Second Time Around

by Nancy Moser

  If she was going to be involved with Lewis there was another question she had to ask. “Do you like being a maintenance man?”

  He looked toward the cross a moment, then back at her. “I have a college degree.”

  She let her jaw drop. “You do? Then why—?”

  “Why do I work as a glorified janitor?”

  She nodded.

  “Right out of college, I had an office job and used my accounting degree.”

  “What happened?”

  “It didn’t suit me. I found it hard to focus.”

  “You find focus in being a janitor?” She hated the way it sounded.

  He put a hand on her knee. “I’ve discovered that the jobs I enjoy most are the ones where I find worship in the work. A way to offer it all up to Him. Attitude is everything, Vanessa. A paycheck is frosting. Though no one else may understand it, I find worship in my work here.”

  “Wow.”

  He laughed. “Don’t get me wrong; when I’m fixing a toilet or cleaning the carpet where some kindergartner spilled grape juice, I can complain with the best of them. It takes work to find worship in everything we do. But it’s possible. It’s a goal.”

  She found herself tearing up. “I’ve never met a man like you, Lewis.”

  “Yeah, well…”

  “Excuse me? Lewis?”

  They both turned around to see a woman in the doorway leading to the narthex. “Can you come help in the office? A shelf just broke and all Pastor Bill’s books are on the floor.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Lewis turned back to Vanessa. “Sorry. I have to go.”

  “Go to it. Go worship in the work.”

  He laughed. “I’ll do my best.” He stood and put a hand on the back of her head. “You going to be okay?”

  She nodded. “Thanks for listening.”

  “Anytime. I’ll see you later, okay?”

  “Okay.” And as she said the word she knew it was true. Nineteen seventy-six was full of uncertainties, of hard times ahead—both personally and in the world—and of big decisions yet to be made. There was nothing luxurious or easy about living a life here. And yet that was exciting. A breadth of possibilities lay before her. Would she make better decisions this time around?

  Sometimes, and sometimes not. It was inevitable. But the fact that she had friends here, good friends, would help. And her mother was here. She looked back at the cross.

  She also had Jesus here. Not the Jesus of ceremonies, fancy buildings, and business connections, but a God of the heart. A God who had created her with a unique purpose that He’d help her discover.

  She’d wasted so many years in so many ways. There were only two parts of the future she would miss.

  Dudley and Rachel.

  There was a chance she’d end up marrying Dudley again. And maybe they’d have Rachel again.

  She shook her head with a certainty that it would never happen. Their marriage had been an emotional reaction to the abortion she was not going to have. Her chances of even meeting Dudley Caldwell were slim. And if she never met Dudley, Rachel would not exist in this Alternity.

  But if you go back to the future, your baby will not exist.

  She pressed her hands against her face. In a way she was being forced to choose one child’s life over another. It wasn’t fair.

  Life isn’t fair.

  She thought of the couple Lewis mentioned, the one who’d been praying for a baby. Her baby? If she stayed behind, another family could be created. That was a good thing, wasn’t it?

  Or what about the creation of a new family consisting of the baby, myself and Lewis?

  She removed her hands, letting herself breathe. Then she raised her face to the ceiling, and repeated the words she’d said in the cafeteria. “Here I am, God! Show me Your plan.”

  There was no direct answer. No overwhelming peace. And Vanessa realized there was no surefire way to know whether the decision she wanted to make was the one God wanted her to make. If her experience this second time around had taught her anything, it was that some decisions weren’t simply black or white. Gray prevailed. The best she could do was try to follow Him, try to think of the bigger picture, and then move forward. The peace came in knowing God would be with her either way.

  Time was up. She left the sanctuary to find Lewis.

