"What?" he asked, curious. He knew she knew him better than he did and was hoping she would have some extraordinary insight.
"The other Garison—the one that was first married to Heather—me—whatever . . . he was different, apparently. Heather seemed surprised at things; like how nice he was and how he read the Bible. That was never you. You've always been a Christian—as long as I've known you. You were baptized at what? twelve years old?"
"Yeah. I read the Bible when I was eleven, and then I got baptized as soon as I got to the book of Acts. I guess he put that idea in my head when he met me twenty years ago. That's weird. How come I don't remember any of that? How come we can't remember watching that video tape this morning—yesterday morning? He claims to have seen us watch it from the closet."
"That's why that door swung open!" Heather exclaimed.
"But, how could both of us have amnesia?"
"How do you know we watched that tape if we don't remember doing it?" she asked.
"Well, for one thing, he saw us. For another, I can't think of any other reason I would have aborted the experiment."
Heather thought a minute, started to shrug, then said—in answer to his earlier question, "I guess it didn't happen—the video and all. I mean, it did, but it didn't. Kind of like that Soviet Society he talked about. When the past was changed, that society never existed—even though it had. When he went back again, that meant he'd never met you—worked in the oil field—all of that." She leaned over, put her head in her hands and said, "Oh, this is all so confusing!"
"No kidding," he nodded. Looking at his watch, he said, "It's one thirty in the morning. What do you say we get some sleep and tackle this after breakfast? My head's so full of stuff—including sleep—that I can't think straight anymore."
"Good idea. Although I doubt I'll be able to go to sleep any time soon. I can never sleep when too many ideas are going through my head. Then, when I do, I'll probably have really weird dreams about all this. Like if I read for too long right before bed, I dream that I'm reading."
She stood up and stretched, causing him to slip momentarily from his reverie and admire her body. After her stretch, she turned and asked, "You coming to bed right away?"
"No. I want to put a short entry in my journal about all this. I probably won't have much to say until I've sorted it all out, though. I just need to get some stuff down before it flies out of my head."
"That's one trait that makes me think this is all for real," she said as she walked to the stairs, realizing now that she was standing just how tired she was. She was momentarily tempted to just curl up on the rug in front of the fire.
"What's that?" he asked, already switching his computer on.
"The journal. He kept one, you keep one. You probably made an entry before we even read this manuscript, didn't you? Well, I know you well enough to know you probably did one about why you didn't go through with the experiment."
He nodded and smiled sheepishly. He was sometimes embarrassed by just how well she did know him. Coming over to her, he said, "You know, he sure was right about one thing."
"What?"
"You have a wonderful gift for sorting through things and pointing out obvious solutions that I had missed. I guess it's that women's intuition thing. And you know what else? You are the most beautiful woman in the world."
She gave him a sleepy smile as she said, "And you both have impeccable taste in women."
"Amen to that."
She kissed him passionately and said, just pulling away far enough to mumble between his kisses, "If I weren't so tired I would suggest some nocturnal activities."
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm too tired, too. That's something else we're going to have to tackle after a good night's sleep."
"You make it sound so romantic. When you couch your come ons in football jargon, I know you care." She kissed him again lightly, then went up the stairs.
"Heather," he called. She was halfway up the stairs and turned to look at him. "Are you—are you pregnant?"
Her hands went to her abdomen and she said, "Maybe. I am late. I wasn't going to say anything until I knew for sure."
"How could a two hundred year old manuscript know you're pregnant?"
"It's, um, it's gotta be true," she replied.
Garison hesitated a moment then bounded up the stairs and took her in his arms. He squeezed her tightly and said, "I—I really hope you are." They shared a long, passionate kiss and then, when they had finally broken it off, she refused to let go. She held him there, studying his face.
When he looked at her questioningly, she explained, "Just wondering what you would look like with a mustache."
"Cheesy, like book said."
When the morning sun peeked through their window and lit on their bed, Garison and Heather both came slowly awake. She was laying on her stomach and he put his arm on her back for a moment before either said anything. He couldn't help but think (as he did on many mornings) how pretty she was—even first thing in the morning. He felt sorry for husbands who were turned off by the early morning state of their wives. Of course, Heather was one of those rarely beautiful women who looked good all the time. He wondered what she would look like pregnant. He had heard that women "glowed"—had seen the phenomena in his sisters, in fact. He couldn't imagine what a glowing Heather would be like. Probably kill him, he thought.
"How are you, Mama Fitch?" he finally asked, when she seemed ready to stir and greet the day.
"Still tired," she replied with a yawn. After a moment she blinked her eyes a couple times and asked, "Was that all for real or a really strange but intense dream?"
"I was going to ask you that," he replied. "If it was a dream, we both had it. And, you always said you couldn't read in a dream."
With a wry smile, she said, "I was talking about the part where we were chased by the purple monsters through the streets of San Ysidro. You had that one, too?"
"No. I didn't have that one. That was a dream."
"Darn," she mumbled. "That means the part before it was probably for real, wasn't it?"
"Yep. I'm my own Grandpa."
