Here and Now and Then

by Mike Chen

  “Listen,” he started again, “things aren’t—”

  “Wait.” Penny, of all people, grabbed control of the conversation. “Let me say something. Two days ago, I was just a chef in San Francisco. My fiancé had a government job. We had a cat. I was going to try to open a restaurant. We lived a normal life. And then I found out that time travel is real, that the person who knows me best in the world lived eighteen years in another life with a wife who wasn’t me and daughter who wasn’t mine, that he’s fought and killed fugitives in different eras as a profession. My life is different now. It’s the same, yet different. It’s scarier because all these unknowns are now part of it.” She smiled, passing over soft encouragement while looking solely at Miranda. “It’s a lot to take in.”

  Miranda matched her expression and nodded. “You could say that.”

  “The one thing that can’t change is the fact that it’s real. My fiancé and my brother travel through time. I mean, I’m right here, in an era I’ve only learned about in school. You’re real. And I think my old life, the one from two days ago, it was a lot simpler. Easier. But I can’t go back to that now. We can’t go back. We can only move forward.”

  “You have to understand,” Kin jumped back in, “there are only these two options—stay here and die tonight, or take this opportunity for a second chance at life. You don’t get to pack. You don’t get to stew on it or talk it over. You don’t get to say goodbye. I know that’s unfair, to force you into a decision when you don’t have time to think. But at least we can give you the choice. Not everyone gets that.” The dim lights of the car’s dashboard and controls reflected across Miranda’s inscrutable face. He stared back, searching for any clues about what she was thinking. “Look, it’s possible to start over. Completely over. You survive, you adapt. You can find love and be happy and live. You can do that while still honoring your past—even when your past is taken from you. The only thing you can do is run with it and turn it into something good.” A warm weight came over his hand; he looked down to find both of Penny’s covering his. “I’ve done it twice.”

  “This is impossible.” The darkness of the back seat enveloped Miranda as she sat back, obscuring any clues to what she might be thinking. “This situation. This decision. It’s all impossible.”

  Silence continued to fill the car, the only noise coming from the whoosh of passing vehicles. Miranda adjusted in her seat a few times, though she took no further action, and the entire car felt like it might implode under the mounting tension.

  “You know what?” Kin turned the key and roared the engine back to life. “Ignore us. This is up to you, not me. We can turn around, and I can drop you off, and you can live like this never happened. I may travel through time, but the future is never 100 percent, that much I can tell you. Maybe you’re the exception that finally wins out. Maybe you delete the file fast enough, the info never gets out, and TCB lets this go. I can’t say. I can only tell you their plan, but the decision is up to you. This is your life. You decide. We can go back, or we can keep going west toward San Francisco. Toward the airport. Where to?”

  Car after car sped past them. First one, then another one, then a dozen had passed, and then so many that Kin lost count. He turned to Penny, who waited with openmouthed anticipation. Seconds turned to minutes, or perhaps it only felt that way. The anxiety he’d held off began crawling through his body, first tingling from the toes up until it gripped his chest with a silent tension, waiting for his daughter to release them all from this paralysis.

  At some point, Miranda finally reached forward and placed her hand on Kin’s shoulder.

  “I’ll go,” she said in a slow, even cadence. “But there’s one person I need to say goodbye to.”

  Many different responses played out in Kin’s mind, and he ultimately went with the safest bet. “Seeing Daniel or your friends is out of the question. Anyone you talk to might break the cover that we’ve worked so hard to set up for you. It might even put them in danger.”

  “Believe me,” Miranda said. She turned to look out the window, her face cloaked in shadow. “It won’t matter.”

  * * *

  Over the next hour, they sped down Highway 80 toward Oakland, and during the drive, it was Miranda’s turn to fill in the blanks. Kin heard his daughter’s story through the lens of maturity, a wistfulness coloring in the details of her teenage and young adult years. They laughed together, as if no time had passed—as if the shadow of heavier decisions didn’t linger over every passing second.

  “Poor Bammy,” she said. “When I was seventeen, she broke her femur. Osteosarcoma. They amputated her leg. Such a strong girl, she learned to tri-paw in only a week. She made it one more year before liver failure took her. Those days after her surgery, I cleaned her bandages, gave her medication. Helped her stand. It taught me to appreciate all the little moments, how you could capture beauty in the smallest things. I skipped class so I could be with her at the end. The last thing she felt was me rubbing her ears.” Miranda’s tone dropped, and she released a slow sigh.

  “I miss that dog.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  Kin let the moment breathe before digging deeper. “So you’re in grad school now?”

  “Yeah. Well, was, I suppose. I don’t know if I’ll get another shot.”

  “Anything is possible,” Kin said. “Your life is still your own.”

  They veered off the highway onto city streets, quiet taking over for the first time since getting back on the road. Kin wanted to say something more, anything to cushion the blow for her, but nothing came. Even if he could impart some wisdom, their situations were still totally different. Was it better to hit the reset button on life before things were settled or after?

