The following is a one-shot.
Generations-Gabrielle's father, Jonathan Thomassen discovers the truth about his family and "meets" his new son-in-law, Erik DuPuis.
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Doctor Jonathan Thomassen had become mute. He struggled to read the familiar script on the parchment, made more difficult because of the way his hands shook.
As President of the Bank of New York, Mr. Carlton has witnessed the same reaction from countless others. It was always the same—curiosity followed by shock, disbelief and sometimes tears whenever a bank customer searched through a lock box left to them by a deceased relative or spouse.
"Mr. Thomassen, why don't I give you and your son some private time to look through the contents ... decide if you care to take them with you or leave them in the hands of the bank," Mr. Carlton suggested.
"Dad?" asked his son. Twenty-seven year-old Michael Thomassen had accompanied his father to uncover the mystery of the bank deposit box. He stood between the two older men and watched as his mild mannered father fading into a private fog.
"Uh—sure thing," Jonathan replied, his head snapping up at the sound of Michael's voice.
"Ten minutes?" Mr. Carlton nodded at the son.
"Yes, fine." He offered a wan smile then turned back to his father.
"Who's it from, dad?"
"It's—it's from Gabrielle."
"Gabrielle, are you sure? That paper looks like something from the Lincoln era."
Jonathan snorted. "Close. And it's her all right, I don't need a forensic scientist to tell me this is her handwriting, even in script; I'd know her loopy "H's" and "Y's" anywhere."
"What the hell is her excuse for pulling that disappearing act last week in New York? Honestly, Gabrielle has an impulsive streak, but I never figured she'd go and pull a mom on us."
"No, Michael, your sister is not like your mother." He paused. "She claims she was whisked from us by Time. Your sister is living in nineteenth century France," he said, as if he were relating tidbits from a vacation postcard.
"—you're shitting me, Dad."
Doctor Jonathan Thomassen, the Head of Research at the Time Travel Institute of Chicago, stopped cold and stared at his son. "No, I would never "shit" you about a serious matter like your missing sister. I definitely would not shit you about anything related to time travel." His manner was grievously serious. He thrust the letter into Michael's hands. "Tell me if what you read is the same as what I have just read."
Michael tilted the faded parchment up to catch more of the vault's dim light and read aloud. "Dear Dad and Michael, It is my sincere hope and prayer that you are reading this letter one week after my inexplicable disappearance. It is a long way from 2005 to 1878 and I must have faith that my offspring and their offspring are diligent in following instructions."
Michael shrugged his shoulders and resumed his reading,
First, let me tell you the one thing all parents crave to hear from their children; you were right—right about time travel, it is possible, dad, and I am your proof. Unfortunately I am unable to detail how I got here; I just know that I am.
On the night of June, 16, 2005, as I stood in front of the Al Hirshfield Theatre in Times Square waiting for Tony, I came eye to eye with a nineteenth century Frenchman by the name of Rudolph Fentz. Your friend, Coroner Marshall King, may have informed you about the strange man in his morgue awaiting identification. Well, Monsieur Fentz disappeared from his front porch in Paris, June 16th, 1876 at the precise time I disappeared from Times Square. All I remember is screaming at Fentz not to run into the path of a taxi, and then I awoke. I was on my hands and knees in the basement of the Paris Opera House, where a man by the name of Erik DuPuis discovered me. Fortunately, he was open minded enough to give audience to my bizarre story and I convinced him that I was, in fact, a twenty-first century woman dumped unceremoniously into his nineteenth-century world.
Does the name DuPuis ring a bell? Yes, he is one of our favorite composers and a much lauded architect. Erik and I are married now and we have two children: a son, Erik Jonathan, and a daughter, Hope Aimé. You are a grandpa! My regret is that you will never know them; however, you will have a chance to meet your great, great- grandchildren (ha!) when you visit them in France.
Has adjusting to life in nineteenth century France has been a trial at times? Oh yeah, but Erik does his best to ensure my comfort. You would like him, Dad; he has a brilliantly creative and analytical mind much like yours. We live a full and stimulating existence here in the country and often travel due to his music or my writing and lecturing on women's issues (remember dad, women were not able to vote until 1945). You would be proud of me, as I know how you admire rebels with a cause. I've even been jailed once for heading up a suffragette rally in Paris, much to my husband's chagrin, and I have received accolades from many liberal-minded institutions. Look me up—I'm a historical figure: "Gabrielle Kalene Thomassen-Dupuis."
