Page 36 of Life Out of Order

“July 2024. Not so long from now. See, I’m just fine.” Alba revolves for my inspection, a not-quite-dance to demonstrate her just-fine-ness.

So many things are troubling me that I can hardly figure out how to articulate any of it without wailing. “Your mom chewed me out because she said I have no way to evaluate anything you tell me about the future and therefore I shouldn’t be aiding and abetting your ‘recklessness.’”

“Sorry. My mom can be intense.”

“It’s not that, I just—I thought you were seriously hurt, and you’re being flippant.”

Alba comes over and sits on the arm of my chair. I put the half-empty box of french fries on the table and pull her into my lap. She wraps one arm around my shoulders and leans against me. Her touch makes me feel a little bit better; Alba knows that whenever I’m worried, contact helps. In my ear, she says, “Sometimes you can protect me, and sometimes you can’t. I’m like everybody else, that way. He was looking for a girl to run down. Instead of killing another person, he’s in jail. I decided to take the risk, I’m the one who got injured, and I’m not even all that badly hurt. So . . . ?”

“Don’t put me in situations where I’m helping to hurt you. Even if it’s for some noble cause. And what about Rosa?”

Alba opens her mouth to reply, but the door opens and a young orderly comes in and makes for the tray of half-eaten hospital food. He’s about to take our dinner as well and I say, “Just leave the McDonald’s, we’re still working on it,” and he jumps back, and then puts his hand over his heart and says, “Hoo boy. I didn’t know you were here. Visiting hours are over.”

Alba stands, smooths her clothing. “We didn’t mean to startle you,” she says. “Look, we have after-hours passes.” She fishes two pixilated pieces of paper out of her pocket and flashes them toward the orderly.

“Oh, cool. Are you signed in?” He barely glances at the passes.

“Yeah, we came in through the ER.”

“Okay, have a good evening.”

“You, too.”

After he leaves I ask Alba about the passes. “I’ve been in this hospital a zillion times,” she says. “Not always to visit myself, but I never throw out these things, they come in handy. I time traveled to my own room at home, wondered where Mama and Beck were, noticed a note Mama had written on the pad by the phone, and then I checked the date and I knew to come here. I’ve got passes for five different hospitals.”

“I’m impressed. But what if someone checks to see if we’re signed in?”

“They never do, as long as we behave ourselves.”

I have no inclination to misbehave; in fact I want to finish eating and just go to sleep. I’m about to say as much to Alba when there’s a garble of speech from the bed, slow and full of vowels; I have no idea what she’s saying, but Alba seems to understand. She picks up the sweating milkshake and gently transfers it to present Alba’s waiting hands. Other Alba sits on the bed and begins to tell her injured self what to expect, recovery-wise.

I always love to see Alba doubled—it reminds me that I’m not crazy, that time travel is for real. Injured Alba says Rosa’s name, and future Alba says, “She’s totally fine, everyone is okay.” Future Alba scrolls through her other self’s phone and shows us a text from Rosa, a selfie of her face: two black eyes and a huge smile, and another photo of the dark bruise on her sternum that looks like a purple-green storm cloud. I eat the rest of the fries and a lukewarm fish sandwich and feel an unexpected sense of well-being.

After a day of adrenaline and anxiety, it’s a pleasure to be quiet and watch one Alba soothing the other. When the milkshake has been consumed, future Alba places the empty cup in the trash and present Alba rearranges herself cautiously on the bed. Her long, bare arms are covered in goose bumps. She was naked when they put her in the ambulance, and all this time she’s been swathed in green hospital gowns. Future Alba produces a set of blue flannel men’s pajamas that I’ve never seen before and I wonder whose they are and then realize they must have belonged to Alba’s dad. I experience a little thrill at the intimacy of watching future Alba helping her self sit up, peel off the hospital gowns, put on the pajamas. It’s like watching a YouTube video of a sloth, only with more swearing. Once Alba has visited the bathroom and is safely back in bed, we tuck her in and lower all the lights until there’s just a minimal amber glow over the bed and the never-ceasing brightness of the monitors. In a few minutes Alba has gone back to sleep.

Her future self and I sit curled together in the armchair in the twilit room, silently watching over Alba’s sleep. Sometimes I feel as though I’m waiting for my life to begin. Sometimes I feel invisible, a disembodied mind observing other people’s vital, real lives. Alba is more alive, more vivid, more important to me than my own self. Watching my Alba sleep while her future self’s friendly weight presses against my body, I feel painfully protective.

“Let’s get married.” I’ve been thinking about this for weeks, turning it over in my mind, trying to warm it to my touch. I feel inadequate, not ready for marriage, but I also have a pretty strong notion that in the future, Alba and I are married. Now I ask Alba to marry me and realize as I ask that I’ve decided—but immediately regret it: not the proposal, but the manner of it.

Alba doesn’t hide her surprise. “I thought you were down on marriage? You’ve been very negative about it lately.”

“Have I? Why?”

“Oh, your parents’ divorce was finalized last week,” Alba says.

“Hallelujah. Why would I be upset about that?”

Alba shrugs and doesn’t answer.

I say, “I hope I’m not so churlish that I can’t separate my parents’ idiocy from the whole idea of marriage.” I open my hand, Alba places hers over mine, barely touching; I clasp my hand around hers. “I think the reason my parents upset me so much is that I remember when they were good together. I remember when we were all happy: Nobody yelled, nobody drank too much, there weren’t any unexplained ‘friends,’ and we all ate dinner as a family most nights. So my ideal marriage is made of security and lightness; you feel loved, and you know where your home is.”

Alba says, “I don’t know if I’m a good person to make a home with—most of the time I find it hard to be where I’m supposed to be. What if I’m like one of those cats that keeps trying to get back to their previous home, you know, they walk hundreds of miles and six years later someone finds their people and says, here’s your cat?”

“Is that a yes or a no?” I ask her.

Alba laughs. Then she’s quiet for a few minutes and I think, She’s going to turn me down.

Then she says, “Let’s have a secret together.”