and ribs. I realize that my arm is twisted in an unnatural way. The sea is wild and a distant part of my consciousness acknowledges what has happened as fragments of memory crystallize. He leans in toward me, and I can hear his urgent voice as I try to focus and clear my mind.

  "Look at me, Gabriella. Are you all right, can you move your arm? I need to get you inside—it's too cold here. I'm going to lift you now."

  I can feel his warmth, his breath. His lips move slowly across my salted lashes and brows, down my cheeks and gently touch the surface of my lips. Despite my pain and disorientation, I recognize the crush of desire I feel. I need to know where he has been these last few weeks. I want to tell him that I have been looking for him. Waiting.

  That my life has been empty in a way I have never known before.

  I had always believed, hoped, that when I met the person I was meant to love forever, my spirit would acknowledge the instant of recognition. As if programmed into the deepest part of my soul was that very moment and the promise of all that was to follow.

  "Benjamin," I say so softly I can barely hear the words myself, "I've been looking for you."

  With a wistfulness and melancholy that I cannot understand, he responds, "I know."

  I can see in his eyes the acceptance of an inevitability that he has tried to fight against. I reach up to pull his face toward mine. The salt taste of the sea is still on my lips, mixing with what I realize are tears of gratitude and relief.

  Everything in my life has prepared me for him. This is where I am destined to be. I know that I will fight with everything in me against being without him the way I had endured the last few weeks.

  The stars are my witness, I have found what I've been searching for.

  * * *

  41

  * * *

  I AM IN THE PLACE between waking and dreaming, disconnected from my body yet in it. Watching and aware.

  I am alive.

  Warm in the safety of my bed, I'm surrounded by soft pillows and my feathered quilt. The cushion of the familiar mattress is a welcome comfort. Warm and stable. I feel their presence, the voices that discuss my condition, rising and falling. The first one, Maggie's, is low and concerned, the other—unforgettable. It's the voice that sounds like heaven to me.

  Benjamin.

  I know they are in the room, whispering and watching. They think I'm sleeping. Slowly the events of the earlier few hours start to come back to me, flashing through my memory in clear visual frames. So powerful that they overwhelm the haze created by the strong painkillers I had been given. I shift slightly in the bed and feel a dull pain. My shoulder is bandaged tightly, dislocated by the crush of the surf and the frantic effort to release myself from the grip of the undertow. I remember everything, but mostly the miraculous sensation of being pulled out, carried from the water, and Benjamin's face, his breath everywhere over me. In me.

  Maggie is crying. I haven't seen her cry since my grandmother died. I want to tell her that I am here, alive. That I have been saved and that I am happier than I have ever been. But I have to keep fighting to stay conscious. My body wants only sleep, warm, protected, safe, still sleep.

  "Is she all right?" It's Maggie's agonized maternal voice.

  I see the blur of her face over mine. I feel the light touch of her rough hand on my cheek as I try desperately to open my eyes.

  "Yes, she will be fine, remember what the doctor said. She has to recover from the shock." Benjamin's voice is calm, certain.

  "I can't believe this happened, that I wasn't here to stop her." Maggie's voice is anchored with fear. She draws small circles in the floor with her pacing as her voice approaches and recedes in a pattern of worry.

  "I would think there would be very little you could have done to stop Gabriella from doing what she wants." I detect admiration in his steady voice as he calms and reassures her.

  "But she almost drowned!"

  "She is safe now, it was an unusual current, a riptide from the storm. There is no way she could have known."

  "I can't even imagine." Her voice trails off as low sobs overtake her. I can feel the tears on her face, the way she wipes them away with the handkerchief carefully stored in her pocket, dabbing her eyes. "What would have happened had you not been there, here I mean. Seen her."

  "But I was," he says.

  There is silence as I wait for what will come next, never expecting to hear what I do. Maggie speaks very slowly, her voice low and tense. "She warned me, her grandmother, Sophie. She knew this was going to happen. I begged Gabriella never to swim alone. I didn't know she was coming."

  "Yes, I know."

  "And you, she told me about you." Maggie's voice gets louder, and I imagine her pointing her finger at Benjamin. "That you would somehow save her, that you and Gabriella." She takes a deep breath. "She told me that you belong together. She described your face. Your eyes."

  Then, there is silence, except for Maggie's quiet sobs and Benjamin's determined breathing.

  "Please, stop." His voice sounds broken, weighted down with pain.

  "She saw it all, she knew the future and now you're here for her aren't you? You've come for Gabriella?"

  "I have already done too much damage, crossed the line. I have broken all the rules."

  "What are you saying? Sophie was never wrong. She told me, she predicted you in her notes, her letters. I have them."

  "No, I'm afraid it cannot be. Gabriella cannot live in my world."

