Chapter One

It’s a summer night in South Florida and it’s hot. We are the only ones on the block without air-conditioning, and tonight I’m sweating. On nights like this, I used to pray for a storm to rise out of the Everglades and cool me off, but not since my grandfather moved in.

His scream startles me. I throw my sheet off and sit up in the dark. Heat lightning flashes far off in the Everglades, and thunder rumbles in the distance. At the end of the hall, he screams again. “No! It wasn’t me. No!”

I’m seven years old and I’m terrified. Since moving in with mom and me, his nightmares have worsened, and tonight his shrill voice reaches into my room like a claw. My mother’s door opens, and she races down the hall to calm him.

“Hush, Dad. It’s just a dream,” she says.

I cover my ears and pray he will stop, but I know the monsters aren’t finished with him.

“No!” Again, his voice echoes through the house.

I jam my bedroom door shut with my skateboard and hide in the closet. Lightning flashes, its light seeping through the crack under the closet door. I hope thunder will drown him out, but there is none. Like the storm, his nightmare fades.

I wake up in my cramped closet, my safe place, my inner sanctum where I can escape the memories of the mean kids on my street—and the demons that scare my grandfather.

My father left two days later. I thought I would miss him, but I don’t. There was something about my dad that’s hard for me to explain to my friends—he reminds me of winter.

*

A week passes and tonight, my windows are wide-open.

Lightning flashes and his frightened voice carries into my room. “No!”

“No!” Again and again. A single word. I pull the sheet up to my chin and wait.

Another flash—and I see a woman standing in the corner of my room. I wait for another bolt. I don’t have to wait long, but she’s gone. I shine my flashlight in each corner. I’m alone.

 A quiet hour passes until a cool breeze ruffling my curtain wakes me. White light fills my room and a crack of thunder shakes the bed. The rain pounding on the metal roof is deafening, but I can hear him screaming down the hall.

“It wasn’t me!”

I can’t leave Mom with the monsters again. I creep down the hall carrying my bat, and I find her kneeling at his bed. He’s thrashing in his sheets like a wild animal has caught him. “No, no,” he repeats.

The sweet smell of liquor and the sour odor of sweat fill his room. On his nightstand, an empty brown bottle of Canadian Club whiskey is overturned. His eyes open wide, he jerks himself upright and looks around the room—right through us and into a dark corner. “It’s not my fault,” he whispers. Hands outstretched, he reaches for someone unseen, begging, “Leave me be!”

The rain stops, and like his nightmare, the storm moves on.

Is it the lightning he fears—do his monsters ride the lightning?

I find Mom in the kitchen the next morning, crying. With a napkin, she wipes away the tears, pretending she’s okay.

“Mom, he’s getting worse. Who was he talking to?”

“Nobody, Adrian. It was just the whiskey.”

*

I was ten when he died. It was a cold winter day. Mom said the drinking had killed him as good as any bullet would.

My grandfather’s funeral is my first. I stare at him in his casket. He doesn’t look like my grandfather. His skin is wrong, his hair isn’t right either, and his lips look fake, like the wax ones I get trick-or-treating.

My two aunts push me aside and stare at him, dry-eyed and grimacing. They whisper something they don’t want me to hear and snicker. I walk back to the first row of seats and sit next to Mom. “Wait here,” she says, and walks toward my aunts, who are still at the casket.

She says something to them. They glare at her and walk out the door, never saying a word. I’m only ten, but I know hate when I see it.

The preacher reads from his Bible, but I don’t listen. Well, I stopped listening after he said grandfather would go to heaven. Mom is in the seat next to me, trembling, anger and grief battling each other on her face until the service is over.

On the short drive home she is quiet, tears running down her cheek.

“Mom, do they hate us?”

“No, Adrian.”

That night she tucks me into bed and says, “One day I will tell you all about my father, and your aunts too, but not tonight.”

*

Four months have passed since my grandfather died. It’s June, hot, and my windows are cranked wide-open. Mom promises me we will have air-conditioning before next summer, but tonight I’m once again sweating and praying for a breeze. Heat lightning flickers far away. I start my count. “One … two …,” and at ten, a faint rumble gives me hope, but my curtains remain still.

I don’t fear the storms as I used to when my grandfather was alive. I believe he took his monsters with him, and I hope he’s up in heaven like the preacher said.

