Though they shouldn’t have been out of that box, Frank was glad Alexandra pulled them. He kept staring at them all the way down to the basement. When he reached the bottom of the steps he saw Ellen’s box in front of the shelf by the washing machine. Frank shook his head with a chuckle, walked to the box, and tossed the pictures in. He looked to the top shelf where Ellen kept it. “Man, Alex. How did you get this down?” Frank bent down to retrieve the box. Just as his hands grabbed it to put it away, he felt a not-too hard whap to his head then heard the thump to the floor. Wondering what and how something fell down and hit him, Frank turned his glance. A shoe box on its side, lid off laid there. Pieces of paper from Beginnings scratch pads scattered out. And there had to a hundred of those four inch slips of paper. “Swell.” Frank spoke to himself, grabbed the shoe box and began to collect the papers. “Just what I need, a ghost in this . . .” Frank’s eyes widened when he inadvertently read the words on one of the notes. “Oh, my God.” His eyes lit up. “Oh, my God.” His hands shuffled through the notes, some of the dates the same, but all of them Ellen’s handwriting. And all of them . . . to Dean. Frank immediately found the one that first caught his eyes, dated not three days before hand. The simple two sentences that read, ‘And I promised myself I wouldn’t get annoyed with Josephine because she’s old. It’s a good thing, Dean that I’m the only one I listen to, or else we would have fought.’ Those two sentences immediately snapped a thought to Frank’s mind and he stood up. “Thank you, Dean.” Frank clenched that note tight in his grip. Though delayed, a response to a question was given. Racing from that basement, note in hand, Frank ran all the way to the second floor.
He didn’t wait for permission, Frank knocked once on the bedroom door and walked in. “El.”
Sitting on the bed reading, Ellen looked up. “Frank?” She set the book down. “Are you all right?”
“No. Yes. El.” Frank walked to her. “Last night, I asked . . . I asked for answers.”
“About?”
“Dean,” Frank said.
“Who did you ask?”
“Dean.”
“Frank.” Ellen closed her eyes and shook her head. She reached for the book, but Frank stopped her. He stuck the note in front of her. Anger immediately engulfed her. “Where did you get this?”
“Dean.”
“Frank, what . . .”
“Doesn’t matter. El.” He grabbed her hand. There was a certain amount of excitement to him. “Babe, I was wrong.”
“Yeah, you were. Going through my things when . . .”
“No.” Frank laid his and over her mouth. “Wrong. Everything I said to comfort you last night. I was wrong. I said fate caused Dean not to come back. No, we screwed up. We screwed up big time. We didn’t send the best person to change time, because the best person to bring back Dean is sitting right here waiting . . . you. It should have worked. It will work.” Frank grabbed her hand and pulled her. “Come on.”
“Frank, wait.” Ellen tugged her hand back. “Where are we going.”
“Josh will be fine with the kids until Johnny gets here.” Frank pulled her toward the door.
“Where are we going?”
Frank only smiled.
^^^^
“I can’t believe you have me doing this,” Henry griped in an irritating manner. A flashlight was under his arm, shining down to the notebook he flipped through in the quantum lab. “I can’t believe you dragged me here in the dark.”
“Shut up, Henry,” Frank blasted in a loud whisper. Ellen stood quietly behind him.
“Who’s gonna hear me Frank?” Henry snapped. “Huh? Who? Way up here in the dark lab. Did I mention dark?” Henry turned to looking at the notebook,. “I’m breaking rules Frank. First, breaking into history to make copies of the disks, then breaking in here.”
“No,” Frank corrected. “I used my security keys.”
“Oh, that makes it better.” Henry flipped a page then quickly looked at Frank, following a tap sound. “And will you quit biting your nails. That is foul Frank. So foul.”
“I can’t help it. I’m nervous. And quit bitching.”
“I will bitch. And you ought to be nervous. I’m doing this in the dark, Frank. The dark. I have to set up the program, which I don’t know if I’m gonna do right. It’s dark.”