  I feel like I can't breathe, as if my lungs are filling with water again. I want to scream, to cry out. I'm not sure whether this is a dream, a figment of my imagination, or some terrible reality that I need to escape from. All I can do is listen.

  Maggie's voice holds all the desperation I am feeling. "I know that you're the one. She trusted you in Switzerland. When she never came back. It was you wasn't it? You're the one who took her?"

  "Yes."

  "She really believed, that it would happen, that she could go through. They both did."

  "He blames me."

  "No, Benjamin, he blames himself and now he wants to show the world. That he's been right all along."

  "It cannot be, Maggie. It won't work."

  I force myself to open my eyes. To wake up. To absorb the conversation, what they are saying and everything that Maggie seems to know.

  It is said that when a thirsty man is in the desert searching for water, he will hallucinate, create the object of his desire at the precise moment when he feels death upon him. The mind creates a mirage, the optical illusion caused by the reflection of light that makes objects appear distorted, closer, above or below where they exist. Was I the lost traveler who runs toward the vision and shovels sand into his mouth thinking it's water? I had been searching for what I needed to sustain me, nourish me, and help me grow into what awaited. Now in my childhood bed, with Benjamin in the room, I could feel the collision of the past with the inevitability of my future. All merging at once.

  I know that I have crossed a threshold into an unknown world of possibility. This time I'
m not afraid. I need fate to be on my side, promising the future I have only hoped for. I've heard enough to know and am beginning to understand, putting the pieces together.

  * * *

  I wake to the sun low in the sky in the east. I push myself up in bed and look out the window to see the waning flowers and hydrangeas of summer, the rosebushes that spill down to the beach and ocean beyond. The twin lighthouses of cape Ann are in the distance and the sea grasses reflect the golden glow of fall. So many pivotal moments of my life have happened here—and now this is how I feel: different, transformed, as if something buried deep within me has been released. The fortress around my heart finally coming down. The sensation of being in the water comes back to me suddenly, the motion of being pulled out and carried in his arms and everything else. Everything he said.

  "I can't lose you. I won't ever let you go again, Gabriella."

  "Benjamin." My voice sounds so hoarse as I call out his name. I feel bruised everywhere but I want to get downstairs. I have to find him.

  I hear Maggie's heavy foot steps as she runs up the wood staircase and bursts into my room.

  "Gabriella, you're awake! Oh my goodness, wait a minute." She comes straight for me, her arms outstretched. "Let me help you."

  "Maggie, I'm fine." I push myself up and try to sound convincing. "Honestly, I really need to get out of this bed and downstairs. I'm just a little hungry actually."

  She claps her hands together. "That sounds much more like my girl."

  Maggie wraps her strong arms around my waist and guides me carefully down the staircase and into the glass breakfast area that overlooks the sea. I look out at the surf and feel, once again, the sensation of the water on me, flashes of memory from the night before. My mind wants to edit out the terrifying pull of the water and think only about what had been playing over in my mind since I had awakened. The feeling of being close to Benjamin. His lips on my face.

  "I'm going to make you some breakfast." Maggie moves quickly around the kitchen, banging pots, opening and closing drawers and humming to herself. I know she is relieved, busy with taking care of me, but I have other things on my mind.

  I slip out of the kitchen when she's not looking and walk toward the windows that face the front of the house. I need to see if there is any sign of Benjamin at all. As I stare out the window, I feel the anxiety rising, the questioning. I don't know what I can trust from my memory. I do know that the bandage around my arm is very real, as is the fact that I am bruised everywhere.

  "He's not here, Gabriella."

  I turn around and see Maggie standing with a steaming cup of coffee in her hand.

  "He was here wasn't he? I didn't dream the whole thing."

  "He left very early this morning, but wanted you to have this." Her face is more serious than I can ever remember as she walks toward me and pulls a small envelope out of her apron pocket.

  My eyes search hers for any information, anything I can find out about him. "Thank you."

  She places the note into my hand, and I hold it for a moment before I tear it open. I want to touch something he had held. I need to tie myself back to his presence in any way that I can.

  My Dearest Gabriella,

  I am so sorry that I had to leave this morning without saying good-bye to you. I would not have left without the knowledge that you are well and under the watchful eye of Mrs. O Hara. I have been called away. I know that you will find some of the answers that you have been searching for. Everything will be made clear very shortly — it must be.

  Until then, know that I am always with you.

  — BL

  I scan the note and reread the words several times, searching for any interpretations or subtleties that I might have missed. With frustration and a sense of loss that I recognize too well, I crumple to the floor.

  "Just tell me, Maggie, tell me that this is real." I hold on to my bandaged arm as I try to convince myself.

  She runs over and helps me stand up slowly, pulling me away from the floor. "Oh, my angel, it's been so many years."

