The Storm this time was far away. From this distance, one could be forgiven for thinking it a harmless, non-malicious, natural funnel cloud. But, experience says that's
not the case.
From here, in the garden, a lone figure waits. She is confused, a little. Normally there is another. Another person beside herself. Normally there is a sadness, a sense of coming loss. Of death. But here, now, that's been replaced. It seems rather like…
Peace.
A rest, at the end of a long day. A long life. Too long.
"... did you love him?"
The question catches them both by surprise: the younger by her sudden boldness, the older by the need for the question at all.
"Why," the elder swallowed lightly, "do you ask?"
"That's not an answer." But the child thinks the deflection is answer enough, anyway. "Did you love him?"
"Of course. I wear his ring, don't I?" She looked at her aged hand, as if to answer the question for herself, too. "I remember, yes. I said 'yes,' that time."
There was a beat of silence between them. Conversations were harder each time. Rapid onset dementia, the doctors had said. The mind of a ninety year old, they said. But she's only sixty-two, came her protest. It is an interesting case, they said, as if that was a fucking consoling thought, as if that made losing her second parent easier because it was a goddamn experiment they could…
The unmarried woman shook her head, as if to shake off the negative thoughts. She regarded the widow from her periphery. Pain was etched in the faint wrinkles she saw.
"Mom, I'm sorry, I know, it's just…" The daughter didn't know how to finish that sentence. She hadn't meant to interrogate her mother. Again. There was just so much she never knew about her mother, and now time was short. So short.
The mother made eye contact, blue eyes on either side. "It's ok, Bethany. You deserve to know. I told you everything once, but it wasn't right, so I didn't. But sometimes I forget when I didn't, or if I did after."
Sigh. She's slipping. This is… cruel. Life sucks. Death sucks. Everything dies.
"Don't be angry, Beth." A small smile graced withered lips. "You are prettier when you smile." She always had a knack for reading her daughter's moods. Which was odd, because she spent her youth alone, awkward, and anti-social.
They sat next to each other on a jade colored couch in the Home's communal area, which, despite being "communal" was currently populated exclusively by the two women. The couch faced out the sliding glass doors into the interior garden. Every month, on the second Saturday, they met here, had tea, and talked. I like to see Nature, even if this is tamed. Beth's mother loved Nature, true enough. Sometimes, the Butterfly visits me, there, too. Beth still hasn't figured that one out.
The elderly one wore a grey hoodie, plain, despite the warming spring weather. Underneath, a likewise unadorned tee, completed with khakis and pink and white sneakers (Is it terrible to want my feet to be comfortable?). Bath swore her mother wore the same fashion today as when Beth was born.
A contrast to her mother, Beth's fashion was bolder. A three quarter sleeve jean jacket over a white and grey tee emblazoned with the logo of her current favorite underground band from Seattle. Blue jeans (No holes, Beth! Her mother's voice from the past. I bought those jeans whole, not in pieces), and skater shoes, because she had promised her friend Jess to learn to skate.
"Ask me. Anything. I have Time." She chuckled, an inside joke to herself, evidently.
Beth considered. She supposed, she was already halfway in anyway. The seal broken, let the questions bottled up spill forth.
"Why did you love him?" Love was on Beth's mind lately. For reasons.
"He loved me. So I loved him back. Sometimes, that was enough." The smile faded, a neutral expression replaced it, but pain laced her features.
"That's, wow." Beth let out a small puff. "Kinda unromantic, y'know?" It came out more critically than she anticipated.
"We had our moments. Our first date was at the drive in. Eh, no, wait." Her features scrunched together, trying to squeeze the right memory from the mess that was her mind. "This was, not Apes, never went Ape, not this Time, saw Star Trek, was first once, Rewound…"
Her mother's voice faded away, and Beth glanced out the window. Not so much to see the plants, but more to not see her mother deteriorate. The garden is a nice change of pace, Beth thought. Sure beats the hell outta these endless beige walls. No amount of your fucking dime-store paintings will cover that shit up, Marsh-Rigley Senior Care Center.
