All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 09

"Not even when..." and Andi waggled her eyebrows.

"Well... who wouldn't?"

Andi thought of something, then sat down at her desk while Lucy tried the recliner. She dug a piece of paper out of her purse; it was a note that Jacqui gave her at the trial. She dialed a number, and when the fellow answered she said, "Hello... I was told that maybe a Melony Ruskin is there?"

"Let me check," said the fellow that answered the phone. He was clearly typing on a computer, then came back and said, "No, there's no Melony Ruskin. How long ago did she pass away?"

"Hang on... it was..." and she looked through her phone and finally came up with Melony's date of death that Paul told her. She saved it to make sure the girls are quiet that day and he can rest. He said it was his very worst day ever. Andi has several days like that every year.

"No, there's no Melony Ruskin for that time frame. The only Melony here is a Melony Jarecki."

Andi went white as a ghost. "Are you sure?"

"Melony Jarecki, it says she was a Captain in the Air Force. Is that the one?"

"Yes. Thank you," said Andi, and she hung up her phone and got violently sick in her wastebasket.

Lucy ducked out of the office and returned with a damp cloth. "It's been a while since I did this," said Lucy as she wiped Andi's sweaty brow. "Who were you talking to?"

"The village graveyard in Ellicottville."

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Macy met Paul, Yi, and the twins at the graveyard next to the old church and she opened the unlocked iron gate and let them in. They were soon joined by John, who was working at Gus's shop, when Macy called him and said that the twins want to meet their grandparents. It was warm, and the skies were cloudy, but it wasn't raining. They led Sandy and Madeline to the large gravestone that said Jarecki in large letters at the top. "They have the same name as you," said Sandy.

"Yeah, we like the name," said John.

"Why is there a fence?" asked Sandy, who was running her hands along the iron pickets of the ornate fence.

"Because people are dying to get in here," said John. Macy glared at him for telling her such a terrible pun, but Paul, who was oddly somber, was struggling to hold back his laughter.

"There's already stones here," said Madeline with a pout.

"That means that some of their friends were here to visit," said Macy. In her final years, after Cecil died, Katarina became a member of John's church and like her boys, she fell in love with Springville. She became active in the "old girls network" as John called it, and he would drive her out to the 279 Café to meet with them and have coffee. Occasionally she would sit and knit near him as he worked on his sermons in the library in Paul's house and people said that those were some of his best sermons.

"Can I take the stones off?" asked Sandy. She had a round flat stone with a big S written on it in crayon that she was going to put on their gravestone.

"No, dear. Those are grandma and grandpa's stones," said Aunt Macy, who led Sandy and Madeline closer to the gravestone. Soon, a stone with an S and a stone with an M were added to Cecil and Katarina's collection.

"Now what?" asked Madeline.

"That depends on what you want to do," said John. "You can pretend they're listening up in heaven and talk with them. You can talk with God about them, or if there's other people here who know them you can ask about them."

Madeline pointed to the other gravestones in the graveyard. "What about them?"

"They won't mind," said Paul.

Madeline crouched down and whispered to her grandparent's gravestone while Sandy patted the stone gently. Then Madeline stood up and said, "Ok, we can go now."

"What did you say mon amis?" asked Macy and Madeline led her by the hand to the gate.

"I said thank you for giving me poppa."

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John and Paul had cans of spray paint on long handles and were marking off a square in the field near the cabin. The square was three hundred feet by three hundred feet, and it looked a lot smaller on paper. Once they got the line painted on the ground, they spooled up the string they used as guidelines. It looked like an excellent garden spot. There was a slight rise in the middle to give it drainage and half of it was plowed last year and manure was tilled in along with plant waste to make a rich soil. The other half of the garden will be the first year. Commercial fertilizer will be used on it and it will get the organic fertilizer this autumn.

"Ready?" asked Paul.

"Let's do it," said Andi, and they fist bumped and hopped on their tractors. Paul was driving the Ford 8n with a three bottom plow and Andi was driving the Kubota also with a three bottom plow they borrowed from their neighbor Gerry Hirsch after tilling up his garden for him.

Andi moved the Kubota to the portion of the garden closest to the cabin, and Paul moved to the far side of the garden where he could till unturned soil and move the garden border away from the cabin. Just as he was going to drop the plow, Andi hopped off the Kubota tractor and John hopped on Paul's precious Kubota.

