The Best Gift

by Markham, Wendy

  Three years ago.

  Chapter Five

  As the ground sways violently beneath Drew’s feet and car alarms begin to wail out the driveway, he’s swept by a violent vision.

  A glimpse of gray shoreline riddled with smoke and fire. Deafening chaos erupting all around him; gunfire and urgent commands and the anguished screams of dying men. He’s in the water, and his mouth is filled with the salty, metallic taste of fear, or seawater, or blood . . .

  Drew has been here before, countless times, in reoccurring nightmares and odd, fleeting, waking-hour recollections of scenes from an old war movie he must have seen once, a long, long time ago.

  “Drew!”

  At the sound of Clara’s voice calling for him and opens his eyes to find that the shaking has stopped as suddenly as it began.

  He can hear sirens in the distance, mingling with the wail of the car alarms still going off in the driveway. It’s an eerie sound, and one that has accompanied every earthquake he’s ever experienced.

  “Drew!”

  “Clara! Where are you?”

  “I’m in here!”

  He frantically picks his way through a litter of toppled housewares and broken glass to his wife’s side. She’s crouched in the doorway between the foyer and the living room, surrounded by pottery shards and fallen furniture, looking shell-shocked but physically unharmed.

  “Are you okay?” He helps her to her feet.

  She leans into him, trembling. “I think so. I’m just . . . I don’t know, for a minute I thought I was . . . God, that was so scary.”

  “Quakes always are, but—”

  “Quakes?” Her expression is blank.

  The sirens Drew can hear outside the house seem to sound inside his head as well, as though warning him that something is terribly wrong with his wife. Clara is looking at him as though she has no idea what he’s talking about.

  “Did you get hit on the head?” he asks, gently running his fingers over her hair. He doesn’t feel a bump or any open cuts, which is a good sign.

  Then he remembers—it could be far worse than a bump on the head. She’s pregnant.

  “Is the baby okay?” he asks, trying not to sound as frantic as he suddenly feels inside.

  “Baby?” she echoes, so cluelessly that he’s certain she must have a concussion, or worse.

  “Clara—”

  “Oh, God. The baby.” She touches her stomach with a trembling hand.

  “Do you have any pain there, or any . . . anything?”

  “No . . .”

  “So you think the baby is okay?”

  “I guess so. I mean . . . how do I know for sure?”

  He cups his fingers reassuringly over hers.

  “I know,” he tells her. “It’s okay.”

  She nods and looks around as if she’s disoriented. “Drew, it was horrible. It was Christmas, and I couldn’t find you, and—”

  “I was in the kitchen when the quake started, and you were going to get the paper—”

  “The paper . . . there was a headline . . .” She shudders. “About the quake. It was catastrophic.”

  Vaguely confused, he tells her, “It was bad, but not catastrophic, I don’t think.”

  “No, it said so in the paper.”

  “Clara . . . honey, I think you must have gotten hit on the head or something.” Again, he touches her scalp. “Does this hurt?”

  “No.”

  She’s lying, he realizes, because she squeezes her eyes closed, almost in a wince.

  “Do you think I might have blacked out or something, though? Because I had this . . . I don’t know, this dream or something, that I was here, in this house, and it was Christmas, but you weren’t here, and there was this huge dog, and—”

  “We need to get you to the ER,” Drew tells her.

  Her eyes snap open.

  “I’m fine, but the dog—”

  “You just said you blacked out.”

  “No, I . . . I don’t know, maybe I was just scared. I had this flash of—I guess I was just imagining things, you know?”

  Does he know? No one knows better than he does about strange flashes of imaginations.

  “But the dog,” she repeats, looking around.

  “Dog?”

  “The puppy,” she says impatiently. “Where’s the puppy?”

  Puppy?

  It takes Drew a few seconds to remember the new puppy and realize she’s not hallucinating again, and another few seconds to recall the new puppy’s name.

  “Dickens!” he calls tentatively, and is rewarded with a faint bark from somewhere in the back of the house. Moments later, a furry black cannonball launches into the room, yapping excitedly.

  Drew scoops him up and the dog licks his face.

  “And you knew that earthquake was coming, didn’t you? That’s why you were acting so weird. You even went into the doorway. You’re the smartest dog ever.”

  “And the luckiest.” Clara shakes her head at the shambles surrounding them. “Thank God nothing fell on him—or us, for that matter.”

  “Are you sure you’re not hurt anywhere?”

  “Positive.” She looks more like herself now. “But those car alarms are going to give me a headache.”

  He sets the puppy on its feet and looks around for a set of car keys to go turn them off.

  “That really wasn’t catastrophic?”

  Struck by something in her voice, he turns to see her hand still pressed protectively over her stomach, a worried look in her eyes.

  “I don’t think so, but it was scary.”

  Clara nods in silence

  “Hey,” Drew says, “it’s okay. We’re together. We survived. We always do, right?”

  She smiles faintly at him. “You’re right. We always do.”

  Chapter Six

  As Drew steps out the front door, car keys in hand, Clara releases the breath she’s been holding since . . .

  Well, since 2012, she thinks wryly—but only for a split second, before wry gives way, once again, to sheer disbelief.

