In This Life or the Next Page 3

  It was only when she sat down at the table, with a hot mug cradled in her hands, that the memory of the dream resurfaced. Warily, she let it come forward, trying to remember not so much the words and feelings that hadn't really been hers but rather the details. She had caught a glimpse of herself in the window, and although the reflection had been too dark to show much, she was struck, as she tried to fix the memory in her mind, by how closely she—the woman—had resembled the nude figure in the painting she had seen the night before. The woman the painter had called Lauren

  It took her a few seconds longer to realize that it had been more than a simple resemblance; she hadn't simply dreamed of a woman who looked like the painting. She had dreamed of the painting, of the scene it depicted. She remembered now how she had been so sure at the gallery that the outline on the glass had been a man's body, and now she had seen it in person, or almost. Then there was that title. Goodbyes. The two lovers hadn't really said the words, but that had been the general feeling coming from their talk. They had been coming to terms with their impending separation; saying goodbye.

  None of it however explained why her mind would have created such an intricate and convincing scene based on a painting, for the second time in a few hours.

  "Are you sure you're all right?"

  Tania started as Alex's words took her by surprise. Lost deep in her thoughts, she hadn't heard him enter the kitchen.

  "I'm perfectly fine,” she assured him, faking a perky voice. “Just going over what I've got to do today."

  He didn't question her lie, and she felt a little guilty as she watched him pour himself a cup of coffee. “Busy day ahead of you?"

  Looking down into the swirls of cream on the surface of her own coffee, she nodded. “Pretty much, yeah. I hope to finish the second section before the end of the week, and I'm waiting to hear back from Karen about the first part."

  She glanced back to where he was leaning against the counter. He always asked about her work and tried to show an interest, but she had long ago accepted that the way people who had lived thousands of miles and hundreds of years from him didn't hold the same interest for Alex as it did for her. Still, she was grateful for his support, and to prove to him that—and not at all because there was still a tight little knot inside her chest warning her not to let him go—she stood to give him a hug and a coffee-flavored kiss. The memory of both kept her warm long after he had gone and she started working, her dream firmly put out of her mind by a long, soothing shower.

  Dressed in jeans and a comfortable sweatshirt, she entered the small guest bedroom that served as her office and opened the blinds and the window for a bit of fresh air. Then turning her computer on, she sat down with everything she needed close enough that she could reach it without moving. She checked her email first, hoping that her friend Karen had sent her remarks about the first part of her work but not really disappointed to see that she hadn't; Karen had warned her she was busy. Losing no more time, she opened the document she had been working on for the past six month and reread the last page or so she had written to get back into the rhythm of her words. With a quick check of the paper's outline taped to the side of the monitor, she started typing.

  She wasn't working on anything controversial or even ground-breaking, but she was proud of the work she had accomplished so far, bringing facts and theories from different research work to see where they meshed and where problems existed, and propose ways to reconcile them or decide who might be closest to the truth. It was hard work, but something she enjoyed thoroughly and she could spend hours typing at her computer without ever stopping for more than a few seconds at a time. She loved how her thoughts came so easily on the screen; when she had started her dissertation, she had been writing it longhand, but her thoughts went faster than her hand and she used to become frustrated when she broke the thread of her thinking. The clickety pulse of the keys however seemed to accompany her thoughts perfectly, and she often lost herself in the rhythm of her taps.

  It happened that day again, and she went into what she called her ‘automatic mode', typing what she had in mind as fast as she possibly could without questioning the words or thought process. Once she had put it all out, she would read it over and check the arguments, facts and logic, and edit anything less than sub par, but until then her mind had free reign.

  However, when she did stop to read what she had been typing, she was baffled to discover that the last page had nothing to do with her work, and everything to do with, yet again, Lauren.

  * * * *

  The flame of the candle seemed to be dancing in front of her, and for a long time Lauren gazed at it instead of the piece of paper on the desk. She didn't know how to start the letter. Every time she had written to Chris so far, she had used one of the nicknames she had for him, but she felt a bit silly doing that when she had such important news to convey.

  She had hoped, God how she had hoped, that she wouldn't need to write this letter, that Chris would be back home in time to see her pregnant and be there by her side when she delivered the baby. She realized, now, that it wouldn't happen like that. There was no sign that the war was coming anywhere close to an end, and it wouldn't be long now before their child made his entry into the world; she was sure it was a boy. A few weeks at the most, the midwife had said. Barely enough time for her letter to reach Chris in time and let him know, so he could at least be with her in his thoughts if he couldn't come back to her quite yet.

  She was startled by a kick to her belly, and dropped a hand to it, wishing she could tell her baby with such a simple touch that she loved him already, as much as she loved his father, and she couldn't wait to see him, hold him. Just as she couldn't wait to get Chris back.

