by Brona Mills
‘Mike, wait,’ David calls, following him out. The door closes behind them both and I pull my knees to my chest, the pain flowing through my blood, infecting every part of me each time I take a breath and push the guilt around my body.
I rock back and forth. There isn’t time to allow myself the release of my pain through tears. I have to pray and think positive. I have to know that the outcome will be okay. That it’s already happened, and it’s already worked out, that they’re already back. I continue to rock in the chair for what feels like hours, but as the minutes tick over on the clock at the side of Andrew’s bed, the five minutes that have passed are the longest in any of our lives. Without realising it, tears are flowing down my face slowly and sporadically.
There’s a soft knock on the door and I turn to see Ethan and Max tiptoe in.
The tears push out of my eyes and I sob, covering my face with my hands. Max comes to my side. ‘Ma, he’s going to be okay.’
‘I have to speak to you alone.’ Ethan stands before me.
Max faces Ethan, toe to toe. ‘What’s with the tone, Bennett?’
‘It’s okay.’ I stand next to Max and touch his arm in reassurance. ‘Sit with Andrew, will you? I promised Audrey I’d look after him.’
Max nods. ‘Of course. Gran came with us. She’s parking the car. Abigail is with the girls. They were getting up when I left.’
I follow Ethan out to the hallway. ‘Is everyone okay?’
‘I’m not sure yet. But something happened after David wrote that letter, and he made me promise to wait until now.’
He hands me a worn sheet of paper. ‘This was enclosed with the letter we opened last September. David told me I could give it to you after he left this morning. So you’d know why he did it.’
‘Did what?’
‘Honestly, I’m surprised you never recognised him. I know you said it was dark that night, but I thought for sure you would have recognised him right away from the composite the media used to try and identify him.’
‘What?’
‘I wanted to come forward so many times to claim him that day. To put a name to what was left behind, let people know what he did for you. To let people know that he was an angel and not some unknown bar fight victim. But then his body was just gone.’
I open the sheet of paper, written on the same yellow paper as the one that made me confess to a lifetime of visits from DD. It’s short, like the last one.
In every version of reality that the universe takes us— in every time line and alternative future—I take the memories of Stella with me. Nothing is real without her. I’d die for her, right here and now and in every fucking version of reality.
What did you do that was serious enough to get you lost?
You died for her.
DD.
I search my memory for images of Nathan pulling the man out of the car and knifing him in the stomach. Trying to recall any detail I can to tell me that Ethan’s mistaken. That it wasn’t David, but I know before I even search those visions, that I never clearly saw who it was. I can’t even think of what clothes Bathroom Guy was wearing in the bar. My hands shake as I pull my phone out of my pocket. The trembling causes it to catch at the edge of the fabric of my jeans. I input the pass-code wrongly before I take a deep breath and hit each number slowly and methodically.
I swipe past the purple Internet browser icon and steady my hand to slide left. I hit the search engine and type in the date of the night I saw Nathan kill someone along with the words unidentified male facial composite. The Internet reception is faster in the hospital than I would like and the search returns to the first page in a second. I click on the image tab option at the top and swallow the pain in my throat as the image loads an ID sketch of David. ‘No.’ My body wracks in sobs as the smallest of words struggles to come out coherently.
‘He’s been dead this whole time,’ I cry.
I dart the tears from my face and close down the browser, dismissing David’s face from my history, and scroll through my contact list.
I push Ethan out of the way as I make for the elevator.
‘You’re forgetting why I’m here, Stella.’
‘What?’ I scream.
‘We can fix this,’ he says.
Liam and Pamela meet me at the bottom of the stairs and we walk around to a curtained off ER bed.
‘Sorry I took so long.’
He nods. ‘They brought David in about ten minutes ago,’ Liam says. ‘He’s unresponsive. I can’t figure out why. Audrey’s travels were over so quickly for us in this timeline, she couldn’t have been unconscious more than a few minutes.’
Mike’s voice approaches down the hallway before he turns the corner and Audrey, lying on a gurney, is manoeuvred into the curtain area next to ours. Slowly Mike is forced farther out of the way while people tend to his wife. When he turns, he notices us standing next to him.
