Chapter 15 #3
“No,” Rhineland said. “Not in the sense of a trio of cackling sisters tugging at the strands of fate, deciding our actions before we even know them. But determinism in the sense that what has led us to this point is the only way things could have gone—because that’s the way they went.”
“I had some undergraduate history professors who would scream bloody murder at that thought,” Lyle said.
Rhineland chuckled. “Historians will be historians. That’s all I’ll say on that.”
“Okay,” Heather said. She tapped something and the hologram disappeared. She slipped the bracelet back on her wrist and looked up. “How about off the record?”
Our appetizer arrived at that moment and paused the conversation. I tried the expensive dish and decided it tasted like rubbery pieces of flavored dirt. I stopped after one piece.
“Off the record,” Rhineland said, having devoured a large portion of the appetizer by himself. “Off the record, we’re all wondering not just the how, but the why.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Why me?”
“Yes, you are—and I don’t intend this as an insult in any way—a rather normal individual.”
“That has always been my biggest weakness.”
“And, of course, assuming there is a reason ‘why’”—Rhineland looked around at each of us—“who, or what, made that decision?”
The table fell silent. The restaurant clattered and rang and laughed. I gripped my martini glass and watched the fake candlelight dance through the clear liquid.
“Hmm,” Heather said. “That is a thought.”
“Indeed,” Rhineland said.
“There’s more,” Lyle said.
“There always is.”
They were silent a moment, the question left briefly unasked.
I asked it. “Can we stop it?”
The words hung over the table like a tangible weight, dragging us down.
Our soups and salads arrived, and Heather managed to restart the conversation, this time about Lyle and where he might take his career.
I ate and did my best to listen and make encouraging comments and noises.
I was getting tipsy from the martini. I’d always been a lightweight, and the restaurant served it strong.
When our entrees arrived, Heather kept the conversation alive, touching on various topics: their marriage and honeymoon, their decision to get a dog, Lyle’s preferences for places he wanted to work, Heather’s dream to publish a nonfiction book.
Throughout it all, Rhineland maintained polite conversation, but his eyes rarely left me.
I felt the intensity of his gaze, the strength of his intellect as he contemplated me like a curious specimen presented in his lab.
My mind drifted, carried along by the alcohol.
I found myself thinking about what Lyle might have done if none of this had happened.
He had the brainpower for theoretical physics.
But he could have done anything. It was clear his path had diverged the moment I started jumping forward through time.
He could have been a surgeon. Or a biotech scientist who discovered some radical, lifesaving medicine or treatment.
Someone who saved lives, changed the world for the better.
That wasn’t fair to him. I knew that even through the buzz. He’d made his choices, and I should let him own them. But it was impossible not to feel like the train of his life—his predestinated path, as it were—had derailed right alongside my own.
The conversation continued around me. I was silent as the others ate and talked, and they let me be silent, although Rhineland sent more than one glance in my direction.
I watched Lyle navigate the adult, multilayered conversation with Rhineland. This grown-up version of my son. I felt wrong. Displaced. I wasn’t supposed to be there.
I was so full by the end I declined dessert, despite the many wonderful-sounding options.
“Are you sure?” Rhineland asked. “It might be the last time you can have sugarless chocolate cake.” He smiled, giving every appearance his words were meant to be humorous, a joke based on his earlier faux pas.
But looking at him, into his eyes, I felt something else entirely.
It was a challenge, to see how I would react. A test. I wasn’t sure why.
“I’m fine.”
The waiter, oblivious, nodded and promised to return with the check. Lyle and Heather both registered the odd remark. Neither commented, but I saw stiffness in Lyle’s shoulders, and Heather’s lips compressed in a tight line. When the check came, Rhineland paid without a flicker of complaint.
Outside, in the growing darkness, he turned to us.
“Good evening, then.”
“Thank you again for dinner,” Lyle said.
“Yes, thank you, for—for dinner, and your help, with everything,” I said.
“Of course, of course. The most fascinating phenomenon to occur in the last century. I’m just happy to be a part of it.
” With that, Rhineland walked off down the sidewalk, giving us a behind-the-back wave as he went.
When he disappeared around a corner a few blocks down, Lyle and Heather let out small but audible breaths, like they’d been holding them throughout the entire dinner.
“Let’s go home,” Heather said, sounding drained.
“I’m beat,” Lyle said.
I nodded. I was exhausted, too, and the martini buzz had worn off to leave behind the alcohol-induced sleepiness I always felt when I drank.
And I couldn’t get Rhineland’s smile, oh so genuine, out of my mind.
“Come on,” Lyle said after a moment, and he and Heather took me back to their modest apartment.