"Ah," the answer started, "it was Spirits Within, movie night at my place.I remember now, the right memory." An odd choice of words, Beth thought. Her mother continued, "Warren, your father, he hated that movie. I made sure to keep a copy available." Light laughter, more breath than sound, fell from her lips.
"You didn't take his name."
"No," a sigh, "I considered hyphenation, but 'Caulfield' was already established as my professional name. Warren never seemed to mind." Max brushed some hair back from her face. The former brunette was largely grey now (You look like a goddamn Q-tip, Max, Auntie Tori had said, always harsher than she really felt).
"Was there, like, somebody else or something? You've never mentioned any past lovers or anything." Yup, definitely down the rabbit hole now, Beth, fuck me.
Another beat of silence. Another answer with no words. Beth watched as Max's face travelled through contemplation, joy, sorrow, regret, and back to neutrality.
"…I won't lie to you, Beth. There was one. But it was a love that was not meant to be. A love for… another Time. I couldn't… it wasn't possible. Not really. But your Dad, he knew. He knew everything."
"And you guys still got married and everything? Even though he knew you'd never love him, like, like that? That's just so weird to me, Mom."
Max chuckled again, a little more heartily than last time. "We had rules. Sex every third Sunday –"
"Mom!"
"- all joint finances, no lies, professions had equal priority. Warren loved his research."
"Ok, first, I don't need to know how often you guys had sex, and that's so weird you fucking scheduled it, too…"
"Well, Warren had more sex than I did."
"Mom! I just said…" And confusion took over Beth. "Wait, what? How is that, you can't mean… No, no, I don't want to know!"
The incredulous look in Max's eyes said she was enjoying torturing her daughter with information about her parent's more intimate lives.
"It was an open relationship."
A loud groan erupted from Beth, and her hands shot up to palm over her eyes. She leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees. The orderly manning the front desk took notice for a moment, but Max just laughed lightly and waved slowly at him. Satisfied nothing was wrong (Oh, just Mrs. Caulfield, she's cool.), the orderly went back to his papers.
"Mom, stop."
"I used it once."
"Mom! My god!"
A laughing snort shot out from Mrs. Caulfield. Through a wide smile, she said "Okay, okay, I'll stop."
Beth let her mother get the remaining giggles out. And as much as she did not want to know, her mouth had been on a rebellious streak all afternoon, and so the question left her lips before her brain could veto the measure.
"Just once? For who?"
Beth scolded herself, internally. Dammit Beth! I'm gonna die here, red as a tomato…
"She reminded me of a long lost friend."
Ok! Answer given, satisfied, just leave it alone –
"She?"
Dear myself, I hate you so much right now.
To her credit, Max managed a gentle smile. The soft, motherly gaze of her cerulean eyes helped calmed Beth's panicked nerves. You're ok, Mom's ok, we're… bonding. Right. Yeah.
"Yes, 'she.'" Max explained. "Met her in my Gallery one night. Blue hair, too dark to match, and no pink roots, but close enough. Vaguely punkish clothes. Had an attitude to her, hmmm." The glaze over her mother's eyes at the memory was simultaneously heartwarming and unnerving to Beth. Max continued, "One night, didn't remember her name. Didn't matter anyway, I whispered her name at the peak."
"What name –"
"Chloe."
Her middle name. Bethany Chloe Graham.
There was so much secret history in her family, Beth was realizing. She felt a tinge of anger, as if the info had been hidden from her all this time. She reminded herself that she never asked, either.
"The one from –"
"From another Time, yeah." Max looked out to the garden, blinked a few times.
"Mom…" But what was there to say? The sadness in her mother's eyes was like a hurricane over the ocean, and it threatened to drown Beth too. She decided to voice just that thought. "Don't cry, or I'm gonna open up too, and we know how that goes, and I have plans later." A weak smile appeared on both women. Max had held Beth through many nights after Warren died.
"I've cried tears for the whole world in my time, Beth. I don't know if I have any left."
And that much was true. Beth had only ever seen Max cry one time, the Monday before her dad died. Just up and broke down after taking a selfie with Beth on her first day of High School. Five days later, no more Dad. (The day of the accident, he says to his daughter, Don't forget about me, Peaches, with tears in his eyes. She replies, Never. Dad, you're so weird!)
