Time-Travel Duo

by James Paddock

“You’d better sit down.”

  She looked into his eyes for several seconds. James wondered if she could see inside him, read him, understand him. They were two feet apart. He could feel a magnetic force pulling on him, and in his mind’s eye he could see the distance close to a foot, then six inches and one inch, then nothing.

  Her eyes.

  It was her eyes that kept drawing at him, pulling, pulling... he stepped forward and then forced his eyes to look at the ducks. “Please! Sit down.”

  “All right.” She sat on the bench, her spine straight, not sliding to the back rails. “You can sit as well.”

  James shook his head. “Better not.”

  She folded her hands together in her lap and watched him pace back and forth. She considered asking why he wouldn’t sit next to her, but then, she knew why. She certainly wasn’t blind to his actions when he was around her. She first saw it the day she left the hospital. Maybe even before that. She figured it would go away but instead it had gotten worse. She knew she would have to deal with it some day, had even thought of returning the feelings. But, what if? What if her real memory comes back and she’s already married, or Steven, her current memory husband, appears? The ‘what if’ kept her reined in.

  For how long?

  How long does she wait for her old life to materialize before going on with a new life?

  And here he is, a potential new life, pacing back and forth in front of her, trying to screw up the courage to tell her how he feels. A fine man. A very good man. Is she ready to deal with it? Once he says it, she’ll have no choice.

  “This burglar...” James started.

  What does this burglar have to do with it?

  “... the one I apprehended early this morning. Among the stolen items we found in his room was an envelope. I questioned him just an hour ago and he told me exactly what he took from Doctor Bronson’s house. The way the session went, I’m certain he wasn’t lying.”

  He stopped pacing. Anne watched him and waited, trying to guess where this was going. It certainly wasn’t what she expected.

  “He said that what he took was all together and he listed off the money, the code-book, and without my prompting him, an envelope with your name on it. Because of the possible relation to a German spy, I had to look at what was in it. I had to know.”

  “Had to know what?”

  “Had to know what your relationship with Bronson was.”

  “He’s my doctor. Plain and simple. And I don’t know why I have to explain myself to you. I know you care about me a lot, a lot more than you should, and until now you’ve been a real gentleman about it, but this, James... I think you’ve lost control. I cannot have someone being jealous because I’m seeing a doctor. That’s possessiveness, and I will not be possessed. Or are you accusing me of being a spy? That’s what it is, isn’t it? You think I’m a spy!”

  Anne looked up at him, directly into his eyes, but he didn’t feel the pull as before. Instead he felt hot. His heart was racing. His ears were burning and he wanted to turn away. Jealousy wasn’t the reason he went running to find her... or was it? “I... I...” He stepped back then reached into his pocket and pulled out the envelope. He moved no closer than he had to in order to hand it to her. “I’m sorry. I read it. Had to know. I... I... I don’t think you’re a spy. I... I... I...” And then it fell out. “I love you.”

  She took it and he walked away, joining the ducks down by the water’s edge.

  He felt foolish, confused, depressed, embarrassed, heartbroken.

  Scared.

  Scared that she would go away and that he would never see her again.

  Scared that he would lose her.

  But he never had her. Never had a right to have her. She was only part of his life in that she was no more than a boarder in his home, a guest of his mother’s. No more than that. She is married, and her husband wants her back. And I told her I loved her. Shouldn’t have done that.

  And she’s a... He turned and looked at her. She was leaning forward, her elbows on her knees, one hand holding her head, the pages of the letter dangling from the other... he could do little more than whisper the thoughts in his head. To say it, even to the ducks, would label him as crazy. His mother was just an old woman, not to be taken seriously when she spoke of time travel, but he was a police officer, a realist.

  ... time traveler.

  To even say he believed in such a thing would get him laughed at.

  A woman from the future.

  To claim that he knows such a person... he might as well say he knows a Martian or two as well.

  One of the sheets of paper slipped from Anne’s hand and the wind started it tumbling toward the water. She jumped up to chase it but James got to it first. He handed it to her and saw tears rolling down her checks.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Is this what I think it is?”

  James could see the five-dollar bill was still in the envelope. He gently pulled it out then held it up in front of her with a finger pointing to the date. She backed up and sat back onto the bench.

  “Oh, my God!”

  James watched her face as all the understanding and realization started coming to her.

  “I’m not crazy.” She grinned. “I’m not crazy, James. It all makes sense now. Everything. Everything I’ve thought for two months is actually real.” She started shaking and bouncing on the bench. “Oh, God! Oh, God!” The tears were rolling down her face like little rivers and she made no attempt at wiping them away. She jumped to her feet.

  “Oh, God, James! Thank you!” Her arms went around him. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” she said into his chest while her tears disappeared into his uniform shirt.

  James wasn’t aware of the tears on his already sweat stained shirt. He was only aware of her and his arms around her, the fragileness of her, the smell of her. If he could freeze this moment in time, he would, but he knew... he tried not to know... tried to shake it from his mind... wanted to pretend like the caress was more than her emotional appreciation for finding out her husband actually existed. She had her arms wrapped around him with only one man on her mind.

