That night, as she crawled into bed, Joe thought only about the box of journals, tucked safely in the back of her closet. She wanted to read them in the worst way, but she didn’t want to betray Virginia’s trust. And then she laughed at the absurdity of it. She did not want to betray a dead woman’s trust. A dead woman. She didn’t believe it ghosts, didn’t even believe in heaven, although since she’d lost Tim she wanted to believe that someday, somehow they would be reunited.
As had become habit lately, she set the sleep timer on the television for ninety minutes and clicked off the bedside lamp. It had been an exhausting, event-filled day, and she fell easily into a deep, dreamless sleep.
The ringing of the doorbell the following morning woke her and she shot out of bed like a circus clown from a cannon. She shrugged into her bathrobe, marched down the stairs and yanked open the front door to silence the incessant ringing.
Her father-in-law stood in front of an army of men. Each of them carried an armload of some supply or other. She scrunched up her face and cocked her head to the side. “Wh...what time is it?”
“It’s almost noon, kiddo. Time to rise and shine. We’ve got a roof to fix and a room to paint before the storm of the century arrives,” he said, a slight mocking tone in his voice.
She eyed the odd assortment of men and then met her father-in-law’s gaze. “These your fishing buddies?” She pointed to the platoon of men who stood on her stoop and wore lopsided grins and fishing vests.
“Yep. Now, you gonna let us in or do we have to storm the place?”
Joe laughed for the first time since she could remember, and noticed the glimmer in her father-in-law’s eyes. Not a full-on twinkle, but a beautiful, shiny light that she hadn’t seen in far too long. She stepped aside, held the door open and let the men in.
By the time she’d showered and dressed in a pair of Tim’s sweatpants and an oversized Navy t-shirt, the men had the walls of the nursery taped off and were ready to paint. When they shooed her out of the room, she decided to go downstairs and make herself useful. An hour later, she laid out a mountain of pancakes and two pounds of bacon for the men.
By four o’clock that afternoon, the men had finished their work and left her in silence. Before they left, Joe pleaded with her father-in-law once more to reconsider postponing their trip.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart, I bought a dozen decks of cards and a few extra cases of beer. Rain or shine, we’ll be fine.”
Grateful that he was finally getting out of the house and spending time with his old Navy buddies, Joe lifted her arms in capitulation and grinned. “Okay, then. Try not to take all their money.” She knew her father-in-law had been quite the card shark in his day.
Joe pushed open the door to the nursery, a little afraid of what she would find. After all, it wasn’t every day that a dozen ex-Navy men decorated a nursery. Her nursery. She closed her eyes, stepped in, and flicked on the light switch. She held her breath and opened her eyes. When she saw the sight before her, she nearly collapsed.
It was the most beautiful room she’d ever seen.
The room was painted in a baby-soft blue, with a delicate crown molding along the perimeter of the ceiling. The white-slatted crib sat against the wall—the centerpiece of the room—adorned with a Winnie-the-Pooh mobile and filled with stuffed animals. Above the crib, block letters spelled out the word Dream. In one corner was a wooden rocking chair, the same chair Tim’s mother had bought to rock him but never got the chance to.
There was more, so much more, but when she saw the framed baby photo of Tim on top of the dresser, her eyes pooled with tears. She clutched the photograph, crumpled into the rocking chair and wept. Her tears were bittersweet, laced with joy and anguish and fear and a longing so powerful it consumed her. Swallowed her whole. She let the emotion wash through her and rode it like a wave at high tide. Eventually she drifted into a restless sleep.
In her dream, she heard Tim’s voice call to her, but she could not see him. Before her a wall of fog obscured her view; behind her was a dense jungle.
His voice called to her again. She turned toward it, and as she stepped closer to the woods, the voice got louder. She clawed her way through the dense brush and after what seemed an eternity, she emerged into a clearing, miraculously unscathed from all the branches that had scratched her limbs as she weeded her way through.
In the clearing, Tim awaited with an outstretched hand and an ethereal glow that surrounded him, transformed him. He was utterly beautiful. Like nothing she had ever seen before. Joe ran to him, slipped her hands into his, and he led her through a magnificent field of sunflowers.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I have someone I want you to meet. Come on.” He led her through the field. “We’re almost there.”
On the other side of the field was a lake with crystal-clear water that reflected the bluest sky she’d ever seen. “Isn’t it magnificent?” he asked.
She turned her attention back to her husband, met his gaze and held it for a long moment. “You’re magnificent. I want to stay here with you. Please, Tim, can I stay?”
Tim shook his head. “No, sweetheart, you have to take care of our son. But someday we’ll be together again, I promise.” His gazed shifted past her and a smile met his lips. “There she is,” he said in a voice that exuded warmth, tenderness, love. A voice she thought he’d used exclusively for her.
Joe whirled around to see this she who had captured her husband’s attention, and when she saw the woman, she drew in a rush of air.
There before her stood Virginia.
“Y-you,” Joe said, her voice an accusation. Her gaze shifted from Virginia to Tim and back again. “How do you two know each other?”
Virginia stepped forward, brushed a hand across Joe’s cheek. “You’ll understand once you read the journals, Joesephine.”
“You...you want me to read them? Are you—”
And just like her last dream, Virginia disappeared and took Tim with her.
Joe was jolted awake by a crack of thunder so loud that the ground beneath her rattled. She was confused at first about where she was, but the soft light glowing in the nursery brought her back to the present. She held the picture of Tim before her, kissed it, and rose from the chair, putting the photo back in place.
As rain pelted the windows, she thought about her dream—the last several dreams, actually—and she began to understand why she’d chosen this house. She knew from the moment she’d set foot inside that there was something special about it. She and Tim had looked at more than a dozen others, but none of them spoke to her.
Until they found this one.
She was meant to live here, of that she was certain. And the dreams had confirmed it. Now she just had to figure out why.
After forcing herself to eat a little something, she turned out the lights and went to her bedroom. She clicked on the television for the company it offered. Then she made her way to the closet and dragged out the box containing the journals. She placed it on the four-poster, king-sized bed, snapped on the bedside lamp and pulled the cover off the box. After sorting through the journals, each neatly labeled with to and from dates, she climbed under the covers, opened to the first page of journal number one and began to read.