"I've seen so much, Beth. So much that didn't, I couldn't take it back, and there was one, always just the one," she spat the last words out with such velocity Beth needed to check the coffee table for damage. Her tone softened, "Death, loss, I thought once, it was me, but I just, was there, had to stop, no one else could."
Beth didn't speak, she just reached for her mother's hand. Hands joined, squeezed small comforts back and forth. Max let out a long, slow breath.
"Bethany, listen close." The former brunette looked resolutely into her daughter's eyes. Beth felt almost uncomfortable at the laser focus of her stare. As she stared back, there was a shift, almost imperceptible, and she could have missed it if her mother hadn't commanded her entire attention at that moment.
A strand of hair, suddenly shifted forward, a frame skip.
Eyes focused suddenly to the side, a frame skip.
Lips, before closed, now parted slightly, a frame skip.
"Old Man Johnson comes down the hallway, drops his puzzle. Orderly says, 'One of those days, Johnson?'"
"What?"
"A bird lands on the tree outside, chirps once, flies off."
"Ok, you're…"
"The phone in your pocket rings. It's Jess. And I say, 'No Emoji.'"
"You're freaking me out!"
The Time Master smiles. It's not her First Day.
Old Man Johnson (affectionately known) shambles down the hallway. The orderly at the desk looks up to greet him, but Johnson's grip falters on the boxed puzzle in his hands and it breaks on impact with the floor. Johnson stares down for a second. The orderly is on his feet in a flash, off to help. "One of those days, Johnson?"
Beth glances at the one who birthed her. "Ok, that's weird." Remembering what's next, she looks out the glass.
A sparrow flies down, perches on the lowest branch of the sole tree in the interior garden. It hops left, then right. Having decided this tree was not good enough, apparently, the sparrow chirps once, then returns to the skies.
"The fuck?" breathes Beth, but she's interrupted by a text notification from her jean pockets.
[Jess
Plan change. You drive. Car in shop. :( Long story. Pick me up peas? ;)
4:22PM]
And from the other side of the couch, "No Emoji."
Beth isn't sure how long her mouth hung open, but she does know these things:
Mom just read the future.
Like, for real. (For Cereal, Max-Voice says)
This is fucked.
I'm so confused.
Jess' car is in the shop?
"You better respond to her, darling."
Beth doesn't acknowledge her, doesn't she knows what I say already? Mechanically, her thumbs type a response.
[Beth
sure thing. with mom at home in arcadia. same time? also mom says no emoji
4:23PM]
Jess must've been waiting for a response, because the reply came immediately.
[Jess
Yay! Yeah same time. Tell her I say Hi! You guys are so cute! :D
4:23PM]
"…Jess says 'Hi.'" Beth manages to squeak out, still not entirely sure whether she's dreaming or hallucinating.
"Tell her how you feel." It was almost a command.
This is enough to snap Beth back to attention from her foggy confused state, at least temporarily. "I'mSorryWhat?" The words tumble out, as she feels the heat grow in her cheeks. How does she freaking see that?!
"Hun, if you listen to one thing from today, let it be this: don't wait. Tell her. Tonight, if possible." Her words carried with them the regret of chances squandered; futures lost to Time itself.
But for Beth, this was the last straw on the back of a camel she didn't know she was riding. She shot up to her feet, paced in a tight circle before the green couch.
"You want me to, you've never even been, I mean you don't care, none of my dates. I was engaged once, and you said, you said, 'he seems nice,' like you knew it'd be over in days. And after I find out you and dad were, weren't, in and out and shit, what the shit, and then this fuckin' Chloe chick," Max winced at this point, "and the not Chloe chick, and then you just casually do this fucking crystal ball fucking fortune telling bullshit!"
She wasn't yelling, her voice wasn't even loud enough to rouse the attention of the orderly, now returned to his desk, but she visibly shook with each word. Max stood and Beth stopped her pacing. They hugged, and Max didn't let go until the shakes subsided from Beth's frame. She let her daughter back out to arm's length, still grasping her shoulders. Blue gazes collided once again.
"I'm sorry, love. Though, to be fair, you're taking it much better this Time." Max thought there was a joke in there somewhere, but she was a mother first. "Sit. How long till you meet Jess?"