Although Erik is a wonderful husband and father, and I am very happy, I miss all of you terribly—that is the single pain that plagues my existence, that I may well never see you again, at least not until you invent that time machine (lol). Not a day goes by when you are not in my thoughts and prayers.
Hopefully, the manor house outside of Paris is still occupied by our most trustworthy family members. They have instructions to contact you by July, 2005 if they have not heard from you or Michael. How is Michael? Still dating that vapid Michelle? He's too good for her and he knows it (still a bossy big sister, even from the past aren't I?).
Michael continued reading aloud the strange trans-century correspondence from his missing daughter. There were additional details of Gabrielle's new life; how she adjusted to, of restrictive attitudes and modes of dress; of Erik's inventions, her work with George Eliot and Elizabeth Garrett, and about his grandchildren. She did not tell him about the Phantom of the Opera.
In closing, she encouraged her father to never give up on his important work. With time travel a reality, there must be a way for you and your colleagues to prove your theories. In the meanwhile, I urge you to go to France. I've included the address and directions to DuPuis Manor. There you'll find an underground dwelling where Erik and I have a time capsule waiting for you and Michael. Hug Michael, run a hand over Fritzy's soft, golden coat for me, and keep fighting the good fight.
In love, your daughter, Gabrielle."
Michael stared at the letter a moment longer before he allowed Jonathan to remove it from his grasp. He looked up to meet his father's eyes. "This—it's really true, isn't it?"
"Yes, son," Jonathan rasped, on the verge of tears. "Fate, or God, or whatever, has chosen your sister as proof of my life's work," he said, glancing around the bank vault nervously. "Breathe a word of this to no one. I'll contact Kip and our other colleagues at the Time Institute with this; perhaps this phenomenal new discovery will open doors for our research."
Michael shook his head, "Fucking amazing, Dad."
"Eloquently put, son," he said, giving Michael an offhanded look.
Later that afternoon, when Jonathan arrived back at his office, he made two phone calls; one to Dax and Murielle DuPuis in France and one to book a flight for two to Paris where he and his son would meet their newly acquired relatives.
The next morning Jonathan and Michael departed Chicago's O'Hare International airport at 5:35 am CST, and arrived at Charles de Gaulle International at 8:50 am, Paris time. Within two hours, they were sipping coffee at the very dining room table where Gabrielle, Erik, and their family had enjoyed many meals over one century ago. This latest generation of DuPuis was in their late twenties, very continental and artistic. Dax followed the same path as his great, great, grandmother, Gabrielle, and had become a writer. His pretty blonde wife Murielle was an Art Therapist from Brussels who had moved to Paris when she and Dax became married. As of yet, they had no children.
"We're thrilled to meet you," said Murielle DuPuis, in French-tinged English. She pushed a plate of scones across the table and smiled. "An old family recipe, handed down from Dax's great-grandmother—er—your daughter," she smiled at her husband, who sat next to her quietly drinking his Café au lait.
"It's been difficult sitting on the family secret for the past day. You see, the President of La Banque Populaire de Paris, contacted my husband, requesting he retrieve the contents of a lock box kept by the family since the late 1900's. 'What could it be?' we asked ourselves. Dax's family is quite colorful—there was no guessing what mystery awaited us inside that brass safety deposit box!"
Dax picked up the conversation from his wife. "Oui. What I discovered was a note from my great, great-grandmother and grandfather DuPuis, detailing their amazing story. Is this a joke? I asked myself, but no, my father and mother had also left correspondence telling me that as their only child, responsibility passed to me for keeping the family secret. Mother often regaled me with stories of our proud and somewhat bizarre family heritage, but I'd no idea just how unique we were—a time traveler mother and famous composer father."
Jonathan fiddled nervously with his napkin while he listened. "If you don't mind, we're anxious to see what's in this sealed room Gabrielle wrote about," Michael interjected, sensing his father's impatience. Dax and Murielle exchanged glances as though the idea hadn't occurred to them.
"Forgive me," said Dax. "I forget how eager you must be to learn the truth behind the mystery. I'll go fetch the key from its safe place."
Dax excused himself and returned quickly holding an enormous iron padlock key in his hand.
"Shall we, Messieurs?" he motioned towards the double doors leading to the veranda. The four of them made their way through the lush summer garden of freesia, crepe myrtle, and roses, past an ornate fountain and several statues, one of which Dax motioned to. "Auguste Rodin created that bronze as a gift to my great, great-grandparents, your daughter and son-in-law, he added heedful, of Jonathan's feelings.
