The Gray Zone

by MariaLisa deMora

  Oh my God. He altered her memory while I sat here. Clive was stunned. He hadn’t considered it, because there’d been no chance, but of course, changing the past meant more than just plunking him into a timeline, because he existed both here and in his past.

  “Clive?”

  “Yeah, Althea, I’m here. Can you get Morgan in my office ASAP?” Rodney Morgan was the head of security for the entire company. He would be the best source of ideas for how to involve the police without getting thrown into the local loony bin. Hi, officer. I’m from the future, and I need your help to stop my world from imploding. That was not the way to go if he wanted to be taken seriously, of that he had no doubts. “Faster is better.” He glanced at the clock, seeing three minutes had ticked past since he’d first noted the time. “In fact, do you know where he is? If you can hold him there, I’ll go to him.” His skin buzzed, and instinctively he looked around for the blue-eyed man, finding his office still empty.

  “He just walked up to my desk. I’ll send him right in.”

  Whoa. “Perfect.” The door opened, and Clive looked up. “Morgan.” The other man, fit and dressed casually in khaki pants and a polo shirt, walked in, closing the door behind him. “I have some questions, but I’ll warn you now, they’re a little odd.”

  “Odd is my specialty.” Morgan smiled at him, the expression tight. “What can I do for you, boss?”

  “Let’s say someone had knowledge of something that was going to happen. Something bad. How… What’s the best way they could get that information to the right authorities?”

  Morgan’s head tipped to the side, and he eyed Clive with interest. “What kind of bad?”

  “Pretty bad, bad. The potential would be there, though whether it was realized or not would depend on how quickly the reaction spun out.” Clive lifted his hands, palm first. “I don’t want to debate what might happen—just tell me a foolproof way to share knowledge without being labeled a crazy man.”

  “Anonymous tipsters work, the more details, the better, as long as the information is tangible.” With narrowed eyes, Morgan stared at him. “Weren’t you in Mexico?”

  Clive waited for the surge in the air that would tell him the man was messing with Morgan’s head, and when it failed to come, wondered why. He set that aside to answer the security expert, realizing too much time for comfort had already passed. He dismissed the questions with a wave. “I’m here now. What if the information isn’t tangible? What if it’s anecdotal, or secondhand?”

  “Subjective intelligence is still valid, as long as the logic is sound.” Morgan placed his hands on the back of a chair facing Clive’s desk, locking his elbows as he leaned over, never taking his intense gaze off Clive. “What’s going on?”

  “Just curious.” Clive shook his head and picked up his phone, then set it back down. “Thanks, Morgan. I appreciate it.”

  “Clive, are you in trouble? I can help if you tell me what you’re doing.” Morgan didn’t move an inch, eyes still boring holes in Clive.

  “No, I’m not in trouble. It was just a question, Morgan.” He shrugged, aiming for nonchalance.

  “It didn’t sound like just a question. You wanted me ASAP. I heard you on Althea’s phone.” He straightened up, and his fisted hands went to his hips. “But you’re the boss. You let me know if you decide you want help.”

  “Will do, but like I said, it was an idle question, nothing more.”

  With a final nod, Morgan headed for the door. “You want this open or closed?”

  “Closed, please.” I have a call to make.

  Calling the local police department was out. He’d watched enough docudramas on TV with Claire to know the call would be traced back to his phone. But he’d listened to an ad this morning—he shook his head, because the ad was actually weeks from now. But there’d been a special phone number for anonymous tips. The ad had been filled with promises of reward, but he didn’t want any of that. All he wanted was for the accident to not happen the way he’d seen it play out twice now.

  Twenty minutes later, he hung up, convinced that his warning would be taken seriously. He’d had enough information about Brownwitte and the vehicle that Clive felt he’d been able to convince the dispatcher it was a real threat. Remembering what the bartender said about the man showing up already drunk, he knew all the authorities had to do was find Brownwitte before he left the bar.

  Clive tapped the intercom line and when Althea picked up told her, “I’ve got some business to tend to. I’ll see you tomorrow. Go ahead and leave whenever you’re ready.”

