“That it was time to stop feeling sorry for myself and rejoin the parade.”
“Pretty harsh.”
Sadie stroked her hair against the wounded side of her face—that automatic gesture. “Miz Ellie’s not known for delicacy and tact. Did she shock me, busting in here and telling me it was time to quit lollygagging? Yes she did. Was she right? Yes she was.” She stopped stroking her hair and abruptly pushed it back with the heel of her hand. “This is what I’m going to look like from now on—with some improvements—so I guess I better get used to it. Sadie’s going to find out if that old saw about beauty only being skin deep is actually true.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“All right.” She jetted smoke from her nostrils.
“Suppose I could take you to a place where the doctors could fix the damage to your face—not perfectly, but far better than Dr. Ellerton and his team ever could. Would you go? Even if you knew we could never come back here?”
She frowned. “Are we speaking hypothetically?”
“Actually we’re not.”
She crushed her cigarette out slowly and deliberately, thinking it over. “Is this like Miz Mimi going to Mexico for experimental cancer treatments? Because I don’t think—”
“I’m talking about America, hon.”
“Well, if it’s America, I don’t understand why we couldn’t—”
“Here’s the rest of it:Imight have to go. With or without you.”
“And never come back?” She looked alarmed.
“Never. Neither one of us could, for reasons that are difficult to explain. I suppose you think I’m crazy.”
“I know you’re not.” Her eyes were troubled, but she spoke without hesitation.
“I may have to do something that would look very bad to law-enforcement types. It’snotbad, but nobody would ever believe that.”
“Is this… Jake, does this have anything to do with that thing you told me about Adlai Stevenson? What he said about hell freezing over?”
“In a way. But here’s the rub. Even if I’m able to do what I have to without being caught—and I think I can—that doesn’t changeyoursituation. Your face is still going to be scarred to some greater or lesser degree. In this place where I could take you, there are medical resources Ellerton can only dream of.”
“But we could never come back.” She wasn’t speaking to me; she was trying to get it straight in her mind.
“No.” All else aside, if we came back to September ninth of 1958, the original version of Sadie Dunhill would already exist. That was a mind-bender I didn’t even want to consider.
She got up and went to the window. She stood there with her back to me for a long time. I waited.
“Jake?”
“Yes, honey.”
“Can you predict the future? You can, can’t you?”
I said nothing.
In a small voice she said, “Did you come herefromthe future?”
I said nothing.
She turned from the window. Her face was very pale. “Jake, did you?”
“Yes.” It was as if a seventy-pound rock had rolled off my chest. At the same time I was terrified. For both of us, but mostly for her.
“How… how far?”
