Forgiving Bessie

Prologue

Two years have passed with many long snowy months of winter studying architecture in Montreal. I am once again at my dear Great Aunt Bessie’s home in Ravenspond, enjoying a glass of wine with her in her back garden on a lovely afternoon as I am of legal age.

Grantie, as she is affectionately known, is just finishing reading my hard copy version of Surviving Bessie, the sequel to Missing Bessie. In my spare time, I had worked on it diligently from reams of my scribbled notes. I tell her how absorbed I’ve been, reimagining her tales from her teenage years back in the early 1970s. From the time she went on a hitchhiking lark across Canada with her best pal Ash, to the catastrophic events in July.

Surviving BessieMissing Bessie. .By some miracle, Bessie had been transported to Heaven with no memory of how she got there. Or why Ash and her beloved companion Jason were there along with her.

Later, when she returned to the Earth dimension, she had struggled with the emotional weight of extreme guilt and depression. “And a deep desire to return to our true home,” she explained to me a few years ago. “Which is Heaven, in case you’re wondering,” she added.

“So, what came after Ash and Miguelito reincarnated?” I ask. “What happened to Jason? Did Sophie and Gianni have their baby? And what about Leif—?”

Grantie laughs. “Patience, my dear Maisie,” she says. “All will be revealed. Another glass of wine before we begin?” She gets up, stopping to stroke her cat on the walkway. “You know, you remind me so much of your grandmother Leila. She is as focused and detail-oriented as you are. And with those blue-rimmed glasses, you really do resemble her at that age.”

I grin, pleased with the compliment. My grandmother is one of the most intelligent women I know. Like Grandma Leila, I still wonder whether Grantie’s wild tales of Heaven, reincarnation, and past lives is a result of too many hallucinogenic drugs. After all, it was the seventies. Perhaps it was the result of vivid dreams during her time in the hospital. Or maybe, just maybe, she actually experienced it.

Grantie returns with more wine and sets down the glasses on the side table between us. “Okay, grab your pen and your notebook. When I tell you what happened next, it’s going to knock your socks off.”