  Bangor—1958

  Showing up at the Reynolds’ home at breakfast would be considered strange, if not inappropriate—two traits David Stancowsky usually abhorred but today embraced. After spending the night not sleeping in the chair in his living room, he had little use for convention, logic, or even manners. Even the risk of dire consequences had faded from neon red to a dull gray in his consciousness. Whatever happened, happened. With the discovery of Millie’s luggage in the locker, life had changed without his permission. So what good did it do to worry about some final meeting when it would all be wrapped up like stinking fish in a newspaper to be tossed in the trash?

  The sound of his feet on the porch steps was too loud, offensive, but he was unable to do anything about it. And why should he? Shouldn’t Millie hear him coming? Him, a soldier marching toward battle? Didn’t ancient warriors utilize such an ominous sound against their enemy? The sound of impending disaster, marching ever closer. Hear me, Millie? Hear me coming to do battle? To take the upper hand?

  The front door opened before he could knock. Rhonda was in a white housedress dotted with red rosebuds. She pulled the high collar together at her neck, as if it was a plunging décolletage. “David! I thought I heard someone out here.”

  “May I come in?”

  She eyed him oddly and stepped aside. “Of course.”

  They stood awkwardly in the foyer. He hoped she would forgo the “Where were you yesterday” questions.

  “May I take your hat and coat?”

  His hat! He couldn’t remember the last time he’d entered a building without removing it.

  She took his things, hanging them on the coat rack. “Millie’s making coffee for her father, and I was just going to make some eggs. Would you like to join us?”

  “No, thank you. But could you ask Millie to come out here? I need to speak with her.”

  He felt himself being studied. Rhonda put her hand on his arm. “We were worried about you, David. Yesterday. When you disappeared. Is everything all right?”

  He glared at her, causing her to remove her hand. “If you’ll get Millie…” He moved to the parlor, leaving Rhonda to do as he asked.

  A few moments later, Millie came into the room in a rush. “David! Where have you been?”

  “What do you care?”

  She blinked twice. “What’s going on?”

  He pulled the locker key from his pocket. He tossed it at her. She caught it with both hands. She looked at it.

  Then she headed into the foyer and took her coat from the hook. “Let’s go somewhere where we can be—”

  His laugh sounded foreign to him. Removed. “You want to go somewhere? Yes, indeed, I think that’s the problem. How’s New York sound?”

  She clutched the coat against her chest. Her eyes strayed to the kitchen. “Please, David. I don’t want my father to hear.”

  He stood, and with a sweeping hand, encompassed the room. “But I want them to hear. Ray? Rhonda? Would you come in here, please?”

  Millie rushed toward him, her hands trying to press down his words. “Shh. Please.”

  Ray and Rhonda appeared in the doorway. “Ah. Too late. Our audience is assembled.” He led Rhonda to the rocker, and Ray took a seat on the couch.

  “What’s this about?” Ray asked.

  “It’s about deceit. Betrayal. And don’t ask me; ask your daughter.”

  Rhonda’s hand once again found her co
llar.

  “Millie? What have you done?” Ray asked.

  Millie’s eyes filled with tears, and she flung the coat across the room. “What have I done? I’ve tried to survive. No one can fault me for that.”

  Ray turned to David. “What is she talking about?”

  Millie laughed. “See? You’ve just proven everything, Father. You don’t ask me to explain myself; you ask David to do it for me.” She moved to the edge of the coffee table, which divided them. “Between you and David planning my life, planning my wedding…”

  “Don’t use that tone with me, young lady.”

  She raised both hands in surrender, took a step back, then kowtowed. “Forgive me, almighty father, for daring to express my own thoughts.”

  He got to his feet, pointing at her. “You will show me respect!”

  “You don’t want respect, you want servitude.” She crossed to her mother, putting a hand on the back of the rocker. “You want me to be another silent, obedient, meek woman like you’ve made Mom, never daring to confront, to question, to express herself.”

  Rhonda’s eyes flitted between her husband and David. Her mouth moved, but she said nothing.

