by Pintip Dunn
I nod reluctantly, and then Tanner nods, too.
“Great,” Preston says, but he doesn’t sound great. Instead, his voice cracks, and beads of sweat gather on his forehead. “The next thing we have to do is…uh, contact your mother.”
“Mom?” My eyebrows climb toward the ceiling. “What does she have to do with anything?”
“You know what.” He swallows a few times before he can get out his next words. “Twenty-three years ago, I asked your mother to act as my anchor. You see, time travel is so difficult because space and time need to be precisely coordinated. The earliest travelers flung themselves into time without thought to location—and perished in the deep reaches of space because the Earth was continuously moving. We can solve that problem, however, with an anchor. Someone who’s resided in the same place, from the target date of your travel to the present, so that she’s psychically attached to the location.”
He twists his fingers together. “Your mother has lived in the exact same spot since I left her. Let’s hope she’s continued the practice of recording her memories every night, so that she can recall a particular date. If so, I’ll be able to send you to any day you’d like in the last twenty-three years.”
So that’s why he’s so nervous. That’s why he looks like he’s about to faint.
“You’ll have to see her again,” I say. “In order for this to work, you and Mom will have to come face-to-face.”
“Yes. I’ll have to see Phoebe again.” A fine tremor runs through his body as he says her name. No matter how hard I try, I can’t figure out if her name is a prayer or a plea.
Probably both.
39
“Come on, Mom. Where are you?” I mutter the next morning, spinning on my heel to march down the apartment once more. “Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind.”
I had a holo-conference with her last night, filling her in on the day’s events. She already knew about Olivia’s kidnapping, but when I told her about how Dresden locked me up and I thought Callie had died, she cried along with me.
“She’s not dead,” I gasped. “I want you to know that. She’s stable, at least for the time being. But I thought she was. Mom, they were the most horrible hours of my life.”
“Of course it was, dear heart. Of course it was.” She reached out her arms to embrace me. We were on a holo-call, so of course I couldn’t feel her. But I closed my eyes and pretended I did.
But then came the hard part. The part when I had to tell her about Preston.
With halting words, I laid out the facts, as clearly and simply as I could. When I finished, she had become so still I could’ve mistaken her for a powered-off bot.
“Say something,” I pleaded. “Please.”
“He’s still thirty-one years old? Is he…well?” Even her voice sounded like a bot’s, flat and unemotional.
“Yes. Worried about you and Callie, but otherwise well.”
“That’s good.” Her voice got softer and softer. She was shutting down.
“You can’t pretend this isn’t happening, Mom. You have to see him. And soon. You’re the only way we have of saving Callie.”
She didn’t say much for the rest of the conversation. Didn’t move much, either. But I got her to agree to come to us in the morning. She also confirmed she had been recording her memories every day for the last twenty-three years, without fail. The sights, sounds, and smells. What she thought, how she felt. As complete a record as possible of that moment in time. She did it, every single night, although she never mentioned it. Not once.
I begin my hundredth trek across the apartment. Everything is proceeding according to plan—if you ignore my mom’s faint voice and my dad’s uncontrollable jitters. Even my stomach flops around like a fish on land.
And then, the floor vibrates. Someone’s here.
But it’s Tanner and not my mother who walks through the door. “Your mom’s in my apartment. She wants to talk to you.”
“What about?” I ask automatically. Some mothers and daughters talk every day. Not us. Our talks—the real ones that involve actual thoughts and genuine emotions—are more like the once-in-a-comet variety.
“She didn’t say. But she’s not budging until she sees you.”
Nodding, I look over my shoulder. Preston’s nowhere to be seen. The door to his sleeping area is sealed shut. I have the bizarre feeling I’m playing matchmaker. For my parents. Who are separated in time by more than two decades.
I take a deep breath. “Okay. Lead the way.”
