Infinity's Daughter (11 page)

I couldn’t believe it. Even though I knew it I couldn’t believe it. In 1950, we started another war, this time with Korea. And everyone felt so tired. I was tired, our family was tired, the nation was tired. There were protests all across the country in major metropolitan areas. No one wanted to go back to war; there had been enough death. And as horrible as it was, it was a war that we had started, from the division of North and South Korea during World War II between the United States and Japan. I understood the tension there, and the danger to innocent citizens of Korea who were caught between two warring governments. The United Nations had made a decision, and we had to follow it. But another war was just too much.

The day that it happened, Sam came home with the newspaper, and tossed it angrily onto the table. He had a coffee in one hand from the new shop down the street—he frequented it in the mornings now that he was retired—and the coffee sloshed and spilled all over his shirt and his shoes as he flung the papers into the air.

“Goddammit!” he had said, shaking his fists angrily into the air, the newspapers coming to rest gently on the table and on the hardwood floor of the kitchen, like little feathers, drifting to the ground. “There’s been too many lives lost already, too many lives. We can’t afford to lose more, it’s not fair to our nation, it’s not fair to our boys…”

He stopped then, grabbing his face and rubbing his forehead. I came over to reach out to him, grabbing his shoulders and holding him. Sam was never an angry man. His temper was very mild, and he never yelled. This instance of raising his voice was the first time I had heard him do that since we lost Edward. Possibly the only time. The stress was getting to him. I could see it in his eyes, and feel it in his touch. And I didn’t know what to do. Our path down the road to war would continue for decades to come. And I couldn’t tell him that.

“Sam,” I whispered in his ear, “I love you. I’m so sorry all of this is happening, but there’s nothing we can do. I wish there was.” He held me, twirling my body from side to side gently. “We just have to take care of each other. I love you…”

He sighed in my ear, holding back tears, and rubbing my back. I was so grateful, more than anything, that I had Sam in my life. Like Adelle, Sam had been my rock. He was my everything. He was strong for me when I couldn’t stand, and had provided for me and kept me safe for nearly fifty years, despite my own confusion and frustration over the course of our lives and my place in the world. I rubbed my hands through his hair, now mostly gray, but beautiful just the same, and wanted to feel him. I didn’t want to let him go. There was a part of me then that seemed to know something, seemed to feel something that I didn’t want to. And that was the fragility of time, and our relationships within it. Everything is so delicate, as I learned at a young age. You don’t know when you’re going to lose it.

Sam sat down at the table, grabbing a washcloth from the sink and drying off his shirt and shoes.

“I’m sorry, Lucy, I really am. I never want to take anything out on you, I love you so much.”

“I know,” I said.

“It’s just getting to me. It was already too much after the Depression, and when World War II started up, I didn’t know how to feel. As a detective, working in the force, I always wondered if I should have been a soldier. Out there, giving my life and doing my part just like all of the other boys…” Tears glinted in his eyes again, and he blinked them back, looking out the window. “But I didn’t. I stayed at home, protecting the streets, not that my work wasn’t important. But it kills me, it really
gets
at me, knowing that we’re sending our boys out again. Especially when it’s too late for me to join them.” He was clenching his fist, resting it on the table, and I could see it pulsing back and forth as he strained the muscles in his forearm to suppress his anger.

“Sam.” I touched his hand, feeling it relax in my grasp. “The people of New York have always needed you. When everyone was gone, you were here. Everyone knows that, and no one would have wanted it any other way. I’m so proud of you.”

He reached out and grabbed the back of my neck, pulling me close to him, and resting his forehead against mine. I could feel his breath, soft and warm against my lips, and he pulled me in close to kiss me. We weren’t intimate much anymore, but when we were, it was as if no time had passed. We loved each other desperately, and he never let me forget it.

“Thank you, Lucy. I would be lost without you, you know that?” A single tear trickled down his cheek, resting on his upper lip, and wetting his mustache. When he kissed me, I could feel the moisture and taste the salt. He pulled me in closer, “I love you so much, I love you.”

I could have stayed like that forever. And even in my fading memory, with the fog creeping in, I will always go back to my time with Sam, and our love together.

Just a few months later, in the early fall of 1950 I opened the newspaper again. I had grown cautious of it; fearful of seeing my high school history books play out in full fury any more than they already had. It had gotten to the point where I couldn’t keep track anymore. It seemed to be endless suffering after endless suffering, war after war, and any personal turmoil that was tossed into the mix became the cherry on top of what felt like the slowly melting ice cream cone of the humanity of the modern world.

