Sarah read the telegram in her hand again and sighed.

She would only allow herself a sigh. No use worrying about what she didn’t know. Not yet anyway. That’s what Jim would tell her. She had enough to worry about today. She would allow herself to worry about it tomorrow. Or maybe the next day. Or maybe (she hoped) there was nothing to worry about at all.

She walked through the house Jim had built her with his own two hands, well most of it anyway. A sweet, somewhat rambling, Indiana limestone house surrounded by ten beautifully lush acres. Smack in the front yard there was a large pond. In each windowsill, even though the house was nowhere near grand enough to carry them off, were slabs of marble. Jim had wanted her to have something spectacular and elaborate. The only bit he could afford to make elaborate on his teacher’s salary were those Italian marble slabs and by damn, he got them for her.

She entered the back bedroom, walked to the crib and stared down at Rebecca who was taking her afternoon nap. Her baby lips were puckered into a sweet frown as if she too knew the contents of the telegram.

Sarah felt the tears crawl insidiously up her throat and she swallowed them down with determination.

Jim would not like it if she cried.

She would worry about it tomorrow.

Maybe.

o O o!!!May 1943

The package came and it was battered so badly Sarah was certain whatever it carried would be broken and useless.

This upset her tremendously because it was from Jim.

Sarah thought the arrival of this package was a good sign even though the letter he’d written was from months and months ago, weeks before his plane had been shot down over Germany and he’d gone missing. They still didn’t know where he was, if he survived and was captured or if he was struggling to find a way home or if… something else.

To her surprise, the item in the package was safe and sound, a pretty, fragile-looking bottle made of swirly grape and turquoise-coloured glass. It was elegant, elaborate and spectacular. It had a full base, a thin stem that led to a wide bubble which went into another thin stem and up to another, smaller bubble then a slender neck on top of which was an extraordinary twirly stopper.

It was beautiful.

Jim wrote a letter to go with the bottle and told her he found it in a market somewhere in London and thought she simply had to have it.

Jim, as always, was right.

Sarah loved it.

However it could have been the most hideous piece of bric-a-brac on earth and Sarah would still have loved it.

She set it, pride of place, on the chest in the dining room.

Every time she cleaned, she’d carefully dust the beautiful, exotic, fragile bottle.

And she’d think of Jim.

And she’d hope he was all right and that soon, he’d come home.

o O o!!!December 1945

The war was over and a lot of the boys were home.

Not Jim.

Sarah waited but no word.

She phoned, still no word.

She wrote and no word.

She visited the War Office.

No word.

Jim, she feared, was gone.

She cried as she dusted the bottle, his last present to her, the last thing that he touched that she would also touch. Sarah had lost weight, her eyes were sunken in her head and deep, dark circles had moved in to stay underneath them.

Three year old Rebecca played on the floor in the dining room as blindly and not as carefully as normal, Sarah dusted the bottle. She rubbed it frantically, maybe a little madly, almost like she wanted to rub the colour right off of it.

The dust rag fell out of her hand and she didn’t notice it. She just kept rubbing the bottle with her hands, her fingers, rub, rub, rubbing it. She thought a little hysterically that she might just rub it forever.

The stopper fell out and she didn’t even notice.

Rebecca, seeing the pretty stopper, toddled over, grabbed it and immediately put it in her mouth.

But Sarah didn’t notice her daughter, she just kept rubbing.

And then she stopped rubbing because in a grand poof of grape and turquoise-coloured smoke that shot out of the neck of the bottle, a shape had formed.

The shape was a fat, jolly-looking man, wearing a grape-coloured fez with a little, turquoise tassel on the top. He had a bizarre outfit of turquoise and grape with an embroidered grape bolero vest and billowy turquoise trousers. The trousers ended in purple shoes that had little curls at the pointed toes. He had long gold bands affixed to his wrists that went up his forearms heavily embedded with blue and purple jewels and thick, gold hoops dangled from his ears. He had a shock of jet black hair and a jet black goatee pointed arrogantly from his chin. He had sparkly brown eyes that tilted up at the corners and looked like they were lined in black kohl.

He floated in the air, his arms and legs crossed, and he stared down at her from his place about two feet below the ceiling.

