Completing the Circle. A Journey Back To Hadleyburg
Jim Jacobson finally is discharged from the rehab facility
When Julie pulled up to the curb in front of the rehab centre, Jim was sitting on a large suitcase with a small satchel on his lap. He seemed happy to see her as she stopped the car and got out.
“Where did you get that suitcase?” she asked him.
“From my Russian friend Sergei. I’m borrowing it for a while.”
“And what’s inside it?”
“A lot of things,” he responded. “Nigel’s tapes, those artifacts from Father Michael, some books I’ve read and some clothes.”
“You know it’s still not too late to change your mind. I can take you to Nigel’s house. It’s ready now and I have a key.”
“You are certainly persistent.”
“Look we have time. I could take you over there, have one last look and we’ll be on our way.”
“This is something you want me to do. Go over that house to look around?”
“Yes. I want you to see the life which was stolen from you.”
“They’re dead and the house was burned, and my father and Burgess almost died. Even for the few days I was there, these are not happy memories.”
“There was a lot of love in that house, before the end. It’s a tragedy you never got to know your mother. I knew her from the time I was a child and your father what a beautiful man. That beautiful life was in that house. Do you think it’s an accident we met on that train? Despite the kidnapping, we ended up together anyway. God found a way. Before you go I just want you to see.”
“OK, let’s go. One last look for your sake.”
He loaded his things inside her trunk, and they went on their way to Bayside, Queens.
When they arrived at the house it looked exactly as it had before the fire except the windows were boarded up and Julie parked at the curb and opened Jim’s door. Taking his cane from the back seat, Jim stood beside the car and waited for Julie to open the front gate.
“I can’t tell you how many times on holidays and parties I used to run up this sidewalk to the front door,” she halted a moment on the burnt red brick walkway.
“Your mother would be there with a plate of Greek cookies and Baklava, and she’d always say the same thing, ‘Are you being a good little girl, Julie? Baklava is only for a good little girl’ Unfortunately, I was always a persnickety child. But she gave them to me anyway.”
When Julie opened the front door and stepped inside, Jim stood outside a moment reluctant to go inside. He looked into the house through the open door and it looked substantially as he remembered it. He scanned around the living room and could see everything in its proper place.
“How did you do this?” he asked her. “Dry all these things? Everything was soaked in water.”
“It took months,” she answered. “But it was a labour of love for me.”
She walked into the living room and sat down in an overstuffed chair, pulling her legs beneath her.
“I used to sit here sometimes when I was a little girl, in this very chair.” Then she got up from the chair. “I want to show you the rest of the house.”
She led him around appearing very much like a little girl, first to the kitchen, to Nigel’s study, then upstairs to the bedrooms. He was surprised at how close it was to his memory. When she insisted he go to the backyard, saying “Please, let’s go outside,” he was even more reluctant, but she insisted and he acquiesced. He stood on the door landing looking at the lawn and the strangest feeling of Déjà vu overcame him, not that he had been at the door before as he had been with his father and Burgess, but that he had stood before that door exactly under these same circumstances. It was this feeling that had been haunting him for weeks since he had awakened in the hospital, a feeling that recurred several times in different locations, as though he was reliving a sequence of events a second time.
“I know it’s painful,” she began. “But this is where you could have had a life had it not been stolen from you and this is where you could have a new life, a second chance like mine.”
“It all sounds very touchy-feely. I know you think a person can simply change lives the way they change a piece of clothing. But I think it’s more complicated than that. There are unintended consequences for every decision we make. I have a life in Hadleyburg and as much as I hated my life there, I’m not ready for this life here.”
“There’s one thing more,” she told him. “Something I found while I was cleaning this up.”
She went to a cabinet and removed what looked like a photo album. “This was your mother’s.” She handed it to him.
“I’m surprised that this survived the fire,” Jim commented.
“There are other things,” she told him. “But they can wait.”
