I was awoken next morning by the flashing lights outside the window, of a tow truck working on getting the car out of the ditch. It was still dark... and I was alone in the bed, and the place was cold, and apparently deserted.
I naturally assumed that Natalie had left early, and got the tow truck for me... so I ran downstairs... dressed quickly and before I dashed out of the door, remembered that I had intended to leave something in repayment for the hospitality.
I took the two twenty dollar bills I had in my wallet, placed them on the table... and hastily scribbled a note. I did consider thanking her for the birthday present she gave me... but decided against that, in case someone else read the note first... so I merely wrote "Thank you for your hospitality and help. Please accept this as a token of my gratitude, and I will be back as soon as the car is fixed to thank you personally."
I ran to the truck, just as he was about to pull away... and explained it was my car on his hook... he told me to get in with him, and we pulled away. As we did so... he asked me "You spent the night in that house?" ...I replied "Yes"... expecting to be cross-questioned about it... but all he had said was... "Brave man!"
I wondered about it at the time, but thought it was probably something to do with Natalie's father... and I didn't question him any further about it... merely asked if he had been asked to come and get my car for me, by the lady that lived there.
He didn't speak for a while, just glanced at me sideways with a strange look on his face, and eventually stated... "Nope. I drive this way to work... saw your car in the ditch and figured I'd better get it out of there before someone around here helped themselves to it... or the contents."
I thanked him for his consideration... and spent the rest of the trip wondering where Natalie had gone to... and why she hadn't been there when I got up...
And sitting in the car two days later... looking at the abandoned house before me... there was my answer, although with the events that took place inside it that night... my mind was having a hard time coming to terms with it.
I got out of the car, in such a stunned state... I didn't even realise that I had unconsciously picked up the bunch of flowers I had brought for her, and made my way up the pathway to the door. I began to feel rather foolish as I banged on it... standing in the middle of a swamp, in a city dwellers suit, holding a bunch of flowers, knocking on a door that threatened to fall off its hinges at any minute, waiting for someone to open it!
I waited hopefully for several minutes... "After all," I reasoned, "it was dark... and this IS the only house around here... and I really didn't get a good look at it in the storm."
Obviously, nothing happened... no-one come to open it... and I was just about to turn and leave... when a cold voice behind me asked "You looking for someone, mister?"
I turned quickly... to find myself staring down the business end of a 12 gauge shotgun, held by a rather weather beaten older man whose expression suggested I had better have a damned good reason for being there... or I wasn't going to be there for much longer!
He stood staring at me... waiting for my explaination, and I decided the truth was going to seem like a lie anyway... but here goes...
"I know it doesn't seem possible in the daylight... but two days ago, I slid off the road into the ditch down there, in the storm, and the Young Lady that lives... lived?... here... put me up for the night... and I came back today to thank her personally..." And I made a feeble gesture with the flowers I was carrying... "Even brought these to give to her" ...I added.
His eyes never moved from my face, nor did the barrel of the gun waver a fraction... and I was beginning to wonder if he'd even heard me, or believed me, when he bluntly asked "Come to get some more of the 'good stuff' she gave you, did you?" ...and the tone was menacing.
Warning bells went off in my mind, considering the circumstances, and I nervously blurted out... "No Sir!... She was extremely kind enough to put me up for the night... but as she wasn't around in the morning... I left her some money on the table with a thankyou note for the food, as I could see she wasn't well off... and I came back today, as I said I would in the note... to thank her personally..." And as the face remained unmoving, added as an afterthought... "And to ask her out on a date..."
He stared at me for a moment or two longer... then made a motion with the gun... "Open the door... let's go in and see if you're telling the truth."
I did as I was bid... shaking like a leaf with the idea of being inside the place with a psycho holding a loaded gun... and we stepped into the gloom of the room, I remembered as being so well tended that evening I had been in it.
Dust, decay and neglect were obvious... but essentially it was as I recalled it... and there on the table... staring out from the layers of dust, were two twenty dollar bills and a note on white paper...
He motioned me to sit in the chair I had occupied previously, and moved to the table to read the note. After studying it, he returned his attentions to me... studied me for a few minutes, then lowered the gun... and sat down on the other chair.
"I believe you Lad," he said. "You see... Natalie was my daughter, and Yes... she did live here with me... up until she died of a broken heart, some forty years ago, now."
I sat staring at him in disbelief... even more stunned than I was at finding the place deserted, and he continued.
"Under much the same circumstances as yours, a fellow 'bout your age stayed the night after his horse had stumbled and thrown him, broke its leg in a groundhog hole in the lane as it was then... and after he had borrowed her gun and shot it, she let him stay the night till he could get to town in the morning. It was her twentieth birthday.
