“Dr. Johnstone said you were the one to tell him I was here,” Maria said. “Why would you do that if you didn’t want me to listen to him?”
“Would you have believed an old man wandering in off the street if he hadn’t been here first?”
Maria shrugged. She couldn’t imagine what she would have believed or not believed had George shown up in her hospital room instead of Dr. Johnstone, if he’d tried to convince her to save Beth. After everything she’d been through in the past couple of weeks, hypotheticals were impossible.
“How do you know each other?” she asked. “Is he a friend of yours?”
“Dr. Johnstone was a lost soul when I found him almost thirty years ago, drifting in and out of homeless shelters, hooked on drugs, rambling on to anyone who’d listen about coming back from the future. About how he failed to do what he’d been sent back here to do. He’s come a long way, and he’s not a bad man. In fact, he’s helped many people over the years. But he’s so blinded by his research and the guilt he feels over his own choices that he sometimes forgets why we’re all here.”
“You mean our purpose?”
“No one comes back without a purpose,” George said. “He told me you didn’t die, which is one of the reasons he’s so interested in you. He wants to send you back. He thinks if he can figure out how to manipulate this loophole, he’ll somehow be able to manage voluntary time travel in the future.”
“Maybe he’s right. Maybe there’s a reason I didn’t die, and I’m supposed to go back.”
“You were supposed to die, Maria. But sometimes…” He paused and glanced out the window, almost regretful to continue. “Some people just don’t know how to let go.”
With shaking hands, George pulled a necklace from beneath the collar of his shirt and slid it over his head, running his fingers over the engraving. The silver disk was tarnished with age and wear, and before he placed it in the palm of Maria’s hand, he wound the chain around it and kissed it gently.
“I’ve carried this with me for over six decades now.”
Maria read and reread the engraving.
FOSTER, PHILIP V.
PVT.
38 REG. 3 INF.
U.S.A.
It was an old military dog tag, the likes of which she was sure she’d never seen, but the memory of it pulsed through her synapses and fired into her brain, the image flashing over and over in her mind. “How do I know this?”
“You were just a child at the fair, with your mom,” he said. “My wife and I were sitting on the bench across from you, watching you lick the last of the cotton candy off your fingers. I’ll never forget how you cried when your mom dumped that mess in the garbage.” The creases running through his face deepened with his smile as his thoughts took him back to a well-loved and often-played memory. “You stopped crying the second you saw me, and then you marched right up to me and my wife like you’d known us forever.”
“Are you sure it was me?”
“I’m sure,” he said, and as she held the dog tag in the palm of her hand, the heat from George’s skin still radiating from it, Maria could hear the words she’d said all those years ago.
“‘Can I see your brother’s necklace?’” As the memory materialized before her, she closed her fingers around the metal disk. “That’s what I said to you.”
“My brother.” George smiled. “You were right. He was more of a brother to me than my own flesh and blood, but our brotherhood was formed by the blood we spilled, not the blood we shared.”
The distant gaze of his eyes had taken him far away from the prison-barred window of Maria’s hospital room, and though he appeared to be taking in the Alabama spring sky just outside that window, she knew he was seeing people and places and choices that must have lingered in his memory for far too long.
“I want you to keep that,” he said, pointing to the chain in her hand.
“I can’t take this. This should go to your family.”
“That dog tag is the reason I knew you would come back, Maria. The reason I kept an eye on you all these years, waiting for something to happen to let me know that you’d returned.”
“But kids say crazy things all the time,” Maria replied. “How could you be so sure?”
“When you’ve seen the things I’ve seen, you listen to what the universe is telling you. There are no coincidences.” The nature of his smile changed before her eyes, and even though she’d never had one in life, Maria felt certain she understood the love of a grandfather.
“How did you figure out that I’d made it back?”
“I knew when you didn’t show up to school that morning something was wrong. You were never one to miss school, and when you didn’t pass me on the bench where I’d sit and feed the birds every morning, I started calling the hospitals. And then I called Dr. Johnstone.”
He nodded to the dog tag, and their eyes met on Maria’s clenched fingers. “Philip was my best friend, but I didn’t wear that necklace all this time just for him. I wore it for you, too. Knowing you’d need a friend when you came back.”
“What happened to him?” Maria asked, nosing her way into a past that the man beside her had likely spent years trying to forget.
“He died,” George said. “The second time we fought through World War One, he died.” His eyes darkened and the tremor in his hands worsened as his memories dragged him back to a place that should have been reserved for nightmares. “You’d be surprised how different the map of Europe looked back then, and how difficult life was. It’s amazing what people can endure. But at least I had the woman I loved and my best friend by my side every day of my life.”
He paused, and with a heavy sigh, his body seemed to deflate into the bed.
