Page 52

T he days that followed were quiet in the way only devastation can be.

The virus still choked the world like smoke, its presence a constant shadow.

Despite the global panic, most businesses reopened, forcing employees to venture out from the safety of quarantine.

There was a divide among the people; a threat of class warfare.

Anger swelled within those who were considered essential workers as they decried how disposable they felt.

Nurses, delivery drivers, janitors… all pushed to the brink while CEOs posted “we’re in this together” from their lakeside homes.

Frayed systems, shattered trust, and a fractured society struggling to remember what it meant to be human… if it ever had been.

And in the midst of all that chaos, life kept moving.

The new addition on the way was something we clung to at home; hope wrapped in something small and growing.

Violet, ever the curious one, had a million questions: Did the baby sleep in your tummy?

Could it hear us? Was it hungry? She tried talking to the bump like she already knew her little sister .

Liam, on the other hand, was coolly detached. He was older, more practical. He remembered what it had been like when Violet was born. The disrupted sleep, the crying, plus the way our attention shifted. His indifference wasn’t cruelty; it was survival. I understood that.

Through it all, I did my best to stay grounded. To not let the fear or the guilt or the noise outside our walls pull me under. The shutdown meant most things were remote now, including the doctor appointments. That alone stirred quiet resentment in me.

Fuck, another thing the pandemic stole from us.

For the ultrasound, the doctor's office would only allow the mother to attend.

I was devastated. When Sloane walked through that door afterward, holding the envelope with the sonogram inside, my heart ached in my chest like it had been carved hollow.

She handed me the picture with a small smile and I held it like it was made of glass.

Our baby. Amber. A name we’d picked out together in one of those rare soft moments, curled up in bed. I stared at that blurry grayscale image like it was proof that maybe, just maybe, I was capable of changing this life's future.

I should’ve been there. I should’ve seen her face when she first saw Amber, when she heard our daughter’s heartbeat thumping like a little drum of hope.

Sloane moved slower now due to the pain of her injuries, both seen and unseen, combined with her growing belly. I saw it in the tightness of her jaw when she had to pause to catch her breath, in the flicker of frustration when she dropped something and hesitated before asking for help.

She hated it .

She’d always been the strong one, the get-it-done-no-matter-what type. Being hampered by pain and pregnancy clawed at something deep within her.

But my woman had grit. Day after day, she logged in for her virtual therapy sessions, sat cross-legged on the couch with her laptop.

Me being home helped her, but it helped me, too. I’d promised to stay present, to carry the burden I’d once abandoned, to help our family find its way forward, one painful step at a time.

The monotony that the Old Me had once hated helped me stay grounded. I helped her up from the bed each morning, fetched her tea, cooked meals the kids could stomach, and listened to their input from the different gluten free recipes I tried.

We talked about many things. I confessed that I'd found her bottle of Alprazolam. She told me she had only started taking that after I left. We cried as we held each other.

There were times that I sat next to her during her virtual therapy sessions, sometimes outside the room, always available to hold her hand if she needed me.

I didn’t speak unless invited, but when she let me I listened.

Goddamn, I listened to every word she shared with the screen, as if they were secrets not meant for mankind to know.

Sometimes, she cried. Sometimes, she didn’t.

And slowly, like spring creeping past winter, there were better days. Evenings where Liam told me about a project he was proud of, or when Violet begged for ten more minutes of game time with me. I wasn’t on the sidelines anymore. I was there. I was home.

Sloane let me in more; a touch on the shoulder; a look that lingered longer than before; her head resting on my chest after a long day.

We didn’t speak of forgiveness anymore. We spoke of rebuilding.

It was happening in the quiet; in the way she no longer flinched when I held her; in the way she let me trace the curve of her stomach and whisper to the little life inside.

It had been an arduous, tense few weeks.

The aftermath of Angie’s death, the slow healing of Sloane, and the world still reeling from the chaos of the virus had all left a miasma in the air.

It was as if we were all stuck, suspended between what had been and what might come, the knowledge of the future burning behind my eyes.

