Page 58 of Maybe Some Other Time

Robbie grunted. “Dad never stopped thinking about you. ‘Til the day he died, he wanted to know what happened to you. He didn’t even care when he learned about the affair. By then, just getting closure for your disappearance was all that mattered.”

“I’m sorry he never got to find out what happened.

He might have actually believed it.” Thelma struggled to laugh through her drying tears.

“He was like that. Always open to the unknown. You get your taste for sci-fi from him. Oh, I bet his eyes lit up at the moon landing. I wish I could have been there with you all.”

Her son softened. “Since this whole nonsense started this year, I keep thinking… what would I have done if I suddenly appeared in the future, and my daughter was my age now? How would I get her to believe me? Then I’m angry again, because why should I be put in that?”

“Every single person I know in the group doesn’t know how it happened.

They were just out one night and caught up in a fog.

None of us can go back.” Thelma buried her hands between her thighs to keep from touching her face.

“If I could, I would, honey. I’d give up anything I’ve found here just to go back to that time and resume our lives.

I’d give up the freedoms I’ve found in this time if it meant I got to be your mother. ”

They looked at each other. This time, I will see him for who he is. A man who had been through much only to come out the other side older… and wiser. If he opened his mind to it.

“And now I’ve got the chance to be your mother again, Robbie.

You’re sick. You can’t get through something like this on your own, no matter how strong and stubborn you think you are.

I’m willing, you know? I’ll nurse you. I’ll get you your favorite things.

I’ll drive you to your appointments. I’ll step in and tell off Megan for being a silly girl when you feel too ill to be her father in that moment. ”

“She’s a good kid, huh?”

It was so like him to deflect. “She’s incredible. Just like her parents.”

Thelma didn’t know what to expect that night.

While Robbie was not the type to give in to his tears and beg for his mother to hold him, well…

he didn’t have to do either of those things.

But the fact that he didn’t question Thelma pulling his head into her lap, where she stroked his ear, his hair, was the difference between now and six months ago, when he wouldn’t even acknowledge her existence.

She leaned back, this time joining the couch as a partner, not an entity to be absorbed into its nothingness. Robbie’s head went with her lap, her hand never leaving his hot cheek or the fluttering eyelashes that she—yes, she— had created with her own body nearly seventy years ago.

The blood in his veins was the blood in hers.

The hair on his head came from his grandmother, a svelte brunette who knew sporadic Norwegian words and quilted until her hands bled.

The eyes in his face spoke of his father, who had never stopped taking care of his children or caring about his cheating wife’s fate.

But the heart that beat in Robbie’s heart was purely his own. His soul had been a gift from God.

And this moment? With them sitting together in peace, owning up to who they were?

The miracle from God. One Thelma was not about to let slip through her fingers.

She had gone upstairs to finally change and think about dinner, now that the heaviest emotions had passed.

Yet while she got comfortable in a baggy shirt and pajama bottoms—two things she never, ever thought she’d wear in front of other people, even her own family—she heard a damning commotion outside her bedroom window.

Since it overlooked the driveway, all Thelma had to do was push aside the curtain to see her son banging against Gretchen’s fence line.

“Hey!” That was what Thelma parsed the moment she opened the window and inhaled the cold winter air. “Yeah, you!” He flagged down Gretchen, who had just pulled her truck into her driveway. “When are you going to apologize to my mother for breaking her heart!”

The curtains fell from Thelma’s fingers as she gaped at the scene her son caused the moment twilight fell.

“What are you on about?” Gretchen met him at the fenceline. Across the street, the likes of Ben and Heather came out of their houses to see what was going on. “I don’t have anything to say to any of you! It’s because of you guys I’ve got the FBI tailing me all the time!”

“Leave her alone, Robbie!” Thelma shouted from her window. “It’s okay! I promise!”

He wasn’t listening to her. “Look, my mom likes you. You like her. So get over whatever you’re thinking about this whole situation and kiss and make up! Do you know how far away she’s traveled to have a life now? Do you know what kind of woman she is? Just do it, kid!”

“You’re insane.” Gretchen looked close enough to actually touch Robbie on the nose. “Your whole family? Crazy. Keep the cult stuff to yourself, buddy.”

“Cult, she says! Only cult here is the one the Murrays have going on out of their basement down the street!”

Heather excitedly said something to Ben, who conferred with his mother, who also came out into their yard.

“You’re gonna let some revelation about how the world apparently works keep you from a nice lady like my mother?” Robbie finally backed away from the fenceline, but not before getting in the last word. “Fine! But you’re the one missing out!”

“Why the hell would I want to be part of any family with you in it, Robert!”

“Big news, kid! I’ve got cancer! I could die soon!” He tossed his arms into the air with half the neighborhood watching. “I don’t care who knows it! I’ve got cancer! So what! We all get cancer at some point!”

“You’re nuts!”

“Yeah, and you’re young and stubborn!”

“I’m thirty-three!”

“A goddamn child!”

“Please! Both of you!” Thelma glanced between them and the neighbors across the street. “Watch your mouths!”

Robbie pointed up to her in triumph. “See! She’ll live on beyond me! And that’s what she cares about! Come try her cooking again sometime!” He backed up toward the house. “But only after you apologize to her!”

“What do I have to apologize for?”

Both of Robbie’s fingers pointed up toward Thelma, still hanging out of her window. “That’s for her to decide!”

The door slammed shut as Robbie went back inside. Thelma was left staring down at Gretchen, who looked back up at her with shock still spreading across her face.

“Sorry!” Thelma called down. “We just had a breakthrough!”

Gretchen turned and went toward her front door without a word.

“Merry Christmas!”

That wasn’t just for Gretchen—it was also for Ben and Heather, who waved back at her with their phones lit up in the air.

All of that would end up on the internet, Thelma was sure. Good thing she didn’t put much stock into it.