“Henry, shut up,” Frank told him again.
“No. You could zap me and Ellen into 1882. Right smack dab in the cowboy and Indian time frame. It’s dark . . .” Henry looked up to the light that went on. “Thank you.”
“For what?” Frank asked.
“For the light.”
“I didn’t turn it on.” Frank looked at Ellen. “Thanks El.”
“For what?” She asked.
“The light,” Frank responded.
“I didn’t turn it on,” Ellen said.
A clearing of the throat made all three of them turn around.
Jason walked across the lab. “I guess you guys forgot I live up here most of the time.”
Henry smacked Frank with the notebook. “Way to go Frank, you asshole.”
“What?” Frank lifted his hands.
Jason stepped closer. “I would ask right now for an explanation. But, I think Joe deserves to hear it as well, so to save myself further irritation. I’ll just get him up here.”
Like little children in big trouble, all three of them just looked at each other.
^^^^
Joe would have sworn that a tiny little bug flew into his inner ear that was how badly the buzz annoyed him. Frank, Ellen and Henry spewed out words he didn’t comprehend completely, because he couldn’t understand them. “Stop,” Joe called out from beneath his hand. He stood up. “No.”
“But Dad.” Frank sprang to his feet. “It will work.”
“No,” Joe repeated. “We tried once. No.”
“We did it all wrong. We sent the wrong person. Ellen should go,” Frank argued.
“And what?” Joe laughed. “Warn Dean?”
“No,” Frank said, “warn herself. Tell her own self to get the hell out of the lab.”
This caught Jason’s attention. “This holds possibilities.”
“Are you being pulled in?” Joe asked. “They tried to break into your lab. Run the machine. Change time.”
“Dad,” Frank tried again. “Ellen can cut herself off coming back from holding. Believe me, she is the only person she’ll listen to. With the right warning, she’ll get out of that lab and Dean will be saved. That’s why it didn’t work the first time. That and the fact that we’re not meant to rob Ellen of this.”
“What?” Joe asked in disbelief. “Rob Ellen?”
“Not intentionally,” Frank explained, “but that’s what we were doing.”
“How were we robbing her?” Joe questioned.
“Because I’ll never know.” Ellen stood, bringing her fist to her chest in a passionate argument. “If someone else goes back and saves him. I’ll never know. I have mourned my friend so deeply that I can’t sleep. If he comes back, let me know he has come back. Don’t take the feeling of seeing his face again, touching him. Don’t take that moment away from me. I deserve that. Please don’t take that away from me. Let me go, Joe. Give the O.K., we can do this.”
Joe looked at Jason for answers.
Jason lifted his hand. “Ellen, you would have to talk to no one but yourself.”
Ellen nodded.
“And you only warn yourself. Tell yourself uncover the password, get the hell out and get help. That’s it.”
“I understand. That’s all I’ll do.” Folding her arms, Ellen looked at Jason then Joe. “Then I can go?”
Joe nodded. “You can go. We’ll try it again.”
“Yes!” Ellen shrieked and jumped. “When?”
“Contrary to what you three believed,” Jason answered, “the time machine is a lot more complicated than just pushing the button. The whole process takes steps. I have to reprogram, re-power. Joe has history disks to get ready.�
�
“Not to mention briefing,” Joe added. “You and Henry will have to go through a briefing. What you will do, say, and so forth.”
“O.K., O.K.” Ellen nodded rapidly. Being boggled down with details bored her. “When?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Jason said. “Early.”
“Got it.” Ellen hurried and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.” She moved to Joe and embraced him tight. “Thank you. I’d better go.” She ran her hands through her hair. “I want to get rest tonight. I don’t want to be tired looking tomorrow. Come on, Frank.” She grabbed his hand.
Frank slowed down in his stride out. He was smiling. “Dad. Jason. Thanks.”
They both gave Frank a nod as he and Ellen left.
“Wait.” Henry called out jumping from his seat. “I need a ride.” He flew out the door.
