Chapter Fourteen B: Reunion

Aaron moved silently around his room in the mobile chair. He could stand when he needed to, but walking was a task he didn’t want to risk. He didn’t want to collapse and be carted to the infirmary like Aunt Hattie had. He’d designed this retirement home to allow the maximum amount of independent living that an older person could have, then he had the home built using funds from his off-shore investments, carefully put away by Jack during their years in business together. When Jack and Theresa died, the codes to all his investments had transferred to Aaron as well, making him wealthy enough to preserve his little corner of rural Indiana.

He sat for a long time with the morning newspaper on his reader. It was open to a buried news item that he had placed there himself. “Twelve Oaks Church to be Razed” the headline said. There was a picture of the old building standing in the midst of the retirement center. The new Twelve Oaks Retirement Center expansion would include a non-denominational chapel designed by a renowned architect. Well, that was what happened when you sold your stake. No one listened to old men anyway. Next to his reader there were other memorabilia that he had taken from his little treasure box. He lovingly handled each of the photos that he had preserved from Pol’s house. He especially loved the one of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother standing in front of the old Roadster.

Another photo showed Aaron on the steps of the Capitol in Indianapolis being sworn in as Governor in January of 2009. The oath was administered by his old friend and colleague, Jack Diggory. Behind Aaron and to his left stood the somber figure of his chief of staff, Nina Patterson. They had never become friends, but they understood that they held common goals. Nina would never become a chief of staff at the white house after the shooting incident, but she had been cleared of all charges except possession of an unregistered weapon because of the evidence Aaron brought regarding Alex’s responsibility for the poisoning of Lake Michigan and murder of Pol Stamos. Nina remained a political activist and when Aaron retired from the Governorship, she became chair of the Great Lakes Foundation which he established.

He liked to imagine that Pol was standing next to him in this picture. It was so easy to see her there. She had shaken him out of his reverie and brought him back to political activism, and she had loved him. A tear trickled from the old man’s eye. “You told me you would show me how we could do it without people dying,” he whispered. “It’s the only time you ever lied to me.”

He put his treasures carefully back in the box, closed the lid and gently slid it into the incinerator chute. He put on his hat and gloves and wrapped the blanket firmly around his waist and legs, then glided in his mobile chair out his door, and out of the building.

Only two of the twelve oaks still stood in the midst of what was now a paved lot between the church and the retirement home. He supposed that they, too, would someday fall. It had long been speculated that their unique position behind the church acted as a kind of lightning rod. Aaron shivered and looked up into the cloudy April night wondering if there would be a storm yet tonight.

It was nearly midnight. Across the street, lit by lamps was the Twelve Oaks Cemetery. There were limited plots available in it now, but it was protected as a historical site (another of his accomplishments as Governor of Indiana). Soon, he thought.

He slid up to the door of the old church and drew a key from his pocket. The building had been locked for the better part of ten years as the result of a building inspection that pronounced it unsafe. He had fought off the destruction of the building until his latest bid to preserve it had failed this winter. The building would face the heavy equipment within the next week. It was time.

The inner doors were stuck partially open and he had a difficult time maneuvering his chair through them and up the narrow aisle of the church. It smelled of damp and dust. The floorboards groaned with his weight as he glided across them. He rolled directly to the front of the church and gazed up at the luminous stained glass window. It glowed brightly with the high-intensity yard lighting that was outside it in the parking lot of the home. But it was still. Aaron looked around him at the tiny sanctuary, willing if he could the appearance of the cathedral he had seen so often in his dreams, but seeing only the dust-covered pews and the pulpit to one side.

From beneath his blanket he pulled a candle and a lighter (contraband items in the retirement home, but he’d had them secreted away in his box of treasures). He struggled out of the chair and up to the front of the chancel. There was no longer a cloth on the wooden altar table but Aaron set the candle on the bare surface and lit it. Then he went slowly back to the chair and settled himself in to wait. Old people were good at waiting, no matter how impatient they became. He knew deep inside that he had only to wait.

He watched the candle until he fell asleep. He wasn’t even aware that he slept it was so deep and dreamless. But early in the morning the light from the window woke him. It seemed that there must be a hole in the window because a shaft of bright white light was shining in his eyes. A voice spoke and the light narrowed to a pinpoint so he could see the whole glowing window and the people moving around in it.

“Have you been waiting long, dearie?” the voice said. Aaron knew then that he was dreaming. Perhaps he could just stay in this dream as he looked into Pol’s eyes and answered.

“All my life, my love.”

“Then come with me. I’ve so much to show you,” she said. She reached for his hand and he felt her firm warm grip on his. Oh, let me never wake up from this dream, he thought. The touch of her hand was so real it brought tears to his eyes as he stood and followed her toward the window. Colors seemed brighter to him than ever and his senses seemed to be awakening for the first time. Music, voices, the very heartbeat in his chest were all in his ears. But more than anything was the sensual touch of his lover as she turned to face him. “Don’t wait any longer,” she said and kissed him.

Just as the candle on the table guttered and went out, the shutter on the camera in the back of the church silently fluttered. The young man took his first breath in what seemed hours as he detached himself from the last pew and slipped out of the church into the Indiana dawn.

THE END

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