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CHAPTER ONE
I had an exceptionally rough day, so I eagerly crawled between the sheets a couple of hours before the evening news came on the television. I desperately wanted to sleep, not just because I was tired, but also so that I could be nowhere for just a little while. My mind was racing when I closed my eyes so I knew I had to channel my thoughts to focus in a single direction. I had heard Kenny Rogers passed away three or four days before so I decided that inside my head I would sing one of his songs. When I think of Kenny Rogers there are plenty of songs to choose from but “The Gambler” was the first one which came to mind. I know the entire lyrics of this song by heart but the only lines I could remember were the first couple lines of the chorus; “You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.” These lines kept repeating over and over and over until I had the distinct impression I was not alone in my bedroom. I opened my eyes and my sister Sarah was sitting in the chair I keep in the corner next to my bed, her beautiful face glowing in the light of the nightlight.
At one time there were five of us siblings. My brother Stephen was the oldest and, for some reason, he never wanted much to do with the rest of us. Even as a young teenager he never made any attempt to hide this preference. As a result, I was the only one of us that attended his funeral a couple of years ago. The youngest of us is Sage. Sage is lost. She never ever found any kind of peace until she began injecting it into one of her veins. No one has heard from her or heard any news of her for years, so we do not know if she is still with us or that she found the joy she craved one last time. Stacy, the second oldest, lives abroad but we are close, and we often speak to each other by phone or email. Sarah, a year older than me and three years younger than my brother. She passed away long ago when she was in her early-thirties from complications of pneumonia, so I was somewhat surprised when I saw her sitting in the chair by my bedside.
Sarah was the brains, heart, and beauty of the whole family. In high school, back when such things were permitted, in her senior year she won the school beauty pageant and she graduated second in her class. Sarah was grounded and never once did she let her beauty or intelligence overshadow her humility. When she left us so unexpectedly our family and her own young family never quite fully recovered from the loss.
“I didn't mean to scare you,” she said, smiling.
I was not alarmed. I knew I had to be dreaming. After all, she looked as though she was once again seventeen or maybe eighteen, so I smiled back.
“Bad day?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I replied.
Sarah smiled. “Don't be discouraged or depressed, there are better things yet to come,” she said.
Since I was certain I was dreaming I decided to play along. “How is Sage?”
Her smile faded. “The spirit that was attached to Sage is still lost.”
“Is she with you?”
“No, but the spirit that was attached to her is trying to find its way. Stephen and I have been trying to guide it.”
“How is Steve?”
“Aloof,” she said with a smile.
Her response made me laugh. “So, sister Sarah, are all your answers to my questions going to be so vague?”
She smiled. “Samuel, my answers have been and will always be truthful. Although, there are certain questions I cannot and will not answer.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling challenged. “What then is the biggest lie ever told?”
Her smile again faded. “To be told that a person died peacefully in their sleep. The mind is free unto itself, but the subconscious mind knows there is a spirit continually embracing it and the mind always knows when the spirit is departing. It is so much better to be fully awake, prepared, and to freely relinquish it. To be suddenly aware and be unprepared to have it abruptly taken from you is a shock to the essence of the person and by extension the spirit.”
“So, it's painful?”
Sarah's smile returned. “I never said that. I said that it was a shock. Death is the cessation of all pain; pain of the heart, pain of mind, and pain of the body.”
I smiled back at her. “So, has Sage been released from all her pain?”
She nodded. “Sage is no longer in pain.”
“But she is still lost.”
“The spirit attached to the person we knew as Sage is still lost.”
“I don't understand.”
Sarah thought for a moment before answering. “When the spirit left Sage's body it carried with it a great deal of the confusion which was at the very center of Sage's existence. Stephen and I are trying to...ah, to untangle this confusion.”
“Purgatory?” I asked.
This caused Sarah to laugh as I had done just moments before. “Not exactly, but close enough, especially for a protestant turned atheist.”
“So, after you get her untangled, she will join you and Steve?”
“Perhaps, if that is what the spirit attached to the person we knew as Sage desires.”
“Okay, I'm confused again. She'll have choices?”
“Yes, the spirit attached to the person we knew as Sage will have choices.”
“Choices such as?”
Sarah sighed. “I came to talk about you Samuel, not Sage.”
“Are you unwilling to answer my question about the choices Sage could make?”
“No brother, the answer will only lead to more questions and I don't have much time. I am worried that we won't get around to talking about you and because you really need to sleep.”
I smiled. “I am already asleep and dreaming.”
This caused my sister to also smile. “No, you are not dreaming and you are not sleeping,” she said. Sarah then reached out and flicked me on the forehead with her middle finger. It did not really hurt but I put my hand to my forehead, expressed shock, and this caused her to laugh.
“That wasn't nice.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Steve used to do that to us all the time when we were young. I didn't like it when he did it then and I don't like you doing it now.”
“It was important that you realize you were not asleep and dreaming.”
“Are you like a ghost, or something?”
“No, I am not an apparition. I am very real. A ghost cannot reach out and flick you on the forehead.”
“So, what are you?” I asked.
“You are such a goof. You always believed I was an angel so how about, for now, we go with that and forgo any more explanation. I am nearly out of time and we still have not talked about you.”
It was more than a stretch believing anything of what I was seeing and hearing, but I was not done. “How about you stop dodging my question about Sage's choices and we talk about me the next time you come visit?”
A wonderful wide and beautiful smile graced her face. “Is that an invitation?”
“It is. You have an open invitation. Tell me about Sage's choices.”
“I could not come back to see you again unless I was invited, so thank you.”
“Tell me about Sage's choices.”
Sarah's smile slowly faded, and she sighed. “The spirit attached to the person we knew as Sage will have several options after she works through the confusion of her human life experience. She can choose to be part of the One for a time or for the rest of time. She can choose to be like Stephen and me, separate but still connected to the One. Or the spirit attached to the person we knew as Sage can opt to go back again, to be reborn in another life.”
“Sage had a miserable life, I doubt she'd want to do that again,” I countered.
“I am sorry Samuel, you do not understand. Spirits frequently choose to be reborn into a life of adversity, sometimes with serious physical, emotional, or mental handicaps. As the living live their lives the spirit attached to it grows and evolves. The spirit attached to the person you and I knew as Sage has made the choice to be reborn many, many times. The spirit attached to the person you knew as Sage has also been many things: a male as well as female, royalty and a slave, an abused and an abuser, even numerous animals. This particular spirit is very, very experienced and is an extremely old spirit. This spirit is, by your timetable, ancient. It is so old that it came into existence, what we call the birth of a virgin spirit, attached to a life that was conceived as Neanderthal.
“This life of our sister Sage was this spirit's first personal experience with addiction. The spirit's experience was distorted and, despite all its previous experience and even existing sometimes as part of the One, it cannot absorb it until the spirit sorts out what was real and what was chemically altered. I assure you this spirit will eventually become untangled. The choice afterward is completely up to this spirit.”
I propped up on one elbow trying to sort this all out in my head. “So, is this my first time?” I asked.
Sarah shook her head. “This I cannot tell you. This may very well be your spirit's virgin life, or it may be its tenth, or even its hundred. There is universal agreement that when a spirit is born or reborn and, during the exceedingly rare occasion a spirit like me has contact in the flesh with those who are still of the living, we never disclose any information of that spirit's past. Still, there are some spirits which have been so perfectly aligned with their natural life companion that they actually remember bits and pieces of their past lives on their own.”
I smiled and nodded. “People we often dismiss as nut jobs.”
Sarah stood and reached out her hand cupping my cheek. “Good night my brother.”
