Time Was

by Nora Roberts

  With a hearty laugh, Jim put a hand on his wife’s arm. “Now, Susie. We agreed—”

  “All bets are off.” Her voice rose shrilly. In an obvious effort to control it, she drew a deep breath. “I’m dying here, Jim. I think the boys might be traumatized for life. You don’t want to be responsible for that, do you?” Because she wasn’t entirely sure of his answer, she jerked away to tuck each boy under her arms. “You hike it,” she said. “But I’ve got blisters, and I don’t think I’ll ever regain the feeling in my left leg.”

  “Suze, if I’d known you felt this way—”

  “Fine.” She wasn’t willing to give him time to finish a single sentence. “Now you do. Come on, guys.”

  They crammed into the back of the Land Rover. After a moment, Jim settled sadly in with them, his youngest on his lap.

  “It’s, ah, beautiful country,” Libby began as she directed Cal along the trail. “You’ll probably appreciate it more after you’ve rested and eaten.” And a great deal more than that, she was sure, when Susie discovered they had circled a couple of miles closer to Big Vista.

  “It’s certainly full of trees.” Susie sighed at the luxury of moving without effort. Because she knew Jim was sulking, she patted his knee. “Are you from around here?”

  “Originally.” Confident that Cal would find the way now, she shifted to face their passengers. “Cal’s from Philadelphia.”

  “Really?” Susie debated flexing her foot, then decided not to risk it. “So are we. Is this your first time out here, Mr. Hornblower?”

  “Yes, I guess you could say it’s my first time here.”

  “Ours, too. We wanted to show our sons a part of the country that was still unspoiled. And we have.” She gave her husband’s knee another squeeze.

  Resilient, Jim swung an arm over the back of the seat. “This is one trip they won’t forget.”

  The boys exchanged looks and rolled their eyes but wisely kept silent. There was still a chance for that hotel.

  “So, you’re from Philadelphia. What do you think of the Phillies’ chances this year?”

  Cautious, Cal tried to be noncommittal. “I’m always hopeful.”

  “That’s the ticket.” Jim slapped Cal on the shoulder. “If they tighten up the infield and beef up the pitching staff they might have a shot.”

  Baseball, Cal realized with a grin. At least that was something he could relate to. “It’s hard to say about this season, but I figure we’ll take our share of pennants in the next couple hundred years.”

  Jim gave a bark of laughter. “That’s taking the long view.”

  When they reached the clearing, their passengers were all in a more cheerful state of mind. The boys leaped out to chase after a rabbit. Susie stepped out more slowly, still favoring her legs.

  “It is beautiful.” She looked out over the layers of mountains, where the sun was hanging low. “I can’t thank you enough, both of you.” She glanced over to where her husband was already yelling at the boys to get busy and gather some firewood. “You saved my husband’s life.”

  “He looked in pretty good shape, actually,” Cal commented.

  “No. I was going to kill him in his sleep.” She smiled as she eased the pack from her back. “Now I won’t have to, at least for a couple of days.”

  Jovial, Jim walked back to give his wife a hug. She winced as he squeezed tender muscles. “I tell you, Suze, a man can really breathe up here.”

  “For the time being,” Susie murmured.

  “Not like Philadelphia, bless it. Why don’t you two stay for supper? Nothing like eating under the sky.”

  “You’re very welcome to,” Susie added. “On tonight’s menu are the ever-popular beans, with the addition of hot dogs if the cold pack worked, and for dessert some delicious dehydrated apricots.”

  “Sounds great.” And part of him was tempted to stay, just to sit and listen. He thought the Rankin family as entertaining as any daytime drama. “But we’ve got to get back.”

  Libby offered her hand to Susie and added a sympathetic pat. “If you follow the trail to the right it’ll take you back to Big Vista. It’s a long hike, but a pretty one.” And one that would take them in the opposite direction from the ship.

  “Can’t thank you enough.” Jim dug into his backpack and pulled out a business card. The gesture had Libby smothering a chuckle. You could take a boy out of the smog, but . . . “Give me a ring when you get back, Hornblower. I’m sales manager at Bison Motors. Cut you and the little woman a good deal, new or used.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.” They climbed back into the Land Rover, offered a wave, then left the Rankins behind. “New or used what?” Cal asked Libby.

  Chapter 12

  Cal thought quite a bit about the Rankins. He had asked Libby if they were an average American family. Her response had been amused. If there was such a phenomenon, she’d told him, they probably fit it.

  They interested him perhaps because he saw several parallels between them and his own family. His father, though no one would ever have confused him with big, beaming Jim Rankin, had always had a love of nature, unspoiled land and family trips. Like the other boys, Cal and Jacob had spent a good deal of time sulking, whining and rolling their eyes. And when the chips were down and the limit was reached, it had always been Cal’s mother who had laid down the law.

  Families, it seemed, were consistent over time. It was a comforting thought.

  They had had their fire and brandy when they had returned to the cabin. Then, because Libby was always one to organize, they had gone up to her machine to finish the report.

  They would need three copies. The first for the capsule, the second for the ship—and Cal—and the third for Libby.

