by Jahn, Amalie
The night before my scheduled departure, my mother, my father, and I sat down to dinner. The three of us had not eaten a single meal together as a family since Branson’s death. My mother made her homemade lasagna, which had always been my favorite, and my father presented me with a gift.
“Brooke, there’s something I want you to have with you when you leave tomorrow,” he said.
He handed me a box. I lifted the lid. Inside was a small clay lion. I had not seen the lion in ten years. It was strange to be seeing it again.
When I was eight and Branson was five, my father took us to see a local production of The Wizard of Oz. Branson loved the lion. We would pretend to be the characters from the story. I would always be Dorothy and he would always be the Cowardly Lion. The rest of the group was always performed by our imaginations. Around the same time, I was working on an art project in school that involved shaping modeling clay. I made Branson a lion. I only got a “B” on the project, but managed to win the undying devotion of my little brother. It seemed a bizarre gift on the eve of my departure. Nonetheless, I knew I would smuggle it along with me in the morning.
“Thanks Dad,” I said, not knowing how else to respond to his gesture.
I slept very little that night. What sleep I did achieve was fitful and full of panicked dreams. When, mercifully, the alarm clock sounded the next morning, I was disappointed by my lack of enthusiasm. I had imagined I would feel like it was the first day of the rest of my life. The moment I had been waiting for, dreaming of, and planning about, was finally going to be realized, for better or worse. But instead of excitement, I felt only an overwhelming sense of dread.
Waiting for the signal that I was clear to enter the travel chamber, I looked at my parents behind the Plexiglas paneled wall. My mother was waving frantically to me, my father was giving me the thumbs up, and suddenly, all I could think was that I was never going to see them again. When the green light illuminated, I hesitated at the door of the steel chamber. I turned back to face them. My parents. Branson’s parents. Suddenly I could not go on. My eyes locked with my mother’s eyes. I saw in her face what I had been avoiding for months. My decision to travel did not just affect me. If I messed things up, my parents could lose their other child too. My parents could lose us both. And yet, here they were. Smiling, waving, and encouraging me on. It was more than I could handle.
“Is there a problem Miss Wallace?” said a voice from behind the control panel.
I blinked once. Twice. My mother was saying something. I could not hear her voice but I could read her lips. “I believe in you,” she said.
“I’m fine,” I responded, with more conviction than I felt. “I’m ready.”
Without looking back, I stepped into the chamber. The door was sealed behind me. Instructions where piped in through a speaker system. I did as I was told. A timer on the wall counted down the seconds. There was a warm brightness that was nearly blinding, and I was back.
TRIP ONE
CHAPTER FIVE
I chose an ordinary Thursday evening in October, less than five months before Branson’s symptoms began, as my returning destination. I was standing in the middle of my room. The clock on the nightstand read 7:12 PM, exactly as I had requested. Amazing.
I remembered that particular night. It had rained all day, and so Branson’s soccer practice after school had been canceled because the fields were flooded. I knew he was in his room, right on the other side of the wall, writing an English paper on Edgar Allen Poe. I remembered because he tried to convince my parents to take us to Baltimore for Halloween to visit the home where Poe had lived. I remembered because since he died, I had committed every memory I had of his final year to paper.
Branson was there. So very close. I fell to my knees. Just as I had not anticipated the dread I felt before the trip, I had not anticipated my reaction to having my brother alive and well just feet away. I wanted so desperately to burst through his door and hug him until my arms were sore, but I knew that was the last thing I could do. I had to keep my emotions in check. The original Brooke had no idea that Branson was on a collision course with death. Attacking Branson with unbridled affection would be the last thing that I would have done during my original timeline. I had to compose myself and quickly.
I thought about the lion in my pocket that my father had given me the night before. Its significance was suddenly clear to me. My father had known how I would be feeling in that moment. Somehow, he had known that it would be almost too much to bear. I pulled it out. It was small and clearly the work of a child. I had fashioned the mane out of orange clay that I squeezed through a spaghetti maker. The tail had long since broken off, but the smile on the face of the beast was still perfectly intact. I closed my eyes and silently thanked God for my father’s wisdom. The lion, the cowardly lion, turned out to be the bravest of them all. The courage he sought from the wizard was inside him all along. Maybe I had courage too.
And then, he was there, standing in my room. Strong. Healthy. Alive.
“Hey, Sis. I’m heading downstairs to get a snack. Do you want something?” he asked.
I was frozen. Quickly I remembered my time travel classes. The rote memorization was not lost on me. Act natural. What would I have done the first time? What did I do the first time? I got ice cream. When in doubt, always get the ice cream.
“Sure,” I replied as normally as I could, “How about some ice cream? Is there mint chocolate chip?”
“Don’t know. I’ll check. Do you want something else if we don’t?”
I remembered the conversation. There was mint chocolate chip. He would choose rocky road for himself. “Surprise me,” I said with a smile.