  Silence, then a quiet, “Okay, Clive.”

  Fifteen minutes later, he parked his car on the edge of the ramp that Brownwitte had taken to get onto the freeway. If Clive saw the blue car coming, he was ready to drive out in front of the man in order to stop him. Eyes on the mirror, he dialed the phone, and the moment Claire answered, he took a deep breath.

  “What’s new, brother mine?”

  Oh God. He’d forgotten how sweet her voice was. Lyrical and smooth, no matter who she was talking to or what the topic was, she always sounded like happiness and home.

  “Clive?” Her tone became concerned when he didn’t respond. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah.” He barely choked out the sounds, throat tight and thick with unshed tears. “Yeah, everything’s fine. Great.”

  “The call’s really clear. Are you in a good reception place? What’s the weather today? I haven’t checked lately.”

  “I’m…I…uh, I’m in town. I’ll be home after work.” The words came a little easier, because now the very idea that she could die today seemed to be a mockery of the life in her words.

  She sounded happy, her voice lilting and light. “Oh, good. I didn’t expect you back for another week or more. That’s fabulous. I’m just headed to the store.”

  “I know.” He shook his head, eyes still on the mirror, watching for Brownwitte’s car and seeing nothing. “But why don’t we just order pizza. You can head home, and we’ll do the grocery store tomorrow.”

  “I’m already halfway there. It won’t take long.” She laughed softly. “You okay, Clive? You’re sounding off.”

  Off beam. Wrong. Clive froze for a second. “Yeah, yeah. I’m okay. Just want you to be safe, you know?” He hadn’t thought this through well enough, because he couldn’t come up with any reason good enough to change her trajectory. Maybe I don’t have to. He checked the clock and sighed heavily. It was five minutes past when Brownwitte would have used the ramp. “How’s traffic?”

  “Looks to be slowing down ahead. I don’t know why I come this way. It’s always the same.” The background sounds changed, the noise of the highway drifting away. “I’ll be home as soon as I finish at the grocery store.”

  What if I missed him? Clive bit down on a curse, then checked the clock again. Seven minutes. “Why don’t you get off at the next ramp and head home. No reason to be stuck in a traffic jam when we can order pizza.”

  “You’re a big fan of pizza suddenly.” She laughed, and he nearly cried for the memories that washed through him of all the times she’d laughed at him. Something he’d thought lost. “Okay, I can move over in a minute, and then I’ll turn around.”

  “Good. That’s good, Claire.” Eight minutes. “I’ll see you at home?”

  “That you will, brother mine. That you will.” She paused, then said, “I have something to tell you. This will be better anyway.”

  “What?” He thought he knew, but wanted her to say. “What is it, Claire bear?”

  “You order pizza when you get home, and I’ll tell you while we eat.” She sighed softly, a sound he nearly missed in the sounds of traffic whizzing past him on the ramp. “See you there.”

  “Love you, Claire bear. See you soon.”

  Nine minutes, and still nothing in sight that looked remotely like Brownwitte’s vehicle. Clive reached for the shifter, hand shaking like a leaf, and when he sighed in relief, it came out in broken gasps. I did it
.

  It’s a blessing

  “Ah, God,” Claire cried, hugging her pillow to her face in a vain attempt to stifle the sounds. “It hurts, Dennis. I wish it didn’t hurt.”

  Clive turned his head away, fighting the dark emotions that threatened to drown him. She’d been hallucinating for days, calling him by the name of her long-dead husband, speaking to her son as if Micah were in the room. If it weren’t for the pain plaguing her, it would have been comforting to know she’d mentally surrounded herself with the ones she loved.

  In the year and a half since he’d turned back the clock, Claire’s cancer had spread aggressively. Diagnosed shortly before the accident that didn’t happen, it had already been stage four. He’d cried when she told him, thinking himself prepared because he’d fought so hard to have her back in his life; there was no way something as mundane as a disease would take her.

