Remember Me (50 page)

The look on Stacy’s face tore at my very heart. I would

carry her look with me the rest of my short life. I hoped I would never again have to put anyone through the devastating weight of what might happen. In the next go round, I wouldn’t S 381 S

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allow myself to share my burdens with anyone. I would walk alone with my knowledge, and keep the rest of the world in glorious ignorance. Fail or succeed, the weight would be all mine to carry.

I was jolted from my thoughts of the past once again. As the moment of truth kept getting closer and closer, it felt like I was playing a role in two similar movies, each one moving toward an alternate ending. Another lightning streak flashed across the sky and was followed instantly by the sound of rolling thunder. The storm was moving ever closer and the sky began to noticeably darken in the northwest. It was now less than thirty minutes left to go. I left Stacy behind in the kitchen and walked into the living room to find Amy pacing back and forth. She was dressed in vintage clothing of the mid-eighties, the same as me. Her eyes were dancing back and forth from me to the window. “It’s okay,” I said, and walked over to her.

Embracing her tightly, I whispered, “We’re going to fix it and make it right!”

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In the wrong place.

September 10th, 2009

It had been
nearly four months since my last hip operation.

During the last month, I made myself suffer with continual pain, as I tried to curb my desire for the pain killers. I wanted to be clean and off the pain killers. The doctor told me that the surgery to replace my hip would eventually make the pain more tolerable…bull! Maybe it was my age, but it hurt to walk, to sit, to get up, to do….anything. The only good thing was being asleep, and for awhile it was all I wanted to do. I had started writing my memoirs the year before the accident, and it read more like a science-fiction love story. I had lost the desire to finish it ever since I’d been hit by the drunk driver.

Who drives drunk at ten a.m. in the morning? Evidently,

the retired school teacher who had nothing else to fill her life with does. She’d been to see me several times since the accident. Her life, it seems, could not move forward without her receiving my pardon. It took the fourth visit from her before I gave in. I said that I forgave her, hoping it would stop her from coming. It had just the opposite effect, because she became a regular visitor. We stay in contact to this day. I have really come to value her as a dear friend…life is funny that way. Between Francis Albertson, Stacy, and Amy I found the hope I needed to get out of bed and continue. My quest is far from over. I have found my determination again!

Frankie never knew the whole truth or even half of the

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truth. On the six-month anniversary of her sobriety, I flew Frankie and her husband, Jack, to Europe for a two-month extended vacation. It was top class all the way. I had to fight her every step of the way to accept my gift. She begged me to reconsider. Saying that it was me she should be doing things for, not the other way around. I convinced her in the end with the one thing she couldn’t contest and twist around—she was good at that. I told her that for me, helping her would be what would save me. She understood the sentiment and finally conceded. She and Jack would be home in early October. The last I’d heard from them they were in Russia. Every postcard, every phone call, and every email ended the same way, “Thank you.” It was simple and heartfelt. In those words she expressed all the renewed hope she now carried inside of herself. It made me happy to have done someone some good for a change.

I had no idea what Frankie’s life would be like in eight months. The theories of time travel were no more advanced today than they had been in my own time. The distinguished Dr. Thurington had written two more publications on his theories. I’d read them both. The last one ended up in my fireplace as kindling. He took a hand at plagiarism of the highest order in his last book. Not with his words, but by mocking my plight.

There had been some speculation that it might be made into a movie, until members of the “Family” reminded him of his obligations. After C.J. and the “Family” took part ownership in the new E.M.J., Thurington had become persona non-gratis around the Midwest. He was now a private practitioner somewhere out on the west coast. He regularly made the rounds on the talk shows, never a headliner. He was resigned to “mop-up” duty or as an emergency “fill-in” guest. Thurington really had no proof for his theories, and many hosts liked to poke fun at him. He was starting to show his age, and aging wasn’t something he did gracefully. I never felt bad for him. He was S 384 S

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one man I was glad to have gone from my life.

When it came to Tom, his fall from glory was far and

monstrous. After E.M.J. fired him, he tried to start his own business. The “Family” was always there to intercede at every turn; like they say, “You don’t mess with family.” His efforts at finding meaningful work were difficult. He had been black-balled in his chosen profession as efficiently as a spider makes a web. In the end, he began working with a local construction company. I felt happy at letting him wither away there. It was the last option he had after gambling in the stock market and losing nearly everything he owned in the collapse of two thousand-eight. This time there had been no one there to bail him out. His second and third marriages were both short-term affairs. Each one of his wives did to him what he had done to Amy. Maybe life does come full circle and pay each of us back in our just dues. I closed the book on Tom. He became one of the “out of sight and out of mind” people from my past.

Amy and I finally managed to find a moment after my

recovery from the quadruple by-pass so that we could talk.

It took me two extra weeks, and endless nights of insomnia, before I took the card from my drawer and called her. We arranged to meet at a park in Cedar Falls. I wanted it on my turf and not hers. It would be a week before she could fly out to meet with me. She needed to make arrangements to leave work and fly here from Ohio. It was the longest week of my life! It came close to matching the last twenty-three years in duration. Those twenty-three years had moved at a snail’s pace for me. I ran all the plausible scenarios around in my head. I even talked to Stacy about it. I tried prying out of her what she knew. She was either no help or wouldn’t help, I couldn’t tell for sure.

Saturday was bright and sunny, exceedingly warm for early April. Amy phoned around one p.m. to let me know that she S 385 S

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had landed at the Waterloo Airport. I gave her the directions to the park and promised to keep my cell phone handy in case she got lost. It took me ten minutes to get to the park. I es-timated Amy would need roughly twenty. I had reserved the Stone Walk shelter house for the afternoon. It was toward the end of the winding road that ran through Cedar View Park. My nervousness increased the longer I waited. After waiting forty minutes more than the extra twenty I had allotted to begin with, I was beginning to wonder if she would show up at all.

