The Great Altruist

by Z. D. Robinson

  "What do you think you're doing?" he demanded.

  "The same thing we always do," she answered. "Are you just going to stand there or get undressed?"

  James looked over his mother's bare shoulders at Genesis and gave her a look demanding what he should do. He certainly wasn't going to listen to Genesis's advice to follow his mother's lead. Genesis understood immediately and signaled to him to get his mother out of the room so they could leave.

  James had another idea. Hopefully, Genesis would understand after they were gone. He looked at his mother and pushed her away from him. "I'm going to stand here while you go back inside that bathroom and put some clothes on!" he commanded her.

  "Oh, are you still mad about last time?" she asked.

  "Last time? What do you mean, last time? How many times have we done this?"

  "You forgot?" she yelled.

  James looked at his mother in disbelief. Even worse, she showed no sign of shame over her state of undress. "Would you at least put some clothes on, Rebecca? Please?" he begged.

  "No!" she said defiantly. "You know what I'm here for, and I'm not going anywhere until I get it!"

  James was at a loss for words. If he couldn't find a way to get her out of the room so he could leave, James was going to have to do one of two things: go through with her demand or change the future. He had no idea if these events might be related to his own birth, but if they were, and his parents never married because of what he was about to change, then his life would have to be sacrificed to keep this from happening anymore. His only wish was that Genesis would understand why he was doing it. I love you, he thought. "Listen to me carefully, Becky: You are not getting what you want, not now, or ever again."

  His mother approached him and looked him in the eyes cold. "Now you listen to me," she said softly but forcibly. "If I don't get what I'm here for, I'm telling my mother about our first time."

  Oh no! James thought. "What about the first time?" he asked. He looked her straight in the eye and desperately avoided the sight of his mother's naked body.

  "Oh, I know you remember that," his mother whispered devilishly. "It was a year ago. You were watching my sisters and me while my parents were out-of-town. You remember that night you came to my room, don't you? And I know you remember the first time you touched me."

  James froze in fear over what he heard.

  "On your freedom should you be glad I liked it," his mother continued, "because it's just one word from me that separates you from prison and my real father's gun!"

  "Oh God," James exclaimed to himself. "I can't do this anymore!"

  "Fine!" his mother screamed. "Have it your way!" She turned and left the room, slamming the bathroom door behind her.

  When the door closed, Genesis flew out from her hiding place.

  "Genesis," he whispered, "I don't care where we go or who I become, please get me out of here right now!"

  "What did you say?" his mother shouted from inside the bathroom.

  Genesis looked at the bathroom door, shook her head disapprovingly, and turned back to James. "Hold on to something."

  They disappeared a minute later, leaving only a confused man alone in his apartment with a young girl cursing him.

  Chapter 7

  "Am I still alive?" James said.

  "Yes, you are," she said, sounding relieved.

  “When are we?”

  “Back home.”

  “Oh.” He looked around his room for the first time in what felt like weeks. It took him a moment to readjust to the sight of his bedroom walls, as they were now clear of all the pictures of Katherine. "You're not mad at me, are you?" he asked Genesis, who was floating above him with her arms folded over her breasts. She did not look pleased with their situation.

  "No, I'm not mad."

  "Then what's that look for?"

  She shook her head. "You just don't realize what you're putting me through, James. What you did back there was so..." She hesitated, fearful of telling James what she felt right now. "It scared me. I shouldn't have put you in this position."

  "I put myself in this position, Genesis. You just got me here."

  "Look, I'm not mad that you didn't tell me what you were going to do. In a way, I understand why you did it."

  "Then what's wrong?"

  "I'm just mad at myself for going through with this again. I know you love your parents, and you've shown that. But maybe it's time to call it quits before you really get hurt."

  It wasn't difficult for James to see the wisdom of her advice. He did want to stay home. He wanted to stay with Genesis and he loved her dearly for her sacrifice. He also received a wealth of knowledge about his family, not to mention the chance to go back and learn from his mistake with Katherine. But for James, all this wasn't enough. He now knew something about his family that he could not sit idly by and watch. Maybe preventing his mother from being molested would change the outcome of her future marriage. Or maybe it would change whom she later married. And maybe it would change everything, even whether James was born or not. Undoubtedly, changing something as emotionally deep as child abuse would change the direction of her entire future. His very existence depended on her life course continuing down the path it began. He saw now why Genesis had discouraged him from doing this to begin with: it was too hard to make the right decision once you knew all the facts. It was even harder once you knew that your own life was in the way of making things right. The only way to make his mother's life better was to sacrifice his own. But James knew that option was hardly the way to repay Genesis, the woman he loved. "You're right," he said.

