The Mirror (Northwest Passage Book 5)

by John A. Heldt

  Ginny looked to Katie for backup.

  "She's right," Katie said. "If I remember right from my history classes, a Navy ship will be attacked. Then we're going to start sending soldiers over there – thousands of them."

  Ginny watched Virginia carefully and saw that the revelation had already started to sink in. Virginia turned away from the twins and stared blankly at the back of the room.

  "How long will this war go on?"

  "It's going to last several years," Katie said.

  "Several years?" Virginia asked.

  She turned to face the girls.

  Ginny and Katie both nodded.

  "I know it's not my place to say this, Nana, but keep a close eye on Rick," Ginny said. "You don't want him signing up for this war – not now, not ever."

  Virginia sighed.

  "I know he plans to go to college straight out of high school. He wants to be a teacher."

  Ginny put her hand on Virginia's forearm and stared at her hard.

  "I think that's a good plan," Ginny said. "I think that's a really good plan."

  Virginia stiffened upon hearing the words and then turned away when her eyes began to moisten. She took a moment to no doubt think about the priceless advice Ginny had bestowed and perhaps ponder her own responsibilities as a parent and a patriot. She reached for a tissue in a box at the end of the bar, dabbed at her eyes, and offered Ginny a sad smile.

  "You don't need to say more, dear. I get the message," Virginia said. She took a breath. "Thank you for your candor. I will encourage Rick to follow his dream."

  Ginny knew she had probably crossed a line, but she felt good about it. She knew that Rick Jorgenson, Version 1, had attended college, received a deferment, and gone on to teach in a small town in Oregon. If making sure that Version 2 did the same, then so be it. She felt good knowing that Virginia Jorgenson would not have to bury a son as well as a fiancé.

  When Nana finished drying her eyes, she smiled and looked at the twins like a mother might look at her daughters. She had clearly become attached to the tenants who were far more than a pair of nineteen-year-olds who paid their rent on time.

  "Are there other glimpses of the future you can share?" Virginia asked. "Are there things I can look forward to?"

  Ginny glanced again at Katie and sought her approval. She got it in the form of a smile.

  "There are a lot of things," Ginny said. "In fact, most of what's coming is good. At least I think it's good. Do you know much about computers?"

  "Do you mean those monstrosities with the spinning wheels and the flashing lights?"

  Ginny laughed.

  "Yeah. That's what I mean. They're going to get better and faster and smaller. In twenty or thirty years, they'll be a part of everything we do."

  "What do you mean?"

  Ginny pondered the question for a moment and considered how best to answer it. Then she saw an archaic communications device at the end of the bar and returned to her hostess.

  "You see that phone?"

  "Of course," Virginia said.

  "That phone will someday fit in the palm of my hand. I will be able to call anyone in the world by pressing a few buttons. I'll also be able to watch TV and read the news on that same phone. The only thing it won't be able to do is fry an egg."

  Katie laughed.

  "That's astonishing," Virginia said.

  "There's more too. There will be cures – or at least successful treatments – for a lot of the diseases that are killing people now. A cancer diagnosis won't be a death sentence."

  "What else?"

  Ginny paused again before answering. She knew there was a lot she could tell Virginia, but she also knew that this was a time to be selective.

  "I know something I can tell you."

  "What's that?"

  "We're going to the moon! That's going to happen in a few years. Someone named Neil Armstrong is going to walk on the moon. So are a few other guys."

  "So President Kennedy's dream will be fulfilled, after all."

  "It will. Then we're going to build space shuttles and a space station and telescopes and a few other things I can't remember now."

  "It sounds like we're headed for a technological renaissance."

  "We are," Ginny said. "There are a lot of cool things coming."

  Virginia looked at Ginny with adoring eyes.

  "The future sounds exciting, Ginny, but there is still one thing I don't understand."

  "What's that?"

  "How are you able to come back to this time and not affect a future that has already taken place? You both have already had quite an impact on people here."

