Fire, The (45 page)

Kevin didn't fight the feeling or lack thereof. Indeed, he embraced it. For a moment, he set aside his crippling pain and drifted to a place where people didn't feel or love or die. He tuned out a world that seemed hell-bent on driving him under and withdrew into himself. The moment was like an oasis in a desert of despair but, like most such things, it didn't last.

Minutes after one hospital event sent him into the numbing daze, another brought him out of it. Kevin turned his head sharply when he heard a piercing sound in an adjacent room: the primal scream of a newborn baby. Strong, violent, and relentless, it was at once beautiful, jarring, and insulting. How dare new life intrude so quickly on death!

When he mustered the strength to get to his feet, Kevin returned to the bed and tied up loose ends. He grabbed Sarah's hands, brought them together, and straightened her sheets and pillow. He knew the actions were unnecessary, entirely unnecessary, but he did them anyway. They seemed strangely appropriate, a fitting tribute to a woman who cared about order.

Kevin gazed at Sarah and noticed that she was as beautiful in death as she had been in life. When he studied the contours of her soft, colorless face, he saw a woman at peace. He hadn't the slightest doubt that she had moved on to a better place.

A moment later he kissed her gently on the lips and stepped away from the bed. He moved toward the door but stopped and abruptly changed direction when he heard an irregular tapping sound. He walked toward the room's sole window. When he reached the glass, he saw something he hadn't seen since the end of March. He saw rain – sweet, bitter rain.

It appeared that Walking Walt had been right about that too. He had told Kevin at the end of his tour that a cold front, bringing days of drenching precipitation, had moved over the area mere hours after the fire had done its damage. The guide had not understated the irony.

Kevin looked out the window, which offered an unobstructed view of the south end of town. Even from six blocks away, he could see what the fire had done and what it had not done. He could see burned buildings and trees next to those that hadn't been touched.

Kevin lowered his eyes. He understood now that life really was nothing more than a game of chance – a game with winners, losers, and survivors who continued to play on borrowed time.

He stared at the landscape one more time and then returned to Sarah as he pondered the hours and days ahead. Like the critically damaged city of Wallace, Idaho, he would get back on his feet and start anew, but he would do it older and sadder and without the love of his life. He would return to the future and return to it soon, but he would return to that future alone.

CHAPTER 76: KEVIN

Monday, August 22, 1910

The largest conflagration in U.S. history had destroyed many things in and around Wallace, Idaho, but it hadn't destroyed the cemetery. Even fires that leveled forests could do only so much to low-cut lawns, marble markers, and cement headstones. The graveyard a half-mile north of town had sustained only minor damage in the form of a singed perimeter.

Kevin thought about the fire as he walked from the cemetery to the city and Asa Johnson's house. Only three people had perished in Wallace proper: a man who had died trying to save his bird, another who had succumbed in a hotel, and a young woman who'd had no business entering a burning house on Garnet Street – a woman who had not died the first time 1910 had played out.

Kevin knew he'd have to deal with the guilt sooner or later. Guilt consumed and destroyed as surely as fire and lasted longer. Though it could often be applied in constructive ways, it was a generally worthless human condition. It deprived those who felt it of the means to move in more constructive directions. It deprived them of the will to live.

He had little doubt he could have prevented Sarah's death. He could have stopped or delayed her trip to 1910 at many points and hastened her return to 2013 at several others. He could have done a dozen things to keep her from harm's way, but he hadn't done any of them. As a result, a vibrant woman had died and a lonely man was forced to trudge on.

Kevin had not allowed grief or guilt to keep him from his obligations and responsibilities. Within hours of Sarah's death, he had consulted several people, including a minister, a funeral director, and a high school principal to make sure she would have the send-off she deserved.

He had insisted only that the funeral service and graveside ceremony take place the next day. Kevin had done that for himself. He hadn't wanted to spend even one additional minute in a time and place he desperately wanted to leave.

