Infinity's Daughter (7 page)

This is when the fog begins to fade in and out, tearing at my insides and filling me with dread. As an inadvertent time traveler, I always wondered if there was something I could have done to prevent all of the ill events of the world. And that burden rests heavily on my shoulders, the fog creeping in to alleviate it. July of 1917 was a month that the haze forms over unless I force myself to peel back the curtain. It was a month of horror, on the beginning of the slow road down to hell, for the next decade to come. As reality set in, that I would have to live through all of the suffering and dread of the turn of the early twentieth century, I began to live in a constant state of disbelief, of the absurdity of our nation’s history, that tugged at the back of my mind, tickling my being while I meandered through daily life, and lived through history.

I never forgot the gut-wrenching knot in my stomach when the paper was delivered on April sixth in 1917. Two days before my birthday we declared war on Germany. I, above all others, knew that this was just the beginning. I was sitting in the living room with Susan perched next to me on the sofa. We were reading a book, or more accurately, Susan was reading
me
a book. This was her new favorite activity. She was incredibly intelligent, and all of the years with Mr. Brady had done her very well. She was reading novels now, and our weekend routine had become long hours of her choosing her favorite book, or whatever was next on her list, and reading excerpts of it to me. She was very interpretive, too, sometimes doing the voices of the characters, but now and then she would nudge me, requesting a particular character voice that she wasn’t certain how to do, such as an accent, or something. It was great fun.

All of our fun was shattered, though, when Sam came in with the morning paper. His face was white. I had known all year that the war was coming, both from my knowledge of the future, as well as the sequence of events that had been taking place around the world, leading up to what would inevitably be our American involvement in the conflict. But, from my history classes, I could not remember the date. I knew that it had happened in the spring, and I wished that I had paid better attention. And thus, when Sam brought the paper that morning I was, for once, surprised. And haunted.

Sam looked at me with dark eyes, holding the paper out for me to see. As soon as I saw his expression, I knew what the paper would speak of. I picked it up to see for myself, and it was confirmed. We were joining the war that we had long been avoiding. I knew what was to come, the toll on the economy and the propaganda, and my mind wouldn’t even let me start to think about the financial despair of the next decades, but my memories of my lessons back in school were hazy. Seeing it there in front of me, rubbing the paper between my fingers, smelling the freshly printed ink, and watching Susan tug at the corners, I could see her trying to wrap her mind around the concept. Knowing, more or less, what was to come, I felt alone, afraid, and distant.

I didn’t want to live in an era where we were at war with the world. The wars I had lived through as a child had been enough, and those were still so removed, our society didn’t seem to recognize them the way I knew we would recognize this. This war would not just be overseas; we were a part of it. The war effort was the American people.

Sam’s face was pale, and he walked into the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee. I’ll never forget the look of utter desolation that washed over his face. As an officer of the law, Sam had the political insight to understand the implications of the war. From that day on, I would see this face, now and again, as our country wove its way through anguish, disaster, suffering and blight over the next decades to come. I wished nothing more than to be able to wash that expression off of his face forever, to use my knowledge to make none of it so. To end the wars overseas as well as our own involvement, and protect us from economic hardship. But it could never be.

Susan poked her finger against my shoulder.

“Mom?”

“Yes, darling?” My voice was quiet, and I tried to mask my fear in the tone of my voice. But Susan was too perceptive to ignore it. She saw right through me.

“What’s war?”

My heart sank to the bottom of my stomach as the words slipped from her lips. Her eyes were so young, so innocent, and so sincere. She did not understand war. She had not learned about war. I know she had some concept of it, but not what it meant for our country to be at war. For us to be at war. She looked up at me with her deep, cobalt blue eyes. If I had tried to evade the question she would have persisted. I don’t mean to brag, but Susan was one of the smartest children I had ever met. As her mother, this made me more than proud, more than words can explain. Though sometimes, it was rather intimidating.

I put my arm around her small shoulders, brushing her hair off her neck to drape down her collarbone, tied up in a little white bow to match her dress. I looked at her and told her the truth. Not in a horrible way, but in a very realistic way, that I knew she was looking for. Susan was always searching, and I couldn’t hide the world from her. I didn’t want to, and it wouldn’t have been fair. In my mothering, this is one thing I am very proud of. Along with the wisdom I was able to share with her of things to come.