  Steven.

  James absorbed the essence of her for as long as she would allow. He would be there for as long as she needed him.

  She jerked herself away and looked up at him. “I’ve got to go there.”

  “Where?”

  She held up the letter. “Here! The graveyard!”

  “Huh?”

  “Come on! Let’s go! We’ve got to go tell your mom. Get the car. Go there.”

  James was practically running to keep up with her.

  “It’s all falling into place now. Everything. Click! Click! Click! Have I been a moron? Dense! Why didn’t I see? You know why I didn’t see it? Because I didn’t believe it. Right there in front of me all along and I refused to believe. Even your mother knew and I dismissed it.

  “All these years and Steven kept it a secret. I thought he was working on weapon research, so I never questioned. Never wanted to know any more. I can’t believe I was so dense and hard headed. So close-minded. I was just enjoying being a housewife and then being pregnant. Why did I never ask? How could he spend four years working on time travel research and not tell me?

  “Sure. I’d have told him he was crazy but I’m his wife and we’re supposed to share everything. Damn! If I had known, this wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have wandered in there and sat down with a rabbit.”

  Anne stopped and grabbed James’ arm. “Jesus! That’s what happened. Click! I walked in as they were getting ready to run an experiment on a rabbit. That’s where the rabbit came from. It’s all my fault.”

  James waited for her to continue. Her hand was still on his arm, her eyes focused only on her inner thoughts.

  “No! Some of it’s my fault.” She dropped her hand and started walking again. “Some of it is theirs. Where were they? Where was their security? And what in the hell were they doing sending a rabbit 44 yea
rs? What kind of damn experiment was that? How would they even know if it worked?”

  She grabbed his arm again. “How do they know?” She held up the letter. “It sounds like he’s certain I made it here. Maybe they were at the point that they had that kind of confidence; a feedback system or something.”

  She began walking again. “We’ve got to get up there.”

  “Where?” James asked as he again rushed to keep up with her.

  “To the graveyard. I guess you wouldn’t understand. No one would. That’s why he wrote what he did so that only I would understand. Have to give him some credit there. The very last thing he said is that there would be a next time, and it will be each and every time I’m watching Cheers and full of grace. The only TV program I watch besides the news is Cheers, and it comes on at 7:00. There is the time. And full of grace! Who is full of grace, James?”

  James shook his head and kept walking.

  “Tuesday’s child? Tuesday’s child is full of grace. He knows that’s one of my favorite little poems. And I wanted my child to be born on Tuesday because she would be full of grace. So, we’ve got Tuesdays at 7:00. Every Tuesday, by the way, because that’s what he wrote. ‘Each and every time,’ are his words. The where is easy. He couldn’t just keep sending me things to that Navy barracks. Somehow he has figured out how to project things not only across time, but also across distance. This is fantastic. This is like ‘Beam me up, Scotty.’”

  She stopped for just a second. “Holy shit!” she said and then continued. They were almost to the house.

  “Anyway, just a week or two before this all happened, early July I guess, we were driving down Old Monck’s Corner Road and I spotted a cemetery. An old cemetery just for the local community. I made Steven stop. I don’t know why, because I’ve never had much interest in cemeteries, but this one suddenly looked interesting. I wandered around reading headstones until I came upon one. It read,

  He followed virtue

  As his truest guide

  Lived as a Christian

  As a Christian died

  “Steven must have remembered how taken I was with that simple little saying, and picked that as the location. Every Tuesday at 7:00 in that cemetery, probably right in front of that headstone. It’s been two months, James. Something could be there right now. He could have already tried to take me back, and I didn’t know.”

  She started up the steps to the house. “God! How did Bronson get this? Why didn’t he ever tell me?” She continued on into the house. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

  Ruth appeared out of the kitchen with flour and question marks on her face.

  “Don’t you tell her, James. I will.” She flew up the stairs.

  “Take the rolls out of the oven in five minutes,” Ruth said, pushed a pair of oven mitts into his hands and then flew up the stairs after Anne.

  James went into the kitchen, stared at the oven and wondered what they were going to find there. Would he lose her or would she be here forever?

  Chapter 38

  Sunday ~ September 12, 1943

  When Ruth burst back into the kitchen, James was still standing in front of the stove, the mitts clutched in his hands.

  “Where are the rolls?”

  James gradually focused on his mother as though coming out of a trance. “It hasn’t been five minutes yet.”

  “Crimminy ol’ mighty! This is why I never let your father near any of the cooking.” She snatched the mitts from him, yanked open the oven door and pulled out the very dark-brown rolls. She dropped them on the burner tops and said, “It’s been fifteen minutes at least. Get out of the kitchen and let me clean things up. You go change clothes and then bring the car around front. We’re all going up to where this Goose Creek place is, or will be. See if we can locate the graveyard.”

  “All of us?”

  “Yes! All of us! Unless you want to stay, in which case I’ll drive.”

  James turned around and hurried out the door.

  Just before leaving, Ruth opened a desk drawer and pulled out a road map. She handed it to Anne. “Will this help, do you think? Maybe the main roads haven’t changed that much.”