When I walk into the spare room of Tanner’s apartment, my mother is sitting in front of a mirror. A box of black data chips lies on the table in front of her—one chip for each year since my father left.
Her hand trembles as she dabs the concealer under her eyes. Most women in Eden City get their blemishes removed—but not my mom. She’s always been proud of her age. When I was little, she would tell me bedtime stories using the lines on her face.
“These were the lines that were born when your father left,” she would say, pointing to the wrinkles around her mouth. “And these lines formed in the first year of your life.” She would indicate the three crow’s feet that radiated from her eyes. “You made me laugh and laugh, my darling bunny. With your little expressions, your little hands. You filled me with so much joy I almost forgot to feel sad.” She would pull me close, the conclusion of the story a whisper across my cheeks.
Now, she holds the eyeliner applicator to her face—for those women who opt not to tattoo—but her hand shakes so much the machine won’t lock and draw a straight line. After three times, she slams down the applicator. “What am I doing? I’m fifty years old. I’m not going to be able to hide that fact. I don’t want to hide it. I shouldn’t have to.” She closes her eyes and inhales deeply, quickly. Breaths to refill a rapidly dwindling supply of oxygen rather than to maintain the even flow of life.
“Mom.” I move forward and pick up the applicator. “You look beautiful.”
I position the applicator over her eye. The machine beeps, records an image of her eye, and then draws a precise, perfect line along her lash. I repeat the process with the other eye.
“Thank you,” she says in a tone I’ve never heard.
That’s when I realize in all the years since I’ve returned, we’ve never had a moment like this. Our natural mode of communication was arguing, and I never spoke to her without rolling my eyes or yelling.
Shame spreads through me. I resented her for staying in civilization, for refusing to move to the Harmony compound with me. And now, because she did, we might be able to save Callie. At the very least, I owe her an apology.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I say in a low voice. “I was so mad at you for abandoning me, but now, I’m so grateful you made that decision. So grateful.” I look into the mirror, searching for her eyes. When I find them, hers fill with tears.
“That was the only reason I could’ve let you go. I want you to know that, Jessa. It wasn’t because I was waiting for your father to return. It was because I was hoping this day would come. The day that Callie’s life depended on me staying where I was.”
My breath catches. “You knew? This whole time, you knew we would come to this point in time? But how? Did you receive a message from the future?”
“Something like that.” In the mirror, she moves her shoulders. “So much time had passed, I’d almost given up hope. Now, I’m so glad I didn’t.”
I turn her to face me. For this conversation, I don’t want anything between us, not even a reflective surface.
“I didn’t know the exact circumstances, but I was told in no uncertain terms that someday, I would need to act as an anchor to save my daughter’s life.” Her voice scrapes every bit of sinew and emotion from my heart. “I had to do it, Jessa. I had to save Callie’s life, even if it meant sacrificing your welfare.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper. “Explain the situation so I wouldn’t have been so mad? So I could understand a little
bit?”
“I couldn’t. You were so young, but more than that, I didn’t want to mess up the future chain of events. Fate is a tricky thing, Jessa. If you knew, I was afraid things wouldn’t have unfolded the way they were supposed to. I was afraid I would jeopardize Callie’s life, after everything we’ve sacrificed to save her.”
“I was so cold to you.” I duck my head, not looking at her. Not looking at my reflection. “All these years.”
She cups my chin and tilts it up. “I don’t blame you. Rightly or wrongly, I did abandon you. No matter the reason, I did it, and I have to suffer the consequences of that action. I knew what I was doing, Jessa. I knew exactly what my choice entailed, and I would make the same decision again.” She tries to smile, but her eyes won’t obey. “Doesn’t mean I’ll ever forgive myself. That’s why I was always so restrained with you. I knew you hated me, and you had every right in the world.”
I hug her, wrapping my arms around her neck, probably messing up the makeup I had just so carefully applied. “Oh, Mom. I don’t hate you. I love you. I always have. I just didn’t know how to show it.” I pull back and look at the fine lines decorating her face. How many of them did I put there? “This wasn’t easy for either of us. I’ll forgive you if you forgive me.”
