“Answer, damn it!” the cop shouts, slamming a fist on the table.
My water bottle jumps, falls over, spurts out glug-glug-glug into my lap. I keep my reaction to a tic.
They can’t make me talk, I assure myself. They can only send me to jail. Or put me in an institution, if they decide I’m crazy. The universe has done its worst.
Once again, I am wrong.
* * * *
“What is it?” Victoria asks, tears streaming down her face. “I know you. I know you wouldn’t hurt anyone. Why won’t you defend yourself?” And plaintively, “Why won’t you talk to me, Peter?”
I am mute, above all, for her. I don’t make a sound, though the longing to explain consumes me. I don’t even move, though my need to hold her is overwhelming.
Instead I focus my mind on Jonas, the flesh sliding off his face.
How is it I can remember a future that’s been undone? And how undone, when I died in the fire without ever having come downstairs to discover an earlier Jonas’s deception and plans—
All of which I do remember, with painful clarity.
But there’s no use asking how, just as there is no one to ask. It must suffice to know that between us, Jonas and I had twisted and knotted, tangled and raveled the timeline. And, just possibly, we had mended it.
If I can keep it intact.
Victoria takes my hand. “If you ever felt anything for me, you’ll explain.”
Four billion dead: an inconceivable number. An incomprehensible abstraction. Victoria struck down? That’s all too believable, and I cannot bear the idea. And so I peer into space, avoiding her gaze.
What will my love think when the body from the warehouse—my body—is identified?
Far more difficult than seeing myself die, I say nothing.
At last Victoria tires of waiting. She stands to leave, shoulders quivering, eyes red and puffy. As the interrogation room door sighs closed behind her, I think about what we might have had together.
And of grandfatherless grandsons.
And the fluttering wings of butterflies.
And the crazily spinning wheel of a whirligig.
Time Out Page 7
