One Lane Bridge: A Novel by Don Reid Read Free Book Online Page B

there?”
    “That’s my daughter, if it’s really any of your business.”
    “Your daughter, Lizzie?”
    “The only one I got. Are you sure you’re from the church?”
    J. D. considered explaining everything he knew to this hardened man of the earth, but just as he was about to speak, the voice came from the other room.
    “Daddy, send him in to see me.”
    J. D. stared into Paul’s tired gray eyes. “Can I go see her?”
    Paul began taking the food out of the plastic bags, pausing to examine the bags, and nodded his head without returning J. D.’s glare. J. D. wondered for just a moment if the plastic bags gave way to any suspicion in Paul Clem’s mind. Certainly Paul had never seen anything like them before. Never had the question, paper or plastic? loomed so large in J. D.’s mind. He wished now he’d said “paper.”
    “Sure,” Paul said. “It won’t hurt nothing.’”
    J. D. pushed back the strings of hanging beads and walked through the dark dining room, toward the single-bulb lamp in the far corner of the living room. The daybed was in the same position by the front door, but a different person was lying in it. This time it was Lizzie, and she looked different. Prettier. Longer hair. Fuller cheeks.
    “Lizzie?”
    She smiled and sat up. “Hi. I know you. Your name starts with a W.”
    “That’s right. Wickman. John Wickman.”
    “I remember you real well. You had that funny-lookin’ car.”
    “Lizzie, where’s your mother?”
    “Mamma died nearly two years ago. Did you know my mamma?”
    “Well, I met her once. She was right here in that very same bed when I was here yesterday.”
    “Yesterday? Do you mean that in a poetic way, Mr. Wickman? My schoolteacher talks like that sometimes when he’s readin’ poetry and stuff. He says ‘yesterday’ when he means ‘a long time ago.’ Is that what you were doin’?”
    J. D. heard the back door close. He looked at her more intently than he ever had before and tried to find reason and good sense in the conversation they were having.
    “Lizzie, listen to me. How long has it been since you saw me last? How long since I was out here in your kitchen and you were frying bread?”
    “Is that what I was frying when you were here? I didn’t remember that, but I love fried bread.”
    “Lizzie, listen to me. How long ago was that?”
    “Oh, it must have been two years ago anyway, if Mamma was still alive.”
    “It wasn’t just yesterday?” J. D. was beginning to feel frantic but hoped his voice didn’t show it.
    “Why, of course not. Yesterday I was here in bed. Mamma died when I was fourteen. That was two years ago.”
    J. D. took a deep breath and asked the question he knew he had to ask but was in mortal fear of hearing the answer.
    “Lizzie, what year did your mamma die?”
    “The fall of 1940.”
    Something grabbed J. D. in the hollow of his stomach, and he thought he might be sick. He felt a shiver from deep in his spine, and he knew his voice was shaky when he took a deep breath and asked, “So what is today’s date?”
    “You mean you don’t know what today is? Today is Thursday.”
    “No. I mean the date. Do you have a calendar?”
    “There’s a calendar on the back of the door. The one with the pretty pictures. It’s September tenth, 1942.”
    Where was he? How did he get here? What was that bridge? A doorway? A portal through time? And why? Why was he here, and who were these people?
    “Lizzie, do you remember me being here before?”
    “I said I did.”
    “But your father doesn’t.”
    “Well, that was a couple years ago, and Daddy’s failed a lot since Mamma passed. Plus he don’t like a lot of people. He’s kind of gruff.”
    He looked at this pretty young girl lying in a sickbed yet still full of conversation and personality. “Why are you in bed here in the parlor?”
    “I hurt my foot about a week ago. I was working up in the barn and stepped on a nail. It was rusty, and boy, was it big. It went clear through