Remember Me (17 page)

“Andrew, you are still family, and you always will be, regardless of this situation.”

“I know that and I appreciate all you’ve done for me. I’m not sure what I would have done if you had shut the door on me instead of letting me in!”

Mom gave me a hug, and Dad shook my hand. “Love you

Andrew and Merry Christmas,” my mother called back to me as she took the first step heading down to the landing on the first floor.

“I love you too, Mom.” I quietly closed the door. Turning to look once more upon my drab apartment, I said out loud to it, “Parting is such sweet sorrow, if I could only get out of here tomorrow.”

I stayed by myself on New Year’s Eve, no booze! It would have been extremely easy to drown myself in it; but for once, I felt a small amount of purpose, and that made the thought of alcohol lose its appeal. As the silver ball in Times Square floated down, I said a brief prayer, “God, protect Amy. Let her know somehow that I’m alive and missing her and needing her.

Ease her pain and comfort her with your spirit. Watch over my children and their families, guide them. Lastly Lord, help me to be a better man than I know myself to be, Amen.”

I unclasped the catch on the necklace my mother had given me for Christmas. My stomach contracted, and the anxiety nearly stopped me; but I removed my wedding ring and slid it onto the necklace. I reached it around my neck and re-hooked the clasp. Grabbing the ring in my right hand I brought it up to S 124 S

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my mouth and kissed it, “I love you Amy, I always will!”

On New Year’s Day, my mother sent my father to my apartment to watch football with me. He had started to get on her nerves. Andrew was hosting a football party at his house for several of his friends from work. It was a big day, especially for loyal Hawkeye fans. Chuck Long had come back for his senior season and led the team to a 10-1 record. The Hawks were Big Ten champs and playing UCLA in the Rose Bowl. The Hawkeye’s only loss during the year had been to Ohio State.

The odds makers had us pegged to win by six. Chuck Long had come in second in the Heisman race—losing to Bo Jackson by the slimmest of margins.

I had not shared the outcome of the game with my father—even when he asked me. He then quickly retracted what he asked by saying, “No, don’t tell me.” We both had on Rose Bowl sweatshirts and caps. He brought the beer, and I supplied the snacks. It was great. It helped that I was now closer to him in age, and hopefully, just as near his insightful wisdom.

We really enjoyed each other’s company. I didn’t tell him that I’d made the biggest bet yet on the game with CJ. My heart almost didn’t allow me to do it. The Hawks were going to play their worst game of the season and lose forty-five to twenty-eight. I’d made one of those excessive bets with CJ, the Bruins by fourteen. After expenses, the net winnings would be in the neighborhood of two hundred and fifty thousand.

I still almost “chickened out” and didn’t make the bet. I was a loyal Hawkeye fan. I even bleed black and gold. It went against the grain and my spirit to bet against them. Even as the game progressed and the eventuality of loss set in, I still rooted for a miracle. To hell with the money that I’d bet. Other things had changed in this time, so why not the outcome of the game.

My dad left after the game was over. He was still cursing under his breath. It would be something that loyal Hawk fans would S 125 S

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do for years to come. This particular game would always have a note of conspiracy surrounding it; but it was still a loss no matter which way you sliced it.

The door had barely shut behind my father when the phone rang. “Hey CJ,” I said into the headset, after picking it up on the third ring.

“Man, I’ve got to tell you, the boys around here are hopping mad. One guy even threw his glass at the TV, good thing he missed.” I could hear laughter in the background coming though the phone-line.

“Doesn’t sound too unpleasant there to me,” I commented.

“That’s just the gin talking,” CJ answered back. “I wanted to give you a heads-up. In the future, we’re probably going to have to stick to more normal-type wagers. You took a pretty hefty chunk of change on this bet. When you compile it with the hedging we did…let’s just say it would definitely be in OUR best interest to play it smaller.” CJ dramatically empha-sized OUR.

