[2013] Life II Page 29

  For the next few days, there would be many people coming. There were his mom and dad, then Garfield, then his neighbors. Over the next several weeks, more people kept coming. Abby’s brother and sisters, and her parents. During the quiet moments, when the company was gone, and he was not at work, he’d stroll over to the bassinet to check on Angela every few minutes. He’d bend his head down to her tiny chest, and place an ear gently against her ribcage. Listening. Making sure she was breathing. Making sure his little girl was safe. He’d sit in the darkness of her bedroom, staring until his eyes were bloodshot, worried that the Bad Thing would creep into the room in the night, and harm his daughter. Every errant tick of her breath made bad thoughts race around inside his head, and terrified him. Instead of staying at home on the computer, he’d go for long walks with Angela in a sling, and later on, with her in the stroller. Abby often accompanied Max on these long walks with the baby. It was among many of their happiest moments together as husband and wife.

  Now he lay alone in bed, and he stared at the ceiling, unblinking. He wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. Not now. Not this day of all days. Thank goodness it was Sunday, though, and he didn’t have to go work or try to focus on anything more important than what he was missing today.

  Finally Max remembered something, and crawled out of bed. He opened the drawer, found his diary, and started writing. It wasn’t long before tears started to flow. Hot and emotional, just like the tears stinging his skin, the memories, as fresh as yesterday, overtook him.

  With trembling fingers he wrote:

  January 21, 2001

  Today is Angela’s date of birth. Her birthday. Not just birthday, but the actual day she was born. That is, the day she was born in my Life I.

  Angela, I miss you so much it hurts. I think I was a good father to you in Life I, but I violated your trust when I chose to enter Life II. I didn’t know all of the details… all of the ramifications of my actions. I was lied to and manipulated for the sake of science. I should have known better than to toy with my past and your future. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of you and your brother, Brandon.

  I think of all the things we did together, and how much utter joy you brought into my life. You made me a father for the first time. Although you’re not present in Life II, and I have no photos of you, you are very real to me and still fill my daily thoughts.

  Memories may be all I have of you, but I will hold on to and cherish them as much as possible. Now that I am working again, I will try to draw some more sketches of you using whatever visions of you I have left. I’m so fortunate that I thought of drawing you years ago, when my memories were still very fresh. I can look at my old drawings again and again and see how you looked. Maybe I’ll try painting next. It would be amazing if I could capture all your beautiful dark brown hair.

  Angela, I hope you forgive me because I can’t forgive myself.

  If you are anywhere… please do find me.

  I miss you and I love you very much.

  Love,

  Daddy

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  September 10, 2002 at 8:25 p.m.

  Max’s eyes were on fire. He wiped his eyes at the end of the weekly meeting of the Helping Hearts Parents Bereavement Group in Toronto. He’d been sobbing as he listened to the stories told in heartbreaking fashion by other parents who’d lost a loved child. The meeting had ended five minutes ago, and several parents knowingly patted Max on the shoulder on their way out.

  He hadn’t spoken that evening as it was the first time he’d been there. He wanted to check it out first and see what it was like. Max wiped his eyes and cocked his head, trying to put his lost children back in the dark forest of his mind, trying to get his thoughts straight before leaving the meeting.

  He observed, but did not acknowledge, two other parents sitting on the opposite sides of him in a row of chairs. They hadn’t been sitting beside him the whole evening, he realized. They’d seated themselves next to him when they found him desolate and alone after the conclusion of the evening.

  Figuring that the two companions weren’t going to leave him any time soon, he murmured to both of them, “I’m okay. You don’t have to stay.”

  The man, who sat to his left, looked at the woman on Max’s right, and nodded. The man said, “That’s okay, we want to stay.”

  Great, Max thought. Company. Just what I need. He sighed. Then he locked eyes with the woman, felt the warmth of her hand touching his, and broke down and sobbed some more. The woman patted his shoulder. “No pressure,” she said. “You can tell us to leave if you want.”