  He’d had to admire her style when he’d read over what she’d done. There was no doubt in his mind that the scientists of his time would find Libby’s report both concise and fascinating. The rest was largely technical, and though he knew she couldn’t understand the calculations he was feeding her, she typed them out.

  They’d spent hours over it, refining, perfecting, taking long periods when she would question him on the social, the political, the cultural climate of his time. She made him think about things he had taken for granted, about others he had casually ignored.

  Yes, there was still poverty, but shelters and programs provided the very poor with a roof and a meal. There was still conflict, but all-out war had been avoided for more than 120 years. Politics were still argued over, babies were still cuddled. People complained that the skyways were too crowded. As far as Cal remembered there had been four, or it might have been five, women who had held the office of president.

  The more questions he answered, the more she thought of. They fell asleep tangled together in bed in the middle of one of his answers.

  They finished the time capsule late the next morning, filling the airtight steel box Libby had bought in town with what seemed most pertinent. One copy of the report was wrapped in plastic before they set it inside. Libby added one of her mother’s woven mats and a clay bowl her father had made when she’d been a baby. They added a newspaper, a popular weekly magazine and, at Cal’s insistence, a wooden spoon from the kitchen drawer. She added one of the two pictures she’d taken of his ship.

  “We need more,” Libby muttered.

  “I wanted this.” He held up a tube of toothpaste. “And I was hoping for some of your underwear.”

  “Yes to the first, no to the second.”

  “It’s for science,” he reminded her.

  “Not a chance. We need a tool. We’re always very pleased when we find a tool on a dig.” She rummaged through a drawer and came up with a screwdriver, a small ball peen hammer and a pipe wrench. “Take your pick.”

  He took the wrench. “How about a book?”

 
“Terrific.” She dashed into the living room and began combing the shelves. “I want popular fiction, something written in this era. Ah . . . Stephen King.”

  “I’ve read him. Terrifying.”

  “Horror transcends time, as well.” She brought it into the kitchen and placed it in the box. “If they do any tests, they’ll be able to date all of this material. It will back up your story. Come on outside, we’ll take some pictures.”

  Because he got to the camera before her, Cal claimed his right to take the first shots. He snapped the cabin, Libby and the cabin, Libby beside the Land Rover, in the Land Rover. Libby laughing at him. And yelling at him.

  “Do you know how much film you’ve used?” Blowing out a breath, she ripped open another pack. “This stuff averages a dollar a shot. Anthropology’s a fascinating field, but the pay’s lousy.”

  “Sorry.” He moved to the front of the cabin when she waved with the back of her hand. “I never thought to ask. What’s your credit rating?”

  “I have no idea.” She took a shot of him standing, thumbs hooked in the pockets of his borrowed jeans. “We don’t do things that way now. At least I think credit rating means something else. Now it’s a matter of what you’re worth, or what you make. Annual salary and that sort of thing.” She was enough her parents’ child that she rarely gave it much thought. “Why don’t you unstrap your cycle and sit on it in front of the cabin? A now-and-then sort of thing.”

  He obliged. “Libby, I don’t have any way to pay you back, in your currency, for all of this.”

  “Don’t be silly. It was only a joke.”

  “There’s a great deal more I can’t pay you back for.”

  “There’s nothing to pay back.” She lowered the camera and weighed each word carefully. “Don’t think of it as an obligation. Please. And don’t look at me like that. I’m not ready to be serious.”

  “We don’t have much time left.”

  “I know.” She hadn’t understood everything he’d dictated to her the night before, but she knew he would be gone before the sun rose the next day. “Let’s not spoil what we have.” She looked away to give herself a moment to regain her balance. “It’s a shame this model doesn’t have a timer. It would be nice to get a couple of pictures with both of us in them.”

  “Hold on.” He walked around the side of the building, returning a few moments later with a garden hoe. “Sit on the steps,” he told her, then proceeded to strap the camera to the seat of his cycle. He leaned over, checking and adjusting until he had Libby in frame. “Got it.” Pleased with himself, he jogged over to sit beside her. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Smile.”

  She already was.

  He used the staff of the hoe to press the button, grinning when he heard the shutter click. The print slid out.

  “Very inventive, Hornblower.”

  “Don’t move.”

  He retrieved the first print, settled back beside her and pressed again.

  “One for you, one for the box.” He set both prints aside. “And one for me.” He tipped her face up to his with his finger and kissed her.

  “You forgot to take the picture,” she murmured many moments later.

  “Oh, yeah.” His lips curved against hers as he poked with the hoe.

  She took the first print in her hand and studied it. They looked happy, she thought. Happy, ordinary people. It meant a great deal to her now, and would mean even more to her later. She continued to hold it as she rose. “We’d better go bury the capsule.”

  They strapped it on the back of the cycle so that Libby was sandwiched between it and Cal’s back. When they reached the stream, he slipped off and frowned at the shovel she handed him.

  “This tool is very primitive. Are you sure there’s no easier way?”

  “Not in this century, Hornblower.” She pointed down. “Dig.”

  “You can have the first turn.”

