A Time in Heaven (13 page)

He closed the door as Katie tried to look inside.  “There’s nothing of any use in there. 
Looks
like they left in a big hurry.” He gave Katie a worried look.

They continued along
the path. 
It
led up the hill. Sadie was with them now and she ran a little ahead
, but was never out of sight
.  They followed the path until there was a small clearing in the trees. Here they did find a water tower that wasn’t much taller than the trees around it.  The water tank looked very old, but the scaffolding holding it up looked fairly new.  There was no rust and it had
been painted green.  Huge plastic
pipes snaked out of the tank and disappear into the ground.  Jesse figured that the directions the pipes took suggested that there was a pipe to take water to each of the cabins and to the lodge.

As they were standing there imagin
in
g where the pipes were going after they disappeared underground, Sadie raced past them down the path toward the lodge. Close behind her ran the female grizzly bear.

The bear stopped about thirty feet from Jesse and Katie, and looked at the pair.  She huffed and waddled off into the woods. 

“She did it again
!”
Katie said. “She could have killed all of us this time, and she walked off.  What’s with this bear?”

Jesse
shrugged his shoulders and
suggested that they get back to the lodge before the bear had time to realize that she passed up an easy meal.  Katie felt that the sow just wasn’t interested in them for food. 

Cleaning the
upstairs of the
lodg
e was going to take quite
a bit of work,
plus they had to clean up the mess left by the wolves
.  Jesse suggested that he start with the upstairs hall.  Knowing how spooked he was about that hall, Katie said that they would do it together.  They took buckets of hot water, what rags they could find, cleaning supplies and lots of bleach. Katie started by dumping bleach on the large stain where the body had laid. 
She couldn’t help wonder who it was that they had found.

Jesse propped open the bathroom door at the top of the stairs.  He opened the window to let in some fresh air.  Looking around, it wasn’t as dirty as it smelled.  He told Katie that the smell was probably coming from the fact that the room had been closed up.  Katie told him that it had to be scrubbed
no matter how clean it looked
.

By the end of the day, the upstairs was cleaned and sanitized to Katie’s
specifications
.  She then stripped all the beds and threw out the old bedding.  Jesse helped her put clean sheets on the beds.  There were plenty of linens in the first closet, but the blankets
must be
in the closet from where the body had fallen
. 
Neither wanted to look in that closet, but they needed to find blankets.  Jesse opened the door completely.  The inside
of the closet
smelled, but there didn’t seem to be any physical signs that there had been a body shoved in it. Katie reached in and pulled out several blankets from the shelf.  She looked at Jesse
, made a face
and said, “These will
have to be washed.
”

By nightfall, the bedrooms of the lodge were fit for occupation.  Jesse commented on how much work it had been to clean them all when the two of them would only be using one of them.  Katie told him that if she was going to stay in the lodge, everything would be spotless.

Neither of them was ready to spend the night in the lodge, so they put all the cleaning things away, gathered up what they wanted for dinner and headed for their cabin. It was getting dark, but the moon was nearly full which made it easy to walk the path.  Jesse stopped and took Katie into his arms and
kissed her.  “I haven’t done that today.  I want to make sure that I show you how much I love you every day for the rest of my life.”

Katie took Jesse’s face in her hands, “And I want to be there every day for you, and to show you how much I love you” She kissed him.

They walked back to the cabin, Jesse’s arm across Katie’s shoulders and her arm around his waist.  Sadie walked at Katie’s side. Tonight
,
life was good.

Jesse lay in bed thinking that i
t had b
een a week since they
were to be picked up at the fishing camp’s dock.  They had been so busy cleaning the lodge and gathering food, they hadn’t had much time for romance. Jesse decided to do something about that.
He kissed Katie and fell asleep.

While Katie slept the next morning, Jesse got together a picnic lunch. Choices on what to pack
for a picnic
were slim. He found some crackers in the cupboard along with some sort of processed cheese.  He checked out the grapes that had been left, but they were
over
three weeks old and looked a little fuzzy.  Those he threw out.  So he opened a canned meat and cut it into l
ittle cubes.
“Not
so romantic,”
he thought. What to drink? Jesse found a couple of cans of soda, along with two glasses. He emptied out h
is day pack and packed
the picnic supplies.

He
planned on
taking his new found love to the pond after breakfast.  They would do some fly fishing, since they both loved to do that.  Then he would serve her the picnic lunch.  It would
be a
day just for them.  Jesse then remembered to get a blanket to sit on. He tried to gently take the top cover from the bed.  When he did, Katie stirred and woke up.

“Jess, what are you up to?  Why did you take the blanket off the bed?” Katie had no idea what he had planned.

“Come on.  Get dressed. 
We have a big day ahead of us,”
Jesse excitedly to
ld
her.

“Ah, I don’t want to clean anymore today.  Can’t we just stay here?”
She rolled over to go back to sleep.

“No”, Jesse answered.  “We are going to the pond and do some fishing.  We deserve a day off.  Now get dressed and I’ll make some breakfast.  A day at the pond will be fun.”

Katie
turned toward Jesse and
responded, “Fun would be nice
.”