Jonathan and Michael paused. She seemed to be luring them closer.
"It is purported to be of Gabrielle, dancing in the garden," said Dax.
"Gabrielle," Jonathan breathed as he stroked his fingertips over her bare toes.
"My god, Dad, it is her, all the way to the tiny scar on her shin where I ran my tricycle into her when I was four."
"My daughter." Jonathan spoke those two words with the emotion of a thousand "I loves yous'." Tears welled up in his green eyes.
"Near the maze are sculptures of the children. And in the rose garden, one of Monsieur DuPuis playing the violin; from what I can tell, he was a most handsome man," added Dax.
Jonathan merely nodded while continuing to regard Gabrielle's likeness.
"Come on, Dad, we can peruse the gardens later, let's see what's in the vaults." Michael urged his father back on the path, where they proceeded out of the gardens and past the stables, finally reaching a dilapidated old supply shed on the back side of one of the barns.
"I am supposed to open up this old shed and remove the tools in front of a hidden doorway. When I depress the corner of the door, it should open up to a narrow set of steps leading down to the door that this key fits." Dax said this more to himself than the others. "This is all so Sherlock Holmes," remarked Jonathan.
"Once Dax had the supply shed open and the tools removed, he kicked a work spot at the corner of the small wooden door. To his surprise it popped open an inch. Silently, the small group followed him down the cobweb strewn steps. At the bottom they found a rather large door fastened shut with the assistance of a heavy padlock. Dax withdrew the key from his cargo pants and knelt down. "Murielle, would you move the lantern closer to the door, please? There—yes—much better. Now let's see if I can get this thing to open," he said, going to work on the ancient device.
"Please, honey, hurry up, I'm about to burst from curiosity at what your ancestors have hidden in here." Murielle held onto a large Coleman lantern, the kind one takes with them when camping in the wilderness.
With a considerable bit of coaxing, the tumblers in the padlock moved, releasing the shackle from its casing. Relived sighs escaped everyone's lips. Dax threw his shoulder against the enormous door and pushed. After much creaking on rusted hinges, it moved enough for the quartet to enter what had once been Erik and Gabrielle DuPuis' adult playground.
Light from the lantern illuminated the immediate area. They gasped. Brilliantly colored birds, exotic flowering plants and palm trees frozen in time greeted their eyes.
"I wonder if there could be electricity down here," Dax questioned, feeling around on the doorframe. "Ah ha," he said, flicking a switch to the left of the doorframe. One hundred and twenty-eight years had not rendered the machinery useless, perhaps it was due to the care given the animations or being sealed up in the fairly dry and lightless environment, but a good many of Erik's creations sprang to life with light, sound and action.
"Mon Dieu," whispered Murielle, standing next to her husband. "Stupendous," remarked Dax, followed by a "Way too cool," from Michael.
"Erik DuPuis made this," marveled Jonathan"Only a keen mind could have realized all of this. The man was years ahead of his time. I wish I could have known him."
"I'll not even go into the implications of Gabrielle marrying someone with an imagination as vivid as her very own father," quipped Michael.
Slowly, reverently, the four of them moved through the cavern, taking in all they surveyed before stopping at the small lagoon. A curtain of warm water still trickled from a ledge and into the pool. It was as if time had stopped in this underground place.
"Where is this safe supposed to be?" Michael asked.
"In a bedroom, according to the instructions," Jonathan answered, scanning the walls painted with tropical flora and fauna.
"Here, by the banana trees, I see a seam, a door built into the wall," exclaimed Murielle, holding her lamp up for added illumination.
Jonathan, Michael and Dax walked over for a closer inspection, and found that she was right about the invisible door. "We area to push on it just as we did with the shed," said Jonathan, depressing the bottom corner of the door with his foot. It swung open with ease.
"Would you look at this? Hello twentieth century. Man, this room has Gabby written all over it," remarked Michael taking in the bedroom's modern furnishings.
"Behind the portrait is where we shall discover the safe. That's what Gabrielle's instructions say?" Jonathan felt around for another light switch. "Voila, let there be light," he said upon finding one next to the entrance.
The room's pseudo track lighting and one bedside lamp flickered on, revealing the contents of the room. All eyes were instantly drawn to the large portrait of Gabrielle, Erik and their son, hanging over the bed just as it had one hundred and twenty-seven years ago.
"I've always believed that the logic of the scientific world could—must exist and intertwine with the spiritual, but this? I am overwhelmed by what I've discovered in these past two days. It is as though I have entered an altogether different realm than the one I have lived in all of my fifty-eight years," mused Jonathan. He raked his hands through his thick head of grey hair, giving him the appearance of the mad scientist his wife often claimed he was.