I awoke, what seemed like only moments later. My first impulse was to grab the alarm clock and throw it across the room. I did not. I thought Sarah might be around and she would not approve.
CHAPTER TWO
I had another grueling day. You can only lock one shaft into the machine's collet before you can press the feed button. I am no genius by any measure, but I do know production in a shop like the one I work in is ultimately limited by the capacity of the machines you are running. I had taken every possible personal manual operation down to the absolute minimum and any improvement in production output depended exclusively on what they could do to upgrade the machines. These machines are old. Some of them were manufactured during the Second World War and sold off cheap after the war ended. I operated one of those and had to take two full turns back on the feed wheel just to take the slop out of the feed.
I dug the filthy heels of my hands into my eyes and took a deep breath. When each of the machines finished their operation I unloaded the parts and shut them down. Eugene, the shop foreman, came running in my direction and he was yelling. We all had been there since 6:30 am. I and all the other guys on the floor had eaten our sandwiches with our dirty hands in front of our machines as we continued to work. It was now past 7:00 pm.
“What the hell, Sam? We're not done.”
I did not know what to say at first. I felt bad because my machines were the last step before the steel gears and the steel pinion gears were sent for heat-treating.
“Eugene, I'm tired. I have been on my feet long since about the time the sun came up and they hurt so damn bad I don't know if I can even walk to my truck.”
Eugene stopped and watched me walk away. “If you leave now then don't come back.”
I was not worried. I had run those tired old machines for so long they would never be able to quickly train any one to operate them to turn out parts within specs. I turned around and flipped him the bird.
“Sam,” he yelled. “If Hitchcock closes this shop down, I won't have health insurance and I can't afford to pay for Maggie's chemo. For God’s sake Sam, I need you. If you...I really need you, Sam”
“Eugene, send the guys home. Most of them are young and have families.”
He was still pleading with me as I punched out and then pulled the door of the shop closed behind me.
CHAPTER TREE
I picked up tacos from a fast food place on the way home. I know they are not healthy, but they sounded better than a frozen mystery meat dinner I took from the freezer and heated in the microwave. Clark, my youngest son, dated a Hispanic girl for almost a year when he was in college. Her name was Rosa and Clark’s mother and I did not care much for her. Rosa was more than a little bit hot headed but Rochelle, her mamma, was perhaps the most loving and kind person on the face of this Earth. We only met her a few times, but she was a wonder and she used to frequently send real Mexican food home with Rosa's boyfriend. It took a while for my palette to adjust to the spices and the heat so now this Mexican fast food only fills my belly and triggers memories of only the good things about Rosa and her mamma.
I was sitting at the table in the kitchen eating the first of my tacos when Sarah walked in from behind and took a seat at the table across from me. This time she looked as though she did when she was in her mid twenties. She watched me eat and said nothing until I was finished.
“You do realize what you have eaten is not technically classified as nourishment?”
“You do realize I don't really give a damn.”
Sarah smiled. “You are dirty, tired, and grumpy”
“Yes I am.”
“Perhaps, I should come back another time.”
“No, please stay.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I have missed you so much, Sarah. I promise I'll be nice.”
That made her smile. “You work hard at the place where you are employed.”
I tilted my head, wanting to ask how the hell she knew that but did not, remembering I had just promised her that I would be nice.
“I was there today.”
“I didn't see you.”
Sarah laughed. “Do not be silly, no one saw me.” She touched her face with her hands. “This is unusual. It is so exceptionally rare to revisit while being in the flesh unless we are reborn. My hands touching my face is an extremely pleasant experience.”
“You should take a moment to look in a mirror, you're beautiful.”
Sarah looked away. “Beauty is a human concept and very judgmental.”
I nodded and smiled. I felt a need to tell Sarah that I understood because when she was alive she never flaunted her beauty. “My sister Sarah always preferred to be judged by her character rather than her beauty or her brains.”
She looked back at me and found my eyes. “That is not an entirely true statement, Samuel. You were more intelligent. You just did not have the desire to exercise it. And your sister really liked that she was pretty, prettier than Stacy and Sage.”
“You never flaunted it.”
“No,” she said and smiled. “I was satisfied knowing I was pretty, and I certainly did not want to hurt my sister’s feelings, especially Sage.”
I shook my head. “It wouldn't have mattered with Sage. She was a mess even before she started kindergarten.”
“It was not at all her fault.”
“Dad?”
Sarah smiled a sad smile and nodded. “He had demons he brought home with him from the war in Asia and he attempted to drink them away. As his alcohol tolerance increased it took more and more bourbon to keep the demons at bay. He was a very different father by the time Sage was born. She so desperately needed to please him, to be his little girl, but it never happened.”
“His cancer only made it all worse,” I added.
“It is why Stephen dropped out of college and joined the navy. It is why Stacy chose to go to college in Quebec. It is why I married Douglas when I was so young. It is also why you lacked the conviction to be better yourself.”
“So, it's all dad's fault,” I said with a smile.
“Samuel, you need to focus less on who is to bless and who is to blame and focus more on cause and effect. Our father had been over there for less than two weeks, just ten days, when his platoon was ambushed. Uncle Henry died in his arms. For him, the demons he faced were both real and powerful.”
“I never knew that,” I said. “I didn't know Uncle Henry died in his arms.”
Sarah hung her head. “Grandma was the only one he ever told, and she demanded he never speak of it again. He did as he was instructed, he never even told mom, and he kept that awful pain inside him for all his remaining years.”
“I knew he enlisted because of Uncle Henry, but I've never understood why. He was twenty-six years old with a wife and four young kids who needed him more than his brother needed him.”
“Our father was sixteen and Uncle Henry was eight when their father died suddenly of a heart attack. They had plenty of money, but Grandma did not handle Grandpa’s passing well and she completely shut herself off from the world, including her children. Our father essentially raised his brother. So, when Uncle Henry was drafted Dad felt like he had to go with him, to protect him.”
I suddenly felt a flood of guilt and remorse wash over me. “I wish I had known all this years ago,” was all I could say.
“Brother,” she said and waited until I found her eyes. “Seriously, you need to focus less on who is to bless and who is to blame and focus more on cause and effect.”
Her words made me feel marginally better, so I nodded.
We sat silent for a moment.
“Have you seen mom?” I asked.
Sarah nodded.
“Did she know who you were? Most of the time she has no idea who I am.”
“I see her often, but she never sees me.”
“Why? Why don't you let her see you like I'm seeing you?”
“As I said, it is extremely rare to revisit in the flesh and I am here for you. I have never been here in the flesh for our mother.”
“Would you care to explain that?”
Sarah shook her head. “No.”
“No?”
“I told you there were questions I would not answer. This is one of those questions, but I promise, in time it will become self-evident.”
I tossed that around for a moment and decided I would ask a different question. “You said a spirit could choose to be reborn and could choose to experience different things. Yes?”
Sarah nodded once.
“Was being my sister Sarah your first life experience?”
“No, there have been several other life experiences, but I have spent most of my existence as part of the One. Stephen was a virgin spirit.”
“When you were reborn as Sarah what experience did your spirit want?”
“The spirit attached to the person you knew as Sarah desired to experience giving birth to a virgin spirit?” She smiled. “Do not bother asking if it was Foster or Jennifer because I will not tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because, you silly man, they are not done. You could inadvertently do or say something to affect the experience.”
I nodded but I was not sure exactly how I could do anything to affect them in any way. I had not seen, spoken, or in any other way communicated with either of Sarah's children in five years, when they came home for their Aunt Joan's funeral. “How are they?”
