by Beca Lewis
Connie hoped that the letter and package she had Bryan mail for her had reached the future Bill, and that he was following the instructions in the letter. If not, this Bill would never believe her, and then all of this would be for nothing.
That’s when Connie realized something that hadn’t occurred to her before. What if, by changing things, Theo decided that it would be best to stop her?
Maybe he became afraid that she would go to the police. In the past, she had left town, and no one knew where she went, including Theo.
This time she had stayed. What if Theo came looking for her? She would be easy to find.
But then Connie reminded herself that it had only been a few days. She had stayed this long before too. Everything was fine. At least for now.
But based on what she had uncovered in the future, Theo had raped another girl only a few days after his assault on her, so if she wanted to stop him this time, she didn’t have much time to convince Bill to help her.
*******
Bryan opened the back gate to his garden, barely walking. He couldn’t believe how tired he was. If it hadn’t been for the rabbit hopping in front of him, he might have laid down in the path and gone to sleep.
Instead, he followed the white bouncing tail to his home. Even though Bryan didn’t think the rabbit did it on purpose, or could hear him, he whispered, “thank you,” just in case. The rabbit stopped and looked back, the sun behind him turning his ears a rosy pink.
He could have sworn he heard “You’re welcome,” but decided that he was probably delirious. Of course, he had just been sitting beside a dead woman who was alive in the past. That was weird enough. Why not a talking rabbit?
Considering how altogether strange his life had become, he wasn’t all that surprised to see Grace waiting for him in his back garden.
Briefly, he wondered how she had gotten there, considering that the only way to his garden was through a locked gate or a locked house.
But then he decided it wasn’t worth worrying about, especially when she said, “I brought food.”
*******
Twenty minutes later, Bill and Connie were sitting in Bill’s office with Terrance.
Connie had stalled as long as possible by asking for coffee, and then a tour of the house. She hadn’t seen it before. Bill had just purchased it and was in the process of upgrading it and designing the interiors.
The kitchen was partially torn apart as was the living room, and despite what they were about to do, Connie couldn’t help thinking of what she would do in each room if only Bill would ask her to help. The last time she hadn’t had a chance to.
That wasn’t his fault. She had run away. This time, if they did what they needed to do, perhaps she would get the chance. At least this time, she wasn’t running. On the other hand, if all went well, what was the outcome for her? Would she remain as a person living in the past, but living a different future?
There were so many possible outcomes, and she could control none of them. All she could do now was the right thing. She would do whatever she could to stop Theo before one more person got hurt.
Connie knew she wasn’t Theo’s first rape. Even then, she had known it. He had planned her rape too well. In the future, she had gathered proof that he had started years before. When they were in college, he had been honing his skill. And she had uncovered that he had actually begun in high school.
However, Theo had been getting into various kinds of trouble long before that. He had hurt animals. He had hurt his friends just for fun. If he got caught and couldn’t talk his way out of it, his parents took over. They would blame someone else. Or claim that it was all a mistake. If necessary, they bought his way out of trouble.
But they privately punished him in ways that made it worse. Connie thought, in the beginning, his actions may have been a cry for help. A call no one heard. And then Theo started enjoying himself, and he was lost to the evil ideas that took over in his thoughts.
His parents thought they could stop him by keeping him close. It’s why he had gone to Penn State. Like the house they bought for him, it was part of their strategy of containment. But speaking out about it, or allowing others to catch and punish him, was not.
As she researched what Theo was doing and had done, Connie had become more and more enraged. But all she had done was collect evidence. She had done nothing to stop him.
In her own way, she had been just as bad as his parents, maybe worse. All of them had turned a blind eye to what Theo was doing. His parents because they wanted to preserve their reputation, she, because she had become a coward.
Connie had told herself that she wanted to protect her child. She didn’t want Theo to know about Karla. He had told her to stay away and keep her mouth shut, and she had obeyed.
Not this time.
Fifty-One
“Now, what,” Bill said as they settled into his office.
“Now, I need you to open your safe.”
Bill shrugged and opened the safe.
“Now, what?” he asked again.
Connie peered over his shoulder and didn’t see the package that should have been there, and her heart sank. But she hid her disappointment as she told him to shut the safe, and then they would wait a few minutes and look again.
“What will change in a few minutes?” Terrance asked. “It’s a locked safe.”
Connie stood and walked to the window, trying to calm herself.
Bill’s arm around her broke her resolve, and she struggled not to cry.
“We have to stop Theo. He is an evil, evil man. And I needed the papers that should be in the safe to prove it to you.”
“But what papers? How will they get there? While we wait for whatever is supposed to happen, why not tell us everything? Then even if the papers don’t show up, we’ll know what to do.”
“Can you promise me you won’t think I’m crazy, Bill? Because this will sound crazy.”
