Two Days Later

A sking the crew to work over the weekend to finish the work faster had been a mistake. She knew that now. First, her new puppy barked at every little movement outside, and the workers moved a lot. Second, they made a lot of noise. There was a jackhammer on Saturday that had been on and off for a few hours. Today, they were out there running new concrete. Hopefully, though, in a few days, she'd have a backyard with a fenced-in pool so that she could let ‘Little Guy' run around in there because the poor dog sure did have a ton of energy to run off.

The object that had caused her all these problems in the first place was currently sitting on the floor of her laundry room. She hadn't bothered to try to open it once she figured out that it was a case of some kind, choosing to believe that someone might have buried a pet in the backyard initially until she thought about how deep that box had been. Odds were, no one would've dug that deep to bury the family pet. And the men who were still trying to repair the damn pool had told her that the previous owner, a woman named Rosie, hadn't asked them to bury a dead pet beneath it. If it wasn't a pet, she had no idea what else it could be. The only other idea she could come up with was a time capsule, but again, she had no idea why someone would bury a time capsule, something that was meant to be dug up at some point in the future, so deep in the ground.

Violet had even done a little research on the house and what had been on this property before it. The house itself had been built in the eighties, and the land had been mostly forest before the subdivision had been built, so it wasn't a previously government-owned building or any place that might have needed to bury something in a silver metal case.

Tired of all the construction noise, she decided to take her puppy for a walk to try to get some quiet and give him a chance to walk off at least some of that energy. She stopped by the playground in the neighborhood that served the kids who lived there, and ‘Little Guy' was a big hit with a few of the kids there, who, thankfully, helped wear him out a little. Then, she walked back home, thinking about what could possibly be inside that case.

"Airplane debris?" she said, thinking that years ago, a plane could've dropped some cargo or something, and maybe it ended up being buried over when the house was built.

It was a long shot, but when she walked in through the laundry room, she saw the case again and decided that if it were a dead pet, she didn't want it in her house anyway. Her dog didn't seem interested in that box at all, though, which was another reason in the not-a-pet column, so she put on a pair of rubber kitchen gloves and wrapped a bandana around her nose and mouth because it was the best she could do. She carried the case out to her garage, and with the door closed, she set it on the workbench table that lined the wall and had been put in by one of the previous owners.

Violet looked at all sides of the case and saw minimal damage, so it likely wasn't that plane debris, after all. The case had a latch but no lock, so she opened it and took a step back, expecting a hissing sound, maybe, or something to jump out at her. When nothing happened, she reached for the lid, lifted it, and stepped back quickly again, waiting for something that never happened.

"What the hell?" she said to herself and took a step forward this time to get a closer look.

Inside was a piece of metal with some shine on it in certain spots as well as some dull spots, and while she knew nothing about welding, it looked as if it had been welded into one piece, and there was a cord hanging out of it. Violet had no idea what this thing was. She looked around the case, but the strange object was the only thing inside it unless there was something underneath it. At first, she resisted touching it, but thinking there might be an explanation for what it was or something under it, she reached for it, hoping her gloves would protect her and wishing she'd bought the gardening gloves she saw in the store the other day because they were thicker. When she lifted it up, Violet was surprised at how heavy it was. She looked under the object and, seeing nothing, placed it back down in the case.

"What are you?" she said out loud again.

Deciding to pick it back up because nothing bad had happened the first time, she turned it around in her hands a few times to see if there was a brand name or a model number. There didn't appear to be anything written on it, which was frustrating because she would've at least been able to google this thing if there was something there. The only thing she could see, besides the cable thing that was just kind of sticking out of it, was a button. And one button only, too, which was odd. Most devices had at least two, she surmised. Sometimes, on and off were two separate buttons. Other times, it was on and off as one button and an additional button to serve whatever its purpose was. But this thing had only one, which meant that it was both for both on and off.

"What do you do?" she asked.

The object had an odd shape to it, and she couldn't see anywhere that it would open up. It seemed to have no spot for batteries or to charge it, either. Nothing would pop out to sweep her floor or play music for her. It looked old, too, so she probably shouldn't be treating it as a modern device. She had no idea how old, but if she had to guess, it was at least as old as this house, maybe older. Violet set the device back into its case, heard the noisy men outside her garage door, and decided that she might as well press the button to get her questions answered. If it was really that old, and it wasn't plugged into anything, nothing would happen anyway, and she could just toss this thing out in the bin on trash day.

She took a deep breath, for some reason, and pressed the button. She didn't remember closing her eyes, but she found herself opening them all the same. Her head was on a swivel because she was no longer in her garage.

"What the fuck?" she said.

Violet was in a hospital room. She was standing near a wall and looked up to see a very strange-looking TV or maybe a projection screen on the wall that was showing a news program. The room looked strange to her, too, and she'd be able to tell – she'd spent a lot of time in a hospital room when her grandmother and then mother had both gotten sick. Her grandmother had been a diabetic and spent the last month of her life in a hospital, and her mother had been in and out of one after being diagnosed with cancer. After her second time in remission, her mom had passed away in a hospital room, and Violet was pretty sure that she knew what most of the machines that had been attached to the woman did and could probably use them herself; she'd learned so much during her time there.