“Foster is married to a Canadian woman, from the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador of all places. They have three children, two boys and a baby girl, and he is wonderfully happy. He is a teacher. He teaches history in a middle school in Payson, Arizona. Jennifer has much in common with her Aunt Stacy. Douglas did not approve, and I am embarrassed to say they have been estranged for quite some time. Still, she is happy and in love.”
“So is Stacy.”
“I know. I also know you two are still close.” She reached out and touched my hand. “I'm so sorry about Joan and Zack.”
I nodded and made an effort to smile. Zack was an inmate at the Marion Correctional Institute in Marion, Ohio. He has been there since 2016. He was convicted of involuntary DUI manslaughter for the death of two high school girls on their way home from cheer leading practice. His mother, my wife Joan, had a massive heart attack and died on the cold marble floor of the courtroom when the judge announced his sentence of eight to ten years.
“Brother,” she said, as if she was reading my mind. “Focus less on who is to bless and who is to blame and focus more on cause and effect.”
“God damn it to hell! He doesn't want me to visit him,” I said, my voice louder than I intended. “He says that he can see the blame for his mother's death in my eyes and....and I don't have it within me to tell him that he's wrong.”
Sarah closed her hand around mind. “I understand, Samuel. Douglas and I were happy, but you and Joan were the envy of us all. You were not just in love, you two were-”
“Soulmates. We were soulmates, Sarah.”
“Soulmates is a people word, a human word.”
“Bullshit, Sarah. We finished each other's sentences. We-.”
“So why did you cheat on her?”
“Oh, screw you. Go away.”
“Are you rescinding your open invitation?”
“No, but for right now I want you to leave me the hell alone.”
In a flash I was alone, and I did not know if it was what I really wanted.
I stood and headed for the bedroom and stripped off my clothes as I walked and dropped them on the floor. When I Stepped out of the shower my dirty clothes were in a pile in the corner and Sarah was sitting on the lid of the toilet. “Do you feel better?”
I grabbed a towel and smelled it. I threw onto the pile in the corner and grabbed a fresh one off the shelf beside the shower and I started to dry myself off.
“Do you feel better?”
I glanced over my shoulder at her and said, “No, not really.”
“Joan loved you, truly loved you, and she forgave you.”
Naked, with my towel loosely draped in front of me, I turned to face my sister.
“Samuel, it is truly important that you follow her lead. You need to forgive yourself.”
Suddenly I was angry again with my sister. “What do you know?” I barked.
Sarah looked at the floor. “I was there. I watched some of it.” Sarah looked up and found my eyes. “It was me who kept whispering in your ear that you were making a mistake and I am certain that you heard me.”
I put a hand to my face covering my eyes. “Oh my God, Sarah, I heard you. Yes, I heard you. I didn't know who you were, but I heard you, but it was already too late.”
“Samuel, I know.”
I took my hand from my eyes. “Oh, God. What did I do? Tell me truthfully Sarah that Jesus Christ didn't die on some damned cross so I could be forgiven for what I did to Joan.”
“Jesus of Nazareth did not have to die on a cross to buy you forgiveness. Joan did that, she forgave you.”
I looked at Sarah and drew a few deep breaths.
“Joan forgave you and it is about time that you forgave you.”
“It's not that easy.”
Sarah smiled. “Samuel, in all the years after, did she ever bring it up?'
I shook my head.
“I've not been in the flesh for a long time but there is still something about this present situation that is terribly unnatural. Would you mind putting on some clothes?”
I walked into my bedroom, opened a drawer, and pulled on a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. When I turned around, she was no longer sitting on the toilet lid. She was next to me, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“I never intended to be mean to Sage.”
“Samuel, I assure you that you were not mean to Sage. Sage was your baby sister and you were struggling to help her the best you knew how, but Sage did not want your help. You cannot help an addict unless they want to be helped. I know she said she hated you, wished you were dead, but she only said those things because you were again interfering with her next high. Sage loved you the most out of all of us”
“You said that her spirit chose to be reborn to experience addiction.”
“Samuel, that was poorly phrased, but essentially yes.”
I studied her face for a moment. “The words I spoke were the words you spoke to me.”
“The exact words I said was the spirit who was attached to the person we knew as Sage chose to be reborn to experience addiction. You knew Sage but you never knew her spirit. The spirit and the person are one,” she made her hands into fists, put them together at the thumbs, and then moved them apart, “but separate. The spirit plays no role what-so-ever in the choices the person makes, their connection is only in the subconscious mind. It is there to solely experience the life and the lessons of that life.”
I tossed Sarah's words around. What she said made sense, but it was not all adding up quite right. “So how did the spirit existing with the person I knew as Sage end up experiencing addiction if the spirit played no role in the choices Sage made? Magic?” I was not entirely successful in keeping the sarcasm out of my voice.
“The One chooses the life.”
“So, the One decided our sister was going to be an addict?”
“No. The One never, ever interferes in the affairs or the choices of the living flesh. Samuel, the One is a collective of spirits that is nearly as old as time itself. The One was relatively certain at the time of her conception what was to become of our sister Sage. The One merely paired them.”
“You're telling me that the One you keep referring to is essentially God. Because God knows everything?”
“No, Samuel. The One and God might appear to have much in common, but they are definitely not one and the same. God as he exists in the minds of mankind is a construct conceived in the minds of men and women. The earliest of men, those who barely walked upright, lived in a difficult and very harsh world. They were gathers and hunters, but they were also prey. As they developed language, communication, they became more successful at hunting and less frequently the victims of creatures who were hunting them. Still, at night as they sat in front of fires they were fully aware just beyond where fires illuminated the darkness there could be something out there ready to pounce on them. So, one of them, to comfort the rest, or perhaps just his mate and offspring, suggested there was also something out there that was huge and powerful but unseen that was going to protect them, a God. All they had to do was be grateful and shower this God with affection and praise. Eventually one God grew into many and, in time, sacrifices had to be made to these Gods to keep them happy. The idea of an all-powerful single God is relatively new in the complete history of mankind.”
“So, there is no God?”
I could quickly observe the sadness on my sister's face. “I never said that.”
“You certainly did. You said that God was a construct in the minds of men. We made him up.”
“Samuel, that is not a true statement. What I said was the concept of what God is believed to be is a construct in the minds of mankind. The One, while nearly as old as time, a collection of spirits, and the aggregation of their life experiences still, to this very moment, contemplates the existence of what you refer to as God. The One did not create the heavens or the earth, nor does it breathe the first spark of life into all that is living, and the origin of the very first spirit is unknown.”
“So, there is a God?”
“I cannot tell you with certainty if there is or there is not a God because I do not know this for certain. All I know for certain is the One does not take credit for the things of which I just spoke.”
“Did the spirit attached to the person I knew as Sage experience find what it was looking for?”
“Oh yes, and so much more. As I said, Stephen and I are assisting in sorting out the experience.”
“When a spirit who chooses to be reborn does it always get what it wants? Does it get what it expects?'”
“No, not always. The One matches a spirit with a child at birth using its best estimation of what will become of this child. There are no guarantees, especially considering the fluid nature of human lives.”
I thought about this for a moment. “What was it our father wanted?”
“The spirit who was reborn and attached to our father had chosen to be reborn to experience being a warrior.” She smiled at me. “Are you beginning to understand?”
I shook my head, “No, not at all.”
“The experience of being a warrior, Samuel, is not just celebrating victories. There are losses, pain, suffering, and death. Horrific events occurred which the natural mind of our father was unable to come to terms with, events that haunted him to the moment when he expelled his last breath. The One paired them together and spirit came away at the end of that life with a full and complete experience of being a warrior.
