The Best Gift

by Markham, Wendy

  Yeah, tell me about it.

  “Speaking of retrospect . . .” She shifts gears. “Do you remember when you helped me to research time travel a few years back?”

  “Of course. Whatever became of that role?”

  “Well, I thought it had pretty much . . . fallen through. But now it looks like it’s popped up again.”

  “Really! I didn’t realize you’d gone back to work. I thought you were content to be away from all that.”

  “I was.” I still am. “But, you know, things change. And I guess I need a—sort of a refresher course.”

  “Glad to help. Next time you’re in New York, perhaps we can get together and—”

  “Uh, actually, can I just ask you a few questions right now, over the phone?”

  “Ask away.”

  “You told me that there was more scientific evidence that time travel to the future is more possible than to the past, right?”

  “Not in so many words. What I believe I said was that based on the fact that our perception of time is relative to our motion, we might theoretically be able to speed—”

  “But there was a famous physicist, wasn’t there, who time traveled to the future? A woman named Carol?”

  “Ah, yes. Carroll Alley. A man, by the way. And he didn’t travel to the future, per se. He synchronized two atomic clocks, put one on a plane, and flew it for several hours. When it landed, it was behind the one on the ground, meaning that time had slowed for it. It had, effectively, traveled to the future.”

  “You also said that if it were possible to travel back to the past, you couldn’t change what had already happened, because that would violate the law of quantum mechanics, right?”

  “Clara, I’m impressed. Clearly, you haven’t forgotten everything.”

  No. She hasn’t. She hasn’t forgotten the law that says that what you do in the present is an inevitable product of the past.

  “What about the future?” she asks Mr. Kershaw. “Can you go forward to the future, see something that’s going to happen, and then return to the past—I mean, the present—and change it so that it won’t happen after all?”

  He’s silent.

  “If you visit the future, then the present becomes the past, right?” She doesn’t wait for a response. “And then, when you get back, what you do in the past—meaning the present—will impact what happens in the future.”

  “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “Let’s say that I visit the future and I see that a friend is going to—um, break his arm by slipping on an icy sidewalk. Couldn’t I then go back to my own time and make sure that my friend doesn’t leave the house on the day I know it’s going to happen? That doesn’t violate the law of quantum mechanics.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “I mean, you can’t change the past because it’s already happened. But the future hasn’t happened yet.”

  “It has,” Mr. Kershaw says simply, “if you’ve glimpsed it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you arrive in the future, then every event that transpired to create that world—every event leading up to the moment of your arrival—has already happened, correct?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Patiently, he elaborates, “Every moment between the moment you left the present behind and the moment you arrived in the so-called future would be, in effect, a part of the past.”

  Clara tries to wrap her brain around that—and decides that she doesn’t want to. Not if it means accepting that a future without Drew is her destiny.

  “Do you see what I’m saying?” Mr. Kershaw asks.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “For that matter, I’m not sure that I’m the one who should be saying it. What you’re really asking, my dear, is whether our fate is predetermined. Perhaps that’s a question for a philosopher or a theologian rather than a physicist. And maybe there is no real answer.”

  “Maybe not,” she murmurs.

  “I’m afraid I haven’t helped much with your research this time, have I?”

  “No, you’ve . . . you’ve helped a lot.”

  She thanks him and forces herself to make a few minutes’ worth of small talk before hanging up.

  She’s going to do whatever she can to prevent the preordained future from coming to pass, regardless of what science dictates or what she learned the last time through her own experience. After all . . .

  Never say never.

  The voice in her head is Doris’s, and she smiles faintly, remembering.

  She ventured back to 1941 and fell in love with Jed despite knowing he was going to die and that there was nothing she could do to keep from losing him. And it turned out she hadn’t lost him at all. Not the essence of him. Not his heart and his soul.

  If something happens to the man she has come to love as Drew Becker, he’ll find his way back to her again somehow, someday. Maybe not in this lifetime, and maybe she’ll have no recollection of any of this, but they’re soul mates, and they belong together.

  That certainty will simply have to be enough to sustain her through whatever lies ahead.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Three walls of the home office off the living room are almost entirely made of glass. Maybe that’s why it won’t exist three years from now. Maybe all that glass shattered in the Big One.

  Maybe?

  This room wouldn’t stand a chance in an 8.7 magnitude quake.

  It’s amazing to think that the house survived it, but somehow, it did.

  And if the house held up, then the people in it should have survived as well.

  Clara had, and Dickens, too. They must have been home—or in an equally insulated spot—when it hit.

  What about Drew?

  But Clara doesn’t want to dwell on ominous possibilities at the moment; nor does she want to gaze out at the scenic evergreen hillside.

  Seated at the desk, with Dickens snoozing at her feet, she’s reading about wormholes and paradoxes—again.

  It’s been a few years since she initially delved into the topic of time travel on the Internet. These days, there are even more Web sites devoted entirely to the subject.