Nearly sixty friends, colleagues, and students had attended both observances. Some had discreetly inquired about Kevin's leading role in the events. Though many knew he had dated Sarah for months, few knew about the fictional elopement or the very real engagement.

Kevin had fired a preemptive strike against future gossip and speculation by making a not-so-difficult decision at the funeral home. He had instructed the director to engrave SARAH THOMPSON JOHNSON and LOVING WIFE on the headstone. If anyone in Wallace wanted to question the validity of the marriage, they could take it up with God.

The time traveler had also taken care of another matter. After getting an address from Principal Ed Morrison, he had written a long letter to Mr. and Mrs. Noah Thompson of Clinton, Indiana, and placed it in Monday's mail along with most, but not all, of Sarah's possessions. He had told the couple how he had met their daughter and come to love her and informed them of the impact that she'd had not only on her students and peers but also much of the community.

Kevin had kept the copy of
Little Women
, not because of its value to book collectors in 2013 but rather because of its value to him. Sarah had told him that she had wanted to keep it in the Johnson family as an heirloom, one that could be passed down to the eldest daughter. He had decided at the hospital when he had collected her belongings that he could do at least that.

He reached Garnet Street at five after five and saw pretty much what he had expected to see. Everything on the east end of the street, including the Marshall and Denton homes, was gone. Most everything else lay in ruins. Only Asa Johnson's house had escaped serious damage.

Kevin imagined how different this moment might be had Sarah lived in a house even one street down. He imagined holding her hand and leading her to the Johnson estate, the shed, and a wonderful new life but quickly moved onto other things. He had nothing to gain by dwelling on what-ifs and missed opportunities. He had to deal with the world as it was and not as he wanted it to be.

Kevin was reasonably certain that the gods who guarded the chamber would grant him passage. He knew enough about the portal to know that the shadow of the fullest moon extended at least forty-eight hours in each direction. If he acted before midnight, he would be fine.

He stepped onto Asa's property five minutes later and took a long look at a house he would see again on the flip side. Somehow it seemed different. It was darker, for one thing, and decidedly emptier. The home for four Johnsons was now a home for three Johnsons and would one day be a home for no Johnsons at all. Such was the way with time. Things changed.

Kevin walked around the side of the house and approached the chamber of stones wearing a dark suit he had purchased that morning for the funeral. He had left the Stan Laurel suit and the Stan Laurel hat in a closet at the church. Paying a replacement fee at the Coeur d'Alene costume shop was the least of his concerns.

When Kevin finally got to the rock shed, he reached into the pockets of his jacket and pulled out two handfuls of double eagles. He wondered how many of the coins had been placed on the ground in his seven previous trips. Some? Most? All? In the end, he decided that it didn't matter. Coins were coins. Even if some had the power to send him through time, none had the power to bring back the dead. That's what mattered now. That's what would always matter.

He spelled MMXIII with two-dozen pieces and then stepped away from the shed. After a minute of obligatory reverence to the powers that be, he dropped to a knee to collect the gold but didn't pick up even one piece before he heard footsteps on the crunchy lawn.

Kevin stood up, turned around, and saw his once-and-future great-great-grandmother. Wearing a simple black dress, she was the last person he had expected to see just weeks after her husband's death and hours after a fire had all but destroyed her street.

"You came back," he said.

Celia nodded but didn't say a word. She instead stared blankly and sadly at a man who had no reason to be standing on her property, a man who had just placed nearly five hundred dollars in gold in front of an empty shed.

"I'm sorry about Asa," Kevin said. "I'm sorry about a lot of things."

He waited for a reply but waited in vain. She had no more ability to act or speak than he'd had at the hospital in the wake of Sarah's death. Celia Johnson was a tragic figure, frozen in time, staring at a man she had known as a friend but who now probably appeared as strange and mysterious as the circumstances that had brought him to her home.

