Chapter 16 #3
I dropped my head to the cool porcelain and closed my eyes.
I took a couple deep breaths, smelling the tinge of lemon-scented cleaning agents.
I gripped the edge of the sink with both hands, and hit it with the palm of my right, the unyielding impact jarring up my elbow.
“Shit. Shit. God … goddamnit.” I hit it again, then again, and raised my head to slam my forehead down as well.
Then I stopped. I loosened my grip. I straightened, watching my mirror-self stand and stare back at me.
I stood there, listening to my heartbeat in my ears, feeling it pulse in my temples.
Then I gathered some of the paper towels from the dispenser next to the sink and started cleaning myself off.
When I emerged, Lyle waited at the table with two cups of steaming coffee and a pair of muffins. I sat down across from him, my back to the front door.
“It’s just black coffee,” Lyle said. “And the muffin’s blueberry. I know you said you weren’t hungry.”
“It’s good, thanks.” I sipped the coffee. “When does she … you know. When does she get here?”
“Soon.” Lyle watched me.
I met his eyes. I needed to distract myself. Not think about Amy. “So. Lyle. What’s going on? What happened back there, at the quad?”
He sat back and ran fingers through graying hair. “Where do I start?”
“Why were they calling me a prophet?”
“Yeah, isn’t that a kick in the teeth?”
“Or a punch in the gut.”
“Or that. Dad, listen. There’s a kind of movement built up around you.”
“A what?”
“You’re the Traveler.” There was an emphasis on the word. “Jumping forward in time to bring God’s word to the heathens. Or something like that. I’m not sure, really.”
“How?”
“Word got out. It’s partly my fault. Mostly my fault.”
“About me? About the time jumping?”
“Yes.”
“It got out before. That time in Madison with the reporters.”
“I remember. The media coverage. That doctor, whatever his name was.”
I grimaced.
“It’s different this time,” he said. “That story never made it far out of Madison. Online, people assumed it was another viral fake. Grabbing hits. Now it’s more believable.”
“Believable?”
“My dissertation is built around the data we collected when you jumped. My book, the one I coauthored with Rhineland, the one that got on the bestseller lists. Our theory. Theories.”
“Theory?” I felt dumb, asking one-word questions, but I was lost.
“Of everything. I was quite the scientific celebrity for a time. We all were. Makers of the Future.” He gave me a sad, pained smile. “That’s what Time called us.”
“What else? How’d it become that?” I waved in the general direction of the quad.
Lyle looked tired and old—a worn-out man who’d lived a hard life. There were crow’s feet at the edges of his eyes, partially hidden by the frames of his glasses. “The world was a mess.”
“It’s always a mess.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I remember our talks. When you were … here. But this was worse somehow. Then we came along, Rhineland and Chu and Phillips and me. We had proof of this amazing phenomenon, this entirely inexplicable event affecting one man. We didn’t know the why, or even the how, but we figured out what it meant.
The math. There are profound implications, Dad.
What’s happening to you, the consequences that arise out of it …
It might finally allow us to reconcile the macro and the quantum.
Even beyond. We might tie together the truly gargantuan with the everyday world and the quantum.
I’m talking the fundamental structure of the universe.
Theories that point to the exciting practical applications, stuff that used to be purely science fiction. ”
“Like what?” I asked, leaning forward.
“Like gravity manipulation. Maybe. Maybe stuff a lot wilder than that. There’s still a ton to work out.
But we published, and our theories got in top journals and conferences.
They captured mainstream attention. The Internet, social media, life-shares.
Pop science. People started hearing about it all over the world. ”
“But … that prophet business…”
“Our theory, what’s happening to you—it went truly viral.
Worldwide. See, the world’s a mess. There’s starvation and superstorms. Endless Resource Wars fought over oil, coal, lithium, and cobalt, over forests and drinking water, even over fresh air.
Murders and rapes and darkness everywhere.
Then there’s this. It’s unexplainable. Why is it happening to you?
It’s unexplainable, but it’s real, it’s happening, and it’s showing us a path toward the kind of future we always dreamed of but never came about. ”
“You’re talking Star Trek instead of Blade Runner.”
“That works. That’s—yeah, that’s a good analogy.
A way, just maybe, to move toward a utopia.
Some people, when they learned about it, shrugged and moved on.
Some tried to figure it out, like we did, and came up with theories to challenge ours.
Others, certain others, didn’t see science, they saw … providence.”
“Providence?”