She laughs, and it’s like a flashlight cutting through a tunnel of sludge. Hope slicing through a world of despair. “I would take years of you yelling at me for a moment like this.”
The tears push at my eyes, but they don’t come out. Instead, they drop inside me, splattering onto my soul. “I’m sorry, Mom. I should’ve tried harder.”
“It’s a two-way street, Jessa. I should’ve tried harder, too.” She reaches out and fixes my collar, even though it doesn’t need fixing. “Especially because I knew you would forgive me someday.”
“How?”
“Your future self told me.” She gives me a stunning smile, one I haven’t seen since I’ve been back in civilization. “She told me it was never too late for love.”
I smile back. “She’s really smart. Just remember that when you see Dad.”
She stiffens, and the happiness drains from her face. “Is it time already?”
It was time twenty minutes ago, but I don’t mention that. “Yes.”
“How do I look?”
“Beautiful.” I help her to her feet, turning her from the mirror. The only image I want her to see is the one reflected in my eyes. “You look like the woman Preston loves, no matter what age he is. No matter what age you are.”
She doesn’t believe me. I can tell from the flush of her cheeks, from the straightness of her spine. She looks like a woman about to go into battle, not like one about to be reunited with the love of her life.
“Let’s do this,” she mutters.
I follow her out the door. The riots continue outside, and I’m about to journey to the past to save my sister. But at this moment, I only want what every little kid wants: my parents together and happy once more.
40
My mother was in front of me, but somehow in the short walk down the hall, I overtake her. The closer we get to Preston’s apartment, the slower she walks. It’s as though she’s trying to prove the old scientific joke: If she goes half as far with every step, she’ll never arrive.
I look over my shoulder and give her a fortifying smile, but she’s beyond encouragement. Her arms are crossed tightly, and her every step is accompanied by a labored huff of air.
“It’s okay, Mom,” I say. “You’re not facing a monster. It’s just Dad.”
Dad. The name rolls off my tongue more and more easily. Yes, he’s only fifteen years older than me, and yes, he’s a time traveler from the past. But he’s still my dad. The same age gap exists between Ryder and his adopted father, Mikey. Families come in all shapes and sizes. They’re formed in countless ways—including time travel.
Only one question remains. Will my mom and dad be able to accept each other?
I walk into the apartment. Preston has emerged from his sleeping area, and he sits on the couch, twisting his necktie. I cover my mouth to hide a giggle. Twenty years ago, the height of fashion was to dress like our pre-Boom ancestors, including this unfortunate accessory. Most of the men eliminated ties from their wardrobe years ago—but not Preston. He’s so cute. And if he twists the tie any harder, he’ll rip it in two.
His head snaps up as we enter the room. On his face, I see hope and yearning, anticipation and fear. But the instant he glimpses my mom, every other emotion drops away, and sheer joy radiates from his every feature, his every movement.
“Phoebe,” he whispers, and I’m no longer uncertain about what her name means to him. It is a prayer, pure and simple. My mother is his every dream come true.
He crosses the room in four large steps. He stops in front of her, and the air shivers with indecision. But then he grins, as if to say: Forget that. I’ve been waiting too long for this moment. Picking her up, he spins her around, in what is clearly one of their patented moves.
My mom is crying now, tears rolling freely down her face. He sits down and arranges her carefully on his lap, kissing her cheeks, right at the spot where the tears drip, as if he is ingesting her very essence.
“I’ve missed you so much.” She lays a hand on his cheek. “You’re the same, the exact same.”
“As are you.” He turns his head, so that her fingers are against his lips.
She opens her mouth like she’s about to argue. I could tell you stories with the lines on my face, her parted lips seem to say. In fact, I did. For the daughter you never knew was born.
