I WOKE TO A DEEP CHILL in the air. The steady drip, drip on the roof of my tent indicated that fog had condensed on the flat needles of the redwoods overnight and was now oozing onto the ground below. I lingered in my sleeping bag. I wanted to go home—to Morgan and Joshua. I wanted to be coddled, spoiled, pampered, and loved. Why was I making it so hard on myself? Morgan would take care of me. My only mission would be to make him and Joshua happy. Which would be easy—because I loved them.
Maybe I would never be able to unblock the energy field that existed between Antonia and me. Maybe now that she’d done her best to relay her message, she would find contentment in the afterlife, where consciousness resides. And Veronica? She hadn’t been able to get away fast enough after last night’s ordeal. Neither she nor Antonia needed me. Not anymore. If they ever had.
I checked my watch. It was nine o’clock. By now, Morgan, the love of my life, would be in for breakfast. His mother would be frying bacon and eggs for her husband, son, and grandson, while they discussed the chores still to be tackled that day. Equipment would need to be serviced, calves to be fed, corn to be irrigated one last time before harvest.
I grabbed my for-emergency-use-only cell phone and punched in the ranch number. Joshua answered on the second ring.
“Joshua?”
“Marjorie! Hey Morgan, it’s Marjorie! Are you coming home?”
I wanted to say yes, but something nagged at the back of my mind. Not so fast. You still have things to do. “Soon, honey.”
“We miss you.”
My throat. It hurt. “Miss you, too. And sweetie... I love you.”
“I know.”
Silence.
“How’s our stray?” I asked.
Joshua laughed. “He’s getting fat.”
“Oh dear.”
“Morgan says he hasn’t seen a mouse or rat lurking around the place since Gabriel came to live with us.”
“Well that’s good anyway.” Joshua, my precious Joshua, with his straight black hair, his deep brown eyes, and Gabriel, the scrawny tabby, my backyard stray. What a picture they made. Once orphaned and voiceless, now best friends.
“Morgan gave me a baseball cap to keep the hair out of my eyes,” Joshua said. “And a pair of rubber boots for when we feed the calves and irrigate the corn, and...and...cowboy boots for when we go to the feed store...and to the part store for repairs.”
I laughed, absorbing the joyful music of his voice.
“Uh... Morgan says it’s his turn to talk.” A pause. “I love you.”
“Love you, too, sweetie.”
“Marjorie?” It was Morgan.
The timbre of his voice sparked a toe-curling jolt of pleasure. Good thing I was still bundled in my sleeping bag.
“Marjorie?”
I started to cry
“Honey, are you okay?”
“I don’t think I can take this anymore.”
Silence.
“Tell me to come home, and I’ll head out today.”
Morgan’s long inhale and exhale sounded close, rather than two hundred miles away. “If it was just about me, I would,” he said. “Nothing would make me happier.”
“Tell me you can’t go on without me, that no one’s holding me back but myself.”
“You can’t give up now,” he said.
Tell me to come home. That we need to get married right away.
“I want you here,” he said. “Joshua wants you here. We all do. But you have to finish what you’ve started.”
I closed my eyes, tightened my grip the phone. “I don’t know if I can.”
A sigh, so close, so far away. “I’d love to pull you into my arms and make it all better, but...”
“We’d regret it in the morning.”
“Afraid so.”
I sat and pulled up my knees, the sleeping bag still wrapped around me to keep out the chill. “I’ve been in contact with Antonia twice since coming to Big Sur. Yesterday, she spoke to us, and I think... I hope…she’ll be okay.”
“Us?”
“Adam, Anne, Veronica, and me—”
“Adam and Anne?”
“New friends. Oh, Morgan, a lot has happened since we last talked.”
His chuckle spanned the distance, its energy reaching inside of me, where it most mattered. “No surprise, with Veronica around.”
A flashback to our ritual bath in the creek caused me to shudder. “We saw her. We saw Antonia.”
Over the phone, across the miles, Morgan’s quick intake of breath and its slow release relayed that he cared. “I can’t honestly say I understand,” he said. “I’ve never experienced the kind of things you’re experiencing. But I’m glad, Marjorie. I’m glad.”
“And that got me thinking that...that...I could...” Damn, I was stuttering.
Morgan chuckled, but otherwise remained silent, giving me a chance to get a grip, and blurt, “That I could call it quits and marry you right away.”
“When you come home and we marry, I won’t be able to let you go again.” Morgan’s voice caught. “That’s why you have to be sure.”
“I know,” I said.
“Think about it for a few days. Make sure you’re not leaving something undone.”
“Do you miss me?” I asked. Stupid question.
“More than you know. I’d give just about anything to hold you in my arms right now and make all your troubles go away.”
“Thank you, Morgan. It helps to hear that.”
“When you come back, it will be forever. Okay?”
“Forever,” I said before ending the call.
The weather hadn’t changed during my talk with Morgan. A quick peek through the vestibule of my tent revealed air still heavy with moisture and clouds still hanging low, endless gray clouds that obscured the sun. But the lack of sun and blue skies no longer darkened my mood. I dressed, recharged with a cup of coffee and an energy bar, and headed for a destination unknown, confident that the answer to the nagging question of why I must stay would make itself clear.
My insulated jacket, plus the vigorous walk, turned my shivering body into a sweaty one. The walk turned into a jog, my shoes hitting the earth in a plat, plat, plat. The wind chilled my cheeks. My breath became puffs of steam. A stitch in my side caused me to slow to a walk, then halt and inhale rushes of air. I dropped onto a grassy clearing, rolled onto my back, and closed my eyes. Tell me what to do.
You already know, a voice answered, though this time the voice didn’t belong to an ancestor or to my birth mother.
This time, it belonged to me.
Until I cleared a channel for my intuition to grow sharper and for me to become braver; until I gained enough confidence in my own life story to make room for love; I would be of use to no one. I needed to take some risks and do things I’d never dared do before, things that risked being wrong, but needed doing anyway. I needed to access the holographic field where Antonia’s consciousness resided. No more trying to direct her life story or, for that matter, emulate Veronica’s. Antonia’s message had something to do with my father, and, for some inexplicable reason, my relationship with Adam held the key.
I stood, invigorated by the new direction my thoughts had taken me.
Antonia would contact me when I was ready.