“War is a terrible thing. War is when one country fights with another country for some reason. Usually it has to do with power, or money, and sometimes countries, for example, as we are doing now, enter wars to help other countries. Or to help defend their people, to keep them safe from an enemy who is trying to do bad things. Sometimes war is necessary to protect people, or to stop destruction, but it is never good to go to war. No one wants to go to war. It puts people in danger. Lots of people die in a war.”

Susan twiddled her fingers together, taking the information in, and looking rather nervous. I reconsidered what I had told her momentarily, wondering if perhaps I had been too frank. But something else was on her mind.

“Is Daddy safe?” she asked.

I was surprised by her question. “What do you mean, Susan? Your father is fine.”

She started to blink her eyelashes, her eyelids fluttering over her irises hurriedly, fighting off little tears that were peering out from the corners of her eyes. Her eyelashes dampened, and some of them stuck together in clumps.

“When people go to war,” she said, “there are soldiers. Does everyone have to go? Do all of the men have to go? I don’t want Daddy to be a soldier, I don’t want him to go away and get killed…” She began to sniffle then, her chest tightening in sharp little breaths, and her cheeks flushing red.

I grabbed her and pulled her close to me, feeling absolutely atrocious that she would have such thoughts, and have such fears, but at the same time, I was overwhelmingly impressed at her insight, drawing the correlation between her knowledge of war and the risk that her father could be drafted. It was a risk, certainly, but as an officer of the law, Sam would be needed at home, to keep the peace here. The curtain in my clouded thoughts of the war and its reality drew back, and I thought for a moment about what it would be like. To really live through something like this, not to just read about it. And all of the wars to come. This was only the beginning. I didn’t know if I could take it. I shut out my knowledge of the future, hiding from the truth, though I couldn’t hide from what I knew. I looked back at Susan.

“Darling, your daddy is fine. He is not a soldier, he is a police officer, a detective, and he’s not going to war. He has to fight the good fight here, and keep us safe in
our
country. He’s not going overseas to fight anyone else. You don’t need to worry.”

She sniffed again, rubbing her eyes. “Promise?”

“I promise.” I smiled at her and pulled her hair back out of her face, kissing her forehead, even if I wasn’t certain that my promise was real. I knew enough about the war to come to know it was going to be bad and change our lives forever, but I didn’t know if Sam
was
safe from being called upon. Even so, Susan deserved the false security I was giving her, if only for a while. She was the light of my life. At least I had my family. I would be nothing without them. And despite the horror of living through everything that would come, they would make it all worth it. And I knew then, that they already had.

Living through the war was a very strange time. I don’t remember much about the specific happenings on the ground, or internationally, but remember the way it changed our neighborhood, and the way it changed our own habits. We had always been careful with our money, but we had never been overly frugal. However, this changed suddenly. With all of the propaganda towards the war effort, and the movements to conserve, we began to catch the wind of fear that had spread across the country of economic blight—just as I had whispered in Sam’s ear without revealing the future, what I knew was around the corner in the form of the Great Depression. This fueled our frugality, and we began to save in ways or restrict ourselves in ways that we hadn’t before. Mr. Brady didn’t come as often. Thankfully, Susan was in school now, or I never would have agreed for her lessons to be cut back. Education was a priority, and it came above everything else. Perhaps one of my own regrets is not attending college. I would have loved to, but considering my abrupt entry into the past where women were less educated, it wasn’t feasible for me, nor would I have been emotionally prepared.

Susan and I continued our Sunday walks into Central Park. There, among the sweeping paths and hills of Central Park were little public Victory Gardens. There were advertisements for them constantly on the radio, and even little posters pinned up around town. Susan was taken with the gardens, and convinced Sam and me to start one. I must say it made me feel better, as a way to contribute to the war effort. I pushed the shame and the guilt out of my mind that my knowledge could have prevented all of the suffering, should I have had the fortitude to force someone to listen to me, or should the rules of time travel have allowed it. I pulled the shades on my discredit, and pushed the discomfort out of my mind. And so we started the Victory Garden.

