You Can't Get There From Here

THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER -

He dreamed this time.

It was a sunny day, and he was at the beach with Annie. She looked gorgeous in her red bikini running in the sand as he tossed a Frisbee to her that she backhanded with uncommon grace firing it right back in his direction.

"Good throw!" he called to her as he grabbed the rotating disk out of the air.

Annie ran towards him throwing her arms around his neck as she crashed into his chest.

"Hey Stud! Ever do it on a beach blanket!"

"Annie!" admonished Brad looking around at all the families and groups clustered around them.

"I guess this isn't the most appropriate time," she purred, "at least give your girl a kiss."

Their mouths came together in a soft, sweet exchange of affection, but when Annie pulled back, she suddenly leaned in running her tongue straight up his face in a long lick.

"Annie! What the hell!" said Brad trying to step back.

Annie held him fast and started to lick his face all over while he struggled.

"Annie stop! Annie! ANNIE!" shouted Brad.

...and he came awake to find Smokey licking his face like a Popsicle on a hot day.

"Shit!" said Brad jumping up out of the rocking chair and stumbling wildly across the porch before he crashed into a heap on the ground.

Mary's laughter filled the air as he struggled back to a sitting position.

"Oh! Brad! I'm sorry I shouldn't have let him get up on you like that while you were sleeping, but it was so funny!"

Brad wasn't laughing.

He stared at Mary with a look somewhere between dread and fascination not quite sure what to say next.

Mary's laughter slowly ran down when she realized she was laughing all by herself.

"What's a matter? Did you hurt yourself?" she said with concern coming up onto the porch. She reached down to help him up, but he flinched away from her hand.

"Brad! What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me? I have a better question, Mary. What are you?"

Mary took a step back her face falling into a mask of despair, "Brad? What are you talking about? I'm just me. I'm Mary."

"You're a Mary alright. Mary McKenna."

The name seemed to hit Mary like a physical blow her expression changing from sadness to shock then back again.

She looked at the ground sighing deeply.

"How did you find out?"

"Mrs. Cummings came here last night to look at the paintings. I saw your canvas, and she told me the story."

Mary sniffled tears coming into her eyes.

"Why? I don't understand what's happening here? Are you trying to atone for something?"

"I'm sorry, Brad. I didn't want to deceive you, but she felt it was the only way to reach you."

"Who thought...Wait...What are you talking about?"

Mary shuffled her feet seemingly struggling to answer, but she finally sighed again just as heavy as before, "The jig is up. We have to tell him."

"Who are you talking too?" asked Brad some genuine anger coming into his tone.

"Please understand I was trying to help. She knew you were coming here and she found me and I...Well, I'm kind of bound here I've never found the will to leave you understand. I love it so. These woods and..."

"Would you please start making sense!" shouted Brad.

Mary flinched, "Annie...Annie found me."

Brad stopped still on the porch struck dumb by her words. There was a long silence before he could bring himself to speak again.

"Annie...My wife, Annie..." he looked around wildly then ran over to Mary grabbing her by the shoulders.

"Is she here now? Can she hear me?"

"Please stop! Brad, you're hurting me!" cried Mary.

"Tell me what is going on!" he yelled.

"Brad, sweetheart. Let her go."

The voice came from behind him, but he would have recognized it blindfolded. He found it almost impossible to turn a fear gripping him that was so profound that it felt like his heart was being squeezed in his chest. Slowly, with an agony that seared into his soul, he turned and faced his wife

"Annie?" he said in a voice that shook with emotion.

She looked exactly as she had the day they met at the bar, minus the truly garish uniform. Her red hair flared out away from her head perfectly framing her fair-skinned beauty. The smile on her face promised a lifetime of love and mischief one they never got to know. It wasn't like Mary though he could see right through Annie to the trees in the distance. She hovered in a misty haze her lower half lost from sight.

Brad released Mary and walked closer trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

"I don't understand...How are you here?" he choked out the words.

"I've been watching you for a long while, my darling. I've watched you struggle. I hoped that things would get better for you and that you would move on from all that pain, but it just wasn't happening. I couldn't stand by anymore, but I knew to come to you like this would make things worse. I needed a better way. When Rodney sent you here, I saw it as divine providence."

"Why?"

"Because of Mary...She is a spirit that never crossed over which allows her with a bit of help to regain her physical form. I talked to her, and I could see in her someone that could reach you in a way I couldn't. Show you what you needed to see."

"What did I need to see, Annie?"

"That it was o.k. to let go. That it was o.k to open yourself up to someone again, to live...like you haven't for so long."

"I didn't...I didn't want to live without you," said Brad as hot tears began to flow down his cheeks.

"I know...but I'm gone, Brad. You are still alive, and you owe it to yourself...To the memory of what we meant to each other to be happy again like we were."

"I don' think I can, Annie."

"Of course you can. You already did..."

