Time's Anchor

Ophelia's husband disappears at the most inopportune times. After 10 years, she's not sure why she puts up with it, other than the fact that she's loved him since she first saw him in college, before the physics experiment that started Will involuntarily sliding through time. And there's nothing anyone can do about it. Or is there?

Time’s Anchor by Lynda Engler

Ophelia pressed the remote as she neared the driveway of her suburban home and then pulled into the empty garage. They sold Will’s Honda after the first time he disappeared from behind the wheel and the driverless vehicle careened off the road, landing in a ditch. That was when she knew her husband would never lead a normal life, however much they wished he could.

As she opened the door into the kitchen, the aroma of steak alerted her that Will was home. Ophelia ran into his arms and almost wept. “You’re home!” He had been gone for over a week, vanishing from the couch while watching a NASCAR race the Sunday before last. After ten years, she still couldn’t get used to his sudden and involuntary disappearances.

He hugged her to him hard and whispered in her ear. “You know I’ll always come back to you sweetheart.” Will pulled Ophelia into the strong, warm circle of his arms and buried his face in her clean, silken hair. As his soft lips gently nuzzled their way along the nape of her neck, Ophelia felt her knees weaken. Funny how he still made her feel like a newlywed. She began leading him into the bedroom, pulling his hand to her face and kissing his fingers as she did. She wanted to make love to him right away, but he shook his head.

“I cooked dinner. I even made a salad. Let’s eat before it gets cold, and then we can spend the rest of the night together.”

She smiled and said, “Actually, I’m starved.” She took a bottle of diet soda from the fridge, poured them both a glass, and took her seat at the already set table. Will had even put the sour cream out for her. He hated the stuff. She had barely plopped a lump of it onto her baked potato when she felt a brush against her leg and heard a meow. “Rufus, go eat your own dinner and leave me alone. Steak isn’t for cats.” She laughed and gently pushed the fat cat away from the table with her foot.

“I’m glad you decided to get a cat. It will be good to have a pet to keep you company when I’m away.”

She stared at him blankly. “Will, we’ve had Rufus for six years. Since he was a kitten.”

He swore quietly. It had happened again. “Every damn time! This time travelling crap has to stop. I’m so sorry, sweetie.”

“Not your fault,” Ophelia replied, sadly. It wasn’t his fault. He could no more control his slides through time than the clouds in the sky.

“I wonder what else has changed.”

She didn’t reply. It was, after all, an unanswerable question. Every time Will disappeared, there was a chance that when he got back, something had changed in her timeline. Things he did fifty or five hundred years backward in the time stream made ripples in the present. A single occurrence, no matter how small, could change the course of the universe forever; it was the ultimate butterfly effect. But from Ophelia’s vantage point, nothing ever changed. Everything was always exactly as she remembered. It was the same for all the spouses. They were left behind and while their time-traveling husbands were away, history changed, and only the traveler remembered what had been and no longer was. How am I going to survive this, thought Ophelia. But she couldn’t let him see how hard this was on her.

They finished their meal in silence and while she cleaned up the dishes, Ophelia felt his hand on her shoulder and turned to face him. His eyes smiled at her and she felt his enduring love.

“I’m sure Rufus is a wonderful cat. I’m glad we have him,” said Will. “I’ll get to know him tomorrow while you’re at work.” He smiled that grin that just made her melt and she hugged him close. No matter how unusual their lives were, she loved him as deeply now as ever before. She would survive the changes. She had to.

Still in his embrace, she spoke quietly, her face nuzzled against his shoulder, her lips an inch from his neck. “I have to fly up to Boston tomorrow. Eight a.m. flight. Wanna go to the airport with me?” She would drive, of course. There was always the chance that he could disappear and crash the car if he was pulled through time unexpectedly.

“Of course, my love. I’ll take the bus home and hang out with Rufus. How long is your trip?” However, as he asked, he was already taking her by the hand and pulling her to the bedroom, unbuttoning his shirt while he walked.

“Just three days. I fly back on Thursday. Home by 7.” Ophelia traveled to Boston frequently for company meetings.

The next two hours were like all his homecomings, delightful and passionate for both of them, reveling in each other’s bodies. Afterward, Ophelia was straddled over Will as he lay on the bed, naked and sweaty and spent but grinning contentedly. She was as happy as he was. Holding her hair back, she bent to kiss him, but before her lips met his, her weight shifted as the space beneath her was suddenly empty and she collapsed onto the empty mattress. Will was gone. Again.

She screamed her frustration into the pillow and yelled to no one in particular, “Why? Why now? Couldn’t you give me just one night?” She rolled onto her back in the empty bed and sobbed.

#

Ophelia’s flight arrived on schedule and she took a cab from the airport to the office. Her company’s headquarters occupied the top twenty floors of the tallest skyscraper downtown. Since her first meeting wasn’t until two, she parked her suitcase against the wall, deposited her laptop in an empty work area for remote employees, and went for coffee before answering emails.

Coffee in hand, she returned to her desk and got started. The first email she sent was a group message to the other time travelers’ wives; her best friends. Most of the members of the Bureau still lived in or around Boston.

To: Collette, Jennifer, Marcela, and 4 others

From: Ophelia Radowski

Subject: Can we do dinner?

Hi Ladies,

I’m in Boston until Thursday and wanted to get together. Things haven’t been going so well lately for Will and me and I really need to talk to someone who understands. Not sure all of you can make it on such short notice but how about tonight at 7 pm, at the Seaport Oyster House. My treat.

--Ophelia

#

Her afternoon went well. She sat through discussions about the new benefits plan and the changes it would entail, but none of her meetings were particularly stressful, or memorable. She checked her email and saw four of her friends had RSVP’d for dinner. She had been worried no one could make it on such short notice.

At 6 pm, Ophelia checked in at the same hotel where she always stayed, a short walk from the Financial District. After unpacking, she changed from her skirt suit into a pair of skinny jeans and a tight sweater. Ophelia appraised her reflection in the hotel mirror. The sweater and jeans showed off her figure. Not bad for an old fart of twenty-nine, she thought. She slipped on her sandals and began the eight-block trek to the Seaport Oyster House.

Her walk took her down historic cobblestoned streets, past pubs and shops that had been there for hundreds of years. She loved walking in Boston and missed living in this city, although she enjoyed their suburban lifestyle in South Carolina. Plus Ophelia never missed Boston’s winters. But when she was here, she fell right back into the sophisticated urbanite personality she had developed as a student at MIT.

A gentle breeze blew off the harbor as she entered the door of the eatery and she immediately saw Jennifer and Marcela. They waved excitedly and gave her a huge hug then the hostess seated them at a corner booth with a view of the water. The Seaport Oyster House was one of America’s oldest pubs, dating back to pre-Revolutionary days. It was said that John Adams frequented its stalls and oyster bar. Once things settled down after the Revolution, Americans became obsessed with oysters. Oyster parlors, oyster cellars, oyster bars, oyster houses, and oyster lunchrooms popped up in every town along the coast. However, this building, with its rough-hewn beams, wide-planked wooden floors and century-old sea aromas engrained in its very fibers, was the oldest of them all.

“You look fantastic,” said Marcela. She was a tall, dark haired woman with angular features and a winning smile. But before Ophelia could respond, she saw Paige following the hostess to their table and a moment later, Collette joined them.

Ophelia was delighted to see four of her oldest friends. They had not only been friends since first year of college, they were all unlucky enough to be the wife of an involuntary time traveler. All their husbands worked for the BTC, the Bureau of Time Correction. The men had no choice. Their wives did, of course, but so far, all ten of them had stuck by their hapless men. Maybe that was why they had stayed such good friends.