Susan and Sam and I lived in our own little world, at least in my mind. I knew Sam was more in touch with the war, but I felt so removed from it. I think my fear and guilt kept me from fully embracing it, as well as the shock that I was actually living through the historic event I had studied in school, the war that would shape our nation. We buried our hands in the dirt, and sowed the seeds in our little Victory Garden. Supporting the troops by producing food. It was rather cathartic, I must admit. But every now and then, the dark parts of the war began to creep into our lives. The rationing was something I had forgotten about until it happened. Everything was capped. We all understood it, and Susan was very good about not making a fuss. Sam was rather upset about the coffee, but he managed to sneak some extra at work. Everything just got a little bit tighter. And you could feel the tension, growing among the neighbors, and tainting the feel of the once crowded streets. People didn’t go out, people didn’t consume. Everything was to go to the war. And when we did go out and even when we listened to the radio, the propaganda nosed into our lives, reminding us to participate, reminding us to support the war. On the radio, they spoke of hundreds of socialists and radicals rounded up for speaking out against the war, who were put on trial or locked up. Everything was about patriotism. At times it was very intense. Uncle Sam pointed his gristly finger at you, shaming your lack of support, or encouraging your commitment.

I felt sick to my stomach, thinking about all of the limitations on free speech, and how I had potentially taken them for granted, even overlooked them at the beginning of the war, until the trials became more publicized. Part of me wished desperately that I could take Sam and Susan with me into 1997, and we could live safely, outside of war, protected in our quaint little suburban home with running water and grocery stores where you could purchase anything you wanted. During the rationing, I often thought back to those days, wondering if any of it was even real, or if I was just mad. I thought of my true name, then, and answered it myself.
We are all mad here
. That was certainly true about the past, my present, or that was the way it had come to feel. I cautioned Sam about saying anything about the war, critiquing it or otherwise, and he shushed me, telling me it was all right and not to worry. Until the end of the war, I had nightmares about my family and me being taken away to prison, locked in cold cells behind bars, with the word
betrayal
painted in red across the walls. I tried to keep quiet, though, keeping my fears to myself as much as I could, and focusing on my family, on the Victory Garden, and on what I knew would be a swift end to the war. And I wanted to enjoy the time that I could, back on the upswing, before I knew what would be an inevitable downturn for the nation as a whole.

In the fall of 1920, I was finally given the right to vote. It seemed strange, after never being able to when I was a young girl in my own time. I feel that my youth and my ignorance of the world did not let me see the true value in this important part of civic action, and the invaluable achievement of the women of that time and all of us that followed. I had heard the campaigns, and was aware that I was living in a man’s world, but had had the fortune to be taken in by the Sullivans, who supported me as an independent young woman, and—luckily—I didn’t get the true experience of the subordination of women in the early twentieth century, but therefore did not truly understand the gravity of the amendment until it took place.

I feel that I was so removed from the struggle that it took to achieve this incredible milestone. Generations of women had protested in pursuit of a basic civil liberty that would allow them to participate in democracy and society. I recalled it all from my history classes, but until it occurred and the constitution was ratified, I had taken all of their work for granted, knowing that things would be different in the future and considering my own vote little if not completely inconsequential. When it came out in the papers, Sam brought it in and hugged me, as if I had been fighting the fight myself for years. I felt embarrassed; for over fifty years women had lectured, written, lobbied and marched to achieve such a fundamental change and I had stood by passively wrapped up in my own personal strife and consequence. I knew at that time, that many of the women who had worked for the change did not live to see it. I had suddenly felt it was my duty to utilize my vote as a tribute to them. Though I still question whether or not one vote could change anything, but at least I could still contribute.