  And yet, why wouldn’t she believe she just slipped, for a few terrifying moments, into the future? Didn’t she spend days at a time in the past and not only live to tell about it, but fall in love?

  Twice for that matter. In love with Jed in 1941, and in love with his modern-day counterpart who, of course, has no idea that his wife tends to zip back and forth in time.

  But I almost gave it away just now.

  Outside, one car alarm and then the other fall abruptly silent, leaving only the distant whine of sirens. Any second now, Drew will be back and she’ll have to go back to pretending everything is as okay as it can be in the aftermath of a visit to the future . . . let alone a quake that was, indeed, catastrophic. At least, according to the 2012 newspaper.

  Maybe she should tell Drew what really happened. He was so worried about her just now.

  And she always knew, deep down, that she’d tell him the truth one day. Either because she wanted to, or because she had to.

  But neither is the case right now, Clara reminds herself. You don’t want to, and you don’t have to.

  Drew seemed to buy that she was just shaken up from the earthquake. In fact . . .

  Did she hit her head and imagine the whole thing?

  She reaches up to probe around beneath her hair, searching for a tender spot, finding none.

  Come on, who are you kidding? You didn’t imagine it. It really happened.

  “Clara?” Drew is back, crunching over broken glass beside the front door. “The cars are okay, and I took a quick walk around the house to check the foundation. No damage that I can see.”

  “Good.”

  “Why don’t you go sit down for a minute?” he asks, and she looks up to see him watching her with an expression of sweet concern.

  “I’m fine. We have to clean this up.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “So will I.”

  “Sit down for five minutes.” />
  “Sit down? Are you kidding? Look at this mess.”

  He takes her arm and gestures with the other hand at the couch in the next room. “Sit down. Rest. Do it for me.”

  “Drew—”

  “Then do it for the baby.”

  She clamps her mouth shut and allows him to lead her to the couch. Shaking her head, she sits and leans her head back, not wanting to admit, even to herself, that she really might need a time-out.

  “I’m going to go find the shop vac. I’ll be back. Maybe you can take a little nap.”

  She nods wearily, eyes closed. Maybe she can.

  Chapter Seven

  Opening her eyes, Clara finds herself in Drew’s recliner.

  She could have sworn she’d been resting on the couch.

  “Drew?” she calls, noticing that the sirens have stopped and so, for that matter, has the hum of the shop vac that lulled her off to sleep.

  She wonders, for a moment, how long she’s been napping. Then she sees the tower of cardboard boxes. And the rolled newspaper in her hand. One with a familiar headline and a 2012 dateline.

  Leaping up from the chair, she paces past the boxes, more boxes, more boxes . . . all the way to the kitchen.

  “It’ll be all right. You can get through this. You can get through anything, remember?” Clara mutters to herself.

  Hearing a jangling sound, she turns to see the big black dog behind her.

  “Dickens?” she asks tentatively.

  He tilts his head and barks.

  “So is that a yes or a no?”

  Another cryptic bark. Then he plops on the floor with a yawn and luxuriously rolls over, belly up.

  “Make yourself at home, why don’t you.” She surveys him. “Are you at home? Are you Dickens?”

  He stretches and rolls back onto his feet.

  “Okay, great. You’re not talking. Whatever.” For all she knows, she let a stray into the house.

  She notices that he seems to have something other than a fat wet tongue and sharp teeth in his mouth.

  What is he chewing on? A wet rag?

  Paper, she realizes, What’s left of paper, anyway.

  He drops a soggy, pulpy, ink-smeared shred at her feet.

  Clara nods with recognition.

  “Dickens. Definitely.”

  She might have only known him for a matter of minutes on that Christmas morning three years ago, but he clearly belongs here—which means she does, too.

  Clara is too relieved to worry about what the paper might once have been—for all she knows, a lottery check for a million dollars.

  “Where’s Drew, boy?” she asks, stooping to pet him.

  The dog stops chewing, flashing an expectant look at the door, then at her.

  What does that mean? That Drew will be back any second?

  Maybe it doesn’t mean anything.

  “I wish you could talk,” she tells Dickens. “Because I have a feeling you know what’s going on here, don’t you?”

  He gives her such an astute look that she half expects him to reply in English. But that only happens in dreams, she reminds herself, or in movies. Not in real life.

  Then again . . . this is her real life. Is a conversing canine really that much more far-fetched than zipping back and forth through time?

  The dog has clearly lost interest in her, having gone back to devouring the remaining paper with gusto.

  So here she is.

  In the future.

  How does she get back?

  “I’ve done it before,” she reminds herself—and Dickens, in case he’s listening. “I can do it again.”

  She frowns.

  “Who am I kidding?”

  One can only do something again if one has done it before.

  Unfortunately, she hasn’t.

  Time travel, yes. She’s never gone forward, though. She’s just visited the past. On more than one occasion. But it hasn’t happened since that December day three years ag—

  Six years ago.

  Dear God, this is 2012. She’s a regular Marty McFly, minus wild-eyed Doc Brown and the handy DeLorean.

