He swallowed a bite of lasagna. “And if she’s not,” he said, “I’ve got plenty of other options for you. Plus, I’ll write down my mother’s Alexandria address just in case you end up needing it. I don’t remember her phone number from back then, though.”
I lifted my head to look at him, wondering if he knew something he wasn’t telling me. “Do I ever see you again in 2001?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not that I remember.”
“Do I see your mother?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think she ever mentioned you to me again. Hopefully you won’t need to see her.” He reached for a plump envelope on the end table next to him. “Seven hundred dollars for you,” he said. He tried to give it to me, but I held up my hand to stop him.
“Oh, Hunter, thank you, but I won’t need it, especially if I’m coming back Friday. I still have more than five hundred in my New York bank account from the money you gave me last time. And I have that credit card your mother gave me, as long as she hasn’t canceled it.”
“Humor me,” he said. “When you didn’t come back and didn’t come back, I started worrying about your finances. How are you paying for the hospital?”
“Your mother took care of the insurance for me.”
“Okay,” he said. “But it’s still hard to predict what you’re going to need. Just take this. I’ll feel better if you have it.”
“All right.” I took the thick envelope from him. I would bring every penny of it back to him.
34
HUNTER
I felt a little cocky as I drove the mile and a half to the pier late that night. Carly sat beside me, her backpack clutched in her arms. Every few seconds, she checked the chronometer on her wrist. Our target was 11:57 and she needed to be pretty exact with it tonight.
Patti was in the backseat, John Paul asleep in her arms. She’d wanted to be with us this time.
“I have to see Carly do this with my own eyes before I’ll believe it,” she’d said.
I thought it was a good idea to have her with us. She’d been so upset that we’d left her in the dark the last time.
Everything felt right with my world at that moment. I was proud of myself for whipping out five portals in record time that afternoon and I was one hundred percent certain of their accuracy. My wife was back in love with me. My sister-in-law thought I’d hung the moon. My son was walking and talking. Best of all, the night was clear. Nothing to get in the way of a perfect launch for Carly. It didn’t get any better than this.
Carly was antsy, tapping her foot against the floorboard and smoothing her hands back and forth over my old yellow backpack. We had half an hour to spare and I knew she was worried something—or someone—would get in our way. After her experience with the guy who grabbed her leg on the Gapstow Bridge, I couldn’t blame her. But unless there were fishermen at the end of the pier—always a possibility—we would be fine. Her courage was stunning to me. If I’d learned anything in the last day, though, it was that the love of a mother could make a hero out of an everyday woman.
I parked the car and got the stroller from the trunk. John Paul didn’t wake up as Patti tucked him into the stroller and we began walking toward the pier. The night was dark, the lights on the pier giant white puffballs in the air.
“Fishermen,” Patti said quietly as we started walking onto the pier.
I squinted down the length of the pier. There were indeed a few fishermen scattered here and there at the sides of the pier, but I couldn’t make out any at the end, and that was where it mattered.
“What if one of them sees the three of us walking to the end of the pier and only two of us walking back?” Patti asked in a near whisper.
“We’ll tell them they were seeing things,” I said. “They were here last time, too, and gave us no problem. All they care about is their fish.”
Carly was quiet. She had turned in on herself, I could tell. In her mind, she was probably already in New York. Probably already holding her baby in her arms again.
We reached the end of the pier. We’d walked far past the last fisherman and although there were a couple of the tall puffballs of light above us, the spot where Carly would step off was in the safety of darkness. Nothing to worry about at all. Still, my heart pounded as it always did leading up to a launch, whether it was my own or that of a fellow traveler.
“My God, my God,” Patti said quietly as she looked over the railing. She turned to Carly. “It’s so high,” she said. “How can you make yourself do this?”
“In a few hours, I’ll be with Joanna,” Carly said with a shrug. “That’s how.” For the hundredth time, she looked at her chronometer. “Four minutes,” she said, slipping the backpack onto her shoulders. She looked like a seasoned time-traveling pro.
