“Thank you,” Allaire called after him.
Kyle turned around. “Thank you?”
“For letting me love you for these two days,” she answered.
He had no doubt she meant it, but his mind was already someplace else. “Thank you too,” he said, and then he was off.
CHAPTER 14
February 5, 1998
* * *
Twenty minutes later
It took Kyle a few passes through the underground parking garage of Crespi Memorial Hospital before he found the white Nissan Sentra. Still new, and still Sillow’s car, it looked like a different vehicle to him. All of the bumps and bruises the car had picked up in the time Kyle and his mom had driven it into the ground were gone. Or, more accurately, they weren’t there yet. And it was so much cleaner than Kyle could ever manage to get it, even after a car wash.
Kyle had broken into the car once before, but he’d needed a wire hanger. He smiled when he saw, though, that the passenger window had been left open just a little bit. He squished his arm inside and felt his hairs ripping out as he reached for the button on the inside of the door. He flicked it up, pulled his arm out quickly, and opened the door of the car.
Moments later, Kyle stood at the information booth on the main floor of the hospital. “How can I help you?” the bored looking woman on duty asked him.
“I was on my way to the elevator when I saw a car in one of the hospital employee spaces with its lights on,” Kyle said.
“Oh?” she said.
“White Nissan Sentra,” he said. “Looks like it’s probably a ‘96?”
“What a nice boy you are,” she said, smiling. “I’ll make an announcement.”
Back underground, Kyle hustled to his father’s car and was about to duck inside when he saw someone running through the parking lot toward him. It was a woman wearing a black baseball cap—the same blond woman who had witnessed Ochoa’s head exploding. She ran away last time before Kyle could get a better look, but he was positive this was her.
Kyle took a step back from the car when he noticed that she was carrying a gun as she ran full speed toward him.
Behind him, Kyle heard a metal door slam loudly. He turned the other way and saw Allaire walking toward him, smiling bashfully. “I know, I know, I wasn’t supposed—”
“Allaire, get down,” he yelled.
He turned around again and saw the blond woman with the cap stop dead in her tracks, almost skidding forward from the sudden change of course. With a look of panic on her face, she turned and ran the other way just as fast as she’d come toward him. Within a few seconds, she’d turned a corner and was out of view.
When Kyle turned again, Allaire was standing right next to him.
“What was that all about?” he wondered out loud.
“I know I was supposed to go back,” Allaire said.
“Allaire, you shouldn’t be here,” Kyle said. His father would be down there any minute. “It’s not safe.”
She pulled a CD out of her jacket and shoved it in his direction. “Here. It’s a present for you. I made it at the record store yesterday. It’s a mix.”
Kyle took it. “Thank you,” he said, smiling at her, hoping she would just turn and go.
“They’re all my favorite songs,” she said, loosening her posture. “I’m sure they’re oldies where you’re from. I’m guessing Hanson is a one-hit wonder, but Third-Eye Blind seems like they have staying power.”
“You really need to go right now,” he said.
She rose to her tiptoes to give him a kiss on the cheek and then turned away slowly without saying anything. Kyle followed her to the exit with his eyes, waiting to make sure she left.
He glanced the other way, and there was no sign of the blond woman anymore. She’d changed course abruptly and gotten herself away from him as quickly as she could. He wondered who she was, whether she knew his secret, and why she’d freaked out and left. It was too much of a coincidence that she’d shown up twice now.
Sillow opened the driver’s side door of the Sentra and bent inside the car enough to reach for the lights.
Kyle popped up from behind the driver’s seat and grabbed him by the collar of his hospital scrubs, pulling him into the car. “Close the door,” Kyle said as he stuck the Revolutionary War era pistol through the space between the seat and the headrest, pointing it against the back of Sillow’s neck. Since he had no ammo for the centuries-old weapon, concealing it from his view was the only hope Kyle had of convincing Sillow he was armed.
Sillow slammed the door shut. “You again, huh? Every single time I’ve owed, I’ve paid. Why’s he got his panties in a knot so bad this time?”