"I should leave here by five thirty. That'll give me plenty of time."
"Time is something I've had too much of." Max's voice exhibited a tired quality. As if the concept of Time itself was draining on her.
"Hey, your nose!" Beth raised concern. Max dabbed at her upper lip; she already knew what to expect.
After all, this was not her First Day.
"Ah, I haven't Rewound in a while now. Guess I've gone soft, huh?" A soft laughter rolled off her, and even Beth (what does that even mean, mom?) got a chuckle from it, infectious as a Caulfield laugh could be.
"Rewound? So, you dial everything back, once you've seen it all, making it look like you see the future when really you experience the future and then travelled back." Beth recognized this was the weirdest sentence of her life.
"You got your father's smarts, you know that?" Max beamed with pride. It was a small thing, but she had learned that all the little moments were just as important as the big choices, Tornado or no.
"Thanks, mom." Beth turned sheepish in light of her mother's beaming, angling her head down to hide her blush. "But, you know that this raises so, so, so many questions, right?"
"Yeah, it always does. And there's been so many, back and forth, photo jumps, different people, different places, same thing, Tornado or some shit, and then I'm, but there's the jump, and I'm out…" The rambling turned rather incoherent, and Beth grew concerned again.
Is this a symptom? But, how could that explain how she knew all that, even the text from Jess. Unless…
"Oh my god, it's backwards! Your dementia, it's because you're technically so old! Timey wimey balls!" It was a triumph of the mind, and despite the dark subject of her statement, Beth's face lit up with satisfaction.
Max let her jaw drop, then built up a laugh that shook her whole frame. Beth, realizing the insanity of it all, soon joined. A solid minute passed of simple, joyous, ridiculous laughter from the pair.
"Yes, but good luck convincing the doctors of that, dear." Max admonished jokingly.
"Well, you could show them, yeah? Isn't this, like, the greatest discovery in modern history?" And then Beth's brain kicked into overdrive. "Dad would have been all over this in the lab. And you said he knew everything, about Chloe even, so he knew about this. And Chloe was, quote 'lost in another Time,' so she's connected somehow. And there's a reason you kept this a secret till now. So…" She paused here, hoping her mother would start to fill in the rather large gaps.
Max stood, motioned for Beth to follow. They weaved through the halls of the Home, more beige paint and shit art, c'mon guys, until they got to Max's room. Once inside, Max retrieved a box from her closet. A lockbox. From her desk, a key was produced. Inside the box, rested a series a notebooks.
"What's all this?" Inquired Beth.
"The reason for silence." Came the solemn reply. "These notebooks are my 'operational journals,' as Warren called them. After the first, after… Chloe…" Max choked down a sudden sob. With all the talk about Time, and love, and her, Max's feelings were rather close to the surface. But she soldiered on, like always.
"I'd always kept a journal, for me, but I wanted a separate account of everything. So maybe one day, at least, the world might know that Chloe didn't die a burnout druggie in that fucking bathroom. She died so they could live.
"But she was just the first. Either I followed death or death followed me, I still don't know. These books, they contain the stories of the Sacrifices, the ones who gave their lives so others could live.
"Starts with a Vision. Gives me a place and a person. I'm just… the tax collector, I guess. Make sure Fate visits the person it's supposed to. Why I travelled so much during your youth. Warren was the last.
"The Earth, it's pissed at us. Or something. And I've seen, people, places, all gone, all dead. They never remember, I take it back, I have to Rewind. And all that, that Time, it never happened.
"And, and, I just wanted, to do good, to not fail, just, to be an everyday hero," she laughed at this, a bittersweet memory of another Time.
Beth picked up the books. There were eleven total, and as she thumbed through one, she saw dozens of accounts. Maybe hundreds overall. Her heart sank. Every time her mom was gone, when Beth was younger, she cursed her. For leaving Dad and her to just go and take pictures. But this, the real reason, it was…
"Kate said I was a real Angel. She didn't believe us, at first, but we got through. And she, she is so pure, just fucking innocent, she saw through all the death weighing me down, and she said," a dry sob from Max, invisible weights from accumulated silence starting to lift, "she told me I was doing God's work, to save them. I thought I wanted a reason, but…"
Beth stopped looking at the books, and turned to her mother. Agony was written on her features. Beth took Max's hands in her own. In a voice low enough to be a whisper, she asked "do you believe her?"