  Some are of a scientific bent, others decidedly new age. One site even collects an advance payment from people who wish to be transported to the future using technology presumed to be available by then. Moments after you pay your fare, someone from the future purportedly picks you up and whisks you forward in time.

  Stranger things have happened, Clara supposes.

  To me, anyway.

  Hearing gravel crunching outside, she glances out the wall of windows to see Drew’s car pulling into the driveway.

  “See, Dickens?” She looks down at the dog, suddenly awake with perked-up ears. “He promised he’d come back to us, and here he is.”

  Much sooner than she expected him, in fact.

  She quickly closes out the screen she’d been reading on the computer, fighting the impulse to run out and greet Drew passionately. Dickens does no such thing, racing to the next room, barking wildly.

  When Clara reaches the door, Dickens is bounding up and down as Drew holds a white paper bag out of his reach amid futile pleas of “Down, boy! Down!”

  Clara shakes her head, grinning. “Whatcha got there, honey?”

  “A hot fudge sundae for you. If Lebron James here doesn’t snatch it out of my hand first.”

  “Ice cream!” It’s Clara’s turn to grab for the bag. “What made you think of doing that?”

  “I put two and two together and figured you were craving it. Here”—he hands her the bag—“but it’s probably melted by now.”

  “Ask me if I care.” She wraps her arms around his neck. “You’re the best.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” He leans in to kiss her. “I love you.”

  Clara presses against him, suddenly craving more than ice cream. He smells so good, so familiar: like cold fresh air and woodsy soap and home. She buries her face in his shoulder, remember
ing how empty the house felt—how empty she felt—without him.

  “Thank God you’re back, Drew.”

  He pulls back to look at her. “I was barely gone half an hour.”

  “It felt like forever.”

  And forever without him is something she never wants to face again.

  She kisses him, pressing herself against the hard length of his body, just as she has hundreds of times in the past.

  The past . . .

  The future . . .

  None of it really matters, does it?

  All that matters is the present, here with him. Because really, that’s all you ever have, anyway.

  “Hey, you’re pretty randy for the middle of the day,” Drew murmurs against her mouth. “How about if we—”

  Something slams into them both, nearly knocking them off their feet.

  Dickens—and he’s snagged the brass ring, dangling the white bag of ice cream from his jaw as he trots away toward the kitchen.

  “Hey, get back here!” Drew hollers, starting after him.

  Clara grabs his sleeve. “It was probably melted, anyway. Let him have it.”

  “But I got it for you.”

  “I know. You can do something else for me instead.” She laces her fingers around his neck. “Upstairs. Okay?”

  He grins down at her. “Okay. Let’s hurry before you-know-who decides three’s company.”

  They take the steps two at a time, holding hands, Drew in the lead. In the bedroom, he kicks the door closed, then, as an apparent afterthought, locks it.

  Seeing her questioning look, he says, “Just in case.”

  “In case . . . what?”

  “In case that crazy dog knows how to turn a doorknob.”

  Clara pulls him down onto the bed. “Is this what it’s going to be like from now on, with a dog and a baby? Sneaking around, locked doors? Aren’t we ever going to feel like we’re alone together in our own house?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Hey, you were supposed to say ‘of course we are.’”

  “Then—of course we are.” He nuzzles her neck.

  “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “Can we talk about this later?”

  “You’re the one who’s always so reassuring and confident about everything.” Clara nudges him away, propping herself up on her elbows. “I feel like you’re thinking things are going to be different now.”

  “Things are going to be different. They’re already different. But I told you—we don’t have to keep the dog.”

  “I want to keep the dog. It’s not about the dog. And I want to have a baby. I just want everything to stay the same, too.” She swallows a lump in her throat, knowing she sounds ridiculous.

  Drew sighs and rolls over onto his back, elbows and face pointed at the ceiling.

  “Are you mad?”

  “Mad? No! I just need a minute to . . . you know. Shift gears.”

  She rests her head on his shoulder, her fingers lightly pianoing his chest. This is nuts.

  Here she is, worrying about the uncertainties that lie ahead instead of living in the moment.

  Didn’t she learn anything the last time, with Jed?

  Didn’t she resolve, after talking to Mr. Kershaw, to stop dwelling on what might happen, and to have faith that no matter what, she and Drew will find a way to be together?

  “Clara?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m thinking it would be a lot easier for me to shift gears if you weren’t touching me like that.”

  She removes her hand—then, after a moment, slips it under his shirt, saying, “Or, you could not shift gears after all.”

  “I thought you wanted to talk.”

  “I thought I did, too. But you know what? You were right. Everything’s going to be great.”

  “Did I say that? Brilliant. You should definitely listen to me.” He wraps his arms around her and rolls her over.

  Laughing, she tugs his shirt up over his shoulders and gladly tosses it—along with her nagging worries—aside.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Drew is dreaming about snow—a beautiful, heavy snowfall—and he’s walking through it with Clara. She’s wearing her favorite red mittens and red, red lipstick—the kind she never wears. And then there’s a dog—he can’t see it through the swirling curtain of white but he can hear barking.

