CHAPTER SIXTY Mike
Coop’s dad was waiting in the driveway at their house when we got home so Coop hurried across the street after a quick kiss.
Old man Holder, who lived next door to the Mathews’ household, was talking with Coop’s dad, Roger, and did a double take when he witnessed the kiss.
Both of us let out a laugh at how shocked he looked.
I was nervous and unsure of what waited for me on the other side of the front door at my house. Due to Coop’s arrival, I’d rushed out an hour ago when Mom had seemed confused after my announcement that I was from a parallel universe. But then again, why wouldn’t she be?
I walked into a hushed kitchen. Druzella was consulting her tarot cards while Mom was looking through the library book. Neither were in a rush to speak.
“Find anything yet?” Druzella asked Mom. “Even a minor detail could be important.”
“From what I can tell this book is mostly about physics. A bit on black holes and how they may warp time,” Mom spoke, her finger scanning paragraphs of highly technical gobble-de-goop.
“Might warp time, huh?” Druzella mused, finally acknowledging me. “Sit,” she ordered.
“Seems impossible a black hole would be involved if what Michael says is true about parallels. Don’t black holes swallow everything? But then again what do I know?” Mom added, smiling at me.
The room felt like an episode of the Twilight Zone. Neither of them were sitting there bawling their eyes out or banging their skulls against the wall after my newsflash.
“What are you two doing?” I asked.
Druzella pointed at Mom and explained, “She’s the one who figured out how to do the time travel trick, so I guess we’re trying to figure out how she brought you here?”
I was in total disbelief. Mom hadn’t said anything about where I’d come from, who I might be, how the switch was possible, or even that I must be entirely out of my mind.
I turned to Mom. “So, you just believe my story?”
She nodded and smiled, getting back to her book.
“I tell you I’m from the future and you’re just like . . . like . . . shit, I don’t even know what you’re like right now.”
“I’m like your mother first off, and secondly, you don’t cuss in my house, young man. I don’t care how old or young you are. You are still my son. And of course I believe you,” she said.
“Just like that?”
“Just like that, Michael. Why would you lie to me?”
“Did you two want some sorta proof?” I asked.
“I know you’re not eighteen, Mike,” Druzella stated. “I sensed it the second I met you, but sure, why not show your mother what you have. I can’t lie, I’m as curious as a cat too.” Druzella glanced around the room, mostly the floor area. “And you’re sure you don’t have a cat?”
Mom hadn’t looked up from her book but still managed to follow the conversation. “Michael’s father was allergic to cats,” she said. “But I think he just despised the clever animals to tell you the truth.”
“I sense a cat,” Druzella said. “Here. In this very room.”
Mom looked up. “Nope.”
Druzella gathered her cards and then folded her hands on the table top. “Okay. What ya got?” she asked.
Mom closed the book and both of them leveled their gazes on me. After ten seconds someone finally spoke. “Well?” Mom asked. “Let’s get this show on the road, son.”
I pointed upstairs. “In my bedroom. Follow me,” I said, pushing away from the table and heading upstairs.
The three of us marched single file up the stairs, me leading the way.
I paused at my bedroom door until we were all in the hall.
“Like so much other shi . . . stuff,” I quickly corrected.
“What I’m about to show you is strange.”
I opened the door and gestured for them to step inside.
I made my way to my desk and pulled a drawer out, retrieving a file folder I’d buried under a bunch of crap I’d collected as a teenager when I first lived here.
I opened the accordion style folder and reached inside, pulling out a necklace with a ring dangling from it.
“Recognize this?” I asked.
Mom gasped. “Where did you find that, Michael, and why is there a chain on my Mother’s ring?”
I smiled at Mom, preparing for something of which I wasn’t quite sure of.
I figured we’d start here before I dropped the big bomb and blew their minds.
Since securing the contents of the folder, I’d run through this situation a million times in my head.
How would Mom react? Would she be afraid, sad, or even think I was a demon or some shit?
“You always misplaced this ring,” I began.
“Whether at the kitchen sink, your bathroom, or the garden. You’d take it off and think you’d lost it.
Three years ago I was visiting from Seattle and you dropped the ring down the drain,” I continued, watching Mom’s eyes filling.
“I removed it from the drain and then bought you this necklace at Kelso’s jewelry for your birthday. ”
“And you did this in the future?” she asked. “I haven’t even told you I lost it again,” she added.