After the door closed, Jason looked at Joe. “We’re doing this again. What do you think?”
“It may work.” Joe pulled a cigarette from his pocket. “It just may work.”
“Yeah.” Jason stared at the door. “But . . . can you believe those three tried to steal my time machine.”
“What can I say?” Joe lit up, took a hit, and blew out the smoke.
“Morons.”
^^^^
Because it was the sensible thing to do, Joe and Jason stopped by the social hall for ‘just one more’ before heading home.
“Thanks, Sam,” Joe told the mannequin bartender and pushed the bottle forward. “What a night.”
“What a night.” Jason sipped his drink. “Well, bright and early, we try this again.”
“You know I thought of something. We brought it up before but now . . . you mentioned that you got to the lab at your usual time that morning.”
“I did.”
“So . . .if Ellen is meeting . . .” Joe paused to cringe and swallow about the scary thought. “If Ellen is meeting Ellen between ten til and seven O’clock, then aren’t you going be a bit surprised when you come into the lab and Henry is standing here?”
“Uh huh,” Jason nodded.
“More so,” Joe continued. “Dean’s alive, no plague. No plague, no message to yourself. What happens tomorrow in the ‘Dean’s alive Beginnings’ when you are working diligently in your lab and Henry and Ellen come sailing through?”
“A scenario we didn’t discuss fully.”
“Exactly. Any ideas?”
“In fact I do. Henry is carrying the letter to Dean, right? Might as well work on a little note for myself. I’ll believe that, you know.”
Joe smiled. “I’m sure you will. What exactly will you put in that little message to yourself?”
“I can’t give too much away.” Jason took a moment to think. “I know . . . I’ll write down the date and time I figured it out and I’ll tell myself to use the formula on that day . . .”
“Will you?”
“Of course, I’m a scientist. I’ll know if I don’t, it could ripple things. And I’ll tell myself to plan a little time machine test for the exact moment we send Henry and Ellen back. I’ll tell myself to use Henry and Ellen.”
“So that Henry and Ellen will have an excuse for walking through the time machine when they return on November eighteenth?”
“Exactly.” Jason lifted his drink. “Looks like we’re all set.”
“That we are,” Joe agreed, “and good thing we came to the social hall, or else I don’t think we would have discussed such important matters.”
“It’s the alcohol.” Finishing off his drink, Jason gasped, “Breeds deep thought.”
“And bad mornings that make you think of nights you want to forget.” With a laugh, Joe grabbed the bottle and poured himself and Jason ‘just one more.’
^^^^
It was only after Ellen took one more look at Alexandra that she released the light lock her fingers had on her brown hair. One more look, Ellen thought, to the face that always carried a halo of hurt. A sadness that Ellen hoped and prayed that, with the trip back in time, she could erase from her tiny daughter’s face.
She pulled the covers up over the sleeping girl’s shoulder and backed out of the bedroom. She could hear Frank shuffling about in their own room, making a little more noise than needed in the quiet hours of their home.
“Frank?” She whispered out as she stepped in.
“Hey.” He looked up from the dresser, closing the drawer with his thigh. “Everyone all right?”
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“Laundry.” Frank shrugged. “All these kids, it gets . . . it gets ahead of you.”
“I would say ‘tell me about it’. However . . .” Ellen smiled a sneaky smile. “I don’t do laundry.”
“Tell me about it.” Frank gave a quick laugh then lost his smile.
“What’s wrong?” Ellen asked. She walked over and sat on the bed. “Your mood. You came down.”
“So did you.”
“Reality will do that to you.”
“So will fear.” Frank walked over to the bed and sat next to her.
“Fear? You?”
“Yeah,” Frank replied. “Most of all for you. What happens . . . what happens if again it doesn’t work?”
“I can face it,” Ellen said with certainty. “I can. I’ll know everything was done to try to stop it.”