  “You can stay,” Max said, covering his eyes. He finally let out a long breath. “This is so hard.”

  “We know,” the woman said.

  “There’s nothing compared to the death of a child,” said the man. “Nothing.”

  “What’s your name?” the woman asked.

  “Max.” He cleared his throat and turned to the man.

  The man stretched out his hand. “My name’s Harry.”

  “Hey, Harry.” Max shook his hand. He wanted to stop crying. He wanted to be stronger. He sucked in his breath and concentrated on looking confident and strong, but it didn’t happen.

  “How did your child die?” Harry asked.

  Max resisted the urge to scream. You can’t go there. Not tonight. He put a rise into his shoulders, and gave them a silent shrug.

  The man named Harry touched his arm. “My daughter was eight years old when she died. We allowed her to go to a cottage with another family. She was playing on the dock with their daughter when the couple left them for just a minute to get sandwiches. She didn’t have a lifejacket on and somehow fell in the water. Two minutes…” he sighed. “That’s all the time they were gone, but they couldn’t save her. No one could.”

  “That’s terrible,” Max said, drying his eyes.

  “It wasn’t just devastating to us; it was hard for the other family. They’re still haunted by it. They haven’t been to a lake since. We never see them anymore.”

  Harry put his hands on his knees, and looked at Max. There was a silence. Finally the woman turned to Max and said, “My name’s Margaret.” She extended her hand. “My son was seventeen when he died.”

  “I’m sorry,” Max mumbled.”

  “He was very depressed in high school. He was a highly sensitive boy. He was an over-achiever but he felt like he failed everyone.”

  Max sighed. “I know the feeling.”

  “The police report said he died in a motorcycle accident, but I know better. I think he was looking for death. I don’t think he cared anymore if he rode safely or not.”

  Max hadn’t been looking at the woman while she spoke, but he looked at her now. “I’m very sorry,” he said, wanting to turn to her and hug her, wanting to tell her it would be okay.

  “We’re all here together,” Harry said. “We want to hear about your child and how he or she died. We care about you and any parent who’s lost their children.”

  Lost them? Max thought. I didn’t lose them. I threw my children away. And I don’t know how to deal with it. Because it all came down to his choice.A rash decision made by his own hand, no matter how manipulative the female Dr. Time had been, altered his life and the lives of everyone around him.

  Max sobbed and suddenly felt the woman’s hand touch his face. He felt his Adam’s apple bulge as he looked over at her and swallowed.

  “You don’t have to tell us now,” the woman named Margaret said. “We’d love to hear it. Part of the healing is in talking about it. You can come back next week. Come next month or next year. We’re always here for you.”

  She took her hand away and Max looked at her wet fingers a moment.

  “You want us to go away?” she asked.

  Max looked up into her kind eyes and smiled. “No. No, stay here with me. I mean, if that’s okay.”

  Margaret looked over to her companion Harry. She tilted her head.

  “Harry?”<
br />
  “Yeah?”

  “You’re crying now, too.”

  “I am?” Harry lifted a hand and touched his cheek. “No shit, I’m crying. Damn.”

  Max laughed. “No shit,” he said, allowing himself a smile as he turned his eyes back to Margaret. And suddenly everything felt okay.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  October 29, 2002 at 8:47 p.m.

  Max and Margaret Chong became very good friends through the Bereaved Parents Support Group. She was a short, thin woman with a delicate waist and raven-black hair, still in her early forties—a second-generation immigrant whose parents had landed in Toronto directly from the mean streets of Hong Kong.

  Over the next few weeks, Max and Margaret sat over coffee and spent long hours sharing stories about their lost children, and how they remembered them. Max knew Margaret wanted to ask him how Angela and Brandon died, but at the same time, it was up to him to come forward when he was ready.

  “Do you have a photo of Derek?” Max asked one day while they were talking.

