The Inheritance Paradox
Thirty-Three (Eugene’s Story)
“WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?” Lynn asked in alarm when they met for their Saturday afternoon date. She petted the singed stubble of his hair. Eugene had shaved his face clean rather than have a gray mustache.
“I… uh… burned my hair. It was an accident. You know. Lighting a space heater.”
“But you aren’t burned! Just your hair. You were gone again?”
“Three years,” Eugene whispered. “I’m not going back, Lynn. I can’t take it any longer. The pain of leaving is just too much to bear—even when I am longing to be back here with you.”
“Is it a choice?” she asked.
“It has to be. I can’t do it anymore! If he catches me up again, I will simply close my eyes, sit down, and wait to die.”
“But if you die there…” she left the conclusion unspoken. “Guru Ma Mahama says it is not unheard of for people to bear the trauma of a past life regression into their present life. I don’t know if he meant the physical aspects, though. What will help you through this time, my love?”
Eugene told her the whole story as they sat together in a park near their apartment building. It was the end of May, just like when he’d discovered the fire in 1866.
“I think… I need to prove to myself it was all a dream. I need to go to Ann Arbor.”
That will be interesting.
Their date the next week was strange. They met Saturday morning and drove to Ann Arbor try to check records of a marriage. Eugene quickly gave up on that, as he’d been married in Cincinnati. They drove around, aimlessly for a while, but Eugene found little that was familiar. He couldn’t find the location of the orphanage, and none was listed in the telephone book. Of course, many orphanages in the country had ceased operation in the thirties and forties.
It was Sarah who suggested they look in the cemetery to see if he was buried there. In the cemetery office, there was a kind of card catalog of the people who were buried there, cross-referenced by lot number and date of burial.
“She might not be buried here. She could have moved to a different city once I disappeared. Perhaps she got remarried. This is a senseless search,” Eugene muttered. The closer they were to a possible record, the more he felt he should leave and abandon the search. He nearly ran from the building when Lynn stopped him.
“Here! Sarah Holbrook. Died 1918. Oh, Eugene! Just sixty-two years ago. Avenue R, Lot 132.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. Let her rest in peace,” Eugene panted. “What business do I have digging up the past? If she’s real… If she was really… It wouldn’t be a dream or a meditation. Lynn, I am so sorry to have been unfaithful to you for the past year. With… so many. If it’s all real, I don’t deserve to be with you at all. Please. Let’s leave. Let’s leave her a dream.”
Calm down. You’ll frighten the girl away.
“But don’t you see, Eugene? If it is real, you’ve spent your past lives trying to save humanity.”
“Past lives?” he gasped. “How can I call them past lives?”
“Even if you have only just remembered them, they were a hundred years ago or more. Most people would be thrilled to see an independent verification of their past life regression.”
“Verifying that I had forty or fifty children with at least thirty abandoned women?”
Lynn took Eugene’s hand and a map of the cemetery to pace out the distance to Avenue R and then to Lot 132. Eugene stumbled along with his eyes half-closed until she came to a stop and pulled him to his knees.
“Look! Look!”
It was a polished stone, not one of the old worn markers of the pioneers’ section. In front of it was a bronze marker, weathered and discolored with age. The star shape seemed strange because one point of the star was pointed downward and two upward. It seemed upside down. Various symbols decorated the points of the star. Eugene recognized some of them—crossed sabers and crossed muskets. A circle circumscribed a star on which was impressed, “Grand Army of the Republic 1861-1866.” On the underside of the circle was simply the word “Nurse.” The picture in the center of the marker showed a woman kneeling over the bed of a wounded man.
Eugene’s eyes moved reluctantly to the stone, already knowing what he would see. “Sarah Gilland Holbrook 1843-1918. Beloved of E.W.” Next to her inscription was a second inscription, though they had found no record of Eugene in the cemetery catalog. “E.W. Holbrook 9-18-49. Taken from us 5-15-66. In my heart forever.”
The wail from Eugene’s lips was unexpected by either him or Lynn. He collapsed on the grave weeping. Lynn comforted him the best she could.
“Sweetheart, it’s okay. It was a long time ago. I still love you,” she said.
“It was just last week!” he cried. “I held her and my daughters in my arms just a week ago. What kind of man am I?”
I wouldn’t have said this a year ago, but I think you are a good man, Eugene.
Lynn took control of their date after Eugene’s breakdown at Sarah’s grave. She understood a little. She’d often traveled to other planes in her meditation and knew a little about the disorientation that sometimes followed. She’d become very good at guiding others through their meditations. Guru Ma Mahama had often turned that part of their gatherings over to her.
Until the sex thing. Certainly, Lynn wasn’t opposed to sex. This was 1980 after all, not the Middle Ages. But when she’d turned her guru down, he’d declared that she was too distracting to continue at the ashram. He’d made it clear that she would not be as distracting if she was having sex with him. Lynn didn’t like the transactional aspect of that.
