The Here and Now (10 page)

It’s less than half a block before I realize it’s not just the tears blinding me. I strode away without my glasses, and I can’t go back. I’m too proud, too afraid, too determined, and, as the counselors are fond of reminding me, too stupid.

I wait for the old man in the park. I think he’ll be there because it’s quieter and more private than the grocery store parking lot, and I’m not sure where else he has to go. I sit at the picnic table next to his favorite clearing. I stumble around the perimeter of the park a couple of times just in case.

I have some time to think about his life, the places he goes, the things he carries. Little by little I let my mind run over the things he said and tentatively follow the possibility that some of them are true. I try them out, like plugging new variables into a very complicated equation and seeing how it holds together.

The truth is strong. Unlike a lie, it gets stronger over time, and it has the power to draw disparate feelings and ideas together in a way that a lie never can. The more I think about the things he said, the more I can sense the power of truth in them.

The less crazy I imagine him, the more tragic he seems.

And the
what if …
I can’t think my way into the
what if
, because even a tiny step stings me with hope and fear and drags along behind it a feeling that is overwhelmingly sad.

I slow down long enough to wonder about Ethan too. What should I do? It’s an unthinkable sin to tell an outsider our secret. But what if that outsider already knows?

A couple of hours pass, and it’s getting dark. I’ve been perched in such an odd position both my feet have fallen asleep. It’s time to shake them out and be on my way. I’ll try the parking lot. That’s the place where I’ve left things for him in the past. Maybe that’s where he expects me to look.

I can’t think very far ahead. I really can’t see very far ahead. I can’t go home and face my mother and Mr. Robert. I can only think of finding Ben Kenobi, discovering what he has for me and asking the question I have to ask.

I scan the parking lot very carefully in small sections. I see no sign of him in the front part of the lot, so I go around the side of the giant store. It is quiet here now. Very few cars even in the best spots. The sides and the back will be empty.

I hear something. Kind of a guttural sound, and it scares me. It’s not a good sound. It comes from the back of the lot. I hear it again and then a shout that doesn’t form a word.

I am running now. Putting my arms out, I am guided by my ears more than my eyes. I run toward the sound. There is little light back there, but I see shapes and shadows moving and hear a voice crying out.

“Who’s there?” I scream.

As I get close I see the outline of a figure bent over. It’s a man, I’m almost sure, not tall but thickly built. I make out
the brim of a baseball cap on his head. He stops and turns for a moment. Does he see me? I think he must, because he stands up and runs across the lot and disappears around the side of the store. If my eyes were better, if the light were better, I would have been able to see his face.

There is another shape, which is a shopping cart, and a darker shape, which is on the ground. I go down on my knees, putting my hands on that dark shape. I hear the moans. I feel the warm wetness across his chest I know is blood. I know who it is.

I pull the old man onto my lap. I lean very close to see his face. He’s breathing roughly, choking on blood. He neck is cut. Who knows what else.

“Prenna.”

He looks up at me, and of course it is him. Of course. I lean close and put my cheek on his. “It’s me.”

His eyes are his eyes again, full of clarity, though it’s a struggle to talk. “You know …”

I don’t want him to have to struggle. “I know.”

“I didn’t want to … put you in this …”

I put my arms around him. “It’s okay. I understand. I think I understand now.”

His eyes close and then flutter open for a second.

“I will take care of it,” I say into his ear. “I will make sure.” I know this is what comforts him. I feel his body loosen in my arms. I don’t know what I’m promising, but I know I mean it.

His eyes close again. I hear the last sounds going out of him, feel the last of his warmth mixing into the air.

I hear footsteps coming, but I can’t move. I can’t pull away and leave him. I don’t care what happens to me.

“Oh, God.”

I look up at the sound of Ethan’s voice.

I feel his hand on my back. “Oh, Prenna.”

I can’t let the old man go.

“Is he dead?”

“Just … Yes.”

“Did you see what happened?”

It takes me a little while to find my voice. I choke on words like my throat was cut too. “I came at the end. I didn’t see who it was. He ran away.”

He’s wrapped both arms around me. “You can’t stay here,” he says gently. “We have to go.”

“I can’t.”

“You have to.” He lets go of me and goes over to the cart. He sifts through it and picks out an envelope and stuffs it in his jacket. He comes back to me and helps me lay the old man down carefully. He lifts me up. I’m sobbing. I hear myself sobbing. I guess that must be me.

I don’t fight him. I let him carry me along like I’m a baby. He puts me in his car and closes the door. He drives out of the lot and away from the store. He scans the long blocks and finally finds a pay phone along a deserted stretch. I understand that he calls 911.

Back in the car, he drives onto the highway for a couple of miles and then back off the highway onto smaller and smaller roads. Finally he stops the car on a remote street. He kills the engine and reaches for me. He pulls me toward him so I’m nearly in his lap and holds me with both arms. He strokes my hair and wipes away my tears. We just stay like that for a long time.

TEN

“You know, right?” he says to me after the tears are through.