"The man was a Walt Disney before Disney had even been born. Get a load of this place, Dad." Michael removed his Puma's, hopped up on the bed and gingerly removed the heavy portrait from the wall, handing it over to Dax. The absence of the art revealed proof of a wall safe receded into the plaster. Jonathan read the numbers from Gabrielle's letter to his son until finally, the lock clicked and the door opened. Inside they found the brass box containing the photographs and documents that Gabrielle and Erik had placed in there for safe keeping. The next hour was spent pouring over family photos and scanning documents for any signs of fraud. Gabrielle also left her journal, which detailed the events of her entire life from the day she landed in Paris, 1876 to what would have been the last year of her life. Gabrielle DuPuis lived to be eighty-four years old, a long life by nineteenth century standards. She never complained of any outstanding illness, however the diary did tell of Erik's death at age seventy-five.
"She wrote 'It was a heart attack which took all of his strength and life, the second of two. My beloved husband's death was mercifully quick and painless, with our children and me by his side. As I sat perched at his bedside, my hand softly stroking the long, delicate fingers of left hand—his writer's hand, Erik whispered these last words to me: "Gabrielle, my beautiful wife, do not miss me long. Know that I go to the afterlife as a man happy and fulfilled because of your loving patience and passion for me."' She goes on to write that he kissed her softly on the mouth, closed his eyes and sighed heavily. She could almost see his spirit expel from his mouth and nostrils. 'I feel as if I have lost my heart, but with my dear children by my side and the legacy left me by my husband, I know that my remaining years will be a tribute to the most marvelous man I have ever known.'"
The only sound in the cavern bedroom was the soft trickle of water from the waterfall on the other side of the door. Sentiments often bring women to tears, but in this instance all three men and the lone woman in the room were guilty of a tearful reaction. The realization that his daughter was dead to him now may have torn out Jonathan Thomason's own heart, but the awe of these new findings shrouded him in a blanket of peace and grace.
In the bottom of the brass box sat an envelope marked with an ornate red seal, a "D" for DuPuis. With trembling hands, Jonathan plucked it from the box and turned it over to see his name penned across the front. While the others sat on the bed watching, he opened envelope and removed the parchment to read: "Dear Monsieur Thomassen, Fondest greetings to you, I hope this letter finds you in good health. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Erik DuPuis, composer, architect and man of numerous talents; I am also your son-in-law. It is my sincere regret that you and I shall never meet, but through your lovely daughter's accounts, I feel I know you well. You must be as fine a man as she claims you are, for your daughter is an intelligent, compassionate and clever woman and I love her with every fiber of my being. No man deserves her, but god had blessed me with a friend, confidante, wife and mother to my children, your grandchildren. Together we have forged a relationship based on mutual admiration and respect for one another.
Monsieur Thomassen, I do grieve for your loss. Please be assured that I will endeavor to care for Gabrielle and to love her all of my living days. Your daughter will never want for anything, except maybe for you and the rest of those loved one left behind in your century. Learn of her accomplishment and whenever you take chance to listen to my sonatas for violin and piano, think of her— her beauty, love, sorrows and joys, and of the passion that binds us together; it is all there in my music.
I bid you, Monsieur Thomassen, to visit DuPuis Manor as often as you like, and consider the contents of this box yours for the keeping. Who knows? Perhaps you will realize your dream of manipulating the black holes and tears in the fabric of time and we will have chance to meet and sup together. You see, as an inventor, I, too, believe in what other's ignorantly deem unattainable. Pardon me, Monsieur, but I must take my leave now, I have children clamoring for a bedtime story.
With warm regards, your humble son-in-law, Erik DuPuis."
Jonathan was awestruck. He realized that because of his newfound circuitous lineage, the mysterious composer son-in-law, whose words he'd just read, was able to join Gabrielle, his missing daughter, in tucking in his grandchildren for the night.
How very irregular, he thought, and being a man who embraced empirical and hypothetical methods of scientific research, he turned to Michael, Dax, and Murielle.
"For the past week I was under the impression that I had lost my daughter. Instead, I have gained an entire family," Jonathan said. And as he regarded the son, great, great-grandson and daughter–in law before him, he smiled.
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Please review. I have another PotO fanfic in the works. It may take some time-I'm not as brilliant as a good lot of you when it comes to writing. As always, thanks for your support.
-Leesa