“When she steps off, don’t yell or scream or anything,” I said to Patti. “I know it’ll be tempting but we don’t need any attention.”
“I won’t,” she promised. She reached for Carly, pulling her into a hug. “I love you,” she said. “Hurry home.”
“Love you, too,” Carly said. Then she turned to me. “Help me up?”
I held her hand as she climbed onto one slat of the railing, then another. I could see the illuminated second hand on the chronometer as she took the final step onto the top of the railing. I was vaguely aware of Patti next to me, covering her mouth with her hand, ready to catch her scream. The second hand ticked to 11:57.
“It’s time,” I said, and Carly let go of my hand as she rose to her full height. She took one step forward and then she was gone. I let out my breath.
Patti nearly collapsed against me, a moan escaping her lips.
“Oh, Hunter,” she whispered. “Bring her back.”
I wrapped my arms around her, wondering if she could tell that I, too, was trembling. “Shh,” I said. “She’s fine. It’ll all be fine.” I let go of her and turned the stroller around. “Let’s go home,” I said. “It’s all in Carly’s hands now.”
Patti cried quietly as we walked the length of the pier, and as far as I could tell, none of the fishermen paid us any attention. She put her hand on my back, her fingers tucked inside my belt, and I thought, Tonight, we’ll make love. It had been so long. Finally we could get back to being happy. Being together.
It wasn’t until I’d pulled into our driveway that I had a horrific thought. I had to be wrong. I pressed the brake. God, please let me be wrong.
“What was today’s date?” I asked. I thought my voice sounded remarkably calm as I turned off the ignition.
“September tenth,” she said. “Why?”
“No reason,” I said, but I couldn’t seem to move from behind the wheel, my body cold with fear.
I’d just sent Carly to New York City on the morning of September 11, 2001.
PART TWO
35
CARLY
New York City
When I came to, I lay on my side in cool grass that tickled my nose. I sat up quickly with a gasp, then groaned, my stomach out of sync with the world as it spun around me. I was in a sea of green. Was this the Sheep Meadow where Hunter had told me I would land? Yes, it had to be. The grass stretched away from me in all directions and in the distance I saw trees and the tall buildings of New York. I wanted to leap to my feet and run from the park to find the hospital, but I knew better. Instead, I sat still, trying to get my bearings. I wasn’t alone in the meadow. People walked across the vast lawn. A young couple sat on a blanket nearby, sipping coffee, most likely, from cardboard cups. Two women walked past me, a gaggle of children in tow. The women glanced in my direction. They were both blond, both wearing baseball caps, long ponytails bouncing from the openings in the back. One of the women pointed to me and said something to her friend, who nodded, then jogged toward me.
I smoothed my hair, wondering how disheveled I appeared to her.
“You all right?” she asked as she neared me.
I smoothed my jacket and checked that my backpack was sti
ll attached to my shoulders as I smiled up at her. “Yes, I’m fine,” I said. “I was just resting.”
She looked at me doubtfully. “All right,” she said, then turned to go.
“Wait!” I said, realizing I had no idea how to get to the hospital from the Sheep Meadow.
The woman looked down at me again, waiting.
“Can you point me toward the exit, please?”
“Which one?”
“Just the nearest.”
She pointed toward my right. “See that road there? If you follow it, you’ll come to Central Park West.”
From where I sat, I couldn’t see the road she was indicating, but I would find it … as soon as I was certain my legs would hold me up when I tried to stand.
I waited until the woman and her friend had moved a good distance away before I dared try to get to my feet. I took a few steps across the grass. I was fine. Still a little woozy, a little nauseous, but I ignored the feeling as I headed in the direction she’d sent me. Central Park West. I knew that was the wrong way if I wanted to go to the hospital, but I would be able to find a cab there. That was all that mattered.
