Chapter 26
“The Lord works in mysterious ways, Hanna. You’ve said so, yourself.” Chris said over a week and a half later as he still tried convincing her of the truth.
"I don't understand why you have not let this go, yet. Unless you actually plan on leaving me. I cannot deal with this right now, Christopher. I am in a delicate position to begin with and I need to start preparing for school to start in a couple of weeks. Why are you doing this, now?" She said with pain in her eyes which now held a daily droop.
"I have told you the whole story and it is the whole truth." Chris said wondering if she'd ever be convinced.
"I know what you've told me. You were born in 1979, you spent time in prison for criminal activity from your group, the gang? When you were released from prison in 1998, you fell asleep behind what you keep calling a dumser, and you woke up here... last year."
"It's called a dumpster. It's a large metal box which holds garbage." Chris corrected her.
"That is neither here nor there. Do you really expect me to believe all of this?" Hanna asked, sitting hard into her rocker after finishing the evening meal clean up. "I've never heard such an abnormal story in my life."
"Now you know how I felt when I arrived here. I was alone and confused. I didn't know what was going on. Everything was foreign to me. Everything I once knew was gone. It was most of the reason of my attitude when I first arrived. It was the reason I fought to get back. I didn't know anything here. When I learned it, however, I fell in love and didn't want to ever leave. I still don't want to leave but I must go where ever God throws me. I have no choice. I need your love and understanding right now." Chris' eyes filled with tears. "I only have 10 more days, Hanna. Please."
Hanna looked at Chris as though she wanted to believe him. As though she wanted to run across the room and have him swoop her into his arms. A look of longing and compassion. A look of love and hurt. She then averted her eyes back down to her hands.
“I just don’t know what to believe.” She said in a whisper.
Chris hung his head in defeat. “I wish there was some way to prove it to you..” he said, trailing off. His head suddenly popped up. “Wait a second. I cannot believe I didn’t think of it before.”
He got up from his seat at the table, ran to the small cupboard beneath the counter, reached far back and retrieved his wooden tobacco box. “I’ll show you.” he said.
He opened the lid to the box which held his compass and 12 coins. “This is my proof. I told you God had been sending me signs of my departure back to the future. These are it.” He handed Hanna the handful of pennies in which she just kept in a pile in the palm of her hand. “Look at the dates, Hanna. They came to me in order... beginning with 1985 and the last one I found two days ago, 1996. I only get one more, one more penny before I am sent back.”
Hanna thumbed through the pile looking closely at the dates. Her brow raised, then lowered. “You probably made these yourself at the blacksmith shop.” She said handing the pile back to him.
“How could I stamp these out myself. Mr. Kinsley doesn’t have that sort of equipment. The only way to explain these coins is that I am telling you the truth. I have found one penny a week, always on a Tuesday for the last several months. I didn’t know what they meant at first but I know now. That is why I am in such a rush to convince you.”
“You’ve had months to tell me this and you decide to hit me with it all, now?” Hanna asked.
“Oh, my love, I’ve wanted to tell you from the beginning.”
“and why haven’t you?”
Chris let the coins fall out of his hands and back into the box carefully placing the lid back on. He sat down in his rocker next to Hanna and looked into her eyes.
“Because I was terrified that you would react exactly how you’re reacting right now. I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me or think of me as crazy. I was fearful that you’d be upset with me for thinking that I somehow deceived you. I haven’t, though, Hanna. I have and always will love you. My feelings for you are not a ruse, they are genuine.” Chris released his stare on her and looked into the empty, cold fireplace.
“Oh, Chris. I want to believe you, or.. I want to not believe you.” She let out a scoff of frustration. “I don’t want to believe that you’re leaving me but I don’t want to believe that you would make up this deliberate story and continue to hurt me day after day. I have prayed about this..”
“Has He answered you in any way? Any thoughts that seem out of place?” Chris asked remembering how he had over looked God’s answer to him.
“My thoughts for the last two whole weeks have been out of place. I don’t know what to think, feel or hear. I’m so confused by this whole situation...” She stopped before completing the sentence as if she wasn’t sure how to finish it.
“Pray with me, right now, please.” Chris said kneeling by her side, placing his hands over hers. “Please.”
Hanna looked into Chris’ eyes for several seconds, placed one of her hands over his and bowed her head.
“Dear Lord.” Chris began. “I know your will for me is to send me home, not the new home that I’ve grown to love and cherish but the home of my childhood. You sent me here, oh Lord to find you and to find something within myself that you knew was inside of me. The morals and values I lacked as a child and teenager. The worth of my soul and the work and pride that my hands are capable of. You helped me find a family and taught me not only to love but how to be loved. You sent me to Hanna. I do not want to leave this place, dear God. Everything I have is here. My wife, my child, my family and friends. My farm, my animals. I feel complete, here. Please allow me to stay. If it is your will that I return to my time, please place this understanding upon Hanna. Please show her that this is your work and that I am telling the truth. If it is your will for me to return, please place your hand upon her and my unborn child to comfort and protect them. Please God, hear our prayer. In Jesus’ holy name, I pray. Amen.”