I knew I had about five minutes before he would return so I used those moments to breathe and calm my nerves as best I could. Sure enough, five minutes later he returned with two bowls of ice cream in his hands.
He handed me my bowl of mint chocolate chip and collapsed on my bed. I was feeling more confident about my situation and remembered we had discussed the upcoming homecoming dance during the initial timeline.
“I saw Mandy in the cafeteria today. Did you ask her to homecoming yet?”
“No,” he said confused, “you know I’m not going.”
I stared at him blankly. He did go to the dance. He went with Mandy. He wore a black suit, no tie. She wore pink sequins. I had only been here ten minutes and I was blowing it already. My confidence quickly waned.
“Oh yeah,” I fumbled. I paused, “Why aren’t you going again?”
He rolled his eyes at me. “I’m going camping with Jake and the guys, remember? His dad’s business trip was switched so we had to change the date to the same weekend as the dance. I told you last week. We had a whole discussion about whether or not you thought Mandy would be disappointed. You were the one who told me to go camping. You are going mental as usual, Sis.”
He threw a pillow at my head. I threw it back. It landed in his ice cream. He smiled. I smiled back.
I was officially off course. None of what was happening occurred in the original timeline. It was new territory and I would have to learn very quickly to be more careful about casual conversation. Things obviously changed in the past more often than I was aware. In the new timeline, there would be no dance. There would only be a camping trip. The first time, he did both.
I was still suppressing the urge to sit and stare at him, unable to believe my brother was in the same space with me, alive and perfect. I knew I could not continue sitting in silence, but I also could not risk starting another conversation given my track record thus far. I hoped that Branson would say something. Anything. I concentrated very hard on eating my ice cream in small delicious bites.
“What about you? Did Paul say anything about going?” Branson asked with a mouth full of rocky road and a smirk.
Paul. Ugh. Paul. I had not thought about Paul in months.
Paul McGregor had been border line stalking me since the ninth grade. He sat next to me in my
freshman typing class, and we had shared a computer screen. He would spend the entire class trying to start conversations with me about how many words per minute he could type or what type of core processor was in his tablet. He was a smart and genuinely nice person, but there was nothing between us. For me, there was no spark. No chemistry. We were always friends, but nothing more. He had asked me to every dance, every year, and every time I had made excuses about why I could not go with him. I had finally agreed to go with him to the homecoming dance my senior year and he assumed afterwards that we were dating. When Branson got sick, he had been sweet and patient and understanding, but despite his best efforts to make me love him, I just didn’t. After Branson died, he eventually stopped calling and stopping by after I refused any contact with him. It was nothing personal. I refused contact with everyone.
I tried to remember at that point in the timeline if he had asked me yet, and worse, if I had already said yes. Perhaps it was something else I could make right while I was there. I did not think he had approached me. Perhaps I could spare his feelings after all.
“No,” I ventured. “Nothing yet. If he asks…”
“When he asks,” Branson interrupted.
“If he asks, I’m going to tell him no… again.”
“You always break his heart,” Branson teased. “Why don’t you just throw him a bone and go to just one. He asks every time. Even I’m starting to feel sorry for him!”
I remembered that Branson had convinced me to go with him the first time. I would not make the same mistake again.
“I don’t like him and you know it. I just don’t want to give him the wrong idea. You know, get his hopes up.” I took another bite of ice cream. I could not believe how natural it felt, me and Branson and the easy back and forth of our relationship. My heart panged with loss.
Branson dropped his spoon into his bowl. “I’m headed down to say goodnight to Mom and Dad, and then I’m going to bed. Big game tomorrow. Providence’s defense is awesome. It’s gonna be tough getting past them. See ya in the morning, Sis,” he called over his shoulder as he left my room.
“See ya,” I said.
I almost did not want to let him out of my sight, but I consoled myself with the fact that I had at least a little bit of time. I prayed that I had arrived before the exposure that would cause the disease. In the morning I would put my plan into motion.
CHAPTER SIX
After the initial shock of having my brother back in my life, I found that it was quite easy to assimilate myself back into the daily routine of life with my family. It was not unlike déjà vu in reverse, in that most of the time I felt as if I had already done what I was doing before, but occasionally I was jarred to discover there was something new that I did not recall.
I decided to give myself a few days to adjust to my surroundings and remember what it was like to be a part of a normal, functioning family before executing my mission. On the first day back to school, it was almost as if I had never missed a beat. I drove Branson and myself to school, parked in my old parking spot, and attended lectures I had heard before. It was actually quite enjoyable to sit back and relax, knowing that I had already learned what was being taught. I spent my class time half listening and half planning how I was going to save Branson’s life.
Paul eventually did ask me to the homecoming dance, and unlike the first time, I told him that I would be unable to attend due to a family obligation. I felt a momentary bit of sadness realizing that I would not be going to my own senior homecoming, but I had the experience in my original senior year and I had to remind myself that my trip was not about socializing. It was about getting my brother back.