Most people who had been affected by the experiment that had started them traveling through time had eventually lost their partners. It took a special kind of crazy to stay with a lover who disappeared. He could be anywhere, doing anything – including making love to his wife, thought Ophelia sadly – and POOF! he was suddenly gone. Of the twenty-nine surviving test subjects, only ten were married. One female time traveler had managed to keep a husband; eight men’s wives had stayed with them and one man’s husband. It seemed that women were more likely to put up with this crap than men were.

Collette, a chubby blond woman with electric blue eyes and a sympathetic personality, leaned forward and asked, “So, how is life down south, Ophelia? I don’t hear a southern accent on you yet.” She laughed, but Ophelia could see that she was just making light of the fact that she had chosen to move sixteen hours away from the only people in the world who could understand her life.

Ophelia wrapped her arms around herself and replied. “Warm and sunny. My job is decent enough too, but, well, you know. Life isn’t always easy. I’ll never get used to remembering aspects of my life with Will only to find out that he changed history somewhere and now something I remember clearly, never happened. Or only happened to me.”

Collette’s eyes widened and she looked directly at Ophelia, even though Ophelia tried to turn her gaze down to the table. “What happened honey? What changed? He DID come back to you after his last… trip… right?”

Ophelia smiled, but her eyes betrayed her sadness. “Yes, of course. He always comes back to me. He calls me his anchor. He even made me dinner. But whatever changed this time, he didn’t know we had a cat. For six years we’ve had that scruffy ball of fur, but when Will got home, he didn’t know it. So in some other timeline, we lived all those years without Rufus. Will lived for six years without Rufus.” Water began to well in her eyes but she wiped it away quickly.

“So?” interjected Jennifer. “I know you adore that cat, but, seriously, it’s just a cat. It’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal!” replied Ophelia, louder than she had intended to. People at the next table looked at her and she lowered her voice. “It is a big deal. What else was different for him in those six years? How can we keep living with men who suddenly remember our lives together a different way than we remember? I don’t know how to keep this up.” Her shoulders slumped as she saw the faces of her friends. They understood her life in a way few could.

Jennifer looked down at the table, ashamed of her unsympathetic response. Collette reached across the table and took her hand, holding it gently. No one spoke for a long minute. Marcela finally broke the silence. “Do you want to divorce him?”

“No!” replied Ophelia. The man at the next table glared at her again. “No,” she said emphatically, but at a lower volume. “I love Will. I’ve wanted to spend my life with him since our first date. It just gets hard sometimes.”

The others remained silent. They knew exactly how hard it was.

“Maybe you should move back to Boston,” suggested Jennifer. “We are here for you, and so are Andrea and the others. Well, except Zola.” Zola had moved to California three years ago and had pretty much disappeared off the face of the earth for all they heard from her.

Marcela nodded her agreement. “Plus, your company is here. It could be an easy transition as far as work is concerned. And better for your career too.”

What she isn’t saying is how important my career needs to be since kids aren’t in the stars for any of us, thought Ophelia sadly.

“You’re probably right,” agreed Ophelia. “Will thought that maybe if we were farther away from the epicenter of the time wave – and the BTC – the time slides would diminish. But they haven’t. We’ve given it a couple of years now and it hasn’t gotten any better. And he can’t drive so he’s stuck at home or on foot, at least when he is stuck in this timeline.” She paused, waiting for the others to voice opinions.

Jennifer replied, “He could use the T here. At least he wouldn’t be stuck out in the boonies.” The T was Boston’s transit system, a mixture of trains below and above ground, so it couldn’t properly be called a subway. But the underground parts of the transit system were dangerous for their husbands, just like flying. If a time slide took them in the air, or underground, their lives would be in danger when they reappeared. Time travelers always reappeared in exactly the place from where they slid. Rematerializing in the air without a plane around you was not a pleasant thought; nor was facing an oncoming train in a subway tunnel. Even the above ground parts of the T were dangerous, though most of the time travelers risked it. They would have to get off the tracks quickly if they reappeared there. So far, it had only happened twice. Taxis were also out because they didn’t want Man Vaporized in Taxi on Storrow Drive in the headlines. Buses worked best, because no one ever paid attention on a bus.

Ophelia nodded. “I’ll talk to Will about it when I get home Thursday. Hopefully he’ll be back by then. Or by phone if he gets home before I do.” The others nodded. Like Will, their husbands couldn’t carry cell phones or even wear a wristwatch. Landlines were their only option. They never knew what era they would materialize in and advanced technology was never a good idea in any time period. It would get them burned as a witch in some places. At least, so far, none of them had time traveled to any period prior to the dawn of civilization. Turning up in a prehistoric Earth without proper oxygen levels – or worse – in the maw of a Tyrannosaurus Rex! – would be less than pleasant.

The waitress came with a bottle of wine and took their orders. Ophelia relaxed and took a slow, calming sip, then leaned back a bit in her seat, still holding the wine glass. “I know moving back to Boston is the right thing to do.” She paused. “I need my friends. We are an odd group, aren’t we?”

Everyone laughed and drank.

“So, what else is new?” Ophelia asked her friends.

Marcela smiled broadly, held her glass up to make a toast, and announced, “Mark and I decided to adopt a child.” All jaws dropped around the table, followed by simultaneous comments.

Collette exclaimed, “You’re nuts!”

Paige asked, “How are you going to explain a disappearing dad to a toddler?”

“You know kids can’t keep secrets from their friends,” said Jennifer.

Sterility was an unfortunate side effect of the experiment. That and the obvious disappearing into thin air bit.

Ophelia went against the tide and congratulated Marcela.

#

Thursday afternoon, as she was about to put her phone on airplane mode on board her flight, Will called. “Hi honey, I’m about to take off. Everything alright?”

“Yes, all fine, here and in 1622 Egypt. I kept my head down and stayed out of history’s way, but it was exciting. I’ll tell you about it when you get home. Oh and Rufus is good too. I love you. Fly safe.”

“Tell the pilot,” she said, told him she loved him and hung up just as the man seated beside her gave her the evil eye about her phone.

Ophelia stared out the window at the runway. Logan was a scenic airport, situated on the water, staring Boston in the face. She had always loved the view of this city, especially from across the river at MIT. She’d been amazed when she was accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She majored in Humanities and Science and after graduation wound up working for an insurance company, in human resources. It suited her. She had never been able to decide if she liked science better or writing. This career worked on multiple levels.

She met Will sophomore year in a writing class. He was a physics major who also loved literature and she quickly fell in love with him. Her best friend, Collette, was dating his roommate and they formed the nucleus of a group that would stay tight throughout their years in Cambridge. They hung out together; partied together; even took part time jobs together. When the physics department started recruiting for a study that paid two hundred bucks for a few hours’ time, Will wasn’t the only person in the group to volunteer. After all, MIT was expensive. The study was about testing how stress affected brain chemistry. Electrodes attached to their heads measured cerebral function while a machine applied various stressors to each test subject. The machine shocked, poked and shrieked while the brain wave analyzer measured their reactions as each stress function was applied. The shocks weren’t strong, the pokes were irritating but didn’t draw blood, and the piercing noises hurt the ears, but not to deafening levels. Sometimes all three stressors were applied simultaneously. All in all, Will thought the whole experiment was less than traumatic, but the money was good.

A week later, Will disappeared. Vanished into thin air. So did Arthur. Then Peter. Eventually every one of the test subjects disappeared. Each one reappeared eventually. Some were gone a few minutes, some a few hours. Peter didn’t return for eight days.