“I know, Mom, but you will tell me. We’ll find it when we dig Christmas stuff out of the closet this year.
You just don’t know that yet,” I said. “You lose the ring several more times. But then you started wearing it around your neck, kissing it whenever one of us reminisced about Coop in some crazy story.”
Her eyes widened.
Druzella understood immediately and reached for her hand.
“No,” Mom whispered. “No, please, Michael,” she pleaded, realizing what I meant.
I reached for her hand to calm her down. “You told me about this shortly before August 30th of 2023. You explained to me that I had to have the ring in my hand or around my neck before I followed your other instructions to get here.”
A tear trailed down Mom’s face when the reason I was there became clear. “Cooper died?”
“Tomorrow, Mom,” I whispered.
“You have to do something, Michael,” she urged, panicking and turning to Druzella. “We . . . we . . . have to help him.”
“That is precisely what Mike is trying to accomplish,” Druzella said.
“Can you sit down in my chair?” I asked. “I need to show you the final proof, Mom.”
“Is it bad? Do you know our future, Michael?” she gasped.
Druzella interrupted. “Him being here alters the future now, Kathleen. We cannot be sure how it will change from here on out.”
Mom appeared frantic. Staring at me and then at Druzella while scratching at her arms in despair. “I don’t want to know things,” she insisted, her voice rising. “I cannot know anything about myself, Michael. Promise me you won’t . . . please, son?” she cried, grabbing my arm.
“I won’t,” I promised. “The thing is, Mom, you sent me here because you wanted me to find happiness with Cooper again. My life was going, well . . . I was unhappy. You somehow had this connection to Coop. Apparently, you spoke to him. Druzella and you discovered or invented something, hell, I don’t know how you pulled it off, but I woke up here on June 13th of 2013.
More than ten years earlier than where we were.
Even Druzella was there but I didn’t meet her until I came here. ”
“You can’t live without Cooper, honey,” she declared, still stuck on the horrifying news. “How’d you survive his death?”
“I’m not sure I did, Mom. You obviously don’t know but I was married and was about to . . .”
She held up her hand, shaking her head forcefully. “Nope. Zip it.”
She didn’t even want minor details of our lives in the future. “You must’ve known I was dying inside without Coop,” I stated. “You knew I needed another chance.”
Mom turned to Druzella. “That explains the insanity of whatever we did, Druzella. Michael could never exist without Cooper. They were matched from birth,” she explained.
Druzella’s eyes expanded. “Of course,” she whispered, placing a hand to her cheek.
“I get it now. I knew that but how did I miss the chart match? Michael and Cooper share the same chart,” she added, seeming to still be analyzing the situation.
“But the August 30th connection? Mike mentioned that date to me. So very specific for you, Kathleen. I don’t get that angle. ”
I caught Druzella’s attention from behind Mom and slowly shook my head. Don’t do it lady. Do not go there.
Thankfully she caught herself. “Probably not as important as the dual birthdates,” she added, adjusting her inquiry.
Mom became excited when she’d understood Druzella’s idea. “And the ring with the three identical stones,” she began. “Of course. Me, Michael and Cooper. Three birth months and three ruby stones in a golden circle. We completed the circle of life,” she said.
Druzella gestured to the folder. “What else?” she asked.
“I’ve seen enough,” Mom replied.
“Whatever he has could be important, Kathleen. Let’s have a look, Mike,” Druzella insisted.
“Please sit, Mom,” I urged, reaching into the folder.
Mom sat down while Druzella moved to her other side.
“I won’t bore you with the technicalities, but I managed to do something that at the time seemed impossible,” I began.
“I emailed myself from the future, backdating the email so I could send evidence in case I forgot what happened to me, and apparently it worked.
I pulled the printed copy of a photo from the folder, staring at myself as a man, and then slowly turned the paper around to face them both.
Mom reached for the picture and gazed at it for at least a minute and a half. She began to softly weep and dab at her eyes as she studied the details of my face. When done, she lifted her eyes to mine. “It’s you, Michael,” she whispered.
“You recognize me, Mom?” I asked.
“You’re my son. Of course I recognize my own son,” she stated. “Honey, you are so handsome,” she said, running a finger across my image. “So grown up too, but there’s such sadness in your eyes. What happened?”
“Cooper died, Mom. And to a certain extent, so did I.”
