Angela spent the rest of the day shopping, cooking, and eating dinner with Maria and Leo. It was only once she was getting ready for bed that she started worrying that her decision to end things with Marcus might have just ruined time. Hadn't that been one of the first things JB had said to her, back when he was explaining the ways the time crash had messed up history? You were supposed to marry a plumber and have five kids. That's five whole kids who will probably never exist…
Her upcoming wedding to Marcus was one of the many things that the blending of the dimensions had been about to put right. So should she go ahead and marry him anyway, despite the fact that neither of them wanted to and both of them were interested in other people?
It sounded like a terrible idea. But what if it was the only way to save time?
Maria was supposed to die in 1918, she reminded herself. And Leo was supposed to die just a few years later. They weren't originally supposed to be in this time period. But they're here. JB let them come here and live in the twenty-first century. Actually, none of the kids from the plane were supposed to survive their original time periods and come live here, but the time agency is letting them do that. That has to mean it's still okay for things to be a little bit different than they were in original time.
Angela went to bed early that night, physically and mentally exhausted from everything that had transpired since 1932. She woke up to a tentative voice saying her name. "Angela? Um… excuse me? Angela?"
Sleepily, she opened her eyes to find Maria looking down at her, wearing a timid expression.
"What's wrong?" Angela asked, suddenly wide awake.
"Your cell phone was making noise and displaying a picture. I think your mother is trying to contact you."
Mom! Angela thought, her heart soaring at the idea of finally talking to her mother again, before she remembered that she'd just talked to her mom on the phone a few days ago.
Angela took the phone from Maria and tapped the Call Back option, and a moment later, her mom's voice filled the line. "Angela? Sorry, did I wake you?"
"Mom," Angela breathed. "It's… good to hear from you." Logically, she knew how strange her reaction was, but she couldn't help it. The time-travel half of her hadn't talked to her mom in years.
There was a brief pause, and then her mom said, almost as a question, "It's good to hear from you too?"
Did her family remember her years of silence, their years of thinking she was crazy? Or had they forgotten, just like she had forgotten her uneventful first night at SkyTrails and Katherine had forgotten being an only child?
"You called?" Angela prompted.
"Oh. Yeah. I was just calling to see if you'd left yet, and to ask if you guys could stop and pick up some milk before you get here. I thought we had enough but I just gave the last of it to Myra."
Left yet? For a moment, Angela was confused. Then she remembered what day it was.
Thanksgiving.
Holidays hadn't been a big deal for her time-travel self, and in all the craziness of the day before, she'd completely forgotten what the next day was. But her non-time-travel self had been planning to drive up to Mayville for the day, like she did for every special event.
And she'd been planning on bringing Marcus.
"Um, yeah," she said. "I can get milk. And—I have something important to tell you when I get there."
Leo and Maria were more than happy to celebrate an American holiday and meet Angela's family. Angela spent the two-hour drive to her parents' house answering their questions, briefing them on what Thanksgiving was and who was going to be there, and then working with them to come up with a good cover story for who they were and why they were living with her. She thought she'd like to tell her family the truth someday, but this definitely didn't seem like the right time.
Angela's siblings, Shayla and Robert, were already there, along with their spouses and children. Seven-year-old Myra ran to Angela the moment she stepped inside. "Auntie Angela!" she squealed. "You're here!"
Angela hugged her niece tightly, for the thousandth time and the first. "It's good to see you, little monkey."
She went around hugging her other family members—her parents, her siblings and siblings-in-law, her other nieces and nephews, and her grandparents—so profoundly grateful that they were in her life again. That they'd always been in her life.
"And who are these fine young people?" asked Angela's grandma, placing a hand on Leo's shoulder. He and Maria had been hanging back uncomfortably while Angela greeted everybody.
"That's Leo, and this is Maria," Angela introduced them. "They're from Russia. They're staying with me for a while."
"You didn't tell us you were going to be hosting exchange students!" exclaimed Shayla. "That's awesome! Nice to meet you guys! How long will you be in the U.S.?"
"Until June, maybe longer," said Maria, using the cover story they'd come up with in the car.
"You'll have to tell us all about Russia later," said Angela's sister-in-law, and Angela grimaced, knowing everything Maria or Leo said about Russia would sound like it had happened a hundred years ago—because it had.
"We would much prefer to learn all about life here," said Maria, and Angela breathed a small sigh of relief.