  “You leave your mother alone.” Ray offered his wife a hand, pulled her from the rocker, and deposited her on the couch beside him.

  “Mom, do something. Say something. Stick up for yourself.” Millie started crying. “Don’t let him beat you down. We’ve talked about this. You agree with me. Show him some of the spark you’ve shown me.”

  Rhonda looked at Millie with panic in her eyes. Then Ray put his hand on her knee. Silencing her. Which was fine with David. This had nothing to do with Rhonda Reynolds.

  “Can we get back on track, please?” David turned to Millie. “I want you to explain to your parents—to all of us—why you have a suitcase full of clothes and nearly three hundred dollars in a locker at the bus station.”

  Oddly, Rhonda looked at her hands, while Ray said, “A locker? Where were you planning to go?”

  Millie raised her chin defiantly. “Anywhere that’s away from both of you.”

  Her father shook his head. “This doesn’t make sense. You’re getting married. You’re planning the wedding.”

  “No, you’re planning the wedding. David’s planning the wedding. Mom and I are merely supposed to agree and marvel at your brilliance.”

  “I’m putting up a lot of money for this affair, Millie,” Ray said. “I’m doing it for you. It doesn’t matter to me if you have a big to-do—”

  “Of course it does. The president of Mariner Construction can’t allow his daughter’s wedding to be small and nondescript.”

  “You’re making it sound as if I have an ego problem—and I don’t. I’m as humble as the next man.”

  She laughed as if he’d told a joke. “You two know nothing about how a real man should behave. A loving, kind, generous… never mind.”

  Since she’d brought him up… David pulled the snapshot from his pocket. “Were you leaving town with this man?”

  Millie didn’t touch the picture.

  Ray held out his hand. “Let me see.” He looked at it. “Who’s this?”

  “My teacher.”

  “He’s more than that,” David said. “Look at the way his arm is around your shoulders. Plus, I’ve seen the two of you talk while you’re in class. It’s more than normal student-to-teacher—”

  Millie tossed her hands in the air. “Who needs a husband when one can have a spy? You see why I have to leave?”

  David moved close, his voice low. “I’d find you. I’d come after you.”

  Her chin quivered, then firmed. “But you wouldn’t have found me. Because Millie Reynolds would be no more.”

  He remembered the driver’s license. “You’d change your name. So what? There are still ways to find you. I’d find ways.”

  “Not if you thought I was dead.”

  No one moved.

  Millie straightened her shoulders. “You didn’t know it, David, but you foiled the plan last weekend in Bar Harbor.”

  His brain wasn’t functioning. “What are you talking about?”

  “When you stopped me from driving away in your precious car, in the rain. Just a few seconds more… if only I hadn’t flooded the thing, I would have been on the road, driving away from you, driving to a particularly steep, curvy point in Acadia Park.” She smiled at him proudly. “I must admit it was going to be an added bonus to let your car be involved in my plan. I was going to take great pleasure in seeing your 1958 Calypso and Burma green Pontiac Bonneville Sports Coupe with the sliding Plexiglas sun visor and the ‘Memory-maniac’ power memory seat destroyed.”

  The “Memo-Matic” power memory seat. “What were you going to do to my car?”

  She strolled past him, pulling a finger under his chin. “I thought it was our car, darling.”

  “Millie, enough!” her father said. “What were you going to do with David’s car?”

  She closed her eyes and raised her face to the ceiling. “You two. With every word you confirm my choice. You are the two most unfeeling, possessive, controlling, arrogant—”

  Without warning, Rhonda stood up. “She was going to fake her death by letting the car drive over a cliff into the ocean! She was going to take her new identity, run away, and start over with a man who truly loves her and who doesn’t feel the need to control her.”

  After her outburst, Rhonda hurried to Millie’s side, taking refuge under her arm. “Thank you, Mom.”

  “You knew about this, Rhonda?” Ray asked.

  “I encouraged it. I helped plan it.”