  She had never been away from him for that long, and his absence was unbearable. They had grown up together, playing together when they were young, teasing each other endlessly as they grew older, slowly falling in love until everybody but them knew what was going on in their heads and hearts. She had been the one to make the first step, stealing a fleeting, chaste kiss from him one day as he was coming home from the fields. She had waited for him by the side of the road for a long time, practicing the speech she would give him about her feelings and the spring dance coming soon and would he like to go with her. But when he had finally appeared, she had forgotten all she had wanted to say and simply gotten close enough to press her lips to his. Then, mortified by what she had done, she had run away. He had caught up with her by the tree they used to climb together as children, and this time he had been the one to initiate the kiss; and then, stuttering and stumbling on words, he had told her he loved her, and asked her to the dance. Before the end of the summer, they were engaged, and the priest had married them in front of the whole village little more than a year later.

  It had only been three years earlier, but Lauren felt as though she had spent her whole life with Christopher. To be separated from him, and not know when he would be back was torture every single day. She went through the motions and kept the farm going with help from the field hands, but more often than not, she would look toward the dirt road, where she knew he would appear again some day.

  With a quiet sigh, Lauren let go of her memories and dipped the tip of her pen in the ink before bringing it to the page.

  "My love,” she started. “I have waited to tell you as long as I could, for I wished so much you would be back in time to know for yourself, and I was so afraid that the news would distract you and place you in danger. But I can wait no longer, and although I so wished I could have told you in person, these words will have to do. We have been blessed, Chris, and soon we will have a child..."

  * * * *

  "...We have been blessed, Chris, and soon we will have a child.

  I discovered I was pregnant three weeks after your departure. I struggled with myself as to tell you or not because I so wished I could have seen your eyes when I did so ... If I wait any longer, though, you would probably become a father before even kn
owing it was about to happen, and it would be unjust to keep it from you any longer.

  Things haven't always been easy, without you here with me, but the thought of you and this wonderful present you gave me, which I feel growing inside me every day, have made your absence bearable. Still, I cannot wait for the day when you will finally return. The two of us will wait for you, my love. Stay safe and come back to us.

  With love,

  Lauren"

  As she finished reading and reached the signature, Tania wasn't terribly surprised to see whose name she had typed to end the letter. Considering that she had typed all of it without thinking once about what she was doing or stopping to read before she had finished, a little thing like signing someone else's name was only the next step. She wished it hadn't felt like her name though.

  Trying to calm the agitated thoughts swirling through her mind, she read the full thing again, shaking her head in incomprehension. First, she had had a vision about this woman. Then she had dreamed about her. Now she was writing a letter in her name. What was next?

  Methodically, she hit the backspace key until she had erased the entire missive, letter by letter. Her hand trembled the whole time, and she stood abruptly when she was done, needing some space. She paced through her office for a little while, picking up a page of notes here, checking a reference there, and glancing every now and then at the computer and the blinking cursor waiting for her. She was a little anxious about sitting down again and trying to work—what if she ended up typing someone else's thoughts again? Somehow, though, her anxiety almost disappeared in front of the curiosity of knowing whether she could do it on command.

  In the end, she decided that going out for some fresh air was probably the best thing she could do right then. There were a few books she needed to consult at the campus library, and being out of the house for a couple of hours would probably help her focus once she came back. Picking up her notebook, she slipped a pen through the spiral, grabbed her purse, and within seconds was out of the house.

  As she walked to the nearest bus stop, she tried to firmly push her little automatic writing session out of her mind and concentrate instead on the work she had to do. A couple of references, a few quotes, some figures to double check. It was all simple research that she could usually do with her mind wandering, but she was determined to remain entirely focused today. Focused on anything that wasn't Lauren, or the paintings that had started it all. Too bad her determination didn't make anything else any easier.

  A bus was approaching when she reached the stop. A look at the number was all she needed to see it wasn't going anywhere near the campus library, but with barely a second thought she climbed aboard anyway and sat down in the first available seat. Immediately, she started berating herself. She shouldn't have done this; she had a lot of work to do and no time to lose on a whim. But even though she hadn't been aware of it until that instant, the desire to go back to the art gallery and look at the paintings again was just too strong. The bus would take her there in ten minutes or less; she could stay a little while and then be on her way and free to focus on her research.

  Or so she hoped.

  During the whole ride, she tried to rationalize to herself what had happened. Maybe she was exhausted from the months of intense work on her dissertation and her mind had found this solution to take a break. Or perhaps she was ill and a brain tumor was causing her to have hallucinations and weird dreams. Those were the most reasonable explanations she could find. The others ... she couldn't even admit to herself she was thinking about them, but they included mind reading, possession, and random paranormal occurrences. She was almost beginning to hope there was a medical explanation to it all.

  When she entered the gallery, which was almost empty as it was only midmorning, she went straight to the display that featured Marc Wendell's paintings. She had intended to look at the nude painting first, the one she had dreamed about last night, but at the last second, she changed her mind and walked past it without giving it a glance. Without daring to give it a glance. She didn't feel ready, not quite yet, to look at this one or at the large landscape work that had caused her daydream during the opening night.