I wait for the next flash to light up my room. It’s too hot for pajamas, so I’m in my underwear, one leg out of the single sheet in an effort to stay cool. A silent flash lights up my room. “One…two––”

My mother is crying. I creep down the hall and into her bedroom. Her eyes are closed and her lips are forming words. I think she is trying to say “I don’t know.” She whimpers, tears run down her cheeks, and onto her pillow.

I reach out and hold her hand and her fingers wrap around mine. Her hand tightens. It hurts but I don’t pull away.

“Mom,” I say, and her eyes open.

She stares into the corner of the room just as my grandfather had, her eyes wide. Finally, she sees me.

“What is it, Adrian?”

“You were crying, Mom.”

“It was just a bad dream, Adrian. Go back to bed, I’m okay now.”

She cries sometimes, but never screams like my grandfather did.

*

For the next few weeks, things were quiet at night. A constant breeze kept me cool and the oak tree’s leaves rustling by my window helped me sleep. My mom seems more alive, and happy, but that didn’t last.

One August night, something wakes me. The house is quiet. The leaves outside are silent. My curtains are still. Down the hall, my mom calls out, “Who are you?”

I jump up, afraid a stranger is in our house. I’m eleven now and I understand what being “the man of the house” means. I grab my bat, grip it with both hands, and walk into her room.

There is no stranger, just Mom mumbling words, her hands gripping the comforter. Nothing she says make sense. It’s like gibberish or speaking in another language. I kneel next to her and watch her lips and try to understand what she is saying. One word is clear—Ruby.

I stretch out on the rug next to her bed and watch the distant lightshow through her window. Heat lightning looks like white blood veins streaking across the sky, fracturing into dozens of bolts. It’s beautiful, sometimes.

Mom wakes me with a warm hand on my arm and daylight streams through her window.

“I made you French toast this morning. Are you hungry?”

We sit in silence. She glances at me over the edge of her coffee cup.

She puts her cup down and leans forward, her eyes studying mine. “I think I’m having your grandfather’s dreams.”

“What?”

“I started having them right after the funeral. They seem so real, and then as soon as I wake up, I can’t remember anything. It felt like someone was in the room last night. I’m sorry I woke you.”

“You were crying, not like Grandfather, but like you were trying to talk. I couldn’t understand anything, but you said Ruby.”

“Ruby?”

“I think so. Do you know anyone named Ruby?”

She shook her head. “Finish your breakfast and get ready for school.”

*

Mom had those dreams often. I’d wake as she mumbled in that strange language. Whatever was happening in her dreams, I never saw her cry again, or any signs of fear, and one day—they stopped.

“Mom, I haven’t heard you talking in your sleep in weeks.”

“You’re right, I haven’t. Maybe that’s the end of whatever was bothering me.”

*

On my fourteenth birthday, I inherited their dreams.

I’m watching a baseball game on TV when the power flickers twice and dies. Thunder rumbles. Lightning flashes and more thunder follows seconds later. The storm is close.

The air-conditioning Mom promised never arrived. We have trouble just paying the light bill. I do what I can, mowing lawns around my neighborhood, but air-conditioning is still a luxury we can’t afford.

My curtains stir, the breeze feels good. I fall asleep as the first drops of rain hit my windows.

I wake up hours later. The storm has passed and moonlight shines through my windows, bathing the room in pale light. A young woman is standing in the corner. Shadows hide most of her, but I can tell she is beautiful.

“I’m dreaming,” I whisper to her. “Right?”

Am I cursed like my mom and my grandfather? No, this is not a nightmare. I don’t want to scream. I don’t feel like crying either. The woman reminds me of Miss Johansson, my second-grade teacher, my first crush.

“Hello,” I say. She doesn’t look at me, her eyes are fixed on something behind me.

I rub my eyes, knowing she can’t be real because I can see right through her. I squeeze my eyes shut, open them, and she is still there, until a shadow envelops her and she is gone.

That morning, I tell my mother. “Mom, a woman was in my room last night.”

She set her cup on the table, looked at me and nodded, but didn’t say a word.

“Mom?”

“It was a dream, Adrian. Nothing more.”

“It seemed like it was more than a dream.”

“What did she look like, can you remember?”

“She looked like Miss Johansson, my teacher.”

“Your grandfather never talked about his nightmares. When I asked, he would reach for that bottle and try to drink himself to death. I learned not to ask anymore. You know what killed him? Guilt.”

“Something with your sisters?”