  "I know this isn't easy for you."

  "How would you know how hard this is, Genesis? I know you're trying to be empathetic with me but somehow I doubt you know how much this is hurting to have to give up on my parents."

  "Why do you think I’m so against this? To deny you happiness? I do know how you feel. I had to give up someone very precious."

  "Tell me what happened."

  Genesis at first said nothing, but only shook her head. Soon, she spun around and landed on the nightstand beside James’s bed. “Jadzia was nineteen and just freed from a concentration camp when I met her. She was pure, kind-hearted, and completely self-sacrificing in a way I couldn’t understand. All she wanted to do was see her parents again. But then she made a choice: to prevent World War II. I let her. I used my powers to fill her head with knowledge of the war and it killed her. I lost the only family I had because I was too careless with my powers. I gave into her because she was important to me, and she died anyway.

  “I loved Jadzia like a sister, but James - I love you so much more. I’ve never felt this way before. Call me selfish, but I cannot risk losing you. I can’t go through that again.”

  “So what do I do now?” he asked. “Go back to my life here, where my family has crumbled and I’m all alone?” He looked away and stared out the window to the yard below and imagined what the future would be like if his parents divorced. Behind him, a tear fell down Genesis’s cheek and she disappeared in an instant. He turned around, but she had already reappeared.

  “Come with me,” she said. “There’s something I need you to hear.”

  “What are we going to do?” he said.

  “You are going to listen.”

  Moments later, James awoke in a room that was the strangest yet. Judging from the wallpaper and carpet, he concluded it was from a time long before his own. The room looked strangely familiar though: it looked a lot like a room in his grandparent's house.

  "I'm almost afraid to ask, but who and where am I?" he asked Genesis, who was sitting on a nearby windowsill watching the clouds collect. His voice sounded young when he spoke. After a quick glance at his reflection in the window, he could see he was a very small boy.

  "We're in your Uncle Thomas's room. You're three years old," she replied, never taking her gaze off the clouds.

  "Why am I here?"

  "You need to listen to something," she
said, turning from the window and flying over to him.

  "I don't know want to learn anymore, Genesis. I've seen enough. I want to go home."

  She touched his face gently and looked consolingly into his eyes. "We will go home. I promise. This is the last thing you need to hear."

  "I'm afraid to ask but where is my mother this time? I guess she'd be around five years old."

  "Yes," Genesis said. "In fact, she's next door talking to your grandmother."

  "How do you know that?"

  She said nothing more.

  James crept slowly into the closet and pressed his ear up to the wall adjoining his mother's bedroom:

  "...but why does he do that to you?" James heard his five-year-old mother ask his grandmother.

  "Because I didn't do what he told me to do," she answered her daughter.

  "I don't like when Daddy gets mean!" she cried.

  "I know you don't, Becky. And if we never got married, he wouldn't hurt me like this."

  "But don't you love Daddy?" the little girl asked.

  James's grandmother took a deep breath and let out a disquieting sigh. "No, I don't," she said plainly.

  "Then why did you get married?"

  James heard nothing through the wall for a brief moment as his grandmother seemed to be thinking of a way to answer.

  "Because, Becky," his grandmother began, "I was pregnant with you." The young girl gasped. "So, you see, if I didn't have you, then Daddy wouldn't hit me like he does. And we wouldn't be married, and I would be happy."

  Through the wall in his uncle’s room, James cried. When his grandmother left the room a moment later, James heard his mother's gentle whimper echo through the closet alongside his own.

  He stumbled out of the closet and threw a toy against the wall, shattering it. "I hate my family!" he yelled in his three-year-old voice.

  Genesis could only look at the young boy and offer what little comfort she could. She sat on his shoulder and nestled herself against his neck as he collapsed to the ground and cried.

  "Why did you bring me here?" he cried to Genesis. "To show me how messed up my family is? I get it now! I don't want to see anymore!"

  She flew off his shoulder and landed directly in front of him, looking deep into his eyes. "You know why we're both here," she said calmly. "You wanted to know why your parents divorced and now you know everything! The plain and ugly truth of it."

  "I take it back! I don't want to know!" he shouted.

  "It kills me to see you hurt like this. But can you see now where your parents’ problems began? The demanding grandfather, your father's insistence to put his own desires last; the predator stepfather; not to mention the grandmother that tells her five year-old daughter that she is the source of her husband's abuse. No wonder your mother hated every man in her life! They were all jerks!"

