Page 166

Sunday, October 20, 2041 (Zach is 40, Alba is 42 and 40, Oliver is 40)

Zach: I dream that Alba has come home. I feel profoundly relieved: I have rewound time, returned to ignorant bliss, we are happy together again. We aren’t young, we are as we are, but somehow it is before (in the dream I know something terrible has happened) and there is calm between us. In the dream I know she is beside me, but I can’t see her face. I turn to speak to her and wake up—I’m alone in bed, Alba isn’t here.

Disappointment floods me. I get out of bed, grope for my glasses, walk heavily down the hall to the bathroom. As I stand there pissing, blinking in the bleak winter predawn bathroom light, I have a sense that there is someone else in the house. The feeling is so powerful that I reassemble myself into my boxers and retreat to the bedroom; I pull on sweatpants and cast around for a weapon. The only heavy thing I see is my old dictionary, so I grab it. I pad down the hall and see: no one in the living room, no one in the dining room, then—someone—in the dark kitchen. Someone stands at the kitchen sink with their back to me, silhouetted against the dour gray-lit window. I force myself to wait, observe—the someone turns to me and says, “Hello, Zach,” in a cautious voice.

“Alba, jeezus.” I place the dictionary on the coffee table with a soft thud. “You startled me.” I turn on a lamp, and the room becomes familiar.

She glances at the dictionary, then gives me the once-over. “I guess so. I was about to wake you. I’ve been here for half an hour.”

“What time is it?”

“Sixish. We’ve got to get going. Dress warmly, it’s only in the twenties out there. I made some coffee.” There’s a thermos on the kitchen table next to a pile of stuff.

“What’s going on?” I ask her. I look at Alba more carefully and see that her hair is grayer and six inches longer than it was a few weeks ago. “When are you coming from?” I try to hide my consternation. She’s wearing her own clothes, black jeans and a heavy sweater with boots; she must have come into our bedroom, retrieved her clothes and dressed so quietly that I only sensed her presence subliminally. “I was dreaming about you.”

“Were you? I hope it wasn’t a nightmare.”

“No, no it wasn’t. It was a very peaceful dream. I was sorry to wake up.”

“I know what you mean,” she says. “I remember this time; I just tried to sleep my way through it. It was only two years ago, for me.” Alba speaks kindly, but she seems distracted. “You should get dressed now.”

“Okay,” I say. Alba follows me into the bedroom. “Why are you here?” I try not to sound irritated.

“Oliver needs us.”

“He needs you. I’m just in the way.” I put on the first clothes that come to hand.

Alba paces around the bedroom. She turns to me, her face anxious. “There is an ‘us.’ All three of us. I know I’ve lied to you. I’m sorry for everything. But can we have a truce, just for this morning?”

“What’s special about this morning?”

“We have to save Oliver.”

“For fuck’s sake, Alba. Just tell me.”

“He slit his wrists—”

“What!”

“—he’ll be at the Yellow House.” She has her coat on. I grab mine. I trail after her as she collects the thermos, towels, blankets and our first aid kit. We head out the front door, we’re in the car, Alba is talking nonstop without answering any of my questions. “. . . Remember to apply a lot of pressure to the wounds, but you can’t use a tourniquet because it’ll cut off blood supply to his hands. So use some of the towels to staunch the bleeding, don’t remove them, because that’ll reopen the wounds, just add more towels. Once the bleeding stops, bind the towels in place with the bandages, but not too tight. By then the paramedics should have arrived . . .” She’s demonstrating with her hands as she speaks, as though she’s a flight attendant preparing for takeoff. I try to listen, but I’m thinking too many thoughts at once.

I take Ashland Avenue. The streets have been cleared overnight, but it’s snowing again, and I can’t drive as fast as I want to. It never used to snow like this in October. The world looks clean and snow-rounded, the trees are bent with ice. Even the piles of garbage and debris are hidden. The sun is coming up, Chicago is tinged blue-peach-pink. I have a horrible thought. “Stitches—how will they keep him from vanishing while everything heals?”

“Medically induced coma. David Kendrick will come and take over. You won’t be alone with Oliver for long.”

“Alone? What about you?”

“Would you count on me to stick around long enough to save your life? No? I wouldn’t, either.” Her voice is gruff and I realize that she’s about to cry. I want to reach over to her, but I’m afraid if I do that will mean I forgive her and I don’t want to forgive her, or at least I do not want to do it in this weird, sort-of-coercive situation. I am about to tell her that of course she is saving Oliver’s life, that I would otherwise still be in bed right now, but she says, “Turn here,” and the street we turn onto, Berteau, hasn’t been plowed at all and we nearly get stuck but then we don’t and then we get to the end of the block and really do get stuck, so we abandon the car in the middle of the street and run to the Yellow House.

We run around the side to the back of the house and Alba holds out her hand, wait, so we stand there panting, our frozen breaths mingling, waiting. The backyard has a high wooden fence along three sides and snow has buried the garden so that it appears to be an unmarked, shallow box of whiteness. I open the thermos and inhale the complicated fragrance of coffee spiked with whiskey. We take turns swigging it.

“Where’s your present self? In the house?”

“1978.”

“With Oliver?”

Alba hesitates, then says, “Yes.”