“No, well … maybe some. It started long before you were born. I was a teenager then and he worked for the airlines. He was a mechanic on the big planes he called China Clippers, like the sailing ships. You don’t remember my mother, but she was a hard woman, and the two of them fought like cats and dogs. One day I woke up and he was gone, just like that, transferred to China, about as far away from us as he could get.”

“Was he a bad person?”

“No, he wasn’t. He was a good man, at least he was before he left. My mother said one of the planes he had worked on took off and was never seen again. A lot of people were on that plane. Then the war started and he came home … and he was different. He was drinking heavy, even then.”

Her bottom lip began to quiver like mine does before I cry. Reaching out, I took her hand.

“Stop, Mom, I don’t want to hear anymore.”

“You’re old enough now and I want you to know. When I was young, he would scream out in the dark, just like you remember. It scared my sisters and me to death. One day my mother had had enough and divorced him. She moved away and my sisters went with her. But I couldn’t go. I chose my father. Who would take care of him if I left too? That’s why they don’t speak to me. For years I blamed my mother and the whiskey. My sisters and I were never close as kids, and I don’t think we spoke two words after they left.”

“So, it wasn’t monsters he was afraid of.”

“I don’t think so. The night after he died, I had my first dream. It wasn’t a nightmare, not really, but I remember waking up depressed. I thought it was just him dying. I woke up like that night after night, my pillow soaked, dried tears on my face. And now—I’m free of them.”

“The woman in my dream is real, Mom.”

“There was a woman in my dream too. But they’re just dreams, so don’t you worry.”

*

The woman came to me in my dreams often over the next year, sometimes just a quick flash, a black-and-white image. Other times it didn’t seem like a dream at all. She was always in the same corner, but now and then, the pleasant scent of coconuts and ocean would fill my room and then she would appear, linger in the dark for a few seconds, and fade away.

The next summer, things changed.

One June night, thunder startled me awake. I saw her, not hidden in the corner but right at the foot of my bed. She was dressed in white clothes that shimmered like pearls in bright sunlight, and her long blonde hair fluttered in a cool breeze that brushed against my face. At the edge of my bed was a beach. Her bare toes dug deep into the white sand, and the sunshine behind her turned her hair into golden flames.

I got out of bed and took a step toward her, inhaling that aroma of coconut oil and salt air. I knew if I took another step I’d be on her beach, and then I could reach out and touch her. But I couldn’t move any farther. My brain stopped me.

“Hello,” I said to her as I have so many times.

She stared at me and said, “Do you know?”

Her crystal blue eyes drew me closer.

“Know what?”

She recoiled and vanished.

Back under the sheet, my heart pounded. This was the first time she was aware of me. She spoke and I know it was more than a dream—it had to be. Her scent lingered. I breathed her in.

Two more days pass, and two uneventful nights.

On the third night, lightning flashed and there she was, dressed like a woman on her way to church. Her white linen blouse, edged in lace, was tucked into a matching skirt, and she clutched a brown leather handbag. Her nails were manicured, crimson polish glistened like blood on her fingertips.

“Do you know?” She cocked her head to the side, waiting for my reply.

“I do.”

She stepped back, eyes wide, and vanishes again.

“No, wait!”

That morning at breakfast my mother sat across from me reading the paper. “Mom, the woman came to me again last night, and it wasn’t a dream. She spoke to me. She’s on a beach––I can see and smell it. She keeps asking me ‘Do you know?’ What does she want?”

“She spoke to you …”

It wasn’t a question. Mom’s eyes close. Clenching her fist, she pounds it on the table.

“She’s much stronger now.”

“It’s Ruby, isn’t it? Is she a ghost?” I try to laugh, but choke instead.

“Ghost, spirit, haint … I don’t know what she is. Did she touch you? Ghosts aren’t supposed to be able to touch us, I read that somewhere.”

 “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Adrian, the day that plane went missing, the pilot reported a problem with an engine. That was the last time anyone heard from them. My dad was an engine mechanic, so maybe she blames him, she never spoke to me. I tried to talk to her, but …”

Mom turned away and buried her face in both hands.

“… I’m sorry. All these years I thought I was hallucinating and losing my mind. My mother and sisters wanted to put our dad in a psychiatric ward!”

“I would never do that to you, Mom. Ruby is real. I just want to know what she wants.”

“Maybe she wants to go home.”

Chapter Two

Over the next few years, Ruby visits often, seldom saying anything, still wearing the same white outfit.