“I can promise you we will listen with open minds, and the last person I would ever think was crazy was you. That you are the Connie from the future, yes, that sounds crazy, but stranger things have happened, and personally, I love things that can’t easily be explained. I know Terrance does too. So try us, and then we’ll look in the safe again in thirty minutes?”
Connie let out a deep sigh and moved to sit down. The two men faced her and taking a deep breath she began.
“In the past, after Theo raped me, I found out I was, am, pregnant.”
Bill started to say something, but when Connie held up her hand, he stopped.
“There is too much to this story that will make you want to ask me questions, so just let me tell it the best way that I can first, please.”
Both Bill and Terrance nodded their agreement. But Connie could see that both of them were clenching their hands. Connie knew it would get worse, so she plunged ahead.
“In the past, I ran away after the rape. Theo threatened me, and I was a coward. I went to my friends at the trailer park, and they helped me. After my daughter Karla was born, we moved to a small town not that far from here.
“I changed my last name and watched over you and your family. I watched Theo, too. I collected evidence that he was raping and then killing women. But as I said, I was a coward, and I did nothing.
“I know you must be angry at me as I tell you this. I am angry at myself, too. But that’s not the worse part. In the past, after Eddie is born,” seeing Bill’s puzzled face, she added, “Your nephew. You two become grand friends.”
Bill’s eyes teared up, and Terrance reached over to hold his hand.
Connie took a deep breath and continued.
“Anyway, after Eddie was born, Theo had what he wanted. A son and the perfect wife. It was all the ideal cover for what he had been doing, and what he wanted to continue to do.”
When Terrance moved
to ask a question, Connie said, “Please, don’t stop me. This is too hard to tell, and I have to say it all before I chicken out. No matter what you both think, this is true, all of it.”
The two men nodded, hands clenched.
Taking a deep breath, Connie continued, “In the future, Theo beats Edith and Eddie. Edith dies. Eddie goes to live with your parents, but Theo wanted him back. As Theo drags Eddie from the house, Eddie hits his head on the concrete steps and dies.”
“No! No! This didn’t happen. My sister and nephew don’t die that way. No. We would have stopped it!”
Connie wanted to rush over to Bill, hug him, and say that it never happened. But now that she had started, she had to finish.
“Yes, you would have, if you had known. But you know Edith, she would hide it. She wanted the perfect life. She went looking for it. She wouldn’t have wanted to burden you with it. She let Theo do what he wanted to her, and she suspected to other women, because he promised never to touch Eddie.
“It’s what those papers will prove to you. In the future, friends of mine go to your house. This house. They give you all the evidence I collected. You put it in your safe. That’s what I hope shows up here.”
“But even if all this is true, the information you collected is from the future, how could it show up here when it hasn’t happened yet?”
“The same way that I am here. I died—a lonely woman—barely knowing my daughter. Never making friends because I was afraid that somehow they would discover my secret.
“And Eddie—yes, your nephew—found me in the in-between. A place where some people end up after they die.
“Sometimes they just have to realize that they are dead, and then they move on. Or, in some exceptional cases, they get a second chance to do what they should have done in their life.
“It was your sister that got me my chance. It’s all about redemption, Bill. She got me a chance to redeem myself. She gave me a chance to make up for what I didn’t do the first time.”
“My sister?” Bill breathed out. “My sister dies, a nephew whom I don’t even know yet, dies too, and then they help you after you die? How can this be true? You’re right. It’s hard not to think that you aren’t crazy.”
Terrance looked at Bill and then said, “But let’s say that you are not. And that everything you have said is true. What happens now?”
Connie smiled at the two of them.
“Thank you for listening to me. It is crazy. It’s hard to be this Connie and also the one that knows the future. Because I remember everything. I could tell you about the fantastic things that happen that would sound like magic. In a few months, a man will walk on the moon. But that’s only the beginning. Technology changes everything.
“But it doesn’t change the evil in people. It doesn’t change the good either. And it’s the good that I am following this time. Believe me, please. I know it seems impossible, but it’s true.
“And I have a guide from the future who has been with me. I wish you could see him. He has been my lifeline, helping me be here in the past.”
“Is that person here now?”
Connie looked over at Bryan, who had kept his promise to meet her here, and was standing beside Bill, and nodded yes.
It worried her that Bryan looked pale and exhausted. She hadn’t thought about how draining all this must be for him.
“Yes. And he says that they put the papers into the safe. Please check again.”
By then, neither Bill nor Terrance looked as if they believed her. It was as she had feared. They thought she was crazy. If the papers weren’t in the safe, she would have to stop Theo on her own. That is, if she managed to get out of the room before they called someone to help her with her delusions.
As Bill twirled the lock on the safe, Terrance put his hand on Bill’s shoulder and turned to Connie.
“Let’s say all this is true. Wouldn’t you not doing the same thing you did last time and then telling us all of this have changed things? What if they changed things for the worse?”