“It is important that you stop looking at the rebirth of a spirit with judgments attached to them. Spirits make no judgments and nor does the One. If a spirit chooses to be reborn it only desires a full and complete experience. The One decides the pairing based on how much that specific individual spirit has evolved and grown. The spirit attached to man we knew as our father is an old spirit but unlike the spirit attached to the person we knew as our sister Sage it had spent nearly all of its existence as part of the One.
“The spirit attached to the person we knew as our father gleaned so much from the experience it chose to be reborn again almost immediately. Do not bother asking who or where because I cannot tell you. I will only say the spirit chose a very different experience.”
“Can you tell me what the spirit chose to experience?”
Sarah smiled. “The spirit, having experienced so much suffering, desired to experience what it felt like to be a healer and relieve suffering.”
I moved to my dresser and retrieved a pair of flannel pajama pants. As I pulled them on, I was forming a question in my mind. I turned to face her, but she was not there. She had moved to a chair in the corner. The stack of dirty clothes that had been there was gone. I suspected they were on top of the pile on the corner of the bathroom. She nodded toward the bed and I sat nearly in the same spot where she had been sitting.
“Ask your question,” she said.
I could not help but smile. “You said this One was a collection of spirits and the aggregation of their experiences.”
Sarah nodded.
“If this spirit attached to the person we knew as our father spent most of its existence as part of the One, how come it didn't already know what it felt like to be a warrior? Or a healer?”
“The spirit did know, but a shared experience as part of the One is not the same as a spirit experiencing the actual events. Remember being in Mr. Goldstein's history class?”
I nodded and smiled. “Yes, but that was a long time ago and I hope I'm not expected to take a test.
Sarah ignored my comment. “Every year in his ninth-grade history class we spent two or three weeks studying the holocaust. At the end he gave every student in the class a horrendous but true account of the holocaust by one of the individuals who survived it. With it we were given an assignment to write a one-page essay of our thoughts and feelings based on what we had read. It affected some kids more than others but nearly everyone was moved by it. We were moved by it, but it was a shared experience. It was nothing at all like the experience of actually living through the holocaust.”
I nodded my understanding of the point she was making. I remembered that class very well.
She continued, “By the time Sage got to ninth grade Mr. Goldstein was not there anymore. Some of the kids complained, told their parents that Mr. Goldstein's holocaust stories gave them nightmares, and the parents objected. The school board told him he had to strike it from the curriculum, but he refused. The school board insisted so he resigned in protest. A couple of days later someone sprayed, in bright red paint, 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it' on the front of the school. He was arrested for it but never charged. There was no proof he was the one who did it.”
Sarah smiled. “That is a quote from a book by George Santayana called “Reason in Common Sense” published in 1905. I also happen to know for a fact that Mr. Goldstein did not deface school property with a can of red spray paint.”
I smiled back. “How, Sister, do you know this for a fact.”
“Because, Brother, I was the one who spray painted the school while my best friend, Jeannie, kept watch for me.”
“I am both shocked and proud!” I exclaimed. The vision of Sarah spray-painting the school and Jeannie keeping watch tickled me to no end. It was the best I had felt in days, maybe even weeks. “How is it no one ever found out?”
“Douglas was the only other person who knew. He overheard Jeannie and me whispering. She was terrified, especially after Mr. Goldstein was arrested. Douglas did not actually hear what we were saying but he put two and two together and when he confronted us Jeannie caved, she confessed everything to him. He was so angry, Samuel. He was so angry that I was afraid he was going to break up with me.”
“I can imagine. Douglas was a pretty straight guy.”
She smiled. “Are you feeling any better?”
I nodded.
My sister stood, walked over to me, and pushed me down on the bed. She covered me with the covers and kissed me on the forehead. “I have to go, I have already stayed too long, and you need to sleep.”
With that she turned and left the room, turning the lights out as she went. I got up in the middle of the night to go pee and there was a note taped to the bathroom mirror. It was instructing me to put the clothes from the washing machine into the dryer and pile of clothes next to the washer into the washer. The pile of dirty clothes that was in the corner of the bathroom was gone.
CHAPTER FOUR
I felt rested when the alarm went off but the first few steps I took after I got up were painful. It was a stark reminder I had spent far too much of my life standing on my feet in steel toed work boots on a concrete floor. After taking care of the morning business in the bathroom I went looking for my slippers. I finally found them under the bed and then headed down to the basement to take care of the laundry as I had been instructed. I showered but I did not bother to shave. It was the third or fourth day in a row I neglected this part of my personal hygiene. I do not know why, but I left the note taped to the bathroom mirror. After I dressed for work, I made the bed. It was the first time I had done that in weeks. The sheets desperately needed to be changed but I was not up to doing it and packed my lunch instead.
The guys were all standing outside when I got to work. They parted but said nothing as I walked up the door. The sign on the door basically said this shop of The Ottawa Pinion and Gear Company LLC was permanently closed. We would be getting our final paychecks mailed to us and having reviewed each employee's job performance, the envelope may or may not include an offer to work in another location of The Ottawa Pinion and Gear Company LLC.
“Where's Eugene?” I asked.
I was told he sat in his truck for a while, obviously upset, and then he left.
One of the younger guys piped up. “This is your fault, Sam. You shouldn't have shut it down when you did last night.”
I looked at as many of their faces as I could bear to witness, then looked away, and shook my head. “This had nothing to do with me shutting it down last night. Read that damn sign again. This was already in the pipe. They had already reviewed our job performance. If we'd stayed here working until midnight last night, that sign on the door would still have been there to greet us this morning.”
One of them says, “Well, I'm going over to the tavern and get shitfaced. Who's coming with me?”
I started to get a real bad feeling, like I might be sick. “It's 6:30 in the morning and the tavern isn't open and it's not going to open,” I said. “All the bars and restaurants are closed because of this Covid virus. Go home. Go home and borrow your kid’s tablet or laptop and start filing for unemployment.”
The young guy standing directly in front of me asked me what I was going to do.
Suddenly I felt like I had been punched in the chest. It took a few moments for it to pass. “I'm going to go home and change the sheets on my bed,” I told him. “Then I'm going to take the clothes out of the dryer and put the clothes that's in the washer in the dryer. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do after I finish the laundry.”
When I turned to walk away everything began to spin. I almost fell over but one of the guys grabbed me by the shoulder and kept me on my feet. He stayed with me all the way to my truck. He was standing there with a worried look on his face as I drove away. I was feeling a little better by the time I got back to the house.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sarah, looking as she did in her late teens, was sitting at the dining room table waiting for me.
“You knew,” I said.
“No,” she replied. “I was concerned so I was keeping an eye on you. We both found out at the same time.”
“I have to change the sheets on the bed.”
Sarah smiled. “It is already done and so is the rest of the laundry.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Can I get you aspirin for your headache?”
I nodded and put my hand to my forehead. “I think all I have in the medicine cabinet is ibuprofen.”
“I'll check.”
She was back in a flash, all smiles, and indicated I should sit. “There was one of those little travel size bottles all the way in the back on the top shelf.” She put two aspirin tablets on the table in front of me, scurried off toward the sink, and came back with a glass of water.
After I swallowed the aspirin, she took a seat next to me and put her hand on top of mine. “We get to spend the rest of your day together.”
I smiled and slowly shook my head. “I don't think so. You never can stay very long.”
Sarah squeezed my hand. “I might have to pop out to take care of a couple of things, but I'll do that when you are taking your nap. I will be here when you fall asleep and I will be back by the time you wake up.”
That made me laugh. “What? I'm not three years old and I don't take naps during the day.”
“You used to take naps all the time,” she said with a smile.
Despite how I felt I smiled back at her. “Is that so?'
“Samuel, I cannot begin to count the number of Saturday and Sunday afternoons when Foster and Zack were toddlers that I came over here so Joan and I could take them to the park to play. You would be on the couch watching a ball game but when we came back you were always sound asleep.”