  "I know," Ginny said. "That's why we're trying our best to leave things alone. We don't want to alter the past in any meaningful way."

  "I know you don't, but you already have."

  "What do you mean?" Ginny asked.

  "Let me show you."

  Virginia stepped away from the bar and walked to the other end of the room, where a stack of folded newspapers sat in a metal rack. She went through a few of the papers, pulled one out, and walked back to the bar. She sat on her stool and flipped the paper open to the front page.

  "Don't think for a minute I missed this," Virginia said.

  The twins laughed.

  "I was hoping it had slipped your attention," Ginny said. "I've gotten quite a few comments about that picture, not all of them good."

  Virginia smiled.

  "I'm not passing judgment, dear. I think it's a fine photo. It shows your passion for a very good cause," she said. "What interests me, however, is not what you're doing in that picture but rather how you managed to get in it in the first place."

  "I don't understand."

  "You were born in 2001, Ginny. This photo was taken on Saturday. I have to assume that on the day you were born, there was a copy of this issue in several libraries and archives that didn't feature a lovely young rabble-rouser on the front page."

  Ginny sighed.

  "I'm not sure how it all works, but I understand the basics. My dad went over them several times when he told us about his trip to 1941. He believes that when a time traveler goes back to the past, he or she creates a new time stream," Ginny said. "What happened before in 1964 has already happened. This is a new 1964."

  "Do you mean to say that events are not set in stone?"

  "That's exactly what I mean, Nana. That's why Katie and I are trying to be careful. We could do more than influence a few lives in Seattle – much more," Ginny said. She took a breath and stared at Virginia. "In theory, we could rewrite history."

  CHAPTER 54: KATIE

  Friday, July 17, 1964

  "How are you feeling?"

  "I've had a rough week, but I'm feeling better today," Mary Hayes said. "There's nothing like good coffee and good company to raise my spirits."

  Katie couldn't disagree. Good coffee and company had always worked for her. She couldn't think of a better way to spend a Friday morning – at least this Friday morning – than drinking freshly ground coffee with the mother of the boy she loved.

  "Have you heard more from your doctors?"

  "No. I probably won't for a couple more weeks, when they get my lab results," Mary said. "That's how cancer works, Katie. It's all about watching and waiting."

  Katie sipped her coffee and thought briefly about the person who wasn't there. Mike Hayes had been asked that morning to work a shift for a courtesy clerk who had called in sick.

  "How's Mike holding up?"

  "He's doing all right. He doesn't say much, of course. He's like a lot of people with stressful lives. He puts his problems in separate boxes and doesn't open any of them until he has to."

  Mary took a ginger snap cookie from a large plate and then gazed at Katie with sweet, tired eyes that had seen far too much sadness in forty-plus years.

  "How are you holding up?" Mary asked.

  "I'm doing OK. Why do you ask?"

  "I ask because I suspect that you've made Mik
e's problems your problems."

  Katie smiled.

  "Is it that obvious?"

  "I may be sick, Katie, but I'm not blind. I know you love my boy. I see how you light up when he's happy and how you get sad when he's sad. You wouldn't be human if you didn't feel the same things he's feeling."

  Katie nodded.

  "I guess I wouldn't. I do love Mike, Mrs. Hayes," Katie said. "I'm having a hard time imagining my life without him – and that's a problem."

  "How so?"

  "It's a problem because I think Ginny and I are going to return to California in September. It's a problem because we have a family there and Mike has a family here," Katie said. "I just don't see how we can make this work."

  Mary sighed.

  "Michael has told me as much," she said. "I don't know that there's much I can say about it. Young people have to do what they have to do. I just hope if there's a way you can make it work that you will find it. It would be a shame to see all that love go to waste."

  Katie smiled and put her hand on Mary's.

  "Michael also told me that you've developed quite an interest in his grandfather," Mary said. "Is there any particular reason why?"

