Page 9 of Maybe Some Other Time

Chapter five

While You Were Gone

T helma’s life was now in stasis. It was government protocol for time travelers to remain in custody for at least a month, although Thelma heard it could last longer if there were no family members to release someone to.

As it was, Robbie remained her closest living relative who could take her in – and he remained in deep denial, to the point that Thelma often didn’t visit with him when he did come by the FBI field office to fill out paperwork and have one-on-one counseling about what he was going through.

The only one to regularly drop by to visit was Megan, the grown granddaughter Thelma couldn’t have fathomed existing only a couple of weeks before.

It surprised her how much the FBI let her direct things.

They must be used to people having such a hard time coping that they’ve learned self-direction is the way to go.

For media, Thelma asked for a daily delivery of the LA Times.

She was given a device called a “laptop” that was connected to the building’s “intranet,” which allowed her to search for things on a website called “Wikipedia.” Thelma was at first intimidated by the device, but after a few demonstrations from Miriam, she got the hang of turning it on, moving the cursor, and opening “websites” like Wikipedia.

She wasn’t a great typist, but it slowly came to her as she practiced by typing in different names.

Which included her name. Thelma Van der Graaf.

Was it strange that she should have a page on this site? Which included the same picture from her missing poster?

She already knew from the FBI agents and her counselor that her case would never be officially “solved.” Instead, she would be given a new Social Security number and, for all intents and purposes, a new identity.

The public couldn’t know about time travel.

There were already a number of conspiracy theories about the fog and visitors from the past, and the FBI had a small team that dedicated whole days to discovering and tracking down discussions so they could put a stop to it.

So she looked at a page full of speculation about how and why she disappeared.

The leading theory was that she was carjacked, and her body and car were never recovered.

Bill had been a suspect for years, of course, but Thelma couldn’t find any information about how it affected him or his ability to keep raising their children.

Bill… I’m so sorry. It was all she could think of as she imagined her husband’s panic when an hour had gone by and there was no sign of his wife.

When did he realize she was missing? When did he call the police?

What did he say to Robbie and Debbie? What did the neighbors think?

Had he remarried? Did he have other children?

Thelma surprised herself with how casually she thought about it. What didn’t surprise her was how little she already missed Bill, who had been a dear friend, but at the end of the day was a means to an end. He was the father of her children and her primary provider… but had she loved him?

Part of her counseling was going through these feelings, but she was also allowed to ask for updates on people she knew. Bill was the first person she asked about. She knew he was long dead, but how had his life fared in the wake of her disappearance?

The agency provided her with what they could find and what Robbie had told them when asked.

Remarried a woman named Mary in 1962 after the government declared our marriage over because I had been missing for so long.

Stayed in city planning until his retirement in the late ‘70s.

Got to travel and buy a boat before he passed away.

No more children. The thing that stuck out was the dang boat.

Was he really into boating? Thelma had no idea!

When asked who she wanted to know about next, she took a night to think it over. Eventually, she returned with Sandy’s name.

This gave her greater apprehension than Bill. After all, Sandy might still be alive. If so, would she be allowed to visit the elderly Sandy? Would she even still have her mind?

The file appeared the next day. The counselor kept a straight face as Thelma looked through it.

Sandy Westmore d. 2009 at the age of 79.

Had a successful career as a freelance journalist who covered the Civil Rights movement, the Stonewall Riots, and the domestic response to the Vietnam War.

Moved to San Francisco in 1970. Not much is known about her after that, outside of a few publications in her name, including novels.

So, Sandy was gone. Thelma fretted as much, but she wasn’t surprised. At least she lived as she saw fit. And to live to almost eighty! What a blessing. Thelma filtered any grief she felt through the lens of what a blessing.

As for the historical events Sandy covered… well, that was Thelma’s next stop.

Three weeks after arriving in the future, she attended her first history class that was tailored to people like her.