One evening just after dark, my lamp flickered. I got out of bed, stood in her spot and waited. The fragrance came first and then she is next to me, so close I can feel heat coming off her skin.

She looks down at my underwear and I cover myself with my hands. She smiles … and blushes.

“My name is Adrian, are you Ruby?”

“I am.”

Her voice is soft, a cotton ball against my skin.

“Ruby,” I say, enjoying the feel of her name on my lips.

A bolt of lightning strikes and thunder shakes the house. Ruby flinches, looks up at the ceiling and then out my window.

“A storm.” Her eyes dart between me and the window.

“Nothing to fear, Ruby.” This dream is very different, she’s no apparition tonight, she’s here in the flesh. It’s also the first time she’s looked at anything in my room other than me. Even her voice is different tonight; it’s sweeter, intimate.

A man appears behind her. He doesn’t walk into view—he is just suddenly there. He’s an older man, wearing a smart pin-striped suit, shiny black shoes, and a white bowtie. He studies me, frowns, and points to my alarm clock. He shimmers and is gone.

“My father,” Ruby says.

Months pass before I see her again, but sandy footprints have been left at the edge of my bed.

*

On my seventeenth birthday, they came to me. Six men dressed in old-fashioned suits crowd my room, glaring at me as I lie under my covers. Since the last time I saw Ruby, my mother had central air-conditioning installed. The windows are closed tight, yet a breeze ripples the curtains.

One of the older men is wearing a uniform. Epaulets on his shoulders tell me he’s an officer, and the gold wings pinned to his white shirt must mean he’s one of the pilots. Ruby’s father, in his pin-striped suit, stands at his side. Both men look angry.

The temperature drops, and I pull the comforter up under my chin, but the cold cuts right through it. Their lips move, but like in a silent movie, I hear nothing, and I can’t smell the ocean. None of them are as clear, or as colorful as Ruby. I don’t think they’re strong enough to fully enter the room. One by one they fade, turning to black-and-white like old photographs, and disappear.

The next morning, I throw the comforter aside and examine the tile floor. No sand, and no lingering scent.

*

Months pass before another storm marches east out of the Everglades. A bolt of lightning illuminates Ruby in the corner. Her clothes are soaked, her blonde hair plastered to her forehead and dark storm clouds blot out the sunlight behind her. Lightning flashes again, this time on her side.

Ruby’s lips are moving and she’s looking into the opposite corner, talking to someone I can’t see.

I get out of bed and put on my gym shorts. I’m eighteen now, and standing in front of this beautiful woman in my white BVDs makes me uncomfortable.

I walk over to her and try to read her lips. The room is silent, I still can’t hear a word—and I jump when thunder rattles the windows. A flash engulfs the room in bluish light and the crash of thunder is instant. My clock goes dark, the power is out. Then another flash, and more thunder.

“Adrian,” she says, looking at me now. Her eyes are fixed on mine, and she smells wonderful. I take a deep breath of her as she reaches for me. Her fingers run through my hair, they are gentle and warm. I can’t move, I can’t breathe.

Something hits the glass behind me, and I turn to look at the window. Marble-sized hail hammers against the house. A groan comes from somewhere in the back yard and then a crack as a tree branch snaps. Wind rips through the oak tree in the back yard and then … the dreaded sound, like a freight train.

The window shatters, and I’m peppered with shards of glass and hail. Ruby is gone. The storm races east, and the roar of the train ebbs as my mother throws my door open. “Adrian!”

I’m surprised when the light snaps on, and my clock is flashing. Tiny rivulets of blood trickle down my legs. On the floor, mixed in with glass, blood, and hailstones are two small footprints made of beach sand.

“She touched me tonight, Mom. She ran her fingers through my hair … and called me by name.”

Mom didn’t respond at first. She was focused on those two small footprints. “Adrian,” she finally says, “she has never come to me like this. Always just a dream, I––”

“It’s okay, Mom. I’m not afraid of her. She comes with the storms.”

*

Years have passed, and I’ve seen Ruby many times and even the other men occasionally, but nothing like the night the tornado missed our house. Now and then she leaves me souvenirs, sand most often, the aroma of coconut, and once a piece of driftwood shaped like the letter “S.”

Chapter Three

I moved to Ellijay, Georgia, when I turned twenty-five. I’m still single, thanks to Ruby. Twice I thought I had found the right woman, only to have them suddenly leave. Leave is too kind a word, flee is more accurate. One night after six months of dating and what had been a beautiful evening together, Julia woke up next to me, screaming.