Sarah thought she’d finally gone mad. Perhaps she should have worried about Jim the minute that awful telegram came. Perhaps she should have quit wishing and hoping and thinking everything would be okay for Jim, for Rebecca and lastly, for Sarah. Maybe she should have come to terms with losing her dearest Jim, being alone, sleeping alone, eating alone and raising a child by herself on her own, single, teacher’s salary. Maybe, since she didn’t, it all crept over her through the years and made her insane.

Because only crazy women saw men floating in their dining room wearing fezzes, curly shoes and sporting goatees.

“You, my mistress, have three wishes,” the man said.

Sarah’s mouth dropped open and if she had been looking, she would have noticed that Rebecca’s did too and the stopper dropped out of Becky’s toddler mouth and rolled, unseen, under the cabinet.

“Who are you?” Sarah breathed.

“I am Fazire. I am a genie. And I am here to grant you three wishes,” he stated grandly and rather pompously.

Sarah stared. Then she closed her eyes and shook her head as she mumbled to herself, “I’ve lost my mind.”

“You have not lost your mind. I am a genie. I am here –”

“I heard what you said!” Sarah snapped at the astonished genie and then leaned down and snatched her child from the ground and held Becky protectively to her trembling body. She backed away slowly, whispering, “Go away.”

“I am Faz… er, what?” he started to say in his overblown genie voice but stuttered to a halt at her words. No one had ever told him to go away before.

Ever.

They were usually very happy to see him and quite quick with their wishes. Great wealth which he could do, it was a snap, literally. Long life, a bit harder and eternal life was not allowed in the Genie Code. Vengeance, he didn’t like to do that but a wish was a wish. And so on.

But no one had ever told him to go away before.

Ever.

And no one had ever snapped at him.

Unless, of course, they wished for something silly and it backfired on them but that wasn’t Fazire’s fault.

He tried again. “You have three wishes. Your wish is my command.”

She was still backing away. And blinking. A lot. Every time she closed her eyes and then opened them again, it seemed she was shocked to see him.

Then she ran from the room.

He floated after her, repeating over and over again the many statements of introduction that he’d been taught in Genie Training School. She was ignoring him. So much so, hours later, she packed her bags, took the pretty child with her and got in her car and drove away.

o O o!!!Two Days Later

Sarah cautiously approached her pretty limestone house. It seemed quiet and normal.

She and Rebecca had stayed with her mother. Sarah had ranted and raved and even, somewhat to her horror but she couldn’t stop herself, blasphemed.

Then she’d cried, a whole day and a whole night.

And then she’d slept while her mother cared for her daughter.

And now she was home.

And her heart was broken.

Because she knew Jim would never be home.

And she decided that if Hitler wasn’t already dead, she’d hunt him down herself and wring his silly, little neck.

Invading Poland, what kind of a fool idea was that? Didn’t he know the trouble he’d cause? So many lives, destroyed. Entire families, gone.

And Jim, vital, strong, tall, clever, wonderful Jim. He’d never again play tennis like he was doing the first time she saw him. He’d never again turn the rich, dark soil in the garden. He’d never again present her with one of his luscious Indiana tomatoes. He’d never hold her in his arms. He’d never lay eyes on his beautiful daughter.

She had to blame someone so she blamed Hitler. He was, of course, to blame for a lot of things and Sarah was happy for her religion (even though she’d cursed God only the day before). She was happy for it because her religion meant she could visualise, quite happily, Hitler stretched over a charcoal pit, twisting on a rotisserie, roasting in agony for eternity.

Regardless of her vengeful thoughts, Sarah was still weary, immensely sad and forever and ever broken, such was her love for Jim.

But, she thought, she was no longer crazy enough to see genies floating around in her house.

She no sooner opened the door and got herself and her daughter inside when the genie floated forward and shouted somewhat peevishly, “Where have you been?”

She started and then whirled to go right back out the door again.

“No, don’t go! Just give me your three wishes then I’ll grant them and go back in the bottle.” She hesitated and the genie forged on. “That’s how it works. I go back in the bottle. You put the stopper on and then you give me away, or sell me or… whatever. It just can’t be to a member of your blood family or a friend and you can’t tell anyone what the bottle does. I have to go to someone you don’t know and they can’t know what I do. And you can never tell anyone I was here or a thousand curses will fall on your bloodline forever. Those are the rules.”

Sarah had never thought genies would have rules. She’d never thought genies existed at all.

No, she shook her head, she still didn’t think genies existed at all.

Fazire watched her and realised she was still not going to believe in him.