But to my surprise, I was greeted instead with another piece of history that I had almost forgotten about entirely. Charlie Brown and Lucy stared at me through the black and white pages of the newspaper comics.
Peanuts
, was the name of the strip. I looked at their debut, the little characters appearing so new, so innocent, and so unaware of the remarkable effect they would have on the nation, just in a time where some humor and positivity was greatly needed. I smiled, rubbing my fingers across the little two dimensional shapes on the paper. Sometimes I was very glad I didn’t know, or didn’t remember, everything that was going to happen. The element of surprise for joyous occasions could lift even the heaviest of spirits.

But with joy comes sorrow. And that day, October 2, 1950, was one of great sorrow, almost more than I could bear, and my greatest loss. Losing my parents and friends when I fell back in time was something else entirely. A loss I will never forget, and something that still pains me to this day. But there was something ethereal about it—I think because I hadn’t actually seen it, it was easier for me to disguise it, that it might not be real. And thanks to the time traveler’s paradox, there was always the possibility, as completely inane as it might have been, that I would go back and see them again. But death is something else. Death is infinite, and there is no coming back from or rewriting death. Even if you could go back in time after it has happened, it will still find you. It simply becomes a ticking clock, waiting for you when the time is right.

In losing the Sullivans came unimaginable grief, but it was expected. In their old age, they passed peacefully, within days of each other. It was a beautiful, serene death, that all of us understood. But losing Edward was one of the hardest things I have ever experienced. Of deaths, the departure of a child is inexplicable. A tiny being that I had created, that I had, with purpose, brought into the world to be loved and cherished and to provide for, I had let down, and was taken away in illness and suffering. The innocence of children makes their suffering so much worse. They haven’t lived to see anything yet; they haven’t experienced the world as you know they could, and yet in a way that almost makes it easier for them to let go. They have nothing to hang onto. But his death cut me down to the nadir of my heart, gutting me. A wound is still there, and I’m not sure if it will ever heal entirely. A child is a piece of you, and with their death, you lose a part of yourself.

But on that day in 1950, I experienced a loss I was not prepared for. A loss that came as great of a shock and horror as much as a trail into despair. It was Sam. Even now, I think it cruel that this day above all others still haunts my memory when so many other days have faded.

From the kitchen, behind the
Peanut
s comic, I heard a faint moaning sound. At first I thought it was an animal, but we didn’t have any pets, and there was no one else in the house. I had a terrible feeling, something was desperately wrong. I ran as fast as I was able, upstairs into the bedroom only to find Sam sprawled helplessly across the floor, one side of his body sagging like a rag doll, his face hanging limply to one side, his arm dangling uselessly as the other tried to prop his body back up.

Although my mind was growing foggy, this was the man that I loved. This was the person I had devoted my life to. He was my partner; he was my everything. In a rush, my medical knowledge of the late twentieth century came back to me, and recognizing the symptoms, I knew he had had, or was having, a stroke. My voice caught in my throat as I felt my chest tighten in panic and pain. But I couldn’t let it over take me. I grabbed his hand that was reaching out for help, and pulled it close to me, kissing his time-worn skin with my lips and pulling him close. I leaned down to meet him on the floor, not wanting him to strain himself, and whispered in his ear.

“It’s alright, it’s alright my love…I’m getting help.” I could see his eyes welling up with tears, and from my own little streams began to flow. I kissed his cheek again, my lips covered in the salty water, leaving a tiny lip-shaped print in the moisture on his cheek which began to flow away slowly as I moved away. The one side of his mouth was quivering, trying to tell me he loved me. I put a finger to his lips, crying, and pulled myself away from him, running as fast as I could to the phone.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that would be the last time I ever kissed Sam. The last time I ever kissed him when he could feel it. I still remember his hand, trembling and fearful as he reached out for me, and when he could feel my body close to his, there on the ground, he pulled me in tighter than he ever had. I believe he knew it was the end, and he didn’t want to let me go.

By the time the ambulance arrived, he had lost consciousness. The paramedics found me on the floor upstairs, crying as I clung to his frail, quiet form, whispering in his ear to wake up, to come back to me.

They took him away in the ambulance, with me riding along in the back next to him, clinging helplessly to his outstretched but now unresponsive hand. I called Susan when we got to the hospital. I could barely speak on the phone, but she already knew. She had had the same, terrible feeling, and as soon as she heard from me she had gotten in the car and headed north, to Mt. Sinai.