Chris opened his eyes and laid them upon Hanna who’s eyes flowed, uncontrollably with tears. He rose from his knees and held out a hand to his wife. She reluctantly accepted it as he pulled her to her feet, scooping her into his arms.
“Hanna. I don’t mean to hurt you. I cannot stand to see you this way.”
She accepted his embrace and soaked his shoulder with her tears. “I’m just so confused, right now. I don’t know what to think. All I feel is pain.”
Chris tightened his hold onto her as if to stop her from being ripped from his arms. He couldn’t bare to think that in only several more days, he may be ripped from hers.
“Let’s go to bed, my darling.” he said, releasing her but grabbing onto her hand. “Allow me to hold you through the night and feel your warmth.”
She nodded but just once and let him lead her into the bedroom.
Arms clasped around each other, not wanting to accept the fate of slumber, they finally drifted off to sleep.
Chris was jolted awake the next morning when he heard a shriek and felt Hanna sit straight up in bed.
“Are you alright?” He asked, rubbing her back.
“Oh, Chris.” she said, laying back down onto his chest. Her breath was fast and labored. “Oh, Chris, I couldn’t find you. I couldn’t find you anywhere.”
“Shh, it was just a dream.” Chris said, now stroking her hair.
“No, it was real. I was in a strange place. The fog was thick and heavy. I searched for you.” She inhaled rapidly. “I kept running through this maze of tall buildings made of glass. These strange, fast boxes with windows kept whizzing past me making these loud, horrible noises. People walked through the hard, solid streets that seemed to be made of rock. The men did not wear hats and the women wore britches. The fog lifted every so often and I saw giant iron birds flying through the sky making the most horrible noises. I was alone and so scared. I ran through
this maze searching for you, screaming your name but I could not find you. I was so frightened.”
“Hanna.” Chris exclaimed. “Do you know where you were? Do you know what this means?”
“What are you talking about? It means I’m scared of losing you.”
“You were in Coar City. You had visited my time in a dream. This was God’s answer to you.”
Hanna lifted her head to look at Chris. “His answer was to frighten me?”
“No, this was His way of showing you that I am telling you the truth. I can explain everything that was in that dream because it was all things from the future, from my time.”
Hanna’s expression changed but it was unreadable to Chris.
“The buildings you saw,” he continued anyway. “are called skyscrapers. Some of the glass are windows but some of them are actually solid walls that are only made to look like windows from the outside. People live in these buildings but a lot of them are offices for large, corporate companies. The rock you were walking on is called concrete or cement. Cement is crushed rock, sand and gravel mixed with water then laid out to dry. It forms a hard surface. The surface that the cars were driving on is called a street and the surface that the people were walking on is called a sidewalk.”
Hanna shook her head as if she was struggling to take in everything that was being told to her, or as if she was struggling to believe it.
‘Please believe it, Hanna. This is my last hope for you to believe me.’ Chris thought, continuing his explanation but slowing down a bit so she’d be able to, some what, keep up with him.
“The ‘fast boxes’ that were whizzing past you are called cars or vehicles or automobiles. They are like metal boxes with windows and the inside has heat and music and comfortable seats. Some of these vehicles can go as fast as if they were being pulled by 500 horses, which is what we call horsepower in my time. They were actually a wonderful invention, coming around in the early 1900’s. The style of clothing has changed a lot, too. Do you remember what I wore when I first arrived?”
Hanna nodded.
“The pants were called jeans made from denim and the shirt was called a t-shirt because it’s shaped like a capital T. They are made from only cotton, most of them. That is what is mainly worn by both men and women in my time. Women stopped wearing only dresses long before I was born. A lot of things changed for women in the mid 1900’s. It has been acceptable for them to have careers and wear pants and a law was even passed in 1920, I want to say, for woman to be able to vote.”
Hanna’s brow raised. She seemed to be taking in all of the information and more importantly, she seemed to believe it. ‘Thank you, Lord!’ Chris thought.
“Those iron birds in the sky are called airplanes or jets. They are like large birds but carry people and cars and supplies all over the world. They have wheels to drive down a long road called a runway and when the air stream flows under it’s wings, it lifts from the ground and can fly for long distances. People ‘drive’ these planes and can take you where ever you need to go.”
Hanna pulled the sides of her mouth down as if to think of the horror of being up in the air in a giant, metal bird. “I couldn’t imagine such a thing.” She said.
“You don’t have to imagine it, Hanna. You were there, you saw it. Please tell me you believe what I am saying to you.”
“I cannot imagine how you could make up all of that on the spot.” She said with a confused look still taking over her expression. “Oh Chris, what are we going to do?” She sobbed.
Chris didn’t know whether to cry with her or shout with joy that she finally believed him. No matter which, it didn’t seem a sweet victory.