Everything had been perfect, a fabulous dinner in Blue Ridge and a long romantic walk along the town’s shopping district. On the way back to my cabin, we watched the storm clouds building above the mountains to the west, and the lightning show added some excitement as we made love. Usually, lightning makes me anxious because I think of Ruby, but I didn’t think about her that night. By midnight, both of us were fast asleep.

The scream was blood-curdling. Julia threw herself out of bed, grabbed most of her clothes in one arm and raced out of the house, naked. She was halfway down the road before I caught up to her.

“Julia!”

Eyes wide with fear, she looked up as a barn owl hooted in the tall oak next to us. It flew off, its graceful, silent wings a stark comparison to Julia’s flailing, clothes-laden arms as I tried to hold her.

Finally, she took a deep breath and shivered. She looked at the neighbors’ darkened windows and pressed the clothes against her breasts.

“It’s okay, Julia, they’re in Florida. Come back inside and I’ll make some coffee.”

“Never,” she mumbled. “I’ll never set foot in there again. Drive me home, Adrian, or I’ll walk.”

“It’s midnight, you live three miles away and your shoes are still in the house. Just come back inside and tell me what happened.”

Lightning flashed. It was far off but I saw terror return in her eyes. She spun on her bare heels and started walking as she struggled to get her arm through the sleeve of her jacket.

“Julia, just let me get my keys and I’ll drive you home.”

She refused to say what had happened, but when I got back to the house that morning, a dozen footprints encircled the bed along with bits of seaweed and crushed shells. I never saw Julia again.

*

Spring in North Georgia can be rough weather-wise. Some call it Tornado Alley, like they do in parts of Kansas and Oklahoma. Storms travel the currents northeast out of the Gulf of Mexico across Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, and tornadoes are common.

That first spring was relatively calm but the next one was a monster.

I check the storm tracker every day. Tonight, two tornados are racing through Alabama and turn toward Ellijay, as if a giant’s hand is pulling and pushing them toward my cabin.

After crushing Tuscaloosa, one of them hits my cabin at two in the morning. Ruby appears with the first rumble of thunder.

“Tell me, Adrian, what do you know?”

“You ask me that question all the time, Ruby. What is it you want?”

“We were on a plane yesterday. We were meeting my husband and daughter … wait, I think it was yester––no. I know it can’t be yesterday, but … am I … are we … all dead?”

“Ruby, the plane you were in crashed in 1941.”

“What?”

“Yes Ruby, it crashed. Do you remember anything like that?”

“No. I … I don’t. I can’t remember.”

“My grandfather worked on your plane in Shanghai before the war. You came to him in his sleep for years, do you remember that?”

“The war?”

“Yes, there was a big war, but do you remember my grandfather?”

“I don’t think we ever met.”

I can tell none of what I’m saying makes sense to her. I reach out my hands as if that will somehow soften my words.

“Ruby, I’m sorry. Your plane crashed more than eighty years ago.”

She stares at me, wide-eyed as another gale shakes the cabin. The first hail begins hitting the glass in the French doors, and in the yard, a pine tree snaps and crashes to the ground. Sweet resin fills the air.

“But … the captain said we were only two hours away from landing … only two hours, Adrian.”

“The plane never arrived. I spent years researching what happened. I even went to an old museum in San Francisco trying to figure it out. There was one missing plane, a clipper from Manila, but there wasn’t a passenger named Ruby.”

Ruby sank to her knees, not on some beach, not on some deserted island in the Pacific. No, she was right here in my cabin. Her tears cascaded down her cheeks and landed on my knotty pine floor, right here in Georgia.

I knelt next to her but am afraid to touch her. Memories of The Twilight Zone are still vivid, and this would have been a perfect episode. If I touch her, will I be transported back to her time? Will I be dead as well, wandering around in limbo haunting people in their sleep?

I put my arm around her anyway and pull her close. She’s shivering and listening to her sob is gut-wrenching.

“My father has called me Ruby since the day I was born,” she says between breaths. “My birth name is Margaret Clarke. I’m married to Wendell Turner, so my ticket said Margaret––”

“Margaret Turner,” I said, finishing her sentence.

“Yes, but I like Ruby.”

“Then Ruby it is.”

Breathing and thinking shouldn’t be hard, but I have to remind myself to do so. Between the worsening storm and holding a beautiful woman who was born over a century ago, I’m struggling.