Will thought he was losing his mind and immediately called Ophelia, and at the risk of her thinking he was crazy, told her what happened. She thought he was crazy. He had only been gone an hour – disappearing from a Calculus class and reappearing in an empty room – so Ophelia had no way to confirm if he was telling the truth. However, when Arthur, Collette’s boyfriend and Will’s roommate, disappeared in front of Will’s eyes and then reappeared in their dorm room in the middle of the night, Will and Arthur stopped questioning their sanity and started questioning the functioning of the universe. They knew the experiment was to blame and in the morning went down to the physics lab.

They weren’t alone. Every one of the test subjects was there, except Peter. No one could find Peter. Each one of them related their experiences. Arthur had found himself in a cornfield. Will had materialized in Manhattan, a city he knew well, but noticed all the cars were 70s and 80s models. Alexander appeared on a tropical beach during a violent storm. No one went to class that day. They stayed in the lab all day comparing stories and trying to figure out what had happened.

It was an old story now, thought Ophelia as her plane taxied down the runway. Eventually the graduate students and the test subjects put together a theory but they couldn’t test it or reproduce it. Something had happened to their brains when they were hooked up to the new analyzer the physics department was testing. Instead of simply reading their brain waves, a current back-fed through the electrodes and re-entered their brains, mixing with the electrical shocks emanating from the stressor device and somehow the electrical currents in their brains were scrambled. They had all suffered brain damage… but what kind of brain damage made people disappear? They were not imagining it; people had witnessed it. Will had witnessed it. But actual time travel wasn’t confirmed until eight days passed and Peter rematerialized in the dining hall.

Peter found himself in the chair he had eaten lunch in over a week ago, but now the dining hall was dark and empty. The clock showed 5:14 a.m. His clothes were wet and muddy, his jeans ripped, and his t-shirt stained with blood. But not his blood. Peter’s face sunk to his hands and he wept in relief. He was still sitting there, almost catatonic when the morning dining hall staff arrived. One of them took him to the health center.

No sooner had he been stripped of his filthy clothes and put in a paper gown when Dr. Forsythe, the physics department chair, came in. The research group had alerted him of the “accident” the day after they discovered it and he had asked the health center to inform him if Peter came in. Forsythe had held out hope that Peter would return, as the other test subjects all had, so he had not reported Peter missing.

The doctor examined Peter – and other than some scrapes and bruises – he was fine. Physically. When the nurse left the exam room to call Peter’s roommate for a change of clothes for the boy, Dr. Forsythe, said, “Peter, I know you have experienced a lot of trauma over the last week. Please don’t say anything to the doctors about what happened to you. Tell them you went to New York and were mugged. Trust me, you haven’t gone crazy. I’ll explain when we get out of here.”

Ophelia had heard this story countless times over beer and nachos at the Cambridge pub they frequented. Peter had been eating lunch in the dining hall then suddenly he was on a battlefield with cannon balls falling around him. He had run as fast and far as he could and holed up behind a stone wall in a field. When the fighting ended at dark, he began walking around trying to figure out what happened. Dead and wounded soldiers lay all around, some being cared for, others being stacked up like cords of firewood. Blood soaked the ground. The men were dressed in rag-tag gray clothing with a few blue uniforms mixed in.

He asked a woman bandaging a bleeding man’s arm where he was. “Why boy, you are in Virginia of course! Appomattox, to be exact. Oh my, you poor thing, you must have taken a blow to the head,” said the woman in a southern drawl.

Peter thought he had lost his mind and fled, running most of the night, tripping, falling, but getting farther away from the torment behind him. He fell in a hole and lay there a long while, looking up at the stars. The sky was clearer than he had ever seen. Eventually he regained his senses and pulled his phone from his pocket. No signal. No network.

As the sky began to lighten, he got up and started walking again, eventually coming to a village. No cars, streetlights, or power lines. He stumbled into a tavern and the barkeeper brought him water and a bowl of something. He thought maybe grits, or oatmeal. He wasn’t sure and he wasn’t hungry, but he ate. “I don’t have any money,” Peter told the barkeep.

“Don’t worry, soldier. You just rest and be on your way once you feel ready to rejoin your unit,” the kind barkeep replied. Peter was wearing a plain gray t-shirt and dark blue jeans, half-covered in blood and dirt.

Peter soon left the tavern and walked around the village. It was early and only a few people were up and about. The villagers were dressed like old-fashioned farmers. One part of his brain told him this was the 1860s and he was in the middle of the Civil War. The rest of his brain told him he was nuts. For days, he stayed in the field, tall leafy stalks hiding him. Mostly he was befuddled and withdrawn, but every now and then hunger got the better of him and he walked back to the village tavern. The barkeeper gave him stale bread, sometimes grits, always water. He was becoming more and more despondent, positive he was insane, when suddenly he found himself back in the dining hall.

After Peter returned, Dr. Forsythe took over the research project. They tried to figure out what happened, tried to recreate it, tried to reverse it. But nothing worked.

That’s when they began trying to understand it. The experiment obviously changed something in the subjects’ physiology, but they couldn’t figure out how the new brain chemistry allowed them to travel in time. There was also no pattern to when the teleportations happened, or where the subjects went. Each of the thirty subjects had experienced the time dislocations – they were starting to call them time slides at this point – on a seemingly random basis.

Within a year, each subject had experienced at least ten more time slides, some of them over thirty. One of the subjects committed suicide. And still they couldn’t control it. The death of the young man hit Dr. Forsythe hard. He couldn’t let these students come to further harm, either physically or psychologically.

They were also well past the scope of the original research study and everyone, from Dr. Forsythe on down, felt it was best to keep this from the administration. If they had invented time travel, Forsythe would have shouted it from the rafters, but a failed experiment that involuntarily sent test subjects sliding through time at random intervals was not a secret he wanted to get out. As a cover story, he formed a non-profit organization called the BTC, or Boston Trend Collection. Its’ mission was to research trends and sell the data for advertising use. Grant money funded it. They hired two legitimate researchers and put the twenty-nine test subjects on the payroll. The involuntary time travelers now had jobs that explained their absences.

But the mystery of how or why the time slides occurred weighed heavily on all of them. By the time the oldest subjects graduated, the BTC had taken on a new mission: try to make strategic changes in the timeline to change the present to one in which the research experiment had never occurred. That’s when they changed the meaning of the BTC to Bureau of Time Correction.

Jolted out of her memories, Ophelia had not realized they were landing until the wheels touched the runway. As soon as they were allowed to turn on their phones, she called home and was relieved when Will answered. “Just seeing if you are still there,” she laughed, but was very pleased to hear his voice. She hurried to catch her connection, nervous that she might miss it because she really wanted to get home and see her husband. It had been a rough couple of weeks and she missed him terribly. For once in her life, she caught some luck, made her connection, and landed an hour later in Charlotte. She retrieved her car and drove the half hour over the state border to the suburban community they called home.

Will had dinner waiting for her, but it was cold sandwiches. This time the food could wait until they reunited. And wait it did.

#

Ophelia held off discussing the move back to Boston until the morning. She didn’t want to spoil the warm glow she had felt that night, especially if Will disagreed with her.

Instead, he surprised her. “Moving nine hundred miles away seemed like a good idea at the time, but it hasn’t done anything to stop the time slides. All it’s done is pull you away from your world. Let’s go back. Call your boss and see about a transfer back to HQ.”

When she did, Ophelia was relieved to hear him acquiesce easily, mostly because Ophelia had confidence her regional manager was ready to be promoted to take her place. Unfortunately for Ophelia, four years directing Human Resources in the South East office would not get her a promotion back in Boston. But a lateral transfer would do for now.

They put the house on the market the same day and two weeks later, a moving truck came to take all their belongings to a rented two-bedroom flat in North Brookline, a stone’s throw outside the city limits of Boston, west of Fenway Park.