“Well, maybe I grabbed a quick nap once in a while on the weekend,” I conceded.
“Think of this as an extra-long weekend.”
“There's nothing to watch. The response to this Covid virus has all the games suspended.”
Sarah made a sour face but said nothing.
I felt like I had somehow hurt feelings. “Maybe I could watch reruns of 'Married with Children'.”
Sarah rolled her eyes and this made me smile.
I laughed and said, “I knew this was coming.”
“What about it is funny, Samuel?”
“It's a lot like dying peacefully in your sleep. You know one day it's going to happen, but when it actually happens, you're not prepared for it,” I replied.
Sarah did not appreciate my sense of humor and did not smile. Instead, she looked away.
“We make gears and pinion gears for a huge company that manufactures tractors, so the shop was exempted from the shutdown order because we were an essential part of the supply chain for the farming industry. I figured we were okay through the end of summer or at least until they finally got control of this virus thing. I never expected the company would shut my shop down so soon. I don't give a damn about me but I'm worried about the young guys with families.”
She found my eyes. “Samuel, those boys will be okay. The House and Senate passed the relief package and the president signed it. They are going to receive checks in the mail in the next few weeks and they can also file for unemployment benefits right away.”
I took my hand out from under hers and patted hers gently. “Sarah, I'm not worried about them in the short term. I'm worried about what happens to them after. These guys are machine operators. They aren't machinists; they are machine operators that have been operating machines older than they are, machines that were built in the 1950's and 1960's. Some of them were made in the 1940's. Guys with college degrees program the new stuff and the machines pretty much run themselves. All they need is someone to keep the machine's feed full and to box the parts that come out at the other end. It's a job that pays little more than minimum wage. You can't feed a family on minimum wage.”
“What about you, Samuel?” She asked. “Do you believe you are going to be alright?”
“I'll be fine. Joan worked for the school board and she had a great benefits package. Not too long after she passed, I received a life insurance check. It was a very substantial amount of money, but I didn't want it. I didn't want anything to do with it, but I listened to the guy at the bank and let him invest it for me. I haven't touched a penny of it because I planned on leaving it to the boys. A couple of years ago I had my attorney send both the boys a notarized letter stating my intent. Clark sent back his own notarized letter to me telling me he was financially secure designing homes for the rich and famous and he preferred I use his portion money for my own comfort and quality of life.”
Sarah smiled. “I have looked in on Clark many times and, yes, he is doing extremely well.”
I looked away. “Zack's letter wasn't notarized, but he made it painfully clear that he wouldn't touch a penny of it either.”
“Samuel, Zack is suffering.”
I looked at her, knowing the expression on my face was demanding an explanation.
“The pain Zack feels is different but is in no way less debilitating than the pain our father endured after he returned home from the war. When our father closed his eyes all he saw was the bloody and dying face of Uncle Henry. Uncle Henry's eyes were begging to know why this was happening to him until death took him away. When Zack closes his eyes, he either sees the bloody faces of those two young girls or the expressionless face of his mother on the cold marble floor of that courtroom as the paramedics were trying to resuscitate her. Zack was going days and days without sleep. He was finally taken to the infirmary and sedated. He has been prescribed medication, the same medication prescribed for veterans suffering PTSD, and he has mandatory psychiatric treatments three days a week. If he does not show improvement, he is going to be transferred to the North Coast Behavioral Healthcare Hospital.”
I rested my elbows on the table and cupped my face with my hands.
“Samuel, this is certainly one of those things where you must focus less on who is to bless and who is to blame and focus more on cause and effect.”
I said nothing.
“It was a lapse in judgment, that is all it was.”
Again, I said nothing.
“Zack is a good man, Samuel. Zack is a good man with a tender heart. He is a good man who made a dreadful mistake. Good men make dreadful mistakes all the time. Samuel, human life is a continual series of mistakes and lessons learned. Unfortunately, some mistakes are awful ones. Human beings born of the flesh are not born, as the expression goes, sheep. Every person born is born with free will. This is the reason why spirits that choose to be reborn choose to be reborn almost exclusively attached to a human being.
“Life is filled with challenges and adversities. The types of challenges and adversities have changed immensely through the centuries. To survive and to live to die from old age is as much a testament to a person’s inner strength as it is to improvements in basic living conditions. Each and every day a person makes choices. There is a cumulative effect of bad choices and a cumulative effect of good choices.”
Sarah reached out and pulled my hand away from my face. “Like eating tacos instead of a salad,” she said with a smile.
I rolled my eyes but could not keep a smile from seeping its way into the corners of my mouth.
Sarah cast her eyes down. “Samuel, sometimes the choices made are grave ones. A choice, like the one Zack made, to drive when he knew he had too much to drink. It is not so much different than the choice you made when you cheated on Joan.
I folded my arms on the table and rested my forehead on them.
“You were fortunate, Samuel. You were fortunate because Joan forgave you. I know that you, even to this day, have not forgiven yourself. I am certain, beyond even the slightest doubt, that you truly loved Joan. I also know there were countless times that you looked at her and smiled, but deep inside you were asking yourself how you could have done that to her. I also know that there were countless moments when you caressed her cheek and thought to yourself that you were such a heartless ass to have once caused the tears that tumbled down that very cheek.
“You were fortunate, Samuel, because Joan forgave you. Those young girls that perished that evening never got the opportunity in this life to forgive Zack. The parents of those children will never forgive him. And, his father, who witnessed the death of the love of his life, has never forgiven him either. This young man is suffering tremendously. He is tearing himself into pieces from the inside out. He would have long ago taken his own life but the belief that his mother instilled in him, that he was a member of God's family, and it was an unforgivable sin to take his own life, was the only thing that kept him from doing it.
“Samuel, Zack is a good man. There is this rule of law called 'but for' and it means that this event occurred but would not have occurred but for this other event which, though not deliberately, took place. For example, I was reborn several centuries ago and I breathed air for only about thirty-six hours before I was smothered to death beneath a very fine silk pillow. I would have lived many years but for the fact that my dark-skinned slave mother had given birth to a very light skinned child. In those days it was acceptable for a man to take and enjoy the pleasures of a household slave, but the victim of his pleasure was not permitted to be impregnated and produce a child.”
I took a deep breath. “Sarah, what the hell are you getting at?”
“Intent,” she replied.
“What?”
“Samuel, it was never Zack's intent to ever hurt anyone. He did not deliberately set out to harm those girls. Yes, they lost their lives and he is being punished by the state for that loss but the punishment he is inflicting upon himself because he also includes the death of his mother is far greater than any punishment the state could possibly impose upon him. I know you understand exactly what I am saying because you are still punishing yourself for what you did to Joan.”
“Why do you keep bringing that up?”
“Because, for you, it is unfinished business.”
“I lost her, then I had to put her in a box, and then I had to bury her. It doesn't get any more finished than that!”
“Tell me about it”
“What?”
“Tell me what happened with Kelly.”
“No.”
Sarah thought for a moment. “I really think it is important that you do. Just because Joan died does not mean it is entirely finished business. It only means it is finished business for her, but not for you. So, please, tell me what happened with Kelly.”
I took a deep breath and then pointed to the chair directly across from me. “Joan was sitting there, her usual place at this table.” I then pointed to the chair directly across from where Sarah was sitting. “Frank was sitting there. I knew when I walked in from the kitchen that they both knew. I was a lot younger back then, but it had been a long day, about ten hours on my feet, and I wasn't sure I was up to dealing with what I knew was about to happen.
