9781940740065
Page 40
Peter stood like a shadow in the doorway to the kitchen. The young woman he’d met so long ago beneath the cathedral steps—his beautiful Minnie—stood facing the kitchen stove. She was stirring something. A small apron covered her pretty skirt, and her hair was ruffled a bit in back—as if she’d just risen from a nap. He could hear the scraping of the spoon against the side of the saucepan. Peter leaned his head against the side of the doorway, feeling a growing weight in his chest. He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t want to alter the moment by intruding on it. He wanted to hold this moment forever in his heart. He wanted to watch her stir whatever was in the pan, watch her live this beautiful life—in this future she was never meant to have.
Minnie was whistling something, a melody triggered a memory in Peter’s mind. Peter’s heart ached for her. God, his beautiful wife was alive.
Suddenly, she turned her head. She spun around, leaning against the stove. She pressed her hand to her heart, gasping with laughter. “Peter! How long have you been standing there?” Her face was so happy, so vibrant. She looked just like she had the last time he had seen her, so many, many years before.
Peter started to cry. He rushed toward her and wrapped his arms around her, spun her in a circle. She tipped her head back with glee, laughing as he did it. He kissed her neck, the side of her face. The tears moistened her face, as well, and she looked at him with concern. “Peter. Peter, baby. Why are you crying?”
But Peter could only shake his head. He had gone all those years without her; he’d fallen to the bottom of the bottle and burst his way back up again. He’d had to travel back to 1942; he’d had to survive war. And in spite of all his fears, it hadn’t been for nothing. He had his wife back. He had her in his arms.
“Peter. It’s all right. You’re home with me, now,” Minnie told him, pressing her nose to his. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately. Their lips fit so perfectly. “We missed you around here,” she said, winking.
“Minnie,” Peter finally said. His throat cracked. He brought his hands to her cheeks. “God, my beautiful girl. What would I do without you?”
“Gosh. You must have had some trip, huh?” Minnie asked, rubbing at his back. She kissed him again, still looking at him with a confused expression on her face. “You know, a lot has changed around here since you’ve been gone.”
“I can only imagine,” Peter murmured, collapsing into the chair at the kitchen table. He blinked around this mysterious kitchen—this place he’d never been in before. He grabbed his wife’s waist again; he wanted to feel her, touch her. He brought her down on his lap. She gasped lightly, laughing. The laughter was infectious, making Peter’s entire body relax. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him again and again.
“I won’t leave you again,” Peter whispered, gazing into her eyes. “Please. Know that.” He grasped her shoulders, looking at her intently. She had to know that he would protect her, that things would be different.
Suddenly, they both heard a door slam. “Mom! Someone left the door open!” The voice was Tori’s. She came rushing through the foyer, her school backpack still strapped to her back. She dropped it, her eyes wide. “Dad! You’re back!” She wrapped her arms around her mother and father.
Peter grabbed her head and pulled it toward him, fitting it neatly against his shoulder, like a puzzle piece. “Oh, Tori. God. I missed you so much.”
“It’s been too long, Dad,” Tori murmured into his ear. “Please don’t leave us for so long again.”
She pulled back, blinking at him. “Plus. Mom’s a wreck without you.” She winked at her mother, who blushed.
“Come on, Tori. Give it a rest.” Minnie laughed good-naturedly.
Peter couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His wife had never been around their raucous teenager. He imagined the fights they’d had in his absence, and his heart nearly burst with happiness. They had a relationship! They knew each other, in this future. His child had a mother. This—this was the happiest day of his life.
Tori sat down across from him and began eating a granola bar, chattering about school. Minnie stood up, grazing her fingers across Peter’s eyebrow, across his ear. They exchanged a look, and in that moment Peter felt a passion he thought had been lost a long time ago.
The door opened and crashed closed once more. Minnie shook from her reverie and called out, “If I’ve told you once, Brett, I’ve told you a hundred times!” But her face shone with laughter, with happiness.
“Sorry, Mom.” Brett shuffled into the room and dropped his backpack immediately. “Dad!” His familiar face burst into a smile. Peter stood and held his son close, feeling the strength and vitality in him.
Nearly overwhelmed, Peter peered around the small kitchen in the tiny home he would now call his own. His wife looked at him with gleaming, loving eyes; his daughter chattered on, her eyes turned toward him full of adoration and hope. His son was growing so strong, so certain in his movements. His family was complete. Peter realized that while he’d been waiting for them to be a part of his life once more, all this time, they’d simply been waiting for him to return to this life—to the timeline in which he truly belonged.
Peter was home.
EPILOGUE
Six weeks after Peter arrived home in his new timeline, he sat down at the desk in the small, cluttered study just down the hall from the bedroom he shared with Minnie. She’d left earlier that morning with the children for her job as a real estate agent. She dressed so precisely in her pencil skirt, her blazer. She had kissed him in the morning, asking him to sleep in. His protestations hadn’t been enough to sway her. She’d hurried out the door, gathering books and lunch boxes and complaining kids along the way.
For the first several weeks after his return, Peter hadn’t allowed himself a moment away from Minnie. He’d had so much to talk to her about. Just little things, really; nothing earnest, nothing important. He knew he couldn’t talk to her about the mission; he couldn’t share with her all he’d been through—all he’d experienced without her. But he’d grasped her hand continually, asking her questions about herself—little things he already remembered from some shadow of his past.
“Haven’t we talked about this before?” Minnie had asked him one evening over beers out on the deck.
Peter had shrugged. “Maybe. But I want to hear it again.”