A fourteen-hour drive without a second driver required making it a two-day trip and no sooner had Ophelia and Will hit the road with their suitcases, Rufus mewling pitifully in the cat carrier, when Ophelia received a text from Jennifer. It simply said, “Zola’s back.”

Will grabbed the phone off the dashboard holder and typed his wife’s response while she drove. “In Boston? Or back on the radar?”

“Boston. U on your way?”

Will sent back, “Yes, driving. Can you talk?” A moment later, Ophelia’s cell rang and Will put Jennifer on speaker phone.

“Hey, Jen, what’s going on with Zola?” asked Ophelia.

“Hey Southern girl. Will – you there too?”

“Yup.” They caught up for a few minutes before Jennifer launched into her story.

“Apparently, Zola’s husband Tyler slid four weeks ago and hasn’t returned. His slides have been lasting longer and longer for the last year, and she just couldn’t be alone anymore. She left him a letter on their kitchen table and flew back yesterday. Dr. Forsythe confirmed that he hasn’t heard from Tyler for over a month.” The BTC has no way to track the time travelers so they always report in to him the moment they return.

Ophelia didn’t know what she could say in sympathy without hurting Will’s feelings. She shared all the frustrations Zola must be experiencing, but never wanted to show Will exactly how hard it was on her. “I feel bad for her, but I’m glad she’s come home. And I’m glad we are coming too.”

Will smiled broadly at her as she spoke. She took his hand and held it for the rest of the phone conversation. Jen filled them in on where Zola was staying and then hung up.

Now if they could just drive all the way up the east coast without Will sliding, her day would be perfect. Will had not slid in two weeks, so maybe their luck would hold out another couple of days.

Of course it didn’t.

Halfway through Connecticut, Will disappeared.

Jen, Marcela and Collette were waiting at the new apartment when she pulled up a few hours later. Collette took the cat carrier while Marcela and Jen squeezed Ophelia tight between them.

“Will?” asked Marcela.

“Where do you think?” She tried to smile and make light of it but every time Will got pulled through time, she feared he might not come back, even after ten years.

They unloaded the car and carried everything – along with bags of groceries the women had brought – upstairs to the second floor apartment. Considering she had arranged it all online, it was everything she expected. Clean, modern … and small. Large apartments were expensive in Boston. But the area was lovely, with Fenway Park not far away. New mid-rise luxury apartments had sprung up everywhere since the last time they had seen a game at Fenway.

“When does the moving truck arrive?” asked Marcela, as she unpacked paper plates and plastic cutlery from the grocery bags.

Ophelia watched Rufus explore his new home and answered, “Tomorrow morning. They’ll lug everything up and position the furniture but I’ll be unpacking boxes the rest of the week. Alone, if Will doesn’t return.”

“Of course you won’t. We’ll all help you,” said Jen, reentering the apartment with folding chairs and a card table. Ophelia wondered how she could have ever left her best friends behind. She was ecstatic to be back.

Her happiness lasted another twelve minutes, when Jen’s phone rang. It was Zola, in tears. Los Angeles police had just informed her that they found her husband’s body behind their apartment building. Tyler had rematerialized a corpse.

#

Ophelia’s cell rang in the middle of the night. It was an unknown 203 area code mobile number. “Hello?”

“Hey sweetie, it’s Will. I caught a ride with a trucker and I’m on his cell. Could you pick me up at the Westborough rest stop on the Mass Pike, in about an hour?”

Ophelia was glad to hear his voice, but it was 3 a.m. “Will, that’s an hour away. I’ll get there as soon as I can.” She yawned as she threw her feet off the air mattress and hit the floor, which was closer than she expected it to be in her half-awake state.

“I’ll wait, of course. Just drive carefully. I have a LOT of news from my trip.” She could hear the excitement in his voice, but knew he couldn’t say much with some truck driver beside him listening to his every word.

“I have news too and it’s not good.”

Will’s voice was suddenly frantic. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Rufus too. We arrived safely, but Will, I have bad news about Tyler.” She hesitated, sighed and let it out in one breath. “He was found dead in Los Angeles, outside his apartment building.” She heard Will exhale loudly. She wasn’t blunt by nature, but she was very tired, and Will and Tyler had never been close. “The police report showed that he was beaten to death. Also, it looks like it happened over two days ago, but his body was only found yesterday. The police think the killers dumped his body there because the path behind that building is popular with runners and if he had been killed him there, someone would have found him sooner. Dr. Forsythe believes that Tyler was killed in the other time stream but didn’t slide home until after he died. Zola is having his body flown to a funeral home in Boston after the L.A. Coroner’s office completes their autopsy. LAPD is conducting a murder investigation but Forsythe says they’ll never solve it because all the clues are in whatever year Tyler was in.”

She dressed while she spoke but needed two hands to tie her shoes. “Sorry to dump this on you by phone babe. I’m on my way now.” She made a kissy noise and hung up.

#

The next day was a frantic whirlwind of activity with the moving truck arriving, Ophelia’s friends, Collette’s husband Arthur, and Will unloading, unpacking and organizing. She had the week off from work as vacation time. Manual labor was a hell of a way to spend a vacation but the cheerful help of all her friends made it less arduous.

Will shared the story of his last slide over a delivery pizza.

“When Ophelia told me about Tyler, I was upset, of course, but I had a different concern. My slide took me to Boston a year before we signed up for the experiment.”

Ophelia sat silently, already having heard the story during their middle of the night ride from Westborough. “I went to Dr. Forsythe’s office and told him what happened in our timeline. I’m sure he thought I was crazy, but I finally had the opportunity to try to stop the slides from ever happening. It was the breakthrough we needed! But obviously I failed. He did think I was nuts, and clearly he didn’t stop the experiment because nothing changed. Except Tyler is dead.”

“What happened this morning when Forsythe debriefed you? Did he remember meeting you and getting your warning?” asked Marcela, around a mouthful of pizza. Her husband had slid last night, after not having been dragged away through time for almost four months.

“Of course. And because of that, he’s working up a protocol for all of us on how to deal with that situation if we ever get the chance again. He’s planning a meeting for Friday at 3 p.m.; all spouses and all time travelers not currently away.”

Marcela hesitantly put down her pizza as a scowl flitted across her face. Collette and Arthur exchanged a look of dread. Ophelia smiled sadly at Will. They were suddenly acutely aware that what happened to Tyler could happen to any of the time travelers.

Jennifer broke the silence. “The funeral hasn’t been scheduled yet. Zola said Tyler’s parents want to wait until the investigation is done. They need closure before burying their son.” Tyler’s parents were unaware of his true situation. They thought he was a researcher who moved to L.A. because his company transferred him.

The rest of the unpacking was done in silent contemplation, until Will set up the stereo, but even that conspired with the gloomy mood by playing only slow, sad songs.

“Ugh, I’m changing this!” growled Ophelia. “We need some lively music to get out of this funk. I’m sad that Tyler is dead and I’m terribly scared what it means for the rest of us. But honestly, do we have to wallow in this sadness? I mean, it’s not just this song that’s depressing, this entire band died in a plane crash. How depressing is that?” But the minute she said it, she also remembered this 80s band had won a Grammy for this song. There was no plane crash. But there was a plane crash! She remembered it on the news. What the hell?

Ophelia slumped to the floor, grabbed her head, and closed her eyes. She groaned loudly.

Will took two loping strides across the room to her. “What’s the matter? Are you okay?” A look of obvious worry crossed his face… and maybe he should be worried. She must be having a stroke or something. How could she remember two different events, both clearly, when only one could have happened?

“Something is wrong with my brain! Does anyone remember this band in the news? The plane crash?” Collette, Arthur and Marcela nodded. Will agreed it was all over the news.