She sat up in bed and said, "You go get in the shower first then we'll discuss this over breakfast a breakfast of Mini-Wheats." She smiled and quipped, "Maybe the fiber will flush the answers out of us."
"You sure are weird in the morning," he returned. "Well, I guess no weirder than during the rest of the day.
He just got out of the way of a flying pillow before he made it into the bathroom.
Chapter Thirty-Four
After breakfast, Heather took her shower and came downstairs with her hair still wet to find Garison on the phone. He seemed to be finishing the conversation when she arrived. When he hung up, she queried, "Who're you calling this early?"
"Alpine, Texas, and it's after ten. We just slept late. You know, the county clerk tells me there's never been a Burt Cottage down there. In fact, the last person named Cottage to live there was Bill Cottage in the late sixties—and I've never heard of him. "County clerk didn't have any idea what he did for a living or anything."
It took her a minute to figure out what he was talking about, but when her thoughts cleared, she asked, "What about the University? Sul Ross?"
He picked up the phone and said, "Just about to call them." He looked at a piece of paper, then typed out the number he had written down, holding the receiver away from his ear because he hated the sound of touch tones. When someone answered, he began, "Hello. My name is Garison Fitch. I was wondering if you have anyone on staff named Burt Cottage? I was led to believe he taught at Sul Ross in the geology department—back during the mid eighties."
"Is this a joke?" a woman asked dubiously. She wondered if the party she was talking to were going to ask her if she had Prince Albert in a can.
"No," Garison replied. "I mean, yes, I am looking for someone with the same name as the cartoon character; but I'm looking for a real person. I was told he used to teach for you."
The woman told him, "I don't think I've heard that name around here—not on a real person—but let me check. Hold on while I check the computer, please." After a few minutes of an annoying country and western station (Garison thought all country and western stations were annoying), she finally came back and said, "No, sir. We don't have anyone by that name on the staff. In fact, we never have as far as I can tell. Are you sure someone wasn't putting you on?"
"Could be," Garison replied. He hung up and looked at Heather, "Never heard of him—except of course as a cartoon character. She probably still thinks I was some crank putting her on."
"I wondered about that part," Heather remarked. "You'd think he could have come up with a better name. That's a pretty well known cartoon."
"I don't know," Garison shrugged, "I always like reading that cartoon. Be as good a name to take as any, especially if you knew somehow that the character wasn't going to get famous for another twenty years. You know, when he started using it he wasn't sure if he'd still exist after he handed me the tape."
He called a geology professor he knew on the faculty at the University of Houston but the man had never heard of a real person named Burt Cottage. Several other inquiries around the field of geology met with similar failure. The all knew DeWitt Van Siclen but none of them had ever heard of Burt Cottage. The only Burt Cottage anyone had ever heard of was the hapless baseball player and adventurer of the cartoons.
"What about Mister Day?" Heather asked like a spark had gone off in her head.
"He wouldn't remember him—or me. Garison didn't meet him until 2007," Garison pointed out.
"You could find out if he even exists, though. That would tell us something. I don't know what . . . "
Garison shrugged a yes and picked up the phone. When he was in touch with the right long distance information, he said, "I need a number in Mount Vernon—I mean, Alexandria. A Mister Jonathan William Day, please."
After the woman had given Garison the number, he quickly hung up and dialed it before he could forget it. He wondered why he never just kept a pad and pencil by the phone. He had had one when getting the numbers earlier, but he had already misplaced it. After it rang a time or two, it was answered and Garison said, "Hello. This is . . . Hank Dawson. Are you Jon Day?"
Heather smiled at him but Garison tried not to notice.
The man hesitated, afraid someone was going to try to sell him something, then replied, "Yes, I am. Can I help you?"
"This may sound weird," Garison told him, "But, have you ever met or known a man named Garison Fitch?"
Day paused for a long time, then responded, "I can't say that I have. Why do you ask?"
"He put you down for a reference." Garison continued, "He's got black hair, a mustache, about six two, late thirties, kind of athletic looking? Quite a handsome man, actually." Heather elbowed him.
Day thought again, then told him, "Nope. That sure doesn't ring a bell. Fitch? That's a weird name, though. I think it means 'skunk pelt', so you'd think I'd remember it."
"Well, thank you anyway. In case you're curious, I'm with the law firm of Dawson, McElroy and Fitch. We're trying to find Mister Fitch for an inheritance settlement."
"I thought you said he put my name as a reference."
"Well—uh—some of both," Garison replied, feeling foolish.
"If I meet him, I'll tell him," Day replied, then hung up.
"How does Bat do that stuff so easily?" he asked rhetorically.
"You're worse at names than the other Garison! Hank Dawson?" Heather asked, trying to sound condescending but letting her laugh get the best of her. After her laughter settled down, she chuckled, "You picked the one member of my family who isn't a lawyer."
"I know that," Garison told her. "I'm not as good a liar as that friend of yours. It was just all I could think of on such short notice."
"That explains why you weren't able to come up with anything better than Burt Cottage, doesn't it?"
Garison retorted with mock anger, "Hey! That wasn't me! That was another . . . unimaginative liar."
"'Close enough for horseshoes', as Bat would say."