“Yes. Which makes all that I am doing even more terrifying. What if instead of making things better, I make it worse? But I couldn’t be a coward again. I had to do something. And the only people I thought might believe me are the two of you.”
Two things happened at the same time. Bill reached into the safe and pulled out a manila envelope that hadn’t been there before, and a car screeched to a stop in front of the house.
The changes had begun.
Fifty-Two
Eddie was in the middle of assisting an elderly woman into a boat when he felt it. Across the river, she could see all her friends and family waiting for her, but she couldn’t cross alone. So it was up to Eddie to help her across to be with them.
Eddie knew there was no need for the boat or the river, but it was a scenario the woman had imagined for so long, it was what she saw. Which meant that no matter how strange he felt at the moment, he had to keep rowing.
Her story had to play out how she believed it. It wasn’t up to him to change it, just to guide her out of the in-between where she had been stuck.
Besides, keeping his thought on her helped him forget what was going on with Connie.
He watched the woman’s face grow brighter and brighter as she neared the shore. She stepped out of the boat with the help of her friends and was swallowed up in the crowd that welcomed her with hugs and laughter.
As soon as she was gone, so was the story, and Eddie found himself back in Bryan’s living room, which surprised him. He had assumed that once Connie started changing what she had done in the past, he could no longer be part of Connie’s journey.
But that wasn’t the most surprising thing of all. It was who was there. Bryan was in his dad’s lounge chair, looking as if he was asleep. Eddie knew that he wasn’t. Bryan was probably off with Connie in a more physical form than usual. The woman he knew as Grace was in the kitchen doing something. He assumed that since Rachel wasn’t there, Grace must have volunteered to make sure Bryan was okay.
But what delighted him, and terrified him, was that his mother and her friend Jillyan were there, too—smiling at him. Jillyan with her hand on Bryan’s shoulder.
Eddie burst into tears, like the small boy that he was despite living all these years, and ran into his mother’s arms. They hugged. He could feel her. It made him cry harder. She smoothed out his hair as she whispered, “Shh, it’s okay. We’ll be okay.”
The grown man inside Eddie pulled back and looked up into Edith’s eyes as he asked, “Are you sure? You’re here because of what’s going on in the past. You want to make sure you see me again, just in case, don’t you?”
“Connie knows what she is doing. I trust that it will all work out. And you know as well as anyone that life doesn’t end, it just moves on. We won’t lose each other no matter what happens. On the other hand, we all ended up here together right now for a reason.”
Just then, the doorbell rang, and Grace went to answer the door.
“Ava. What are you doing here?”
“I got the feeling that I was needed, so here I am.”
As Ava walked into Bryan’s living room, she stopped and said, “Oh. You have a few visitors.”
“Visitors? It’s just Bryan.”
Ava laughed. “Nope. There are two women and a boy I assume is the boy Eddie that Rachel told us about.”
“I’m confused,” Eddie said, feeling as if he had lost the gist of the story.
Edith and Jillyan stood and said, “Welcome, Ava. We prompted you to come thinking Bryan might need some support in the past. I’m Edith, Eddie’s mother, and this is Jillyan, Bryan’s mother.”
“I’m delighted to meet you. And honored.”
“I’m guessing you are speaking to people I can’t see, and not just to yourself?” Grace laughed. “I know I can’t get them anything. Bu
t would you like coffee?”
Ava nodded yes and followed Grace into the kitchen to catch her up on who was in the living room. Edith followed them while Jillyan stayed with Bryan.
“Tell Grace that we can arrange it so she can see and hear us, if just for the time we are here, if she would like that.”
Ava told Grace what Edith had said, and Grace had answered, “Yes, please.” Carrying two cups of coffee, Grace returned to the living room and saw Eddie and the two women.
“Wow,” was all she could say as she plopped into the nearest chair. Only years of experience kept her from spilling the coffee.
“Good. Now it will be easier for you to help,” Edith said, “because Connie is in trouble.”
*******
In the meantime, in Pittsburgh, Bill said “Now what,” after putting the documents in the safe.
Rachel looked over at Johnny, who shrugged his shoulders. “I guess now we wait.”
“But for what?” Terrance asked. “Will we disappear? What will change? I guess I am back to asking questions I know nothing about. And even if things change, would we even know about it?”
At that moment, Johnny shot up and said, “Gotta go.”
Remembering his manners, he turned back and shook both the men’s hands.
“It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”
Seeing both their faces, he added, “I don’t mean that I won’t see you again. I just meant it the way it sounded. But Rachel and I need to get back to Doveland. I’m sure we will see each other again.”
In the car, Rachel asked, “Are you sure?”
Johnny’s glum face gave her the answer.
Fifty-Three
“Pull over!” Johnny shouted. Until that moment, Rachel had thought he was sleeping, but when he started yelling to pull over, she realized he must have been somewhere else.
Rachel took the next exit and pulled into the McDonald’s parking lot before asking, “What’s going on?”
