Secret Adventures

The One Who Got Away-2

“Breakfast in five,” Deborah announced, then bounded down the stairs to make good on her promise.

Minutes later, the high school freshman shuffled into the kitchen, her eyes still heavy with sleep.

“Raisin bran, toast and a banana—how does that sound?” Deborah asked.

“Just great,” Janis droned.

Deborah studied the girl—young woman, actually—whose eyes remained riveted to the floor. Suddenly, she choked back a tear, realizing her little girl would be denied the love, protectiveness and guidance of a father throughout her teen years, and her later life.

“Why don’t you turn on the TV?” Janis asked.

“You know what’s on—same ole, same ole.”

“That’s better than sitting here in silence.”

“What would you like to talk about?” Deborah continued, moving fluidly through the kitchen gathering bowls and plates and spoons, cereal and milk and bread. “Is there anything interesting going on in school this week?”

“How would I know? I haven’t been there since last Tuesday.”

Deborah didn’t know what to say to that. She wanted to talk about the young woman’s emotional detachment from the week’s events. To date, she had not yet seen Janis cry, and thought that unhealthy. She tried something risky.

“I had another dream about Dad last night.”

Janis slipped off the kitchen stool and strode to the living room. “I don’t want to hear this,” she muttered.

“Come on, Honey, let me speak. I... I need you, someone to listen to me.”

“Then why don’t you call the minister? He’s better at understanding those things.”

Deborah raised her hands in surrender. “All right, all right,” she said, “but please don’t leave. I won’t say any more.” She switched on the small TV sitting on the counter by the sink. Familiar footage of the wreckage played, the endless loop of that second plane crashing into Glenn’s building, a report without video of people jumping to their deaths to escape the flames—the same ole, same ole. And all the while Janis gazed at the screen munching her raisin bran without response.

Her daughter’s actions were not unusual from what she learned later. Jenny Teasley, whom Janis barely knew before this week, had been coming over regularly, and the two just talked about things unrelated to The Day. They never embraced, nor cried. That’s what bothered Deborah the most. A screaming fit, smashing glasses against the wall would have been better, but had this generation become so numbed, so cynical about the world around them that they could not even cry for a lost parent?

Deborah busied herself with straightening a house already tidy. Early that afternoon the minister visited again to talk about the memorial service and offer comfort if needed. She forced down cynicism of her own, wondering if this older man came so often for reasons other than pastoral counseling. But he never said anything suggestive. In fact, he never even tried to hug her, and that she would have accepted as genuine—with no ulterior motives.

“I’ve been having this recurring dream about Glenn,” she said, almost as an after thought.

The minister Barney Smits seemed to brighten at the prospect that Deborah was finally going to share something meaningful. Until then she had been all business, not even crying in his presence and seeming to wander far away whenever he offered prayer.

“The dream is so vivid, so life-like. I feel like I can reach out and touch him.”

“Tell me about it,” the minister urged. “I believe dreams are very significant.”

“Really? It’s not unusual for a grieving spouse to dream about her husband, is it?”

“No, but sometimes the dreams tell us more than we can grasp in our conscious mind.”

Deborah seemed to brush away the thought. “It’s nothing earth-shattering, I promise you, but it’s the same thing over and over again. I see Glenn very clearly, as I said—all alone. He’s looking directly at me and he’s... smiling. He never says a word, and he looks different somehow.”

Reverend Smits’ eyes bore into her and he paused before speaking. “How was he different?” he asked.

Deborah sighed. “It’s really quite strange. He’s seems to be wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt and baggy jeans, clothing he never wore in all the time I’ve known him. He was always so meticulous, you know—never a hair out of place. He’d even wear pressed khakis to play softball or roll in the grass when Janis was a little girl. And the beard! My God! I think he shaved every single day of our marriage. THAT was definitely not like Glenn.”

The minster nodded quietly, and measured his words. “Truthfully, Deborah, this is not the first time I’ve had dreams like that described to me by people who have recently experienced loss.”

“So it’s an archetypal response, part of the universal buried sub-conscious?”

“I didn’t say that. I’ve only heard of dreams like this from people of faith, or at least those who did not hold faith in disdain. And I tell you frankly I think it means something. The fact that he’s smiling means that he’s happy wherever he is. That’s the first constant in all of the dreams I’ve heard. The second is the fact that he says nothing, which reinforces the teaching that there is a great gulf between this life and the next, a gulf that is never crossed. Psychics notwithstanding, there is no direct communication with us from those who have passed on, but at least we are allowed to see that they are happy. And finally, the fact that he’s changed means exactly that. He has a new life and a new body, whatever that may be.”

They decided to postpone any decisions about the service until all of the wreckage had been analyzed. While no doubt remained about Glenn Fogerty’s fate, the recovery of some DNA evidence or a picture that he carried with him, for example, would lend a finality that Deborah had not yet attained.