  As soon as Max said the words he stopped himself. What a stupid things to ask! He wouldn’t be able to return the favor to Margaret. He didn’t have a single photo of his children.

  It was too late now. Margaret’s face beamed with pride, as she withdrew a faded photo from her purse. It showed a tall, thin teenager with a thick shock of black hair nearly covering his left eye. He was standing next to Margaret, who appeared tiny in comparison.

  “That’s my boy,” she said.

  Max stared at the photo and smiled.

  “He was a good-looking kid,” he said.

  Margaret tucked the photo back into her purse. “Do you have photos of Brandon and Angela?” she asked.

  Max smiled the fakest of smiles, and feeling his palms grow sweaty he wanly answered, “Uh, no. Not with me.”

  “Okay, no problem,” Margaret replied.

  Max leaned back in his chair, and breathed a sigh of relief. Immediately he wanted to curl up into a fetal position, and hide. He realized his hand was trembling, and in that instant he forced himself to make a decision. He was tired of playing games with Life II. This life is going to kill me if I don’t, he decided. And I can’t let my past paralyze me and I can’t run from it anymore. If telling the truth means I have to eat my heart out, because this beautiful woman might think I’m stone cold crazy, so be it. If this woman cared about him, Max decided with conviction, she would tolerate what she’d perceive as his twisted fantasy for as long as she could. He didn’t care what she would think of him. No, it was time to be the Max he should be. On my own terms. Not being dictated to by what was right, or by someone I blindly trusted to tell me what to do, just because I assume they know better than I do.

  “Margaret,” Max began, his voice shaking, “you know what? I think I’ll take up your offer of tea in Chinatown.”

  “I’d like that, Max.”

  They headed down a few blocks to Chinatown. Along the street, they found a tiny café down the steps below street level. Warm, red lanterns glowed in the window that bore Chinese characters. They went inside and sat down, and Margaret motioned for service.

  It’s time now, Max thought. Then he hesitated. He wondered if Margaret would be receptive to his truths. Would she be pleasant, but appalled by Max’s revelations? She was, after all, a bereaved parent. Although he shared her loss, his was different. He had made a choice—an uninformed one, and maybe a desperate one, but still a choice. He sensed a spirituality in Margaret that made him yearn to open up. He desperately needed someone to talk to. What did he have to lose?

  “I have something about my children to tell you, Margaret.”

  “I’d love to hear it, Max,” she said, leaning forward in her chair.

  Max picked at the tablecloth with his fingernail. He couldn’t look her in the eye. Not yet. But his sense of urgency felt tightly coiled inside of him.

  “I have to warn you,” he whispered, “that my story is very different from any reality you’ve ever experienced.”

  Margaret eyes showed her intrigue. “Really”” she asked. Then as if she could see Max’s mind working faster and faster she tilted her head to the side, and instantly stopped smiling. “Did you do something to your children?” she asked nervously.

  “No! It’s not like that.”

  Margaret visibly relaxed a little. She poured herself some tea, rested her arms on the table, and replied, “Go ahead.”

  Max cleared his throat. “You don’t have to believe me. It may be too much for you.”

  Margaret placed her hand on his. “There are two things I know. People who attend bereaved parents meetings have no other reason to attend other than to grieve for their child. And, parents who have lost their child no longer have a problem telling the truth about what happened.” She released her hand, and fixed a loving gaze on Max. “Now, trust me.”

  Max let out a long breath. “Okay, it’s complicated.” Here goes, he thought. He didn’t have a clue how to say it, so he just blurted it out:

  “I’m from the future.”

  Margaret didn’t blink or move a muscle. Max froze in terror. I’m going to be sick, he thought. Once again, I’ve screwed everything up! He tortured himself with thoughts of Margaret throwing her head back, and laughing at him, so loud that it made the whole room throb. Instead, she kept her eyes on Max, shrugged, and smiled.

  “Go on,” she said.