“Ruby, what is the last thing you remember about the flight––you said the captain told you the plane was two hours away from landing, what happened next?”

“The plane was bouncing around. I was nauseous. I think I was going to vomit. It was dark outside, and I was sitting next to the window. Then lightning lit up the sky, and I noticed that one of the engines on my side wasn’t working. The propellor wasn’t turning. My father was worried. That’s all. Well, I do remember seeing you in your bedroom. You were just a boy. That seems like yesterday or even this morning. Now,” she said, looking at me, “I think we are the same age.”

“I was eight the first time I saw you.”

“Adrian, my daughter. What about her? She’s only two …”

The sobbing starts again. I do the math. Two years old in 1941 means the girl would be eighty-five now.

“Ruby, what’s her name? I can probably find her. We have …” How do I explain a computer or Google to her? “I have ways to search for her.”

“Jewell Rose Turner.”

*

The storm passes, and Ruby vanishes along with it. I had one last glimpse before she smiled and faded away. The silence tells me I have survived the second tornado in my life.

Sunlight streams through the top windows of my A-frame living room. Wet leaves are plastered to the glass, a reminder of the tempest we survived.

I never saw Ruby again. Maybe I answered the question that haunted her all these years.

Do you know?

Chapter Four

I slept fourteen hours that next day and woke just before midnight. Radar showed several storms sliding across the screen of my laptop again, but this time those invisible hands are turning them away from me and Ellijay.

Long into the night I research everything I can find on Ruby and her daughter. I should have asked for Jewell’s birthdate, but I was a bit distracted by the events—a tornado and a century old young ghost crashing into my wood cabin can be disconcerting.

There are dozens and dozens of hits on Jewell Rose Turner, most of them obituary notices. Jewell, Margaret, and even Ruby were common names in the 1940s. I examine each one. I make notes of their age, birth date, and date of death. So many of the hits are on the same woman, who seems to be of some importance. It’s not the Jewell I’m looking for, wrong parents and a birth date that is off by years.

I can’t remember how many pages I went through before I find a possible match: Jewell Rose Christie nee Turner. It’s an article in the LA Times: “Hollywood woman, 68, killed by a cable car in San Francisco. Jewell Christie, daughter of socialite Wendell Turner, killed tragically in freak accident.”

There’s a photo of Jewell, a wedding photo with no date. Like Ruby, she was an attractive woman, and she resembled her mother. They have the same hair and cheekbones, but Jewell’s eyes are almond-shaped, and her mother’s were rounder.

A second photo shows Jewell’s father, Wendell Turner dressed in his familiar pin-striped suit and white bowtie. The picture was cropped but part of a woman’s arm is visible, and in the background is the tail of an old airplane—old now but probably new when the photo was taken. This could be the very day Ruby and her father boarded that fateful flight.

I push myself away from the computer and stare at the floor where we sat as the storm raged outside. If she shows up tonight, what do I tell her? Do I mention that her two-year-old daughter lived a full life and bore two sons? As tragic as her death may have been, she lived a lot longer than Ruby.

I find Jewell’s obituary next. I scanned through it until I find “preceded in death by her mother, Margaret (Clarke) Turner.” Now I had a definite match, a match that leads to Esmée Christie, Ruby’s great-granddaughter—and there is a photo. Ruby’s eyes stare into mine once more, Esmée could have been Ruby’s identical twin.

*

I wake up on the couch as the sun comes through the window, the shaft of light cutting through my eyelids like a knife. My laptop is still open, the battery dead. I plug it in and open Esmée’s Facebook page. The first few posts are of her dog, a red Doberman Pinscher named Annie.

Esmée is an outdoor person: a hiker, snow skier, and mountain biker. Looking at all these pictures makes me want to get into the gym again. She is also a musician. There is a video of her onstage, playing a guitar and singing. The video is terrible. The sound is muffled, the picture grainy, and the camera is in the hands of someone unable to keep Esmée in focus.

At the top of her page, she has posted an event: “Esmée Christie—live at The Bluejay Café in Nashville.”

I close the laptop and stare at the driftwood on my desk. It was eighty years old when it washed up in my bedroom. How old is it really?

Chapter Five

I walk into The Bluejay Café at eight o’clock. The place is bustling, a combination of the TGIF happy hour crowd in business attire, and those ready for a hard night of drinking and music. I fall somewhere in the middle.

I pick out one of the smaller tables near the stage. It’s a two top, and I sit so I can see the stage and the front door. I order a single shot of Tullamore Dew, my favorite Irish whiskey, and wait.