“But none of you remember them winning a Grammy the next year? And their failed album the year after that?” Blank looks answered her. Her friends had apparently not been fans. “Look it up! Someone google it!”

Collette pulled out her phone and checked Wikipedia. Yep, there it was. “They won a Grammy in 1983. Had albums that didn’t sell for a couple years after that, and then in 1998 they had a come-back tour with remakes of ‘classic’ 80s songs from other bands.”

She checked the band’s history page, looked at their website. They were all still very much alive, although not making music anymore.

“So how do we all remember them dying in a plane crash!?” Ophelia hung her head and held it tighter in her hands. It hurt like the worst migraine she ever experienced.

# ----- #

By the time the group met on Friday, everyone had had memories of alternate events that couldn’t have happened, yet did. A blinding headache followed each new memory but dissipated within ten minutes. But the dual memories of the event didn’t fade. They remembered two realities, the altered reality, and the current one. And not just events that could be fact checked easily. Lots of things suddenly seemed “wrong.” For instance, the front door of the MIT building where the BTC had its offices was a deep, hunter green, but the time travelers and their spouses knew it had been brown for a hundred years. When queried, others confirmed the door had always been green.

Whatever caused the dual memories was affecting the time travelers and their spouses but not Dr. Forsythe or the original research team. The dual-memories condition was contagious in some way. They were sitting in the large events room at MIT that Dr. Forsythe had reserved for the afternoon. Tall windows overlooked the campus while tables, chairs and couches dotted the room. Of the twenty-eight remaining time travelers, twenty-five were there, eight time travelers’ wives and two husbands, the BTC office staff, and Dr. Forsythe who led the discussion.

Jennifer suddenly burst out laughing. “Great! We have the first time travel STD!” The room erupted in laughter and lightened everyone’s mood.

Dr. Forsythe presented his plan for what the time travelers needed to do the next time any of them slid into a time period prior to the experiment but after Dr. Forsythe began teaching at MIT. It was a span of fourteen years, three months, and eight days. The time traveler’s mission was to get themselves to Boston, make contact with Forsythe, and tell him what was happening … which is exactly what Will had tried unsuccessfully to do. This time, however, the time traveler was to give Dr. Forsythe information no one on earth knew: that he had an identical twin that died at birth. Other than his parents, no one had ever known this. He felt sure that if his younger self heard this, he would believe the time traveler.

Everyone was optimistic that – given time – someone would get a message to the past and stop the experiment before it started. But the meeting ended on an ominous note when Dr. Forsythe left them with a warning. “Whatever Tyler did on his last slide, he changed something important, altering your memories. We will work hard to figure out what it was so we can finish what Tyler started and make the slides end. But whatever Tyler did, it may have gotten him killed. And it might get you killed too. I cannot caution strongly enough how vigilant you need to be.”

#

Ophelia and Will settled into their new lives in Boston. She commuted by T to her downtown office and worked on human resource initiatives, usually community events the company was sponsoring. It was interesting and fun and she tried to think of it as a promotion. Most importantly, her days were happy.

Will went into the BTC office every day to work with the investigative team. The L.A. Coroner’s office had determined that Tyler was beaten with a steel pipe, and because they found nothing else of note, they returned his body to Boston.

The BTC team continued trying to solve the mystery of what Tyler had altered in the past that caused the other time sliders – and their spouses – to suddenly have multiple memories of historical events. Each and every one of them continued to have conflicting memories of events; although they were mostly mundane things that didn’t affect their lives, it was disconcerting. The headaches that accompanied the dual memories lessened in duration after the first time a secondary memory was “remembered.”

Tyler’s funeral occurred a week after his death and almost everyone at the BTC attended. Tyler’s parents, siblings and Zola were thankful for the support of his “employer” and “coworkers” at the funeral.

Tyler’s body had not revealed any physical clues as to what he’d done in the other time stream, but his clothing was a different story. The coroner’s office bagged the items from his pockets and kept it as evidence, but sent a full report, including photos. Figuring out what – if anything – any of it meant was an enigmatic task.

Ophelia got updates from Will every night on the BTC’s progress, or lack thereof. Amazingly, Will was staying put in their timeline since they got to Boston. Ophelia thanked whatever god listened to the prayers of time traveler’s wives.

Tyler had some paper money and coins (all dated between 1982 and 2001), a pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum (with packaging used from 1987 to 2002), and poker chips from three different casinos in Las Vegas (the Sands, Aladdin and Aria). Ophelia knew next to nothing about Las Vegas so the names meant nothing to her.

Pinpointing where Tyler had been was easy enough, but when was the real mystery. The gum packet gave them a general range and a simple internet search told them that the Sands had closed in 1996, narrowing it even more. The Aladdin went through many iterations, but had been around in some form from 1966 to 2007, when it became Planet Hollywood. But the Aria wasn’t built until 2009.

“I wonder what the Coroner’s office made of gum packets that had not been in production for over 15 years, or a poker chip from a casino that was imploded over two decades ago?” said Ophelia one night to Will, while unloading the dishwasher.

“I doubt they realize the significance of those objects. Probably never thought to look up Wrigley’s package designs by year, or realize he had poker chips from both current and demolished casinos. But if they did figure that out, I’d guess they think Tyler was a memorabilia collector. His body was found in L.A. after all, not Las Vegas. There would be no practical reason for a dead man in Los Angeles to carry Las Vegas poker chips,” replied Will. “Especially after they questioned Zola and she told them he wasn’t a gambler. How’s she doing, anyway?”

“I talked to her yesterday. She’s holding up remarkably well. Turns out their relationship had been on the rocks for a while. They were on the verge of divorce before his final slide. She knew it wasn’t his fault, but she’d had enough anyway.” Ophelia put a mug from the dishwasher into the Keurig and turned on the machine. “Want a cup?”

“Yes, decaf please,” replied Will. “The only way Tyler could have been in both the Sands and the Aria was if he had slid more than once.”

“But no one has ever done that without materializing at home first.”

“Exactly,” said Will. “Not only that, but Tyler had also slid the second time into the same location, but a different year, which is compounding the mystery. The BTC’s theory on what happened to Tyler – about what got him beaten to death – was that once he realized he was stuck in the past and wasn’t sliding home, he started gambling to earn money to live on. Perhaps he cheated and pissed off someone … pissed them off enough to kill him.”

Tension crept into Ophelia’s neck when she thought of Tyler’s beaten body. “But the beating happened on his second slide, the one to the Aria in or after 2009, right? It couldn’t have happened in the first slide.”

Will nodded agreement. “Yes, had to be second slide. But no reason to think that the Aria slide was second. Could have been the other way around and the second slide was to the earlier time period. We know one slide was between 1987 and 1996. The other slide was between 2009 and the present. And the thing he did to change our memories must have happened on his first slide because it also caused him to slide again without coming home first.”

“Wait, Will, if Tyler slid into 2009 or later, why didn’t he contact the BTC? That was after the experiment started.”

“Forsythe thought of that. The only explanation is that Tyler was in that time stream for too short a time to call. But he was there long enough to get a poker chip from the Aria.” Will took the cup Ophelia handed him into the living room and sat on the love seat.

Ophelia joined him on the small piece of furniture. She took his cup from him, settled it next to hers on the coffee table, and nestled in close. She loved sitting that way, feeling his warmth against her. It was as if she could physically feel his love seeping into her through her skin.

“So the Aria slide was too short to call home, which means he spent a month in the ’87 to ’96 time stream. If the Aria slide was first, he did something very quickly that created our dual memories and made him slide to another time period in the same city without sliding home. And then he stayed an extremely long time in the second time slide where he gambled, which he’s not good at, probably pissed off some thugs, and got himself killed.” Ophelia often thought out loud when she was trying to figure out something complex.