“The work of a god. Of the God, if you prefer. Pointing the way.”
“So, it turned into a religion.”
“Maybe the start of one. Or a cult. And, there you are, exactly when and where you’re supposed to appear.” Lyle reached up and snapped his fingers.
“Jesus.”
“According to some.”
I remembered Maggie making a similar joke. Decades ago. “That’s not—”
“I know, I know,” Lyle said. He looked at me. “Twenty-two years, Dad.”
“Yesterday.”
Lyle’s eyes grew distant. “Mom’s nearly here.”
I took a breath. “Is Heather with her?”
Lyle frowned. Then he barked a laugh. “No, no. Heather and I divorced, ah, let’s see, fourteen years ago? Fifteen?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Inevitable.”
“This whole situation with me?”
“No. Not really. I was a stepping stone. She was using me.”
“To get my story?”
“Not entirely. I was useful on the cocktail-party circuit as well. ‘My famous, genius husband, the theoretical physicist, one of the Makers of the Future.’ When attention on me waned, I lost my usefulness. I’m—that’s not fair.
I shouldn’t pretend like it was all her.
I’m just as responsible. I’m … driven. As I think you know. ”
“Yes.”
“At first, early in our marriage, it was fine. She came in knowing she had to share me with my research. Share me with you. But over time … you know. She expected more, and honestly, she deserved more. I couldn’t give her what she needed.”
“Have you remarried?”
“Once, but it didn’t work out, either. No time.”
“Kids?” It was hard to get the question out, hard to imagine.
But Lyle seemed not to hear. “Time,” he said, as though musing over a deep concept, and I glanced up again to see his eyes unfocused once more. “She’s a little late. Oh, wait, she sent a message. She’ll be here in a second, the car just had trouble finding a spot nearby.”
“Oh. All right.”
I heard the door to the café open and Lyle glanced up. He broke into a smile and stood, holding up his hand. I twisted in my chair. An old woman stood in the doorway, her gray hair tied back in a bun. A slender, fragile figure in a long dress and overcoat.
She was staring at me.
“Mom,” Lyle said from behind me.
Mom.
“Amy?”
We looked at each other. I could see the shape of her.
I could see my Amy in the angles of her face, in the color of her eyes, in the form of her lips.
But she looked so different, staggeringly different, a grayed and wrinkled version of the woman I’d known.
Lyle had told me to steel myself. I hadn’t. How could I?
Amy took a hesitant step into the café. “My God.” She put a hand to the doorway.
Lyle was there in an instant, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. “Come on, Mom. Let’s sit, and I’ll get you some coffee.”
He led her to our table. I stood and she looked up at me as Lyle pulled another chair out for her.
“Scott,” she whispered. She touched my cheek, her fingers trembling. “Scott, it’s been so, so long.”
I almost twitched away. It was too raw. It was forty years in the past for her. Days for me. Standing in Beth’s kitchen. She’d laid out the divorce papers. Gotten everything ready and lined up.
I stayed in place. Met her eyes. I wasn’t sure she understood what she saw in my face, but she lowered her hand.
Lyle guided her to one of the chairs. He was gentle with her.
Caring. I could see the years in them, the years when all they’d had was each other.
And even after she remarried, the special bond the two of them had.
A closeness pulled from hardship, and, if I was honest with myself, from my absence.
It was agony. But I was also proud of Lyle, of the man he was. I was glad they’d had each other.
I stood there, swaying. Lyle caught my eye, nodded toward my chair, and moved to the order counter. I sat across from her. The love of my life.
“You look exactly like I remember,” she said. Her voice was different. She didn’t open her lips much to speak. “You look like your pictures.”
I swallowed hard, staring at her. “You look…” I paused, knowing the pause was more telling than I intended. “Good.”
Her eyes twinkled. “Liar. But thank you.”
“How—”
Lyle returned. He set a steaming cup before her. “Decaf amaretto.”
“Thank you, honey.” She glanced at me. “He always remembers.”
Lyle sat, and we fell into an awkward silence.
Amy took a sip of the coffee, the tremble in her hands making the cup rattle on its saucer as Lyle and I watched her.
Then she set the cup down and held out a shaking hand to me.
“Scott, I’m so sorry.” She waited, and after a heartbeat I took her hand.
Her skin was cool and dry, like paper. Her bones felt small and fragile beneath my fingers. “I’m so sorry I left you.”
“It’s—okay.”
“No. No, it’s not. I left you because I was scared. I was terrified. I ran away. And I’m sorry.”