Wednesday's Child (7 page)

13.

There was nothing to be gained by rehashing everything with Ilene, and it was restorative to let things be normal for a couple of days.  Wednesday would arrive soon enough regardless of anything we said, and then we’d see.

Gayle’s pain was manageable, and her doctor said her ankle was knitting nicely.  She had a quality telework setup at home, but regardless of what anyone says, it’s not quite like being at the office, so I was busy filling in for her.  Jerry managed to pull some strings and schedule my work-up for Tuesday morning.

I was wired, Tuesday afternoon.  Not fearful, but agitated, like waiting for the plane to take off the first time I flew.  Jerry called me just before I left my office, confirming both his clout and his concern over how I must feel approaching Wednesday.  He asked how I was and whether I’d read the case studies yet.

“I have,” I told him. “You asked me to tell you if they resonated with me.  They were fascinating, and I understand why you gave them to me, but they didn’t cause a light to go on in my head.”

“I didn’t really expect them to, but now you have a context from which we can talk more.  More importantly, I went over to radiology to talk about your tests.  They’re absolutely clean.  You have nothing to worry about on that score.”

I should have felt relief, but he hadn’t told me anything I wasn’t already convinced of on my own.  “Thanks, Jerry.  Where do we go from here?”

“I have an opening Friday at five.  Let’s see how tomorrow and Thursday go and discuss it then.  And Dylan, Ilene has my cell number.  If you need to, call me day or night, okay?”

I thanked him and said goodbye.  After all my pronouncements, I was surprised that it felt so good to know Jerry was there if I needed him.

***

I didn’t hear from William on Monday or Tuesday, but our work was like that, brief episodes of adrenaline-pumping urgency sandwiched between extended periods of bureaucratic bullshit and waiting.  It was nothing like what they put in spy movies and novels.  Operatives had limited freedom of action and everything we did was budget-driven, burdened with layers of audit trails and administration.  So what if Manhattan’s financial district was about to be irradiated with isotopes capable of rendering it uninhabitable for decades?  William’s hands were tied until every “t” was crossed.

Jim had been briefed, years earlier, about my special reserve status by some higher-up in the Agency.  I let him know I’d received an alert and that I could be called in for a day or a week without warning.  He never asked why.

***

Tuesday evening, Ilene relaxed on the deck while I barbecued some steaks.  Neither of us was as calm as we pretended to be, but we were together.  The clearest indication that things weren’t entirely routine was that I never even checked the baseball schedule. 

After dinner we sat watching the sun set behind the unimpressive New Jersey hills.  Ilene put her arm on my shoulder and began playing with the too-long hair curling on my neck.  “I don’t think you’re crazy, Dylan.”

I took her hand and kissed it, and we continued to sit quietly a while longer.  She sat up, suddenly animated, facing me.  “You know what I’d do?  As long as I was forced to do the bidding of some Übermensch, I’d make it profitable.  There have to be more CyTechs out there.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, too.”

“Maybe,” there was a playful lilt in her voice, “you’re being manipulated by an alien who wants to invade Earth and set you up as his Planetary Governor.  It only follows that to be a successful ruler, you’d have to be obscenely wealthy.” 

“I’m glad you can joke about this.”

“It’s more like whistling in the dark.  I hate feeling helpless as much as you do.”

Ilene might have been kidding, but she had a point.  The key to not feeling like a victim was being proactive.  Profiting from this strangeness wouldn’t make it any harder to deal with.

“I’ve thought quite a bit about how we could profit from knowing everything about Wednesdays in advance, but it’s not that easy.  A few well-timed investments are one thing, but I can’t see suddenly becoming a big-time gambler.  Gambling sites are monitored just like casinos.  Big, consistent winners don’t get that way without attracting a lot of attention.”

“What about the lottery?  All you’d need is one big score.”

“Yeah, but that would only work if the winners were announced on Wednesdays.  It’s only the smaller payoffs that come out mid-week.  And multiple winners invariably wind up being followed by tabloid reporters.”

“Okay, so we’ll only become moderately wealthy.  I’m not greedy.”  She noticed that I wasn’t smiling.  “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“It’s weird, Ilene.  I know it doesn’t make any sense, but I feel like there are lines I shouldn’t cross.  Maybe I’m being tested and avarice isn’t the quality the Übermensch is looking for.  For now, I think I’ll stick to buying a stock or two, all right?”

“Whatever you want.  You feeling sleepy?”

