I frowned and shook my head. I had missed an appointment the day I’d time traveled and arrived in 2017. That couldn’t be what she meant. That appointment was still in the future.
She shook a knobby finger at me, her unruly sunset glow curls bouncing. “Child, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing or where you are, you promised to keep your appointments.”
I had promised this after the accident during my first appointment three years from now. In this time, I had promised nothing. We’d never met before now.
I was about to ask if she had me confused with someone else when she said, “Elizabeth, you might find this surprising, but I was trying to help. I admit, this type of therapy is unusual.”
Her brightly painted eyes looked garish in the poor light of her office, and her wild clothes were as outrageous as usual, with three clashing scarves competing for dominance. She looked and sounded the same as I remembered. She’d always been unconventional, but I didn’t know what she was talking about.
“What therapy? How are you helping?”
“You were miserable, and we weren’t getting anywhere with our regular sessions,” she said. “You were more entrenched in silence than ever, with no incentive to speak, so I sent you to the past. I thought if you saw you were the same years ago, that you don’t face your problems, you’d learn that the real problem wasn’t Brandon. Your problem wasn’t Eric, and it wasn’t from your car accident. It’s not always possible to see what’s real in front of you. You convince yourself of a different reality. You like being voiceless. It gives you power.”
I clenched my teeth and shook my head, focusing on her revelation instead. Dr. Maeve had sent me to the past? That made little sense until, in a moment of clarity, I remembered the chunk of purple stone she’d given me, the one I’d clutched when I’d made my late-night wish. It didn’t seem possible, but I was here and had to believe. I’d been so giddy at first about the possibilities, but I should have asked questions.
“I don’t want to go back. But if I did, could you do it?”I was curious.
“You’re not ready.” Her bright red lips pursed as she stared into her camera, her emerald-green eyes seemed to expand. “Find your voice. You couldn’t do it before, maybe it’s possible in your past. If you decide to stay in 2017, it will be as though none of the later events happened, which is what you wanted.”
“But I still can’t talk.”
“From your perspective, the events of your future have happened. You’ve lived through the trauma, and it can’t be erased. Your marriage, the car accidents, they happened to you, but to no one else. You’ve gone back in time to a younger version of yourself. We’ve reset your clock to thirty. We’ll see what choices you make this time. Maybe you’ll wish for your old life, mistakes and all. If you return to your original timeline, this loop will disappear. You’ll wake up and think it was a dream.”
I shook my head. Even now, melancholy and lonely, I wouldn’t give up the feeling I’d had with Christopher. He’d make me feel worth loving, even in a short time. It wasn’t something I’d experienced before. I wanted to find that again. Plus, if I stayed, he might need my help with Brandon. Any day I expected to hear he was in a coma and my research would become useful.
“What do you need from me this week?” Dr. Maeve said, her voice changing to a brisk, professional tone. “I assume there’s a reason you made this appointment, beyond getting one of my lectures.”
“Documentation for HR about stress-related laryngitis.”
“That’s what you’re calling it now? No longer trauma-induced selective mutism, I see.” She typed something and then turned on me with a stern look.
“Anything else I should know about?”
This was an opening, but I didn’t want to talk about Brandon and I couldn’t talk about Christopher—it was too raw.“I didn’t go out with Eric, so I avoided the pitfall of my abusive marriage. No first date, sweet talk, or the wool pulled over my eyes.”
“That’s progress and a divergence in your timeline. Was Brandon as perfect as you remembered? The one that got away?”
“I’m not in love with him anymore. I saw him and felt very little. Don’t know what I was thinking. Compared to Eric, he was great, but that’s too low a bar.”I didn’t tell her about Brandon’s impending coma or the dinners with his brother. All roads led back to Christopher and my heartache.
“Until next time, Darling. Keep me posted.”
I waved at Dr. Maeve as I left the conversation. She sent me the requested letter which I forwarded to HR. I didn’t make my next appointment as I was accustomed to doing when I logged off. I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to her after all. I told myself I wasn’t avoiding my problems. I just didn’t want to share until they hurt less.
I walked home that evening by my usual route. On the way, I stopped to pick up groceries for dinner. One of my goals was to cook more for myself. I came around the corner into the produce section and saw Eric. I stopped in my tracks and my stomach lurched. My worst nightmare was in my local grocery store, holding a shopping basket. From a distance, he looked ordinary, not like an abusive narcissist. Why was he here? He didn’t live in this neighborhood, unless it was a recent move.
I turned away, hoping he hadn’t seen me. I circled back several minutes later, praying he would be gone. The produce section looked clear, but as I picked up a head of romaine lettuce, I sensed someone behind me and was enveloped in a cloud of Eric’s too-strong cologne. He’d sauntered up behind me. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. He’d never understood personal boundaries. The voices of the other shoppers faded, and I focused on getting through this encounter.
“Elizabeth, isn’t it? Meghan’s sister.”
His scratchy voice gave me the creeps. He should be dead. I tried to picture him lifeless.
Bile rose in my throat as I turned and nodded. I tried to go around him, but he shifted his body in front of mine. I’d have to shove to get past, but I didn’t want to touch him. I prepared to drop the basket and run if he followed.
“Still can’t talk, can you? That’s too bad.” He glanced around, scanning our fellow customers. The grocery store was dinner-hour busy with several shoppers in the vicinity. “I’ll see you around.”
His vicious smile turned my mouth into the Sahara. It was all I could do not to gag.
To an outsider, his words might sound friendly, but knowing him as I did, they were a threat. He didn’t know me, but I knew his moods and his voice, having been married to him for almost three years. I’d learned to be hyper-aware of his movements and tone for self-preservation. He had no actual reason to talk to me in this timeline. I didn’t know him. Our only contact had been at the engagement party.