  I take a step back and look into her eyes. I want her to understand what I'm about to say. "Maggie, I could hear you last night. I heard what you said to him. Everything. You need to tell me how you know these things. Please, I need to know."

  * * *

  42

  * * *

  WE WALK INTO THE great room and sit on the couch together. I wait for what I hope are the answers, the understanding I had searched for my whole life. Maggie reaches out for my cold hand and holds it in hers.

  "How did you know?" I ask.

  "I knew, Gabriella, that this was the way it would be. I have been waiting many years, for a sign, for something to show me that she was right. As she always was."

  "I don't understand anything you're saying!"

  "I'm so sorry."

  "You should have told me."

  She laughs, her face filled with an irony I can't understand. "I was waiting—for you to come to me—and you did. Just as she said you would."

  I look at her and try to process what she is saying. What I think it all means. "Grandma Sophie?"

  She nods. "She told me about him."

  "What are you saying?"

  "Gabriella, she shared your gift. She wanted me to tell you, to remind you when you were ready to understand. She knew she would not be here to answer your questions."

  As we sit together, I know I am on a new threshold. The familiarity of this place disguising a revolution of changes. I turn to look at her and see her eyes, locked on mine. I wait for whatever she will say next.

  "Your grandmother's illness—she was terminal."

  "What? Papa told me she had been cured."

  "He wanted to believe that."

  "But she knew the truth? Why didn't she tell him? He's a scientist for God's sake."

  "She knew it would destroy him. That it would take him away from his work. She did not want to do that." Maggie takes out her handkerchief and wipes her eyes as I sit stunned, listening to this information. Her warm hand covers mine. "She didn't want to leave you. She knew how much you needed her. So she asked me to wait for the day, this day. When you would find Benjamin, when you would be, well, reunited. I never thought it would happen the way it did, the way she predicted. But it is all as she said."

  "What do you mean? Are you saying she knew about him?"

  Maggie nods slowly. She had said "reunited." I didn't know what else she could possibly say that would shock me more but I brace myself, steel my eyes on the sea ahead, then turn to look into her eyes.

  "I have waited for many, many years to tell you this. I was waiting for the time when I felt you were ready to understand. Your parents, your gift, the ability to see and to connect in a way that most cannot. I know you have experienced it, Gabriella. It is what gives you your incredible sensitivity. Abilities and perceptions that make you the intuitive artist that you are."

  "Antennae of the race," I whisper the author James Joyce's words.

  I'm afraid to hear what else she will say but want to. A clarity that I have been waiting for is now being revealed.

  "You are from a long line of mystics, ancient Kabbalists who have an ability to connect to the past, the future, to souls who are here and those who are not."

  My parents, my grandmother, those who have come before me, all of them. I was beginning to understand.

  "When? When did she tell you these things?"

  "Gabriella, I have been with your grandparents for over forty years. What do you think I have been doing all this time?" She finds a moment of humor as she pushes herself up off the sofa. She turns to face me and points her index finger at me. "Wait here, there is something I need to show you."

  My mind races as the pieces start to come together.

  She comes back into the room carrying a box I have never seen before filled with letters, photographs, sketches, and more of my grandmother's red leather journals. Just like the one my grandfather had given me before I lef
t for New York.

  "She wanted you to have these, all of them. When you were ready, she said." Maggie puts the box down gently on the sofa next to me, and I feel her hand on my shoulder. "It's time."

  * * *

  I spend the day slowly going through everything: photographs, newspaper articles, even some of Einstein's letters. Maggie circles back to check on me, occasionally, to see whether I am all right.

  The sun is setting when she comes in to light the fire and sit next to me. Finally, I am ready to speak. "Maggie, she knew that Papa wouldn't understand, didn't she?"

  She nods. "She wanted to keep it hidden from him, that she wasn't going to live. She believed there was another way. For her to go on."

  "It was with Benjamin's help, wasn't it? He was involved?"

  She looks right at me, then into the box and pulls out a small album of photographs. She flips through it quickly, then stops and hands an open page to me.

  "Look at this."

  It is a darkened picture.

  "It looks like a party, Maggie, and," I say and hold it closer, "there is Einstein." I turn the photograph over and see a date. "Here, it says 1943."

  "Yes." She encourages me with her eyes. "Now look closely. What else do you see?"

  I look again. "It's them, together right? The night they met each other, and my great grandparents." I look up at her for acknowledgement. She nods again. "Anyone else?"

  The way she says it makes my skin tingle as her eyes burn into mine. I am afraid to look back down, but I do. It is a large group of people but there it is—the unmistakeable face.

  "Benjamin."

  I drop the picture and stand up. I back away from the box, from everything she is showing me. From what seems completely impossible.