Muriel saw the sideways glances, raised eyebrows and disapproving pouts of the women she recently counted as her friends and she didn’t give a damn. Who were they to be the arbiters of morality? The truth was that they were jealous. Some even had the audacity to pretend that they were concerned for her.
“Muriel, I know that he’s young and handsome, but he was raised in a completely different generation than you and I. A time of looser morals. You have no idea where he’s been,” Ginny said. Muriel almost spit out her tea as she burst into laughter. Partly because she knew exactly where he’d been.
“We came of age in the 1970s and eighties,” she responded. “hardly a Puritan era. I spent time on my knees, but it sure wasn’t in prayer.”
“But that was when you were in your twenties,” Ginny insisted. “You’re in your sixties now. My God, he’s younger than your son. This new relationship of yours can’t be easy for him to deal with. Especially considering the difficult time he had after your husband disappeared.”
Difficult time? That was an understatement, Muriel thought. She had a pretty difficult time of it herself. Her husband took the dog out for a walk and never returned. The dog showed up three days later, but the hair around his muzzle had turned white. Her son, Ben, had claimed that the dog was talking to him, so she had no choice but to seek professional help. She regretted that now and hoped he could find it in his heart to forgive her.
“And I’m worried about you,” Ginny said as she placed her hand on Muriel’s forearm. “Don’t think that I haven’t noticed that your young beau – ?”
“Edward.”
“ – is the spitting image of your husband, Ted, when he disappeared. How can that be healthy for any of you?”
Muriel had wondered that herself when Edward had shown up at her door nine months ago. She thought she had died in her sleep and that Ted had come to collect her from this mortal coil. He looked exactly as he did the night he disappeared. It was only in the warm afterglow of their passion that he told his wondrous tale.
Ted had been sitting behind the surf shop watching the dog run up and down the sandy bank. He saw colors swirling and the very edges of reality seemed to bend and twist as if being viewed in a funhouse mirror. He was aboard a vessel that traversed timespace. The occupants offered him a short ride. As soon as they took off, he asked to send a message to his family. The dog, newly enhanced with the ability to speak, was sent with a message that only Ben could hear. When Ted returned, three days later by his reckoning, over thirty years had elapsed. He laughed at Ginny’s concerns because he was five years older than Muriel, but promised not to tell.
Literature in Small Doses 