Dreams, Memories & Keys

Chapter 35 - On the Radio

"Mrs. Randall?" the face of the intruder at the Dublin radio station registered shocked surprise as he stared at Jessie.

Jessie stared back, then nodded.

"Why are you here?" the intruder demanded.

"Why are you?" Jessie shot back. "I don't think you're supposed to be in here."

"He's not," the assistant to the producer confirmed.

"But Harald is here, in the studio! I heard him on the radio. I have to tell him! I have to explain!" the stranger insisted.

"Why?" Jessie asked.

"Because ..." He shrugged helplessly as he struggled with what he wanted to say. "You know ... you remember."

Jessie didn't say anything, obviously thinking, trying to figure out what he was talking about and what she should do. This man seemed to be confused, lost in his existence in another time.

Meanwhile the police who had been summoned entered the corridor coming from the lobby, apprehending the man on either side.

"Wait," Jessie urged, still obviously thinking.

"Do you know this man?" Mr. Rushton, the producer of the show asked, joining the growing throng in the space outside the engineering room.

"Sort of," Jessie told him. "Mr. Briscoe, you have to be good," Jessie urged looking at the stranger. "Why are you here?"

"Do you know him?" the assistant to the producer asked Susan.

"No, I don't think so," Susan assured him, looking at the man carefully. Obviously, he was someone Jessie recognized, probably from a past life. But she didn't think she'd seen him before in any life.

Meanwhile Jessie turned back to the man being held between the two policemen, waiting for an answer to her question, her hand on her hip in a pose anyone who knew her would recognize.

"I'm Mr. Dunham now. I'm here to see Harald," the stranger explained more calmly than before. "I heard him on the radio just now. I knew it was him and that the show was being broadcast live. Gary Gaffney said so. So, I had to come!"

"Why?" Jessie asked again.

"I need to apologize to you. What I told you and Egg was wrong. But above all, I need to apologize to him too, and to thank him!" Mr. Dunham declared, his voice rising again. "He saved me, and my family!"

Jessie glanced over her shoulder at her papa and his cousin in the booth where the two men continued to talk, their voices coming into the outer room through the speakers up near the ceiling along the wall. They were still talking about the Master's House and the role the place played as a footnote in history for the Jewish people of the time. Jessie could hear them where she stood. So could everyone else, and Susan suspected the content of Greg and Gary's conversation was providing the context and background for what was happening now.

"I'm Jessie now. My papa was Harald, a long time ago," Jessie replied, turning back to Mr. Dunham, trying to calm him down.

"I knew it! I knew it!" Mr. Dunham all but shouted.

"Shhh!" Almost every person in the studio did their best to shush Mr. Dunham, though it was clear they would have preferred to escort him out.

"You have to be quiet," Jessie told him in a whisper.

Mr. Dunham nodded. "Yes Ma'am," he said quietly. Double checking what he was certain he already knew, he asked, "Is your papa Harald?"

"Not anymore," Jessie told him.