Paul bought the fancy orange Kubota tractor, mostly for its advanced hydraulics. He has the backhoe attachment, the front bucket scoop attachment, and several others. He's been thinking of adding the snow blower attachment because a snow blower is much more efficient than plowing. It's just not as much fun. But for some reason, the Kubota was precious to him. He bought it cash after putting his retirement checks directly into savings, and it was kind of fun teasing Macy and John that they had to drive the old tractor or use the hand tools.

John looked over at Paul, a little guilty that he was "stealing" Paul's Kubota, but Paul winked at him and gave him a thumbs up as Andi showed John how to operate the little orange powerhouse. Soon Paul was breaking the soil on the east side of the garden and John was plowing the west side of the garden. Pass by pass they traveled further west, the three blades of their plows cutting into the soil and turning it over. Meanwhile, as they worked the soil in the spring sun, Macy and Andi sat in comfort on the cabin patio sipping lemonade and the twins followed the chickens around, making sure there were no foxes that were going to eat them.

Thanks to Macy's addition of a rooster, there was a small cloud of chicks that followed Pecky around (or was it Chook-Chook? The chicken's names were fluid with the twins.) The chicks were tiny puffballs even smaller than the Easter Peeps and they never roamed far from Chook-Chook. (Or was it McNugget? McNugget got that name after a severely angry peck at Sandy's hand.) The twins were always within arm's reach of McNugget (or Pamela) in case a fox appeared, or a coyote was nearby with an anvil to drop. Paul made the mistake of mentioning to Andi within earshot of the twins that there were indeed coyotes in Western New York and the twins' view of coyotes was skewed by cartoons.

When Paul reached the white line that marked the end of the garden, he finished the last pass, then lifted the plow and headed over to the barn. There, he dropped the plow and picked up the disc cultivator. The disc cultivator is a series of vertically oriented discs pulled by the tractor that break up the big clumps of dirt left by the plow. When John finished his plowing, he dropped the plow close to the garden, then drove over to the barn and picked up a harrow. A harrow is a device that rakes the soil that Paul ran over with the disc. The harrow's tines are made from spring steel and will break up clumps and pull clusters of weeds out of a weedy plot of ground.

When the brothers were done, the garden looked ready to plant, and it was close. It needed one more thing. Paul came out of the barn with the big power tiller. It chewed up the soil into a fine powder. "Go get lunch with the girls," said Paul. "When you're done you can take over and I'll have lunch."

"Sounds good," and with a fist bump, John walked over to the cabin while Paul started tilling with the big tiller. The rear tines on the tiller chopped up the soil until it was as fine as potting soil. The operator walked next to the handles instead of behind them to keep from stepping on the freshly tilled earth. Occasionally Macy or Andi would step ahead of the tiller and scatter fertilizer for the tiller to mix into the soil. John and Paul swapped out twice each and a couple of hours later, the soil was tilled up and Andi, Macy, and Yi were planting. With stakes and strings, they separated the garden into areas and were planting vegetables. They had wheeled devices that had a hopper that you filled with seeds. You set the orifice under the hopper for the type of seeds you had, then filled the hopper. Once filled, you set the spacing dial, and push it along to plant your row crops.

Paul and John were relaxing with cold drinks as the sun lowered in the spring sky when Gus pulled into the driveway in his pickup, hauling a trailer full of lumber. Paul turned to John and said, "It's your turn to shine." And as John was wondering what to do, Paul hopped on the Kubota and drove into the barn, then came back with the front-end loader attachment. "Here you go, Gus, be easy on him."

"Not me!" said Gus cheerfully, and he grabbed a 2"X 6" board and a level and started checking the ground. John hopped on the Kubota and with Gus's direction he used the front scoop of the Kubota to level out the ground next to the kitchen cabin. When the ground was level John scooped gravel from a pile and spread it on the land they just leveled. "Ok, hop off and get your hammer!" called Gus, and they started building the floor for the new cabin. As John and his 'boss' Gus figured out how the floor was going to set, Paul started scooping gravel and spread it evenly in front of the cabins, then set up a gas powered air compressor for Gus.

When Andi, Macy, and Yi paused for a break, they saw walls going up. Soon the walls for the first floor were done. "That's the easy part," said Gus. "It's going to take a week to finish it if everything we need comes in."

