The Dream Daughter: A Novel

by Diane Chamberlain

  “I don’t know where this is,” she said.

  A second boy had spotted us now. From the corner of my eye, I saw him slow his run as he headed toward us, his red hair frizzy around his head. A gold cross dangled from his pierced ear. “Hey, Kendra,” he said to the girl. “What’s going on?”

  “She fell, but she thinks she’s okay,” the girl said, straightening up from her crouch. She shook out one long dark leg, then the other. I knew I should get to my feet to show them I was indeed fine, but I was afraid my own legs weren’t ready to hold me and I didn’t want to fall in front of them. “And she’s tryin’ to get to this address.” The girl—Kendra—handed my precious slip of paper to the boy.

  “That’s, like, maybe five miles from here,” the boy said, looking at the address. “Do you have a car?” he asked me.

  I shook my head. I remembered Hunter telling me I’d land a few miles from his mother’s house.

  “Is she okay?” the boy asked Kendra. “She seems kind of…” He rocked his hand back and forth as if to indicate I wasn’t thinking clearly. I needed to get up now. No more dawdling or I was going to end up in an emergency room.

  “I’m all right,” I said, getting first to my hands and knees, then struggling to stand up. I felt awkward and embarrassed. The earth seemed spongy beneath my feet and that weird nausea teased me again, but I didn’t give in to it. “Can you point me in the direction of that address?” I asked the boy.

  He pointed to my right. “You just go that way to get off the campus, and then—”

  “She can’t walk five miles!” Kendra said. “Look at her.”

  I tried to smile. “I’m fine, really,” I said, though she was right. There was no way I’d be able to walk five miles right now.

  “You from the South?” Kendra asked.

  “North Carolina,” I said.

  “I could tell,” she said.

  “Do you have any money?” the boy asked. “You could take a taxi.”

  “All right,” I said. This would be my first taxi ride. “Is there a phone booth I can use to call one?”

  Kendra unzipped a pocket on her shorts and pulled something out. At first I thought it was some sort of metal wallet. Then she flipped the top open and I saw it was a little phone. She pressed some buttons and asked someone—information, I guessed—for the number of a taxi company. After a few seconds she handed the phone to me.

  “The cab company,” she said.

  I lifted the small phone to my ear. “Hello?” I raised my voice as I turned the little device in my hand, unsure what part of it I was supposed to speak into. I was aware of Kendra and the boy exchanging a look.

  “Where are you going?” a harsh-sounding female voice asked.

  “Oh! Um…” I reached for the slip of paper, still in the boy’s hand, and read the address into the phone.

  “Where should we pick you up?” the woman asked.

  I looked at Kendra. “Where should they pick me up?”

  “Tell them the Faculty Road entrance to the campus.”

  I repeated her instructions into the phone.

  “We’ll be there in ten minutes,” the woman said.

  “Thank you,” I said, but she’d already hung up. I handed the phone back to Kendra and she flipped the lid shut and slipped it back into her pocket. “Can y’all point me in the direction of that entrance, please?”

  “‘Y’all.’” The boy chuckled.

  “Follow that road.” Kendra pointed to my right. “It’s not far.”

  “Thanks so much for your help,” I said, looking from her to the boy as I started to walk. My legs felt rubbery, but I forced them forward. “By the way,” I asked, looking at them over my shoulder, not caring now what they thought of me. “What’s today’s date?”

  “April twenty-third,” Kendra called.

  “And the year?” I asked.

  They glanced at each other.

  “Two thousand one,” the boy said.

  “Thanks!” I waved as I turned away from them, a thrill of victory in my step. “Joanna,” I said softly as I walked, “we’re on our way.”

  11

  From the backseat of the taxi, Princeton passed me by as if in a dream. Everything was a blur of muted colors on this overcast day, and I was consumed with touching my hands, my cheeks, my knees, trying to wrap my mind around the fact that my body had traveled thirty-one years into the future. I alternated between giddiness and nausea, not responding to the taxi driver as he tried to engage me in conversation. I was too wrapped up in what was happening to me.