  “That’s all right.” She sat on the ground and tucked up her legs. “I wouldn’t want to deprive you.”

  She watched him put his back into it. What would he use, she wondered, to dig it up again? How would he feel when he opened it? He would be thinking of her, she knew that. And he would miss her. She hoped he would sit in this same spot and read the letter she had tucked into the box. She’d made certain he hadn’t seen her put it in.

  It was only a page, but she’d put her heart on it.

  She cupped her chin in her hand, listened to the water’s music and remembered every word.

  Cal. When you read this, you’ll be home. I want you to know how happy I am for you. I can’t claim to understand what it was like for you to find yourself here, away from everything familiar, separated from your family and friends. But I wanted you to know that in my heart I wanted you to be where you belonged.

  I don’t know if I can make you understand what the time I’ve had with you has meant to me. I love you so much, Caleb. It overwhelms me. There won’t be a day that goes by that I won’t think of you. But I won’t be unhappy. Please don’t think of me, or remember me that way. What you gave to me in these few days is more than I ever imagined, all I ever needed. Whenever I look at the sky, I’ll picture you.

  I’ll still study the past to try to understand why man is what he is. Now, having known you, I’ll always have hope for what he can become.

  Be happy. I want to know you are. Don’t forget me. I wanted to put a sprig of rosemary in the capsule, but I was afraid it would only turn to dust. Find some, and think of me. “Pray, love, remember.”

  Libby.

  “Libby?” Cal leaned against the shovel, watching her.

  “Yes?”

  “Where were you?”

  “Oh, not very far away.” Glancing down, she lifted a brow. “Well, I knew a big strong man like you could dig a hole.”

  “I think I have a blister.”

  “Aw.” She rose to kiss the tender skin between his thumb and forefinger. “Let’s put it in. Then you can watch while I cover it up.”

  “Good idea.” The moment the box was in, he handed her the shovel. Libby eyed it, then the pile of dirt that had to be replaced.

  “Four women presidents?”

  He stretched his tired back. “Might have been five.”

  With a nod, Libby began to shovel. “Cal?”

  “Hmm?” He was giving serious consideration to a nice, lazy nap.

  “The questions I asked before, those were the big ones, the sweeping ones. I wondered if I could ask you something more personal.”

  “Probably.”

  “Would you tell me about your family?”

  “What would you like to know?”

  “Who they are, what they’re like.” She tossed dirt into the hole in a steady rhythm that Cal enjoyed. “I’d like to imagine I knew them a little.”

  “My father’s a research and development technician. Lab work, all indoors and confining. He’s very dedicated, dependable. At home he likes to garden, plants flowers from seed and works them all by hand.”

  As he drew in the scent of the freshly turned earth that Libby worked, Cal could almost see his father cultivating his garden.

  “Sometimes he paints. Really, really bad landscapes and still lifes. He even knows they’re bad, but he claims art doesn’t have to be good to be art. He’s always threatening to hang one of them in the house. He’s . . . I don’t know, steady. I doubt I’ve heard him raise his voice more than a dozen times in my life. But you listen to him. He’s like the adhesive that kept the family centered.”

  He stretched out on the grass to watch the sky as he continued. “My mother is . . . what was that term you used once? Wired? She’s packed with energy and a blazing intellect that’s almost scary. She intimidates a lot of people. She’s always amused by that. I guess because inside
she’s soft as butter. She raised her voice plenty, but she always felt guilty about it. Jacob and I gave her a hell of a time.

  “In her free time she likes to read—flashy novels or impossibly technical books. She’s chief counsel for the United Ministry of Nations, so she’s always poring over some six-inch pile of legal documents.”

  “The United Ministry of Nations?”

  “I guess you’d call it an extension of the UN. It had to be expanded in . . . hell, I don’t know when. I think it was expanded because of the colonies and settlements.”

  “It sounds like a very prestigious position.” Libby discovered she was already intimidated.

  “Yes. She thrives on it. On the work and the worry. She’s got a great laugh—one of those big fill-the-room kind of laughs. They met in Dublin. She was practicing law there, and my father went over for a vacation. They matched and ended up in Philadelphia.”

  Libby tamped down the dirt. It had been impossible not to hear the affection in his voice, impossible not to understand it. “What about your brother?”

  “Jacob. He’s . . . intense is a good word. He gets his brain from my mother, and his temperament, she claims, from her grandfather. You’re never quite sure with J.T. whether he’s going to grin at you or throw a punch. He studied law and then, when he’d had his fill of it, dived into astrophysics. He collects problems so that he can pick them apart. He’s a son of a bitch,” Cal said affectionately, “but he has my father’s unswerving, immeasurable sense of loyalty.”

  “Do you like them?” When Cal looked up, she elaborated. “What I mean is, most people love their family, but they aren’t necessarily friends with them. I wondered if you liked them.”

  “Yes, I do.” He watched as she strapped the shovel back on the cycle. “They’d like you.”

  “I could meet them if you took me with you.” She bit her lip the moment the words were out. She couldn’t turn around to look at him. She couldn’t have said just when the thought had hatched in her mind.