Tiredly, because usually his task took him about five minute, not days (people knew exactly what to wish for and didn’t dally about getting it), he said, “Just wish for something, I’ll show you what I can do.”

Sarah didn’t hesitate. “I want Jim back.”

Fazire’s levitated body came down a couple of feet as he saw the raw pain on her face.

Magically, of course, he knew exactly what she was wishing and he shook his head.

That, unfortunately, as well as world peace and the eradication of all disease, poverty, ignorance, bigotry (which was also just ignorance), pestilence, plague, yadda, yadda, yadda, he could not do.

Those were the rules. The Big Rules in the Genie Code that no one broke.

The Jim he could bring back, if he broke the rules, would be no kind of Jim she actually wanted back.

“I want Jim back!” she shouted when Fazire didn’t respond. “I wish for my Jim to come back! That’s what I wish. That’s all I wish… for Jim to come back.”

After she shouted at him, her voice half an ache, half a passionate scream, she collapsed to the floor and cradled her toddler in her arms, rocking the child back and forth as the pretty, little girl’s lips began to quiver with fear at her mother’s breakdown.

Fazire found himself floating lower to the floor (he didn’t like to float low and it had been years since his feet actually touched the earth, the very thought made him shiver with revulsion). Still, something about her forced Fazire to come close to her.

“Woman, I cannot do what you ask, your Jim is gone,” he told her gently, “I cannot bring him back. You must wish for something else.”

She shook her head mutely.

“Fame, maybe?”

More shaking of the head.

“Riches beyond your wildest dreams?”

Still she shook her head.

“Good health?” Fazire tried.

She simply shook her head, still holding her child carefully and rocking the toddler back and forth.

“I just want Jim.” Her voice was broken and Fazire was at a loss. He’d not come across this form of human before. Usually he just saw the greedy ones or ones who turned greedy and grasping and hateful the minute they realised they could have anything they desired.

This was an entirely new experience for Fazire.

He didn’t know what to do. He thought about going back to his bottle and channelling the Great Grand Genie Number One to ask but instead Fazire followed his instincts.

And, as the years slid by, there would be many a time when he thought he regretted this but in reality it was the best thing he ever did in his very long genie life.

He reached out and stroked her pretty white-gold hair.

He’d never touched a human in his hundreds and hundreds of years.

To his utter shock, she turned her face into his hand and rubbed her cheek against his palm.

“I miss him,” she whispered.

“I know,” he whispered back even though he didn’t know as he’d never missed anyone but he could tell by the awful tone of her voice.

“I’ll give my wishes to Rebecca,” she said softly.

Fazire reared back an inch and stared at the small child.

“But she can barely talk!” Fazire objected.

Sarah stood up, let the child down to toddle off in some child direction with some unknown child intent in mind as, in horror, Fazire watched her go.

Then Sarah straightened, squared her shoulders and looked at Fazire.

“Well, I guess you’re going to be around for awhile,” she said quietly.

o O o!!!July Many Years Later

Fazire was sunning himself in the front yard holding the tri-panelled, cardboard-backed mirror Sarah got for him under his chin to get double sun access on his face. The golden rays were glinting happily off the pond and it was hotter than the hinges of hell and Fazire knew this to be true. He’d had a friend who visited one of his masters in hell and he’d described the excessive heat to Fazire during a channelling and humid Indiana heat in July sounded exactly like what his friend described.

He’d been there years and neither Sarah nor Becky had used a single wish nor had they shown any signs of doing this.

At first most of his genie friends thought this was hilarious, Fazire being stuck with a family in a small, farm town in Indiana, of all places, and they poked great fun at him.

Fazire, walking on the ground like mere mortals.

Fazire, wearing real clothes like humans did.

Fazire, eating blueberry muffins and strawberry shortcake just like people.

Fazire, getting a stocking filled with goodies at Christmas time.

Fazire, taking his young Rebecca on the bus to baseball games (Fazire liked… no, loved baseball and Becky absolutely lived for it).

Then Fazire would explain to them what homemade blueberry muffins, fresh from the oven and slathered in real butter, tasted like. He also went into great detail about what he received in his stocking. And he could wax poetic about a grand slam home run for more than fifteen minutes.

When he told them these stories, his genie friends got a little quieter when they were making fun. Then they got jealous. Then the settled in and couldn’t wait for Fazire to channel to tell them what he was up to next.