  The driver pulled to a stop in front of a small brown Craftsman-style bungalow, similar to some of the houses in my family’s old Raleigh neighborhood. The paint was peeling on the tapered columns of the porch, and the yard looked neglected compared to the meticulously maintained landscaping of its neighbors. I checked the house number on my slip of paper. This was the right address. I paid the driver, and as I was taking my change, I saw a small blue car back down the driveway from the detached garage. Leaping out of the taxi, I ran toward the driveway, waving my arms, the yellow backpack flapping against my shoulder blades. The car came to an abrupt stop and the woman behind the wheel rolled down her window. The scent of cigarette smoke wafted toward me.

  “Yes?” the woman inquired. She had short, sloppily cropped gray hair, a network of wrinkles around her eyes, and a cigarette between her fingers.

  “Are you Myra?” I asked.

  “Depends on who’s asking,” she said cagily.

  “My name is Carly Sears and your son Hunter is my brother-in-law in”—I glanced behind me as though someone might be listening—“in 1970,” I said quietly.

  She stared at me as though she didn’t understand, then broke into a laugh. “Well, holy shit!” She pounded a fist on the steering wheel, ashes flying onto the dashboard. “You have got to be kidding me.” She raised her eyebrows as if waiting for me to tell her I was indeed joking.

  “No, I’m not kidding,” I said. “He’s married to my sister. In 1970.”

  The woman turned the key in the ignition and the car fell quiet. “Let’s go inside,” she said, opening the car door and stepping out.

  She walked ahead of me toward the house, crossing the damp lawn—which was in dire need of mowing. She wore jeans and a tan jacket, a soft-sided briefcase strapped to her shoulder. She was slender—skinny, actually—and she walked with a quick, businesslike step, stopping only to crush out her cigarette in the grass. I followed her up the porch steps and waited behind her while she unlocked the front door.

  “Come in,” she said, taking a step back to let me walk ahead of her.

  I entered a small living room where there was a long, cushy-looking gold couch and a couple of straight-backed chairs. The requisite Craftsman-style bookcase that filled one wall stood empty and the whole room had a bare, chilly feel to it. There wasn’t a single piece of art or décor on the walls. Around the room’s perimeter large boxes were piled helter-skelter on top of one another. On one of the piles of boxes rested what looked like a miniature movie screen.

  “Ignore the mess,” Myra said, motioning toward the boxes. “I’ve already started packing for a move to Virginia this summer. I need my business to be closer to Washington.” She glanced at my face, then lowered her gaze to my belly. “You’re pregnant!” she said. “You traveled from 1970 pregnant?”

  “Yes.” I rested an anxious hand on my stomach. “Was that a dangerous thing to do?”

  “No reason it should be,” she said with a shrug. “It’s just that it hasn’t been done before, at least not that I know of. We’ll have to record everything about your experience. Sit.” She motioned toward the sofa. I slipped the backpack from my shoulders and sank into the cushions. Literally. The cushions were so soft they cradled me. I started to put the backpack on the floor, then thought better of it and held it—and its thousand dollars—on my lap. I didn’t want to let it out of my sight for a second.

  “Where the
hell are you from, with that accent?” Myra sat down on the opposite end of the sofa and dug around inside her briefcase, producing a notebook and a pen.

  “North Carolina.”

  “Hmm,” she said, a curious frown on her face. She jotted something down on the notepad. She had long, bony fingers and short, neat nails. It was hard to believe she was Hunter’s mother. She looked nothing like him, and she seemed too old. She had to be at least sixty.

  “When did you arrive?” she asked.

  I looked at my chronometer. Eleven forty-five. “About an hour ago, I think,” I said. “I … stepped off … at four eleven A.M. on May eighth, 1970.”

  She looked surprised. “Was this your first time?”

  “Yes.”

  “You must be thirsty as hell,” she said.

  I realized she was right. My mouth felt bone-dry. “I am,” I admitted. My tongue clicked against the roof of my mouth as I spoke.