At a quarter to nine, the door opens and Esmée enters carrying a guitar case in one hand. She’s taller than I expected, but even at this distance, I’m reminded of the first time I saw Ruby in the dark corner of my bedroom twenty years ago.

Esmée stands to the side of the door, her eyes sweeping the crowd. She’s wearing something black, her arms are bare and there’s a hint of a tattoo on one shoulder.

Standing up, I start to walk toward her and stop as reality hits me. I do not know this woman. She is not the woman I held in my arms a few days earlier. She’s a stranger—I’m a stranger.

Back in my chair, I swirl the last of my whiskey, watching the ice cube spin. It’s awkward sitting alone while everyone else is enjoying the company of friends and lovers. People around me lean in close to each other, yelling over each other, tapping their feet with the pulse of the music, a pulse that gives the impression the room itself is breathing. The dance floor is empty.

No one looks at me and that awkward feeling creeps up my spine. I take a swig of my whiskey, draining the glass and let the warmth do its magic. It works.

The atmosphere, like the crowd, is tense, like something big is coming and everyone is bracing themselves … or maybe it’s just me.

I risk another glance. She is still by herself, holding a rock glass of something amber. Hopefully she isn’t expecting anyone. In my head, and in my dreams the last few nights, she is alone, but why would she be? She is young and beautiful.

The first hint of Tullamore Dew enters my brain. My thinking slows, I relax my shoulders, rest my hands on the table, breathe, and I take a long look at her.

Like in her Facebook profile, her blonde hair is long. A dark red stripe runs down the left side. At the table next to me, two women have the same strip of red hair.

Esmée looks at her watch, which makes me look at mine. It’s time.

I take my empty glass and head for the bar. A double shot this time, I tell the bartender. While I wait, I steal another quick glance. Dammit, it’s too dark, and I fight the urge to walk over and introduce myself.

My hands tremble and a cold bead of sweat drips down my back. I’m so close to her. I’m too nervous. Just days ago, I was embracing this girl’s great-grandmother. Christ, what’s wrong with me?

With my glass full, I make my way back to the table and wait. The Bluejay is full now, every seat is taken and several dozen people are grouped around the bar.

Esmée stands and walks toward the stage. The roar of the crowd becomes a murmur, and goes silent.

Holding the guitar by the neck, she takes the stage, tunes a few of the strings and approaches the mic.

“Good evening, my Nashville friends. It’s good to see you all again.”

Her voice is smooth and sultry, much different from Ruby’s. I’m not sure why that surprises me, but it does.

The applause is instant and drowns her out as she tries to say more. I think many in the crowd have come just to hear her. The two women with the striped hair are on their feet chanting her name: “Esmée, Esmée.”

Esmée has a tribe.

I turn back to watch her reaction—and find her staring at me. Was it my imagination, the whiskey, or did she look at me a few seconds too long? I’m breathless as she puts her dark red lips near the mic, strums her Gibson and begins.

I’m not the only one who’s nervous. The first line of Miranda Lambert’s Tin Man is too sharp. Her eyes catch mine again; they glisten in the spotlights and every note that follows is perfect.

I know the song well and she nails it. Our eyes meet several times during the next song. It’s my imagination, it must be. My mother used to tell me that “you see what you want to see, Adrian.” But I have been staring at her, and I’m probably making her uncomfortable. I make it a point to study my drink, stirring the big sphere of ice, then look behind me at the bar. I’m paranoid. A server comes by and I ask for another double.

Five ample shots of Tullamore Dew will put me on the floor. I need to slow down and nurse it. Forty minutes pass in the blink of an eye, and my glass is still full.

“Don’t leave,” Esmée says to the crowd. “I’m taking a short break and I’ll be right back.” As she says the last few words, she turns and stares at me. Chills race up and down my arms. I’m frozen and I couldn’t leave if I wanted to. Esmée winks.

I wipe my damp forehead and look at my wet fingers. Jesus, Adrian, get your shit together. I push my chair away from the small table and lean back. My neck cramps as I do.

I don’t see a DJ, but someone is mixing classic and contemporary country: Brothers Osbourne, Chris Stapleton, Carly Pearce, and others. I pick up my glass and take the first sip. The whiskey goes down smooth and … something brushes my shoulder. Esmée squeezes her way between the tables and stands in front of me, studying me like a lab experiment gone wrong. Finally, her lips, those dark red ones I admired on the stage, smile.