“On the other hand, if the Aria slide was second, he had lots of time in the ’87-’96 time stream to do whatever it was he did to cause our dual memories. But then his too-short-to-call-home Aria slide also got him killed really quickly.” She considered silently for a moment. “And he wasn’t shot; he was beaten to death.” A shudder ran up her spine and she snuggled closer into Will before continuing. “That doesn’t happen because someone pulled a gun by reflex on a man that materialized in front of him. That happens after the man is dragged out of the casino into a back alley.”

“We may never know,” replied Will. “But we need to know what Tyler changed that slid him to another year in the same city and gave us dual memories.”

Ophelia groaned. “This whole mystery is giving me a headache.” She leaned forward, grabbed the remote, and turned on the TV.

#

The BTC team started trying to find Tyler in history. They were supposed to be a research organization after all.

Internet searches did not come up with his name mentioned anywhere, including professional and academic databases. That wasn’t really surprising. They were looking in Las Vegas, between 1987 and 1996. They studied the history of the city during that decade, which consisted mostly of casinos being opened and closed. No one at the BTC was very knowledgeable about Vegas; they were mostly east-coasters, most were not gamblers, and the few that were spent their time in Atlantic City. Las Vegas had not been on anyone’s radar … until they started researching.

Ophelia got home from work and was pleased to find Will there. She could get used to this!

He had picked up Chinese take out on his way home and related their discoveries as they ate, Ophelia deftly manipulating her chopsticks, Will resolutely using his fork.

“History lesson time,” said Will. “On November 12, 1989, Benjamin Croft opened the Amalfi Coast – the first new casino in 16 years – which ignited a resort building boom that revolutionized Las Vegas into the 1990s and 2000s. Sin City became a mecca for vacationers of all types, including families, as casinos with attractions like roller coasters, exploding volcanoes, and pirate battles opened on The Strip.”

Ophelia dropped her chopsticks on her plate as a headache seized her violently. She grabbed her temples and groaned. Will waited silently. The time migraines, as they had come to call them, lasted under a minute now, and painful as they were, they did not seem to be dangerous.

Once he saw his wife’s face return to normal he continued. “Sorry to do that to you sweetheart. I had the same reaction of course. Everyone at the BTC knew this about Vegas, except apparently us … and our wives. I remember Vegas as a second-rate gambling destination very few people bothered with. I thought the Aria was just another casino, but turns out it’s a luxury hotel that never would have happened in our original timeline. Never thought much about its history until I heard this version today.” He went back to his Chinese food.

“Me too. But now I also remember it as this time line does.” Ophelia broke into a happy grin. “So now we know what Tyler did! He changed the history of Las Vegas. Big accomplishment for a non-gambling physics-degreed researcher from upstate New York. But how?”

“I had the same question. We haven’t figured that out yet. But we’re working on it.”

“Fill me in. Maybe I can help.”

Will rolled lo mein on his fork, speared a sautéed shrimp, and stuffed it in his mouth. After swallowing, he recited a summary of the city’s history of that era. “Benjamin Croft is well known for his involvement in the American luxury hotel and casino industry. In 1980, Croft began construction of the Gold Rush in Atlantic City and by 1983, it was the city's top earning casino. Croft sold the Gold Rush in 1987 for $440 million. Croft's first major casino on the Las Vegas Strip was the Amalfi Coast in November 1989, built at a cost of $600 million. The hotel, with its erupting volcano and South Seas theme, ignited a $1 billion building boom on the Strip. With its construction, Croft set a new standard for Vegas resorts. Known for its entertainment, the hotel became the main venue for the Siegfried and Roy show in 1990.”

Ophelia was used to her husband sounding like a Wikipedia page. He had always been good at memorization, a skill she envied. “But I remember Siegfried and Roy performing in Atlantic City. I heard about one of them getting mauled by a tiger during their act. I don’t remember which one, but he was horribly disfigured.”

Will nodded. “Yep, I remember that on the news. But I also remember hearing that it happened in Las Vegas.”

“So whatever Tyler did, he changed that too. Somehow he changed the course of Croft’s life. But why did this change make us remember the alterations?”

“Dunno,” replied Will. “It also narrows down the time frame to where Tyler traveled, to somewhere between early 1987 when Wrigley’s first released that Juicy Fruit packaging and early 1988 when Croft formed the idea to build the Amalfi. Not that it does us any good; we can’t go get him.”

Ophelia thought for a long moment before she and Will said simultaneously, “Someone needs to go talk to Benjamin Croft.”

#

The Boston Trend Collection was highly regarded in research circles, especially as a non-profit organization under the auspices of MIT. When the BTC wanted an interview, it generally got it, and the casino mogul was no exception. Dr. Forsythe met with the man at Benjamin Croft’s newest luxury hotel on the Strip, the Positano.

Forsythe flew back the next day to Boston and briefed the group in the large conference room. “Please hold your questions until after my report. We can spend the rest of the day discussing it. We have a lot to discuss.”

“Croft is very proud of his achievements and spent an hour showing me around the Positano before we went to his penthouse office where I was finally able to start asking questions. He allowed me to record the interview and I will play the audio for you now.”

Speakers around the conference room carried the BTC Director’s voice. “So how did all this get started? I’ve read your bio, of course, and I know the facts. But facts are boring. The Boston Trend Collection predicts trends, not simple summaries of factual data on an industry or topic. We want the personal scoop. Trends follow emotions, not logic. So, what got you started? Better yet, why the shift in focus from Atlantic City to Las Vegas?”

Dr. Forsythe filled in pauses in the recording with live narration. It was too bad he had not been able to record the interview by video, but the billionaire regularly eschewed interviews. The BTC Director was lucky to have gotten even audio.

Forsythe interjected now, “Croft leaned back in his chair and stared out the floor-to-ceiling window at the skyline of the city he helped build.”

The casino magnate’s voice then filled the speakers. “If you’ve read my bio, then you know that I got divorced in January 1988, but it may not have said how devastated I was. We had been married for 23 years. The divorce wasn’t even supposed to be finalized until March, but my lawyer filed the papers a couple months early. Next thing I know, he’s delivering final papers to my office that says I’m no longer married. I wanted to get out of New Jersey and since I had some minor interest in a couple of small downtown casinos here, I came to Vegas full time.”

They could hear clinking sounds in the recording and a quiet “thank you.” It sounded like someone delivering drinks.

Croft’s voice once again filled the room. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do yet. I was sitting at a poker table at the Sands and you know how people around you strike up conversations? There was this guy, he seemed kind of lost. Down on his luck, you know the sort. He didn’t even know the rules to poker, but he watched for a while, then started playing. I ordered drinks for both of us and after we played a while, he finally won a few rounds; we went for dinner. My treat. Guy probably lost his job and figured he’d come to Sin City and make his fortune. You know, desperate people do desperate things.”

Forsythe interjected, “I kept nodding to encourage him. I didn’t want to interrupt his story.”

Croft continued. “He had no idea who I was, and that made me feel, you know, like a regular guy. But this guy had some interesting ideas. Said the Strip needed attractions. Things to bring families here. Imagine that! Families in Vegas. I couldn’t picture it at the time. But he was bright. Said a casino could get boring with nothing to do but gamble and drink, maybe see a cabaret with half-naked girls. Said they could bring in folks with Disneyesque things. Pirate battles, exploding volcanoes, roller coasters; recreate the great wonders of the world, from New York to Paris to Egypt. But not chintzy. You know, do it with style! Make it sophisticated. Damn if that kid didn’t have some whacked out ideas. And I was sitting on enough cash from selling the Gold Rush to build something pretty spectacular.”