These machines looked smaller, and there were fewer of them than she'd expect to see in a hospital room where someone was lying in a singular bed. The weirdest part to her, though, was the fact that none of them were making any noise at all. Violet swallowed hard, wondering how she'd gotten there when she'd just been in her own garage. With her hands still covered in gloves, she reached for and found the bandana still in place, and realizing that she probably looked like someone who was there for a nefarious purpose, she pulled the bandana down and yanked off the gloves.

"Sorry," she said. "I'm just looking for the… restroom."

The woman in the bed said nothing, but then again, she hadn't moved yet, and her eyes were closed. There was another woman sitting in a chair, holding the other woman's hand in both of her own, and she was crying.

"Mom?"

Violet turned to see a woman around her own age standing just inside the door of the room. She must have just walked in because she hadn't been there before. She, too, had tears in her eyes.

"Hi, honey," the woman in the chair said.

"Mom, the nurse said they need to take her away now."

"I just need a little more time," the woman replied and pressed a kiss to the other woman's hand. "Just a little more."

"I'll ask," the younger woman said as she wiped a tear from her face before she walked over to the other side of the bed and placed a kiss on the woman's forehead. "I love you, Mama."

Violet felt like she was invading this family's privacy, but the younger woman had just walked right by her and hadn't said anything. In no way did Violet look like she belonged in this room, but as the younger woman walked by her again to leave the room, she said nothing and didn't so much as look at Violet.

"My love," the older woman said to the woman in the bed. "I'll take care of them. Don't you worry about that. Our girls and grandbabies will be fine. And I will see you again. I know we said we'd remember that we were gifted this life together. We knew that this would happen, that we'd end up here, with you in this bed and me sitting in this chair, wishing for more, always more time with you. And I thought I'd be ready for it when the time came, but I'm not, my love. I'm not ready to go to our home and have you not be there." She kissed the woman's hand again. "But you asked me to be there for them as long as I can, so I will do that for you; for us. Then, I'll find you, and we'll have that eternity together. You are my whole heart. I will see you soon, Violet."

The woman kissed the hand again and then stood and kissed the woman on the lips. She wiped at her tears, turned, and left the room.

Violet stood there with her mouth agape. The woman in the bed, who she now knew had been dead, had her eyes closed. She had short gray hair, how a lot of old women did. Her hands were resting on her stomach, and she looked very peaceful. She also looked like something else. No, not some thing else. Some one else.

Violet turned and followed the other old woman out of the room, turning again once in the hallway to see her hugging two women about Violet's age. One was the young woman who had just been in the room, and the other one must have been her sister or possibly even her twin because they looked nearly identical.

Violet hated eavesdropping, but she couldn't help it. She needed to know. She walked a little closer and listened.

"Mom, what can we do?" the one with the shorter hair, who hadn't been in the room seconds ago, said.

"We go home. The paperwork is already done. We know what your mom wanted for her funeral, and we give that to her," the older woman replied.

"Mrs. Bailey-Armstrong?" a nurse spoke and placed a hand on the woman's shoulder. "I'm so sorry for your loss."

"Bailey-Armstrong?" Violet asked no one.

"Thank you," the older woman replied, not hearing Violet, who was only feet behind her.

"If there's anything you need, please let us know," the nurse told her and walked away.

"Mom, the kids are at the house," one of the possible twins, the one who had been in the room, said.

"I know, honey. You two can go there. I'm going to go for a walk, if that's okay."

"A walk? Mom, you shouldn't be alone right now," the other one said.

"Just a short one. I need to have a minute. Then, I'll be home."

"I'll wait. Daryn can go check on the kids," the first one replied.

"Dora, it's okay. Go with your sister. I'll be all right," the older woman said before she hugged them both.

Violet just stood there, feeling invisible and wondering what was happening because she was standing in the middle of a hospital corridor, clearly spying on these poor women, and no one was saying anything. She then watched as the three of them walked farther down the hall, but she remained where she was, trying to make sense of it all.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Bailey-Armstrong?" someone said to the older woman, but they weren't in scrubs or wearing a lab coat, so Violet wasn't sure if they were a nurse or doctor .

"Rachel is fine," she replied.

"I have one more thing I need you to sign for me. I'm so sorry," the woman said.

"Can I sign for her? I'm her daughter," the one Violet now knew as Dora said.

"Oldest twin. She's the protective one," Rachel said with a smile aimed at her daughter.

Then, somehow, Violet's eyes were opening again, and she was standing right back in her garage, staring at the device, no longer wearing her gloves but holding them in her hand.

"Holy fuck!" She covered her mouth with her hand that wasn't holding the gloves. "That was me . I'm dead." She shook her head. "No, I was dead. Or, I will be. What the fuck?"

Violet slammed the lid on the case, closed the clasp, and hurried into the house, where she stood at the counter, leaning over it, as her puppy, who was still without a name, sniffed at her feet.

"Rachel," she said softly. "Rachel Bailey-Armstrong." She smiled. "She had a ring on her finger, and so did I." She looked down at her bare ring finger. "She was my wife."