Another dry sob, "No! She didn't know, didn't, all the people, I didn't save, the ones I, I had to kill. Kate doesn't remember the conversation. I rewound, I mean, I think I did, at least once…"
A swift moment of silence, then "I would trade, trade places, any of them. I tried. Cliffs, knives, bullets. Time doesn't let me die. I just do its dirty work." Anger seeped into the places in her the sorrow had occupied moments before.
"I let the disaster hit, once. Miami hurricane, 2018. I was young, angry. So many dead. Time just laughed at me, 'See what happens when you don't jump when I say?'
"Lost my parents, lost my classmates, lost my husband, lost my Chloe…"
Oh, Chloe. I miss you. I never forgot.
And this time, Max did cry. For the second time in her life, Beth witnessed tears flow from the beautiful oceans that were her mother's eyes. If eyes were truly the windows to the soul, Max's eye's showed her Loss. Loss of innocence, of childhood, of life, of true love.
Beth had gone into the Home that day angry with her mother. For withholding. For not loving her Dad as much as Beth loved him. But now, after all this, she felt nothing but loss. The loss of a parent, even before death, because Death would not have taken her anyway. So she cried.
Two women, sobbing swiftly on the bed of a too-young elder for the loss of Time that couldn't have happened.
Twenty minutes passed on the bed. Tears slowed, ceased, dried. They held onto each other like they were all they had, because really, that was true.
"Chloe would have loved you, you know." Silence broken, simple words with so much meaning.
"Really?" Searching for approval she never knew she desired.
"Of course. She wanted me to live for both of us, but I couldn't. You, you could. I made sure you could. And you did. And I'm proud, and she's proud, for following your dreams, and we love you so much, Beth." The hug tightened.
"I…I love you too, Mom. And if you loved her, I could have loved Chloe, too." She wasn't sure if it were true (that truth was locked in another Time), but it felt right, and Max lightened, warmed at the thought.
A glance at the clock showed 5:23PM. "You should go. Go see Jess. Meow." The somber tension slightly lifted.
"Mom! Geeze!" She blushed again.
"But before you go, one last thing?" Max started toward the closet again.
"Wazzat?"
Max turned and revealed her camera (William's Camera), "Selfie?"
This made Beth laugh once more. "Sure, Mom."
So they snuggled close, Max kissed Beth's cheek, Beth made a faux-disgusted face, and Max's last selfie printed on Polaroid film. She wouldn't need to use this one. She handed the photo over to Beth.
"Don't forget about me."
"Never. You're so weird, Mom."
"Hey Jess." Smiles both ways.
"Yo, B! You're early for once! Should I be concerned?" A wink.
"Yes. I need to tell you something." Still smiling. Like a fool, really.
"Oh, ok, what's on your mhm…!" Couldn't finish the sentence, too many lips on her lips.
She doesn't protest. Even years later, even after rings, even after children.
Beth visited every day for the next four days.
Max taught her about her middle namesake. Beth decides that yes, she would have loved the fearless pirate that was Chloe.
Beth shares the story of her success with Jess, and Max's eyes aren't so dead for as long as she can listen to Beth's adventures.
In those five days, Beth and Max connect on a far deeper level than ever before.
Before the end, Max notes the similarity with another length of five days, and a different love.
Max sees the Butterfly out her window on Wednesday night.
A nurse finds her in the morning. A blue Butterfly on either side of the window, separated.
The nurse opens the panes, reuniting the two souls.
And so, on Thursday, two Butterflies fly away. There is no Storm that day.
Beth kneels before three gravestones. Dad, Mom, Chloe. She owes her life to the three of them. She has a speech ready, but she forgets, and she just mutters, "I love you all, so much." She feels the lightest of wind on her shoulder, and sees two Butterflies through her tears. She smiles, and they fly off, batting at each other, playfully, in the wind that seems to blow just so, perfect.
Love. Its different things for different people, Beth thinks, but it's always worth it.
"I'll never forget you."