“But then I came back,” he said, “and it was all gone. Philip died on July 15, 1918, along the Marne River in France. It was the second time we fought through World War One, although he never remembered the first. I could have saved him, like I did the first time, but his death was the reason I’d been sent back. My purpose.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Second Battle of the Marne. The fight that led to the end of the war. His death was all that was needed to change the course of that battle and ultimately the course of the war. He saved hundreds of thousands of lives. And since I was the one who’d saved him the first time, I was the one who had to let him go.”
Maria sat speechless, a thousand questions running through her mind, but deference forced her to keep her mouth shut. Hadn’t he suffered enough?
“You’re the only person besides my wife who’s heard that story. And that’s yours to keep.” He pointed a crooked finger toward the dog tag still resting in Maria’s clenched fist. “I always knew we’d meet again. I knew we were brought together for a reason that day at the fair, so I’ve been holding on to it to remind you that there’s a greater purpose to all of this and that you’re not alone in your suffering. This is all connected, Maria. The reason you found me at the fair. The reason you were sent back. It’s your purpose.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. She could only see the little girl with the marble-like eyes staring back at her and the dirt falling over her face. Beth was waiting to be saved, and George was here to convince her to do it. She picked at the frayed edges of her bandage as she tried to stop the images from spinning through her mind, but her head pounded with the effort.
“My purpose seems so much less significant than yours,” she finally said.
“No purpose is insignificant. The choices we make every day are not just about us. They impact everyone around us in ways that you can’t even imagine.”
Maria had been so focused on her own circumstances and misfortunes, she hadn’t stopped to consider the incredible gifts she might offer the world. Diverting catastrophes like 9/11 and the floods from Hurricane Katrina. She’d already decided to leave a note for her mother, to warn her about the cancer that was lurking around the corner, but could she make an even g
reater impact on society? Would someone listen to her and change the outcomes of those tragedies that were lying in wait down the road?
“Is that what you’ve been doing since coming back?” she asked. “Saving people from disasters that you knew were going to happen?”
“Unfortunately, there’s no changing someone’s destiny when it’s their turn to die. Unless you were sent back to change their fate, there’s nothing you can do. Wars, floods, fires, assassinations. As much as I’ve tried, I’ve never once been able to save a life when fate was coming for it.”
Maria had already composed the letter to her mother in her mind, the words that would save her from cancer, and while she knew George was right, she also knew she wouldn’t be leaving her mother without penning that letter. The life that fate had sent her back to save, the life of the little girl in Ohio, was the one she wasn’t ready to spare.
“I was sent back to save a life,” she said. “But Dr. Johnstone says he can’t send me home if I do it. That I can’t have both. But I’m not so sure.”
“Once you’ve changed your destiny here, you’ll let go of the life you left behind. I’ve seen repeaters like you. People who couldn’t let go of that other world. But it will slip away when you fulfill your purpose. You’ll go through the in-between, and then there won’t be any going back.”
“The in-between,” Maria whispered, remembering the words Henry had used and wishing he was there with her, so they could travel this road together. “What is that?”
“The most beautiful gift you’ll ever receive, Maria.” The furrows of regret that lined George’s face softened before her eyes, years melting away as the story of his life was momentarily forgotten. “The in-between world is where you learn for sure what your purpose is, and it’s where you get to see everyone from every life you’ve ever lived.”
“How is that possible?”
“We don’t have the words in our human vocabulary to describe it. You see everyone you’ve ever known, but not with your eyes. And you speak and hear, but not with words or voices or ears. You don’t even really feel with your body, but you understand so completely who every single soul is, and you love them, and they love you, and no one needs to be told. And you finally understand what eternity is.”
Maria could almost feel herself slipping into this in-between world, seeing the four people she had been longing for since her return—her husband and her three children, one of whom she hadn’t even met. But she didn’t have to go through that to see them. She didn’t have to limit herself to an in-between world, even if it would feel like an eternity, because she had the option of returning to them in real life. They were just waiting for her to wake up.
“Only in death can you go through that in-between world and be reborn,” George continued. “You have to let go of that other world.”
“But if I don’t do what I was sent here to do, will I stay alive in that other world?”
“I suppose you would. But most likely you’re in a coma back there and you won’t wake up until you leave this world.”
Maria could hear her children’s laughter from the recent hypnosis with Dr. Johnstone, as they held the picture Will had sketched of her. The vibrant colors from the thick and clumsy crayons that had shown so clearly a woman lying seemingly lifeless in a hospital bed, with no baby in her belly.
“This life cycle you’re living right now is an extension of the one you left behind,” George continued. “And you were chosen to come back and change it. It makes you different. The rules have changed for you, and you can no longer have a conscious existence in both worlds simultaneously.”
“But it’s possible that I could linger on in a coma back there and continue to relive my life here? As long as I don’t do what I was sent back here to do?”
The implications of that were astounding, and as Maria thought of the many comatose patients she’d seen during her medical school training and residency, she couldn’t help but wonder if those people had been trapped in another world, if they had also just been too stubborn to let go. When they woke up, did they know where they’d been? Did they remember the purposes they’d chosen to ignore?