“I don’t think it’s going to matter anyway. I’ve got enough money to begin doing what I want. I don’t really plan on doing much heavy betting from now on.”

There was a deafening silence on the phone, “That wouldn’t be too prudent either,” CJ whispered.

“I promised to keep you posted on the big games. I’ll still do that. I’m just not going to be swinging for the fences anymore—at least not for a little while,” I responded back.

I could nearly feel the tension draining from the other end of the phone line. “Good, so what are you going to do with your winnings—if I might ask?”

“I’m going to open a little electronic store somewhere. I don’t know where yet.”

“Are you going to be looking for investors?” CJ asked his voice unable to mask the tone of excitement in it.

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“No. I’m planning on starting out as a small operation and building it up from scratch. I don’t know if it will succeed or not.” I knew it was going to be more than just successful; but I didn’t want CJ to know any more until it actually happened. I could do without “Family” support, or interference.

“I see,” was all CJ said.

I could tell he was pondering his, and maybe my future.

“On a brighter note, the Bears are going to pound the Patriots in the Super bowl,” I jovially announced to him.

I’d given him all he needed. The playoffs weren’t even over yet, and I’d told him the two teams who would play in the Super bowl. After he made a couple of other comments, on nothing in particular, we said our goodbyes and hung-up. I’d been formulating a plan for my formal release by the Group. It was going to take some time, but I had every reason to believe it would work. It was short of offering up my first born, but it was in every way, just as potentially costly.

On January twelfth I read the exposé on the upcoming space shuttle launch. The Challenger was set to lift-off on January twenty-eight. One name stood out and caused

my heart to race, Christa McAuliffe, the teacher from New Hampshire. I panicked, running around my apartment saying,

“Crap, Oh Crap, Crap, and Crap!” I knew what no one else did; Challenger was going to blow-up on National TV within minutes after lift-off. It would cause the space program to take a step backwards for many years.

I sat down on the couch and rubbed both of my temples

with the heels of my hands. What the hell was I going to do?

Doing nothing wasn’t even an option; I had to try to do something, anything! I reread the paper. It instantly came to me what the most important reason for the shuttle’s failure was; “the O-rings.” Something so small had failed to perform and initiated the explosion. It was a proud moment in American history S 127 S

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that turned bitterly sour. Millions of children would be watching from schools all around the United States. Christa McAuliffe was going to be teaching them from “Outer Space.” My God! What a momentous disaster it had been. It made me suddenly think about nine-eleven and I let out a much more decisive, “Crap!”

I raced out the door and unlocked my eighty-one Chevy

Blazer. I’d only just bought it last week. I could have gotten a new one, but I still wanted to maintain a low profile. My hands were shaking as I turned the key in the door to unlock it. I was a bundle of indecisive nerves. I needed to talk to my mother. I had to get her opinion and utilize her level headedness to help me think through what I should…or shouldn’t do.

I pulled into my parent’s driveway without even thinking. After the incident with Tami in the grocery store, I always called ahead…today I utterly forgot to do it. It was too late!

When I opened the front door and walked in, my older sister, Stacy, was sitting on the couch next to my mother. I stood there in all my glory, my mouth wide open, and with no ability to do anything other than stare at them.

Stacy lived in New Mexico, and I’d completely forgotten

all about her trip home to see our folks. Mom and I had just talked about it the other day too. Stacy and I resembled each other more than either of us did in comparison to our parents. Her hair was much longer than the last time I’d seen her, which of course had been twenty-five years in the future. She looked really good. I’d always been the little brother and she was the older sister. It was humorous in its own way, because now I was both. She’d turn thirty this year in March, and I was now fifty. My younger self would find many ways to kid her about her thirtieth birthday. A few years later she would more than get even with me. I couldn’t help smiling inwardly, as I remembered the ruthless shenanigans the two of us sometimes enacted upon each other.