  Last time, all she had to do to get back to the present was hop the vintage train that had carried her back to 1941 in the first place.

  This time, there is no obvious portal, like the train. What is she supposed to do, wait around for another major earthquake?

  She looks again at the newspaper headline and despair washes over her.

  The future isn’t like the past.

  With the past, at least, you know what’s coming. Good or bad—at least you know.

  Not so with the future. The future is scary. Terrifying.

  And not only is Clara clueless about what lies ahead—and, for that matter, about what’s going on right now, on Christmas morning in an empty house—but she has no idea what happened in the three years she just skipped. There was the earthquake, and then . . .

  What?

  Was she swallowed by some kind of a time-warp fault in the earth?

  Is this an alternate universe? Or has she dropped in on her own future?

  “Drew!” she shouts, trying not to panic. “Where are you? Drew!”

  Silence, other than a jingling of the dog’s collar.

  Dickens is watching her warily, as if to say, Do not freak out. You cannot freak out.

  “You’re right,” she tells the dog. “It’s not good for the baby.”

  She touches her pregnant stomach.

  “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

  Maybe it’s not, but . . .

  It turned out just fine last time she slipped through a time warp, right?

  And at least this one has landed her in her own house. Although it doesn’t look like her house, and it doesn’t feel like her house—not with all these moving boxes, and no sign of Drew.

  Christmas Day.

  Why isn’t he here?

  Why are they moving?

  This was supposed to be their dream house. They were going to live happily ever after here, put down roots, start a family.

  Obviously, they have—started, and continued. Clara pats her stomach, where baby number two is obviously safely past the first—and maybe even the second—trimester.

  But where is her other child? Her firstborn? He or she would be a toddler by now. Shouldn’t the house be filled with toys, sippy cups, little shoes . . . whatever else it is that toddlers need?

  Clara’s gaze falls on a stack of boxes.

  Okay, so maybe all that stuff is packed away for the move.

  But why are we moving?

  And anyway . . . would every last thing really be boxed up? a little voice nags. Shouldn’t there be something that isn’t packed yet?

  Frowning, she crosses over to the fridge, yanks the door open.

  The shelves are pretty bare.

  Organic salad greens, bottled water, mangoes, goat cheese, leftover pad Thai . . .

  Clara gapes at the unfamiliar take-out container. Then, heart pounding, she slams the fridge shut as if she’s just seen a disembodied head on the glass shelf.

  Why is the pad Thai in a plastic Tupperware-looking thing? Where’s the old-fashioned cardboard container they use at her favorite local place? Why isn’t anything familiar?

  Shouldn’t there be milk? String cheese? Yogurt or Go-GURT or whatever it is that little kids eat . . .

  If this is her fridge, her house, her future . . .

  Then where’s her child? Where’s Drew?

  Why is there no sign of either of them?

  Why is she alone on Christmas morning?

  Maybe Drew took our child out somewhere, and they’ll be back any second now. . . .

  Out . . .

  On Christmas morning?

  Where would they have gone without her?

  Okay, think things through. Be logical.

  Fact: Drew is obviously around here somewhere—or at least he was a few months ago—because she’s pregnant.

  Logic. Good.
>
  Fact: they’re obviously out of milk.

  Strong possibility: Dickens just ate the grocery list.

  She glances over at the dog, who now trots across the floor with someone’s red jacket—probably her red jacket—in his teeth.

  “Where’s Drew?” she asks the dog. “Did he go out to the store?”

  But wouldn’t he go alone?

  Is anything even open?

  Clara paces across the kitchen again, trailed by Dickens.

  “What’s the matter, boy? Are you hungry? Probably. I mean, you’re eating a coat. Then again, you like to eat coats. That’s how you got here in the first place, right?”

  With a sigh, she goes through the cupboards—mostly bare—and finds some Alpo and a plastic dog bowl. Opening the can, she says, “Trust me, you’re going to love this. Or—who knows? Maybe you only eat outerwear.”

  But Dickens dives into the food the second she puts it on the floor.

  “Good. At least you’re normal. Sort of.”

  Clara starts pacing again and finds herself standing in front of . . .

  “The phone!”

  How did she miss the obvious?

  Unlike Clara, who’s always misplacing her cell phone, Drew never leaves the house without his.

  She snatches up the receiver and dials his number.

  The line rings.

  She watches Dickens chowing down as she waits for Drew to pick up. Of course he’s going to provide a perfectly reasonable explanation; one that will make her slap her head and wonder how she could have thought . . .

  No way. You’re not even going there, she commands her brain, as the phone rings again . . . and again . . .

  Then, a click.

  But it isn’t Drew’s voice that greets her; it’s a disembodied operator.

  “The number you are trying to reach has been disconnected. Please check the number and try your call again.”

  Her heart sinking, thoughts racing, Clara tosses the receiver onto a chair.

  It doesn’t make sense. Drew would never leave her alone, and pregnant, on Christmas.

  Not the Drew she knew three years ago, anyway.

  Nor would they ever willingly move out of this house, which is exactly what they—or at least, she—seems to be doing.

  That means there are only two logical possibilities, both as unimaginable as they are horrific.