“This isn’t about money,” Kyle answered, trying to sound tougher and older than he was.
“Bullshit,” Sillow said. “It’s always about money.”
“Not this time,” Kyle said. “I have no idea what you owe, or who you owe it to.”
“Then what the fuck are you doin’ in my car?” Sillow asked. “With a fuckin’ gun to my head?”
Kyle opened the rear, driver’s side door. “Don’t move.” He stepped out of the car and walked around to enter the car from the passenger side. He tried to conceal the pistol as he lowered himself into the passenger seat by holding his jacket in front of it.
Sillow leaned back in the seat, peeking at the gun. “What do you have there?”
“A gun,” Kyle answered. His pulse quickened even more. “Don’t move.”
Sillow lifted his right hand and hung it in the air. “You mean like this?” The moment Kyle turned his head, Sillow grabbed at the pistol under Kyle’s jacket with his left hand, clutching it by its barrel. Kyle squeezed it, desperate to hold on. “What the . . . ?” Sillow jerked his hand away and pulled the gun away from Kyle.
“How old is this thing?” Sillow asked with a wicked smile. “Ain’t even loaded.” He tossed the gun onto the floor of the backseat. He grabbed Kyle by the throat, choking him against the headrest.
Kyle grabbed Sillow’s hands and tried to pry them off of his neck. “I need to talk to you.” He had no idea what to say next. He had about as much in common with his father as he did with the steering wheel.
“Get talkin’ then. You prob’ly got thirty seconds ‘til you pass out,” Sillow said.
He was desperate to get Sillow off of his throat. Instead, Sillow pushed harder and Kyle felt his breakfast coming up as he struggled to breathe. Kyle grabbed for the door handle and pulled it, but the door was locked. “I need you to do something for me.”
“Is that so?” Sillow asked, grinning.
“It’s important. It’s going to save people’s lives . . . Kids’ lives,” Kyle said, beginning to lose hope that he had the right words at his disposal to stop Sillow from choking him out.
“What kids?” Sillow asked, loosening his grip just a bit. He looked interested now, which surprised Kyle.
“There’s a chance to save twelve kids,” Kyle said. “There’s a bus crash that happens in—”
“Mutherfucker,” Sillow said, pulling his hands away, looking through the windows of the car now. “You’re Kyle.”
Kyle nodded. “I’m your son.”
Sillow gave him an amused smile. “What are you, sixteen? Seventeen?”
“Eighteen,” Kyle answered. “How did you—?“
Sillow got out of the car, still carrying an amused look, and Kyle followed. Sillow’s face softened as he spoke over the car. “I’m sorry about chokin’ you. What’d you expect? My son! How ‘bout that?”
Kyle wouldn’t be born for another month here in 1998. He looked at the clock inside Sillow’s car: 11:32 AM.
Maybe Sillow was capable of stopping the crash after all. Perhaps he could follow through on what Kyle needed from him sixteen years from now. “I haven’t got much time,” Kyle said.
“You come to tell me the same thing the other guy did?” Sillow asked. “Before he got shot up.”
“What other guy?” Ky
le asked.
Sillow cocked his eyebrow disbelievingly. “The other guy. From the future.”
Kyle stood there completely stunned.
Sillow started walking toward the garage exit.
“Where are you going?” Kyle asked him.
“I guess I’ll let you buy me that steak now,” Sillow said. “Son!”
CHAPTER 15
February 5, 1998
* * *
Moments later
“Who’s this other person?” Kyle asked as they walked toward the restaurant. “What did he look like?”
Sillow looked Kyle in the eyes. “You ain’t gonna get shot like him, are you? I was damn near hit, too.”
Kyle thought of the blond woman. “I hope not.”
Already today Kyle had spent more time with his father than he’d spent since the first year of his life. He couldn’t imagine how his mother would’ve chosen this man to have a baby with, but at least he wasn’t hitting him or choking him out now.