‘How did you know where we would be?’ Mike asks. ‘Who’s with Andrew?’
Mike stares at me. He must see my red eyes and dishevelled face, but he can’t realise I’ve been going through my own agony. I sent his best friend away to die.
‘Max is with him. But there’s a problem,’ I tell him.
‘Is he okay?’
I slide the curtain in front of us back. ‘The problem is David.’
When my dad was in his coffin, I could see his soul had already gone. All that was left was a body. David looks like that now. Lying in bed, hooked up to machines, a nurse bent over him. ‘He got here ten minutes ago,’ I tell Mike. ‘They can’t wake him up.’
Pamela steps to the side. ‘I’m going to check on Andrew and Max and I’ll be back soon, okay?’ She squeezes Mike’s arm on the way past.
‘David travelled in the crash, just like Audrey did,’ I say when everyone else is out of earshot.
‘He never told me,’ Mike says.
‘He only found out a few months ago. By then, it was too late. So much was already in play, he didn’t want to risk changing anything.’
Liam flicks through his chart. ‘David’s in a coma of sorts.’
‘He’s dead.’ I clutch the faded letter in my hand. ‘He’s the one Nathan killed in the bar fight. I never realised it was him. It all happened before I ever met him.’
‘He’s not dead here.’ Liam closes the chart. ‘He’s stuck.’
‘Are you saying we can save him?’ Mike asks.
Liam shrugs.
‘Stay with Audrey,’ I tell Mike. ‘If we need you, we’ll send Pamela down for you.’
Mike nods. ‘Keep me updated.’ His face is stoic.
‘Where are we going?’ Liam asks when I step out to the hall with him.
‘Your father has a lot of explaining to do.’
Ethan looks nervous when we enter the family room.
‘What’s going on?’ Liam asks.
‘Ethan knew this would happen,’ I tell Liam.
‘You knew David was going to die in the past?’ Liam’s eyes nearly pop out of his head.
Ethan holds his hands up in defence. ‘After DD wrote his letter, he borrowed my car and some money. He gave me a time and location and told me to meet him. By the time I got there, he was already lying on the side of the road.
‘Why didn’t you help him?’ I hiss.
‘Of course I helped him. I called an ambulance. I tried to keep him conscious, but he made me promise never to tell anyone about it. He said the important things were in his letter, and this was something that had to happen. That Stella needed this to be safe. If I tried to save him, then others would have died. I didn’t even know who Stella was back then. DD told me to let him do everything in our timeline the exact way it was. He saved you so many times. If we tried to change his travels, we might end up killing you instead. He died, right there in the dirt because he chose to save you instead.’
‘But he’s not dead here,’ I argue. ‘They said he was in a coma.’
‘By the time the ambulance got to us, he
was dead,’ Ethan says. ‘Believe me, Stella, I tried to save him. I’m not sure how he’s still alive here.’
‘Once he died, the universe snapped his body back here, to us,’ Liam says.
‘But his body was in the past for a whole day before it went missing from the morgue,’ I tell them. ‘DD only ever left once I was safe. Maybe for some strange fucked up reason I needed him to be dead. I needed DD to be found dead, to have enough of a bargaining tool to keep Nathan away. Even after DD died, his universe kept helping me.’
‘Perhaps if you die in the past, you still get reset during the shift to your own timeline. Sort of like a pass.’ Liam says.
‘What good is that if you never wake up in your own time? Is David going to be in a coma forever?’ I ask.
‘I’m not sure,’ Ethan says. ‘But it explains how the body disappeared from the morgue.’
‘Humph,’ I shrug. ‘I knew Nathan was never clever enough to steal a body.’
Ethan stands and clasps his hands in front of him. ‘There’s a theory that could fit these circumstances.’
‘What theory?’ I clench my teeth together to stop the screams.
‘We stole his body,’ Liam says like the realisation has just hit him.
‘Did you?’ I ask.
‘Not in the past, no. But we still could. Time travel, remember?’ Liam grins.