Early one morning I went to the clinic to pick up some things for Sloane in preparation for her maternity leave. I walked through the front door, an empty bag slung over my shoulder for Sloane's stuff, and there he was.

Charlie stood alone behind the front desk, flipping through paperwork, looking as composed as ever. He didn’t notice me at first, which gave me a moment to just watch him. His handsome, composed frame felt like a contradiction to my own.

I couldn't explain why, but every time I saw the man a pit opened in my stomach. Maybe it was guilt, knowing he’d lost his chance at a future with Sloane because of the choices I'd made. Or maybe because I knew, ten or eleven years from now, he'd killed himself in my previous life.

Would he commit suicide even sooner without Sloane as his wife? Without her there to bring him joy, without her uplifting him as she uplifted everybody close to her?

Is it my fault if he does?

My own dark thoughts about his possible future aside, there was something else about him that unsettled me. Perhaps it was the effortless way he moved through the world, his overbearing confidence, as if he had already answered questions the rest of us hadn't yet asked .

When he finally saw me, his expression changed. The cool exterior cracked for a second, and there was a flicker of something behind his eyes… a hint of malice, or recognition, or regret.

I didn't know.

“Levi,” he said, his voice even and words clipped. “I did not think I'd be seeing you around here.”

“Had some things to pick up for Sloane.” I shrugged as I walked over to the front desk. I tried to keep the tension out of my voice, but the lobby of the clinic felt much smaller as we stared at one another.

Do I ask him? Do I even want to know?

There had been a question circling my mind for weeks now, itching the dark edges of my brain. I set the bag down, avoiding his gaze for a moment, then I looked him dead in the eye. “Charlie, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

He raised an eyebrow, leaned against the counter, and folded his arms as he casually asked, “Oh, yeah? Well, what’s on your mind?”

God, he has a talent for getting under my skin. Was he this annoying in my previous life?

"Are we alone?" I asked.

"Between Sloane being on maternity leave, Sarah taking time off for mourning, and half the staff being sick at home from the virus?" he asked as he gestured to the empty lobby. "It's just us."

I took a deep, steady breath. “All of your well-timed and lucky investments you've made, the ones that Sloane has told me about… how did you do it?"

"Are you looking for investment advice, Levi?" he asked with a warm and friendly laugh.

It made me want to punch him.

"No, I'm not. I'm just curious how you pulled it off is all. "

He stood there, smiling like he knew the punchline to a great joke he was about to share, before he said, "Well, I suppose I did the same thing you did. Sloane told me about your own 'well-timed and lucky investments' as you called them."

This fucking guy.

"Fair," I said before I moved on to my next point.

"Sloane also told me about how you've managed to diagnose and identify cases that no other veterinarian could figure out.

How you've always seemed to know what's wrong with your patients, even when there's no sensible way you could or should know.

She said you were a Sherlock Holmes for pets. "

That lit up his face, replacing the shit-eating-grin he'd had with a genuine, warm smile. "She said that? Sloane said that about me?"

"Not in those exact words," I lied, then asked, "But how do you do it?"

He shrugged as his mask of cordial calm slipped back over his face. "I'm a good doctor. There is no mystery to it."

We stood there in silence for awhile, watching one another, his unreadable smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.

Fuck beating around the bush, big guy.

I asked, “How do you know things before they happen? You’re not normal, are you?”

I was so blunt that the briefest flicker of aghast panic flashed across his face.

But he just deepened his smile and shook his head.

"What is normal, Levi? Which of us are normal?

" He picked up a clipboard off the desk and turned to leave.

"As stimulating as this has been, you are here to collect Sloane's things and I need-"

"You remember what your life with her was like, don't you? "

The smothering silence in the clinic became a tangible thing, enveloping, entombing us like flies in amber.

Then he exhaled a ragged and stuttering breath as he sat his clipboard back on the desk, running a hand through his golden hair. I saw a brief flicker of guilt in his eyes.

"Yes, I remember," he said.

"Because you're from the future," I said.

To which, he laughed in my face.