“I stood there for a while with them just staring at me. Finally, Joan asked me if what Frank had told her was true. I didn't have courage to speak so I just looked at her and nodded my head. Frank said Kelly had told him all about it, about what had been going on, and she wanted a divorce so she could be with me. I told him not to give her one because I didn't want to be with her. I told him that I wanted to be with Joan, and I didn't want a divorce. I looked back at Joan and told her that if she wanted a divorce, I understood, but she was going to have to fight for it.
“When I said that to Joan it seemed to really piss Frank off. He started going on about what a total piece of shit I was because I had taken advantage of his wife and that, apparently, for me she was just a play toy. I am not sure those were his exact words, but I wasn't really listening to him because I never took my eyes off Joan. I was trying really hard to determine what was going on inside her head by reading the expression on her face.
“After he said all he had to say Frank stood up, tipping over the chair he'd been sitting on. He stormed out the front door and slammed it closed behind him. A few minutes later your Joan stood up, pushed in her chair, and righted and pushed in the chair Frank had knocked over. She walked over to me, Sarah, and she stood directly in front of me with tears streaming down her cheeks. She looked me straight in the eye and told me that I better never ever do anything like this again. She kissed me on the cheek and walked away. That was the last time we ever spoke of it. Frank and Kelly put their house up for sale a couple of days later. It sold in less than a week and they moved away.”
Sarah stared at me with her big brown eyes for a few moments. Finally, she said, “I was here that day. I observed what took place and your accounting of what occurred and the words spoken are mostly accurate. But, my brother, what I asked of you was for you to tell me what happened with Kelly. I already know what happened at the end, but I was asking you to explain the path that led you there.”
I said nothing.
“So, Frank was correct, she was just a play toy.”
I was suddenly angry and shook my head. “No, Kelly was not a play toy. She was anything but a toy!”
“Then, Samuel, what exactly was she?”
“What was that word you used? Dreadful, Kelly was a dreadful mistake.”
Sarah shook her head. “No, that is not good enough.”
I dug the heels of my hands into my eyes and mentally counted to ten. I moved my hands back to the table and looked into Sarah's eyes. “We had chemistry. I don't know how else to explain it. All I know is that from the moment Kelly and I met there was electricity, a spark. I'd only felt that in my life only one time before that.”
Sarah reached out and touched my arm. “Joan?”
I nodded. Suddenly I wanted to cry but by the sheer force of will I kept the tears away.
“So, how did it happen?” She asked
“You said you were there. You said you were there, and you kept whispering in my ear that I had to stop. Was that a lie?'
Sarah shook her head. “I was not there at the very beginning, but I was there later. I sincerely believe that it will help if you tell me how it happened.”
“Who is this revelation going to help?”
She smiled. “You, Samuel. It will help you.”
I didn't want to talk about this anymore, so I waited. Sarah proved better at the waiting game.
“Zack and Clark were both in the choir at school. Joan was under the impression that both her boys had the voices of angels. The age of Kelly's twin girls was between the two boys. I later suspected she had pushed her girls into choir, arranged it so she and I could spend time together.
“See, Frank was a nice guy. I liked him, but we didn't have much in common. He liked to golf, and I liked to hunt. He had no interest in the long guns I owned or the fact I reloaded my own ammunition. His favorite sports on TV were golf, figure skating, and gymnastics. I watch those during the Olympics but otherwise when I turn on the TV I want to watch football, basketball, baseball, or hockey.
“It was a Saturday morning and Joan had taken the boys and Kelly's girls to a choir competition and I was laying on the couch watching my Celtics pitifully play some round ball. We weren't so diligent about safety back then, so Kelly let herself in the unlocked back backdoor. I didn't hear her come in, but I nearly jumped out of my skin when she walked past me and turned off the television.
“She said we had plenty of time to be together because Joan and the kids were at the choir competition and Frank had just left to go golfing. Like I said there was this chemistry, so we did stuff. We kissed and touched each other, but we didn't do the one thing. The next time we were alone together I told Kelly that I wasn't comfortable with what we were doing and I didn't think us seeing each other alone was a good idea. That made her very angry. She said that if we weren't going to continue our relationship then she was going to have to confess to Frank what had already happened between us. If she confessed to Frank then, damn it, Joan was going to find out.
“I didn't want that to happen. I felt like I had been painted into a corner so I decided that I didn't have a choice, I was going to have to do that one thing to keep her quiet. I also decided I'd do it but I'd be the type of guy she wouldn't like doing it with, so she'd happily go back home to Frank and never want to repeat the experience. I couldn't have been more wrong.”
I took a deep breath before continuing. “It was exactly what Kelly wanted. She liked it like that. She wanted that thing rough. And, I liked it, too. I never ever wanted it that way when I was with Joan, but I liked that way when I was with Kelly because I wanted to punish her for forcing this on me. I wanted to degrade her, maybe even hurt her a little, anything to make her go home and never come back. Every time after I was angrier and rougher...” I looked at Sarah, who now suddenly appeared as she did just before she got sick.
“Why did you continue? Why did you not put a stop to it?” She asked.
“Every time I brought it up Kelly threatened to confess,” I said.
Sarah smiled. “You had to know that eventually, no matter what, Kelly was going to confess.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I knew. I always knew she was going to eventually spill the beans. I was just kicking the can down the road. I didn't want Joan to find out. I didn't want to hurt her, and I really, really didn't want to disappoint her.”
“Why?”
I laughed. “Why? Because I loved Joan and I didn't want to be responsible for hurting her. We were soulmates and I was responsible for her happiness and it was my responsibility to do whatever I could to prevent her from feeling pain.”
“You were not soulmates.” She patted my hand. “I have already told you that soulmate is a people word.”
“Bullshit.”
Sarah smiled and slowly morphed into the twelve-year-old girl. “Samuel, what people, living human beings, refer to as their soul is actually their life's breath. Your soul is the breath of life offered to you and you accept at the moment of your birth. At the moment of your death this soul leaves you, your breath of life ceases. Where this breath of life goes is just as mysterious as its origin. Since time before there is any memory or record, all living things are given the breath of life. The One, as I have already explained, is not responsible for this breath of life but acknowledges it and attributes it to the creator of the heavens and the earth.”
“God,” I said.
“My Brother, once again as I have already explained, the One neither confirms nor denies the entity God as you envision it. As a free spirit attached to the One, a spirit who has existed as part of the One, and a spirit which has lived lives in the flesh, I am unable to definitively confirm nor deny the existence of God in the concept of what God is believed to be in the minds of mankind.”
“The proof God exists,” I said, “is because of the faith of people.”
“These are strange words coming from the mouth of a man who professes himself to be an atheist. In any case, Samuel, where was this faith you speak of when the first breath of life was first given millennia ago?”
I shook my head. “I don't give a damn what you say. We had a connection, Sarah. Joan and I were connected.”
She smiled. “Yes, Samuel. You and Joan were connected, and you are still connected. At this moment, though, I cannot explain this connection but, as I said earlier, eventually it will become clear.”
“Are you purposely trying to confuse me?' I asked.
Sarah morphed again, back into the woman just before she got sick. “I am not. I am here for you. I am here to assist you.”
“Why”
“I am so sorry, my brother, but at this moment I also cannot tell you. All I am permitted to say is that eventually it will become clear.”
“When I asked about mom you said that you said you had seen her. Is that true?” I asked.
Sarah smiled and hung her head. “As the spirit who was attached to your sister Sarah, I have visited our mother often. To see her in her current state saddens me. The woman who was our wonderful mother is completely lost inside that body. Eventually, the body will succumb to the disease, she will return the breath of life back to where it came, and her spirit will be released.”
“Why haven't you revealed yourself to her?”