“I’m tempted to stay up all night and see what happens.  What if we both did? Would there come a moment in the middle of the night, like when daylight savings time starts, when the calendar suddenly changed for me but not you?”

“The only thing I’m sure of is that I’d be in no shape to work tomorrow.”  When I didn’t say anything, she said, “You’re serious about this?”

“Think about it.  What if we’re both awake all night, we experience everything identically until morning, and then, somehow, we’re not living the same day?”

“I don’t know, Dylan.  You mean we’d watch the morning news together and see different dates on the screen?  If that happened I’d have to think you were hallucinating.  And what if it didn’t?  Would you tell me that staying up all night had broken the spell?  I just don’t see what we’ll accomplish except being wrecked in the morning.”

“I can’t argue this, logically.  The truth is, I’m too apprehensive to sleep right now.  You can do what you want, but I wish you’d try to stay up with me.”

She gave in and we watched a late movie together.  It felt good to feel her head on my shoulder, and half-way through the awful film I hugged her.  “I really appreciate you humoring me this way.”

“You’re going to owe me big for this.”

We were quiet for a bit, and I thought about
Al Khalifa
.  “I’m expecting to hear from Franklin again.  Could be any time.  If he calls, I might not be able to contact you for a while.”

She mumbled something and I got up to empty my bladder.  When I came back Ilene was sound asleep. 

I considered making a pot of coffee, but I’d already been awake more than twenty hours.  I lay down beside her and before I knew it, I was asleep too.

14.

“Dylan!  Oh my God, Dylan.” 

It should have felt wonderful to be kissed so passionately as I struggled northward from a deep sleep, except for Ilene’s tears and obvious distress.  No, it seemed more like relief.  Let me guess – it’s Thursday morning and something happened to me on her Wednesday that scared the shit out of her.  Ilene wasn’t a crier.

“Ilene, Honey…what’s this about?” I said, wrapping her in my arms.

She disengaged herself and pulled me to a sitting position, kneeling opposite me on the bed.  Her tears dried, the convulsive crying slowing to an occasional whimper.  She ran her fingers over my face the way a blind person might when she first meets you, feeling it gently as though she were afraid of hurting me, her head turning from side to side in disbelief.  “You’re all right.”

“Yes, I’m fine.”  I had to grit my teeth to keep from demanding that she get on with telling me what happened.  “Today’s Thursday, right?”

“What?  Oh, yes, right,” her words gradually transforming her shock into understanding.

“Why don’t you just start from the beginning?”  It seemed like the right thing to say, but I was aware, as when Jerry’d said that to me, that beginning meant different things to us.

“The beginning,” she said, her faraway look telling me she was rewinding her memories of Wednesday.  Then, her tears welled up again and she shouted at me, inches from my face, showering me with saliva.  “God damn you, Dylan.  Don’t you ever put me through a day like that again.” 

I sat silently, suffering through her agony, knowing better than to reach out for her again.  She breathed deeply and calmed herself.

“You weren’t here when I woke up, yesterday,” she said, then seemed stuck.  “I don’t understand, Dylan.  You said when you woke up and discovered it was Thursday, last week, there was no sign that I’d been there at all the night before.  But yesterday, it just looked like you’d gotten up early and left.”

“I don’t understand either, except that you really weren’t here last Wednesday night, but go on.” 

“No note, no recorded memo.  Damn it, Dylan, you’ve never done that in the twenty-five years we’ve been married.  What was I to think?”  I knew I hadn’t done it yesterday, either.  I hadn’t lived that day yet, but I didn’t say that.

“I had the same reaction when I thought you were missing, last week.  I even wondered if you’d left me.”

That made her slap my arm.  “Idiot!”  I smiled and she composed herself.

“When I settled down, my first thought was, ‘He must have skipped to Thursday,’ which told me I really believed you were living your days out of order, and that scared the hell out of me.  Even worse, your day swapping didn’t explain why you weren’t here next to me Wednesday morning.  Was I going to live every Wednesday without you while you were with a different version of me in another universe on your Wednesday?” 

Her horrified expression made me reach for her trembling hands and she continued.  “Then, I thought, maybe that’s not it at all.  Maybe your buddy Franklin called in the middle of the night and you had to leave without telling me.”  She must have been too far into sleep to hear what I’d said about William, Tuesday night.

Ilene was to have been the principal speaker at an all-day conference in New Brunswick on Wednesday, scheduled to talk at 9:00, after which she was to run panel discussions all day.  She’d called my office line and my cell phone but got my voice mail each time.  Then she’d showered and dressed, feeling the whole time like she was an observer in her own body. 

