Time-Travel Duo

by James Paddock

“He’s still insisting on joining but at least it’s been put off for a while. For right now, we’re getting along as good as we ever have.”

  Annie bit her tongue. She had sworn while she was dialing Beth’s number that she wouldn’t jump on her soapbox again and then drive herself into another gut-wrenching, head-spinning depression.

  “Oh! There he is now. I’ve got to go. We’re going over to his mother’s for dinner.”

  “Okay.”

  “Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  Feeling no less alone than the day of Tony’s funeral, Annie laid the phone on top of her pack and stared out at the white-capped mountains and deep blue sky. After a time she drew her knees up to her chest, pulled her hat down over her eyes and cried.

  Chapter 29

  June 10, 2007

  Annie didn’t cry very long, but she didn’t move from her position against the side of the visitors’ center. At first she only stared at her knees. Once her face had dried she watched people come and go from the direction of the trail to Hidden Lake. When her butt was both numb and sore she got up and wandered toward the sign at the beginning of the trail, ignoring the voice in her head wanting to go home. She had come to Glacier to hike so she damn well was going to hike. When she got to the sign she stopped, turned around and then turned around again.

  “Excuse us,” a woman said and a family brushed past her. Annie fell into their wake, suddenly wanting to be part of their happiness. But she couldn’t keep up, physically or emotionally and she gradually fell back. The sky turned a dull gray and any excitement she had felt on the trail the day before was gone. The snow seemed dirty, and the single goat she came upon was scraggly and tiring, not too much unlike most of the people, many of who were also rude.

  Or am I seeing only a reflection of myself? she thought when she reached the point on the trail where she could look across and down to Hidden Lake, which appeared to be nothing more than a hazy mirage. We are what we see . . . no more, no less. After less than two minutes she turned away from the overlook and instead of continuing on the long trek down to the lakeshore, followed the trail back through the snowfields and over the hills to the visitors’ center and on to her car, and then mindlessly drove home where upon she crawled into bed and cried herself to sleep.

  At 2:00 in the morning, her third Monday in her cabin at Grizzly Ranch, Annie was wide-awake, but not much inspired to do anything. After staring at the hazy ceiling until she could stand it no longer, she got up and made coffee. While it brewed she showered and dressed, putting on several layers against the cool night air. And then with her mug in one hand and her new headlamp glowing from her forehead she stepped to the door. The note to Patrick, which she had snatched off the door on the way in the afternoon before, lay alone like a giant, dead beetle on her small tabletop. Before dropping it she had made the mistake of flipping it open to see if he had been there, if he had left his number. He had. She considered wadding it up and throwing it away, but knew that it would do no good. The phone number was already burned into her memory. Instead she turned off the lights and slipped out into the dark night.

  She followed the path to the river hoping that she wouldn’t have to use the headlamp once there, but there was no moon and the stars gave off only enough light to make one’s hand barely perceptible. She gazed across the dark water for a time, and then turned north and followed her headlamp beam along the riverbank until she came to Brad’s rock. If he had been sitting on it she would not have been surprised and she wouldn’t have been deterred. She crawled onto it, found a flat spot to rest her mug, turned off her lamp and stretched out on her back.

  She had been amazed by the night sky several times since she had been in Montana. Now, with the river, invisible, rushing by just inches away, she was left dizzy and breathless. She knew nothing about the stars, could point out the North Star she would have thought, but with so many really bright stars she hadn’t a clue. And nothing moved. In Cambridge there would invariably be numerous star-like lights moving, that is if you could see all that much through the light pollution thrown up by the city.

  For nearly an hour Annie lay still. She played connect-the-dots, trying unsuccessfully to identify a Greek mythological creature, saw a shooting star, wished she would see another, or even better, a huge meteor shower, and listened to the river gurgle around her. After a time the moon appeared, rising through the stars like a slow moving space ship. It wasn’t a huge moon like the night she found the satphone. This was almost no moon, less than a quarter, maybe a tenth. She sat up to see it better. There was a barely perceptible ring outlining the dark part where no stars were visible. She wished she had a telescope so she could look at it closer.