He lay there like that, motionless, intubated, strung along by nothing more than a thread of life, for four days. The doctors spoke to us in confidence, in a stark little white room. They told me that the stroke had caused a hemorrhage, and that there was bleeding on his brain. They told me there was nothing they could do.

I sat with Susan in that little room long after the doctor had left. I felt like I couldn’t move. If I did, that would mean it was real. That would mean that the man that had rescued me from my sorrow, the man that had made life worth living after my fall through time, my partner in life and my best friend, was gone. It was all over. And I was left alone, by myself. Again.

That grief was something that I have never experienced. With Edward, it was hysteria. With my family, it was disassociation and disbelief. After Sam, I couldn’t escape the reality. It was right there in front of me, staring at me through the Intensive Care Unit in Mt. Sinai. I felt numb. My whole body. I felt like something had come in the night and taken away my spirit, taken away everything. There was nothing left to me. It was like I was floating in some horrible purgatory, waiting for something to happen, waiting for a bell to ring and it would all be over. I didn’t even have the energy left to cry. My body was empty of everything, and all I could do was stand by and watch.

I stayed with Susan and Todd through the funeral. Connor was too young to remember, and made for a nice distraction during all of it, too young to understand death and its finality.

Going home, three weeks after the funeral, felt like cardboard. Everything was stale and flat. Susan had promised to come and visit me every day. I knew she would and she did. But that house, it was never the same. I couldn’t bear to be upstairs. I slept on the couch and watched television. I barely ate, and when I did it tasted like ash in my mouth. Instead, I would make tea, like I had done every morning, and along with it I made a small pot of coffee. Just enough for a cup, for Sam, in case he decided to come back. Even though I knew he wouldn’t. He didn’t have a time machine, and I couldn’t go back to find him. It was over.

In the night, I would dream about him. I saw him standing in the living room, or sitting on the couch next to me, resting his hand on my shoulder, or kissing my cheek. Whenever I awoke, my pillow was stained with tears and my eyes were red and swollen. I will always love him.

In the Fifties, I came to the feeling of how bizarre changes over decades really are. Even though my historical knowledge had prepared me for the variation, my age and the starkness of reality did not adequately prepare me for the technological revolution.

It was a shock altogether the way fashion trends changed. Evolving from short jean skirts and side ponytails during high school, to long dresses and corsets at the turn of the century, I was equally as perplexed going in the reverse. After fifty years of wearing dresses and conservative clothing, the shorter skirts and pants of the Fifties gave my mind somewhat of a jolt. My inability to adapt to the changing times made me feel older than anything else. But the technological wave that swept over America really tested my cognition, and my resilience.

In 1957, I headed out to New Jersey where Susan and Todd had moved with Connor, to let him live more of a suburban childhood. It was in celebration of, and to witness the monumental occasion of the successful Russian satellite, Sputnik, sent into orbit. Susan had met me in Manhattan, and rode the train out with me, being cautious about my aging condition.

I remember arriving at their quaint little home—Todd had picked us up from the train station in his cute little mint green Buick. Well, I shouldn’t say little. The cars were getting bigger—I forgot by how much. The Buick felt like a boat, with its bright white interior, and nauseating ride that rocked back and forth as we drove down the interstate and around their little neighborhood to their home. Everything was advancing so quickly. If there was one thing I wished I had prepared myself for—or someone had prepared me for—it was that. The shock and awe of how rapidly everything would advance after World War II.

Joining them on the sofa, sitting in front of their little television set with the rabbit ears poking up on either side, we all stared, mesmerized by the fact that this little pod had been sent up into orbit, into
outer space
. Although I had grown up with space travel, learning the names of the different planets, and all about the solar system, having been removed from that time for so long, it felt as if I was entering an entirely new era once again. I was traveling back into the future. And I didn’t know how to react. If I had been younger, it wouldn’t have been so strange. Or, if Sam had been there with me, that would have been better. But I felt so alone. It was me, trapped in an aging body, next to Susan and Todd and their beautiful little boy, Connor. Susan and Todd seemed to have adapted perfectly well, still enraptured by the feat, but not overwhelmed. I think it was because I didn’t have anyone to share it with, anyone else who had moved through as many dimensions as I had, that I felt detached from the whole ordeal. It was like I was watching it from a movie screen, seeing myself from outside my body, and taking it all in.