  “Mom missed you,” Miranda said, breaking the silence. “She tried to play it off. Told me we could only control our lives. But I’d catch her sometimes, staring off into space. Or I’d wake up in the middle of the night and hear her watching Star Trek for hours. She wouldn’t let me see her trying to cope, but I knew.” She leaned forward, and her voice cracked with the next words. “She thought her headaches were just stress. We found out too late. You traveled through time to get here. Can you... I mean...” She gulped loud enough for Kin to hear, but nothing else came out.

  It took several seconds to realize why Miranda couldn’t finish her questions. “No,” he offered gently. His chest tightened, like everything in him imploded, and Penny’s hand landed on his knee. “I can’t do that.”

  “Right. Paradoxes.” She sank back into the back seat, her silhouette deflating in the rearview. “I had to ask.”

  “Please don’t hate me for it. I wish I could.”

  “I would never hate you.” Passing headlights flashed on Miranda’s sullen face in the rearview. “That’s a lie. I did. I hated you for the longest time. You couldn’t see my emails anymore, so you missed a bunch of them where I asked where you went or why you’d left. Then a bunch of them calling you a liar or worse things. I thought you gave me a tall tale to cover your ass. I got mad. I questioned my bullshit detector. I wondered if I was stupid for ever believing you.” Her words struck with a power that only unbottled honesty could carry. “I pretty much hated you until about two hours ago. All those times I promised not to blow your cover, to keep you as part of the family, to not use your stupid journal. I went back to counseling a few years ago and I knew I had all this rage piling up inside me and it had to go somewhere. So I broke my promise. I took your journal notes and I channeled everything into this idea, of stealing your story and making it my own. I took your world and built something out of it, something to show how angry I was at you for everything. For not addressing your PTSD. For pushing soccer on me. For wanting me to be something else for the longest time. For disappearing on me when it felt like you finally understood me.” Miranda swallowed hard and took in a breath, one that wasn’t released for a good ten or fifteen se
conds. “So yes, I did hate you. And I’m sorry I did that.”

  “I understand,” Kin said, almost too reflexively. He had rage of his own, a seething fury that he wouldn’t let anyone see—not Penny, not Markus, and not Miranda now that they were here. It burned underneath the surface, a venom directed straight at the TCB for making this decision for him, for all of them, despite his protests. He understood why from an objective perspective, but that didn’t absolve them—just like how Miranda’s feelings were justified.

  And yet, the juxtaposition of the two somehow balanced each other out. It wasn’t right, but at least it made sense. “I get it.”

  “Do you hear me, Dad? I’m sorry.” A warm grip landed on his shoulder; it squeezed down and held itself steady over the bumps and grooves of the road.

  Kin had wished for many moments with Miranda, to share life milestones and little victories and the ups and downs. But since the TCB built a wall between them, the thing he wanted most, even more than getting to know her, was her forgiveness. His defenses broke, and though he remained focused on the road, streetlights and passing traffic appeared through glistened eyes and rapid blinks. “Thank you. And I’m sorry, too. But I’m glad we can finally be honest with each other. About everything.” He nodded to himself, and the weight of Miranda’s hand seemed to counterbalance the emotional release that lifted a burden from both of them.

  “We’re almost there. Next right. Go up the hill, at the light.”

  The car angled around the bend, then twisted and turned up a steep hill for a quarter mile or so. On the horizon, a brick wall stood next to the entrance path. “It’s okay,” Miranda said, “they’re open till midnight.” As they approached the threshold, Kin’s eyes adjusted to read the signage in the dark.

  Oakland Memorial District and Cemetery.

  CHAPTER 31

  Kin and Penny kept their distance, huddling for warmth some ten feet back while Miranda knelt at Heather’s grave. The wind carried only fragments of her muffled voice, and it wasn’t clear if she was saying goodbye or explaining the situation.

  Or both.

  “I know I keep asking you if you’re all right,” Penny said. Her eyes peeked out beneath the brim of her hat. They’d remained incognito to avoid giving themselves away on any security cameras: hats, bulky coats, looking at the ground anytime a camera might be nearby. Her expression was strong enough to burn through all of that. “But are you all right? It’s okay if you’re not. This was...” Penny opened her mouth, though nothing came out for a good minute or so. “I mean, you were married. I’d think it’s only natural to feel something. Don’t hold back on my account. You’re allowed to be human.”

  Miranda stood up, her shoulders bobbing in rhythm with the unintelligible words coming out of her mouth. She turned and gestured them to approach. “I only come here once a year. On her birthday,” she said when they’d reached her side. “Before she died, she told me not to be one of those people who talks to tombstones. Said she’d be dust and bones at that point, to save my breath. So I never said much when I came. I just brought flowers.” Even though Kin had told her repeatedly to look down as much as possible, she tilted her face up, lips locked in a wistful smile. “We don’t have any flowers this time. So I finally talked. You should, too. Since you never had a chance to say goodbye.”

  “You think she’s listening?”

  “I think she’s right about dust and bones. But the fact that we’re together again might be enough for her to come out of hiding for a few minutes.”

  “She was defiant like that.” Kin couldn’t stop a grin from taking over. “She’s probably standing here right now asking why I haven’t seen Star Trek II yet.”