I stayed where I was. Where else was I going to go? Finally, a Nissan Sentra slowly crept along the road towards me.

When Amy stepped out of the car, the sun was at her back and shining off the car’s roof. It gave the whole moment a hazy kind of shimmering effect. When her door first opened, I watched one foot and then the other find their place on the ground. Then as she stood, her hair caught in the slight breeze and billowed gently around her shoulders. The intense light from the reflection on the car made it seem like I was watching something holy take place. I sucked in my breath. With every step she took toward me my heart beat stronger and stronger against my chest, begging me to set it free.

“Hi Andrew,” she said politely. She chose to call me Andrew instead of Pete, just like she had when she confronted me at the hospital.

“Hi back,” I said. I stood up from the bench I was sitting on, but made no movement to go and meet her.

She stopped several feet in front of me. “You look much

better than the last time I saw you.”

“You too,” I tossed back at her.

“How’s recovery going?” she asked, still maintaining the huge chasm between us.

“So far…okay. Doc says I’m doing well. I hate the diet he put me on, but I try to keep the cheating to a minimum.” I S 386 S

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wondered what to do next? Should I move toward her or ask her to sit?

“Glad to hear it. It’s nice to see the color is back in your face.”“I’m walking everyday…getting ready for a marathon next year,” I said jokingly, trying to break the ice.

“I see...” Amy said with a smile. She made a move to come a couple steps closer to me. We were bridging the divide, and I began to relax. I just needed to let the moment happen all on its own, and in its own time frame.

“You look great!” I said. My voice was sincere, but Amy

looked uncomfortable at my comment. I noticed her body

ever so slightly rear back so I quickly added, “Professional life suits you very well.”

Somewhat quelled she said, “It’s not always what it’s

cracked up to be. It makes for a miserable spouse!”

She’d said it…I deserved it! The last weeks had given her time to reconstruct and dissect our hospital conversation, much like I had been doing. “I’m sorry…”

“Doesn’t matter now…It’s water under a bridge…gone.”

“You trying to kid me or yourself?” I asked as genial as I could, but the cynicism was present in my voice.

“Both.”

“I screwed up, and we both know it,” I said matter-of-factly. “I can’t take it back…not at this moment, but I have a plan to right everything…and I want to make it right,” I told her. I moved two steps towards Amy. This time she held her ground, studying my face, searching for any evidence of deception. I raised my right hand to her in an open and inviting gesture. I said, “Come sit with me. It’s time I tell you everything.”

Amy was hesitant, but she lifted her hand to mine and

when we grasped on to one another the missing circuit was once again restored. For the first time in ages, I let myself feel S 387 S

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hope, hope for salvation, hope for repentance…hope for love.

We sat on the bench inside the shelter for what seemed an eternity. The hours stretched into years, pacing time in retrospective increments, as I told her my story. I shared my inner self with her, all that I knew to be true. I shared my desires, and I shared my struggles. I left nothing out, and I never faltered in my determination to relieve myself of all of my secrets. I had to say it all, as much for me as for her sake. She smiled, she laughed, and she wept with both anguish and renewed hope.

When I finished telling her everything, nearly four hours had passed. She was as emotionally drained as I was.

We both understood the connection between us. We also

knew that connection was frayed by our respective times.

Could two people, or even hundreds, share the same soul? If this world was a parallel universe then how could these feelings for one another be so similar, so strong, and feel so right?

I told Amy exactly what I felt…twenty-three years of personal study and observation made me the closest thing to an expert. I shared my heart. I believe science is really the fictional aspect, the truth lies in understanding our faith. God makes all things possible, and when you accept him, you accept all the unknowns as part of the reality. I was no closer to understanding the how or why I was here, but I no longer had any lingering doubts that this was truly my world, and not a mirror image or a parallel universe, as Thurington and others tended to believe.

Everything that science and the scientists construed and postulated about time, ignored the one most important ingredient—the human soul. No amount of scientific calculations or factual evidence could be justified if it wasn’t taken into consideration. God was too important to be left out of the equation. Even if you considered him only a possible variable, he had to be included. I was the living embodiment of those S 388 S

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realizations. Science might be able to discount the soul, but I couldn’t. I believed that we each have a soul. I just couldn’t imagine Thurington’s hypothesis jiving with God’s plan. I could not separate my spiritual faith from all that science believed. My faith had been tested more than human kind would ever realize. I had a new hope and stronger belief in normal days happening for me again. The sincerity of my talk touched Amy. I read the emotions as they came and went across her face. The last emotion I saw in her eyes was the strongest of them all…faith.

Amy and I spent the next couple of days together. Even

Stacy stopped by a couple of times to join us for a meal and join in our deep conversations. I came to understand just how much the two of them had been in contact over the years. They had maintained a strong friendship, not quite behind my back, but hidden just out of sight. Now with the burden of my secrets lifted from Stacy, the two of them were closer than ever.

The looks and touches that came from Amy buoyed my heart and spirits. I had no misgivings either, I relished in them, found strength from them. I allowed myself to dream of loving her.

It wasn’t this Amy that I loved, though I did in a special way.

It was my own Amy, the one I had lost, but absolutely knew I would soon find again. I accepted this Amy as the one and only true Amy; it was me that was out of sync—out of time. I held on to the belief that we would soon be reunited the way it had once been and was meant to be.

When Amy said goodbye to me at the airport, I didn’t feel sadness, I felt expectant. I was energized to run the race to the finish line. One thing still needed to be done before the wormhole would appear. I needed to put down in words the story I had told Amy, and I needed to make a map of time to help me remember everything that I could when I went back one last time. I was reasonably sure, that when I made the trek S 389 S