"One of the few things he ever said that made a whole lot of sense," Garison grumbled.
"I never have understood why you two didn't get along. I mean, just because he thinks you're insane . . . "
"He's the one who spent time in a mental institution!"
"That was for a case and you know it."
Heather suddenly got serious and asked, "What you said in the book. Was that really why you never liked Bat? Because you were jealous?"
Garison shrugged then, at her piercing gaze, replied reluctantly, "Probably. I guess. I don't know about that part about me being jealous of his sense of humor—or however it put it, but—well—I guess I was a little jealous that you had once been in love with him."
"Well, you know you've never had nothing to worry about."
"I know, it's just that—" A light went off in Garison's head like a flash bomb, "Hey, didn't it say somewhere in that book that I—the other Garison, I mean—once ran into Bat?"
"Yeah," Heather nodded, it really having dawned on her for the first time—even though they had both exchanged curious glances when reading it. That had been well before midnight and seemed so long ago. "It was back when Bat was going to college, like in '96 or something, wasn't it? I thought that was pretty funny when I read that. Imagine, Bat actually met you before I did and never knew it."
"Think he'd remember me? I mean, the other me?"
"I doubt it," Heather answered. "No one else has. You don't even remember meeting yourself. And he only saw you for what? a few hours, really."
"I think you're right about all those encounters never happening," Garison said, jumping to another track. "When the other me went back in time to when he was thirty five and living in Virginia—for the second time—there was no 'old Garison'," he said, holding up his fingers as quote marks, "To have all those encounters with Bat and everybody. There's no way anyone could remember that because reality was changed when he went back and stayed. You can't remember something that's never happened."
"That's my guess." After a moment, she wondered out loud, "How do you think he got back? I mean? How did he get back not only to the eighteenth century, but to the age of thirty five? That's the one thing that seems to have no reason. There are a lot of things about this I don't understand, but . . . you know."
"Maybe the universe is an orderly place after all," Garison remarked ironically. That's what he had once believed, but the events of the past two days had caused him to rethink that position.
Heather came outside later in the day and was surprised to find Garison not in his laboratory but working on a piece of furniture. She wasn't sure if it were a chair or a book case. He looked up and, holding up the project, said, "I wish I were as good at this now as the other me apparently was. I've forgotten what this was supposed to be."
"Just takes practice," Heather said, kissing him on the cheek. She had no doubt that he would soon reach the proficiency in woodworking he had in everything else he attempted. "I figured you would be in your lab trying to figure all this out."
"That's what I'm trying to do here. I went to the lab, but I just felt like I needed to be outside doing something. I wanted something to occupy my hands and body while I occupied my mind with something else. Woodworking seemed like a good idea, but I don't know. I thought maybe I could make you that rocker I promised you."
"You didn't promise me that. The other Garison promised the other Heather a rocker." She hit him on the arm and chided, "You trying to say I'm getting old enough for a rocker?"
"Well, no. But if we do have a baby girl some day we might want to rock her to sleep," he said sheepishly.
"That's a good idea, but you've got at least seven months—probably eight—to build me a rocking chair. Besides, if you wanted some work to do, why didn't you try mending some of the fence around this place?" She smiled and said, "Never know, you might have e
ven gotten to see a funeral procession."
"I didn't want that much work," he replied seriously. "And I wanted to build something for you. This seemed like a good idea when I started. Mothers need a rocking chair."
"I'm not even—I'm not even sure I'm pregnant though, like in the manuscript."
"You will be someday. Maybe by then I'll be finished with this stupid thing," he said as he eyed what should have been a runner for the chair but was now a hopelessly split piece of pine. "You're always saying you want to talk about it." He left the sentence rather open ended, but he was sure if she caught his intonation.
"Sarah would be a nice name," Heather remarked rather absently, her mind wandering to the prospect of actually having a baby.
"Yeah, I like it, too," he agreed, trying to sand down a dowel to fit into a hole he had drilled. He was so struck my the idea of children, however, that he sanded it down too much and it was too small.
After a while of watching him get more and more frustrated, she asked, "Garison? Did some of that story make you feel . . . I don't know, weird?"
"Most of it did," he replied, only partially listening as the dowel seemed to be winning the battle. Had Heather not been present, he probably would have thrown it into the woods by then.
She continued, "I keep thinking about the part about me. I mean, it's not me, but it is. It makes me wonder if I really did everything in that story. It's like I've always wondered what it must be like to have a movie made about you."
"You didn't do anything bad," he told her, thinking that if she weren't present he might say an unpleasant word and break the dowel over the sawhorse.
"I know. It's just the thought that there was another me. I mean, I knew it was real as soon as I read about my uncle Steven."
"That really happened?"
"Uh huh. I don't know why, but that didn't make me as uncomfortable as the feeling that my freedom to choose my life has been violated. Did I really choose you and to live here and everything or was it somehow pre-ordained?"
He finally looked up and told her seriously, "Me, too. Makes me wonder if another . . . accident could make all this disappear." He motioned at their La Plata ranch with the useless stub of a dowel.
The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 2): Saving Time Page 30