“Damn lunch menu,” Sillow said, after sitting down in the sticky, upholstered booth. “I’m askin’ if they can do the Ribeye, even though it ain’t on the menu. And I’m gettin’ the salad bar too. I like the macaroni salad.”
Sillow looked at Kyle, as if he might object. Like Kyle, by virtue of having a few dollars in his pocket, was the parent.
The waitress came by and took Sillow’s order. When she left, he just stared out the window.
“Where do I live in 2014?” Sillow asked with a conspiratorial smile. “Tell me somethin’, at least . . . Like, who wins the Super Bowl next year?”
Now, Kyle was quiet. His whole life he’d wanted to confront his dad, to ask him why he’d been such a shitty father. He’d run through the conversation more times than he could count. Yet now, sitting here across from the man, Kyle couldn’t say any of it without risking changes to the future with consequences he couldn’t imagine.
He couldn’t tell Sillow what it was like to have your mom take you to see The Rock when WWE came to town. Or how desperate Kyle was to please every authority figure he’d ever met, just hoping their approval might fill in a part of him that not having a father had left empty.
Even crazier was that this Sillow—still in his mid-20s, still in love with Kyle’s mother—hadn’t done wrong by him yet. Kyle knew there might be some combination of words that could change their entire lives, and give him a father to grow up with. Or at least one who didn’t completely abandon him.
“Believe me, I wish I could, but I really can’t tell you anything more than you need to know,” Kyle said. “You said someone else came to see you. Who was it?”
Sillow looked lost in thought for a moment, his eyes fixed on the parking lot. He didn’t know anything definitively about the next eighteen years, but Kyle wondered if he had an idea already that he wasn’t cut out for parenthood. Then, with a quick nod, he looked Kyle in the eyes. “Alright,” he said. “What do you want to know? Uh . . . The other guy . . . It was a long time ago—maybe seven, eight years . . . ”
“What did he tell you?”
“He couldn’t really tell me anything. I get a knock on my door. I was home by myself at the time. I open the door, and this guy, he’s standing there. He was in bad shape . . . I mean, he was actually in good shape, but looked like he was gonna pass out—like he’d been running for hours. Just dripping with sweat. Wearing a suit too! A black one. Couldn’t catch his breath . . . Maybe a little older than you, but not much past his twenties. Whole suit was completely soaked through—I don’t know whether it was sweat, or water, or what.”
“Go on,” Kyle said.
“He starts talkin’ to me,” Sillow said. “But it sounds more like a whisper, but with water in it. Like a . . . gurgle. He says ‘you need to stop the bust crash,’ and I say ‘bust crash?’ And he shakes his head ‘no.’”
“Bus crash,” Kyle said.
“I guess so,” Sillow answered. “Never got to hear him say anything else, except, ‘Don’t let your son Kyle in the car.’ And then he said ‘March 13, 2014.’”
Kyle hung on every word. Who was this person? Who’d sent him back? He wondered. “What else did he say?”
“Nothing,” Sillow answered. “Got his damn head blown off. Someone must’ve had a sniper rifle in the building across the street from me—that’s what the police thought, at least. Blew his head clear off with the first shot. Hit the door frame to my apartment with the second shot.”
“How’d he know about the accident?” Kyle wondered aloud.
“How would I know? I got the fuck out of dodge after that shit,” Sillow said. “Went and stayed at my buddy Ricky’s for a month. Cooperated with the police mostly. I didn’t tell them what the guy said to me, because I was never sure I heard him right. Also didn’t want to sound fuckin’ crazy. I don’t think they ever ID’d the body neither.”
Kyle looked down nervously. “Were you, I mean, are you planning on doing what he asked you to do?”
“In, what, 2014?” Sillow asked. “I don’t know. I mean, I wrote the date down. I remember it. But, I don’t have a kid . . . Not yet, at least . . . Shit, you know you look nothin’ like me, right?”
Kyle considered this new piece of information. If someone had already traveled back and the crash had still happened, maybe whatever Sillow was going to do in 2014 wasn’t going to be enough to make a difference.
