Read Online Come Down In Time (A Time Travel Romance) by Jennifer Ransom - Free Book Online

your
dad tonight,” her mother said. “You go on back to the house.
There’s nowhere here for you to even sit. We’ll be fine.”
    “ Okay, Mom,” Jamie said.
“I’ll be back first thing in the morning. You call me if you need
to, okay?”
    “ Okay, honey,” she said. She
hugged Jamie. “I’m so glad to see you. It’s been too long.”
    “ I agree, Mom. Way too long.
But I want you to know that you and Dad can count on me. I’m going
to be here for you now and forever.”
    “ Thank you, honey,” her
mother said in a choked voice.
    Jamie walked back through the
hospital and to the parking lot. She got in her car and headed toward
her childhood home, a house full of memories, a house she had not
seen for a dozen years. She was going to have to drive by the spot
that Tommy ran off the road, through the barrier, and down the cliff.
That was the only way to get to her house. That last time she had
driven by that spot was when she left for Vanderbilt. She had held
her breath then as she passed.
    It was dark. Jamie reached the
spot and the reflector lights on the barrier glowed at her. Why did
Tommy run off this road? she thought. She held her breath again and
then she was past the spot and on the short road to her house.
    Jamie parked in the gravel
driveway. The front porch light was on and guided her up the porch
steps to the front door. She didn’t have a key, but the door was
unlocked. Jamie walked inside.
    Everything was the same. The blue
and green plaid couch and green wingback chair. The fireplace
surrounded by old bricks. Nothing had changed. She walked into the
kitchen and flipped the light switch. The cream-colored cabinets from
her memory lined two walls of the kitchen with a long island in the
middle of the floor. The breakfast nook was at the end of the kitchen
with the same glass-topped round oak table.
    Jamie walked upstairs and opened
the door to her childhood bedroom. The bed was neatly covered in the
same bedspread with pink rosebuds on a white background. Her favorite
stuffed animal, a gray elephant, sat on her pillows. Her white
dresser stood on the wall opposite the bed. Nothing had changed.
    Jamie stood in the doorway of her
bedroom and began to cry. For her father. For her mother. For her
brother. And most of all for herself. She had cut her parents out of
her life when Tommy died and she went away. They had mourned their
daughter as surely as she he mourned Tommy. They had created a
shrine. Jamie dropped to the bed and wept hard, bitter tears. She
knew for the first time, really knew, that she had hurt her parents
immeasurably. And why had they put up with that from her? Jamie was
left with the only answer. Because they loved her. With that sure
knowledge, Jamie fell asleep.
    The next morning, Jamie showered
and dressed in jeans and a cotton shirt and went back to the
hospital. Her mother was sitting in the chair while her father ate a
breakfast of oatmeal from his hospital tray.
    “ I like oatmeal,” her father
said. “But I don’t want to eat it every day.”
    Jamie laughed. “I know, Dad.
You won’t have to eat it every day, I promise. We’ll work out a
menu for you that you can tolerate.”
    “ Thanks, hon,” he said as he
took another bite of oatmeal.
    “ Mom,” Jamie said looking at
her mother. “You should go get some rest and something to eat. I’ll
stay here with Dad.”
    “ I think you’re right,” her
mother said. “I feel like my bones are creaky after spending the
night in this chair.”
    Her mother kissed her father and
then hugged Jamie. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said.
    Jamie spent the day with her
father. They watched daytime shows that neither had ever seen, and
the news. Around noon, her father’s lunch of lean chicken breast,
broccoli, and a roll arrived. Her father ate it, but he wasn’t
happy with it.
    “ Jamie,” he said. “I can’t
eat this stuff forever.” She assured her father that he would have
good meals in his future.
    Dr.