"It's going to take a few more days with this garden," said Macy.

"I'm not going in to work Monday, I can work on it," said Paul.

"Monday you me, Macy and John are going on a picnic," said Andi.

"No problem, but this garden needs to get in."

"This picnic is more important," insisted Andi.

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Monday they loaded up in the Transport van that Paul purchased from the rental company and they headed south. With Andi, Paul, John, Macy, Yi, and the twins, they filled every seat in the van and Wonka in his service dog vest curled up on the floor between Paul and Macy. "We could get an extra body in here if we put a bench seat in place of the captain's chairs," said Paul as they headed south out of Springville on US219.

"Keep the chairs," sighed Macy as she reclined in the luxurious captain's chair.

Andi was driving. She was the one who set the destination. Macy and John knew what the destination was, and that's why they were along for the ride. They passed through the little hamlet of Ashford Hollow and kept heading south. "Looks like ski country," said John as they looked out the window. Paul had been down here in the past, but his family hadn't been south of Springville and this was all new to them.

The spring countryside was beautiful. Farmers hurried to get their crops in and dairy cows soaked up the sun and the emerald green grass. "Don would love this," said Andi.

"Who?"

"Don and Lanh Campbell, he was a farmer and a patient of mine."

"Yaaaannn!" cried the twins. They knew Lanh from last year, when Lanh Campbell was a fixture in their lives.

"She helped me with these guys when Lucy moved," sniffed Andi. "I really miss them."

"Let's invite them out to spend the summer, or maybe go on a cruise with us," said Paul, who was sitting behind Andi but facing backward.

"Yeah, they're stuck in Greeley and they hate it there. Maybe this winter, we could teach them what a honeymoon is all about.

"We should be working on the garden," muttered Paul. This whole thing felt wrong. He was getting a weird vibe about it.

"We're in Ellicottville," said Yi as the sign went by.

"Oh no," said Paul in a tiny voice.

"What's wrong honey?" asked Andi.

"Ellicottville," and Paul took a deep breath. "This is the place. Melony and I thought this was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We had planned to get out of the military and live here."

'That must be why she's here,' Andi thought to herself. Now she doubted this entire idea, but she continued on with it and soon she parked inside a large, shady graveyard. A tall iron fence surrounded the yard and large granite stones announced the dead to anyone that passed by. Gigantic oak and elm trees shaded the central area of the graveyard where the older graves were, but Andi led them to the newer section, where no trees were planted.

Paul felt drawn to this place, and it was both comforting and wrong. And then he saw it... "Melony Jarecki?" He froze. The simple granite stone announced to the world that Melony Ann Jarecki, Captain, USAF, now rests here. Everything went still, the breeze stopped, and the birds stopped chirping. The twins were inspecting a small gravestone, but they weren't moving. Even Wonka's tail stopped moving as he stood next to Paul, worried about 'his person.'

"My God," whispered Paul hoarsely. It soon came crashing down on him, all the hate and all the anger that ruled his life. He had let so much go to waste in a morass of self-pity and self-hatred. Most of all, he couldn't believe how much he had hated Melony because of the rumors spread by Abernathy "Buzz" Blecher, the man who raped and killed her. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry Melony!" he shouted. He dropped to his knees and howled his anguish.

"Holy shit, shut the fuck up," came a voice from behind him. "Everyone will think you're crazy." He turned around, and there was Melony. She was kneeling on the ground behind him like he was. She was wearing a flight suit, but her hair was down and full, the same way that Andi wears it. Not trimmed short to comply with regulations. Paul covered his face with his hands and wept. "I hated you so much, I hated Buzz with a passion that nearly killed me, I hated me for hating you so much, and I hated your damn airplane. Why didn't I die too?" He started hyperventilating and decided he was still alive because he was too much of a coward to kill himself.

"You hated my airplane? Was it the one with my name or was it all F-15s?"

"Any F-15 you flew. Oh god I hated that more than I hated me. It got to hold you as you died while I sat on Okinawa and handed out Tylenol to frat boys."

"SHHH!" demanded Melony. "It's ok to hate me for dying, but I didn't mean to. I had a heart attack. Shit happens."

"No, you were murdered. Buzz gave you a Plan B tablet."

"What?" gasped Melony.

"The night before at karaoke, he got you drunk on soju then raped you. The next morning, he gave you a megadose of levonorgestrel. When he got back to Okinawa he told everyone you two had an affair."