  And then she thought of her mother and the fact that she could not remember what she looked like. Not surprising one would say seeing as Annie was a baby when her mother died. But Annie’s father had pictures of her mother around the house, as did Grandfather Hair. Still, as she lay staring up at the starlit night she was bothered by the fact that she could not remember what her mother looked like, and had no idea what her mother’s face felt like.

  Pictures are not flesh and blood.

  The last time Annie touched her mother’s face was Friday, November 12, 1943. She was not quite four months old. It bothered her that she could not remember that far back. She had a terrific memory, but her earliest was on her third birthday, July 17, 1990, when one of her party guests tripped carrying a plate of cake and ice cream, and slammed headfirst into the coffee table. Cake, ice cream, blood, and a wailing cry . . . what a terrible thing to have as one’s earliest memory.

  Annie shivered and picked up her mug. It wasn’t until she gulped down a mouthful of cold coffee that she realized how long she had been out on Brad’s rock. She took one more gaze at the huge night sky and then turned on her headlamp, slid from the rock and found her way back to her cabin.

  She opened her laptop. While it came to life she dumped the cold coffee and refilled the mug with hot, and then curled up on the sofa.

  She put her hands up to her face and lightly drew her fingers down her cheeks, and then lowered her hands to the keyboard.

  Dear Mom,

  Does my face feel like yours?

  She ran her hands over her breasts.

  What does it feel like to nurse a baby? What did it feel like to be nursed, to put one’s full trust into a single human being, in you, to feel your strong heartbeat, to not know that it’s presence was not guaranteed? What was it like when your heartbeat was gone? Did I miss it . . . you? Did I look for you expectantly? Did I cry for you or only for your breast? After over nineteen years why do I suddenly miss you so much? I never knew you; don’t remember you. Now I want to know what you really looked like, what you felt like, what you smelled like. I want to hear your heartbeat again.

  You were thirteen years old when your mother died, so you got to know her, could remember her . . . her touch, her smell, her voice. Was that good or bad? Is it better to have never had a mother than to have had her for thirteen years only to get her ripped away? I cannot imagine how hard that was.

  You died young. Your mother died young. What does that mean for me? Is there a curse in our family that will prevent me from seeing old age? Great-grandmother Frick died at around 80. Grandmother Hair died at 33. You died at 24. With each generation we live fewer years, sort of exponentially. What’s next? 20? Will I even live to see 20? If I keep going out hiking alone in grizzly country, I may not.

  The way I feel right now, I don’t much care.

  As she thought, Annie’s eyes passed over the note. From her angle she could see Patrick’s name where she had written it on the outside.

  I need your advice, Mother. Like you, I have been told, I have a terrible burden. My photographic memory haunts me at times. I stupidly wrote a note to Patrick and told him to leave his number so I could call him, and then I stupidly looked at it. Now that I’ve seen it the damned thing is stuck in my head. I shouldn’t have
left the note, or I shouldn’t have asked him to leave his number, or at least I should have just walked in the door and thrown it away.

  There are way too many should have’s. There is always a should have, isn’t there? There is always a plethora of should have’s.

  I should have supported Tony. I should not have said those words to him. I should have been Beth’s friend instead of beating her up about Mikhail. I should not have gone back to Wal-Mart to confront Patrick. I should not have left the note for him. At some weak moment I am probably going to call him. I should not do that. I’m not good for him. I’m not good for any guy right now. I should not have told him not to give up on me. I should not have come to Montana. I should have stayed and fixed my life. I should have been patient that things will get better.

  Or should I know that things will never get better and that I should accept who/what I am and live on with what is?

  I should have known that I couldn’t run away from myself.

  She sipped at her coffee as the final chill fell away and then turned back to her keyboard.

  What is up with your father?

  Annie stopped and stared in shock at the sentence. She was writing to her mother as if she had known her all her life, as if she was sitting right in front of her and they were having a mother-daughter chat. It sent a chill down her spine, and then a yearning deep in her center.

