The Reincarnation of Clara. Kevin J Todeschi

Is he a Baptist?”

      “I just saw him once!” Emily hesitated and then added under her breath, “I think he might be a Catholic.”

      “What!? A Mormon would be bad enough, but a Catholic with a bad back, well, that’s something altogether different!”

      “Don’t be so provincial. I heard him ask the desk clerk for directions to Saint Joseph’s—maybe he was just meeting someone.

      “Papa’s gonna kill you.”

      “Who cares? I’ll be an old maid if Papa has his way. Besides you married a Baptist and that turned out to be one big mistake.”

      Clara was silent. She looked down and said nothing—there was no way in the world that she was going to discuss Paul Gabriel with Emily Ann Stuart. Finally, when it appeared that Clara had nothing more to say, Emily dropped the paper she had been holding into her sister’s lap, “Here, I need you to look sideways at this.”

      “What for?”

      “He was reading it in the lobby this morning.”

      Although still feeling perturbed with her sister, Clara relented, “What do you want to know?”

      “Tell me if he’s married.”

      Clara held onto the newspaper, looked at it intensely until she saw multiple copies—one lining up in back of another, and another and another . . . suddenly, there was a tremendous flash of light.

       HUNTSVILLE, UTAH—AMBASSADOR HOTEL LOBBY, EARLIER THAT MORNING

      The transparent form of twenty-five-year-old Clara Stuart stood as eyewitness in the Ambassador Hotel lobby. The man that had captured Emily’s fascination sat in one of the lobby chairs with his back to her reading the newspaper. He had a distinctive looking hat on the chair next to him and a cane leaning against the arm of his chair. Across the lobby, Clara could see her sister Emily staring into a mirror pretending to adjust her hat, but it is obvious to Clara that she was simply trying to see the man. “It looks like you had quite a time with your hat this morning,” Clara stated, knowing full well Emily could hear her every word.

      When the man finished reading, he stood, took his cane, walked toward the wastebasket to dispose of his paper and exited through the front door. Clara never saw the man’s face, but what she did see was Emily walk over to the wastebasket and purposefully drop a handkerchief nearby. Making certain no one was watching, Emily carefully bent down to pick up both the handkerchief and the paper.

      The sound of an echoing voice seemed to come to Clara’s attention from far away: “What are you seeing?” Emily asked impatiently.

      “Only my sister making a damn fool of herself . . . Just a minute.”

      Clara looked in the direction the man had gone until there was a flash of light.

       HUNTSVILLE, UTAH—VESTIBULE, ST. JOSEPH’S CATHOLIC CHURCH, SAME DAY

      A transparent Clara Stuart stood at the back of the church, staring toward the altar. People entered the building and walked next to her, around her, or even through her but no one was able to see her. From the crowd it appeared that Mass was ready to start. Suddenly, Clara saw the back of the man she had been following; he was sitting in one of the Church pews near the back. The hat and cane were placed on the pew at his side.

      “He’s Catholic all right.”

      From far off in the distance, Clara could hear Emily’s reply: “But is he married?”

      Clara focused and imagined what the man’s left hand looked like. When she could see it clearly in her mind, it was obvious that there was no ring on his finger. “He’s single.”

      “But does he have a girlfriend?”

      Just as Clara heard her sister’s voice, the man turned to say something to the couple moving into the pew next to him. Clara caught her breath because it was clear that the man in church was the same man she had seen earlier that day—buck naked in nineteenth century Wyoming.

      “Does he have a girlfriend?” The voice repeated.

      Clara focused and looked sideways at the man until there was a tremendous burst of light.

      FORT LARAMIE, WYOMING—BORDELLO ROOM, 1852

      Once again, the transparent form of Clara found herself witnessing two individuals in the throes of making love upon a velvet couch. She stood off to one side of the room, simply observing. At first Clara thought she was rewitnessing the same scene from earlier in the day but there was no crib in the room and there was a big crack in the dresser mirror. In addition, a pair of nineteenth century glasses appeared to have been tossed carelessly atop the dresser. Clara looked and saw that the man was the same, but as he moved to reveal the face of the woman he was with, Clara could see that he was making love to someone who was the spitting image of Emily.

      “Oh, my God!” Clara gasped, and at that moment she was brought back to Emily’s apartment with the knowledge that the two of them had once slept with the same man, and that Emily had once been a dancehall girl by the name of Hannah.

       HUNTSVILLE, UTAH—EMILY’S APARTMENT, 1946

      Twenty-five-year-old Clara was noticeably shaken. She looked at her sister and then back at the newspaper she was holding, and finally back to her sister again.

      “What’s wrong with you?” Emily was obviously irritated. “Just tell me if he has a girlfriend?”

      Clara was silent for the longest time. It was only when Emily looked like she was about to lose control that Clara finally managed to say, “I think he has two.”

      Emily angrily grabbed the newspaper out of her sister’s hands. “Well, he’s about to get a third!”

       HUNTSVILLE, UTAH—SUMMER MORNING, 2006

      Clara Cabot leaned forward in her rocking chair, smiling. “My first day in Huntsville turned out to be quite an event. Here I had been so caught up in this divorce thing that I hadn’t even thought about having another relationship. All at once I found myself certain that Emily and I were gonna be chasing after the same man . . . and a Catholic with a bad back to boot! It was a good while before I realized God doesn’t give no never-mind about a person’s religion.”

      Joan was obviously skeptical. “So Aunt Emily thought she had been with Uncle Joe before?”

      “Emily didn’t have any idea why she was so attracted to this soul. It was just there. And I could never bring myself to describe what I had seen. I didn’t want to share Joe with someone else after he decided to start courtin’ me.”

      The tape recorder clicked, and Joan reached over and turned the tape. When the machine was back on, she made it clear that her aunt could continue to tell the story the way she wanted to tell it.

      “Okay, Clara. So, tell me about the first time you remember looking sideways.”

      “Oh, I think it was something I could always do.” Clara Cabot reflected aloud, “It has been a part of my soul’s journey for as long as I can remember. And that’s a very long time, Joanie, a very, very long time indeed . . . ”

      THREE

       SAMARIA CITY, IDAHO—STUART FAMILY HOME, SPRING, 1932

      Everett Stuart had built his two-story