  She stopped instead in front of the next painting, one that depicted two children and a woman. The boy appeared to be in his early teens maybe, and had been captured with his arms raised as he pushed a younger girl on a swing tied to the low branch of a tree. The girl's mouth was open in what was probably a delighted cry. A straw hat with a pink ribbon rested on the ground a few feet away, either left there or blown off the young child's head. In the foreground, a woman was sitting on a white and blue picnic blanket, her face shown in profile, her gaze directed toward the children.

  * * * *

  "Do not push her so hard, Michael,” she admonished, not for the first time, and the boy looked at her.

  "I'm not, mother. I promise,” he pleaded, before catching his little sister again and pushing her just as hard.

  Worried, Lizzie looked back toward her husband, imploring him with her eyes to intervene.

  "She's all right, dear,” he said soothingly, reaching to take her hand in his. “Look how much she enjoys it."

  "But Steven, what if she fell..."

  * * * *

  Tania blinked and the elements of the painting returned to their proper place. She held her breath for a second, almost expecting the vision to return; but it didn't, both to her relief and disappointment.

  She had seen things through Lizzie's eyes, this time. Lizzie, not Lauren, and her husband had been Steven, not Christopher. Nevertheless, the scene had been as clear as the details of the others, and when she looked at how high the swing was flying, she still felt a twinge of worry for the little girl who, for an instant, had been her daughter. Without realizing what she was doing, she tried to reach toward that part of her where Lizzie had lived a few seconds, and clutched at the name she had wanted to know. Helena. That was the name of the little girl.

  A look to the plaque beside the canvas revealed its title; ‘Lena learns to fly'.

  Trembling a little, from both nerves and excitement, Tania moved forward to look at the next painting. She hadn't really expected a vision to happen, not like this; but now that it had, she wasn't exactly surprised. And as she grew used to the sensation of being someone else for a few moments, the experience wasn't as scary as it had been the previous night, or even earlier that day. She wondered if the old town painting, void of any human figures, would bring another scene to her, or whether...

  * * * *

  The street was already buzzing with life when Anna opened the front door of the shop, and immediately sounds and scents of the city burst inside, not all of them pleasant, but all of them too familiar for her to be bothered. On the other side of the street, from his seat on a low bench in front of his shop, the shoe maker smiled at her and waved hello. She returned the gesture with a smile of her own. Years earlier, they had been close friends, but he had pulled back when she had married. They still talked, sometimes, but he was always more distant as he had once been.

  Turning her back on the street, she stepped back inside the shop, leaving the door ajar behind her. On warm days, like the one this promised to be, they left the front door and a window in the back open, allowing a nice breeze to run through the store. They would close the door when customers came in, of course, to give them some privacy as they chose fabrics or clothes design. But in the meantime...

  "Anna? Come help me, please."

  * * * *

  The words startled Tania out of the vision. She had understood each of them perfectly, but at the same time, she was certain they had been spoken in Italian, or maybe Spanish; she understood neither languages.

  She blinked the images away, and looked closely at the street depicted on the canvas. She recognized the three-story building, which hosted the shop on its ground level, instantly; it wasn't exactly in the center, but somehow the light seemed to make it more prominent than the buildings aroun
d it.

  A little less nervous now that she had had two short and innocuous visions, she stepped to the next painting. Despite the strangeness of it all, she was starting to become impatient to see if it would happen again. Maybe she would be able to learn how to control the visions. What she hoped the most, though, was that she would understand why it was happening and what exactly she was seeing.

  In the next painting, a woman was shown from behind, standing in a rather dark bedroom. She had ribbons in her long, unbound hair, and was in the process of slipping out of her dress. She wore a white shift underneath, and nothing was bare except for her arms, yet the scene, when she had first discovered it, had given Tania the impression that she was playing peeping Tom, and she had the same feeling as she examined the painting once more.

  Glancing at the information plaque, she read the title of the painting, remembering Alex's words when he had read it aloud the previous night.

  "'Lauren's new husband'. So, where do you think he's hiding?"

  She had shrugged in ignorance then, but now, in a sudden flash of inspiration, she knew where the husband was. The scene was seen through his eyes. He was giving the artist his perspective. That was why he wasn't featured on the painting. And even as she understood, Tania could imagine how he would have stood just a foot or so behind the woman, helping her, maybe, to undress. If she was Lauren, it meant that the man had to have been Chris.

  And just like that, she slipped into the vision and became Lauren again.

  * * * *

  The day had been long, full of smiles, laughter, and wishes for happiness. But now the well wishers were gone, and Lauren was alone with her new husband. For the first time, she looked at him shyly.

  There had never been a time for shyness between them. They had been friends before they even knew the meaning of the word, and had grown up without ever hiding anything from each other. Or rather, almost anything. As Chris led her to their bedroom, his fingers entwined with hers, Lauren was suddenly acutely aware that neither he nor anyone for that matter had seen her wearing anything less than perfectly proper attire for many, many years.