This story was written with some ambiguity in the timeline.
Be careful what you wish for
Annie was old now. She had just had her ninety-third birthday.
Sitting in the old rocking chair on the porch of the house. Her husband, Bob had built the house and rocking chair for her. Leaning back, she sipped her raspberry tea. And let her mind wander as she did so often lately.[spoiler]
Bob had started courting her when she was 14 and he was 18.
He came calling every night, and they had supper with her parents. The year she turned 16, he proposed.
âMarry me Annie and Iâll build you a cabin on Marshall mountain. You can have a big old porch and rocker to look down on the valley.
She looked her parents as they nodded, beamed.
âYes, Iâll marry you Bobbie Marshall.â she grinned, throwing herself into his strong arms. He whispered in her ear. "I 'll get you what ever you want.â
Their families had been overjoyed, gathering at the top of the mountain for a small ceremony under the fiery autumn trees. Her mother whispered into her ear, 'Be careful what you wish for, honey girl.â
âDonât worry mama, I Know what I wantâ
She lost their first baby the next summer, no one knew why. Her mother tried to console her, saying, âItâs ok, honey, maybe you was just too young.â
âI promise, honey, Iâll give you a baby.â Bob had vowed.
Three years later, her second pregnancy went terribly wrong. And she started to bleed. It was miracle that Bob arrived in time for Dr. Moran to save her, but the baby, little âHope.â was gone.
âYou ainât never havinâ another baby Annie.â Bob said, holding her as she cried. âYou was tore up inside and Doc Moran said no more babies or you could die.â
Bob carried Annie up the mountain, returned to her cabin, where she seemed to fade. By the next year Annie was a shadow of her former self, thin, her skin translucent. She made the motions but she had become a ghost.
Late one afternoon, she heard Bobâs loud truck chugging up the mountain. She put a bowl of stew in his place at their table and silverware. She waited for his footsteps on the porch but it took a long time coming.
She turned toward him as he stepped through the door and scooped her up in his arms.
âBobbie put me down, what are you thinkinâ?â
âIâm thinkinâ I have the prettiest girl on the mountain.â
âWell, you have the only girl on the mountain.â
âAnd didnât I say Iâd get you anything you wanted?â
âYou did.â
He carried her out the door and put her down by her rocker.
In the rocker was a tiny baby swaddled and asleep.
She gently gathered up the tiny bundle and asked âHowâ
âDoc Moran said he was frettinâ about you and when this babe was found on the church steps. As soon as he saw the baby, he thought of you. Caught me in town and, thereâs the baby I promised you."
âOh my loveâŚâ She kissed the baby and then Bob. âYou really can do anything, canât you?â
They called the little one Jaden Robert and raised him to be a nice little boy and then a fine young man. He went to school to be a doctor like his Godfather, DR. Moran the
Between the money Bob made logging, Dr. Moranâs help, and scholarships, the cost had been coveredâŚ
He came back a brand new doctor and promptly proposed to the Docâs granddaughter. Of course she said yes, sweet Vanessa.
They had a fine big wedding and settled into a cabin that Bob and the entire town had built for them. Just down the road from Annieâ.
Four years later, winter hit with a vengeance, record snow and bitterly low temperatures. Vanessa was heavily pregnant and her toddler was feverish. So she called Bob and he took his reliable old truck through the deep snow to the clinic. Annie couldnât go, there wasnât room for them all. As his tail lights disappeared, she returned to her cabin to wait.
The wind howled and battered the mountain, record snow fell. About midnight, the mountain rumbled and the house shook. The power went out and then the phones. She sat diligently by her fire and waited.
But Bob never came home. An avalanche had wiped out the road, crashing into his beloved truck, hurtling it down the mountain.
They buried him in the spring, in the small family cemetery behind her cabin. She planted roses along the side of the short rot-iron fence. She tended the roses religiously.
The kids asked over and over for her to move into their new home. Sheâd smile and gently tell them no.
Years passed and Annie tended her roses, rain or shine.
Decades flew by and it got harder to go out the the little graveyard, but she did.
She had just had her ninety-third birthday.
Sitting in an old rocking chair on the porch of the house her husband, Bob had built. Leaning back, she sipped her raspberry tea, and let her mind wanderâŚ
A shadow passed over her and she opened her eyes.
âYou look so young.â
âI come for the prettiest girl on the mountain.â
âIâm the only girl on the mountain."
âCome, Annie, itâs time to go.â
Without hesitation she put her hand in his.
The roses no longer bloomed, but there was one stubborn petal, standing proud. The late autumn breeze loving caressed the old cabin, then the little garden of roses, plucking the little petal from its stem and blew it away.
The old cabin lay empty. On the porch, an old woman, eyes closed and at peace had a secretive smile on her resting face.
She had been very careful what she wished for, and she got it.