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I had flown in the door with a serious notion in my head, but the words evaporated from my mouth. I just stood there looking at the two of them. My sister shifted forward so she could fully look me over. She gave me her famous scrunched look as she scrutinized me over the top of her glasses. She had me dead-to-rights; there would be no attempt at any storytell-ing with her. I would not be able to proffer an appropriate alibi or tell her a lie. I had always envied her acute intelligence. She’d graduated from Drake’s Law school with honors. After graduation and after pondering several offers for employment, she’d taken a position with a prestigious law firm in Albuquerque, New Mexico where she’d stayed ever since.

“Okay…I think it’s time that someone lets me in on the

joke, or does a decent job of explaining to me who the person is standing there,” Stacy said not to me, but to my mother. She gestured at me by pointing a finger while looking over at my mother.

My mother took the reins, “Stacy, this is your older brother, Andrew. He has graciously come to visit us from the future, the year two thousand and ten, to be precise.”

My sister didn’t know whether to laugh or question the absurdity of my mother’s statement. Her mouth opened, closed, opened once more, and then she started to laugh. When neither my mother nor I joined her, she abruptly stopped. She looked from me to her and back again. I still hadn’t said a word. Her face was getting that familiar red hue. It always happened when she struggled with something mentally. She got up off the couch and came towards me. I stood rooted to my spot.I said the only thing I could think of, “Hey dragon breath!”

My sister stopped two feet in front of me, eyes growing

wider as she stared at me. She reached out a tentative hand and tried to rub the wrinkles away from around the corner of my S 129 S

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eyes. She tugged on my hair, poked my belly, and pulled my cheeks back to give my face a younger look. Finally, when she had nothing else to poke or prod, and after looking from me to our mother one more time, she concluded that I was indeed her much older, younger brother. She snarled with contemptuous glee and said, “Hello little brother.”

We moved from the living room to the dining room table. Mom cracked open a bottle of wine for the three of us to share. It might have been for her nerves, more than for mine or Stacy’s. All in all, my sister took it well…as well as could be expected—considering she’d been left in the dark for nearly eight months. Mom and I had only discussed telling Stacy about me once. It was one of those “complication” things. How many lives do you disrupt? It was always there though at the back of my mind. Like good politicians, we had decided to shelve our discussion about it for another day. The day just came before either of us was ready to tackle it. Stacy bombarded me with question after question. I dutifully answered every one of them. I felt I owed it to her. By the time my father made an appearance with the groceries, we’d managed to come to an understanding of sorts.

I was more relieved than upset that she had found out. It would make some of the decisions that I needed to make down the road a little easier. In the future I would need the assistance of an attorney, and she was the best one for the job. I needed a top-notch professional, and someone whom I could trust because of the strange circumstances surrounding me.

Stacy was divorced from her first husband, Jeff, a fellow law student she’d met at Drake, and then married upon graduation. They had tried to make it work but in the end they went their separate ways. It had ended on friendly terms. This was where she was at now. She was just a few years removed from her previous marriage. In the near future, she would wed one S 130 S

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of the principals at the firm where she worked. Together they would have a son, my nephew, Alexander. Since I couldn’t remember the exact time frame when they had started to date, I kept quiet about what I knew. I evaded answering questions regarding her future. When the questions became too much, I would answer with, “Sometimes the less you know—the better we all will be.”

Early afternoon turned into dusk and then gave way to

nightfall. When I finally told them why I had burst into the room, my mother was beside herself. My father and sister looked at me with a new found appreciation. It was the first time I felt that Stacy might be more than just the torment-ing older sister I’d always considered her to be. The four of us strategized for hours about the impending Challenger disaster. Eventually, we hashed out a plan for contacting NASA and still remaining anonymous. It had been my sister who came up with the best plan. The four of us would each send a copy of the same letter, but from different parts of the country. It seemed elaborate and full of pot-holes, but necessary to try and keep all of us safe from scrutiny.

I don’t think any of us really believed we’d have an ounce of success, but we had to try just the same. For us to do nothing would forever etch an unwanted mark on our very souls.