  “Drew! Drew!”

  Startled awake, he opens his eyes. Clara is hovering over him, her frantic expression illuminated in the glow from the electric candles in the window. And somewhere downstairs, a dog—their dog—is barking.

  “What—”

  Clara clutches his arm, hard. “It’s an earthquake!”

  Instinctively, he pushes her back down and dives on top of her, shielding her body with his own as the bed shakes, the windows rattle.

  “This is bad, isn’t it. It isn’t a question. Clara sounds like she’s on the verge of tears.

  That isn’t like his wife. She never once cried over her cancer, not in front of him, anyway. She’s always been strong, no matter what fate hurtles in her direction.

  But she’s pregnant now. Emotional. Vulnerable. Frightened.

  “It’s just an aftershock,” he tells her, stroking her hair. “It’s not bad—and, anyway, I think it’s over.”

  The tremors have already subsided—but not the ones wracking her body. Holding her close, he can feel her heart racing.

  “Hey,” he whispers, staying right where he is, protecting her, “relax. We’re okay.”

  Downstairs, Dickens has stopped barking. Drew can hear the distant sound of his collar jingling and his feet clicking across the hardwood floor as he presumably returns to his oversized cushion in the living room to settle in again.

  “Goes with the territory, living here,” he tells Clara. “You’ll get used to it.”

  No reply.

  “Clara?”

  “Yeah?”

  Tension still radiates from her limbs.

  “You’re not saying anything.”

  “I . . . I don’t know what to say. Other than that I’m scared out of my mind.”

  “I guess the big one on Christmas really threw you off your game, huh?”

  “That wasn’t the Big One!”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “No, you said the Big One, and everyone is always talking about the Big One, and it’s still coming, Drew. These are all foreshocks. We have to get out of here.” She pushes him off her and sits up.

  “You’re panicking. Calm down.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  He holds both her trembling shoulders, rests his chin on one. “Talk to me.” Silence.

  “It isn’t like you to be so freaked out. I think your hormones must be—”

  “You’re right,” she cuts in abruptly. “It’s my hormones. I know it is. I’m a mess. So can’t you just humor me, Drew? Can’t we just go away? Just until New Year’s? Please?”

  “I’d love to, but you know I have to work. We talked about this. It’s a new job. I can’t just not show up because I felt like taking off for a few days.”

  Not that he even feels like taking off.

  They’re home at last, settling into their new house over the holidays—and Clara has a crazy whim to fly the coop now? It makes no sense whatsoever.

  “How about if we go back to that inn in Napa for New Year’s Eve?” He suggests. “We can leave as soon as I get out of work, and we’ll even stay through the weekend, if you want.”

  She shakes her head.

  “What about tomorrow? I mean, today? We’ll go down and visit my parents, do some shopping, have lunch, whatever you want. . . .”

  “I don’t know. . . .”

  “Come on. It’ll cheer you up. Let’s do it.”

  “Can we stay down there till dark?”

  That’s an odd way for her to phrase it. “Sure. We can have dinner somewhere, if you want.”

  “What about the dog?”

&nbs
p; “He’ll be fine. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she says in a small voice.

  “Good.”

  In the darkness, he hears a sniffle. Oh, no.

  “Don’t cry, sweetie. Please don’t cry. We have everything we ever wanted. You shouldn’t be crying—unless they’re happy tears. Are they?”

  She makes a choking sound that Drew hopes is a laugh—but he doubts it.

  He looks at the digital clock and sighs. “It’s three a.m. Come on, let’s try to go back to sleep. Everything will look a lot brighter in the morning. It always does.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Clara fell asleep with Drew’s optimism ringing in her head. But the moment she awakens to find the room bathed in gloomy daylight, she realizes that he was wrong.

  Things are not looking brighter this morning at all.

  Things are looking very . . . 2012.

  Stacks of boxes alongside the bed. No candles in the window. And, she senses, no Drew.

  She shouts his name into the empty house anyway.

  Somewhere on the first floor, Dickens barks.

  “Here, boy,” Clara calls, sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She waits for the dog to bound into the room.

  “Hey, Dickens, where are you?”

  He whines a little, still at the foot of the stairs.

  The light dawns. “Oh—you’re not allowed up here, are you?”

  Another whine from the apparently reformed scofflaw.

  “Hey, Dickens! I’m giving you permission to break the rules. Come here!” Clara puts two fingers between her lips and whistles.

  Not one to let any grass grow under his feet, the dog scampers up the steps and skids into the room.

  Wow, he’s huge.

  “Hey, you grew up.” Clara pats his head. “And I just . . . grew.”

  Just when she got used to her flat stomach, it’s burgeoning again. Cumbersome, perhaps, but it’s definitely more exciting to be able to see the evidence of the new life growing inside her.

  If only Drew were here to share it with her.

  “We have to go find out what’s what, okay, Dickens?”

  He yawns agreeably, exhaling dog breath in her face. She feels a little nauseated as she stands—but not too bad.