I remember thinking about Carrie and me—and the shortness of our tiny lives.
I concluded, in the end, we’d both inherit a stone after life’s waves rolled over us—and hopefully she’d write upon it.
I didn’t think I’d write upon hers.
I buried her beneath a pine with a view of some hills. She liked the outdoors—and I knew she’d want that.
I had losses before, but nothing prepares you—the heart never breaks in the same pattern of pieces.
So now I lie awake nights, lost in the spaces between stars—adrift on bays and lakes between clouds, where I toss and turn looking for her, hoping the nightmare will end, but it never does.
The car accident that took her, injured me as well—head trauma—and now, months afterwards, still recovering– and fighting memory loss.
The neurosurgeon is doing his best, using CAT scans and MRI’s, but there are some anomalies and he’s contemplating surgery.
“So they’ll open you up, Daniel, and we’ll finally find out what makes you run.” Cat’s teasing laughter always cheers me up, even when I’m down—like now.
Kate Eaton, a.k.a. Cat, is married to my best friend, Tom. He and I owned a publishing house, once upon a time, but now he publishes my fabrications—yarns as I call them.
Cat disagrees with my self-estimate. She thinks my novels are haunting, but then again, she shares my passion for the Thirties, rainy days and sappy romances like The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.
“What if the surgeon opens me up and I don’t like what I see?”
She frowns. “If it helps with your memory, we’ll count it all joy. Besides, I’ve seen your writing and felt your soul—there’s only lovely things inside you, Daniel”
“She’s right, old friend,” Tom adds, “even the critics call you a heart whisperer. We all need you feeling better and back to your old self.”
I nod and turn away so they can’t see my tears. They want a return to normal, and I just want to die.
Later after Tom and Cat are gone, I light a fire against the April chill and pour a glass of Shiraz. I waste an hour flipping through a photo album from our last time at the cottage at Holmes Beach—our Ana Maria Island retreat on the calm waters of the Gulf.
After I close up the album, I happen to notice Carrie’s journal and idly leaf through it as well.
Seeing her lovely handwriting brings tears to my eyes—especially the way the peacock blue ink shimmers in the lamplight as if it were just penned. I run my hand lovingly over the page and my touch releases the faint scent of her perfume.
Suddenly, a bright lightning flash blinds me, and the room dissolves.
I black out momentarily, and when I come to, I realize I’ve scrunched my eyes tightly shut, but from the sounds and smells around me, I’m aware I’m somewhere else. I want to look, but I’m afraid—that is, until I hear a familiar, comforting sound.
I let my eyelids flutter open and discover I’m lying on a beach with gulls veering overhead and waves crashing near my feet.
I’m looking up into an azure sky pebbled with white clouds and there’s a soft ocean breeze washing over me, raising goose bumps on my arms. I can smell Carrie’s Tropic suntan oil and feel her warm body pressed up against me, her breath thundering in my ear.
I turn over and stare into her huge brown eyes. She has a bright smile on her face.
“Aren’t you happy we’re here? See—the publishing business didn’t fall apart. Tom emailed me and said while you were gone, he even signed a new client.”
“That’s wonderful, Love—and yes, I’m happy. I really don’t want to be anywhere else.”
She leans in and kisses me.
I taste the salt spray on her mouth. I comb my fingers through her wet tangled hair, feeling I’ve been among the sea-maids and drowned, but can stay dead for all I care.
I’m being carried along on some invisible current, following a script already determined.
We lie on the beach until the sun finally sets, and then walk back through a patch of sea oats to our cottage near the waves.
“Would you like a drink?” She asks, her hair still damp and burnished from the light of the lamps.
“I would,” I say, and lean in to kiss her for the umpteenth time, but my eyes snap shut and the room goes dark, and when I open them again I’m back in our empty front room.
“Are you sure you didn’t doze off and dream?” Cat asks, looking concerned.
I hand her a glass of Yellow tail and sit down beside her on the couch.
I shake my head. “It came on me suddenly—frankly, I thought I was having an aneurism—and then, there she was and I was reliving that day at Holmes Beach—one of my happiest memories.”
Her eyes brighten. “Then maybe it was serendipity—you know, one of those once in a lifetime occurrences that are magical but impossible to fathom.”
“Maybe,” I concede, but still continue to frown. I’m struggling to wrap my mind around something that may turn out to be a never-to-be repeated event.
“Do you think Carrie was trying to reach out and comfort you?” Cat asks suddenly.
My heart leaps at the suggestion—it was a notion in back of my mind I was hesitant to voice—partly because of reticence, but mostly because it was a sacred moment, and vocalizing it might somehow diminish its wonder.
I ponder how to answer as I stare into the fire thinking of that last kiss.
“You know, Cat, if Carrie somehow gave me this one last moment, I want to savour it the rest of my life.”
She leans over and hugs me. “You are very special Daniel Gregg—you’re one of the sweetest, most romantic men I know—and if anyone is entitled to a magical moment it’s you.”
Cat’s encouragement helps me deal with the aftermath of my experience and it consoles me to know she doesn’t think me delusional.
But the more I think about the incident of reliving the past I begin to doubt Carrie had anything at all to do with it. She seemed as helplessly caught up in the moment as I was.
Since people just don’t spontaneously relive events, there has to be some other explanation.
But if Carrie didn’t cause it, what did? Could it have been triggered by one of those anomalies the neurosurgeon detected in his tests? It’s a possibility—and then a thought hits me:
What if such a beautiful experience turns out to be simply the result of a blood clot in my brain?
I resolve to have an answer and the only way is to try to repeat the very steps that enabled me to travel back and be with her.
It doesn’t feel ghoulish or morbid to want to relive moments with Carrie. I’m not attempting to hold a séance—I just want to access my own lived experiences.
I get out the photo albums, but this time, choose our trip to BC. I find Carrie’s journal entries from our ski weekend at Whistler and also retrieve her ski jacket.
Once again I spent an hour perusing the photos, and then read her journal entries. As soon as I hold her ski jacket, the same sensations occur as before—the same blinding flash, the momentary blackout and then, awakening in another place surrounded by familiar sights and sounds—and Carrie’s voice.
“It’s so magical here, Daniel—high in the mountains, in a winter fairy land.”
The joy on her face is childlike and innocent. We’re standing in the Whistler village with huge fluffy snowflakes falling about us.
I kiss her slowly, prolonging the moment, and the world creeps away, leaving only my image reflected in her eyes.
We have a romantic dinner in a local steakhouse and walk the streets peering in windows and marvelling at the mountain peaks towering above us.
And just as we’re about to go up on a ski lift, everything goes dark and when I open my eyes I’m back in Toronto, in my fire lit front room.
It goes that way over the next few weeks—I experiment with different photos and personal objects of Carrie’s and discover I can relive all kinds of moments from our lives—not all romantic or happy, but all of them real.
In mid May, the neurosurgeon informs me my memory loss is in fact related to an area of the brain where he observed anomalies and suggested surgery might help. I politely decline, and Cat agrees.
She sits on my couch smiling, a glass of Shiraz in her hand.
“I told you a long time ago to fall in love for at least once in your life, Daniel—well, you did and you and Carrie enjoyed several happy years together. So now I’m telling you, go back and fall in love over and over again. You love Carrie, Daniel—love always returns.”
She’s a wise woman, Cat, and like me, an incurable romantic.
She shares my passion for the Thirties, rainy days and sappy romances—and now, being enchanted by revisiting a lost love.