I then began to wonder, almost equivocally, how and what I would have used this ability for if things had been different in my own time. As Becky and I dreamed about the novelties of adulthood—sex, college, and independence, we hadn’t thought of all of the other important things such as contributing to society, or letting your voice be heard through civic action. Once again, I feel this was almost entirely due to my own naivety. Though, I was a smart young girl, and I was certain that having this civil liberty, which I may have taken for granted, I would have almost certainly acted on, particularly if there were something that had impassioned me. Once I had fallen back into the dawn of the century, I had focused solely on what to do with my own life, and how to survive in this new world or get back into the old one. If I had been free to live my life as I would, without the confusion of time traveling, I feel that things might have been different. And then, I wondered, would my vote in the future have changed anything? After all, I was unable to vote in the past. Simply having a family could cause ripples beyond my understanding, but what if my action in this time changed the outcome of an election or a law?

My father had once explained this dilemma to me as a child. He called it the
Time Traveler’s Paradox
. Essentially, it refers to and applies to your ability and wish to change things from one time period to another, and the sphere of influence you might have. You will always regret some of your decisions, and you may always wonder how things could have been different had you been living in another time, because of your ability to travel between realms.

I was thirteen when he described this to me. I was already aware of his ‘excursions’, or his abilities, existing regardless of any reason, one way or the other. I hadn’t seen him in about two months when he appeared in the dining room while I was working on my homework.

He always appeared with a loud noise, usually a thud from landing on the floor or a piece of furniture or the like. And there was always this quiet hissing sound, a fizzle, like the static that I saw whenever he vanished, his image drifting in and out like a hologram. I was turning the pages of my algebra book when I heard the hissing of static growing louder in the dining room. My heart stopped in my chest, and I waited for him to appear. My mother had been in the kitchen when it happened, and when the hissing was followed by a loud thud, she went running to make sure everything was okay, and that he was still alive.

There were always tears after my father returned. Part of it was the unknown, the fear that he might not return, or that he might return in bits and pieces. But another part of it was the pure shock. It was like living on the edge of your seat, waiting for a bomb to go off. And every time it did, and you survived, you cried. You cried for the hardship, you cried for the fear, and you cried for your joy for what could have been, and you cried for your joy that it was not as expected. Thinking back to how often my father was caught between worlds, caught between action and inaction, influence and failure, so close to reaching his desires or accomplishing anything attainable, I cannot even begin to imagine, now, what that paradox must have felt like to him.

But, after that particular excursion, he explained it to me.

Whenever he returned, my father always tried to spend time with me. He prioritized what he could, when he could do it. It was as if he was being hunted by a beast he never saw, and he was always on the lookout for it, he was never safe. So the time that he did have was even more valuable.

My mother had dressed him and fed him. I waited downstairs cautiously, focusing on my algebra, and running my eyes in circles over the same problems, not solving anything in my anxiety. And then he came downstairs. Travel-worn and slicked with malaise, he clung to his optimism, and strapped a heavy smile across his face. I met the smile with my own, and tears began falling silent and salty down my cheeks. He hugged me and we walked to the kitchen.

My mother had made chocolate chip cookies earlier that evening. My father found them inside of the ceramic cookie jar, and pulled four out, two for each of us. I had smiled again then—my mother only ever let me have one at a time. But this was a celebratory occasion. I hadn’t seen my father in two months, and we were going to make the most of it. He poured two glasses of milk and we headed into the living room, taking up residence on the couch, between my algebra book and scrap paper.

He asked about school, about friends, and about my goals. How was I feeling, how was I doing. But I wanted to know how
he
was doing. I wanted to know what
it
felt like. I wanted to know how he did it.

My father was wearing a plaid shirt. Red and black. I still remember it very vividly. The cookies were delicate, and little crumbs scattered softly across his shirt. He looked at me, while he dipped the cookie into his glass of milk. Then, as if he got hung up on a thought, he paused, the cookie dripping milk onto the carpet while he held it in mid-air.

“It feels…” he was speaking very slowly, trying to get the right words. He was also so fatigued, that it was difficult to speak quickly. “It feels like you have been ripped into pieces. Parts of you have been scattered across time. Not physically, but mentally. Normally, time is linear. You, and your mother, and everyone else as far as I know, see time as something where you can only move forwards, in one direction.