This was where she met other time travelers for the first time…

something that the instructor realized and took a moment to introduce her to everyone, as if she were a transfer student at a new high school. Almost makes me feel like a girl again…

“Everyone, this is Thelma,” the instructor, a thirty-something woman simply named “Bee,” said in front of the three other adults in the room. “Thelma just arrived from 1958. She’s only been here for a few weeks, so she’s still in a bit of shock. Hopefully, you guys can help her adjust.”

“1958?” quipped an older man in a plain green T-shirt and sporting voluminous gray facial hair. “Great! She can help me with my commie red scare homework!”

“That’s Jed,” Bee said in a low voice to Thelma. “He arrived here from 1907 a few years ago.”

“And he’s still taking classes?”

“Many chrononauts like to retake classes because we tailor the lessons to you. It’s an effective way to learn the history you’ve missed.”

It wasn’t Thelma’s first time hearing the term “chrononaut” to describe a time traveler. Yet it was her first time hearing it used so casually. And in front of this group of strangers? Who weren’t so different from her, despite their appearances and the decades they hailed from?

Perhaps she could navigate this, after all.

“Hi.” A Hispanic woman in a heavy pink sweater and pushing her long hair out of her face, greeted Thelma when she sat nearby. “I’m Jo. 18 th century.”

Thelma did a double-take as Bee began writing with colored markers on the whiteboard. “I’m sorry? 18 th century?”

Jo nodded. “I grew up in this area, but when it was under Spanish control. I traveled about twenty years ago.”

“My goodness…”

Jed leaned back in his seat, pen wagging toward Thelma’s face. “Jo’s the oldest of us here! Well, oldest in terms of how far she’s traveled. But you gotta understand, we Californians are babies compared to some of the chrononauts from other parts of the world.”

“They time-travel in other parts of the world?”

“Oh, sure, you’ve got Chinese travelers, European travelers… hell, there’s a fog zone in Tennessee I hear!”

“Hey, Jed,” Bee said over her shoulder, “let’s not overwhelm Thelma. She’s still new and getting used to it.”

Yet the older man did not let up. “That over there is Frank.” He pointed to a middle-aged man sitting in the front corner, his binder open but his pen tracing the outline of shapes instead of taking notes. “He came from 1983. Claims it’s the only way he finally gave up cocaine.”

Thelma gasped. Should she be hearing this?

“And that’s Lizzie.” That name went to a girl with black hair sitting in the back of the room, one of those phone devices in her hand as she texted faster than Thelma ever saw Miriam going at it on her phone.

“Victorian times. She claims her daddy was a bigshot around here, but I was a kid when she disappeared and I ain’t ever heard of no Elizabeth Weaver. ”

Lizzie glanced up from her phone. “We’re a ragtag bunch here,” she muttered.

“And we all go to group.”

“Group?”

Jed finished explaining before turning his attention back to the board. “Therapy. We’ll see you there, probably.”

Because of Thelma’s arrival, they were skipping the two decades the class was previously on (and had already studied many times) and going to the 1960s.

Each class was once a week, with a decade taking two months to cover.

That evening’s topic was the 1960 election, when John F.

Kennedy Jr. beat Richard Nixon to become America’s youngest ever and first Catholic president.

Imagine that. Catholic. Since Frank had lived through the ‘60s, he zoned out even more, but Thelma was glued to the lesson as she imagined what it would have been like to vote in that election.

Everyone was genial toward her. Heck, everyone had been so nice and patient with Thelma that it was always a shock when Robbie finally stopped by to say hello at the FBI office and… merely sat there, staring at her with an acidic gaze.

“So, I’m learning about the ‘60s,” she said at their next meeting.

It was her first time wearing denim jeans and a blouse in front of her son, who claimed to have not recognized her at first. It’s my hair.

She still had her makeup from her purse, but without her curlers, her hair had flattened to just past her shoulders.

The color may still be what her son remembered, but she was no longer the put-together housewife whose hand he would have held at the doctor’s office.

“That John F. Kennedy sure sounded charismatic. I would have liked to have seen that.”

“JFK,” Robbie grumbled. “You’re talking about JFK? ”

Thelma pursed her ruby-red lips. “Not a big fan?”