  So he’d made a list, worked with her oncologist to define a plan, and then set about making it happen. She’d been accepted into drug trials that hadn’t worked, taken treatments that hadn’t slowed it down, and when the pain grew too intense, she’d undergone three surgeries that helped for a while. But ultimately her body had betrayed her, the tumors growing back faster every time. Nothing worked, or made a difference, or gave them any hope.

  He’d had time to think, and regret.

  It’s a blessing. That phrase ran through his head all the time these days. A looping litany of accusation he couldn’t escape even between the moments spent caring for her, feeding her when she could bear to eat, and as he stooped to apply the morphine drops under her tongue to try to control the pain, to keep the beast that lived inside her manageable, to grant her even the smallest bit of peace.

  She’d had peace, and he’d ripped it away from her, sentencing her to die slowly and grotesquely, living every day in agony. The pain he’d felt moving back and forth in time was nothing to what Claire was living with.

  That first night, he’d been giddy with the idea of cheating death, of giving Claire a longer life. He’d watched the news avidly, inwardly gloating as he saw reports of the man arrested as he drove to a local bar, his blood alcohol nearly two full points over legal. “It’s a wonder he’s not dead,” the news anchor had said, and Clive nearly hadn’t been able to control himself, shouting inwardly, He was dead.

  Claire had taken that first night to explain about the cancer. To her, receiving the diagnosis had felt like holding a bomb, where she’d been afraid to tell him because it would detonate. She’d known once the words were in the air they couldn’t be taken back and feared that nearly as much as the cancer itself, the diagnosis a deadly Pandora’s box of terror.

  Clive had immediately taken a sabbatical from work and accompanied her to every appointment, holding her hand for the marrow biopsies, helping her get through the nausea and fatigue from the drugs that seemed nearly as harsh as he thought the cancer could be.

  He’d been wrong. The cancer was so much worse than anything he could have imagined.

  And now they were down to this. Her hospice coordinator had told him this morning that she was actively dying, and while it was likely she had less than two weeks to live, she could have up to two more months of this pain.

  Where once he’d prayed for her death to be a dream, now he prayed for God to take her sooner, not feeling any sense of betrayal at that, because Claire would hate how things had become. She would hate the hospital bed in the dining room, necessary indignities done to her body, the machines along the wall, the strangers traipsing in and out of their house, bringing medications and ill-fitting words of small comfort with them.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her for what might be the thousandth time. “I’m so, so sorry, Claire bear. I never meant for this. If I could take it back and give you that peaceful ending, I would.”

  There was a surge of heat through the air, and he glanced at the thermostat. Claire had a hard time regulating her body temperature these days, and he’d been going back and forth between cooling and heating the room. The temperature right now was steady. He turned his gaze back on Claire’s face, taking in the deep lines etched along either side of her mouth, evidence of the pain that was in constant residence.

  “There are limits.” The words were the barest brush of a whisper, but hearing them caused his head to snap around, gaze scanning the room empty except for him and Claire.

  “Dennis, it hurts so. Tell Micah it hurts.” Claire’s voice sounded decades older than it should, quavering and frail. “Can someone please call Clive and tell him I want to go home.”

  “I know, honey.” Clive leaned closer, damp cloth in his hand. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Aire sseccus.” The hair on his arms stood at attention, and he watched as Claire’s skin drew up into gooseflesh. No hair left on her body, but the piloerection effect was still there.

  Without looking away from her, Clive whispered the words that haunted him. “Not every loss is wrong.”

  A light bulb blew out in the kitchen, the snap and pop of the wires inside the glass loud in the sudden silence. “So biocac, so enyd eriferus. Aire ssecus.” The sole of a shoe scuffed the floor behind him. “You understand now.”

  “I do. I was wrong.” He shook his head, daubing at Claire’s cheeks. “So wrong. I was selfish and only saw my own grief. I know better now.”

  “Tell Clive he’s the best brother I could have ever wished for.” Claire’s eyes fluttered, and Clive thought he could see gray in their cloudy green. “Micah, honey. Wait for me.” Her voice trailed off, words becoming garbled as her breathing turned strained.

