Out of the Past

Out of the Past snippet

History, family and a contemporary suspense filled time travel adventure

 

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  I glanced down at my free left hand and noted the thin gold wedding band and the young unmarred skin before surveying the delicate white silk of the long-sleeved blouse and floor length skirt I was wearing which was all hand-beaded with sparkling clear glass brilliants woven around the wrists of the blouse and I knew that I’d seen the outfit before in a photograph. It all came together in a flash and I knew with certainty that I must be my grandaunt Jennie Andersen Mills, and this must surely be her and Wyatt’s wedding day.

     “I wish you nothing but happiness,” a voice was saying close at hand and I became aware of the hum of conversation in the room.

     I looked at the young woman who’d approached me with her curly-brown hair pulled up into a lovely bun at the crown of her head and I lost all my nervousness at once as I accepted her hand in greeting. She was my frequent and most beloved of time travel buddies, my grandaunt Lucy Mills, Wyatt’s sister.

                                                                 “Oh Lucy, thank you so very much,” I said.

                                                                “We are sisters now, you and I,” she said excitedly.

                                                                “Yes, what fun we shall have together,” I agreed with a light squeeze of her fingers before releasing her. She moved to stand before her brother at my side, looking up at him with an impish grin.

     “Wyatt, my wish for you as well, dear brother,” she said sweetly and I glanced up at Wyatt and saw a wide grin on his happy face as he leaned down to accept a light kiss upon his cheek from Lucy.

     “Thank you, kiddo,” he replied with affection, straightening back up tall.

     Oh my, he’s a good-looking man, I marveled silently admiring him. It came to me all at once that with his hair combed back, glossy smooth and chocolaty-dark brown and with his piercing dark eyes, high cheekbones and firm jawline, that he looked exactly like Christian Slater, but a really young Christian Slater like in that movie Heathers or maybe Untamed Heart.

     I have a couple of wonderful photographs of granduncle Wyatt Mills in my genealogy file at this age including he and Jennie’s official wedding tintype that would have been taken at some point on this day with him looking very dapper in this dark-gray serge suit and waistcoat, with a stiff white collared dress shirt and a gray-and-white-striped bow tie. Just gorgeous, I thought as I smiled up at him, his face flushed with happiness and hopes for the future. Sadly, I already knew what the future held for dear granduncle Wyatt; that he will die at the age of thirty-four from a bout of influenza only about fifteen years from this day, that he and Jennie will never have children and that Jennie will go on to marry again and have a forty year marriage and two sons with her second husband.

     Turning my mind from these sad truths, I continued my detective work regarding this current time travel experience. I knew that Wyatt and Jennie were born, one year apart but shared the same birth date, and that they’d chosen to marry on that same date as well, making the occasion triply special. With this knowledge I knew, without doubt, that today must be June 9, 1912.