By the time I reached Central Park West, the muscles of my legs were shaking from my ankles to my thighs. I had to hold on to a lamp post as I tried ineffectually to wave down a cab. I definitely felt worse than I had the first two times I traveled. I needed rest, but it was the last thing I wanted. All I wanted at that moment was to get to Lincoln Hospital and my daughter.
I felt the eyes of a suit-clad businessman on me and knew I didn’t look well. The man was gray-haired and carrying a briefcase and he, too, was trying to catch a cab, though with far more energy than I possessed. He was out in the street, arm up, practically stopping traffic with his body. When a cab finally pulled over for him, he walked to my side, wordlessly took me by the elbow and guided me to the door.
“This one’s yours,” he said. “I can catch another one.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, surprised and hugely grateful. I felt like crying over his kindness as I sank down in the backseat.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
“Amelia Wade Lincoln Hospital,” I said.
“Well, hallelujah,” he said. “If one more person asked to go to Lower Manhattan today, I was gonna find a new job.” He put the taxi in gear and pressed the gas. “Practically every fare so far this morning took me down there and you can’t get within five blocks of the memorial.”
“What memorial?” I asked, to be polite.
I saw him frown at me in the mirror. “Where’re you from?” he asked. “Alabama? You sound like Alabama.”
“North Carolina,” I said.
“Well, it’s that 9/11 remembrance day they’re having down there,” he said. “You know, September eleventh? Ring a bell?”
Okay, I thought, this was something I was supposed to know. “Oh, right,” I said. “Sure.” I tried to smile at him in the mirror. “Well, I don’t need to go to Lower Manhattan,” I said, “so you’re safe with me.”
In the mirror, I saw him frown again, his eyebrows knitted together. “You’re a strange one,” he said, and I thought it was best to keep my mouth shut for the rest of the drive.
* * *
Something seemed different to me as the cab pulled in front of the hospital. Was the driver dropping me off at a different entrance? There was a new Mexican food cart on the corner that looked like it had been there forever, and next to the sidewalk stood a life-sized bronze statue of a woman and child I could swear I’d never seen before. But the actual entrance with its huge double glass doors looked the same. I paid the driver with fumbling fingers, then got out of the cab and headed for that familiar entrance.
The lobby comforted me with its piano music, reception desk, and familiar congestion. I walked to the bank of elevators, joined several other people in one of the cars, and pressed the button for the tenth floor. I felt woozy again as we began to rise and I leaned against the side wall. In one minute you’ll be with Joanna, I told myself, and I felt a tired smile spread across my face.
I got off the elevator on the tenth floor and felt immediately disoriented. The sign on the wall, the sign that was supposed to read MATERNAL AND FETAL CARE CENTER instead read ONCOLOGY. Had I gotten off at the wrong floor? But no. The placard next to the elevator clearly read “10.”
One of the elevators opened and a young man, an orderly, I guessed, walked out pushing an empty wheelchair.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Isn’t the nursery that way?” I pointed down the hall.
“Sixth floor,” he said, brushing past me.
“No…” I started to argue with him, but he was already dashing down the hallway.
Had something jogged loose in my memory when I traveled from 1970? Two days earlier, the nursery had definitely been on the tenth floor.
Nevertheless, I rode the next elevator to the sixth floor. There was the sign … no, it was a different sign: MATERNAL AND FETAL HEALTH, with an arrow pointing left. NURSERIES with an arrow to the right. Completely disoriented, I turned right and headed down the hall, stopping at the double doors marked “PCICU.” I felt as though I was in a completely different hospital than Amelia Wade Lincoln. Everything was wrong. The counter where the receptionist sat? Gone. The glass window that allowed you to see the babies? Gone.
I pushed open the double doors to find myself in a small, windowed foyer where a nurse sat at a long counter operating a computer. I could see into the nursery. Into the sea of isolettes, no longer separated by curtains but rather by screens that formed walls between the cubicles.
The nurse smiled up at me. “Can I help you?” she asked. I knew nearly every nurse in the CICU but I’d never seen this woman before.