“But when you have the ability to go backwards, and forwards, and any way possible, you begin to think about your actions more readily. And you begin to regret. You wonder if you could have done something differently, if you could have changed something when you were back, to make things different in the future. Because you have the gift…” he stopped again, looking down at the little splashes of milk, “or the curse…you always wonder if things could be different again, if you could redo them. That is the time travel paradox. You regret in a different way than you might in time, as you know it. You regret, because you could change it, but doing so can have severe and unintended consequences.”

I took a bite of my cookie, tasting the chocolate, but not recognizing it in my mind. I was focused on my father’s words.

His cookie was still caught between his fingers, dangling over his knee. “That is my paradox. But the hardest part about it is knowing that I can’t change anything. I have to watch as terrible things happen. I have to stand by, knowing I have the ability to make things better. I must simply exist, and hope that my presence is simply a part of the larger web that is the time continuum.”

And that’s precisely how I felt on that day in 1920. Though on a much smaller level than my father had articulated in his experience. Still, the feeling was there. I stared numbly at the headline in the newspaper. Sam had wandered off to a different part of the house. My tea was getting cold, and I found myself feeling chilled too. It was a hollow feeling, like someone had carved out a part of me in the night and taken it away with them. I shivered. It was so strange that something so wonderful should be met with such mixed emotions. My mind kept drifting back to my years as an oblivious young girl in 1997. What it would have been like. What I could have done, should I have lived then and had that power. How I would have felt about these women, about me, sitting in the past on the day the amendment came to be in 1920; or if I would even give them a second thought, taking my new-found power for granted.

But that was not to be known. What was done was done. And, as far as I knew, it could never be undone.

For the next few days, I felt the inner struggle within me against the fog. Sam noticed that I seemed withdrawn, or distant. I didn’t mean to be. Honestly, I was thinking about my family, and about my other existence. With the war, and with Susan as a young girl, I hadn’t given them much thought in a very long time. But the appearance of the time travel paradox had brought them back to me, hazing the line between the two dimensions, and spurring my imagination about what could have been, or what may have happened.

On our walks to the park, I told Susan about Becky. I told her how she was my best friend growing up, before I lost my family and was taken in by the Sullivans. I had been thinking about Becky a lot, never being able to replace her, and never truly finding another close woman friend. The girls in the reading group had always been lovely, and I enjoyed their company during tea time and the support they provided throughout life’s tumultuous events. But it was never really the same.

I imagined that Becky had married Dan. Their high school love had bloomed into a college affair. Although he had been reckless, he was really good to her. I imagined, and I hoped, that she had continued on without me. That she had gone off to college and studied something fantastic—she had always been interested in medicine. I hoped that she was a leading surgeon at an acclaimed hospital, saving lives and leading a fabulous and love-filled life in the time she had off. I still feared that Becky never understood why I disappeared, but the pit in my heart told me that my mother would have consoled her, and shared the implausible truth. Becky was my best friend in the entire world. In all worlds, or at least the two rivulets of time I had visited as of yet. She had to have known that I wouldn’t have simply abandoned her and my life that I loved so much.

I also thought regularly about my old family once again. Or my real family, I suppose. Although my father couldn’t control his excursions, I couldn’t believe that he didn’t ever try to come back for me. He had told me that there were certain places he had materialized in repeatedly, and I could only hope that the woods behind the kind family’s home where Officer Sullivan found me was one of them. But at the same time, the heartbreak would have been too much. After the Sullivans had taken me in, my father could have scoured those forests and that home for years, searching and wondering what happened to his daughter, never knowing that she was only a few miles away in the nearest town.

Or perhaps he had asked the family. Maybe they told him that I had been taken to the Sullivans. This alternate reality hurt more than the latter, in a way. Wondering why my father had not come to find me there, in the Sullivans’ home, claiming me as his daughter and whisking me back to our little home in Holt.

I could only imagine that he never made it. I pictured him in my mind, holding my mother’s hand cautiously, wanting to embrace her, but resisting for fear of whisking her back in time just as he had done with me. Too fearful to let go, but too dangerous to hold on. The pain of their suffering, and the torment of the memories kept me silent in my grief. But as Susan and I strolled around the curved sidewalks of Central Park, I couldn’t help myself but look for my father. In every face of every man, I hoped, swallowing my tears, and coming back to reality in the comforting tugs from Susan’s hand.