  Anne started to open the map on the kitchen table, saw the bread makings spread about, and took it out to the hood of the Desoto. She put her finger on Charleston, and then closed her eyes. She brought up the image of the last road map she had seen, identified the major landmarks, and then projected that onto the map in front of her. Throw out the interstate, North Rhett Avenue and Goose Creek, and not that much was different. She moved her finger to a spot along the Cooper River. “This is some kind of Naval Ammo Depot or something now, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” James said.

  She followed a road from there up to Columbia. “That’s Highway 176.” She followed another road running north from Charleston to where it intersected with 176 running northwest, then pointed to a spot not far from that intersection. “Goose Creek City Hall will be there.” She followed 176 on to where another road branched off toward the north again. “Old Monk’s Corner Road. The cemetery is right here.” She looked up at James. “Can you get us there?”

  He looked closer at the map and nodded. “Probably forty-five minutes to an hour.”

  “Wonderful. Let’s go.” She took Elizabeth Anne from Ruth. “I’ll sit in back and feed her.”

  Anne hadn’t ridden in a car since James brought her home from the hospital and she was feeling the same apprehension as then. No seatbelts. No child safety seat. At least now she knew why. She was still uneasy.

  While James drove and Ruth periodically looked back at them, Elizabeth Anne suckled as Anne watched the passing buildings and landforms. Once they left the peninsula area, she didn’t recognize too much. They were in the pass-through district, her mental description of the zone between downtown Charleston and what she thought of as the North Charleston center, which encompassed the shopping zone from Remount Road to Northwoods Mall. However, she did feel a little familiarity in the area outside the Naval Base. There were a few uniformed men walking here and there, but otherwise it was fairly quiet on a late Sunday morning. She knew the Navy Hospital would be built a block or so to her right, then she looked to her left and thought, there will be a K-mart right there.

  And they continued on.

  What will I do if I never go back?

  Anne tried to force herself to face that question, but her mind refused to deal with it.

  You’ve dealt with it for two months, she told herself.

  Yeah, but that was before I knew.

  But what has changed?

  Nothing... everything!

  They crossed over the railroad tracks on the overpass that Anne recognized, and then started up a long gentle rise. At an intersection she spotted a sign that said, Montague Avenue. “They’ll build an overpass for that road someday,” she said. “You will drive under Montague. Remount Avenue is right at the top of this hill.” There were a few businesses on both sides of the two-lane road. Some of the buildings she recognized would still be standing in 44 years. “This will be two lanes going in both directions,” she said. “Some places three.”

  “There’s going to be that many cars?” Ruth said.

  “You’ve no idea. And right here, this intersection of Remount and Rivers, will be considered one of the worst in the state for traffic accidents.”

  James and Ruth looked at each other.

  “And there will be big stores all up and down Rivers Avenue. From here almost all the way to Ladson.” Anne realized she was sitting on the edge of her seat and that her blouse had fallen open exposing the breast Elizabeth Anne was no longer engaged with. She could see from the red on James’ neck that he was well aware of it. She slid back, covered herself, and sat quietly for a while. Ruth looked back and instead of an admonishment, gave her a big grin.

  Anne flushed and watched the scenery go by. Periodically, she would recognize something and think about what would be built there: Trident Technical College,
Northside Nissan, Northwoods Mall, and a Toyota Dealership. And then there was the long stretch where nothing would be built, the four or five miles into Goose Creek, across the creek called, Goose Creek.

  As they approached the intersection of Highway 176 and Highway 52, which she knew better as River’s Avenue, Anne saw a small store with a fruit stand, no bigger than a 7-11. It didn’t appear to be open. Of course. On Sunday in 1943, nothing would be open. “Turn left here,” she directed and they left the pavement for a dusty dirt road. On the left, a broken down Model T and a broken down horse grazed in a field next to a broken down house. To the right stood a house of fairly recent construction. She was sure it would still be there in 44 years, maybe a bit remodeled. A family of black folk stepped off the road and watched them go by. “Goose Creek City Hall will sit right about there.” Anne pointed to a dried up field of corn stalks. They drove on.

  She put herself back together and got her blouse buttoned just as they approached the turn onto Old Monck’s Corner Road. She wondered when the “Old” was added. Was it called Monck’s Corner Road now? There was no sign. James started to go on past.

  “No! Turn here!” Anne slid up against the back of the front seat again; Elizabeth nestled in her lap. James stopped, backed and turned up the road. She briefly thought about the convenience store that would be on one corner, the small church on the other, then Foxborough Subdivision followed by the Goose Creek Community Center and its park and basketball and racket-ball courts. Now there were only trees and empty fields. She could feel her heart racing, her body shaking. She tried to hold the excitement down, tried to prepare for the disappointment that there wouldn’t be anything, that there wouldn’t be a clue that Steven had tried to communicate. “It should be on the left just down here a mile or so.”

  It was closer than she thought. An area opened where another, less-traveled dirt road branched off. James slowed, turned onto it, and then stopped on the edge of the cemetery. It was smaller than she remembered. Fewer headstones. No one got out and Anne found herself looking into the faces of James and his mother.