Connor was twelve now. This was also shocking. After Sam passed, I seemed to begin misplacing time altogether. It was so hard to keep track. Seeing Connor as a strapping young boy, soon to be a teenager, was very strange to me. And he was so smart! He was obsessed with the novelty of space travel, and talked incessantly about being an astronaut when he grew up. He said he wanted to venture to all the different realms of the universe, where no man had gone before. I patted him on the shoulder and told him he could do anything he put his mind to. He was a very sweet and very respectful boy, and smiled politely, thanking me for my confidence in him. I smiled back, genuinely amused by his spunk.

The next morning, Susan took me out to lunch. Todd was at work, and she worked part-time now that Connor was in school, at the Montclair Museum of Art. Today was her day off, and we went into town for a lovely little brunch at one of the diners. I recall that Susan was watching her figure—I thought she looked lovely as always—and so she had tea and toast, and I had a hard-boiled egg. It’s hard to stray from the classics.

“Mom, I have some news. Todd got a job offer,” she told me with a quiet air to her voice. The lack of outward excitement made me presume that there was something more to it that she hadn’t shared yet, and was seemingly nervous to tell me.

“Well, tell me about it,” I said, “what’s the catch?” I smiled.

Susan smiled back, giggling quietly at my remark, “well, he’s been offered a position as a detective in Detroit. I know it’s quite a move, but the city is sprawling, it’s a great place to be right now. It’s so affordable, and it’s a way for him to move up. It sounds like an incredible opportunity. And this would be the perfect time to move, before Connor begins high school. So he has time to get settled and make new friends.”

I paused, looking down at my little salted egg, the cooked, crumbling yolk falling out of the gelatin-like egg white that had cooked so nicely around it. I was not opposed to the idea in the least. It would be a wonderful opportunity for them. But there was something itching at the back of my mind. Michigan. Something about it gave me chills, and I didn’t know why. Perhaps I was just afraid.

“I think it’s a lovely idea,” I said, looking back up from the little egg. “I only have one request—I won’t be left here by myself. I would like to come along with you.”

Susan laughed, she laughed so hard that little tears came to her eyes, “Mom, of
course!
I wouldn’t have it any other way. I was so scared that you would want to stay, wouldn’t want to leave the house, but there’s no way I would leave without you. I need you, Todd needs you, Connor needs you. You have to come with us.” She was smiling ear to ear, practically beaming. “Thank you, I love you.” She reached across the table and grabbed my hand into hers, getting little smears of butter on her shirt as her arm drifted over top of her toast.

And so that was it. We began the arduous process of packing up and moving out of state, to Michigan.

It was hard saying goodbye to the home that I had known for so long. Inside, all I saw was Sam, and the life we had made together. I felt that getting rid of the house was saying goodbye to Sam in a way that held so much more finality than death. It was a way that moved me beyond reality and into memory. Each piece of furniture and little decoration had a story, had a piece of time attached to it. Susan was so sweet—she didn’t give anything away without consulting me first. And as much as the years called to me through the home, and everything inside of it, we got rid of almost everything, give or take the essentials such as clothing. But even my wardrobe, which still had pieces of time-tested beauty, each piece a testament to the period in which it had been brought to life, was stripped down to almost nothing. I had what I needed and didn’t want anything else. Susan took anything that held significant weight in her memory, or begged her to keep it. But everything else vanished slowly into the hands of time as do all things, eventually.

In a small motorcade of two vehicles and a trailer, we began the journey across country. Connor was an excellent passenger, and sat with me in the back, telling me facts about the solar system, and the urban jazz scene in Detroit. I was amazed at his tenacity, and saw what a bright future he had lined up for himself in the coming years. He was an inspiration, and I felt so proud to be his grandmother, and to be a part of their suburban adventure, moving into a new life, exploring new territories.

I couldn’t believe how massively sprawling Detroit was. I had heard about it as a child, but did not spend much time there for any particular reason growing up, and didn’t realize the intense impact it would have. But at that time, as we all headed in together, Detroit was in its heyday. It truly was the Motor City, and everything about it was electrical. The energy was overwhelming, and we all felt it. It was different in a way from New York that was hard to explain. The life of it was almost physical, and you could feel it pulsing throughout your body.