Mom held the page closer, examining the image before handing it to Druzella. “Look at the date on the newspaper,” Mom urged. “August 30th, 2023.” Druzella handed the page back and Mom spent more time looking at the photo. “We put French doors in the kitchen?” she asked. “I love them.”
“We did that in 2021 or 22, I think. You wanted to open the kitchen to the back yard,” I explained.
“Where is the Michael that lived here on June 12th?” Mom suddenly asked. “The Michael from before you got here?”
“What do you mean, Kathleen?” Druzella asked.
Mom looked confused or distressed. Maybe both. “The boy who went to bed on the twelfth right here,” she explained, touching the edge of my bed from her position on the chair. “What about you, Michael? Did you switch places?”
“I’m not sure, Mom,” I responded. “I know less than you do.”
“Who will be here if you leave? Are you leaving?” she asked, the reality of my disclosure finally hitting her. “Is he leaving, Druzella? Who’s left when he does?”
“We have no way of knowing that answer,” Druzella answered. “I’m not sure if Mike can leave to be honest.”
“Michael?” Mom asked. “But you’re really twenty-eight, correct?”
I nodded a confirmation.
“Do you want to live here in this house as a twenty-eight year old?”
“I’m not sure I have that choice, Mom.”
Mom looked past me, staring at something only she could see in her mind. The woman I knew as rock solid, the epitome of optimism and positivity, was completely perplexed.
“I’ve lost ten years with my only child,” she said. She returned her gaze to me. “And you’ve gained ten years.”
“You haven’t lost ten years, Kathleen,” Druzella reassured. “Mike has ten years of experience that you aren’t aware of, but you’ll still have the years ahead with him.”
“I don’t want you to be stuck here, honey,” she stated, reaching for my hand. “That wouldn’t be fair.”
“I made my decision, Mom. I wanted to see Cooper again. I wanted to spend more time with him and with you.”
Watching her face as understanding of what I said dawned on her, was gut wrenching.
“Oh my God!” she exclaimed, studying my face. “I died too, didn’t I?”
“Mom?” I whispered, choking up. “You said no information about you.”
“Why else would I have done this?” she asked, making more of a statement than asking a question.
“You were about to tell me you divorced. Knowing me I waited until your marriage ended, didn’t I?
” Mom looked at Druzella before placing her hands over her face and leaning forward to let out a devastating sigh.
“You were without him. All those years without your Cooper. Of course, I wanted you to be happy. Why else would I have done this?” she repeated, her voice muffled due to her hands over her mouth.
I bent over, touched her arm and encouraged her to look at me. “You gave me a wonderful gift, Mom. A gift I will forever be grateful for. Thank you for this.”
“But you’re stuck here, honey,” she whispered, lifting her head, her face wracked in pain.
“Yeah, maybe I am, but I’m stuck here with the two most important people in my life,” I said. “Trust me, I can easily repeat ten years with the two of you.”
The three of us spent another hour talking about what had happened.
We went over the repercussions of my choice and what that could mean for all involved, but ultimately Mom and I agreed we were fortunate.
I assumed Mom would have a million questions.
I figured she’d want to know all about my life, her life, her friends, maybe even the world, but she didn’t want to know a single thing.
We agreed that no matter what, we’d never speak of what was to come.
Druzella agreed with the decision. Her reasoning made sense as well. She figured that my arrival could change our paths from then on so why not plan on being open to new possibilities rather than try to have me keep track of what comes next from my list of memories.
“I’ll never know why this happened or how I did it,” Mom told me. “But we certainly live in a wonderful world, don’t we?”
Druzella and I nodded.
Her words were never truer than then. “How about we make the best of it, Michael?”
“How about we do exactly that?” I concurred. “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, honey,” she said, smiling through happy tears, her stunning green eyes sparkling. “How about we start today? Is Cooper coming over for dinner?” she asked.
“As always,” I said.
Mom stood up and grabbed the necklace from the table and placed it around my neck. “I think I’d like it if you’d wear this for us, son,” she said. “And how about we add a stone for your father too?”
“What stone is for April?” I asked, liking her idea immensely.
“Diamond,” Mom said proudly. “Like a diamond in the sky. That was your father.”
I squeezed the ring tightly in my hand causing the necklace to tighten around my neck, a reminder of all that matters in our lives. The love for family and the families our love creates.