First Love, Lost Love — Jory Sherman

My wife and I live in Pinewood Lake, California. We are, or were, happy until I became haunted â€" my mind possessed by a girl and memories from my past. Now my wife is confused and frightened, as am I. Why are the memories of my first love so overwhelming? Why am I letting them affect our life? Will revisiting the past drive us apart, or prove we were meant to be together? Chapter 1: In the Beginning There is confusion here in this mountain place, all because of a girl I lost over twenty years ago. She was buried in memory for so long I thought she would never reappear, but she has, and I must try to put her into focus. Especially now, now that I'm happy and married to the dream I had all my life. The lost girl came back to me in the form of a phone call, then took on further flesh in a letter, and I saw her once, a few months ago, so that she became suddenly real again, suddenly confusing. Her name is Ariel, which is appropriate. It means "the wind" and that's the way she's been with me, vagrant and elusive, ghostly and singing all the sad gone years that have passed through me. Ariel Singer, her maiden name twenty-odd years ago, a million years ago in a small mountain town like this one, only 1600 miles from here. I live in a place called Pinewood Lake in California. I'm Joey Victor and my present wife's name is Annette. She's a ghost herself, though she doesn't know it. I love her and she hardly knows that either. This is my predicament and it's so complicated I may not be able to explain it to anyone.