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“He’ll fix mine.” I don’t mean to be rude, but really, this is between Art and me. And Father Time, apparently.
“I highly doubt that,” Meggie says.
“Meggie, who is it?”
“Some guy who wants you to fix his watch—”
“Be Stalwart. Tell him that.”
She rolls her eyes and leaves, shutting the door.
Huh. Like father like daughter, because I’m standing on the stoop without a clue what to do.
I’m about to knock again when the door reopens. “He remembers you. You can talk to him, but not for long. He’s tired.”
He didn’t sound tired when he was shouting at her from across the house, but I bite my tongue and head inside.
Twenty years and a couple days ago, the house was beautiful. Dark crown moldings and arched doorways, gleaming narrow planked pine wood flooring that hosted leather overstuffed chairs and a piano in the corner.
Not anymore.
The piano is still there, but the furniture is mostly gone, and sitting in the middle of the room, staring at a box television, is a man I barely recognize.
He’s in a wheelchair and the ramp suddenly makes sense.
Art is just as frail as before, but his back is bowed and his hands sit on the arms of the chair like an afterthought. A belt circles his chest, holding him in place. He’s wearing a pair of sweatpants and a shirt that sags over his bony frame.
The redolence of pipe smoke is gone, but I do pick up the faint odor of ammonia and antiseptic. A bag hangs beside his chair.
What happened?
He looks at me, and something sparks in those eyes. They widen and his mouth opens. “Stalwart?”
“Yeah.” I walk over beside his chair. “It’s me. How are you?” Except, what a terrible thing to ask. I offer a thin smile.
“Did you change anything?”
So he does remember. Our last conversation, the one in the past included me blurting out a diatribe of confusion about my time travel, the fear I might be stuck in the past forever, and too many unanswered questions about how the watch works.
He had no answers. Just the cryptic, The watch is working.
Which is why I nod. “Yes.” I have to tighten my jaw against a rush of emotions. I stare at him, and he meets my eyes, and nods slowly.
I can’t think, don’t have words. I just go to one knee and lower my head.
Deep inside, I fear that somehow, I’ve done this terrible thing to him. Somehow my choices have created a dissection of time, splintering off to this hell we both find ourselves trapped inside.
I finally take a shuddered breath and lift my head.
Only then do I notice his daughter, seated on the remaining leather chair across the room. A tear falls off her chin. She wipes it fast and gets up, heads into the kitchen.
I turn to Art. “I don’t know what to do.”
He’s listening, and apparently doesn’t think I’m certifiable, so, “I used the watch, and it…it sent me back to 1997.”
He doesn’t blink, unfazed.
“I thought it was a dream at first—it felt like a dream. But I could smell and taste things, so it couldn’t be a dream, right? But still, I thought it might be—even until the end. I came back and I was in exactly the same place I was when I left—like I’d never been gone at all. And I still would have thought it was a dream if…” And my throat starts to clog, but I press through, “If my entire world hadn’t changed.”
