and returns to them in dreams...
― John J Geddes, A Familiar Rain
Longings
I kept Moll alive in my heart all this time, partly because of longing and partly because of loyalty. My heart kept crying out for her because she was inextricably bound up with my being and it was impossible to sever myself from her.
I needed Malachi and Sara to confirm for me I wasn't crazy―I was actually sensing her.
I despised spiritualistic terms like channeling and refused anything mystic because I wasn't interested in holding a seance, I wanted my wife back.
I wanted to hold her.
Each time we made contact, the bond between us grew stronger. Those occasions weren't spiritual visitations but actual moments of physical contact when I'd see, hear or touch her, or smell her perfume or taste her lipstick.
True, they were fleeting and elusive, but they were real―she was physically present.
And now to learn she was never dead but brain injured and reaching out the only way she know how...well, it wrung my heart to realize how powerful love was that distance could be no impediment to deep soul to soul communication.
Yes, I was haunted by her but threw open the doors to my heart and gladly admitted her.
Malachi and Sara were here and left, having helped us to make sense of all this.
Now we were seated before the fire trying quietly to come to terms with what happened to us.
I stared at Moll compassionately. "I still feel devastated to think you somehow revived and in a confused state wandered away from the funeral home. How did you manage to survive let alone fend for yourself and end up in a city 25 miles away?"
She shook her head as if to dispel the fog of confusion. "Everything was hazy and ill-defined like walking in a dream. I remember being driven in a truck―perhaps the one delivering food to that supermarket where I was eventually found."
"it makes no sense that you could simply walk out of that funeral parlour without being noticed. And surely whoever drove you to Cambridge must have seen that you sustained ahead injury?"
"It is a mystery," she sighed and laid her head on my shoulder. "I have to stop thinking about it because it simply causes me to have mental bumblebees. The thoughts keep buzzing around in my head making no sense."
"You're right, Love, it's futile chasing the tail of our own mind when we don't have all the facts. But I want to ask you about why you went silent for so long after Malachi and Sara first came out?"
"I'm sorry I worried you, Ned, but I overheard them talking. Sara was concerned about you possibly obsessing about contacting your dead wife and passing up chances of happiness with living women."
"And you were still confused―and thought it best not to contact me?"
She nodded and a tear rolled down her cheek. "I only wanted what was best for you. I saw Jill and Natalie and how they were interested in you and our relationship was so difficult to maintain at that time."
"I'm so glad you never gave up on us, Moll. I couldn't have lived without you."
Lightning flickered in the window and a soft rumble of thunder rolled over head.
She gazed at me apologetically. "As much as I love being curled up with you before the fire, it would have been a good night for us to test the improvements you made to the shelter."
"You'd put up with roughing it in the rain just to keep me company?"
"I feel like I've crawled over 25 miles of torn-up pavement just to get back to you. Roughing it in the shelter with you would be fun and would be research for your novel."
I kissed her lightly on the lips.
"Much as I appreciate your support for my writing, I think we needed to spend this time sorting things out without the distraction of other things. The detectives are going to be here tomorrow and we'll have to go through the whole business all over again."
"I just hope we get some answers," she whispered.
I shrugged. "Whether we do or not doesn't really concern me―what matters to me is I have you back again and I'm determined that nothing will ever separate us again.
"Amen, to that," she said solemnly.
I mused inwardly. If only things could be put to rest that easily.