I pointed upstairs. “In my bedroom. Follow me,” I said, pushing awayfrom the table and heading upstairs. The three of us marched single file up the stairs, me leading the way. I paused at my bedroom door until we were all in the hall. “Like so much other shi . . . stuff,” I quickly corrected. “What I’m about to show you is strange.”
I opened the door and gestured for them to step inside. I made my way to my desk and pulled a drawer out, retrieving a file folder I’d buried under a bunch of crap I’d collected as a teenager when I first lived here. I opened the accordion style folder and reached inside, pulling out a necklace with a ring dangling from it.
“Recognize this?” I asked.
Mom gasped. “Where did you find that, Michael, and why is there a chain on my Mother’s ring?”
I smiled at Mom, preparing for something of which I wasn’t quite sure of. I figured we’d start here before I dropped the big bomb and blew their minds. Since securing the contents of the folder, I’d run through this situation a million times in my head. How would Mom react? Would she be afraid, sad, or even think I was a demon or some shit?
“Youalwaysmisplaced this ring,” I began. “Whether at the kitchen sink, your bathroom, or the garden. You’d take it off and think you’d lost it. Three years ago I was visiting from Seattle and you dropped the ring down the drain,” I continued, watching Mom’s eyes filling. “I removed it from the drain and then bought you this necklace at Kelso’s jewelry for your birthday.”
“And you did this in the future?” she asked. “I haven’t even told you I lost it again,” she added.
“I know, Mom, but you will tell me. We’ll find it when we dig Christmas stuff out of the closet this year. You just don’t know that yet,” I said. “You lose the ring several more times. But then you started wearing it around your neck, kissing it whenever one of us reminisced about Coop in some crazy story.”
Her eyes widened.
Druzella understood immediately and reached for her hand.
“No,” Mom whispered. “No, please, Michael,” she pleaded, realizing whatI meant.
I reached for her hand to calm her down. “You told me about this shortly before August 30thof 2023. You explained to me that I had to have the ring in my hand or around my neck before I followed your other instructions to get here.”
A tear trailed down Mom’s face when the reason I was there became clear. “Cooper died?”
“Tomorrow, Mom,” I whispered.
“You have to do something, Michael,” she urged, panicking and turning to Druzella. “We . . . we . . . have to help him.”
“That is precisely what Mike is trying to accomplish,” Druzella said.
“Can you sit down in my chair?” I asked. “I need to show you the final proof, Mom.”
“Is it bad? Do you know our future, Michael?” she gasped.
Druzella interrupted. “Him being here alters the future now, Kathleen. We cannot be sure how it will change from here on out.”
Mom appeared frantic. Staring at me and then at Druzella while scratching at her arms in despair. “I don’t want to know things,” she insisted, her voice rising. “Icannotknow anything about myself, Michael. Promise me you won’t . . . please, son?” she cried, grabbing my arm.
“I won’t,” I promised. “The thing is, Mom, you sent me here because you wanted me to find happiness with Cooper again. My life was going, well . . . I was unhappy. You somehow had this connection to Coop. Apparently, you spoke to him. Druzella and you discovered or invented something, hell, I don’t know how you pulled it off, but I woke up here on June 13thof 2013. More than ten years earlier than where we were. Even Druzella was there but I didn’t meet her until I came here.”
“You can’t live without Cooper, honey,” she declared, still stuck on the horrifying news. “How’d you survive his death?”
“I’m not sure I did, Mom. You obviously don’t know but I was married and was about to . . .”
She held up her hand, shaking her head forcefully. “Nope. Zip it.”
She didn’t even want minor details of our lives in the future. “You must’veknown I was dying inside without Coop,” I stated. “You knew I needed another chance.”
Mom turned to Druzella. “That explains the insanity of whatever we did, Druzella. Michael could never exist without Cooper. They were matched from birth,” she explained.
Druzella’s eyes expanded. “Of course,” she whispered, placing a hand to her cheek. “I get it now. I knew that but how did I miss the chart match? Michael and Cooper share the same chart,” she added, seeming to still be analyzing the situation. “But the August 30thconnection? Mike mentioned that date to me. So very specific for you, Kathleen. I don’t get that angle.”
I caught Druzella’s attention from behind Mom and slowly shook my head.Don’t do it lady. Do not go there.
Thankfully she caught herself. “Probably not as important as the dual birthdates,” she added, adjusting her inquiry.
Mom became excited when she’d understood Druzella’s idea. “And the ring with the three identical stones,” she began. “Of course. Me, Michael and Cooper. Three birth months and three ruby stones in a golden circle. We completed the circle of life,” she said.