‘Or it might not be as dramatic as that. Perhaps something we influenced brings his body back, and that’s why there was a delay. I thought it might have been time travel related that caused his body to disappear, but I couldn’t figure it out,’ Ethan explains. ‘Unless someone else managed to travel into the morgue and take his body back when they travelled. But we never knew who would do that. I speculated that it might have been us in the future, to try and get him back to where he was supposed to be. And now, it kind of feels like it might be something we do.’
‘But someone did it. His body is here, so we don’t need to worry about it, right?’ I ask.
‘Perhaps.’ Liam stands and paces the room. ‘But we need to look into who brought him here, back to 2016. If it was us, we still need to make sure we put those steps in place and make it happen, otherwise it never will. And if we find out that it was something else—’
‘Can we save him?’ I ask. ‘Perhaps we can try and go farther back before he died. He’s not dead yet, he’s just—’
‘Lost?’ Ethan said. ‘Perhaps we’re wrong. Maybe if you die in the wrong time line or wrong version of reality, you just get lost in the cosmic world.’
‘Knock, knock,’ Mike calls from the edge of the doorway, Audrey next to him.
There’s a collective sound of gushes and hello’s as everyone reaches to pull Audrey into an embrace. She’s still wearing her clothes she’s travelled to us in all these years, but she looks a little dishevelled. I guess being cut out of a car will do that to you. She’s walking and talking and has a bandage on the side of her head.
When I reach Audrey, she wraps her arms around me and squeezes me extra-long.
‘Hi,’ I tell her.
‘We need to clear out of here in a few minutes,’ Mike says. ‘Audrey’s being admitted and she should be resting already, but they’re going to set a bed up next to Andrew so they can be in the same room.’
‘I’m okay,’ she tells us. ‘I still feel a little weird, like this isn’t real, but they said that’s normal with head injuries. I’m so sorry about David. Mike told me what happened.’
I nod. ‘Andrew’s going to be okay? We’re just waiting on him to wake up, right?’
Audrey swallows thickly. ‘The doctor says a lot of his recovery will be due to the fact Mike and Dave got him out of the water so quickly to start CPR. I just wish I remembered more to warn you fully.’ She chuckles. ‘It was always weighing with me, but it was like I couldn’t get my brain to catch up with what was happening. I had the feelings and emotions of knowing what had happened. I was scared, but I couldn’t warn you guys. That bloody pool gate. At least I remembered you renovated the kitchen knocked out the back wall and replaced it with the glass doors,’ she tells Mike.
Mike’s face falls. ‘Quicker access to the garden, you told me.’
Audrey freezes. ‘Yes, I guess I did.’
‘Do you know anything that can help us wake David up?’ I ask.
She shakes her head. ‘I really don’t. I didn’t know much right before I left, and everything I figured out along the way I told you guys while I was in the past.’
I sink against the back wall. ‘He told me he was coming back, and that we’d be okay. After everything we went through’—my hand falls to my stomach—‘he was finally going to understand.’
After a pause, Audrey releases Mike and wraps her arms around Liam. ‘How was the honeymoon?’
No one answers her. She pulls back and looks at Liam. ‘That good, eh?’ She laughs.
‘What are you talking about?’ Liam asks her.
‘Your around-the-equator trip? Not exactly my kind of romantic honeymoon, but you always did have Caitlyn eating out of your palm. Oh, gross, that sounds so bad when talking about someone’s honeymoon.’ She covers her mouth.
‘Audrey, are you feeling okay?’ Mike asks her.
‘Oh, don’t be such a baby. I’m okay, Mike. I know you don’t want to hear the details about their hanky-panky honeymoon, but it started as an honest question.’
Liam steps forward. ‘Audrey, something’s not right.’
‘Okay, I’m sorry. Jeez, you guys aren’t usually wound so tight.’ Audrey looks at me leaning against the wall. ‘Oh, Stella, I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t be making jokes right now—’
‘No,’ Liam cuts her off. ‘Where was I? When did I leave and when did I get back?’