  “You haven’t? Come on, Dad. It’s the best one. Promise me you’ll watch it someday.”

  Kin let out a short laugh. Breaking the most serious of moments to talk about some sci-fi show—truly her mother’s daughter.

  “I promise.”

  Penny leaned in for a reassuring squeeze. “Let’s give you some space. I should get to know your daughter anyway, right?” She led Miranda away, their quiet murmurs carrying on the wind as they strolled the nearby paths.

  Nerves had gotten the better of Kin plenty of times with Heather, all across the spectrum, but never quite like this. With only dim cemetery lights around, Heather’s tombstone was the same as the countless others around it. Some were plain, some were curved, and others came in more symbolic shapes. It took Kin kneeling down until the details became clear enough to see, though he could have guessed.

  This was Heather, after all. Simple and square, he traced the carved letters with his fingers. Flashes of that last evening together came back to him, the fear in Heather’s eyes as he’d tried to convince her that she must blindly trust him. After all they’d been through, that wild, terrifying moment was how it ended.

  Now he got a chance to be honest with her.

  Finally.

  “Hi, babe,” he said with a sigh. Back when she knew him, kneeling in this position would have burned his knees and caused him to stand up within thirty seconds. But here, he remained static, as if staying as still as possible would help broadcast the words to wherever she was now. “I probably don’t have to explain anything now, huh? I mean, I hope that when you die, the truth about your deadbeat husband is revealed. Pretty harsh if it’s not.”

  A breeze tickled the grass at his feet. Kin continued, sometimes rambling, and sometimes focused. His mind suddenly exploding with all of the things that he’d always wanted to say but couldn’t. Somehow, of all the lists and visualizations he’d done across his life, “things to tell Heather after she died” had never been one of them; anything and everything came out, in no particular coherent order, a stream of consciousness that was part guilt and part excitement. Minutes passed, and the watch on Kin’s wrist vibrated.

  Time was up.

  “I need to leave. Duty calls, and it still feels like there’s so much more to say.” He stared at the tombstone, the characters etched in stone failing to give him a proper response. Heather’s voice rang out in his head, a loud room-filling laugh followed by the words he’d heard so much over the past eighteen years or so.

  Stop overthinking things.

  “I guess I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for all of it. For never being fully honest with you about who I was, where I came from. Only now can I see just how unfair every single decision was for you. We didn’t know it then, but it was. It’s funny, but the TCB was right after all about that. I changed things for you, without giving you a choice. That wasn’t fair.” He scrubbed a hand down his face and sighed. All of these things facing Kin and Heather and Miranda, stealing their choices and forcing them down new paths, often with a wake of rage and sorrow. But this one, the very first one, it was different.

  Fair or unfair didn’t matter. Only the result did.

  “It might not have been fair, but look at her. Look at Miranda.” He glanced over his shoulder, stealing a peek at Miranda and Penny locked in conversation, totally unaware he spied on them. “She’s smart and strong and perfect. Like you, she’s a survivor. I think we can agree—it was worth it, fair or not.

  “I have to escort Miranda to safety now. I have no idea what her new identity will be but I know 100 percent that she’ll be okay. Because she’s your daughter. And I trust in that completely.” He sucked in a breath, his mind searching for the final words. He drew a blank, not because of a chaotic whirl of last-minute ideas, but from the strange warmth that flushed him.

  Was that peace?

  Kin stood up, only a slight tickle in his knees compared to the familiar burn that had plagued him for years.

  Nothing else was necessary. He knew Heather would have agreed.

  * * *

  Penny and Miranda were sharing a laugh when they noticed that Kin had returned. “I’m ready,” he said, “and we should go.” Mirand
a nodded, giving a long look back at her mother’s tombstone.

  “Actually,” Penny said, “can I have a minute with Heather?” Her eyes darted back and forth between Kin and Miranda as she awaited an answer.

  “Dad? I think Mom would want that.”

  Father and daughter watched as Penny approached the grave, her fingers fluttering in an awkward wave. In some other world with impossible circumstances, Penny and Heather probably would have chatted away, possibly bonding over all the ways Kin could be an annoying partner.

  But here, while Miranda and Kin wanted to say goodbye to Heather, Penny simply took a minute to say hello. Somehow, that all felt right, at least until the shattered stabilizer injection came front and center into his mind. He blinked reflexively, as if that would make it go away, leaving only the miracle of this journey for the moment. Miranda glanced at him, her eyes sharp enough to betray that she understood something bigger was on his mind.

  CHAPTER 32

  In theory, things ended well. They’d traveled across time to find Miranda, but it was Heather who ultimately brought them all together. And after they each made their peace with that, they hit the road.

  Which made the current mood seem a bit out of place. Tension ran through the car, freezing each of its passengers. They drove in silence toward the airport, making only a short pit stop to buy a burner phone for Miranda.

  Was it the anticipation of the future? Regret for the past? Coming down from an emotionally charged and bizarre day in this present? Everyone in the car probably felt some mixture of all of the above.