Suddenly Richard pointed her way. Patrick looked, and then they both waved. She took a deep breath, spotted smoke coming from the grill—every cabin had one though she’d never used hers—caught the aroma of basted meat and decided that the butterflies were hunger pains after all. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast with the mad scientists. Hunger pains she can accept; butterflies, no. She headed in their direction.
When she arrived at the base of her neighbor’s porch Richard pointed one hand toward her and said, “Tá tú go h-álainn.”
She looked at Patrick. “Are you teaching him Gaelic?”
“I didn’t teach him anything. He does well on his own.”
“What did he say?”
Mary stepped out, a kitchen towel over her shoulder, a grin on her face. “He said that you are beautiful.”
“Oh.”
“No need to blush, Annie. He’s quite right, you know. I have to say, though, it’s the only Gaelic he knows and he uses it on all the beautiful women.”
“That’s not the only Gaelic I know,” Richard said.
“Yeah, but it’s the only Gaelic you’re allowed to use in mixed company.”
Everyone laughed. Annie smiled at Patrick. He grinned and winked at her. She turned and looked at the steaks sizzling on the grill. God, she was hungry.
Chapter 45
June 14, 2007
Annie pushed what was left of her steak around on her plate, finding nothing more to chew on. “You haven’t said why you came,” she said to Patrick. The two of them were sitting side-by-side on the porch steps. Mary and Richard were seated on folding camp chairs, facing them.
Patrick looked at her and then at Mary. “I was invited.”
“Oh.” She set her plate aside. “You mean you came for the food, not to see me?”
Patrick opened his mouth. “Ah.”
“If I were your attorney, Patrick,” Richard said, “I’d advise you to lie, plead the fifth or divert to a different subject.”
Mary reached over and slapped Richard on the leg. “Hush! Actually Patrick was coming to see you. That’s what he told me anyway when I ran into him at Wal-Mart today. When I found out, I decided on the spot to have a cookout and invited him.”
“Or get a respected third party testimonial,” Richard said. There were a few chuckles and then it went silent until Richard said, “I understand your father is a bow hunter.”
“Yes, he is.” Patrick said.
As the men talked of bow hunting, Annie’s mind turned away and she found herself watching Mary and Richard. They appeared happier than she had ever seen them. Normally a bubble of sadness followed them around, even when they were doing something fun. Now the bubble was gone. Even Mary, who wasn’t participating in the bow hunting conversation, was watching the exchange as though it was her favorite sport.
And then it struck Annie why. Patrick was sitting in for William, their dead son. But it was only temporary, wasn’t it? Was that good, or bad? Good while he is here, she thought, but bad after he leaves, maybe real bad. They would be doubly reminded of the fact that they are widowed parents, just like how he reminds her that she is a widowed wife. She, too, finds herself happy around Patrick, but is that because he’s a temporary substitute for her dead husband? Is Patrick at all healthy for any of them?
But I haven’t always been happy around him, have I? Sometimes I freak out. And it’s not his fault. He is just a nice guy, maybe the perfect guy for the three of us in a therapeutic way.
Therapeutic? She thought about that. In the first four days she knew him she freaked out three times, the last being five days ago. Am I getting better? Maybe. But even so there is a limit to how far I can come, isn’t there? Tony will never go completely away. I will never be able to unsay those words. He will always haunt me because I killed him.
Patrick picked up her arm and started shaking it.
“What?” she said.
“Are you with us?”
“What do you mean?”
“You zoned out. I asked you when you got the telescope.”
“You did?”
“Yes, twice.”
“Oh. A couple of days ago.
“We’ll have to take it out sometime.”
“Sure,” She said, but what she thought was, I don’t think so. The last thing I need on a dark night is to be close enough to touch you. I don’t deserve to be that close to anyone again.
“How about tonight?” Richard said. “Not only is it a new moon right now, but it sets with the sun. It’s going to be a very dark night.”
“Great idea,” Patrick said.
Annie looked out at the treetops. “And very cloudy.”
They all looked up. “Where did those come from?” Richard said.
“Tonight wouldn’t be good for me anyway,” Patrick said. “Have to work tomorrow. How about tomorrow night? I don’t work on Saturday.”
I’d probably freak out again anyway. She stood. “I’m not feeling so well. Sorry.” With that she retreated to her cabin.
Two minutes later, when Mary knocked and walked straight in, Annie was in the corner of her sofa, her knees pulled up to her chest, tears flowing freely. “What happened, dear?” Mary said after she fetched a box of Kleenex and then pulled a chair over close and sat down.
Annie accepted the Kleenexes, sopped up her tears and said, “If you had the opportunity to go back and tell William you loved him before he died, would you take it?”
“Why are you asking me this again?”
“If the last conversation you ever had with him was a fight, wouldn’t you want to fix that if you could, even if you couldn’t change his death?”
“In theory, yes, I imagine I would feel that way. You said something to Tony that was certainly regrettable. Unfortunately words cannot be unsaid and dwelling on it is only making you miserable. All you can do is look forward; stop looking back. Think of that time as a door that is permanently closed. You can never walk back through it.”