There were what must have been a hundred photos of him as a baby, before the kidnapping, and he sat down on a chair and looked at them. Tears began to well in his eyes and in rivulets slid down his cheeks as he turned the pages. He stared at the young faces of Nigel and his mother, before age had taken the beauty and energy of youth and for a moment the images transported him back in time to another world.
“You see how much she loved you,” Julie spoke softly. “It’s written on her face.”
“For a campaign to try to make me stay, this is very effective, but I can’t. I sense I have unfinished business in Hadleyburg.” He paused a moment. “I’ll do this. I’ll make you a promise. I’ll come back here, I promise. But not now, not today. Today we go to Hadleyburg.”
“There is one other thing,” she continued.
He smiled. “This is very important to you, isn’t it?”
“Of course.”
“Alright, tell me what else.”
“I found out something else, which I wasn’t sure I was going to tell you.”
“What is it? The suspense is killing me,” she responded.
She paused a moment.
“I just can’t. I’ll tell you when we get to Hadleyburg.”
“You’re going to make me wait until Virginia?”
“It’s about Frank Glen and your father. But it can wait. I’ll tell you everything when we’re in Virginia.”
“Alright, I’m ready to go.”
She put the photo album back in the cabinet and turned off the lights and then both left the house. As Jim walked with his cane back to the car, Julie grabbed his right hand when he became unsteady.
“I’ll say one thing,” she said. “We have a guardian watching over us.”
She opened the door and helped Jim climb into the car. Jim could sense that he was at the beginning of a journey, though he couldn’t imagine what would happen next.
Jim climbed into the back seat with his legs stretched out on the seat. He was not wearing a seatbelt. She drove this way until they had crossed the bridge into New Jersey.
“You know I’d really feel more comfortable,” if you would put on a seatbelt,” Julie commented.
“My legs are cramped,” Jim answered as he laid lengthwise across the rear seat.
“You also know we still can turn back. We’re just in New Jersey,” she told him.
“You have to know I have to do this.”
She looked at him a moment and her face seemed annoyed.
“I wish I had a camera,” he said, “to show your face how it looks right now.”
“What’s wrong with my face?”
“Nothing, it’s absolutely beautiful, even more so than five years ago.”
“Are you trying to resurrect my vanity?”
“I have a question about when you were living on the streets, what happened there?”
“That’s not something I really want to talk about. Bad memories,” she responded.
“I’m sorry I came down so hard on you at the restaurant, it seems like a lifetime ago.” He stretched his legs for a moment. “It’s like I’ve stepped through a doorway into another life. He paused. “Thank you again for doing this for me. I couldn’t deal with airports right now.”
“It’s my pleasure. I’m struggling to be a better person than I was before,” she told him.
“You’ve been great, perfect. Thank you.”
“Don’t tempt me into vanity. I have my bad days like everyone else. The people I’ve been around these months have helped me to change. I’ve met a lot of very good people.”
“Aside from Father Michael, who else have you met?”
“I met a lot. But I was drinking as I told you.”
“Was there anyone who had special gifts?”
“Like what?” she answered.
“Special abilities, powers of precognition.”
“This is an unusual question from you. I didn’t think you believed in the paranormal.” she paused. “There was one person I met who seemed to have special abilities. His name was Robert. I met him a few times at the shelter.” She paused again. “Why are you talking about this now?”
“Because something odd happened before you came to pick me up. I was sitting on the street and this homeless man approached me, and he said something to me that was very strange.”
“What was that?” she asked.
“Well, first he said something like, ‘Beware the ides of March’”.
She smiled. “Yeah, that’s Robert.”
And then he said, “God has sent an angel to watch over you from the Alpha to the Omega, from New York to Virginia and back again.”
“Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega,” Julie interjected.
“And he said one more thing.” He hesitated. “You will see Omega in Virginia.” He paused. “What happened to him?”
“He was injured in a train wreck someone told me.”
“He sounded a little crazy to me.”
“He’s not crazy,” she responded.” I had a conversation with him.”