“And that’s another thing that bothers me.” Frank stood up. “Why? Why are we trying so hard to stop Dean’s death? No.” He closed his eyes and held up his hand. “Aside from the emotional aspect, why, El?” Frank added concern to his voice. “What’s in that letter that my Dad has? What do my Dad and Jason know?”
Ellen shook her head. “I haven’t a clue.”
“It has to be bad. If this doesn’t work, we are facing something bad.”
“What do you think it is?” Ellen asked. “Does someone die that only Dean can save?”
“That was my first thought.” Frank held out his hand. “Someone dies. No, actually my first thought was you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. I thought. My God, Ellen loses it and kills herself.”
Ellen looked up to him with wide eyes. “Me?”
“Yes. But then after thinking that you wouldn’t, I thought even if you did, what did it matter.”
“What!” Ellen jumped up.
“No. Not like that. I mean, not that you aren’t important and all. You are.”
“Gee, thanks Frank.” Ellen dropped back down to the bed.
“You know what I mean. I mean. You are. But this community has lost, we have lost people that we truly loved. Denny. Miguel. Rob . . . Robbie.” Frank cleared his throat. “But we’re bringing Dean back. Dean’s the brains for this place. What do they need him for? What happens in the future that we need him for? It’s bad, El. Whatever it is, is bad.”
“I guess we’ll know when Dean opens that letter.”
“Yet another scary thought.” Frank took a deep breath and sat down next to her. “If we change time, Dean comes back. He’ll never have died.” Frank stopped when he heard Ellen groan. “What?”
“You’re not going into one of those confusing Frank time theories again are you?”
“No, how about a realistic time theory? Dean never died. No emotional impact or urgency to the letter.” Frank raised his eyes slowly. “How seriously will it be taken?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
November 18
Ellen could hear the nervous breath emanate from Frank despite the fact that he tried to hide it. He stood before her, by the jeep, outside of the quantum lab. Frank leaned down to her, staring as if for one last moment, breathing heavily through his slightly parted lips. Ellen could see his breath, smell the coffee, and she swore, if she didn’t know better, Frank had been smoking. But through her nervousness herself, everything was weird and magnified. Her heart thumped, and a part of her brain seemed as if it left her. Dazed, foggy, seemingly like she never awoke from the mere two hours of sleep she had.
“Well.” Frank
took another breath as he grasped the edges of the jean jacket. “It’s time.”
“I know.”
“What I wouldn’t give, El. What I wouldn’t give to see your face when you step back through and see that Dean’s alive.”
“And I hope to God if it works, I’m in control of myself enough to enjoy it.” Ellen chuckled. “You know. You said you want to see my face. Well, I can’t wait to see yours.”
“Mine?” Frank snickered. “You won’t see a happy look on this face, hon. When you get back I’ll probably be . . .”
“Annoyed,” Ellen nodded. “And I can’t wait until that happens. I miss the way you were. I can’t wait until that arrogant, not-so serious, Frank is fighting with Dean again. Calling him little man. Yelling at me.”
“Since Dean died I have mellowed a little. I guess I just don’t feel like fooling around.”
“None of us do.”
With a ‘whew’ Frank shook his head. “Think about it, El. It’s gonna be a different Beginnings.”
“The old Beginnings.” Ellen smiled.
“You’re lucky.” Frank kissed her quickly. “We’d better go. They’re waiting.” He grabbed Ellen’s hand.
“Frank.” Ellen stopped him. “One more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I know you didn’t bring this up, but I know you’re thinking about it. You and me, we . . .”
“El,” Frank tried to interrupt her.
“No, listen. You and me, when Dean died, we were building the friendship thing again. We had some really tough times that were swept aside.”
“I know.” Frank looked down.
“O.K., knowing that, and knowing what I know now, I want you to understand something,” Ellen said softly. “If we aren’t together when I step back through, I promise you, no matter what, I will work things out with you. If this works, that means your snooping in my Dean letters ended up giving me a second chance with my friend. So I’m gonna make sure I give our marriage the second chance we’re giving it now.”
The Big Ten: The First Ten Books of the Beginnings Series Page 163