Annie was looking over his shoulder, and Brad turned to where Mary was standing on the edge of the porch looking worried.

"She made you smile...laugh...live, and she wasn't me," said Annie.

Mary walked a bit closer pensively looking at the ground and then back up at Brad's stunned expression.

"I'm glad Annie asked me to help. I know I lied to you or at least misled you about who I was, but...For the first time since...Since I died...I stopped thinking about how unfair it all was, and how I didn't want to leave it all behind. I started to remember how it felt to be happy in a moment. To be touched..loved...I had forgotten so much and never realized it until now."

He reached out and ran his fingertips across one of Mary's soft cheeks. She took his hand in hers squeezing it tight.

"Thank you, Brad, for making me see that I was holding on for all the wrong reasons. I should go on and find another road."

"Do you want to cross now, Mary? There are so many folks here that want to see you again," said Annie.

Mary stepped back and nodded.

Brad looked on in growing astonishment as Mary's body began to glow and become as transparent as Annie until she too hovered in the air.

"Oh My! It's all so...Beautiful..." she whispered looking around at a world that Brad could only imagine.

"Momma...Pappa!" cried Mary as she faded from sight.

A loud bark split the silence and Brad whipped back around just in time to see Smokey fading away leaving only he and Annie on the porch.

"I have to go now, Sweetheart. It's harder than you can imagine being here. Please...For me...Find another road..."

Brad tried to reach out to her, but Annie was already slipping away until there was nothing but the trees where her image had been moments earlier.

"Goodbye, Annie," he said.

YOU TAKE THE HIGH ROAD -

"I'm telling you this is the way to go. You're never going to find a more unique development opportunity than this I swear. Then call me back as soon as you hear something from the bank!"

Rodney Reese placed his phone back in the cradle wiping a hand across his forehead. This was the part of sales he hated. Brad was a much better closer. Rodney tended to lose his temper when his clients started to get cold feet, but not old Brad he was cool under fire.

Glancing up from his desk, Rodney was struck by the irony of Brad choosing that moment to walk right by his doorway.

"Hey! You're back!" said Rodney happily, catching up to his partner in the hallway.

"I sure hope so otherwise there is a perfect clone of me walking around the office," said Brad.

"How did things go at the McKenna's?"

Brad seemed slow to answer, and it made Rodney wonder if he had missed something important.

"Everything went...fine...I got all the cataloging and packing finished, and the truck showed up on time yesterday and picked it all up."

"Did you enjoy your time in the country? Communing with nature and all that stuff..."

"Yeah, it was like being back home again. I...Uh...Met some interesting folks."

"I bet you have some tales to tell. I'm just glad you're back; a lot is going on around here."

Rodney started to fill Brad in on what had been happening in his absence but noticed that his friend seemed distracted.

"Hey! Earth to Brad! You in there?"

Brad was looking away toward Jennifer Fisk's office where she sat typing at her computer.

"Can you hang on for just a second, Rodney. There's something I need to do."

Jennifer looked up as a quiet knock sounded on her door frame.

"Oh! Hey, Brad. Back from the country? If you came to check on the Hampton deal, I took care of it for you. They closed yesterday, and we should get a nice commission off of it."

"That's great news, but it's not why I'm here. I was just wondering...Did you still have those tickets for the play?"

Jennifer smiled looking a little surprised, "Yes, as a matter of fact, I was thinking about selling them or giving them away, but I hadn't gotten around to it yet."

"Well...I would love to go with you...if you're still interested in some company?"

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. I thought maybe afterward if you wanted we could go for a late dinner. There's this charming French restaurant that just opened over on Appleton street. I hear the food there is excellent and the atmosphere is even better.

"I...would like that very much...Saturday night then? Say around 6:30?"

"It's a date," said Brad leaving Jennifer with a stunned expression while he returned to his conversation with Rodney in the hallway.

"So you were saying?"

"Forget what I was saying. Did you just ask Jennifer out on a date?"

"I did. You were the one that said she was interested in me."

"I did say that, but I thought...I mean you said that you weren't ready or whatever. Who are you and what did you do with my friend?"

Brad slapped Rodney on the shoulder walking away toward his own office, "I'm still me, Rodney. I think I just needed to clear my head like you told me to do."

"Yeah well, I'm glad that worked. Not long ago I would have said there wasn't a ghost of a chance you would ask Jennifer out."

Brad stopped a few feet away turning back to his old friend with a grin, "You have no idea how true those words are my friend...No idea at all."

Rodney shook his head at Brad's odd behavior, but deep down he was happy to see his friend smiling again.

When the door of his office shut behind him, Brad took the last few steps over to where his wedding photo rested on the corner bookshelf. He lifted the picture frame in his hand running one finger across Annie's pretty face. Then he carried the frame over to his desk and carefully placed it in the bottom drawer. He knew now he would see his wife again one day, but that was a long ways off.

"Time to get busy living," said Brad to himself, and he picked up the phone to start his day.