Out of Touch, Out of Time - Chapter Nineteen

July 7, 2008

Jonas spent his time while Cheyenne worked on her photographs going through everything he could think of to look for on what she’d called the internet. Once he got over his initial amazement at all that information available on this one little machine, he’d made good use of it.

There was nothing even looking though the local paper that would explain what could happen in the future. But how could it? How could he find an answer for something that wouldn’t happen for three days, if then? How he wished he could travel forward though time just once more; he was sure the answer would be available on July 11, 2008. But that wasn’t going to happen, unfortunately, he was pretty sure of it and he was stuck in this time looking for answers to a question that hadn’t even been formed yet. How was that for a conundrum?

His search ultimately led him to the attic where Cheyenne had found some of the old stuff left from Hucksinger’s family. It turned out that sometime after he left, old Robert P. and Lydia finally talked with each other long enough to produce a son. A fact that made Jonas shake his head and smile at the mere thought of Lydia Hucksinger, Lady of the Manor, ever doing anything that common. Had old Robert P. spiked her tea with his favorite brandy?

Too bad, that would have been one occurrence at the Hucksingers’ table he would have like to see the start of. But only the start, the thought of being privy to anything else made him shudder. As Cheyenne would have said, “That’s one picture I’ll be haunted by for the rest of my life.”

He smiled as he thought of the beautiful Cheyenne. She did not make him shudder, but he would surely be haunted by her for the rest of his life.

Which reminded him of just exactly why he was standing in this dusty attic in the middle of a warm afternoon to look though the discarded leavings of the Hucksinger family.

It was not a family destined to continue, however. The line had finally died out with the eternally single and childless last and only grandchild. But before she passed on, she’d spent the last fifty years of her life neglecting the house, only repairing or replacing what had to be done in order for her to have a home and a roof over her head. She died in 2003 and the city auctioned the house off with all its furnishings still intact.

Suddenly, his nose tickled and he sneezed. He looked around the crowded attic and wondered what he thought he was going to find up here that would answer his questions. But if it wasn’t up here, he didn’t know where he was going to find the answer.

He sat on a steamer trunk that he’d more than once carried out to Mrs. Hucksinger’s carriage when she was taking a trip out west to visit her sister. Now it was cracked and stained with age. Did it still contain the clothes she carried with her on her annual trip?

Finally, he took a good look around, and for the first time, he was truly struck by the reality of it all. The desk from Hucksinger’s study that the attorney had sat behind with such authority was now stuffed into a corner, piled with a hundred years of discarded belongings and dust.

Had the Hucksingers ever thrown anything away? He didn’t think so. Here his world sat, old, torn, and dirty. Papers and pictures yellow and brittle with age. A dress he recognized as Lydia Hucksinger’s favorite hanging on a form near the window had been subjected to too much sun and dust. The velvet faded and torn. If he touched it, would it disintegrate? Turn to dust just like everything thing he’d ever known?

His family, his friends. Had his sisters left descendants? Could he find them? Should he even try?

Suddenly it hit him, he’d spent so many days just trying to adjust, take in all the new that he hadn’t had time for the old. Now, here it was laid out in front of him and he couldn’t ignore it anymore.

Everything he knew was gone, and he’d never felt so terribly alone in the world. Not even when his wife and son died had he felt this alone. Then he had the strength and support of his parents, his sisters and their families.

There was no one left who knew and understood his life. Suddenly, he had a burning desire to find their graves. He needed to feel connected to something solid, tangible even if it were death.

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Twenty