True to his word, Branson also skipped the dance. He went camping with friends from the soccer team at the state park about an hour away from home. He returned to us, full of poison ivy and ticks and stories about who caught the biggest fish and which ones did not know kindling from tinder. Mandy, however, had not spoken to him since he told her that he was choosing camping over the dance. I heard that David Huggins had asked her, so I supposed she was going to be okay. I wondered how their lives would be different, having gone to the dance together instead of with the dates they chose in the original timeline. I would probably never know.
Life continued rather uneventfully for several weeks. I grew accustomed to the normalcy of life and yet, I maintained constant vigilance for any sign of Branson’s impending disease.
In the middle of my second month back, I found myself sitting with my mother and my best friend Sarah on the bleachers of the soccer field watching Branson’s team getting trounced by their longtime rivals from across town. I knew that half of Branson’s teammates were going to get hurt and that they would lose the game five to seven. In an attempt to follow the traveling rules, I chose not to intervene in any way, even knowing Doug Simms was going to end up breaking three toes, which would keep him out for the rest of the season.
As we cheered on our downtrodden team, Sarah and I chatted about our college preparations.
“I don’t know what to do about early admission to Brown,” Sarah said. “In order to do it, I’d have to back out of everywhere else and I don’t know if I’m willing to take that chance. I wish I had a crystal ball so I would know which school to choose!”
I smiled at Sarah, knowing that she would choose early admission to Brown, be accepted, and get a full ride scholarship as well. I was Sarah’s crystal ball, but I refused to interfere directly. “Will you be disappointed with anything but your first choice?” I asked.
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Then there’s your answer,” I said, smiling.
I had forgotten just how much I had missed Sarah being a part of my life. We met in sixth grade history class and initially hated one another. Her last name was Vanguard and my was Wallace, so we sat next to one another in every class, thanks to our teachers’ lack of imagination beyond alphabetical order for seating assignments. Eventually, after being paired together for every assignment in every class, it became clear that we would either become friends or kill each other. We had been best friends ever since.
During Branson’s illness, Sarah sat with me in the hospital, brought home assignments from school that I missed, and tried repeatedly to get my mind off my ailing brother by organizing shopping trips and slumber parties. After the funeral, Sarah sat at Branson’s gravesite with me for the rest of the day and well into the night. But just like everyone else in my life, I refused to see her as I shut myself off from the world the summer Branson died. She left for college in August, and after several phone calls and messages, she eventually gave up trying to contact me. I did not blame her in the slightest. How could I fault her for going on with her life even when I could not go on with mine? I was happy that she had moved on. However, I was also happy that we were back together again in the past, if only for a little while.
At halftime, as the team was sitting on the bench getting what I could only imagine was a tongue lashing from the coach, I watched as Branson took off his cleat, his sock, and his shin guard and began scratching furiously at his leg. I turned to stone. I had not seen him attend to his leg in the first timeline. Either I was too engrossed in my conversation with Sarah or I just had not paid much attention to what should have been a meaningless action. It certainly had meaning to me now. The rash had appeared.
My mother and I waited for Branson after the game outside the locker rooms. When he finally emerged, he looked devastated. The loss had taken the wind from his sails and he was limping badly. I could see his shin was raw and bleeding.
“Branson!” my mother exclaimed. “What happened to your leg?”
“I don’t know. It was fine earlier today, but then during the game it started burning, like it was on fire or something. I took off my shin guard, thinking maybe I’d been bitten by a bug, and this is what I found,” he said, pointing to his shin.
“We will head to Dr. White in the morning,” my mother declared.
“What if he says I can’t play on it? Championships are coming up,” Branson whined.
“Can you play on it like it is?” Mother countered.
“No.” Branson groaned and kicked at the ground. “Fine. I’ll go to the doctor’s, but I am going to play regardless of what he says.”
“We’ll see,” said Mother, leading us to the car.
My time to intervene had arrived.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I could barely concentrate on my calculus test knowing Dr. White was prescribing the potentially toxic medication as I was completing my final computation. It seemed absurd to me that I should have to retake every test and rewrite every essay, but there was always the chance that I would save Branson’s life, and maybe, just maybe, college would again be in my future.
As the bell rang, I threw my exam on the teacher’s desk as I sprinted out of the classroom. Instead of heading to my next class, I made my way clear to the other side of the building in the hopes of catching Branson coming into school. I stopped in the office and quickly scanned the attendance sheet. My mother had signed him in only fifteen minutes before. Branson would be heading to Spanish class. I took off in that direction, without regard to my own tardiness. The late bell rang well before I made it to the foreign language hallway. The classroom doors were all closed and I peered through the window into Branson’s class. He was there, seated in the back, leg wrapped and propped on a spare chair. I tapped gently on the door. Mr. Hernandez waved me in.