  Max blinked in surprise. He couldn’t believe it. He felt like his legs were filled with steaming liquid. “So, uh, okay,” he said, with a slowly broadening smile. “Would you like me to tell you about them?”

  “Please.”

  “Well, uh,” Max stammered, having no idea where the words came from. “My daughter Angela was born on January 21, 2001. Brandon—that’s my son—he was born on December 4, 2003. I was their father until October 27, 2013, when I found a way to time travel and returned back to September 16, 1987, long before they were born. The scientist who gave me the path to time travel lied to me, saying that I’d definitely see them again.” He gulped. Margaret looked a lot less steady suddenly. But then she offered Max her hand, and gently squeezed his. Max wasn’t even aware he was speaking until he heard his own voice enter the room and continue his story.

  He paused, searching Margaret’s face for clues. Still inscrutable. “I planned to marry the same woman who was my wife in my past life, so I could have my kids again. It didn’t work out. Instead, I married a different woman, and with her I have two other children, Kyle and Peter.”

  Max stopped and stared at Margaret again. Her face crinkled momentarily.

  “Go on,” she said.

  Max could hardly believe he’d gotten this far. He started again. “So, uh, when I came back to this timeline, to this second life, Angela and Brandon weren’t born yet. Now it looks like they’ll never be born, but of course they did exist for me once.” Max sucked at the air, wrapping his story up. “I can’t prove anything to you. I don’t have any photos or birth records. But you have to believe me. They’re just as real to me as Kyle and Peter are. And that’s about it. Except that I miss them terribly.”

  Margaret said nothing.

  So, okay, Max thought to himself. You totally blew it. Then he noticed Margaret started tearing up for the first time since Max had known her. She gripped his hand tight.

  “Oh Max,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

  Max shook his head in disbelief. He wondered if he was hearing things.

  “Sorry?” he asked, watching the tears spill down her cheeks. “Sorry about what?”

  Margaret displayed a sad smile. “I’m so sorry your two children were left behind in a different timeline.”

  Max’s eyes bulged. The smile on his face was growing now. “You… you believe me?”

  “Of course!” Margaret said, seeming confused by his reaction. “I can see it in you. Your deep sorrow. Your emptiness. There’s an echoing pain within you and a hollowness surrounding your sp
irit. Those sort of emotions can’t be faked.”

  Max’s shoulders fell in relief. He cocked his head, his lips as dry as sandpaper. Was she putting him on? He’d have to admit: if he had been listening to a woman tell this story, he wouldn’t have believed her. Her faith in him was touching in many ways.

  For a long moment Max looked at the smiling woman. There was only one thing he could say.

  “Thank you, Margaret.”

  She nodded, reaching a hand across to touch his shoulder. “I should be the one who is so honored that you trust me with this very difficult situation,” she said, her smooth face surprisingly eager now. She gave a half-twist smile. “Tell me more.”

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  December 4, 2003, at 4:45 a.m.

  Max slit his eyes down tight, dabbed his brush onto the blue pallet, then dabbed the finishing touches to an oil painting portrait of Brandon. He assessed his work to date, and then touched up Brandon’s chin. He could sense Margaret, in her bathrobe, standing behind him, admiring his work.

  “Can’t sleep?” she asked, and pulled the collar tightly around her neck to stay warm.

  “Nope.”

  She eyed the painting and smiled. “Brandon would be proud of you. He would’ve been born today.”

  “I wanted to surprise you by unveiling it later.”

  “But you’ll still allow me the official unveiling, of course.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Tonight?”

  “After supper?”

  “Deal.”

  “Deal.”

  Margaret placed her hand on Max’s shoulder. “He’s a beautiful boy, Max.”

  “I know.” Max gazed at the painting one more time. “Welcome to the world today, Brandon,” he sighed, and turned his gold-flecked eyes on his son. “I love you and I miss you very much,” he said, with a resigned smile.