Of course, it didn't take long before someone asked about Marcus. Angela took a deep breath before explaining that she and Marcus had decided mutually that they were better off as friends. "I'm so sorry to do this to all of you," she apologized, hanging her head in shame as she remembered the huge deposits her parents had already put down for the wedding. "We just didn't want to end up married to someone who we didn't feel that strongly about. Especially because someday we might meet someone who we do."
Her family's reaction was mixed. Some seemed appalled, some disappointed, some grudgingly admitting that it might be a good decision. But Angela's mom pulled her aside and placed a hand on Angela's cheek. "You're making the right decision," she told her. "If he's not the one you want to be with for the rest of your life, it's good that you're realizing that now rather than later."
There were a few questions, which Angela answered the best she could, and then people started breaking off into small groups, some to continue preparing food in the kitchen, some to watch TV in the family room, some to play games or chat in the living room. Leo moved closer to Angela and gestured toward the kitchen. "Is it all right if I go help with the food?" he asked. "Or at least watch?"
"Of course," Angela told him, glad that he'd found something to do that interested him. "I'm sure they'd love your help."
Maria had already settled herself on the floor with the children, oohing and aahing as they showed her their favorite toys and chattered her ears off about things they liked to do. Angela stood next to Shayla, who gave her a squeeze around the shoulders. "I'm sorry it didn't work out with Marcus," Shayla said. "But that's great about Maria and Leo. Any other major life changes I should know about?"
Oh, you know, only that I've traveled through time, sort of dated someone who won't be born for hundreds of years, spent five months in the 1930's taking care of Albert Einstein's schizophrenic son, and lived two simultaneous lives for the past thirteen years. She shrugged. "Not really. What's new with you?"
Dinner was delicious and filling, and Angela reveled in being able to spend the day with her family. How could I have spent thirteen entire years without all of this? she wondered, listening to her dad's corny puns, her nieces' and nephews' constant chatter, and her siblings' entertaining stories about things that had happened at work.
"So," she said to Maria and Leo on the drive home. "How was your first experience celebrating an American holiday?"
"It was very nice," said Maria. "I like your family. I'd like to meet them again sometime."
"Me too," Leo agreed.
The next several days were spent doing yet more shopping and familiarizing Maria and Leo with more aspects of the twenty-first century, as well as getting Leo ready to start high school. His first day at Liston High was the Monday after Thanksgiving, and as Angela dropped him off, she felt a quiver of uncertainty pass through her. "Remember," she reminded him, "If you have to write your birthdate on anything, you were born in 1997. And if anyone asks you any questions about Russia, you should probably try to be vague or change the subject. Keep your cell phone with you at all times and call or text me if you need anything. Okay?"
Leo nodded seriously, looking a little nervous himself. "Okay. I'll be careful; I promise."
Angela spent the day at home with Maria, who wouldn't start her college classes until the new semester began in January. Maria taught her how to embroider, and they did that together until Angela received a call from Marcus. She answered it with trepidation, but he was just calling her to let her know that everything was working out great between him and Jennifer.
"I'm so happy to hear that," she told him honestly, although she couldn't help feeling a pang of longing for Hadley, and wondering when she would get to see him and JB again.
Leo was smiling when she picked him up from school. "It was strange and overwhelming at first, but I think I'm going to like it," he told her. "The cooking class seems very interesting, and there was a boy from Germany who I started talking to in the math class, and he was very nice."
Later that afternoon, Angela received a call from Jonah. "Jonah!" she exclaimed, glad to hear from him. "How are you? How's everything going with your family?"
"Well, Mom and Dad are still a little freaked out over the whole Katherine-and-me-almost-dying-in-several-different-centuries thing, and today at school all the teachers kept trying to make Jordan and me sit at the same desk, but other than that things seem to be going okay," he said. "I'm calling to ask if you want to come over for dinner sometime this week. Mom and Dad want to meet you again now that they've had a little bit of time to adjust to all the time travel stuff."
Angela, Maria, and Leo showed up at the Skidmores' house on Wednesday night, exactly a week after the eventful day on which everything had happened. The whole family met them at the door. "So you're Maria Romanova," Linda marveled, seeming a little starstruck as she shook Maria's hand. "It's such an honor to meet you."
"Mom," groaned Katherine, stepping up behind her. "Don't make it weird."
"You're right, I'm sorry," Linda apologized. "I'm just still getting used to the fact that it's possible to actually interact with people from history!"