But now, he was giving her space. He was assimilating into this life. He hadn’t heard from Applegate at all, and he was beginning to believe everything had been some sort of treacherous dream. The memories portrayed for him in each of the photo albums Minnie kept so diligently seemed more like a reality he understood, that he remembered. Sure, in his old timeline, Minnie had died , but this timeline offered a Lake Tahoe camping trip in the past, during that very same weekend. He had the photos to prove it. Minnie stood next to him in the photos, her face gleaming. Brett had mud caked on his face, and Tori was rolling her eyes. God, what a weekend they’d had. Peter didn’t like to think about the other weekend—the one from the now-nonexistent timeline. Not if he didn’t have to.
Peter sat at the desk, thinking about his life—about the insane memories flitting through his mind. Now that he was safely home, he wanted to find a way to capture these memories before he lost them. He wanted to find a way to hone them, to understand them. Which was why he suddenly picked up a pen and a pad of paper and began writing small notes. Just little things, in the beginning.
“The streets of 1942 New York were humming with life as Julie and I reached the Empire State Building. I felt her lips on mine up there on the hundred-something floor, and I felt I could love her, even after all the troubles of my past. I felt like we were two souls searching for each other, uncertain of both our pasts and our futures.”
But then, these words gave way to others. He began to think he could write an entire memoir and call it a novel. He could even publish it, if he wanted to. Perhaps people would scoff at it; they would question how World War II could have eve
r ended in 1945, especially given the existence of Operation Sledgehammer.
He tapped his pen against his lip, thinking about this world in a backwards sense. He’d been on the other side of the mirror. He was, in so many ways, like Alice. Trying to convince people that other realms existed was nearly impossible.
Before he knew it, several hours had gone by as he scratched on the pad of paper, searching for a way to recreate his experiences and give completion to his memories. He heard the door shut in the foyer, and he started for a moment, lost in thought.
“Hello?”
Peter heard Minnie’s voice as she waltzed through the door. He sprang from his chair and rushed toward her. He grabbed her around the waist, lifting the grocery bag from her arms. “Hi, baby,” he murmured. He caught her lips with his. “How was your day?”
Minnie bit her lip, studying him. “I sort of have something to tell you.”
Peter’s heart began to beat quickly. He studied her face. “What is it?” Her eyes were still bright, looking at him. They were in uncharted territory; their relationship and their life together could go anywhere.
“Well. There’s this investment property. And I know I should have talked about it with you before I did it, but I’ve had my eye on it ever since you went on that work trip. And I—they told me I couldn’t wait.”
Peter’s eyes widened. “You put an offer on a house?” he asked.
Minnie nodded, biting her lip once more. Her pretty dark hair swirled around her chin. “Are you mad?” she asked.
Peter laughed. “Of course not! This place is too small for our hectic lives now. Tell me about it!”
He walked through the foyer, toward the kitchen. He placed the bag on the counter, taking out the groceries as he spoke.
“Well. It’s over on Glencoe Drive. I know we’ve always really liked that neighborhood—”
Peter spun around, shocked. Glencoe was his old house’s street name. He looked for the right words to say. “Oh, that neighborhood,” he said, nodding. “Pretty affluent.”
Minnie brought her fingers toward her lips. “I know. I know. It’s just—the business is going so well. And with your work. I just figured it was time for us to broaden our horizons a little bit.” She rested her hands on his chest and rubbed at his shirt, massaging the muscles beneath suggestively. “It could be a good change of pace, you know?”
“Tell me about the house,” he said, his eyes bright.
He listened as Minnie described the very home that they’d chosen together, all those years before, during his old timeline. How young she’d been, then. How beautiful she still was, now. History was repeating itself, just a few years late.
“You say it has a fireplace?” Peter asked.
Minnie brightened. “Oh, yes. It’s this beautiful fireplace. I don’t think it’s been updated since the 40s, when they built the place. We might have to do some renovations, you know.”
“Well. We’ll certainly want to use the fireplace,” he mused.
Peter and his wife brought their lips together, there in the sunlight of their small kitchen. His hopes lingered on the future they would forge together: a future in the home they’d been meant to share years and years before. And as Peter gave himself to this woman he loved more than life itself, his mind reached toward one small element of his plan he still hadn’t forgotten.
His journal still lay at the base of the fireplace floor. Proof of his past. And strength for his future.
REVIEWS
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Also By PAUL B KOHLER
Borrowed Souls
Silo Sage: Recoil
An Anthology of Short Stories
Something to Read on the Ride:
Amy (contributed)
Something for the Journey:
Gold Rush (contributed)
Lookout Mountain (contributed)
Something to Read on the Trip:
Alone (contributed)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
When not writing, Paul is hard at work in the field of architecture. He has been in the field of design since 1992, and loves what he does. He lives with his wife and daughter in Littleton, Colorado, where he was born and raised.
To learn more about him and his books, visit www.Paul-Kohler.net
Linear Shift is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2015 by Paul B. Kohler
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the author.
Part 1 edited by Kyle Hooper and David Gatewood
Part 2 edited by Kyle Hooper and Amy Maddox
Part 3 edited by Kyle Hooper and Amy Maddox
Part 4 edited by Allison Krupp and Carol Davis
Cover design by Paul B. Kohler
Interior design and layout by Paul B. Kohler
ISBN-13: 978-1-940740-06-5 (tpb)
ISBN-10: 1-940740-06-1 (tpb)
Contents
Title Page
Dedication Sheet
PART 1
CHAPTER 0
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
Untitled
CHAPTER 0
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
Untitled
CHAPTER 0
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
Untitled
CHAPTER 0
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
Epilogue
Reviews
Also By
About
Title Sheet-1