"By all accounts, he was one handsome devil passing through... and she took a shine to him on the spot... and as I wasn't around... they spent the night together, and when he left next day... he promised to return."
The old man's face took on an expression of absolute hatred.. ."Bastard never did" ...he spat out. "And when Natalie realised she had been used for his pleasure... it broke her heart... I found her hanging from a tree out back there..." ...his voice trailed off as the painful memory choked him up, and I watched a tear roll down his face, whilst I choked back mine.
For a long time, we sat in silence, each of us in our own private memories of Natalie, until he broke the silence, quietly asking me "Why did you come back Lad?"
I confessed, with some embarrassment, "Because I fell in Love with her, that evening. I came back to see if she would... well... allow me to court her... possibly even marry me."
His face broke into a smile, and he stood up, went to the old dresser... opened a drawer, took out a small framed picture, and came back to the table again.
He tenderly touched the glass that covered the sepia photo it contained... then handed it to me. It was a photo of her. The same proud, strikingly beautiful face that had laid on the pillow next to me that night, and I just stared at it, trying to understand how she could have been so warm and loving... and yet so dead for so long.
His voice interrupted my thoughts... "There have been others here over the years, you know... spent the night... and promised to return... but they were never seen again. You are the first to have kept your promise, for the right reason."
I looked up at him... and he reached over and took my hand in his... an old bony, and somewhat cold, but firm hand.
"Thank you Lad," he said sincerely... "She'll rest easy now... and so will I."
He let go my hand, stood up, collected the gun from the table, unloaded it, and headed for the door, saying as he went... "Leave whenever you wish... and you can keep the photo... she'd want you to do that" ...and walked out of the door.
I sat for some time staring around me, and at the photo, reliving those moments together... and still trying to come to terms with the situation... until the chill evening air prompted me to leave.
I left the flowers on the table, and for a moment considered taking the money... but left it in the end. It was for her... living or dead in the first place, and I hadn't the heart to take it back.
As I drove away, I fancied I saw a face in the window, but with the mindset I was in, I could have imagined anything that day... even to the light brush of a kiss as I left the house...
The old man sighed... and once again looked at the faded photograph in the cheap frame that he had been holding throughout the telling of his story.
Nurse Bailey asked quietly "Did you ever go back again?"
"Several times... every year on my birthday... and hers, until they tore the place down, filled in the swamp and built a mall there as the town grew out to it.
"I made a special effort on the twentieth year... thinking it might be more likely that she would be there that was when I found the placed paved over and built on. I did try sleeping in the car park.. .just in case... but some officious security guard had me removed... so I spent the night in the old hotel in town... where I was headed the night I went off the road.
"I did learn something more about the history of it all though. One old timer recalled that the girl had commited suicide... her father had found her... and had died himself not long after... which left me with another uneasy feeling for a while I can tell you... that the locals all avoided the place as it was haunted... and when plans were announced to build there, it was no surprise to learn that construction on the mall was delayed whilst they held an investigation into the remains of several bodies discovered when the swamp was drained... all males in their early thirties... killed with a shotgun blast..."
At this... Nurse Bailey considered that the old man was, perhaps, rambling a little... adding a little extra to his already fantastic tale... and interrupted him.
"So why is it so important for you to have made this birthday, when all the others brought no results?" she asked.
"I met her and her father exactly forty years after it happened, and this is now my fortieth year since I met them. Maybe... just maybe... I'll see her once more," was his reply.
Nurse Bailey took the frame from his hands, placed it upon his locker, then made sure he was comfortable before leaving the room, by which time he was sleeping peacefully, the telling of the tale had obviously exhausted him.
It was no surprise to her upon checking his room next morning, to find he had passed away during the night, and from the appearance of things... he had obviously tried to reach for something, and fallen out of the bed in doing so...
Calling for help, between her and an aide, they lifted his frail, stiffened form back onto the bed... and she was pleased to note the calm, almost smiling look that was on his face in death... as if his dream had come true after all.
As her helper stepped towards the bed, there was the sound of glass breaking... and Nurse Bailey realised that it must have been the picture from the locker knocked off as the old man fell from the bed.
The helper bent down, picked up the shattered frame with the photo hanging from it... remarking as she looked at it... "My... they made a handsome couple when they were young..." ...then handing it to Nurse Bailey... continued... "Don't you think so?"
She stared at the photo in disbelief... there was Natalie as before, but standing, smiling... his arm around her shoulder was her favourite patient, as he must have looked some forty years ago.
"What's the matter Nurse Bailey?... you look like you've just seen a ghost??"
"I have... believe me... I have," was all she could say...