  “Can I save her husband? Can I save Dennis and Micah, get her treatment sooner?” That was the dark ghost that lurked in the corners of his mind. He’d been so focused on his own loss, on wanting Claire back for him, that he’d set aside the knowledge of how she’d suffered for years with her own grief. “If only” was a constant refrain in his dreams, sleeping or waking. “What if you send me back further? I can save them.”

  “That is beyond the abilities of those such as me.” The air stirred and Claire whimpered, the sound loud and breaking in the middle.

  “I was wrong, then. This isn’t how it was supposed to be. I was wrong.”

  “You must tell me. If you ask…” The man stopped speaking, but the meaning was clear.

  “I take it back. I take it all back. You were right. God, you were right, and it was kinder, so much kinder to let her go like that. Fast, and without fear or pain.” He sucked in a hard breath, then blew it out slowly. “I take it back.”

  Instead of pain, when the darkness took him this time, he felt a sense of overwhelming relief. The currents flung him to and fro, and he batted up against obstacles he couldn’t see, but through it all, he held tight to that feeling of rightness. This time when they came, the lightning strikes along his bones weren’t half the agony he imagined Claire had endured and were so worth it. This was taking things back to how they should be. Claire gone, and him left behind.

  He stretched his legs out, testing the limits of what his muscles would accept, surprised when a cramp climbed his Achilles tendon, coming to rest in the center of his calf muscle. Clive jackknifed up out of bed and winced when his feet hit the floor, his heel throbbing in time with the charley horse.

  It took a moment, but he worked at the knot in his muscle with his hands until he could rest his foot flat on the floor.

  Looking around the room, it appeared so normal it felt surreal. It was his bedroom, but since he’d spent the past six months sleeping on the living room couch to be close to Claire, he couldn’t imagine why he’d gone to bed last night.

  Then, like a double whammy, the memories swept over him.

  Claire wasn’t downstairs, resting under the watchful eye of a night nurse. She wasn’t waiting for her next dose of pain reliever, the opiates ready to steal her present-day along with the trifling bit of pain they lessened. Claire wasn’t existing, waiting impatiently for the peaceful arms of
death to fold around her.

  She was already dead and buried.

  He’d sat in church and listened to her pastor speak of her sweetness and grace, shaken the hands of her friends, nodded and acknowledged his coworkers who’d come to the services. He’d dealt with the fallout from the accident and her death.

  He hadn’t caused an entire busload of kids to be killed.

  He hadn’t caused Claire months and months of unimaginable suffering.

  The man, or whatever he was, had reset things back to zero.

  In the space between two breaths, Clive had come back to now.

  His legs wobbled, and he abruptly collapsed on the edge of the bed, hard. Eyes closed, he dropped his chin to his chest, and without shame, without trying to control or stop it from happening, he wept. Great racking sobs burst from him, tears pattering onto his pajamas, soaking the fabric.

  Where to begin

  Chin lifted, Clive gritted his teeth and suppressed a groan as he forced his foot into his shoe. “Ahhh.” The toes of his other foot curled under as he hissed in pain.

  The puncture wound in his heel had become infected. He’d looked at it after his shower, surprised to find it red and swollen, white-tinged fluid seeping from the puckered wound. He’d intended to just head to the office, because there was nothing pressing here, and as he had once before, he found the silence in the house oppressive.

  Now, however, with the pain and obvious infection, he’d decided to detour to an urgent care clinic only a few blocks out of the way. Hopefully they’d be able to see him quickly.

  Ensuring his wallet and phone were tucked into his pockets, Clive limped down the stairs and out of the house, working his way around the hood of his car, leaning heavily on the metal surface.

  How had it gotten bad so quickly?

  Clive laughed, the barking sound foreign after the last year and a half of somberness, helping Claire deal with her illness, which hadn’t happened, not now. He’d been returned to Go, a kind of cosmic reset that only the man, angel…whatever—could have foreseen. Had predicted… He shook his head. It was stupid to wonder how it had become infected, because out of everyone he should know the malleable nature of time, having been yanked backwards and forwards through experiences enough to last three lifetimes.