Sarah morphed into what I remembered our mother looked like when I was about ten years old and at the site of it unnerved me.
“Does this disturb you?” She asked.
My answer was definitive. “Yes.”
Sarah reverted to the image of what she looked like just before she got sick. “Imagine mom experiencing a fleeting moment of lucidity when I was there in the flesh in front of her. What effect do you think that would have on her?”
I said nothing.
“Sometimes, when I have visited mom she is out of her room and she is walking the hallways. She is searching for someone, someone she remembers, because she desperately needs to talk to them and share the old memories. The old memories are the only ones she can still remember. There are the faces from her youth or younger days, but she is not deterred. She walks and continues her search until she is exhausted.
“There is a young man, an orderly, his name is Simon and he is a wonderful human being. If he is there and sees our mother walking the halls he always comes to her rescue. When he approaches her, he always asks her if she is Miss Sheffield.”
I smiled. “That was her maiden name."
Sarah nodded. “Simon keeps a small notebook in the pocket of his scrubs and after each encounter he makes notes of the things she tells him, memories she shares. He uses these notes to get her talking, but more importantly, to get her to relax. Eventually, he hooks his arm in hers and as she reminisces, he gently escorts back to her room. This level of commitment and concern is not part of his job description and our mother is not the only recipient of the kindness from his tender heart. Simon is truly an inspiration.”
I looked my sister straight in the eye. “Is the spirit attached to this orderly, Simon, the same spirit who was once attached to our father?”
“This I cannot tell you,” she said.
I beamed a smile at her. “You don’t have to."
“Brother, to make this assumption is wrong.”
“No,” I said. “You are feeding me little bits and pieces of information in no discernible order, but I am beginning to see a pattern.”
Sarah slowly shook her head. “You are making an assumption without proof or collaboration.”
I smiled. “Seriously?”
“Yes."
“Then, why didn’t you deny it? You didn’t deny it when I asked if the spirit who was attached to our father was the same spirit attached to the orderly who takes extraordinary care of our mother. You said to make the assumption was wrong, but you did not say my conclusion was wrong."
Sarah became a teenager again.
“Tell me, Sister, was my conclusion wrong.”
“I cannot tell you this either.” She smiled and then let it fade. “I remember telling you that you were the most intelligent of all of us.”
“Does the spirit attached to this Simon know who Miss Sheffield is?”
“The spirit does not. A spirit attached to a living person does not know anything beyond the life it is sharing. Spirits accompany the living only as observers and they exercise no control over the freewill of the life to which they are attached. If, and I repeat if, the spirit who was attached to our father is the same spirit that is now attached to Simon then it is not influencing the young man in any manner what-so-ever. The spirit will remember everything only when the life to which it is attached expels its final life’s breath, the soul goes back to from where it came, and the spirit is released.”
I studied the face of my sister for a moment. I smiled when she became the woman she was before she became sick and left us. “How about we talk about Joan again,” I suggested.
Sarah smiled and nodded.
“Where is the spirit that was attached to the woman I knew as Joan?” I asked.
Her smile quickly faded. “You keep asking me questions I cannot answer.”
“Is the spirit attached to another life? Is it like you and Steve, separate but still attached to the One? Or is that spirit part of the One?”
“You have been paying attention.”
“And you are not answering my question.”
Sarah sighed. “I cannot answer your question.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why can’t you answer this simple question?”
“Because, my brother, it is not a simple question. It is a very complicated question?”
I smiled. “Sarah, why do you keep talking in circles? The question really is simple. Why don’t you say what you mean? What you mean is the answer is complicated.”
“You are correct.”
“I got an A in Mr. Goldstein’s history class. What was your grade?”
Sarah hung her head. “I received a B-,” she said.
“Wow.”
“Do not judge me, Samuel.”
“I wasn’t judging you, just expressing my surprise. Why did Mr. Goldstein give you a B-?”
“It’s not important,” she said with a defiant smile.
I nodded a few times. “All these years later it really isn’t important in the scheme of things. In the context of a beautiful young lady, one who was later willing to use red spray paint to deface school property in defense of Mr. Goldstein, it does become curious. It becomes even more curious now knowing that you received a B- in his class.”
“I received that grade because I was incensed by the whole thing. My one-page essay was not one page. It was longer than the story I had been given to read. Mr. Goldstein told me that I was angered by what I had read and anger was an improper response. He told me anger is not the vehicle by which any meaningful change occurs. He told me that change comes only through understanding and a serious effort to educate others. He said that anger only inspires others to anger and this leads to confrontation. Confrontation means people must choose sides and choosing sides only widens the divide instead of closing it.
“At the time I was very upset with Mr. Goldstein. It took me a while to realize that I was upset with him because of the grade and how it was going to affect my GPA. It was later that I realized his intention was not to affect my GPA but to actually get my attention, to teach me a very valuable lesson.”
“What was the lesson?”
My sister presented me with the most wonderful smile. “That we must focus less on who is to bless and who is to blame and focus more on cause and effect.”
I smiled back at her. “You said Joan and I were not soulmates, but we were and still are connected. Yes?”
Sarah closed her eyes and nodded.
“So, her spirit is alive?
She opened her eyes and found mine. “The spirit which was attached to Joan still exists. A spirit once created will exist until the end of time. The only way a spirit ceases to exist is by its own choosing. This practically never happens.”
“When I die will the spirit attached to me find the spirit that was attached to Joan and will these spirits remember the life we shared?”
“Samuel, spirits remember everything from the life they are born into to and every other life they were born into. Those spirits will certainly remember their life together as flesh and blood, as Joan and Samuel. If there were others, they will also remember every other life they experienced as flesh and blood.”
I was shocked by her words. It never dawned on me that Joan could have lived other lives, lives that may have been better ones, happier ones, ones that were more fulfilling. The notion she might prefer another caused me to feel, for the second time today, like I had been punched in the chest.
“Samuel, are you alright?” Sarah asked.
I nodded because I was not certain I had enough breath to answer her verbally.
“You don’t look okay. I think maybe it’s time for that nap.”
I shook my head.
“What is the matter?”
I was feeling a little better. “I never imagined that Joan could have lived another life, one that was better than the one we shared.”
Sarah grabbed onto my hand and held it tight. “Samuel, Joan lived but one life. The spirit attached to the flesh and blood we knew as Joan may have experienced other lives. The spirit attached to who we know as Samuel may have experienced other lives but you, the flesh and blood you, are living your only life. When you exhale your last breath, your soul will go back to where it came. Samuel will cease to exist, and the spirit attached to you will leave and go to where it chooses.
“For a time, Samuel will exist in the minds of his children, his grandchildren, perhaps even great grandchildren, and other family and friends. Eventually, those living fresh and blood lives will no longer know who the person was in those old photographs. All of those sappy expressions like live like this was your last day or today is the first day of the rest of your life are very real. This is it, Samuel. When it ends, it really does end.”
I looked my sister in the eye. “Apparently not for you.”
She squeezed my hand even tighter. “Samuel, I am not your sister Sarah. I am the spirit that was attached to her. I shared her life and her experiences, and I remember all of it but I am not Sarah. I have been permitted to appear to you in the flesh, not to deceive you, but so I could more deeply access the emotions and compassion of who was your flesh and blood sister so that I could better help you.”
“How? Why?”
“It is almost time, but not quite.”
The room started to spin, and I thought I might throw up.
“Samuel, it is not time. I really need you to hold on. Okay?”
She finally let go of my hand and cupped my cheek. “I know I am not really your sister Sarah, but I need you to lie down. I really, really need you to rest because it is not yet time.”
“Time for what?”