  Katie took a moment before responding. She knew it was unusual to express interest in a man she had never met – a man who had been dead for four years – and felt compelled to offer a reason that went beyond simple curiosity.

  "I just wanted to know more about him. Patsy told me about his talent as a woodworker and a businessman. Then Mike told me how he became a mentor and a surrogate father. That made him both interesting and relevant."

  Mary smiled and nodded.

  "Looks like they got it right," Mary said. "My father-in-law was all of those things and more. He was a surrogate father to both of the kids. Patsy doesn't talk about that as much, but she looked up to him too. He was there when she needed him."

  "He sounds wonderful."

  "He was," Mary said. She sipped her coffee. "Would you like to see pictures of him?"

  "I'd love to."

  "Then sit tight. I'll be back in a jiffy."

  Mary got up from the table and walked out of the dining room to a hallway that led to two bedrooms. When she returned a moment later, she carried a large padded album and what looked like an eight-by-ten photograph in a cardboard frame.

  Mary pulled her chair next to Katie's, sat down, and placed the album and the framed photo on the table. She turned the photo face down.

  "I won't show you everything unless you want me to. I'm sure you have better things to do this morning than go through two hundred pictures."

  Katie laughed.

  "Actually, I don't. There's nothing I'd rather do right now than go through each one."

  Mary smiled.

  "I just had to say that for the record, dear. I know you want to see them."

  Over the next hour Katie saw photos not only of Grandpa Hayes but also of Mitch, Mike, and Patsy. She saw a man behind a lathe and a jigsaw and kids on tricycles, bicycles, and even horses. She saw Patsy in a prom dress and Mike in a baseball uniform. She saw a family that had enjoyed at least a few moments of happiness over the past twenty-some years.

  Katie also saw several pictures of the man Mary Duncan had married in 1940. Tall, dark, and unusually handsome, Jack Hayes looked like a man who belonged on top of a wedding cake. He did not, however, look like a happy man. Even in photos taken before Mitch got sick, Jack did not smile. He wore the face of someone who was lost, preoccupied, even tormented.

  Katie found the Christmas pictures even more difficult to look at. Between 1955 and 1958, the number of smiles fell more rapidly than the number of people gathered around the tree. No one smiled in a family photo taken in December 1957.

  When Katie turned the last page in the album and closed the cover, she felt she had a better understanding of a family that had endured so much. She had a greater appreciation of the Hayes women and the young man who still haunted her dreams. She did not, however, have an answer to a question that had nagged at her for days.

  "These are beautiful photos, Mrs. Hayes. Thank you for sharing them."

  "You're welcome, dear," Mary said.

  Mary cocked her head and looked at Katie closely.

  "Is something wrong? You look puzzled."

  "I was just thinking about something I didn't see in the album," Katie said. "Except for Grandpa Mike, I didn't see any grandparents. How come none of the others are pictured?"

  Mary sighed.

  "It's simple, really. They all died before I was married," Mary said. "My parents died in a train accident when I was seventeen. Jack's mother, as you know, died giving birth to him."

  "Do you have photos of them?"

  "I have several of my parents. They're in a box in my closet if you'd like to see them."

  "Maybe later," Katie said. "Do you have any pictures of your husband's mother?"

  "I do. I have one. It was taken on her wedding day," Mary said. "It's the picture on this table, the one I've saved for last."

  "May I see it?"

  Mary nodded.

  "You may," Mary said. "But when you look at it, I want you to remember one thing."

  "What's that?"

  "It's just a picture, dear. It's just a picture."

  Suddenly filled with apprehension, Katie put a hand on the photo and pulled it closer. She cleared her mind, sighed, and flipped the picture over. What she saw took her breath away.

  She looked first at the groom. Grandpa Hayes was as dashing on his wedding day in 1917 as he had been later in life. At age nineteen, he was the spitting image of a courtesy clerk currently working the morning shift at Greer's Grocery.