“I’m a mom,” I said, trying to smile. I felt unsteady and held on to the edge of the counter. “A mother. My baby’s here. Joanna Sears. And I’m a little confused. Did the nursery suddenly move to the sixth floor?”
She frowned at me. “It’s been on the sixth floor as long as I’ve been working here,” she said. “And that’s five years.” She tapped the keys on the computer in front of her. “Joanna Sears,” she said, typing. “Joanna right? Not Johanna? And Sears is S-E-A-R-S?”
“Yes.” I gripped the counter harder. I wished there was a second chair in the foyer because I desperately needed to sit down.
“No, I’m not finding her.” The nurse frowned at her computer screen.
“She’s here,” I argued. “I had to go away for a couple of days, but she’s still here. She was in isolation.”
“I’m sorry but I think you’re mis—”
I swept past her chair and pushed open the door to the nursery.
“Hey!” she said, and I heard her shout into the phone or an intercom or something. “Security!”
Another unfamiliar nurse pushed an isolette past the door to the nursery and she looked up at me in surprise.
“Where’s the isolation room!” I shouted. It was as if another woman inhabited my body. One who shouted. One filled with panic.
“You can’t be in here,” the nurse said. “You need to get a gown and—”
“My baby is here,” I said. “Where’s Celeste? She can tell you.”
I walked into the sea of isolettes, many of them closed off by those new screens. My eyes searched the perimeter of the nursery for the isolation rooms. I spotted one, but the door was open and from where I stood, I could see it was empty.
“Where’s my daughter?” I asked the nurse. Other nurses—and some parents—were looking at me now. One nurse took my arm and tried leading me back to the door, but I pulled away from her, suddenly furious. “Where is she?” I shouted. “What’s going on?”
“Celeste’s the NICU supervisor,” the nurse at my elbow said calmly. “Let me take you to see her.”
And then I saw the clock. It was on the far wall, huge blue numbers stating the time, and below them in smaller numbers, the date: 9–11–2013.
They were
the last thing I saw before my world went black.
36
I was in a wheelchair. Someone held a cool cloth to my forehead. My backpack was on one side of my lap, an empty emesis basin next to it. A man in uniform stood nearby. He had a gun on his belt. Around me, people talked over one another.
“I remember her,” a woman said.
I knew that voice.
“Celeste?” The name came out of my mouth in a whisper. “Celeste?” I said, looking around in desperation, my mind beginning to clear.
“Yes.” She was in front of me. Leaning toward me. “Carol, right? That’s your name?”
“Caroline, yes,” I said. “And my baby Joanna is supposed to be here.” My body trembled with the need to hold my daughter in my arms.
Celeste stood up straight. She looked both different and the same. Her brown hair was shorter. Redder. There were wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Of course she was older. It was 2013. Oh my God. I tried to get out of the chair. “I have to go,” I said. “I have to get back to—”
“No, no,” someone said from behind me, holding my shoulders down.
“Take her to the ER,” the man with the gun said.
“No,” Celeste said. “Take her to my office. I remember her well now. Let me talk to her.” She leaned toward me again. “You’re agitated, Caroline,” she said. “Let’s get you settled down and we can talk.”
I nodded woodenly, hoping there was something she could say or do that would erase this nightmare. How had this happened? How had I ended up in 2013? I couldn’t believe Hunter could have been that off in his calculations.
Someone I couldn’t see wheeled me down a corridor and into a small office. Behind me I heard Celeste’s voice.
“She has to be close to forty,” she said quietly to the person pushing the chair. “But she still looks exactly like she did back then. I remember that long blond hair. That flawless skin.”
I was wheeled to the side of a desk. Celeste dismissed whoever had been pushing me, shut the door and sat down at the desk, turning her chair to face me. We were nearly knee to knee. “Here.” She opened a bottle of water and handed it to me. I drank nearly half of it in a couple of gulps, the dehydration suddenly overwhelming.
The Dream Daughter: A Novel Page 22