Kevin didn't know what he could do, but he did know what he could
not
do. He could not take the gold that had once belonged to Asa and now belonged to Celia. He collected the coins from the ground, brushed them clean, and carried them to the woman on the lawn.

"Take these," he said. "Take them and use them."

Kevin held onto her hands and gazed at Celia until she finally lifted her head and met his eyes. He saw shock, fear, and confusion in her soft eyes but strangely no tears. He suspected that she had already shed her tears and had long since moved on to the business of living.

He didn't even consider explaining what he was doing or why he was here. He could see in her eyes that she already knew. When he looked at Celia, he saw a woman who probably had learned a great many things in the past few weeks and had little interest in learning more.

Convinced that she would not speak and probably could not speak, he gave her a gentle hug and then stepped back to give her some space. When he looked at her face a final time, he saw the outlines of a sad smile. He saw that he had finally gotten through.

"I must go now," he said as he turned to the shed. "I must go to the place I belong. Take care, Celia. Take care of your boys. I'm counting on it."

Kevin walked to the shed, opened the door, and stepped inside. When he opened the door five minutes later, he saw a greener lawn, a grayer house, and a world he had always known. He walked into the residence, placed
Little Women
on a table, and ascended the stairs.

When he got to his room, he changed out of his suit and crawled into a bed that was as rumpled as the one he had left. He would make the bed, of course, just as he would shower and vacuum and get ready for a family returning with gifts, stories, smiles, and questions. He would do these and other things and whatever it took to move on to wherever he was going, but he wouldn't do a thing until he indulged his memories one last time.

He turned to his left, picked up a pillow, and brought it to his nose. He could still smell her. He could smell her hair, her perfume, her passion, and even her breath. He could smell and even feel every ounce of a woman who had never left the room.

What he couldn't do was
see
her. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't picture her face, much less the sweet smile he had come to love. When he stared at the pillow, he saw a pillow – not a girlfriend or a fiancée or a colleague or even a farm girl from Indiana, but a pillow.

When he realized that she was gone, really gone, he put the pillow back, stared into space, and did what he should have done at the church, the cemetery, and every place he had been for the past two days. He did the only thing left to a man who had nothing but dreams of a life that would never be. He cried.

CHAPTER 77: KEVIN

Unionville, Oregon – Friday, August 23, 2013

Kevin stared at the screen on his digital camera as he flipped back and forth between two photographs. The woman in the first photo wore a tea dress and pompadour hair. The one in the second wore a tank top and free-flowing hair. Each had a dazzling smile. Kevin thought of both women as he sat in the nondescript waiting room of Dr. Nelson Abernathy, clinical psychologist, grief counselor, and licensed time waster.

He didn't hate the good doctor. He just didn't like him. It was easy to dislike someone who thought most of the world's problems were caused by unsatisfactory relationships with the world's mothers. Kevin may have had more problems than a celebrity in rehab but an unsatisfactory relationship with his mother was not one of them.

When he walked into the therapist's office five minutes later, he sat on a sofa he had warmed at least once a week for the past eight weeks. Abernathy was waiting with a notepad in hand.

"Make yourself comfortable," he said. "How are you?"

"I'm the same as always."

The counselor scribbled a few lines on his pad and turned to Kevin.

"Your mother tells me you'll be leaving for graduate school next month."

"That's the plan."

"Are you looking forward to it?"

"I am. I think it's just what I need."

"How do you feel about New Mexico?"

"It's perfect. It's a thousand miles away."

Abernathy cocked his head.

"You know you can't solve your problems by moving to another state."

"I know. It's a nice idea though. Don't you think? It might even make a great travel slogan. Come to Albuquerque and leave your grief behind."

"Kevin, if you want to get better, you have to take this seriously. You have to work through your pain, not avoid it. You have to accept that Sarah is gone and begin to move on."

"I know, Dr. Abernathy, but I kind of like the denial phase. It's been a pretty decent sedative the past few weeks. When I'm ready for anger, though, I'll let you know."