  All David could say was, “Why?”

  She smiled at her daughter. “I was not about to risk having Millie live the same broken, weak, beaten-down life I’ve lived. I want her to be happy.”

  How simplistic. It sounded like Rhonda. She was not a bright woman. Anyone who thought in terms of happy or sad was—

  All of a sudden David saw a pop of light like someone had taken a flash picture. But when his eyes cleared, no one was standing before him with a camera. In fact, they were all looking at him oddly.

  “David?” Ray pointed at his face. “Are you all right? You jerked like you’d been shocked.”

  David wanted to say he was fine, but it wasn’t the truth, or wasn’t quite the truth. Physically he did feel fine, but mentally… it was as though his mind was a video, fast-forwarding.

  Video. Fast-forward. There is no such thing.

  And then he knew. Knew everything. This was the Dual Consciousness! He knew all about the David Stancowsky in 1958 but also about the David Stancowsky of the future. He caught a glimpse of himself in a wall mirror and rushed to see. He was young again! Twenty-eight. He ran his hands over his face. There were only hints of wrinkles on his forehead and at the corners of his eyes. It would be years before the lines became the permanent fissures that marked his age.

  He looked down at his body. Though he’d taken good care of himself his entire life, he felt a strength now that had been absent too long. He flexed his biceps. Muscles. Power.

  “David, what’s gotten into you?”

  He turned toward Millie and his breath left him. She was stunning. She was alive! He rushed toward her, taking her face in his hands. “Millie!”

  She tried to push him away. “Let go!”

  Rhonda looked to her husband. “Ray…”

  He realized how strange his actions must seem. And there was no way he could explain it to them, to these people who thought television was a modern marvel, these people who’d never heard of computers, microwaves, the Vietnam and Gulf Wars, or that there’d been a man on the moon. The Berlin Wall hadn’t been built yet—nor torn down. They only knew of Nikita Khrushchev, Sputnik, and forty-eight states. Elvis was a
GI, West Side Story was a new show on Broadway, and Buddy Holly was still singing “Peggy Sue”—live.

  David felt Ray’s hand on his arm. “Let her go, David. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but—”

  David raised his hands, setting Millie free. She moved to the other side of the room. He couldn’t blame her.

  But then he remembered that she’d wanted to move farther than that away from him. She’d planned to run away with another man. She’d planned to wreck his car… That’s where they’d left off when the Dual Consciousness had kicked in. He finally said what had not been said. “You were going to fake your death.”

  Millie and her mother exchanged a look. Then she said, “Yes.”

  “You hated me that much.”

  She let out a breath. “I don’t hate you, David. I just need to be free of you. Free of my father. Free of the past. Free to have a future.”

  He nearly laughed. Wasn’t that the point of the Time Lottery? “But faking… you didn’t have to go to that extreme.” He wished his thoughts would calm. He needed to think clearly. “I’m just glad you’re alive. I’m just glad I stopped you from driving off the—”

  His mind skipped the here and now, and landed on the there and then. The first time through 1958 he hadn’t stopped her. She’d driven off in the rain and wrecked the car and—

  Died?

  He sucked in a breath, nearly losing his balance. “You didn’t die? You never died!”

  “What?”

  His chest was tight. Was he having a heart attack? “I have to sit.”

  He found a chair. “I’ll get you some water,” Rhonda said.

  He shook his head in total disbelief. “You never died!” Everything he’d known. Everything he’d believed. Everything he’d based his life upon was false.

  Ray put a hand on his shoulder. “David, you need to calm down.”

  They didn’t understand. They couldn’t. He bolted from the chair, shoving their attention away. “I need to go. I need to be alone.” He grabbed his coat and made for the door.

  “Stop, David. You shouldn’t be alone when you’re like this.”

  He yanked open the door and pointed a finger in Millie’s face. “You’ve been alive the whole time! I mourned for you. My entire life was spent mourning for you.”