On the other hand, sex with Eugene had somehow become tied to his ending his time travel meditation. She was getting a little impatient. Perhaps instead of waiting for his past life regressions to end in order to have sex, he was really waiting for sex in order to end his past life regressions. If he couldn’t end them, it was up to her.
“We’ll relax for a while and have a nice dinner,” she said. “Why don’t we drive around a little. You know Ann Arbor from the 1800s. Let’s see what changed.”
“You are so kind and peaceful,” Eugene said. “I love you, Lynn.”
“And I love you. This evening, I will guide you in a meditation that will end your regressions.”
“Oh, dear heavens!” Eugene breathed. “That’s it. That’s the house I built in 1863. It’s been added onto and is in poor repair, but that is my house!”
“Really?” Lynn asked. “Take down the info on the sign. It doesn’t say ‘for sale.’ What does it say?”
“Tax repossession. Call the office of the County Clerk for information.”
“It looks pretty run down,” she said. “Is it making you sad to see it in this condition?”
“Oddly, no. I have memories, of course, but the house itself is different. It’s like seeing someone you haven’t seen in many years. Does that make sense? Seeing Sarah’s grave was like having someone I knew just a week ago suddenly taken from me. But this old house has just aged.”
“That’s good, Eugene. It shows you are gaining perspective,” Lynn said. “I could see us living here. I suppose they want a fortune for it, and it would cost a lot to fix up, but it’s a nice idea.”
“I’ll call the county clerk’s office and see what the price is.”
Severance pay. Wells owes you.
Lynn’s soothing voice continued through dinner, and she arranged to sit beside him in a booth at the restaurant where she could touch him throughout the meal. She painted a picture of the two of them living together and raising a family. He drifted into a fantasy.
Back at the apartment building, she pushed him toward his own little apartment instead of her door. He was initially disappointed, but she followed him right into the apartment. Looking around, she noted Eugene continued to lead a rather Spartan life. A single bed, a comfortable chair. A kitchen table with two chairs. A television. Eugene’s clothes were neatly hung or in drawers. The kitchen had essentials for cooking on top of the stove. There was no oven.
“Now, take off your shoes and just sit on the edge of the bed,” Lynn instructed, removing her own shoes. “I’ll talk you through a breathing exercise that will purge your spirit. Just relax and follow my voice. I’ll rub your shoulders a bit as we talk. You’ll relax in no time at all.”
Even I’m relaxed. I thought it was just because she was boring.
Lynn’s voice was soothing and Eugene found himself relaxing into her touch, not even noticing as she removed his shirt and T-shirt. She traced a scar on his back where he’d fallen from a horse. It must have been in the eighteenth century. He leaned back into Lynn’s arms until they were both lying on the narrow bed. They turned until they were facing each other and he discovered Lynn had also lost her blouse, though she still wore a bra.
And then they kissed.
Soon, their embrace turned from mutual support to passion.
“Lynn, honey, we’re… we should…”
“We should continue what we’ve started,” she said. “Come to me, my love.”
The last articles of clothing fell away as they squirmed on the bed until they were completely naked. Then she pulled him between her legs.
Eugene kissed her tenderly and she guided him into her depths, the two joining together as though they’d never been nor would ever be apart. Their passion rose until they’d both peaked. As they lay in the afterglow of their first sexual experience together, kissing and petting each other, Eugene finally found his voice.
“My love, why? I swear I will always be faithful to you, but why choose this moment for us to be together?”
“I guess it is just my way of saying ‘yes.’ Yes, I will marry you.”
“I am the happiest man on earth.” In those words, he was able to accept that his love of Sarah was real, but it was a hundred years previous.
“I plan to keep you that way.”
Lynn lay awake long after Eugene dozed off in her arms. She thought she would bring him to her apartment next, where she had a double bed. She was certainly not going to let him go now that they had consummated their love.
She lay, stroking his head and the stubble that had grown since his return the previous week. Then Eugene disappeared from her arms.
She was jolted to alertness by the sudden change, but a second later, he was back in her arms again. She prodded him to be sure he was really there and he turned to kiss her again. She returned his kisses fervently and soon, they were connected again.
It was real. His time travel was more than a past life regression. He left and then returned.
“No! I can’t be here! Lynn is sleeping with me. She’ll know I was gone! I promised to quit traveling,” Eugene declared as he sat up naked in the chair of the LBT.
“She’ll never know you were gone,” Wells said. “I wouldn’t have chosen this path. Galahad brought you here. No harm, I suppose. So, you want to quit.”
“I must quit. I have committed to Lynn. I will not cheat on her.”
None of the others count.