“If you were going to do what the man asked, how do you think you’d try to stop me from getting into the car?” Kyle asked. “You’d probably take my keys—”
Sillow shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Maybe you need to do more than that?” Kyle asked, really thinking out loud more than asking for Sillow’s input.
“Uh, sure, okay,” Sillow said.
“I think the reason I’m here,” Kyle said, “is because when the other guy came to see you, I don’t think he convinced you to do it.”
“To be honest, man, I didn’t really give it that much thought. It was weird, but I didn’t know what else to think,” Sillow said. “I do think about that bullet that nearly killed me comin’ through the window, though.”
The waitress laid a huge steak in front of Sillow and he immediately started cutting a bite.
Kyle nodded. This entire thing. Myrna. The trip through time. The fact that it had to be his father. It was all starting to make sense. “That’s the whole point. You didn’t think much about it,” Kyle said. “I get it now. That guy in the suit failed!”
“He got his head blown straight off,” Sillow said. “I’d say he failed.”
“I flipped Joe’s car and killed those kids anyway, so someone figured out that they had to send me back to see you . . . ”
“Who’s Joe?” Sillow asked, and Kyle got a chill. Joe! As Sillow sliced into his steak, Kyle played the morning of the crash over in his head. Having a photographic memory meant that every time Kyle relived that day, it was in vivid detail. Everything from what he ate for breakfast, to what he and Joe talked about while they smoked and drank. It was all there. Except for one piece, which was foggy to Kyle. He remembered seeing his tires were slashed, but it wasn’t nearly as vivid as the hundreds of thousands of other memories he’d stored up about that day and replayed over and over to himself. Same with going to Joe’s house and driving his car to school. The moments in his head before the crash were vivid, but those moments leading right up to it were not. He knew that his tires had been slashed, but he had a lot of trouble picturing them, which was very unusual for him.
“Oh my God,” Kyle said. “Wait a second . . . You did it! You were there. It was you that morning! You slashed my tires. You’re the one my mom heard when she stopped back home!” Kyle imagined Sillow that morning, hiding somewhere in the backyard so Kyle or his mother wouldn’t spot him.
“Uh, okay,” Sillow answered. “So I did do . . . or, I’m gonna do, what the guy told me to?”
“You did!,” Kyle said. “But, we had another way to get to
school. We took my friend Joe’s car, and that just replaced my car in the bus crash. Slashing my tires wasn’t enough to keep me from being in the same place.”
“So, why didn't someone tell me I needed to slash those tires too?” Sillow asked while chewing a huge bite of steak.
Kyle’s mind raced. Was there a version of the bus crash that had taken place in his Sentra? It was unusual that they’d take Joe’s fancier car to school, so that would make sense. At least as much as anything could make sense in a world where it was possible to travel through time, and live the same moment more than once.
“I think you did what you were supposed to do. You didn’t let me get into my car,” Kyle said. “I think you did change the future. You did it! We just had another option. We took Joe’s car.”
Kyle was sure of it, the more he thought it through: in 2014 as Kyle had lived through it, Sillow did what the man in the black suit asked of him. He came to New York and slashed Kyle’s tires. He just hadn’t done enough to stop the accident from happening, because the boys were able to walk to Joe’s house and drive his Audi to school. Myrna had told Kyle that time resists change. And if something resists, Kyle thought to himself, then you need to push harder.
If Kyle’s theory was right, he hoped there was something more that Sillow could do to make sure the entire accident never happened in the first place.
“So, what now?” Sillow asked. “I slash your friend’s tires too? Everybody lives happily ever after?”
Kyle shook his head. “I don’t think it’s gonna be that simple.”
“And there’s no one else who can do this for you?” Sillow asked. “I, uh . . . This is a lot of responsibility to lay on a guy.”
“No,” Kyle said. “You’re my father. I need you to help me.”
“You know, this is some complicated shit,” Sillow said, shoving a forkful of steak and potato into his mouth. “And, it ain’t my complicated shit neither.”
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