“No, no,” Bauer denied, but she could hear the truth and lingering fear in his voice. “We were all scared to death when they finally got ahold of us. The museum here called the museum in Milwaukee and they contacted us. Mom and the boys wanted to come too, but the doctors said too many people wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“I’m glad you’re here.” And she was. The problem was thatshewas incredibly unhappy to be there. But what other fate had awaited her? A sudden stop against ragged rocks. She shook her head, trying to remember that it had been only a dream.
Her father rambled on about head injuries, but Mikah was torn by rejection of the thought.
How was that possible when it all had felt so real? The pain searing in her arm. In her heart. The life dulling in Ian’s warm eyes until they were flat and lifeless. Mikah bit back a sob as the true pain, the pain of love lost, engulfed her.
“It’s okay, princess,” her father crooned. He gathered her in his arms and let her cry. “It’s easy to be overwhelmed when something like this happens. Everything will be fine.”
Would it really?
A week later, Mikah looked out the airplane window as it dragged her away from Scotland. Away from a land filled with memories of people, places, and a love that had never existed. A counselor at the hospital had come to talk to her following the accident, their standard practice after near-death experiences.
Hesitantly she’d mentioned what had happened, where she had gone, what she had done and felt. How real it had all been. The shrink had looked skeptical and uncomfortable. Mikah could hardly blame him when she thought the whole thing incredible as well.
Her take away from all the technical jargon the uncomfortable therapist had imparted was that strange things happened to people who “died.” The experiences were widely varied. Some saw a bright light or the faces of past loved ones. Others had horrific visions or felt nothing at all. It would pass, Mikah was told, with time and therapy. She had a life, with family and friends who loved her. He said she shouldn’t dwell too deeply on the experience when she had so much to live for.
With a comforting pat on the hand, the counselor had left and not returned.
Mikah was glad for that. Talking about it had only made it worse, more real rather than more of a dream. She cried and stuttered ridiculously, made a general fool of herself. Had her heart broken all over again. How could she explain or rationalize loving a dream? How could she expect anyone to understand the agony that ate at her heart and soul?
Her father might understand if he believed her tale at all. Or her mom. The two of them loved deeply and openly. They’d met and fallen in love at sixteen; never dated anyone else. Stayed together when no one thought it would last. In the forty years since, with thirty-five years of a marriage and five children, they’d rarely been parted.
When Mikah was just a teenager, her mother told her that Sean Bauer was her soul mate. Now, Mikah finally understood what that felt like.
“All right, princess?” Sean asked with concern, and she turned away from the window with a tight smile and a nod. It would do no good to worry those who loved her. They would worry not over her loss but her very sanity.
Still she couldn’t help but ask: “Dad, how would you feel if Mom died?”
“You’re going to be fine, you know.”
“I know,” she lied. “I’m just wondering.”
Watching him think about it, she didn’t even need to hear his answer. It was there for her in the dull, sorrowful look in his eyes, in the tension that held his body. She could almost feel how his heart slowed and thudded unpleasantly. He said it anyway.
“I guess I would die a little as well.”
Yes, that was it exactly.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Milwaukee Museum of Art
Milwaukee, WI
November 2016
“Mikah! What are you doing here? It’s the biggest shopping day of the year. Go to the mall. Or at least go home.”
“You think I’m going to brave those crowds, Bernie?” Mikah called over her shoulder on the way to her office, spinning her key ring around one finger. “I might be crazy but I’m not downright stupid.”
The front desk attendant at the Milwaukee Art Museum laughed and waved, and Mikah joined in until her office door closed behind her. The smile faded away as she shed her coat, scarf, and purse and dropped into her office chair with a weary sigh.
Forced happiness took a lot of effort.
The last two months had been filled with people hovering about her with open concern. While she appreciated their caring, she was tired of everyone voicing their worries and decided the quickest way to solve the problem was to be happy…or at least convince them that she was.
Doing so was getting harder and harder because some part of Mikah was certain that their jokes about being crazy weren’t simple jests. Why else would that dream adhere to her so? The random, vague dreams she’d had before her trip to Scotland always slipped away in the light of day. This one clung like a barnacle. The power of it refused to wane even when she couldn’t recall what she’d had for dinner last Sunday.