Forsythe interjected, “At this point, I knew the “guy” had been Tyler.”

“Creative guy,” came Forsythe’s recorded voice. “How did he come up with these things?”

Croft’s voice continued, “Yeah, I wondered the same thing. Wish I could remember the guy’s name. The whole conversation was weird. He said he’d seen it, like in a dream or something. He woke up in a casino, walked outside to the Strip, and saw all these fancy, mega casinos. Drunks waking up on the Strip isn’t new, that’s for sure! Told me he walked up and down for miles seeing a fake Eiffel tower and a pyramid, pirate ship battle, and an exploding volcano. And more. So, yeah, pretty vivid imagination. He explained it away as just a dream, but we got to talking and I thought I could make some of that my dream too. I loved the volcano idea and thought a South Seas themed casino, with – you got it – a big volcano that erupted every hour or so – would bring them in to gamble. As you know, it worked better than I could have imagined. Croft Resorts is one of the most profitable casino ventures in history.”

The recording continued for another ten minutes and ended with Croft giving Forsythe his private email address in case he needed any more information.

Forsythe turned off the speakers. “So Tyler not only gave him the idea, 1988 was his second slide. The Aria slide had to be first. He saw the entire strip as it was in 2009 – in this current time line – but never called the BTC. And I still don’t know what he did to slide to 1988 in the same location. Ideas?”

The group talked for over an hour, pitching ideas and rejecting them as quickly.

Ophelia had a thought. “Maybe we are missing something.” The room looked at her in expectation. “Maybe Tyler didn’t cause this. We are assuming he did because we don’t have another explanation. But Tyler slid into a 2009 Las Vegas that matches this time line, not the one he left.” Questioning eyes stared back at her and she asked, “Was there anyone else gone when he first slid?”

“Yes,” replied Dr. Forsythe. “Alexander slid about the same time as Tyler. We don’t know Tyler’s exact slide time, but we know Alexander’s; and Alex came back 36 hours later… from January 13, 1988.” He stared at Ophelia, eyes wide and eyebrows raised. Then his shoulders slumped. “I should have put two and two together. Tyler was in or after 2009 at that time, but if Alexander’s actions in 1988 caused the changed future, Tyler would have slid into 2009 with memories pre-Alexander’s change. But then he arrived in a 2009 that did not match up with those memories. Of course he wandered around gawking! Next thing he knows, he’s in 1988 and he winds up in conversation with some random guy at a poker table and tells him all these things he’s seen in the future.”

Will interrupted. “Wait. Croft got those ideas from Tyler. It was Tyler he had that conversation with, not Alexander.”

Alexander stood up and said, “I never met Benjamin Croft or went to Las Vegas. I wasn’t even in Atlantic City. I was in Trenton, New Jersey. You have the report of my entire slide. I stayed out of public spaces as much as possible. I didn’t even interact with anyone, except the car that had to stop suddenly when I materialized in the road. But even that was unremarkable, because the driver honked at me and continued after I got out of the road. He was probably fiddling with the radio or something and didn’t see me materialize, just figured I was jay walking.”

Someone at the back of the room looked up from his laptop and said, “Uh, Dr. Forsythe, sir?” It was one of the young researchers, Brandon, one of the two legitimate researchers the BTC employed. Forsythe motioned for him to speak.

“I looked up New Jersey divorce records and it says that Benjamin Croft’s divorce paperwork was filed on January 12, 1988, by Attorney Peter Stephen Thatcher. In Trenton, New Jersey.”

Suddenly Alexander groaned. “I just remembered the license plate of the car that honked at me. LAW PST.”

The room erupted in conversation, everyone talking at once. Eventually Will stood up, motioned to silence the room and said loudly, “Dr. Forsythe, I think you need to contact Benjamin Croft and find out why his lawyer filed those papers months earlier than he expected. It’s the only way to confirm that Alexander’s appearance in Trenton that day changed the future.”

Later that day, Croft responded to Dr. Forsythe’s email with a confirmation that his lawyer had what he called “a near death experience.” He had not mentioned it in his initial interview with Forsythe because it sounded crazy, but the reason his lawyer filed his paperwork – and a number of other cases that day – was because he thought he saw an angel appear in the road in front of his limo. He decided that if it was a harbinger of death, he should make sure all his affairs were in order. That included the affairs of his clients.

Those divorce papers were the reason Croft had picked up and flown to Vegas two days later.

Croft would never have been sitting at a poker table at the Sands where he ran into Tyler if Alexander had not materialized in front of Attorney Thatcher’s car. It was very possible that Tyler slid from 2009 to 1988, in situ, at the same moment that Alexander appeared in Trenton.

Tyler didn’t change history alone. The future changed around him, and he was thrown back in time to the moment everything changed to finish creating the future he had already seen. Whether there was a universal force guiding the change or it was one colossal coincidence was up for debate.

Tyler fulfilled the action needed to create the future he had seen, as paradoxical as that was. The dual memories of the time travelers and their spouses still made no sense, unless they were somehow caught in the same paradox created by Alexander and Tyler sliding at what now seemed to be the exact same moment.

The game plan remained the same: if the opportunity arose, the time travelers would try to stop the experiment from ever happening. It was the best plan they had.

#

A month after moving to Boston, everything was unpacked and Ophelia finally felt settled in their apartment. Even Rufus was comfortable in his new abode. Things were going well at work and Will was coming home by dinner every night. Ophelia was happy.

It was a rainy night and neither of them felt like cooking or going out into the storm so Will ordered a pizza. The doorbell chimed and Will answered it. Ophelia heard him chatting with the delivery man as she poured two glasses of soda in the kitchen. She heard the apartment door close as she grabbed plates. “Honey, do you want to sit at the table or should we eat while we watch TV? I thought we could watch a movie.”

When she got no response, she took the plates into the living room and saw the pizza box on the floor, Rufus sniffing its edges for a convenient entry point.

Will was gone.

#

Interlude

Will took refuge from the snow in the coffee shop on South Main in the small town where he grew up. Jeans and a t-shirt would not do for a Massachusetts winter. The TV on the wall above the counter was tuned to CNN and the announcer was rattling off statistics about how many American soldiers had died in the war. The next President promised to bring them all home as soon as he took office. The date on the bottom right of the screen proved the year. This was December of his senior year of high school, two weeks after he got his acceptance letter to MIT. It was the most exhilarating time of his young life.

Perfect. All he had to do was find his younger self and warn him. But it was a big risk to take with his personal future – what if he decided not to go to MIT because of this warning? He had had other college offers. He wanted to change the future but he couldn’t imagine a future without Ophelia in it, so he had to go to MIT. Why couldn’t he have slid into his own past a month later, after he had accepted MIT’s offer? Or better yet, in August once he had already arrived at the famed institute? Perhaps this wasn’t the perfect slide after all.

It was also extremely risky from a physics stand point. So far, no one had met themselves in the past. Every fan of science fiction knew that meeting yourself during time travel would create a paradox that unraveled the fabric of time itself. Exploded the universe. Created the next Big Bang.

Will took a seat at a booth and blew warm breath onto his cold hands. It was Tuesday, one of the days he got out of school early because he didn’t have an 8th period class. He had gone to the coffee shop on Tuesdays and Thursdays all of senior year.

The aroma of fresh ground coffee made him look up from his chilly fingers and there he was. His younger self entered the warm shop, stomped snow off his boots, and made his way to the counter, backpack dangling from one shoulder. Will looked at the boy; twelve years younger, but still him.

Suddenly Will’s hands began to shake and he could feel his heart thudding like a nervous schoolboy off to his first date. Only this was no girl who would deny him the loss of his virginity. This was the very fabric of space and time he was endangering.