  “I so wish that you really were right here talking to me.” She wiped away a tear before returning to her keyboard.

  Grandfather Hair is charging down the road to something, and I can’t figure out what it is. When I talked to him the night he sent me the satphone, he didn’t deny his intention of trying to go back to save your life. That has to be what he is up to, I’m certain of it. What I can’t figure out is how wherever he was flying to yesterday morning is related. It has to be. He has been trying to call me all week, but when he finally got me on Saturday he didn’t say anything about his previous calls and messages, or why he even called then. And I just thought of something else. In our argument the night the satphone arrived, he brought up Rebecca, his wife, your mother, my grandmother. It was odd the way he said her name. It didn’t occur to me at the time because I wasn’t thinking along those lines, but it was like he momentarily fell into wistful contemplation. Is he considering trying to do something about her death, too? Does he have a double motive? I’d be willing to bet my little toe that he does. He is into this full bore, no doubt about it.

  So Grandfather Hair has you and Grandmother Hair. Professor Grae is thinking about his wife, no doubt. I have Tony. What are the motives of the other two, Professor Bradshaw and Charles the Dweeb, or are they along just for the fun?

  Chapter 30

  June 11, 2007

  Annie woke to a knock at her door. She sat up just as Mary poked her head in.

  “I saw your light was on, Love, so I figured you were up for a morning walk.”

  Annie blinked away the sleep and saw that her computer was on the floor, closed. “I remember leaning back to think. I don’t remember being tired. What time is it?”

  “It’s 5:30. You still look tired. Maybe you ought to go back to bed.”

  Annie shook her head and stood up. “No. I certainly don’t need more sleep. Give me a second to wash my face and brush my hair.”

  “I’ll come in and sit. Richard is sleeping in again this morning. Too much park over the weekend I suspect, and then staying up late reading. I’m too much a creature of habit to give up my morning walk, but I don’t much like walking along the river or through the woods by myself.”

  They fell silent while Annie prepared herself. When she was ready to go, she said, “Funny you should mention not liking to hike alone. Until yesterday I’d never have thought twice about it.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “I nearly ran into a grizzly. If it wasn’t for some hikers ahead of me, I’d have walked right into him . . . or him into me.”

  “You were on Highline Trail, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah. How did you know?”

  “When a grizzly is spotted the word gets around. We were having our afternoon tea down by St. Mary’s Lake when someone mentioned it. What did they say when you reported it?”

  Annie opened her mouth to say that she wasn’t the one to report the encounter, and then closed it. What did she do? She freaked out is what she did. While the others were doing their duty, she was huddled against the building, crying.

  “Come on,” Mary said. “Let’s go sit and watch the sunrise and you can tell me all about it.”

  The sunrise received little notice from the two women sitting together on the log. Annie told her story, including the part about the note to Patrick, and ended with the part about missing her mother to the point of tears.

  “You’ve never known your mother, right?” Mary asked.

  “I was a baby when she died.”

  “A woman can have maternal instincts even when she has never had a child. Why can’t a child have the same kind of feelings toward a mother even when they’ve never had a mother? Have you ever desired your mother before?”

  “Not like that. When I was thirteen or fourteen I started riding on my dad to find a woman so that I would have a mother.” Annie laughed. “I remember telling him that I needed a mother figure. But that was it. It was the idea of having female authority in the house. What I’m feeling now is completely different. I want to know what it was like to touch my actual mother, to know what she smelled like, to know what it was like to be held by her.”

  “How did she die?”

  “A car accident.” Annie looked off into the trees. Until the week before she turned fourteen, Annie believed that lie. It took her a long time after that before she could look someone in the eye and say it. Now, suddenly, the words ‘car accident’ left something like the taste of sour grapes in her mouth.

  “Were you with her?”

  Annie turned and looked at Mary. “I . . .” No one had ever asked her that before. She didn’t have a prepared answer. Yes, no. Pick one. What will her next question be? She’s going to analyze my feelings based on my answer. I don’t know if I want to go there anymore. Could I say that I don’t know, that I was never told? I could be evasive. I could change the subject. Annie’s thoughts burned up no more than a second, but she knew she was in trouble if she didn’t come up with something that logically followed the pause.

