Dr. Angela Newhouse sat motionless; an untouched cup of cold coffee cradled in her hands. Her blonde hair was dirty, pulled into an untidy bun. She stared straight ahead through smudged glasses; her gaze fixed on nothing.
Dr. Peter Hawthorn sat across his desk from her. “It’s been two weeks since the fire.” He cleared his throat. “I know how difficult this is but I have to tell you the findings from the forensic team that went down to the cabins.”
Dr. Newhouse’s chin quivered.
“Your daughter’s remains were identified.” He pushed a stack of papers over to her. A photograph of the burnt cabin was on top. “I’m afraid their findings were conclusive.”
Hands shaking, Dr. Newhouse looked at the photo then the report. She sniffled. “How did this happen?”
“It was a freak storm. Amos had never seen anything like it. He told me that the wind whipped up, broke the windows, and toppled the stove. Right before you passed out, you told me that the whole cabin exploded into flames.” He paused and ran his hands through his greying hair. “I am so very sorry.”
Dr. Newhouse looked up. Her eyes wide, her expression confused. “I was only gone a few minutes, just long enough to use the radio.”
“I know. If only I had been a little bit earlier, there might have been something I could have done.”
“I don’t even remember you arriving. I don’t remember telling you about the fire.”
“It’s no wonder.”
Dr. Newhouse’s eyes glistened. Tears massed. “I was knocked unconscious so I don’t remember a lot.” She could barely get the words out.
Dr. Hawthorn’s forehead lined.
Placing her cup on the desk, Dr. Newhouse covered her eyes with her hands. Tears trickled down her cheeks. Her shoulders quivered.
Dr. Hawthorn stood up, walked back around the desk and rested a hand on her shoulder. “We’ve got to get you out of here. Back to the rest of your family. The mail plane is due today. Under the circumstances, I’m sure they’ll fly you back to the mainland along with your daughter’s remains.”
“Her ashes?”
Dr. Hawthorn nodded. “It’s best that we get you home.”
***
Angela Newhouse rubbed her eyes and struggled out of bed. Shuffling across the room, she replayed the dream that woke her: Cory calling telepathically to her.
“I’m coming Mum”
“I wish you were darling.” She shook her head, trying to rattle the thought away. “I wish you were….” It had been four weeks since returning from Ellesmere Island; six weeks since Cory had died in the fire.
She stopped at her chest of drawers. Family photos rested on top. She picked up her wedding picture and managed a smile when she looked at her younger self, gripping John’s arm. How similar Matt was to his father. Both tall and dark, handsome in a bookish kind of way.
She replaced the picture and forced herself to look at the photos of the children when they were younger: Matt sitting crossed-legged on the floor intently studying a book when he was three; Cory at the same age doing finger painting, her face covered with more paint than the paper in front of her. Angela blinked to stop the tears that were on the brink of overflowing.
The door opened. John walked in. “You’re up,” he said stating the obvious. “How are you doing?”
Angela turned to face her husband and shrugged. “The same. I keep dreaming about Cory calling for help; imagining that she’s speaking telepathically to me. I think I’m going crazy.”
John nodded. “Grief does that to a person, thinking we can hear the voice or footsteps of someone we’ve lost. I’m having the same thoughts…thinking that I can hear Cory. Because telepathic thoughts are just like our own, it’s difficult to realize that we’re the ones conjuring up her voice.”
Angela looked into his eyes. Since the accident, they always glistened, on the verge of tears. “If Dr. Hawthorn hadn’t witnessed the accident, I don’t think I would have believed the whole thing happened. If only I hadn’t taken her…”
“We can’t change the past and there was nothing anyone could have done,” He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
Angela looked back at the top of her dressing table and picked up the picture of a freckled-faced Cory that had been taken only a few years earlier when she had been ten. A reluctant smile pulled at the corners of Angela’s mouth.
“Remember when she told us that she was going to become a bird and fly to the top of the tree in the back yard?”
A smile pulled at the corners of John’s mouth. “It took her a while to get the hang of it,” he chuckled sadly.
“I wish that I had taken more time to explore her abilities. I was always too concerned with fitting in, not standing out. I spent more time telling her not to do things.”
“We both did.”
Tears trickled down Angela’s cheeks. Her chin quivered looking at Cory’s impish grin and swirling golden curls.
John rubbed her back as they both looked at the image. “She looked so much like you when you were that age.”
“I was just thinking that same thing about you and Matt.” She put the photo down. “I want to remember her this way and not from the fire.”
“Then that’s what we have to do.”
***
Matt slurped his soggy cereal thinking that he could hear his sister calling telepathically to him. Dropping his spoon into his bowl, he covered his ears even though the voice had not entered his mind that way.
“Grief sucks,” he said out loud. Pushing away from the table, he took his bowl to the sink and rinsed it out. “Cory, I wish you were calling for help. I don’t know how we’d find you but at least you’d be alive.” He went back to the table, gathered his books and left for school.
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