  She set her notepad on the arm of the sofa and disappeared down the hall into another room—the kitchen, I supposed. When she returned a moment later, she placed a bottle of water and a bowl of grapes on the end table next to me. “I’ll get you something more substantial shortly,” she said, “but right now, I need to know more.” She sat down again, notepad back on her knee. “My son is in 1970?”

  Unzipping the backpack, I pulled out the envelope Hunter had asked me to give her. My so-called letter of introduction. I handed it to her and she tore one end of it open and pulled out the sheet of paper. I watched her read it silently, shaking her head with a grin. In a moment, she looked up at me. “Do you know what it says?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Myra looked down at the letter again. “‘Hey, Mom,’” she read, “‘I know I’m breaking the rules here, but in this case, I have to. I’m living in 1970, married, and have a son. Caroline, aka Carly, is my sister-in-law and she needs twenty-first-century medical help for the baby she’s carrying. I stepped off for my last trip in 2018, fell in love, and have chosen to stay in 1970. No worries, all right? Please help Carly all you can. I miss you. Love, Hunter.’”

  She looked at me. Were her blue eyes glistening? There was something of Hunter in those eyes, I thought. Something in the shape of them. Something in that pale blue. “He’s staying in 1970,” she said quietly, more to herself than to me.

  “That must be … weird for you to read,” I said. How must she feel, knowing that her son would someday leave her permanently? But then I remembered that he left shortly after she disappeared on her fifth trip. I felt another wave of nausea. I didn’t like knowing this much about her. About her future.

  “Actually, this pleases me,” she said, holding the letter in the air. “I’ve often wondered if Hunter would join Temporal Solutions, and I see that he has. But he’s a naughty boy.” She grinned at the letter. “He knows better than to let me know the future. I suppose he had no choice in this case.”

  “He’s really a wonderful person,” I said. “He—”

  “Shh,” she said. “Don’t tell me about him.” She pulled a cigarette from the pack on the end table next to her. “You mind?” she asked me, already lighting the cigarette with a silver lighter, and I shook my head. “I’d like to know about him, of course,” she said, blowing smoke from the side of her mouth, “but it goes against all the rules. I already know too much.” She motioned toward the letter, which now rested between us on the sofa. Putting the cigarette to her lips again, she took a long inhalation. “So,” she said, letting out the smoke, “what sort of help do you need for your baby that you couldn’t get in 1970?”

  Wow, she’s tough, I thought. If I’d learned something so monumental about my child, I would want to know every detail about his life.

  I shifted a little on the soft cushion to better face her. “Hunter thinks you can help me get fetal surgery,” I said. “There’s a problem—a very serious problem with my baby’s heart—and if nothing is done, it’s going to turn into something called hypoplastic left heart syndrome, which will be fatal. In 1970, nothing can be done, but Hunter said I could get fetal surgery in New York in 2001, so that’s why I’m here.” Myra studied my face without comment, and I continued. “I don’t have a surgeon’s name or anything,” I said. “I don’t even know why Hunter’s so certain a surgeon can help me, but I have to try to save my baby. She’s going to die if I don’t.” My voice cracked. I took a long drink from the bottle of water, my hand shaking. “I’m scared,” I said as I set the bottle back on the table, and suddenly, without warning, I began to cry. My nerves had had it.

  “All right, now.” Myra sounded impatient, whisking her hand through the air. “Get it out and get it over with.”

  It took me a second to realize she was talking about my crying. I straightened my spine. Sat up tall. Wiped the skin beneath my eyes with my fingertips. “I’m all right,” I said.

  She crushed out her partially smoked cigarette in the ashtray on the end table. “Okay now,” she said. “We have a lot to figure out and I need to think everything through very carefully, every step of the way.” I thought she seemed excited by the challenge I was giving her. She looked at her watch. “First, let me call my office and tell them I won’t be in this afternoon,” she said. “Then I’ll get down to business getting you documentation. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to do this for someone, but your case is certainly unique. The other times were for scientists involved in experiments. Not for a pregnant woman. A civilian. Where did you step off?”