Instead, she closes her mouth and leans her forehead against his, enjoying the present in the way only a person who has been ravaged by time can.
My heart full, I back out of the room, slowly, silently. In the future, they will have problems to work out, insecurities to smooth over, misunderstandings to unravel. But for now, in this moment, love is timeless.
41
When I return to Tanner’s apartment, it’s been transformed into mission headquarters. Baby Remi naps in a portable cradle that inflates with the touch of a button, and Mikey stands in front of the wall screen, circling and crossing out equations while he rocks the cradle with his foot. After a couple of days of being barricaded in their house, the Russells got fed up and snuck out the same way Tanner and I did. It must not have been easy to haul Remi through the tunnel, but they managed.
He nods at me as if nothing’s wrong. From his perspective, nothing is. He’s the same as he always has been. I just never knew exactly who he was until now.
I move farther into the living area. In the center, Tanner and Angela are studying blueprints of the TechRA building from ten years ago. My heart flips. This is really happening. We’re really going back to the past.
Angela looks up from the holo-doc, blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Glad you’re here, Jessa. We have a lot to discuss with you.”
“We can’t transport nonessentials back through time,” Tanner pipes up. “Which means we can’t travel with our clothes.”
“Wait—what?” My voice rises in a high-pitched squeak. He can’t possibly have said what I thought he said. “Did you say we have to go back to the past…naked?”
“Yep,” he says, his tone way too cheerful. “Just be glad we don’t have to shave our heads. Your father did that when he traveled here—and when he arrived, he realized the hair on his body had passed through time unscathed. From Mikey’s research with the prosthetic limbs, we’ve learned that so long as an item is sufficiently bonded to your body, it will remain intact through time travel.”
I barely hear the rest of his explanation. I’m still stuck on the naked part. That means he’ll see me…I’ll see him… Damn the Fates. Can a wormhole open up and swallow me now?
“Don’t worry, dear heart,” Angela says. She taps a section of the blueprint, and it zooms in on a hallway. “I’m sure Tanner will be a gentleman and promise not to look. Won’t you, Tanner?
”
“Nope.” If possible, his tone gets even brighter. “We’re traveling through time—a journey very few scientists have taken. I need to pay attention. I’m not going to close my eyes over a false sense of modesty. Besides, I’ll be naked, too. Jessa has my full permission to look.”
He smiles at me, an obnoxious grin that makes me feel like I’m holding onto a live wire. No. I clamp down on the feeling. My skin might tingle, and my core might heat up—but that’s my body. That’s a chemical-based reaction. It has nothing to do with how I really feel.
“My parents are going to be in the room,” I say evenly.
“And they remember what it’s like to be young and in love.”
“We’re not in love.” Outraged, I move forward, even though I know he’s just trying to get a reaction out of me. Bad move. The step brings me within a few feet of his chest, and the memory of my cheek pressed against him sears through me. “We don’t even like each other.”
His eyes flash. “You’re entitled to your feelings. But don’t presume you know how I feel.”
“Why? Because I’m too stupid to understand the mind of the great Tanner Callahan?”
“No,” he says quietly. “Because you matter too much for me to pretend what we had was nothing.”
For a moment, all we hear is the squeak of the baby’s cradle. And then even Mikey stops rocking. Silence blooms. So thick it nearly chokes me. So loud I’m certain Remi will wake. It winds into my heart and infiltrates my lungs, and damn the Fates, it hurts.
There’s nothing I can do about the silence. Because nothing will take back Tanner’s betrayal. Nothing will return our relationship to what it was shaping up to be. Instead, I drop to my knees by the cradle and place a soft kiss on Remi’s cheek. The baby stirs, stretching her arms in a tiny, impossibly cute imitation of an adult, and continues sleeping.
“You may disagree on your feelings for each other,” Mikey says, his mild tone indicating he’s staying far from the topic, “so long as you are in agreement about one thing. Leave the past alone.”