“Mind if I sit?” she asks, pulling out the chair.

She’s wearing a scoop-necked, sleeveless maxi dress, a strange combination of a black leather top with layers of lace that begin at the waist and thin as they drop to mid-thigh. The last few are a delicate web of gossamer.

My eyes are locked on hers, and I force myself not to glance at the slight bit of cleavage her top allows. It’s as if I’m sitting on the floor with Ruby all over again, and I have to remind myself to breathe. She doesn’t speak, just stares at me. It’s a soft stare, but awkward just the same.

I need to say something. My throat is so dry I’m afraid to speak. I take a sip of my drink to wet my lips and say—

“Hello.”

I’m sure she’s heard worse lines in a bar, but to me, it sounded pretty pathetic.

“What’s your name? You look familiar.”

“Adrian.”

“Adrian. Have we met?”

“No, I’ve never been here. I came from Ellijay.”

“Ellijay?”

“Georgia.”

“I’ve never been to Georgia, Adrian. I have to play another set. Don’t leave.”

For the next thirty minutes, I feel like I’ve failed the most important test I’ve ever taken. My face is cold. The skin on my arm prickles yet looks like parchment. I think I might faint. Sweat soaks my underarms, and I’m going to piss myself if I don’t run to the bathroom. I get up and walk as fast as I can while trying to retain some dignity.

Chapter Six

Her last song is one of my favorites, a twangy version of Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven, the lament of an earthbound father speaking to his child in heaven.

Esmée nails the guitar intro, and the lyrics brush away every fear I’ve felt since I walked in.

Suddenly, I sit up, attuned to each word. Ruby could have written this song to her own daughter. The chill returns, and I feel lightning strike somewhere outside. Electricity runs down my spine, dancing on each vertebra and then out to my fingertips. As Esmée descends the stairs, the lights flicker and strobe across her. Then she is sitting across from me as thunder crashes outside.

“I’ve seen you before, and recently. Maybe last night, or the night before, but you were a lot younger. You were wearing white BVDs.”

I dissect each word before I speak. Rain pounds against the metal roof, and my blood pulses against my eardrums. Something supernatural is happening to us. I can’t answer her yet. I need the words to be perfect. I’m not just in the presence of some beautiful woman, but something spiritual.

Screw it. In for a penny, in for a pound!

“I spoke to your great-grandmother three days ago—in Georgia—as a tornado ripped trees out of the ground, and I don’t wear them anymore.”

I’m afraid to breathe.

“Don’t wear what?”

“BVDs. I wear Haynes now, assorted colors.”

She reaches for my drink and static electricity zaps us as her skin touches mine.

“Wow,” she says, swallowing the last of my whiskey. “That was electrifying.”

Raising two fingers, she orders us another round.

“My mother said this day would come, Adrian. I never believed her until I saw you sitting here. I’ve had dreams I can’t explain. My mother tried, but I thought we were all just mentally ill, you know, something genetic.”

“Esmée, you look just like her, well not exactly. Ruby didn’t have a bright red streak in her hair, or a rose tattoo, but I feel like I’ve known her all my life. I was six or seven the first time I saw her. She scared the crap out of me that first time, my grandfather too. But over the years, we … became friends. Do you know the whole story?”

The two women with red in their hair walk over and stand at our table, looking at me as if asking permission to speak with their idol. It’s unnerving.

“I’ll be back,” I say and head to the men’s room again. I need a minute to get my shit together.

My return is timed to perfection. Esmée is alone and most of the customers are heading for the doors. At the table, she opens her guitar case and hands me an eight-by-ten color photo taken in 1941. In the photo, Ruby is holding her father’s arm, beaming as they board the big seaplane. Their eyes peer straight into mine. It’s eerie, but this night is full of things that are hard to believe.

In the photo’s background, the Boeing 314 Clipper awaits. It is the same, but now complete photo I saw on the computer screen when I read Jewell’s obituary. Looking at Ruby, tears well and I dab at my eyes. I want to scream Don’t get on that plane! but of course that was eighty years ago.

Thank you for everything, Ruby!

“She’s beautiful,” I say.

Esmée sleeps in the nude. The thin sheet covers most of her, and she keeps one leg out, just like I do. I want to caress the delicate rose on her shoulder as she snores lightly, but I let her sleep. The stem and leaves wind their way down and around her forearm. At her wrist the stem ends, and in cursive script—Ruby, September 18, 1941.