  “. . . I don’t think so.”

  “Really!”

  “I’ve never asked; never been told.”

  “Hmm,” Mary said.

  After another silent time Annie said, “I don’t think it was a good idea that I came here.”

  “You mean you don’t think you should have left Boston.”

  “All I’ve done is discover how alone I am. I’ve suddenly got a deep yearning for my mother who I’ve never known, and which has never happened before. Instead of escaping the memories of Tony, he haunts me every day. I’ve pushed my best friend away and I’m too far away to fix that. I find a nice guy here but can’t seem to keep my sanity together long enough to get to know him, or to let him get to know me, so I push him away.” She shoved the hair back off her face. “That grizzly; I’m not the one who reported him. I was too busy hiding behind the visitors’ center, crying, like a little kid. I’ve never cried like a little kid, even when I was a little kid. Now I seem to be doing it all the time.”

  Mary put her arm around Annie and pulled her head onto her shoulder.

  “I’m falling apart Mary. I can’t go on seeing Patrick because he’ll do something cute, or he’ll kiss me, or something else unpredictable, and I’ll suddenly be seeing Tony. I can’t live like that, and it’s not fair to him either.” She started crying again. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “The part with you and Patrick and Tony is understandable. Only time will heal that, and, I have to say, more exposure to Patrick. You can’t get over the old horse until you’ve ridden the new horse in your o
wn pasture for three moons.”

  Annie came up straight. “Mary!”

  Mary laughed. “Sorry, Love. Haven’t thought of that in years. It was something my great-uncle Edward used to say. It means . . .”

  “I know what it means. I think it would have been better to say something like ‘you can’t get over the old dog until the new dog has chased a thousand sticks.’ For some reason picturing Patrick as a horse I need to be riding doesn’t sit well.”

  “Nor would one of him running up to you with a stick hanging out of his mouth.”

  Annie snorted. “No. I guess not.”

  After a minute of silence Mary said, “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

  Annie wiped at the salt of her dried tears and took a deep breath. “Yes it is.”

  “What are your plans for the day?”

  “Have none.”

  “Why don’t you join us for a boat ride and picnic on Lake McDonald, if Richard gets himself out of bed that is?”

  Although Annie had no plans, what she definitely didn’t want to do was be with people or go exploring again in the park. But Mary and Richard weren’t just people. They were comfortable to be around, especially when she was depressed. Going for a boat ride wasn’t the same as exploring or hiking. “Sure. That sounds nice. But let me pay for the boat this time.”

  “Nonsense Love. We’re planning it anyway so what’s another person. Besides, you add to the enjoyment. We should be paying you to come with us.”

  Annie put her arm around Mary’s shoulders and gave her a hug.

  Chapter 31

  June 12, 2007

  Annie brought her rental to a stop at the intersection of Grizzly Road and North Fork Road. A black Yukon with tinted windows blasted by on North Fork Road followed by an eighteen-wheeler with a long plain white trailer. The only marking was something painted over the door on the side, but it went by to quickly to read. A wooded structure with steps and a platform was attached to the back. A huge RV was right behind that, someone who reminded her of Professor Grae at the wheel. She thought about him, and then for just a brief few seconds, wondered how the Energy Research Council was coming along. And then she wondered why she had thought of that; he’d never really asked her to assist him on the council even though that’s what she was sure at the time he had been leading up to. It was the time travel thing that he wanted her involved in. Why hadn’t it been her grandfather who had come to her instead of Grae? Did they think she’d be more receptive to Professor Grae than her own grandfather? They were probably right. She and her grandfather weren’t as close as they used to be, and at the moment she couldn’t put her finger on why. But he was the one calling her last week, not Grae. Where was Grandfather now? Certainly not in Mexico, she was certain. She knew he hadn’t called because she checked the satphone for messages twice yesterday and then again this morning. A dozen calls last week and now nothing. The mystery of it kept nagging at her.