“You’re a scientist, like Dr. Johnstone,” he said, interrupting her thoughts as if she’d spoken them aloud. “That’s another reason he likes you so much. He thinks you’ll be easier to convince. But I hope he’s wrong. It’s time to let your past go, let your family have new lives.”
“New lives?”
“Your children will be born, with or without you, Maria. Whether they enter this world through your body or someone else’s, they will always be a part of it. Their energy can never be destroyed. Our spirits are constantly being recycled and evolving, and you were sent here to help with that evolution. Your children have been a part of every world that has come and gone, and they will be a part of every world that has yet to come, just like you and me and everyone else. But they won’t always be a part of your life. And sometimes, when they do cross your path, they’ll do so in different roles.”
The jealousy that hit her as she considered the significance of his words was so unsettling that she was embarrassed to even acknowledge it. Thinking of another woman cradling her children and wiping away their tears and hearing their first words was almost too devastating to imagine.
“Please don’t say that. I could never let someone else raise my children.”
“There’s no ownership in this universe, Maria. We all belong to each other. We all take care of each other. You’ll see that, when you let go of that other world. Only the strongest from among us are sent back and asked to make the changes that need to be made.”
“I don’t want to be chosen,” Maria said. “I don’t want to be strong. I just want my family back.”
“I know you do, and I don’t envy the decision you have before you.” He pulled himself from the bed with surprising ease and fetched a folded piece of yellow paper from his pocket. “You’ve been entrusted with something that feels too overwhelming to even consider right now. A task that would break most people. But you were chosen for a reason.” He placed the yellow paper into her hand and folded his fingers around hers. “Keep this somewhere safe, and get yourself out of this hospital. I’ll do whatever I can to walk you through this nightmare, Maria. But you must be the one to fulfill your purpose.”
George was gone by the time Maria found her voice. The gifts he’d left for her were heavy in her hands, their weight a burden she didn’t think she’d ever have the strength to shoulder, and as she thought about her husband’s little sister in Ohio, the image of her family began to fade from her mind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“WHY IS THERE A WHEELCHAIR IN here?”
Maria’s mother shimmied around the chair and pointed back at it as she took the spot opposite Maria on the bed, the spot George had just vacated. “That wasn’t for you, was it?”
Maria shook her head, still clutching the dog tag and the folded yellow paper with George’s phone number and address scratched onto it.
“I had a visitor,” she said. “Turns out he didn’t need it.”
The afternoon sunlight poured through the window onto her mother’s face, highlighting the shadows under her eyes, which hadn’t been there a week earlier. “Who was your visitor?” she asked.
“George.” Maria opened her fingers from around the silver necklace in the palm of her hand. “I guess you’d call him an old friend.”
Her mother lifted the tarnished silver disk from Maria’s hand and draped the chain over her fingers, tilting her head to read the inscription.
“The man from the fair,” she whispered, her words floating through the air in a fine mist and evaporating into nothingness before Maria was certain she’d heard them. “Was he here?” She stumbled past the wheelchair that still blocked the doorway and scanned the hall before returning. “Where is he?”
“He went home,” Maria replied, handing her mother the yellow paper, not bothering to tell her why G
eorge had come, or that he’d suffered more than anyone she’d ever known, or that he’d cast upon her a burden too great to bear. She wanted to share it all, to shrug off all the lies and secrecy that had been draped over her shoulders like a heavy cloak. The battle in her mind was exhausting, like she was fighting a duel between two sides that were perfectly matched rivals.
On the one hand was George, principled and self-sacrificing, confident that she would look out for the child and do “the right thing.” On the other hand was Dr. Johnstone, dishonest and self-interested, but equally confident that she would look out for her own best interest and do the sensible thing. She wondered where Henry would stand in all of this. Maybe he would be the voice of reason.
“Why was he here?” her mother asked as she read over the yellow paper with George’s name and address and refolded it.
“It’s a long story, but he’s the one who told Dr. Johnstone that I’d be here.”
“That can’t be right. It was so long ago, and it was just one of those strange things…” Her mother’s words trailed off as she struggled to comprehend what she’d just stumbled into, as if time had wrapped around itself and pulled the past forward. “Did Dr. Johnstone ask him to come?”
“No,” Maria replied. “Dr. Johnstone didn’t want George to visit me. They have different agendas.”
“What is going on here, Maria? What agenda are you talking about? I think we need stop with the hypnosis. I don’t trust this doctor from Iowa.”
“I need to get out of this hospital, Mom. I need to get off these medicines and out of these pajamas and away from all these people.” She’d worked so hard to convince her parents that she’d recovered from her recent psychosis and that the medicines and therapy were working, and now she was about to undo it all. She was about to put the truth out there again and attempt to convince her mother of the impossible.
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