"That fucker," snarled Melony.

"I didn't know the truth, I was hearing it from all sides, I hated you, and I hated me for hating you... I'm so, so, sorry," he wept. "I tried to drink myself to death but they wouldn't let me."

"Did you tell the bar tender to cut you off after you started talking about dumpster diving?"

"Yeah," moaned Paul. Telling the bartender to cut him off if he tells anyone about dumpster diving for spaghetti to eat was a habit he learned early. Paul knows that when he talks about the dumpster behind Giardino's, he's had too much.

"That's your mistake there." Melony reached out to brush Paul's hair from his eyes like she used to. Her fingers never touched him, but the familiar gesture comforted Paul in a way that he loved. He didn't understand it, but he loved it.

"We got him Mel, we put him away. I finally got the OSI to look into your death. The Office of Special Investigations found enough to put Buzz on trial for manslaughter. I testified that he knew you were allergic to levonorgestrel and he knowingly gave you a megadose. The staff Judge advocate found enough evidence to convict him of murder."

"See? It all works out in the end," said Melony with the million-dollar smile Paul fell in love with.

"No... when you died I turned to John and he wasn't there, and I blamed him for years after that. He was on his honeymoon! I should have been happy for him but I wasn't... I hated him and I hated me for hating him too. Eventually his wife locked us in a house together and he begged me to hit him... and I did." Paul was weeping again. "I hate myself so much... I hit my little brother! My pastor!"

"Oh Paulie..." she whispered. "John got married?"

"That's his wife over there, Macy."

"She's pretty," said Melony. Then she looked into Paul's eyes. "There's something else, what is it?"

"I was so lonely... It's been so long..." Paul took a deep breath and said, "I married again."

"Good! I'm happy for you!" said Melony with a surprising cheerfulness. "Is that her? The worried looking one?"

"Yes and those are her girls, I adopted them... and Mel?"

"Yes Paulie?"

"We're expecting. It will be born in November. John and Macy are expecting too."

"That's great Paulie, you should be so happy. You've shed enough tears... it's time to smile."

Paul felt more lost than ever before. "Don't go Mel... I miss you so much, you're my best friend..."

"No, I was your best friend, Paulie. That pretty little blond over there, she's your best friend now, and she's waiting for you to start treating her like that.

"I love her," said Paul. "She's wonderful, the mother of my children."

"She's also your buddy," scolded Melony. "When's the last time you farted in front of her then made a joke about it?"

Paul looked back wistfully at the pranks they used to play on each other. What's holding him back from doing that with Andi? She's got a wonderful and slightly raunchy sense of humor. "I think you're right Mel."

"Paulie? I have to go. Thank you. Thank you for everything... I loved us..." The image of his first wife faded and everything was moving again. Madeline plopped herself down on Paul's lap. "Are you ok Poppa? Momma said you were going to be sad."

"A little sad," said Paul, and he gathered Sandy to him as well. "This lady was my friend. We were married long ago before you were born."

"Why did she die?" asked Sandy.

"A very, very bad man gave her a pill that killed her. That's why I get upset when you snoop around in your momma's medicine. The wrong pill could kill you!"

Andi and Macy watched from a distance as Paul explained Melony to Sandy and Madeline. They were touched as he explained how Melony prepared him to love Andi, Sandy, Madeline, and the baby, and were soon in tears.

"I brought a stone for her," said Madeline, and she held up her round flat rock with a dark blue crayon M on it.

"I brough one too," said Sandy and hers featured a red S.

"That's a pretty good S, Sandy. And Madeline, your M's are incredible!" he got up and led them to Melony's gravestone and said, "Mel, these are my little love bugs, Sandy,"

"Bug bug."

"And Madeline."

"Bug bug."

"They want to say hi."

Slowly, they approached the stone and placed their rocks on the top of Melony's grave marker with a barely audible "hi."

"I think she liked that."

They got back into the van, with Andi, John, and Macy surprised how well Paul took finding Melony's grave. Soon they were cruising along country roads, just enjoying the scenery. They found a pleasant picnic spot next to East Otto Creek and spread out a plastic tablecloth on the picnic table as John and Paul told Andi and Macy about Melony. The twins were standing by the slow-moving slate bottom creek, throwing sticks and rocks in it.