“But what if you could?”
“Annie! There is no what if.”
Annie looked at her friend, her eyes still glistening with tears, though they had stopped flowing. She wasn’t upset or surprised by the sudden sternness to Mary’s voice. “You don’t get it, do you, Mary? There is a what if. That door is not closed.” Annie suddenly sat up. “That’s it! That’s the entire problem!”
“What are you saying?”
Annie scooted off the sofa and started pacing. “Not only is that door not closed, it never will be. It’ll always be there enticing me.” She stopped. “It’s the door that’s the problem, not that I’m being haunted by what I said.” She started pacing again.
Mary just sat and watched her, not at all sure what to do or what to say.
“Okay, yes. I am being haunted by what I said, but now that I know the door is there the haunting will never, ever stop.”
“In time, dear . . .” Mary tried to say.
“There is no such thing as time here. As long as that door, the timeless door, is there it’s like he’s standing right in front of me right now, daring me to say it again. He can follow me around, jump in the middle of every relationship. Hell, he can jump between me and any guy I chance to have a conversation with. He was doing that before I knew about the door. Or, well, no, that’s not true. I’ve known about the door since I was thirteen, but it didn’t physically exist until recently and I didn’t actually know about it myself until last week and then now that I’ve seen it . . . it’s worse. I have no choice. I have to fix it or go insane.” She made several more turns on her pacing track and then stopped suddenly and pointed her finger at Mary. “I was being stupid when I asked you what you would do if you ran into yourself. Well, duh! One cannot coexist with ones self in the same time plane. Everyone knows that so why am I worried about running into myself? I’ll bet I’d just replace myself.” Annie dropped her pointing arm, her gaze falling at some distant point beyond Mary. Of course! I’d replace myself.
“Annie?�
� Mary said.
Annie’s focus returned to Mary. “Do you know what that means?”
Mary only shook her head.
“That means that all I have to do is figure out the coordinates and go. Timing might be a little bit of a problem, but we can work that out.” Annie grabbed her backpack, stuffed in her jacket, looked around the room until she spotted her computer, pushed that in and then slipped the pack over her shoulder. “What do they want me to do about 9/11? And what about my mother and her mother and Grae’s wife? What do they think I can do about them? Gets complicated, doesn’t it?” She stepped to the door.
“Annie!”
Annie turned around. “Don’t even think about trying to stop us. We’re just a bunch of mad scientists anyway.” She opened the door. “You know what my grandfather once said about scientists?”
Mary shook her head.
“Scientists are crazy, but where would the world be without them?” With that Annie walked out the door, glanced over at Richard and Patrick who were back in the rocking chairs and then, setting a quick pace, cut across Grizzly Ranch.
As Annie disappeared into the trees beyond the cabins of Grizzly Ranch, Mary rushed back to her own cabin and the two men now standing at the base of the steps. “I have no idea what just happened, but she has flipped.”
“What did she say?” Patrick asked.
“Basically she thinks she can go back and fix things with Tony.”
“Her dead husband?” Richard said.
“She’s talked about this before, asked me what if I could go back and see William again.”
“Where’s she going now?”
“I don’t know. She said something about not being able to coexist in the same time plane and to not try and stop them.”
“Them?”
“The mad scientists. That’s how she referred to them, and included herself.”
The two men stood there with their mouths open, Richard staring at Mary, Patrick looking off into the trees where he last saw Annie.
“And she also said something about 9/11 and her mother; asked what they wanted her to do about those things. Then she grabbed her backpack and ran out the door.”
“I thought her mother died,” Patrick said.
“She did, not long after Annie was born.”
“Somebody needs to go after her, stay with her,” Richard said.
Richard and Mary turned to look at Patrick, but Patrick didn’t need the hint. He took off at a run and in seconds disappeared into the trees that had swallowed Annie.
Chapter 46
June 14, 2007
Completely intent on her thoughts, Annie walked with little notice of her surroundings until the increasing forest overgrowth brought her to a stop. She turned in several directions before her mind cleared. Where’s the trail, the one that leads from the north side of the lodge to Brad’s rock? Where’s the river? Where’s the lodge?
She took a deep, slow breath, and then another one. She had somehow walked off the trail and now she didn’t know which way it or anything else was. Don’t panic, Annie. Put your back to the setting sun and you should be able to walk right to the river. She turned her eyes up to the treetops and looked for the bright spot of sun. The clouds were even thicker than they were before and there were too many trees. There was no bright spot. Fine! I’ll figure it out another way.
She knelt down and dug through her pack until she found the GPS. She turned it on and watched as it located the satellites. When it had locked on and said it could navigate to within 20 feet, she brought up the compass and started to stand.
“Annie!”
Patrick! She squatted back down. His voice was not nearby and since she didn’t see him she suspected that he hadn’t seen her. She didn’t need to face him right now, didn’t want to have to come up with an explanation. She knew she had said too much to Mary, but damn, it just kept coming out. When the ideas happen like that with her it was like boiling milk; it gets kind of messy.