I’ve sat up and retaken my own seat. He’s still holding my hands. In the midst of everything are dull alarms in my head that I could be hurting him by being close like this. And there’s the blood drying all down my front and on my arms and hands. It’s on him too. It doesn’t seem to scare him and it doesn’t scare me. I’ve seen death before. I’ve seen plenty of blood before. I’ve seen suicide and I’ve even seen murder. But it horrifies me to know whose it is. And I do know, though I can’t yet put my Poppy and this poor old man together into the same person.

I nod. I guess that means he knows too.

“I’m sorry.”

“For both of us,” I say.

“For both of us.”

“I wish I could have talked to him … you know, knowing.” It seems unfair to discover your father is alive at the same moment he is dying.

“Him too.”

I try to take it in slowly. It’s too much at once and I’m worried I’ll just shut down. Sometimes I think our minds have an immune system, just like our bodies do, but you have to give it time to work.

“How long have you known?” I ask.

“Not long. Couple of weeks.”

“You’ve been trying to tell me.”

“I guess. I’ve been wanting to tell you a lot of things, but I didn’t know how. It’s a lot to lay on a person. And I know you’re not supposed to talk to me. Not really talk.”

I nod. I can still feel my cheek against the old man’s cheek. “I think at the end we both knew everything.”

“That’s good. And that you were there.”

“I wish I’d gotten to him sooner.” I think of something. “What made you come?”

“He called me twice. The second time I just heard a lot of shouting. I knew something was wrong.”

“Do you think he knew this was going to happen?”

“He might have. He just wanted to make it another few days, but he knew somebody was watching him. I’ve been worried. I’ve been worried for both of you.”

I don’t know how to keep pretending. I didn’t tell Ethan the truth about me, but I didn’t deny it either. I don’t know how much he knows.

The strange thing is, I think I’m keeping all these secrets from him, but he seems to know more than I do. He’s full of certainty and I’m not sure of anything anymore. I can’t keep straight what is supposed to be true and what is true, they are diverging so quickly.

“They are going to come for me, you know,” I say quietly.

He nods.

“Where are my glasses?”

“I wore them at home and left them in the trunk of my father’s car before he went to play squash in Spring Valley. I am hoping that might confuse things a little.”

I consider this. I almost smile at the picture in my mind. “So you think they can’t hear us or see us now? You think the glasses are their only way?”

“Kenobi—” He breaks off and reconsiders the name.

“You can call him Kenobi,” I say. I’m too distraught, too disoriented to call him by his name.

“That’s what he thought.”

I put my hand over a spot of blood drying into the knee of my pants. “I’ve suspected it was the glasses for a long time. It makes sense. We’re all blind and defenseless without them.”

“You don’t have to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“He said they’ve got you all taking these pills. They say it’s to build your immune system or something, but all they really do is ruin your vision and make it so nobody has kids. He thinks—he thought—if you stop taking them, your sight will come back.”

How can I believe that? I pull my hands back from him. My mother is part of the medical clinic that issues the pills. She wouldn’t let them do that. Another version of my life is shifting and reshaping behind me.

“What about your phone?”

“I threw it out the window.” I shake my head, trying to think. “But, Ethan, what if he’s wrong about the pills?”

“Do you have any of them with you?”

“No.”

“Then let’s hope he’s right.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because we can’t go back for them. We’ve only got three days. We’ve got to get moving.”

I stare at him. I feel more tears seeping into my eyes. “Do you really think it’s that easy? That I can just get away from them and off we go?”

“For a few days we can. That’s what Kenobi thought. He said they would kill you if they had no other choice, but I won’t let them. He says their power has limits. They are omnipotent in your world, but not in mine. And all we need are a few days. Then everything will be different. After that I’ll talk to them if you want.”

I stare at him in stupefaction. I can hear Ms. Cynthia telling me to shut my mouth and to try not to look like an idiot. “That shows you really don’t know anything.”

“Maybe not. We’ll see.”

“You literally believe everything he said?”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve seen some strange things in my life.” I can feel his eyes fixed on mine. “They never made sense, but I couldn’t ignore them. What he said fits with what I’ve seen.”

“Maybe you’re both crazy.”

He shrugs. He doesn’t look particularly concerned by that idea. “Maybe so. I’ll consider that next week. For the moment I’m going with what he said. For the next few days, anyway.”

“Because of May seventeenth.”

For the first time some relief creeps into his eyes. He lets out a breath. “Yes, because of May seventeenth.”

We are quiet for a moment.

“I can’t tell you how long I’ve been trying to figure out the meaning of that number,” he says.

The way he looks at me is making me dizzy. “Because he told it to you?”

“Way before that. Because I saw it on your arm.”

I close my eyes. “How?”

He moves closer to me. He takes my hands again. He unbends my left arm and pushes up my sleeve and runs his fingers over the place where it was.

I shiver. My skin holds the memory of the rawness from all the scrubbing.

“I saw you four years ago. I think it was when you first got here. You were like the girl in the Robert Burns poem: wet and draggled, coming through the rye. I was thirteen, and I was fishing by myself for the first time at Haverstraw Creek. There had been this crazy disturbance in the air over the stream. It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. Ben Kenobi says that it was one end of the time path. That’s where you all came through.”

I can’t stop shaking. “I don’t remember.”