“I thought about calling Jim, but I knew if you were with Franklin, you wouldn’t have told Jim and not me.  And if you’d skipped Wednesday, the only person I could tell was Jerry, but I wasn’t about to call him until I had more to go on.”

My heart ached over what she’d endured, but I also noticed how much she sounded like I had a week earlier.  She wasn’t really making sense, either.  Even if I’d skipped Wednesday, I was bound to return to it after Thursday.  But I just let her talk.

“I don’t know how I got through the day.  I can’t even remember delivering my speech and leading those damn panels.  I checked my cell phone for messages during every break.  A dozen times I nearly called the police to report you missing.  What if you’d just gone out early to get coffee and been in an accident?  When the conference ended, I didn’t know whether to be more worried or angry with you.  I was sitting in my car trying to decide what to do when you finally called.”

She stopped, her manner saying she was done and she expected me to say something.  Then it dawned on her.  “You don’t remember calling me, do you.  You haven’t experienced that yet.  God, Dylan, I don’t know how long I can live this way.”

“I know.”

My head swirled with emotions.  I hated seeing her suffer this way, hated even more feeling helpless to do anything about it.  But there was something else, a mixture of awe and elation over what this implied.  It proved I wasn’t crazy.  I really was living my days out of order. Ilene knew it too, now, and that left me strangely calm.

I pulled her to me, holding her tight.  “I wish I could make this easier for you.  Maybe we can figure out a way to leave messages for each other so you don’t worry so much.”  Having Jerry for support might help, but I didn’t say that, either.

She extricated herself from my arms, not saying anything, her mind obviously racing off in a new direction. The frightened look I’d seen a few minutes earlier returned. 

“What is it?”

“I was just thinking.  I know some of what you’re going to do today and what you’ll do tomorrow, your Wednesday, I mean.  But you said you have free will and you can change some things.  What if everything about today changes and you don’t wake up in Saint Vincent’s on Wednesday, and…”

“What?”  God, something terrible must have happened.  “How did I wind up in the hospital?”

She drew a long breath.  “You called me at about six o’clock and asked me to pick you up in the parking lot outside the E.R.  You sounded awful, disoriented.  I found you waiting there, dressed in a hospital robe, looking terrible.  Your forehead was bandaged and there were fresh scabs on your chin and jaw.  The right side of your face looked like a lobster shell.

“You were so unsteady getting into the car I thought you were going to pass out.  Your head hurt and thinking too hard made you dizzy.  You said you’d skipped days and Franklin called late Thursday morning, a quick response thing about a ship berthed at a marine terminal on Staten Island.  You couldn’t remember what happened but you were apparently injured and you woke up in the emergency room at St. Vincent’s.”

“That’s it?”

“You must have suffered a concussion; you were still woozy last night.  You seemed so confused I wasn’t sure I could trust anything you said.  You kept repeating that you had to get out of there and contact Franklin before they started asking questions about how you got there.  You found some way to call me and managed to slip out of the hospital.”

“Did I reach William?”

              “You closeted yourself in your office when we got home; you wouldn’t talk about it afterward.  I haven’t seen you that way since nine-eleven.”  She shuddered.  “I don’t like it.”

“I know this is hard on you.  I’m really sorry, but I don’t make the rules when it comes to William, and I have no idea why my time stream is all screwed up.  We’ll figure out some way to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

“Damn it, Dylan, how do you even know this is real?  Maybe you really do have an alternate who took control while you were sleeping Tuesday night.  He might have awakened you and made you leave the house during the night, and gotten you involved in something that caused your injuries and then played with your memories.  If he can do that, he could also have made you think Wednesday hasn’t happened yet.  But…”  She reached out to stroke my face again.

All I could do was shrug helplessly.  “I have an appointment with Jerry Friday afternoon.  You can come if you want to.”

I shared Ilene’s confusion.  I didn’t know what was going to happen later on Thursday, or if what she’d described was real, I had no idea what I might have said to William on the phone Wednesday night, though I imagined I’d have tried to use my knowledge of Thursday’s events to alert him about something. 

Last week, I’d wanted to alter events using my knowledge of what was going to happen, but I’d never gotten the chance, and even if I had, I had no idea how that would have changed the world I’d awakened to on Friday.  And if what I’d told William Wednesday night changed his actions, would that affect what was going to happen on my Thursday?  Ilene was right – this was a crazy way to live.  All I could do was take things as they came and be careful.