“Annie!”
His voice was farther away now. She waited another five minutes and then stood and looked around. She listened. There was no sign of him.
She turned her eyes down to the compass, found east and began navigating her way around nature’s obstacles until she came to the river. As she stepped onto the trail she looked south, ready to jump back if Patrick was within sight. All she saw was Brad’s rock a good hundred yards away. Two kids she recognized from one of the larger Grizzly Ranch cabins were playing on it. Apparently Patrick had given up. She was both relieved and disappointed. And then she thought about the feelings she was having while sitting next to him eating steak and corn-on-the-cob. It’s because of that that I have to do this. If not him then the next guy that comes along. Tony will always be there in the way, haunting me. “Sorry, Patrick, but I have to fix it.”
Annie turned on her heel to head north and ran smack into him. It was like hitting a tree. She stumbled back and he caught her by the shoulders.
“You all right, Annie?”
“What are you doing here?”
“That’s sort of what I was going to ask you.”
“I’m out for a walk.”
“It looks more like you’re going somewhere.”
“You’re following me.”
“I’m worried about you.”
She suddenly realized he still had a hold of her. She pushed his hands away and stepped back. “Well, don’t be. I’m fine.” She started to step around him and he stuck out his arm. She tried to look him in the eye, but couldn’t. “It’s none of your business so just let me go.”
“It sounds to me it is my business. Where are you going?”
“What do you mean it’s your business?”
“You said, ‘Sorry, Patrick, but I have to fix it’. Have to fix what?”
“Nothing.”
“When I walked in while you were showering you were yelling.”
“Yelling?”
“You yelled ‘stupid’ three times, and then said something about being preordained or not. The other day you were arguing with your grandfather.”
“My Grandfather?”
“I quote, ‘Click, click, click, Grandfather! Mexico my ass! Who was in the Yukon, Doctor Robert Hair?’”
Annie glared at him. “You have no right to eavesdrop on me.”
“It wasn’t intentional. It just happened. Who’s Doctor Robert Hair?”
“He’s my grandfather.”
“Your grandfather is a doctor?”
“He has a doctorate. Will you please let me by?”
“Why are you angry with me?”
She closed her eyes for a second, took a deep breath and then said calmly, “I’m not angry with you.”
“What do you think you have to fix?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Like I said, it sounds to me like it is.”
She glared at him again. “Please let me by.”
Patrick waited a moment and then stepped aside.
“Thank you,” Annie said as she passed by. “And please don’t follow me.”
When she had taken about a dozen paces he said, “What does not being able to coexist in the same time plane have to do with fixing things with Tony?”
Annie paused, took two more steps and then spun around. She held out her arm, palm pointed toward Patrick. “Don’t ask any more questions and don’t follow me.” She dropped her arm. “I’ll call you when it’s over.”
“When what’s over?”
Annie didn’t answer. She turned and walked away, her focus intent on every step because she knew that if she faltered, if she stopped to think about it, she’d turn back. She’d go right to him and put her arms around him and ask for him to put his arms around her. But that wouldn’t work, would it? Hugging would lead to kissing and it had already been proven that she wasn’t ready for that, let alone what kissing would lead to. She might never be ready for that, for any of that, until she fixed it with Tony.
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She slowed at the bend and glanced back. Patrick was still where she left him, his hands at his sides, appearing forlorn and confused. She continued on and he slid from sight. Hopefully not from my life, she thought. She really didn’t want that.
Annie looked back a half dozen more times before coming to the point in the trail where she first spotted the trailer with the Massachusetts license plate. She stood for a long time debating the sense of it all while watching for any sign of Patrick. She was relieved that she didn’t see him, yet there was a little piece of her that was disappointed that he gave up on her that easy. But what would she have done if he hadn’t?
And then she started thinking about their confrontation. He never gave his word. He never even acknowledged her asking that he not follow her. But he hadn’t followed her, and that was the main point.
“This is crazy and stupid,” she said and then passed through the trees and into her grandfather’s camp of mad scientists.
Patrick rose from his concealment, visually marked the spot where Annie had stepped off the trail, and then rushed forward, ready to dodge for cover if she should reappear.
With twenty yards to go he spotted a white building through the trees. He angled toward it. As he got closer he discovered that it was a truck trailer parked on a cement foundation on the edge of a clearing. He could hear voices and one of them was Annie’s. He squatted down and eased forward into the shadow beneath the trailer and, keeping its wheels as cover, peered at the scene just beyond. Annie and two men stood in front of a tent. Patrick had to strain to hear their words over a hum coming from inside the trailer over his head.
“There’s only so much I’m willing to do,” Annie said.
“We can talk about it when they get back,” the older man said.
“Where did they go?”
“Ran into town for groceries,” the big guy said.
“Fine. Then I’ll wait.” She went over and sat down in a camp chair. “I think your mission is beyond reason.”
“It won’t be that hard, Annie,” the big guy said. “We’ve got names, times, flights, everything. We . . . or, ah, you just drop that on the right officials and then disappear.”
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