But of course intense heat and a million tons of rubble could easily erase all traces of a human body.

After four weeks, Glenn Fogerty came to believe he could survive living by himself on a semi-deserted island. (There was a small village of about thirty people three miles away on the opposite shore.) Apparently, the resourcefulness that abandoned him in business resurfaced in this life or death challenge. He taught himself to spear fish, scale palm trees, scavenge for fresh fruit and trap small game. Fortunately, he had the foresight to purchase from the general store a hunting knife, a hatchet, several boxes of wood matches and a cheap set of cigarette lighters. In a very short time he discovered why his generation lost its battle with obesity. Everything came so easily in the city and suburbs. Finding food was a day long endeavor out here—and very hard work. He soon lost his middle-aged paunch.

After several failed attempts, he managed to build a hut, more like a lean-to, actually, with a grass and leafy roof. The first storm blew it down and he buried himself in the sand to escape the cold, driving rain. The next time he tied things a little bit more securely, and while the little shelter survived the wind, it did not survive the surge of the ocean pushed ahead by a pre-seasonal monsoon.

He loved waking up to a view of the deep blue sea, but wisdom dictated he move farther inland to protect himself from the bigger storms to come. They might call this place Agua Placida, meaning tranquil water, a name given by Spanish explorers, but coastal residents the world over knew full well that Neptune could lose his temper without warning.

If the last storm’s any indication of what’s to come, I’d better drive the support poles as deep as I can, he thought. He scooped sand with both hands to create a hole in the ground, then with all his strength plunged the sharpened edge of a skinned tree branch into it, hoping to sink the pole another foot. But instead of yielding dirt, the pole struck a very hard object, sending splinters into his palms and jolting the nerves in his arms and back. Once he gained control of his temper and pulled the slivers of wood out of his skin, he stared at the hole in perplexity. Could this be volcanic bedrock, he wondered. It seemed possible, but very unlikely. So, with his curiosity piqued, he dropped to his knees again and proceeded to scoop out the cool, wet sand.

That’s when he found the treasure.

The chest looked exactly like all of those iconic images, heavy damp planks of wood held together by thick metal bands of bronze. It took him several more minutes to dig around the chest and free it enough to lift it to the surface. He thought sure he’d throw his back out in this awkward position, because the thing had to weigh a hundred pounds. When he finally dragged it free he saw the thick iron hinges and the familiar padlock with the enormous keyhole, imposing enough to discourage any attempt at prying it open.

But maybe that won’t be necessary, Fogerty reasoned. The wood appeared rotten, so the chest would probably burst open if dropped onto a rock. The question remained, where on this sandy terrain could he find something hard like that? He couldn’t climb a tree and hold the chest at the same time. Lifting it over his head and throwing it down would not be enough, either. He thought of his neighbors across the island with whom he had already decided to share his bounty, but elected to withhold his discovery from them until he determined the magnitude of it.

Finally, Fogerty took his hatchet and simply chopped away. With great effort he managed to send slivers and wedges flying until he could see something gleaming inside the box. Excited now, his strength renewed, he hacked at the chest spraying wood chips in all directions. After an hour of frantic effort interrupted by several pauses to rest his aching muscles, he opened a hole big enough to pull some of the contents free. His heart leapt when he laid eyes on the first item, a small leather pouch containing stones of some kind. When he spilled its contents onto the sand, his jaw dropped. There lying before him—some as wide and quarters—were precious gems, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, fully cut and polished.

He had no idea how to appraise such things, but he could plainly see they’d bring tens of thousands of dollars, if not six figures in the jewelry district of New York City—if they were real. Either way, here they were worthless. Frantic now, he grabbed his knife and scraped away at the hole, slowly widening it. After another hour he was able to pull free a chalice that appeared to be made of solid gold with ruby inlays. Several minutes later, he yanked free a jewel encrusted cross with a solid gold chain.

This all set Fogerty’s mind to racing. These three items alone, the bag of gems, the chalice and cross, with a combined historical and luxury value, were probably worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on the open market, enough for him to return to civilization and live in obscurity, but probably not enough to pay off the insurance company and avoid the charge of fraud. Carrying more than that would be unwieldy and very dangerous. His only hope was to rebury the chest, return by himself at some future date and gather its contents—not impossible, but very, very risky.

He could already hear the conversation. “Where did you find this?” “A far away place.” “How far, exactly?” “VERY far.” His discovery would attract enough attention that an unscrupulous buyer would hire a detective to follow his every move. So he’d have to play it coy, maybe wait a year or more before returning to the island. Until that time, he could not reveal himself to Deborah and Janis, but he could watch them from afar.