Conversation flowed easily around the dinner table, with Jonah, Katherine, and Jordan talking about how school was going and which kids from the plane they'd talked to during the past week, Maria and Leo answering questions about twentieth-century Russia and how they were adjusting to twenty-first century America, and the Skidmore parents and Angela getting to know each other. "What do you do for work, Angela?" Michael wanted to know.
"Currently I'm a flight attendant for JetBlue, but I'm working up to becoming a commercial pilot," she explained. She had asked for a few weeks' leave the day after Thanksgiving, so she could focus on getting Maria and Leo acclimated. "I only have a few more hours and my written exam before I earn my private license, and then I'll go from there to become certified for commercial."
"Whoa, what?!" Jonah and Katherine exclaimed together. "You're a pilot?" Katherine said incredulously. "How come you never told us?"
Angela chuckled at her indignation. "That was only in the other dimensions. In the one where I met you guys, I just spent thirteen years researching physics, like I told you."
"Wait, so even though you didn't get to become a pilot in our dimension, you did in the other one and now you remember them both?" asked Jonah, starting to smile. "That's so cool!"
"Oh!" said Katherine suddenly. "The blended dimensions! We haven't told Angela about the other kids!"
"Oh yeah," said Jonah. He looked at Angela. "Turns out Jordan and I aren't the only ones who've had to deal with new siblings."
"Really?" This was news to Angela.
"Yeah, a couple of our friends have younger siblings now that they didn't have before, because their parents adopted other kids in the dimensions where the time crash never happened," Katherine explained.
"And Chip didn't get any siblings, but he said his parents have been treating him better and acting nicer ever since the dimensions merged," Jonah added. "Mom said that maybe in the other dimension they really regretted not having kids, so now they're finally happy that they have one."
"That makes sense," said Angela, thinking about how grateful she was to have a relationship with her family again even though one version of her had all along. "That's great! I'm happy for him."
She looked at Jordan, who had been quiet ever since his brother and sister had started talking about the other kids. "How are things going for you?" she asked, wanting to make sure he felt included.
Jordan shrugged. "I don't know. People keep thinking I'm Jonah."
"That's mostly just the kids from the plane, because they didn't know you before," said Katherine. "Everyone else mixes you guys up pretty equally."
Jordan rolled his eyes as if that wasn't much comfort.
"You know," Linda spoke up. "It might be nice to have some sort of get-together for all the kids who were on the plane. That way Jordan can meet everybody, and the ones who haven't really gotten to know any of the others yet can have some kids they can just be themselves with."
"Oooh!" exclaimed Katherine. "A party! That's a great idea! Angela, do you have everyone's addresses and phone numbers?"
"I used to," Angela said regretfully. "But I don't have an Elucidator anymore, and I only remember where a few of the kids live. I can ask Hadley or JB the next time I see them, but I don't know when that will be. Hopefully soon."
Katherine looked momentarily discouraged, but then brightened. "That's okay. Alex and Andrea and Brendan and Antonio all go to different schools, so they might be able to reach out to whichever kids go to school with them, and we can pass the message along that way."
Angela smiled, but mentioning Hadley and JB had made her lose focus on the conversation. Hadley had promised that she would get to see them at least one more time, but he hadn't said anything about when. Was she going to have to wait for another week? A month? A year?
Everyone helped clean up after dinner, and Angela, Maria, and Leo hung around talking with the Skidmores until Leo started yawning, and Angela realized they'd better get going so the kids could all get to bed at a decent time. "Thank you so much for having us," she said to Linda as they got ready to leave. "We'll have to do this again sometime."
"Definitely," Linda agreed. "It's nice having another adult around who we can talk with about all this time-travel stuff. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, to be honest."
"Well, the kids have my phone number, so please, give me a call any time you want to talk," said Angela.
Everyone was in good spirits as Angela drove home, and Maria commented that it was nice, having all these connections in the twenty-first century. "Jonah and Katherine's family, and your family, and eventually Daniella's and Gavin's families," she recited. "Even though we just moved here, I feel like we already know so many people. It's nice. It helps me not feel so lonely."
Lonely. Angela could remember a time when she had felt lonely—quite a long time, actually. But she didn't feel that way anymore. She had family and friends now, from both dimensions.
She turned into her neighborhood, and then onto her street, and finally pulled into her driveway. "Hey," spoke up Leo. "Who's that?"
He was pointing out the window in the direction of Angela's house. She followed his gaze, and what she saw made her stomach go jittery with excitement and exuberant with relief and sick with nerves all at the same time.
Hadley was standing on her front porch.