In the interim of finding a suitable home to fit us all in, we settled in a little duplex in Detroit itself, outside of downtown, but still in what felt like the heart of the city. Connor was thrilled. He and Todd went to see the Detroit Tigers play at the stadium, and followed the inception of some of the great musicians of our time who had gotten their start in Detroit, including Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald, in the district that Connor informed me was known as Paradise Valley. The orchestra was world-renowned, this I had heard of even out in New York City, and the orchestra hall was known as the Paradise Theatre. It was such an incredible and exciting place. I thought it would have been an unimaginable experience to grow up in the city at an age such as Connor’s, being a young person amidst all of that energy and growth, getting a chance to be a part of it and find yourself inside of it.

Susan was the only one who was nervous about the move once it happened, for reasons of finding a position for herself. She had an interview at the Detroit Institute of Art, which sounded very promising, and had an amazing reputation of its own. Coming from the Met, I presumed that she would be offered the position in a heartbeat. I went with her one afternoon to visit, and while she met with the gallery staff and archivists, I walked through the gorgeous halls filled with encased and preserved artwork. The Met was larger, with grandiose ceilings, but the DIA had an impressive array and collection of its own. The more I saw, the happier I was, and the more certain I felt that the decision to move to the mitten, my original home state, had been a wonderful choice. Susan was offered the position with the DIA and took it, happily. She loved the staff and was herself impressed by their offerings. She took up a position with the restoration archivists, and settled into the depths of the institute, just as she had swum through the belly of the Met for so many years.

I must say it was sort of peculiar being back in Michigan. I felt that I was so close to my family I could almost touch them. Never having spent much time in Detroit as a child, I was surprised how commonly I felt waves of déjà vu, as if I had spent all of the time in the world there. I assumed it was jogging my memory from my childhood, and of my high school courses, learning about the boom of the city, and its role as an international art and cultural hub, as well as the metropolitan automobile center of America. Nevertheless, I had a nagging feeling that I was supposed to be there, or that part of my family was there, in the area just as I was. I couldn’t place it, and couldn’t remember much of what my parents had told me about our family’s roots, if they had told me anything. Age has stolen much of what I used to know.

Perhaps they were there, my grandparents, in urban Detroit, walking the streets along with me. Stranger yet, perhaps my father was there. I wondered if I would have recognized him as a young man, and got chills running down my spine. I knew that he had grown up in Michigan, but was certain that it had been in the outskirts of Lansing, where I had grown up. My mind was strained even then, though, and I felt tired from searching the archives of my mind. But that didn’t keep me from searching, scanning the streets for a familiar face, searching for a family and a person that would have no idea who I was, nor recognize me. Even if I had seen him, or seen any of them, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to approach them. I was coming from the future now, and the past, with knowledge about my father’s future that he would have no idea about in his youth. And, from what he told me, the unexpected excursions didn’t begin until he was an adult. He would have no reference for what I was talking about, and would perceive me as nothing more than a crazy old woman. I sighed, pained by the memories of my past. At least I had my family. And our own Connor had a striking resemblance to my father. I had my father’s eyes, and had passed them onto Susan, who had in turn passed them onto my only grandchild. I looked at him often, thinking about years lost, but grateful for the support I now had, and the people in my life.

Not even a year after moving to the city of Detroit, Todd was offered a transfer to none other than the city of Lansing, not far at all from where I grew up. The position paid more than his detective position in Detroit, and the cost of living was better, too. Since we had not found a house yet, it seemed to be a blessing in disguise, with perfect timing. We moved into a small three-bedroom home on the east side of Lansing, not far from Michigan State University. Susan hoped Connor could attend college there, and was offered a position as adjunct faculty in the art program. And as much as I had enjoyed Detroit, I was elated to go back to be so close to my roots. I wondered what I would find there, see or feel, that I could reach out to and touch my future self, and my family. But to my dismay, I began to feel confused more often, blurring the lines again between dreams and reality, and between past, present and future.

When we moved in, I was plagued with dreams of my lost childhood, of Holt, and of my family. I saw Becky, reaching out to me, and asking where I was, why I had left her. I saw my mother standing forlorn and alone in the driveway, abandoned and in unending solitude. I would awake in the night crying, my body torn between the different realms, unsure of what was real and what was not. At first it scared Susan, and she began sleeping on a little sleeper bed in the same room with me, trying to comfort and subdue the terrors. They subsided with her there, but quickly returned once she stepped back into her own space. I began to grow quiet, and hid after awaking in the night, often staying up late myself, to calm my nerves, gazing out the window onto the young landscape of Lansing, trying, more often than not, to remember where or who I was.