There was a camera with a telescopic lens mounted on a tripod behind where Anne was sitting. "So it could be heat waves-like mirages?" she suggested.
"Yes it could be, dear," the woman answered, backing through the screen door with a tray of tea and homemade biscuits. She placed the tray and poured the tea. "It could be heat mirages, but it's not," she went on mysteriously. "You see the house there in the mist? We rarely get a summer mist, and when we do, Reg knows to have the camera set, don't you, Reg?"
"That I do," Reg assured supportively.
Anne was looking at photographs of the house through mist. It was definitely there. The image was milky and distorted but there was no denying the distinct lines of a small cottage. "Oh my God. It is the house," she exclaimed. "And the truck. I drove that truck to town. That's it exactly!"
"You drove it, dear? What do you mean, you drove it?" Ethel asked sharply.
Anne had turned more pages with similar photo series of both the hay field and the house in the mist. "I mean yesterday I was at the house and had some sort of dream or vision or something where I was back there in nineteen sixty-eight, there in the house and driving the truck to town to do the shopping. I was there with Nick, as real as I am sitting here right now."
The old woman was nodding. She bent closer, peering into Anne's eyes. "I see," she said, nodding more affirmatively.
"You see what?"
The old woman lifted another few pages of the photo album and opened to a page that had the wedding photo Anne had seen in the house; the one from the cutlery cupboard. It was not a print. It was the actual photo; the original. "That's what I see," the strange old woman said. "Or rather-who I see."
Tears welled in Anne's eyes. "I was her. I looked in the mirror and I was her."
"Yes, dear. I can see you are young Patricia. Look at her eyes, Reg. Look beyond them."
Anne peered from the old woman to her kindly husband. He was smiling. "Yes, I saw yesterday," he answered easily. "You were right she would come visit us one day."
Anne started crying. She was overwhelmed by the simple truth of the situation. It was absurd but it was plainly true and real. She knew it in her heart.
"You see, dear, we've never seen you." Ethel was turning pages and showing Anne through the photo series. "You see young Nick there in his hay shed, and there washing up at his wash stand? And there he's just standing, looking at the house in the mist." The photos were compelling. "But we've never seen Patricia. It's as if he's waiting for her, don't you think? He's been here all these years, like it's moments to him, and he's waiting for his wife."