  He took a deep breath and calmed himself. He realized what he should have all along: that his parent's divorce was a lifetime in the making. "Is there anything you think I can do to save them?"

  "That really depends, doesn't it?" she said while shaking her head.

  "On what?"

  "Do you really think it's worth saving?" she asked.

  He had seen more of his family's history than anyone in history before him had. The things behind closed doors that no one saw; the things only God knew. He was now privy to every dark secret his family had done so well keeping hid. It was all out in the open now and the future of his family was in his hands to determine. "I still do," he said. "I know that sounds crazy."

  "There's nothing crazy about that. But maybe it’s time to go home."

  He sat in silence as Genesis flew to the windowsill and resumed staring at the clouds. She couldn't say much else to him at this point. He needed to decide on his own the next course of action: let his parent's marriage die on its own or do what he needed to save it.

  As he stared at the floor, she slipped into the stream and emerged a split-second later. He never noticed.

  “I suppose there’s nothing left I can do,” he mused aloud.

  "You need to do something positive in her life. Come with me. I have a present for you.”

  A moment later, James stood in what appeared to be a lounge. He was alone, except for the ever-present Genesis, who tried to catch drops of coffee as it dripped from a machine. He was dressed in a sweater-vest and dress slacks, and when he felt his head he could tell he was middle-aged and balding.

  "You've truly outdone yourself," he remarked to Genesis. "But I thought you could only put me in the body of a relative?"

  "Oh, if only I could tell you all the things I can do," she said.

  "So how am I supposed to make a difference here? Where am I?"

  "You're in your old grade school, the one your mother went to as well."

  "You mean she's here? How old is she?"

  "She's nine, and her next class is about to start."

  "I'm her teacher, aren't I?"

  Genesis nodded.

  "But what do I say to her?"

  "That's entirely up to you. Nothing you say will change anyone's future but hers. You have nothing to fear."

  “Are you sure?”

  She hovered away from the coffee machine and kissed him as passionately as their mismatched lips could allow. He knew right away he had nothing to worry about.

  "Then let's go," he said as he motioned to his briefcase.

  "You want me to hide in there?"

  He nodded back at her with a smile.

  "Ugh, okay!" she moaned.

  She climbed inside the briefcase and tried to settle herself between all the papers. "You owe me one for this," she said.

  “Actually, this makes us even for even for putting me in my aunt."

  "Very funny,” she said. “Do you know where you're supposed to be going?"

  "No, I was hoping you could tell me," he said as he pointed to the class schedule next to her.

  She held up the class schedule into the light and read it. "Room 202." She ducked down as he closed the briefcase and wedged a folded piece of paper between the lid and case to allow some air in and then quickly headed off to teach class.

  When he got to Room 202, he allowed Genesis to slip into one of the drawers in the desk before the students arrived. Once they did, he told them to go over their homework from the day before. As the class went over their assignments, he spent his time observing his nine-year-old mother sitting in the rear of the class and writing in her journal. She seemed distressed and was not very sociable, even to the point of ignoring students when they talked to her.

  It wasn't long before the class period ended and the students began to leave. As Becky stood up, she bumped her arm on a neighboring desk, grabbed it in pain, and massaged it.

  "Are you alright, Rebecca?" James asked.

  "Yeah, I just hit my funny bone," she answered.

  "Well, your funny bone is on your elbow and you grabbed your arm. Are you sure you're okay?"

  She nodded.

  "Do you mind if I check your arm anyway?" he offered.

  She obliged reluctantly and exposed her arm - there was a large bruise across her bicep.

  "Oh, what happened here?" he asked. "It looks like you got in a bit of a fight."

  "No," she denied. "I've just been a little clumsy. I tripped on the stairs at home yesterday."

  "I see," James said to his mother, who hung her head and tried not to make eye contact. "Are you sure no one hit you?"

  She shook her head as tears began to well up.

  "Becky?" said James, trying to get her to look up, which after a moment she did. "It's okay to tell me. You don't need to be scared."

  This time she nodded and rolled down her sleeve to cover the mark on her arm.

  "Did someone at home hit you?"

  "My father," she managed to confess, the tears beginning to build up.

  "Hmm," James mumbled. "Does he hit you a lot?"

  "Only when I don't do what I'm told."

&nb
sp; "I see. And do you think you deserve to be hit for that?"

  She shook her head. "No."

  "You're right. You try to be a good girl, don't you?"

  She nodded. "Yeah."

  "Then it's not your fault that he hit you. You didn't do anything to deserve being hit."

  "Then why does he do it if I'm not a bad girl?"