  “The end of a fishing pier.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You’re a brave woman, aren’t you?” she said. It was a statement rather than a question and I thought I heard some admiration in it. I’d never thought of myself as all that brave.

  “I’m a desperate woman,” I said.

  She glanced at the rings on my left hand. “Where’s your husband?” she asked. “Does he know what you’re up to?”

  “My husband died in Vietnam,” I said.

  “Vietnam!” She slapped a hand on the arm of the sofa. “Shit. The worst mistake in modern American history. An unnecessary waste of so many young men and women.”

  Her insensitivity stung. I knew Hunter had told me practically the same thing, but there was something about the way Myra said it that got my hackles up. My eyes burned and I blinked back the tears. I wouldn’t cry in front of this woman again.

  “Well, let’s get started on documentation for you.” Myra reached into the soft-sided briefcase and pulled out a large, flat rectangular metal box. She rested it on her lap and opened the lid, exposing a typewriter keyboard.

  “Is that a typewriter?” I asked.

  “Laptop computer,” Myra said, hitting a few of the keys.

  I remembered Hunter telling me his mother would give me a computer … as if I’d have a clue what to do with it. I watched her type something, her brow furrowed in concentration, and I wondered what she was looking at. I sipped more of the water; I had no appetite for the grapes. I hadn’t eaten anything since the few nibbles I’d had at dinner the night before. Still, I didn’t feel as though I could get anything down.

  I looked around the room as Myra typed. You would never know a scientist lived here, I thought. Someone bright enough to have created a time-travel program. I would have expected a sleek, modern house filled with sleek, modern furniture.

  “How did you … come up with this?” I asked. “Time travel?”

  She didn’t look up from the computer. “Completely by accident,” she said. “I was running some experiments and discovered an anomaly in my results. An aberration that made no sense and seemed to be pointing to an opening…” She typed a bit and I thought she was finished talking, but then she began again. “I didn’t know what it was an opening to,” she said, glancing up at me, “but eventually I realized it was time. An opening in time. And over the course of a few years of obsessing over it and fiddling with it, I discovered how to calculate the portals and here we are.”

  �
�I didn’t understand a word of that,” I admitted.

  “You don’t need to,” she said. “Come closer.” She moved Hunter’s letter from the sofa cushion between us to make room for me. I moved over, setting the backpack on the cushion I’d just vacated.

  “Here’s a map of North Carolina,” Myra said, turning the computer so I could see a sort of television screen above the keyboard. “Show me where you stepped off.”

  I found Nags Head on the map and pointed to it.

  “Strange name,” Myra said. “Is that in the area they call the Outer Banks?”

  I nodded. I felt suddenly homesick—painfully so—for Nags Head. For our cottage. For Patti and Hunter and John Paul. They were so, so far away from me in both place and time. It was like they were dead to me.

  Myra hit some of the keys. “This is email.” She showed me the screen. I had no idea what I was looking at. “I’m going to send a request to one of my staff to create documentation for you and also to procure an iBook for you.”

  I smiled, remembering Hunter using that word: iBook. “Hunter said you’d get me one of those, but I have no idea how to use it.”

  “You’ll learn,” she said, fingers flying over the keyboard.

  “Hunter told me you’ve time-traveled,” I said.

  “Uh-huh,” she said without looking up. “Four times, so I can’t go again. Four is the limit.”

  “Yes, Hunter told me that,” I said. “He called it the ‘fifth-trip rule.’”

  “Exactly. I’ve been as far as 3000,” Myra said, shaking her head. “You don’t want to know what a mess the world is in in 3000.”

  “Hunter said that right now—2001—it’s pretty peaceful.”

  Myra laughed. “Yes, for about fifteen minutes,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  She shook her head. “Let’s focus on what you need in the here and now,” she said. She began typing a note to her coworker, or whatever he—or she—was. I tipped my head to be able to read the screen.