Living Again

Part 10

      The next day David was on the one o'clock flight to Adelaide. The plane landed at two thirty, then a taxi trip to Adelaide's Keswick railway station, the passenger terminal for interstate trains. He waited impatiently on the platform as the Indian Pacific slowly rolled in at three fifteen. The train stopped and the station became crowded with people. He searched through the crowd trying to find her. Where is she? Then he heard a voice say his name behind him. He turned and there she was looking hesitantly at him. She walked slowly up to him and then she was in his arms holding him tightly.

"It all came back to me," she said, her voice half choked with emotion. "It was the song, our song. It brought back all the memories."

"Welcome back, my darling," David croaked, "I've missed you so much. If it wasn't for Dad's old fishing magazines we probably never would have found each other again."

"Fishing magazines?" she looked puzzled, "You'll have to explain that to me later. But now I have to go to the company office and sign off, then I'll meet you in the passenger lounge. You can buy me a drink."

Twenty minutes later they were sitting at a table in the cocktail lounge sipping champagne holding hands across the table like young lovers. She had to go on the train to Darwin the next afternoon and wouldn't be back in Sydney again until nine days later on Saturday of the following week. Then she had ten days off. "Can you wait that long for me?" she teased.

"I've waited over eighteen years. I can wait another nine days," he answered.

"We have tonight and tomorrow morning," she said with a gleam in her eye, "Do you think a person of your years can keep up with an eighteen year old?"

He laughed. "Just watch me! By the way, what do I call you, Kristin or Angie?"

"I'm your Angie, sweetheart, but in front of anyone who knows me it better be Kristin. No one else can know about this or they'll think we're both loonies. Is Angie's mother still alive?"

"I'm sorry. She died about two years ago, but guess what? Your little brother Drew Farlow is still alive and well at age 76."

"Oh I remember Drew. I never tried to find any of my family members from previous lives. It would have been too weird, but I'm glad to hear about Drew. Now what's this about fishing magazines?"

David explained about the photos.

"I remember that day," she said. "I went to a fishing competition with Drew. I was standing at the front of the crowd when the photos of the junior winners were being taken."

"I'll bring the magazine back from Brisbane for you to see. Elizabeth would be almost eighty years old now."

"How do I look for an eighty year old?" she laughed.

They had a wonderful night together in an Adelaide city hotel. The next afternoon David saw her off on the train. He returned to Brisbane for eight days, but on the Saturday Angie was to return to Sydney he was there to meet her at Central station.

"Angie, I have news," he said to her as they walked hand in hand from the station to his hotel. "The research company I work for has just opened a facility in Sydney. A position of assistant director is open for me here if I want it. I could live here in Sydney with you. What do you think?"

Her eyes were shining. "David, when I turned thirty one you asked me a very important question. Ask me again."

"Darling will you marry me?"

"And what was my answer last time?"

"I recall your exact words were 'Yes, David, yes, yes, yes.'"

"It's the same answer again, David," she said happily.

Later in the hotel room David brought up the subject that had been worrying him ever since their reunion. "Darling, will it happen again? Will you only live till thirty or thirty one? We may only have eleven or twelve years. I couldn't stand to lose you again."

"No, you won't lose me again. When I was in Darwin I went to see a psychic. She was really strange, she wore these long blue robes and actually had a crystal ball, and she somehow knew I had lived three previous lives. She said I was caught up in a cycle, something to do with a planetary disturbance every thirty years caused by a 'mysterious visitor', whatever that means, but the cycle has ended, it won't repeat itself. Then she described my life with a wonderful man, and David, we're going to have children. No darling, the 'mysterious visitor' is never coming back. We're going to live to be old together, both of us. I know it."

Six months later they were married in Sydney where David now worked. It was a small ceremony and Paul and Rachel were there as well as David's and Kristin's parents.

David convinced his parents that Kristin by an amazing coincidence resembled Angela, and Kristin convinced her parents that David was only fifteen years older than her. To add weight to this David dyed his graying hair back to brown which did indeed make him look much younger. They never let their age difference bother them. It didn't even seem like twenty nine years.

Although she was legally Kristin, David called her Angie, explaining to their Sydney friends that it was a nickname. Angela found a new job as a secretary in a city office, and they bought a house in a quiet suburb. Four years later the first of their two children was born, a girl who they named Elizabeth.

The End?
Not quite. You may still be wondering what caused Angela to live four different lives, each one only lasting 30 years.
This final part of the mystery is revealed in the Epilogue.
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