“I won’t force you to continue. By my estimates, there should be at least a million descendants with the genetic code. Most are in the U.S. If I plotted the migratory patterns correctly, they should be near you in Michigan.”
“Then send me back at once!”
“Almost. First, you know, I need to remove the time-chip from your skull. You will grow old in your timeline and old people always get examined. We can’t have doctors discovering the chip and trying to deconstruct it.”
The head and arm clamps fastened to Eugene, and he felt a tickle in his head.
I’m sorry, Eugene. I guess this is where we part.
“You’ll be gone?”
My code is in the time-chip.
“I’ll miss you.”
And I you. Be fruitful and multiply.
“Naked you came into this world and naked you shall return,” Wells said as the straps began to loosen.
“What about my severance pay?” Eugene said, remembering Galahad’s suggestion.
“Severance pay?” Wells asked as if surprised.
“I’ve given twelve years of my life to this project of yours. I want my back pay. That’s simply what you owe me.”
“Hmm. Minimum wage is $3.10 per hour. That would come out to $6,448 per year or a twelve-year total of $77,376. Seems excessive.”
“I’ve been doing more than minimum wage work, including risking my life on every trip. I make more than that at my nice safe and boring job of making phone calls,” Eugene countered.
“To what should we compare your job?” Wells asked. “Your ministerial salary was only $7,500 per year. You’d hardly be happy with a soldier’s pay, even with combat bonuses.”
“You’ve had me doing this genetic courier work. That seems medical to me. How about a doctor’s pay?” Eugene suggested.
“Doctor? You can hardly compare fertilizing women’s eggs to brain surgery!” Wells exclaimed. He stopped to consider. “But in the future, that is actually a medical field of its own. I suppose it would be reasonable. Let me see. That would come to about $60,000 per year.”
“That would total…”
“$720… I’ll be generous and make it $750,000.”
“I’d almost be a millionaire!”
“Don’t believe the movies or the lottery advertisements. By the time you pay the taxes at your current rate, you’d have about $200,000 left,” Wells said.
“They take that much?”
“I’ll have to figure out how to get so much money to you from this non-time to your twentieth century.”
Wells tapped on some typewriter keys and numbers appeared on a TV in front of him. Eugene looked around for the computer. He knew about Univac. It took an entire warehouse that was temperature controlled.
Yet I was just in your head. We’re much smaller these days.
“I thought you were gone.”
I am. This is your memory of what I would say.
“It will take some manipulations, but I’ll get the net transferred to you somehow. I see a way.”
“I don’t know why I should trust you,” Eugene said. “This whole operation has been in my head.”
“Did you not find evidence?”
“Yes. I suppose that means I’m to accept it all as true.”
“It has been a pleasure working with you, Eugene. I trust at least some of the work has been pleasurable. You are currently in perfect health. The cellular alteration will remain with you, and you should remain in good health as long as you don’t run into any burning buildings.”
“I would do it again.”
“I believe you. I hope you live long and prosper.” Wells chuckled at his little joke.
“Thank you, Mr. Peabody.” Eugene snickered as Wells consulted his screen for the reference.
Then he was back in the arms of his lover, who looked a little startled.
“You traveled,” Lynn whispered in the aftermath of their lovemaking.
“Only to tender my resignation. I didn’t go to any other time. I’m not going back. He’s removed my time-chip and guide,” Eugene said.
Free at last! Free at last! Thank God, I’m free at last.
“Then we should plan our wedding. I believe we need at least six weeks to get invitations out and to locate a minister,” Lynn said.
“Do we need a minister? I’m not a religious man, Lynn. Not any longer,” Eugene said.
“Hmm. Guru might officiate. I know he has officiated other weddings. We parted on less than friendly terms, but I believe he will consent,” Lynn said.
“At one time in my life, I would have called that satanic.”
I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.
“A burden has been lifted from you. I believe you look younger than you did just last night.”
Residual effects.
“From now on, my love, I will age with you.”
When Lynn got off work Sunday afternoon, she went home to cook her special chicken and dumplings for Eugene. He did what he could to help but mostly got in the way.
“Why such a wonderful meal?” he asked. “You certainly can’t expect to cook after working all day every day.”
“It’s a special occasion,” Lynn said as they sat down. She’d allowed her roommates a portion of the dish and they exclaimed over how good it was. It was rare to have Eugene in their apartment, but they all knew him now.
“What’s the occasion, Lynn?” one asked.
“It is the anniversary of the night Eugene rescued me and saved my life. One year ago, on June first.”
“Oh, my. So it was,” Eugene said. “It was one year ago I met the love of my life. I have never regretted it for one moment.”
The roommates were shocked, but didn’t say anything when, after they had cleaned the kitchen and put away leftover food, Eugene disappeared into Lynn’s bedroom with her for the rest of the night.