And Fazire was always up to something, usually with Becky.

Fazire leaned to his left and picked up the dripping wet, sweating glass of sweet, grape-flavoured Kool-Aid, his most favourite human drink – that was to say, in the summer, he loved Becky’s hot chocolate with marshmallow fluff melting on top in the winter. He slurped a big swallow out of the cool glass and spied Becky walking down to him.

She was round and jolly, just like him, and very tall. She was also very lovely with pretty green eyes and her mother’s white-gold hair. Fazire, although he would not admit this out loud to anyone, genie or human, thought of her a little bit like his child. He had helped to raise her in a way, if getting her into trouble and coaxing her to do naughty things was raising her which Fazire preferred to think it was.

Now she was a part-time photographer (she’d won a few awards and she’d even taught Fazire how to take photos) and she was married to Will Jacobs who thought the sun rose and set in her.

Fazire liked Will. Will had moved in with them rather than taking Becky away from them and Fazire approved of this. He found he very much liked having lots of people around the house and lots of conversation and more food on the table. Will was a bit intense but only in the best ways. He loved deeper, thought harder and cared more for people than, well, almost than Sarah and Becky did. He also could hold a pretty mean grudge so Fazire tried to stay on his good side.

And he knew what Fazire was and he didn’t mind a bit.

And, lastly, he liked baseball.

Yes, Will was okay in Fazire’s Book and Fazire did, indeed, have a book.

Becky waved at Fazire and then collapsed into the grass beside him. She was barefoot and wore a pretty dress. She smiled such a quirky, sweet smile it almost took your breath away. She also liked the sun, just like Fazire, and they used to spend hours outside in the summers baking away.

“Good day, Mistress Becky,” Fazire greeted cheekily.

“Quit calling me that,” she said but it wasn’t in a nasty way. In fact, she had a smile in her voice. He only called her that because it annoyed her and she was very easy to annoy. And sometimes when she was done being annoyed, it made her smile or giggle and even Fazire’s best wish granted was nothing to one of Becky’s smiles or giggles.

She was his mistress though and he tried to explain this to her so often, he lost count.

“You’re getting brown,” she observed, looking down at Fazire’s nicely tanned, suntan-oil-slicked, very-rounded body exposed by the swimming trunks.

“Do you want to go swimming?” he asked hopefully. He and Becky had gone swimming in the pond more times than he could remember. And today, such a hot day, he felt it was the perfect idea.

She turned on her side and shook her head. He noticed for the first time something was on her mind.

He threw aside his sun reflecting mirror and turned on his side too.

When Becky had something on her mind, Fazire was always there to listen.

He didn’t say a word. He just waited.

“Fazire…” she began and then looked away, “I’m scared even to ask,” she whispered.

“You can ask me anything, Becky.” And it was true. He didn’t know much and she’d figured that out years ago, considering she was very clever and she realised he spent most of his existence living in a double-decker bottle, but he would do his best.

She nodded and looked back at him, her green eyes warm but, indeed, frightened.

“Will and I have been trying to have a baby for years.”

“I know,” Fazire nodded sagely, she’d talked to him about this before. She talked to Sarah about it too. She’d tried and tried to have a baby but each time she tried, she lost it. Sometimes this was painful, sometimes she would bleed. A lot. Sometimes, no, actually every time, this was very scary for Will and Sarah and Fazire.

Losing a baby always made her sad and it was worse and worse every time.

“I want to have a baby,” she said in a rush, almost as if she was afraid of the words, afraid to hope, to wish. “I won’t be greedy, just one. I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl. It doesn’t even have to be perfect, just someone to love, someone that Will and I made, someone –”

Fazire went quite still.

All these years…

“Are you asking for a wish, Becky?”

She looked at him carefully, silently then she nodded.

He couldn’t believe it, after all these many, many years. She was older than most women who had babies these days but this, this was a wish he could grant.

He smiled at her and he reached out and touched her belly.

He looked her straight in the eyes and said, “Your wish is my command.”

But Fazire didn’t do exactly what she said.

He did make her perfect.

He made her bright and funny and very, very talented.

He made her sweet and thoughtful and very, very caring.

He made her generous and kind and very, very loving

He decided not to make her beautiful, at least not at first, because she should know humility and not grow up with conceit.

Though, she would become a beauty, a splendid beauty beyond compare.

Just… later.