After breakfast, Jesse wouldn’t even let Katie clean up. They gathered up their fishing gear and they, along with Sadie, headed for the pond.

It was an awesome day.  The sky was
the deepest blue.  There were
a few puffy cumulous clouds floating above the mountains
.  The water reflected the blue of the sky and the sunlight danced on the waves. There was the softest of breeze
s. As the couple looked to the sky, an eagle soared overhead.

“This is what we came here for, isn’t it?” Katie asked Jesse.

“And we found so much mor
e.” Jesse came in for a quick kiss and said, “Betcha I catch the first fish.”

Katie countered his bet with, “Bet I’ll catch the biggest one!”

Jesse laughed and said, “Give me a break!”

The fishing was tremendous.  Katie and Jesse caught one big trout after another.  They were amazed at how many big
fish they were taking from the
relatively small pond.  They lost count of how many they actually landed. Sadie even caught one
with her mouth
while she was wading near the shore.  Today was exactly what they needed.  They fished, they splashed each other, and most important they laughed.  So far, Jesse’s day off was a big success.

As the sun climbed high in the sky, Jesse put away his fishing pole and prepared for t
he next part of his surprise.  As Kati
e
watched, he
spread the blanket on a flat, dry area.  He laid out what he had collected for their picnic.
Katie wanted to laugh
, but
she
loved this man too much to laugh at his sweet
surprise.  She kissed hi
s cheek. Jesse took her hand
as they sat down to eat
their picnic lunch.

Whe
n they had finished eating, Jesse insisted on packing
up everything back into the day pack.  Katie asked, “More fishing?  I’m ahead of you, ya know?”

Jesse said softly, “Oh no.  I have something else planned for you.” He stood up and offered his hand to help her up.  “We are going to dance.”

“Here? Now?  But we have no music.”  Katie looked at Jesse with confusion.

Jesse pulled her close and started to softl
y sing one of his songs.  Katie
almost went limp in his arms.  He held her and they danced under the bright summer sun. Katie couldn’t believe what she was hearing.  Jesse hadn’t even mentioned his music since they arrived on the island.  Now he was singing to her, only her.  Great waves of love spread over her body.

Singing made Jesse feel complete.  H
e
hadn’t even thought of singing with all that had happened to him the last few weeks. 
To sing now for his new love made it even more special.  For just a second his thoughts went to what he might have been doing today. 
This would have been the day he was
performing
a concert in Japan for a few
thousand people. 
Katie’s
breath on his check brought him
back to the woman in his arms.  She was perhaps the audience th
at was most important to him
.  He sang to Katie for what might have been hours.  He didn’t want to stop and Katie didn’t want him to.

Late in the afternoon, t
hey heard distant thunder and then a few drops of rai
n fell. 
The couple had lost all track of time and what was happening around them. 
The sky was growing dark
,
and a storm was on its way.  They quickly gathered up their things and hurried back to the cabin.

The skies were opening up
and
dropping big
heavy raindrops
as they reached the cabin.  Lightning was flashing over and over again with claps of thunder not far behind.  Sadie almost knocked
Jesse down trying to get into the cabin
. He remembered how afraid of storms she is. 

Inside
the cabin, Katie thanked Jesse for the most romantic afternoon that she had ever experienced.  He laughed and said, “I’ll be a romantic old fart until the day I die.”
Jesse looked into Katie’s eyes and suggestively said
as the thunder rolled through the mountains
, “I think the heavens are playing our song.”  They both remembered the passion they shared that first night on the island.  As the storm intensified so did their fervor. 
They quickly undressed each other in the flashing strikes of li
ghtning.  They made love in time
with the rhythm of the storm.

The morning began as a dreary rainy day outside.  A day that would have most people
a little depressed, but as Jesse
awoke his
heart was flying and he
felt on top of the world.  H
e looked
at Katie curled up next to him. H
e knew that he would never hav
e to sleep alone again. Jesse hadn’t had a meaningful relationship for such
a long t
ime. Now that emptiness was gone
.

Then a thought snuck in that brought him down to a mood that fit the day outside.  The love of the woman sleeping next to him was bittersweet
. If he hadn’t come to Heaven he would have never met her. But because he did come to the island
, he
wasn’t going
to
be able to
share his music with the world. 
He ached for people to sing to.
He had loved singing to Katie at the pond, but another side of him missed the excitement of singing to an audience of thousands.
What would this time in Heaven mean to his career? Would he ever have the opportunity to get his message of peace and love out there for people to hear?  Would he be able to sing
in celebration off
his beloved environment? 

These questions were still echoing in Jesse’s mind when Sadie barked her announcement that she wanted to go outside.  He got up and put on his pants and a jacket to take the lab out.  

All the movement in the cabin woke up Katie. 
She started to get out of bed when Jesse said,
“You don’t have to get up, Babe
, I’ll take Sadie for her walk
. Jesse didn’t look at Katie as he put Sadie’s leash on her. They headed out the door.

“No more sleeping.  I’ll make breakfast while you’re gone.”  Katie could tell something was bothering Jesse.  She thought maybe it was something s
he did.  “No,”
she thought
as she remembered last night
. 
“
It’s probably just the yucky day out there.”