“I can’t. My job’s done now, and I have a date.” She smiled. “A date with heaven.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Right away.”
“But you can’t, you—”
“Five minutes after I leave you won’t even remember me. No, no protests. You have each other now. You don’t need a nosy old aunt around.”
Nellie k
issed Berni’s cheek. “I will always need you. You are a very kind person.” She leaned toward Berni’s ear. “I don’t know what you did, but I know that last night was your doing. Thank you. I will thank you all my life for your generous heart.”
Those words meant a lot to Berni. No one had ever called her generous before, but then she’d never deserved the title before. “Thank you,” she whispered, then she straightened. “I must go.” She looked at Nellie. “Any wishes for the future?”
“I have everything I want,” Nellie said, moving to stand close to Jace.
“I have a wish.” Jace looked down at Nellie and remembered his first wife dying in childbirth. “I hope we have a dozen healthy kids and their deliveries are easy on their mother.”
“Done,” Berni said, then she stood on tiptoe and kissed Jace’s cheek. “You’ll have all your children, and the deliveries will be safe and easy.” She turned and went up the stairs. At the top of the stairs she paused and looked down at them, lovers engrossed in each other. Berni had never done anything that made her feel as good as getting these two together had.
She gave a little sniff, wiped a tear from her eye, and said, “Beam me up, Scotty,” and she was gone from the Grayson household and from the Grayson memory.
The Kitchen
Pauline was there to greet Berni, and she was smiling.
Berni, once again wearing her burial clothes, took a moment to adjust to the foggy Kitchen after leaving Jace and Nellie. “I did well, didn’t I?” she said, pretending she’d never shed a tear at leaving. “You thought I couldn’t do it, but I did.”
“You did very well,” Pauline said, smiling brighter. “You did especially well by not making Nellie hate her family. You could have let her see how selfish they really are.”
Berni was a little embarrassed by the praise, even though it felt very good. “There was enough hate and jealousy. I didn’t need to spread any more,” she mumbled.
“You did very well indeed. Now, shall we go to Level Two?”
Berni’s mind was on Nellie. “I guess so.” She started walking beside Pauline, then stopped. “Could I see what happened to Nellie? I’d like to be sure she did okay.”
Pauline gave a little nod and led the way to the Viewing Room. Once they were seated comfortably the screen before them began to clear.
“It’s now Christmas 1897,” Pauline said, “one year to the day since you left, and Jace and Nellie have been married for a year.”
The fog cleared, and Berni could see the Grayson house, decorated for Christmas, and it was filled with people. “Who are they?”
“Jace’s relatives came all the way from Maine, and Terel came with her husband, and Charles with his new wife, and then there are the Taggerts from Chandler.” Pauline smiled. “Nellie doesn’t know it, but she’s already carrying her second child. She—”
“Sssh,” Berni said, “I want to see for myself.”
Chandler, Colorado
Christmas 1897
“When will the new house be finished?” ’Ring Montgomery, Jace’s father, asked Charles Grayson, who was sitting at the opposite end of the couch. As he spoke he reached out an arm and caught one of the Tyler boys, who was running through the house at full speed, by the shoulder and gave him a look of warning before releasing him.
“Three more months,” Charles shouted above the din. He and his wife were living in Denver until the old Fenton house could be remodeled to his wife’s taste. It was costing him every penny he had, but it was worth it to see her happy. He couldn’t care less how much he had to spend. “You enjoying Chandler?” he shouted back.
“Very much.” ’Ring, unlike Charles, didn’t seem in the least bothered by the noise of eleven children and fourteen adults. In one corner of the room Pamela Taggert was loudly playing the piano while Jace and his mother were practicing a Christmas duet for church that evening. “You’re flat on that note, son,” ’Ring said over the heads of four dirty-faced children.
How in the world he could hear anything Charles didn’t know. An hour ago Charles’s lovely wife had excused herself and gone upstairs to lie down. Charles wished he could join her.