Page 28 of Time After Time

When I was a child and the world felt impossible—when my problems felt too big to name—I’d look up at the sky, at those millions of glittering dots, and remember how small I really was. How small everything was.

The vastness used to comfort me.

I became a speck. And so did my worries.

Tonight, I try to find that feeling again. But it’s harder when the ache is closer than the stars, and I can smell myproblem’scologne.

“This was Zermatt…what? Jean? 2007?” Uncle Bob is launching into a tale that he’s told several times.

“2008,” Papa corrects him.

Uncle Bob leans back in his chair, swirling his cognac. “Well, Hélène—Commissioner Dubois back then—takes a nasty fall halfway down the red slope.”

Aksel grins. He’s heard this before, too. “Oh no.”

Papa gives him a withering look. “Other people haven’t heard this story.”

“True.” Calypso raises her hand like we’re in school. “I haven’t.”

Ransom has his arm around her. “Neither have I. Continue.”

Uncle Bob, who loves an audience, does so. “She gets up—clearly limping—and says, ‘I have meetings with the Germans tomorrow. I will not arrive in a wheelchair.’ Then,mon Dieu, she skis the rest of the slope. Broken tibia and all.”

Calypso laughs. “You’re kidding!”

“I was there,” Aunt Tanya declares, nodding solemnly.

Uncle Bob smirks. “Tanya, you were in Nice that winter.”

She shrugs. “Well, I heard about it. Same thing.”

Margot rolls her eyes. “You always manage to insert yourself into history. Next, you’ll tell us you advised Napoleon.”

“I did. He didn’t listen,” Aunt Tanya says primly, taking a sip of her mulled wine. “If he had, he wouldn’t have been exiled to Elba.”

Her husband scoffs. “And would’ve probably won against the Russians, too.”

Everyone is in good spirits.

I force myself to feel it.

It’s not like I’ve spent the pastfive years moping around over Ransom…okay, some of the time I have, but the heart wants what it wants, right?

I can’t help who I love.

I couldn’t help it—no matter who I dated after Ransom, they always came up short.

“Come on, I want a taste,” Jonathan cries out as Freja snatches a piece of roasted almond brittle away from him.

“This has cardamom. I’m not sharing.”

“Marriage is legally binding, which includes confectionery communism.” He pulls her legs onto his lap.

Freja kicks him lightly. “This is how revolutions start.” She holds out the brittle, and her husband takes a bite.

“One would think we don’t give you enough to eat,” Mama says in mock exasperation.

“How was the Christmas market?” Papa asks. “We haven’t been yet.”