He holds his hand up to Mike to halt him in his approach to Audrey.
She must sense his tone and answers his questions. ‘Caitlyn wanted to finish off the trip she came home early from last year. You said you always wanted to take a trip along the equator line too. Stop in as many places you could. Fly over the equator zones. Caitlyn organised it, the stops and the accommodation. Mike paid for it as our wedding gift to you guys. You got back this morning.’
Holy shit.
Mike’s face has fallen and he pinches the bridge of his nose. I can see him trying to hold back his emotions.
‘What’s wrong?’ Audrey asks.
‘Who’s Caitlyn?’ Liam’s gaze doesn’t leave Audrey.
‘My sister,’ Mike whispers.
‘Your wife,’ Audrey tells Liam.
Liam shakes his head. ‘I don’t have a wife.’
My mouth tightens and I dart my eyes to Mike. Why doesn’t Audrey remember this?
‘Audrey,’ Mike soothes. ‘Caitlyn died years ago while she was backpacking in South America.’
‘This is why I feel like things aren’t real,’ Audrey whispers. ‘I’m not home.’ She sits on the corner of the bed that’s been set up for her in Andrew’s room, and Mike catches her as she staggers at the edge. ‘If I’m not home then neither is David. We’re somewhere else. We’re . . . ’
‘In an alternate future?’ I ask. ‘If we all remember Caitlyn dying, does that mean we’re all somewhere else?’
‘We need to get you in bed.’ Mike crouches and sweeps Audrey into his arms.
Audrey buries her head into Mike’s’ shoulder. ‘Your sister’s not dead, Mike,’ she cries. ‘I swear, she’s okay, and when David wakes up, he’s going to help us get her back.’ She turns her head and reaches out for Liam, forcing Mike to stop in his tracks. ‘Do you remember her?’
Liam shakes his head. ‘I never met her.’
Audrey’s chin quivers and she purses her lips. ‘She’s your wife, Liam. So while David is still gone, you’re going to have to do everything you can to get her back.’
Liam pulls the sheets back, and Mike places Audrey into the bed and climbs in behind her. She reaches over and they both hold Andrew’s hand in the bed next to th
em.
I place my hand on Liam’s arm, and he flinches. ‘We should let Audrey rest,’ I tell everyone.
‘What the hell did David change?’ Liam asks as we get caught in a bottle neck with Ethan leaving the room.
‘Let’s give Audrey time to get settled, then we can go over everything with her.’ Ethan rests his elbow on the wall rail outside their room.
‘Do you think Audrey’s right, and this isn’t real? We’re all in some other reality?’
Ethan shrugs his shoulders. ‘Perhaps.’
‘What do you remember happening to Caitlyn?’ Liam asks.
I take a deep breath. ‘She moved here after graduating in 1999 and worked for a couple of years. She was really bad at being Mike’s assistant. Her head was always somewhere else. She said she wanted to travel and had a trip planned to travel the equator line. She convinced Mike to lend her the money. First stop was Ecuador, and she went missing. Mike and his parents had to fight so hard to convince the local police she hadn’t run away and hired their own investigators to help locate her. Mike had given Caitlyn a chunk of cash to spend and set up her credit cards if she got into trouble. So the police were working with the theory that she may have taken the cash and left. Mike had to prove that she didn’t need to steal it, that he was giving her the money anyway. That she would want to come home. After a year, she moved from missing to presumed dead. Another year later, she was officially declared dead. They issued a death certificate and everything.’
‘When was this exactly?’ Liam pulls out his phone and starts to take notes.
‘Twelve years ago today. She went missing in 2004 on Mike’s twenty-eighth birthday.’
‘The same day Audrey used to appear and disappear? No one thought it was a coincidence that Mike’s sister disappeared on a leap year, on his birthday, when his wife used to do the same thing?’ Liam raises his eyebrows in disbelief.
My heart skips a beat. ‘No. But neither did you.’
‘I didn’t know much about what happened. No one kept us in the loop. We thought Mike’s sister died on vacation. That was always the speculation. We never knew any other details to tie it to time travel.’