Page 50 of Timeless

She clicked into the listing and knew it instantly when the much larger image of the front of the house appeared. This was it. She didn’t even need to compare it to the photo. Abby knew. The house of old, the one in her version, was yellow and white. It had been painted all white since and had blue shutters, but it was the same house. Where the old posts that were holding up the front porch had been white, they, too, were blue now. Of course, they were only white in her story. She had no way of knowing what color they were in reality because the photos she had were black-and-white.

Abby scrolled through the twenty or so pictures and had to stop several times. When she got to the kitchen, she smelled blackberries. When she saw one of the bedrooms, she smelled dirty socks and had no idea why, but it made her laugh. Finally, she made it to the master bedroom, and she smelled it.

“Honeysuckle,” she let out. “Holy fuck!”

She sat back in her chair and covered her mouth. Abby knew this house, and she had no idea how, but in her story, this was the house where she’d placed her characters, and this was Harriet and Deb’s bedroom. It, too, had been changed over the years, but this was the room. She knew where the small closet was, that the bedroom she’d just smelled dirty socks in had been Paul’s room, and that he would be one of those teenagers who probably didn’t give his mama his dirty laundry right away when he should have.

“Jesus Christ,” she said. “How the hell?”

She also knew that the kitchen smelled like blackberries to her because of the blackberry pies Harriet’s mom would sometimes make for them. Harriet would help her with them, and since she knew the recipe and that Deb loved the pie, she’d made it for their family whenever they were in season.

“Popcorn,” she whispered then, remembering makingpopcorn on the stove again, holding the handle, and carrying it to the room where there was a radio and a little boy sitting in front of it on the floor.

Harriet would sometimes make popcorn for them, but it was usually Deb. Abby recalled it as if it were a memory of her own, Deb telling Paul to move away from the radio because he was too close.

“Oh, let him be. It’s not hurting anything,” Harriet said in her mind.

“I’m just still writing the story,” Abby said to herself. “That’s all this is. I need to write the rest of the damn book and get these women and their damn house out of my mind.”

She pictured Deb handing Harriet the popcorn. They sat on the small, straight-backed couch together. Harriet had her arm around Deb’s shoulders. Deb leaned into her side. They ate some popcorn before Paul stood up and took the bowl from them to eat some himself. They let him, turned, and kissed one another sweetly over and over again before Harriet deepened the kiss.

“I’m so glad you’re home,” Deb said.

“I am, too. I’d like to visit JD’s grave. I know he’s not really there, but I’d like to visit him and Jacob, if I can, now that I’ve been back a bit,” Harriet replied.

“We can go this weekend, if you want. I’ll see if Delilah wants to go with us, bring the kids. We can all say hello to them there.”

“No!” Abby protested, slamming her laptop shut. “I have my ending. I wrote it. I don’t need anything after Harriet gets back from the damn war.”

It happened sometimes that when Abby thought she was done writing a story, the story – or, rather, its characters – had other ideas, and they kept pressing her to write more. But she had her ending. She’d thought she made it happy, even, and somewhat believable, too. It was perfect, and she was happy with it, but now, Harriet and Deb were talking to her again. They were writing more of the storyforher.

“Mama, can I go up to bed?” Paul asked.

“Of course, you can,” Harriet replied.

Paul stood and carried the bowl to them, handing it off to Deb.

“Good night.”

“We love you,” Deb said.

“Love you, too,” he replied.

Then, he took off upstairs, leaving them alone.

“He no longer needs us to tuck him in… I’ve missed so much,” Harriet noted.

“I bet he’d love it if you tucked him in from time to time or read to him a little, if you wanted to. He missed you, Harriet. He’s growing, and he might not be the best at expressing it, but he did.”

“I know. I missed him, too.”

“Do you want to tuck him in tonight?”

“No, let him be. Tomorrow night, maybe? Can you stand up for a minute, though?”

Deb squinted playfully at her and stood. Harriet moved to lie down and held out her arms.

“Come here,” she said.

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