Monday, when Eugene went to work, there was a message asking him to please see his lawyer at his earliest convenience. Eugene went upstairs to Ron’s office.
“Good to see you, Eugene. Have a seat. You’re looking good—healthier than you looked a year ago, but older. It’s a reminder that we’re all aging, I suppose.”
“I aged, but my fiancée doesn’t seem to mind. She’s only twenty-five, though. I hope I can keep up with her for a few years.”
“Fiancée? Congratulations.”
“There aren’t any problems with getting remarried, are there?” Eugene asked.
“No, none at all. You’re divorced. In the eyes of the law, you are a single person. You can marry if you wish. You both still need a blood test before you can get a marriage license,” Ron said.
“Good. That’s what I thought.”
“I have some news for you, as well,” Ron said, pulling some papers together in front of him. “I was contacted on your behalf last week. An attorney was attempting to reach you regarding an inheritance. He discovered my contact information through the divorce filing.”
“An inheritance?” Eugene asked. “From whom?” He immediately thought of his mother, but he’d spoken with her only a month ago and she knew his new address.
“That’s the odd thing, isn’t it? Your father’s estate was settled on your mother, whom I believe has moved to Florida. This is unrelated to your immediate family and is not subject to your siblings’ interest. It seems that some sixty-plus years ago, a Sarah Holbrook passed away. Apparently, a distant ancestor, I assume. She had already settled most of her rather extensive estate on her children but created a trust with title to her house and a seeding of cash with specific instructions that it not be opened until September 18, 1979. Pretty specific as to your thirtieth birthday.”
“Sarah,” Eugene whispered. He’d visited her grave just a couple of days ago.
“Yes. The terms of the trust are clear. The contents are to transfer to Eugene Wallace Holbrook, born September 18, 1949, upon attainment of his thirtieth birthday, September 18, 1979. Since the terms were sealed until last September, there was no way the will could have been altered after your birth. The attorney had all but given up on finding you and had even let the taxes on the property lapse. We’ll need to clear those up. He considered the idea that it was a prescient gift from Sarah Holbrook an impossibility. Even now, he thought it must have been a lucky guess. Either way, we agreed you are the correct beneficiary, and the will is not contested.”
“I’m amazed. I could never anticipate something like this.”
“Perhaps someone at the turn of the century or before time traveled to your birthdate and decided to leave you a gift. Who knows what you or your parents did to deserve it. But you were important enough to her that she would leave you a fortune,” Ron said.
“A fortune?”
“The list of assets includes the deed to a house in Ann Arbor and a trust with about a quarter million dollars in it. Eugene, your fortune at least has improved.”
“A house in Ann Arbor?”
Wells was a wily old fox.
“Yes, according to the attorney, there is a tax lien against the property, and it is in need of significant repair. If you want to keep the house, you’ll probably spend a good portion of the cash on fixing it up,” Ron said.
“Who would have imagined Sarah would do such a thing?” Eugene mused. She’d said she would convince him she was not a dream. Or perhaps Wells had contrived this as a way of paying his debt.
“Who, exactly, is she? Or was she?” Ron asked.
“A woman of my dreams,” Eugene said.
“Well, perhaps this will explain things to you. In addition to the account and the property, she left you this letter. It is sealed with wax that has been unbroken,” Ron said. “Ah! Jenny is here. We’ll have her witness your signature and notarize it for receipt of the trust. Here are instructions for accessing the funds. I assume you want me to clear the tax lien on the property. Do you want to view it first?”
“That won’t be necessary. Please clear the lien and let me know what I owe you.” Eugene signed the papers and accepted the letter.
“I’ll have Jenny draw up an hourly invoice at our usual $45 per hour. It shouldn’t be much more than a couple hundred dollars by the time I clear the lien. Plus, the amount of taxes owed.”
Eugene left Ron’s office slightly bemused. He kept the letter in his pocket but decided not to open it until he could share the news with Lynn. He went to his job and made his quota of phone calls. He recorded the answers to the questions he asked, but he didn’t really remember what he’d been surveying. It had something to do with the upcoming presidential election.
Eugene and Lynn were married July 26, 1980. Her pregnancy was not really visible yet. Her relatives were a little put off by the Buddhist ceremony and the ashram of Guru Ma Mahama. Louise Holbrook, Eugene’s mother and the only relative he had invited, agreed to attend when Eugene offered to fly her from Florida.
“Understand this, my youngest son. This is the last wedding of yours I am attending. Though I rather liked it better than the last. Don’t mess this one up,” she said.
“Mother, I will never betray this woman. I will never leave her. I have lived too many lives in the past year to doubt this one.”
“Well, I never much liked that last wife anyway,” Louise said. “It’s good to see you’ve gotten your head out of the clouds.”
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