I could see that she was conflicted. “All I can tell you is this has to do with Joan. Samuel, please let me help you to the couch. I promise you it will be worth it, but you have to trust me. I need you to lie down and rest.” She looked me in the eye. “Please.”
I slowly stood up, waited for the room to stop spinning, and then allowed her to help get me to the couch. She unlaced my work boots and pulled them off my feet. She propped the pillows under my neck and head when laid back. She sat on the floor next to the couch and held my hand.
“I’m sorry Samuel, I tried very hard not to deceive you. I told you that it was exceptionally rare to return in the flesh without being reborn. When you said I was beautiful, I told you that beauty was a human concept and I even told you your sister liked that she was prettier than her two sisters. When we spoke of Sage, I told you Stephen and I were trying to untangle the confusion of the spirit who was reborn attached to her. I even went so far as to change my appearance, not just different stages of Sarah’s life, but also to that of our mother when you were ten years old.”
I squeezed her hand back. “It’s alright, I knew. Seriously, you’d just vanish or one moment you’d be in one place and the next moment in another. You knew about Dad and Uncle Henry, things no one else knew. You could be somewhere observing, and no one could see you. I meant it when I told you that I missed you. I really wanted you to be Sarah, so I let you be her.”
“Thank you for not being angry with me Samuel.”
“Is this what you do when you are attached to the One but separate?” I asked.
She smiled. “No, this is extremely unusual. The experience of being part of the One is wonderful and there is nothing to adequately describe it except possibly rapture. Since being reborn attached to Sarah I have gained a whole new appreciation for being attached to the One but separate. It is extremely pleasant and fulfilling to be able to look in on those she left behind, especially Jennifer, Foster, and those precious little ones who would have been born as Sarah’s grandchildren. I also appreciate looking in on you, Stacy, Stephen until he passed, and of course, mom. The sense of loss the living feels when a life of one of them is cut short is very similar to what I experienced as the spirit reborn attached to Sarah. Yes, I experienced what I had desired when I chose to be reborn but there was so much more to come that I did not get to experience that I am experiencing now if only from the outside.
“As being attached to the One but separate we also assist spirits who have difficulty processing their life experiences. As I said, Stephen and I are assisting the spirit who was attached to Sage, helping to separate the real from the chemically altered. I am also assisting a spirit who was attached to a criminally insane psychopath. Sage might have been a mess but this one was…was abominable.
“To be permitted to come back in the flesh without being reborn is extremely rare. I am on a mission to help you and it is almost time, so I need you to stay calm. Okay?"
When I looked at her, she had tears in her eyes. “What's wrong?”
Despite her tears she smiled. “I wish I could be permitted to interact in the flesh, certainly not as Sarah but as some stranger, with Foster, his children, and Jennifer. I want so much to touch them, to feel their warm living bodies, and to speak with them and hear their voices. I want this so badly. I want it so much that I am realizing why returning in the flesh without being reborn is so rare. A spirit remembers everything of the life it shared but once it is back in the flesh without the human life to which it was attached the spirit has no control over feelings and emotions. The more time I spend in the flesh the less I am in control and the more emotional I am becoming.”
I smiled. A thread of understanding was being pulled. “This is why when you visited me you never stayed for very long, why you kept telling me that you had stayed too long.”
She nodded and replied, “Yes."
“So, let me take my nap and you can come back when it’s time for what is going to happen finally happens."
“I cannot because it's almost time. The window with which this must occur is exceptionally narrow. It may be decades or even centuries before there will be another opportunity. The wait for this opportunity has been 194 years.”
I squeezed her hand a couple of times. “How will we know it's time?”
“Samuel, you will know when it is time and you will tell me so I can guide you. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“This began in a sod shack in February 1824 in Saskatchewan, Canada.”
I smiled. “There is a Canadian connection here, Sarah. Stacy went to college in Canada and Foster married a Canadian woman.”
She laughed. “Samuel, don't read anything to it. I promise it is just happenstance."
“Okay. Finish your story.”
“The wife was young, just sixteen years old. She gave birth to identical twin boys and, as it so happened, two virgin spirits. The first birth was difficult for a woman so young and unprepared but, none-the-less, normal. The child accepted its soul, its breath of life, and embraced the spirit attached to it. The birth of the second child was more difficult and the young mother was exhausted, but the child was born. It accepted the breath of life but was very weak and before it could fully embrace the spirit that was to be attached to it the child expelled its breath of life and expired. As two virgin spirits, neither understood what was happening so the spirit attached to the first-born reached out to the other and the first-born child also embraced the second spirit. So, the two virgin spirits became attached to the one life. When this life ended in the 1850’s the two spirits went their separate ways. One chose to become part of the One for a while and the other chose to be reborn.”
“Sarah, I hope you are near the end of your story because I’m feeling like I have an elephant sitting on my chest.”
“Much later these two spirits encountered each other again both as spirits existing as separate but attached to the One. The two spirits shared their first life experience together and this bound them in an exceptionally profound manner. Soon, they were visiting the living relatives of those to which each of them was attached after their last rebirth. They immediately became aware that both of them knew more about the rebirth lives of the other than it should ever possibly know.”
I was having a great deal of trouble breathing and the pain in my chest felt like it was a knife slowly being pushed deeper. “Sister, I must insist you wrap this up quickly.”
“The two spirits decided they wanted to be reborn to experience human life together and the One obliged to, what is the expression, buy time. The spirits were reborn. One was attached to the human born as Joan Sheffield and the other was born attached to you Samuel. When Joan relinquished her soul, expelled her last breath, the spirit attached to her did not feel she had experienced what she had desired and the One explained to the spirit that the One had set about measures to correct it all.
“At this moment there is a young girl in the town of Ivera, Italy and this horrendous virus unleashed upon this world will momentarily cause her to release her soul. When it does you will feel the spirit who was attached to this child will reach out to you. When you do, when you feel this spirit reach out to you, I want you to close your eyes and embrace this spirit, draw it to you.”
“It’s her and I feel like I have her in my arms once more,” I said, and that is all I remember.
CHAPTER SIX
The spirit in the flesh continued to sit next to the couch beside the body of the man, Samuel, and holding his lifeless hand.
“There has been a birth of identical twins in Edinburgh, Scotland. You, my brother will be reborn attached to one and Joan, the love of your flesh and blood life, will be reborn attached to the other. Your lives as sisters will be fulfilling. The error began in 1824 has finally been made right. Your spirits will become untangled and become two as was originally intended.
“I want to apologize for bringing up your affair with Kelly. You see, Samuel, I already knew the whole story. The spirit attached to Kelly had shared it with me years ago. She expelled her breath of life when her husband Frank choked it out of her. You my brother were not the first Kelly had enticed and you were not the last. Your fault was only that you were just a man. I exploited the affair to buy time and to prevent you from asking me questions I could not answer.
“I am just as sorry that I could not confirm your assumption that the spirit who was attached to our father is indeed the spirit attached to Simon, the kind young man who cares so wonderfully for our mother. I know that you had somehow divined this, and it is to my shame that I was not permitted to confirm it. It is also disappointing you never met or interacted with Simon. The knowledge he was there with mom under the protection of his wing would have eased some of your concerns about her care.
“If all this were not enough, it truly breaks my flesh and blood heart that I kept from you the knowledge your son, Zack, has taken his own life. I made a very concerted effort to get you to acknowledge that you had in some measure forgiven him. It rips me apart, my brother, that you were not able to forgive your child for his transgressions. As I sit here in the flesh longing, burning with desire, to touch and speak to those born of my flesh, I am disappointed and deeply ashamed that I was unsuccessful in this endeavor.”
The spirit morphed into a twelve year old version of Samuel’s sister Sarah. Within a couple of moments, it completely faded away.