Timebound(36)

My lower lip began to tremble and I bit down hard to steady it. Trey put a protective arm around me.

“I would like to be able to say that I wish you luck in… whatever this is that you are planning to do,” Dad said. “But that would be a lie. How can I look at my two kids over there and do anything other than hope you fail?”





8





I don’t really remember going back to the car. Trey helped me inside and pulled the seat belt over me, snapping it into place. “I’m sorry, Kate. I’m so sorry.” There were tears in his eyes. He gave me a soft kiss on the forehead and drew me into his arms. At that point, I broke down, sobbing against his shoulder. I held on to him tightly. As much as I hated to seem needy or weak, after a day in which I had lost my mother, my father, and in every way that mattered, my own existence, I desperately needed the human contact.

He held me for several minutes and then I pulled away. I was still crying, but I said, “I’m okay. We need to go.”

“You don’t sound okay, but yeah… let’s get out of here.” He rummaged around in the console and found some napkins from a fast-food place. “Sorry, I don’t have any Kleenex,” he said. I took the napkins, dabbing at my eyes and nose.

I glanced back at the picnic table. The youngest boy was in Dad’s lap trying to get his attention, but Dad continued to stare at the car as we drove away. He looked miserable and I felt a surge of guilt for putting him through what was, in the end, very unnecessary pain.

I was glad Trey wasn’t the type to say I told you so, but I acknowledged the fact anyway. “You warned me. I should have listened.”

We drove, without saying much, toward DC. Somehow I dozed off, my head against Trey’s shoulder. When I awoke we were on the Beltway, a few miles from the turnoff to Bethesda. Trey was singing softly to an old Belle and Sebastian song. He had a nice baritone voice, and the car was dark, except for the dashboard lights and headlights on the highway. I had the urge to close my eyes and stay in the moment, not thinking about anything else that had happened.

“I’m sorry, Trey,” I said, sitting up. “You’ve been wonderful to chauffeur me all over two states, and I thank you by falling asleep.” I noticed that his sleeve was damp—had I been crying in my sleep? Or yuck—drooling?

“No apology necessary,” he said. “I think you needed to shut down for a while. I was going to have to wake you pretty soon, though. I don’t know where your grandmother lives, except that you said it’s near school.”

At the thought of Katherine, I felt another wave of guilt. I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was nearly nine o’clock. I knew my grandmother had to be frantic, and although I was still a bit angry, it was less at Katherine than at this faceless, future grandfather who had reached out from someplace I couldn’t even imagine and snatched away my entire life.

I should have gone back to Katherine’s house, rather than trying to pull Dad into this. Brief images flashed through my mind—the two boys running by the pond, Robbie crawling into Dad’s lap—and suddenly I felt protective of them.

“Trey, what if he’s right?”

“What if who is right?”

“My dad… Harry. I mean, I’m going back to my grandmother’s and she says that I’m the only one who can set this straight—who can fix the timeline. I don’t know what that means, what she wants me to do, or if I even can do it—but what if I succeed and those little boys don’t exist when I’m done? How can that be a good thing? Maybe Harry is better off there—with Emily, with that family. And who else exists in this timeline but not in the other? Who has the right to say that the other timeline is better?”

Trey thought for a long time before he answered. “I don’t know, Kate. But someone—apparently your grandfather—is going to a lot of trouble to change things, and he sounds like he doesn’t much care who ceases to exist in the process. You, on the other hand, are actually bothering to ask that question, even though you didn’t create this problem. So I’d trust your judgment more than I would his if someone has to pick and choose between timelines—do you follow my meaning?”

“I guess so, but…”

“No, let me finish. You told me earlier that you’re pretty sure that you don’t exist in this timeline. And based on what we’ve both seen, I think you’re correct. Sooner or later, something will separate you from that medallion and I think you’ll pop out of existence just like those photographs.” He reached over and took my hand. “And if that’s true—well, I’ve decided I don’t really like this timeline.”