  Then Katie turned to the bride. For a few seconds, she could do nothing but stare dreamily at the long, lacy, pearly wedding dress that seemed to flow off the photo. She could only imagine what it was like to wear such a gown on such an important day.

  Even the dress, however, could not compete with the woman who wore it. When Katherine Smith gazed upon Katherine Hayes, she saw more than a woman with platinum hair, gentle eyes, and a button nose. She saw the face of the girl she had seen in the mirror for nineteen years.

  She saw herself.

  CHAPTER 55: GINNY

  Bainbridge Island, Washington – Sunday, July 19, 1964

  Ginny wrapped the bed sheet around her bare shoulders and stared out a window at a scene fit for the cover of Sunset magazine. To her left, birds flew between a weathered gray fence and blackberry bushes. To her right, Douglas firs soared above ferns and wildflowers. Straight ahead lay a rocky beach and an unobstructed view of Puget Sound.

  No matter where she looked, she found beauty, inspiration, and even a measure of comfort. She did not, however, find the one thing she had hoped to find in this secluded corner of Bainbridge Island. She did not find peace.

  Ginny looked over her shoulder at a rumpled bed and saw that Steve Carrington was as locked in slumber as a bear in January. That, she decided, was a good thing. She didn't feel much like talking and definitely didn't want to discuss the particulars and parameters of a relationship that she knew would have to end.

  Steve had taken her to the rustic cabin on Saturday morning after picking her up in his Stingray and driving her to the Salmon Bay marina. He had said he had wanted a weekend alone to "rejuvenate" their friendship and move past the ugliness of the lunch on the lake.

  Ginny conceded that he had made progress on that front. She had found it difficult to think about Richard, Joyce, and Connie when Steve took her boating, fishing, and hiking. She had found it impossible when he insisted on making her dinner. Even so, she knew that even the most romantic of weekends could not alter a simple fact: the relationship had changed.

  She turned away from the window and walked through the single-room cabin to a gas range, where a teapot began to announce its presence to the world. She turned off the burner, dropped a bag of orange pekoe in a mug, and then filled the mug with steaming water. When the liqui
d cooled to a temperature that didn't burn lips on contact, she returned to the window.

  Ginny stared again at the water and the city across the sound. The morning fog had lifted, revealing a metropolis both familiar and foreign. She saw the two-year-old Space Needle and the waterfront, of course. She even spotted the Smith Tower, a building she had adopted as her own on a field trip in the first grade. Little else, however, stood out. The gleaming skyscrapers and sports palaces she had known as a youth were still decades away.

  She didn't bother looking for a large gray house in Madison Park. Even if she had the ability to look over hills and buildings and spot split-level homes ten miles away, she knew she wouldn't find it. The House of Joel and Grace had yet to be built.

  That didn't mean she didn't want to find it. She wanted to reclaim nearly everything about her former life, from her family and friends to her car and dog. Though she had been able to put on a brave face for several weeks, she could not deny the obvious. The separation was starting to take a toll. Like Katie had been from the start, she was homesick.

  Ginny still believed she would find her way back. She had twice written to Cedar River Country Fair officials to confirm both the dates of the fair and their plans to feature an exhibit with a roomful of reflective glass. She had even inquired about a large, oval mirror that hung on a wall and was assured that it, too, would be part of the mix.

  Her most immediate challenge was figuring out how to get through the next several weeks without leaving a trail of wreckage behind. Though Ginny was sure she could make it to September without triggering a war or a financial crisis, she was not as sure she could make it without breaking hearts, disappointing friends, or pushing lives in different directions.

  Part of her, of course, didn't want to play it safe. She wanted to do more with James before she left and definitely wanted to spend more time with Nana and the grandmother she planned to see again. She wanted to treat the summer like a Europhile might treat a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe. She wanted to make the most of every minute, even if doing so deepened the pain of parting and brought about new risk. The ability to travel through time and experience people from the past continued to have great appeal.