But so far the universe remained stable. Young Will ordered his coffee and stood aside to wait until his name was called, then as he took his paper cup and walked toward the booths, Will stood up and blocked his path. His heart slowed, he looked the boy in the face and said, “Please, join me.”

Young Will, who clearly was about to berate the older man for getting in his way, instead stared at him and asked, “Do I know you? You look very familiar.”

Will pointed to the empty seat in his booth and said, “You will, someday. Please. Sit. I need to speak with you. Promise, I’m not a creepy old man who is going to kidnap or molest you. Please Will, sit down.” Will – the older Will – took a risk and sat first. The boy could have fled easily at that moment, and without snow boots or a jacket, Will would probably never have caught him.

His younger self slid into the booth across from him, took a small sip of his coffee then set it down on the table and wrapped his hands around the lidded cup. “You look like we could be related, but you also just heard the barista call out my name, so knowing my name doesn’t prove anything. Explain.” Blunt, to the point. Yep, if there was any doubt in Will’s mind who this kid was, those words dispelled it.

“Will, I am related to you. I’ll explain how, but first hear me out. I know you just got accepted to MIT. Congratulations on that, by the way. And you have other colleges that also want you…”

“If you’re a recruiter about to offer me a scholarship, please, don’t keep me in suspense,” his younger self cut in.

“Sorry, wish I could. But money isn’t something I have. Geez, I don’t even have a coat at the moment.” The younger Will laughed and he continued. “Accept MIT’s offer. Trust me; it will be the best decision of your life. It’s a remarkable institution and you will meet friends there that will become lifelong companions. And a girl, a very special girl. Keep your eyes out for her.”

The boy raised an eyebrow. “You went there?”

Will nodded. “Physics undergrad, then a Master’s in Quantum Mechanics. But that’s not important. Right now it’s your future that concerns me. Go to MIT. Enjoy it, study hard, work hard, because it’s not cheap and you won’t get as many scholarships as you hope for. Sorry about that. Wasn’t easy for me either. I’m still paying off my loans, but it was worth it. But one thing I have to caution you about. Do not, under any condition, participate in any experiments that require human subjects. Ever. They pay well, but trust me; it will not be worth it. You’ll regret it and your life will be turmoil afterward. Do you understand me? Do not be a test subject, for anything.” Will used “the look” on the boy that his mother had always given him when she expected him to follow her instructions without question.

His younger self obviously recognized the look and nodded. “I’m leaning toward MIT anyway. You don’t need to recruit me. I’m already sold, and I know I’ll need loans. Lots of them. Maybe I’ll get some scholarships. And if you don’t want me to turn myself into a lab rat, I have no problem with that. Not sure why I would do it anyway.”

Will looked at him very sternly. “Easy money. You’ll be strapped for cash constantly and it looks harmless so a lot of kids do it. But your future depends on you not participating, no matter how harmless it looks. Please, trust me. I’ve been there. I know.”

Young Will nodded agreement and then said, “Wait a minute. Did you say quantum mechanics? As in, the theory that matter is made up of particles that can be manipulated at the atomic level? Is that even possible?”

“That’s why they call it a theory. Maybe you can work on it when you get to MIT. It’s a good field of work, but as I said, I’m not a recruiter. I’m just here to ask you, emphatically, to be careful with your future. And tell your friends too. Simple rule: Just say no to being a lab rat.” Will smiled at his younger self across the table and received an identical smile in response.

The boy suddenly stared at him and then looked down at his hands. He pulled them away from his cup and laid them flat on the table. His right hand had a visible scar across the bridge of his knuckles, the remnant of an unfortunate accident involving a pane of glass when he was twelve. Will’s hand had the same scar, although a little bit more faded. The boy’s mouth opened to speak, then closed, his eyes scanning the face across the table from him, looking carefully at every feature on Will’s face. Finally his mouth opened again and words emerged. “Quantum mechanics can manipulate particles that control the flow of time too, right? Time travel?”

Will nodded. “Not reliably. That’s the issue. Keep that promise, okay? Seriously, your future depends on it.” The boy nodded and Will slid out of the booth, smiled at his younger self, and walked outside, braced for the blast of cold air against his shirt-sleeved body but instead was greeted with warm sunshine and the sounds of children playing in the park.

#

Ophelia called Will from the swing where she was pushing three-year-old Christopher in the late afternoon sun after picking him up from pre-school. The toddler had been prattling on about a kitten that wandered onto the playground at school but he was tiny, not fat like Rufus. “Will, over here!” She saw him look at her and smile broadly, as he walked toward her and their son.

He planted a warm kiss on her cheek. “Hi sweetheart. What a glorious day!” It was one of those unseasonably warm late fall days, the sun’s golden light slanting sideways through colorful leaves that gently drifted to the ground to lay like a multicolored carpet.

Christopher giggled as she pushed the swing, and then waved his little hand in the air as he saw Will walking toward them. “Hi Daddy! Mommy pushes high!”

“Let’s see if I can get you up even higher,” replied Will, taking over swing duty.

“I’m so glad you could come down to the park after work today honey. If your day was as long as mine, I bet it feels good to be out in the sun for a bit.”

“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” he replied. “Boston doesn’t get a lot of Indian summer days like this. Have to take advantage of it because soon we’ll be looking for a snowsuit for this little guy.”

“Don’t remind me. He’s outgrown everything from last winter. He’ll need a whole new wardrobe.” She was interrupted by her cell buzzing in her pocket. Pulling it out she said, “I’d better get this. It’s Collette.”

She walked toward an empty park bench, far enough away from the city noises where she would be able to hear Collette. She stabbed a finger in her other ear and answered.

Collette’s voice was sad. “Hey Ophelia. Life sucks. Cheer me up?”

“What’s the matter?” asked Ophelia. Collette was her best friend, since freshman year at MIT and she could hear the distress in her voice.

“I just got a call from Zola Marcus. Do you remember her from school?” Ophelia confessed that she did but had not heard from her since she moved a few years ago. Collette continued. “I guess I was better friends with her than you were. After she started dating Tyler, she kind of pulled away from the rest of our group. Started hanging out with a different crowd, mostly Tyler’s friends. That’s why this is so sad. Tyler was found dead behind their apartment building in L.A. He was beaten to death. The police have no clues, nothing to go on. He went out for a run early three days ago and now he’s dead. The police just called Zola an hour ago.”

“Oh my god! Who would do that? Why?” Ophelia might not have been friends with Zola, but she was sad for the woman, and for Collette who was deeply affected by the tragedy.

“Zola doesn’t know. It wasn’t even robbery. He had nothing on him, no wallet, not even identification. That’s why it took so long to identify his body. They don’t think it was a random act of violence; more possibly organized crime. Perhaps he uncovered something during his research that someone didn’t want known,” said Collette.

“I never trusted that weird company he worked for! Always seemed shady to me,” said Ophelia.

“Me too. I’m glad our guys didn’t get involved in it. Anyway, Zola says there’s nothing for her in Los Angeles now and she’s flying home tomorrow. Going to stay with her parents for a while until she figures out what to do.”

Ophelia sighed. “Oh, that poor woman. Let me know when you are going and I’ll go with you. She needs all the friends she can get right now.”

“Thanks. We’ll go after work, day after tomorrow. Arthur said he would pick up Jessie from day care so I can go right over to console Zola. Do you know how glad I am to have you as my best friend? You are the best!” She blew a kiss through the phone and disconnected.

Ophelia walked back to the swings and smiled at Will and Christopher. She loved them beyond words and would be devastated if anything happened to either of them. She told Will about the call while he swung their beautiful little boy to and fro. He let the swing go on its own and gave her a strong hug that warmed her soul and made her heart sing. At that moment, she was the happiest woman in the world.