Infinity's Daughter (12 page)

Time, it seems, has finally caught up to me. Having begun writing this a few years back, I wasn’t sure when it would come full circle, but now it has. Having begun this endeavor to preserve my memories before they were all lost to time and my aging brain, I am now beginning to realize that I am a liability to my family and myself.

Sometimes lately, when I have been reading the newspaper, I catch myself going around and around, not knowing that I have been reading the same paragraph over and over. And honestly, I cannot recall what I was thinking about during those lost minutes. I certainly wasn’t thinking about the news I was reading. It’s as if my mind catches a breeze, and gets pulled into the current, drifting away but not knowing where it’s going, and with no general direction whatsoever. I am helpless to resist, and get swept up in the current, unaware of anything that may or may not be happening, and unable to focus. It is in the waves that all of my thoughts get swept up, swirling into the water, disappearing beneath me along with all of my secrets. Time pulls at me.

And it’s not just that. Sometimes, when someone asks me to do something, I forget. It sounds harmless, but it could be important things that I am supposed to assist with around the home. Recently, for instance, I accidentally locked Connor out of the house. I am still ashamed of it, and haven’t talked with Susan about it since it happened.

Connor was at baseball practice, and was going to be getting home later in the evening. Todd and Susan had gone out for the evening, and Susan requested that I leave the house unlocked if I was going to go to sleep so that Connor could get in. Connor ended up spending the duration of the evening until Susan got home at his friend’s house. He was extremely forgiving, and believed that I genuinely forgot—which I did—but things like this just shouldn’t happen in the first place. And the fact that I am letting them, or my mind is letting them without my consent, is disturbing.

Susan and I have coffee every Tuesday afternoon. She does not have classes on Tuesday evenings, and we enjoy spending the time together. Just yesterday we went out to our favorite little restaurant in downtown Lansing, and had our usual coffee and cake or pie. Some form of dessert is required.

I am still shocked to watch Susan age. She looks entirely beautiful, and truly has weathered the years well. Thankfully, she didn’t take up smoking. One of the other things I had warned her at a young age were the dangers, thanks to my knowledge of the future, and she had abstained, maintaining her youthful appearance and escaping wrinkles at a young age. She had kept her figure, too, remaining active with her career and home life, playing in the yard with Todd and Sam. She had always been a bit of a tomboy growing up—challenging the norms of the day and wanting to be involved in everything she could, which I encouraged, and it had paid off. Yesterday, she was wearing a lovely light blue, pastel skirt with a little floral blouse that complemented her eyes, and flattered her figure. I try to keep up with the fashion of the day, but it is quite challenging. I realize that my attire may be outdated sometimes, but I know Susan doesn’t mind much. I wore a little pink cardigan and hoped she would smile, seeing me sport the bright hue.

Susan was stirring her coffee and gazing out the window of the small restaurant. We always sat in the booth so you could see the people walking by, right next to the window. She was talking about the plans for Connor to apply to Michigan State University, being so close and all, and how they have a fantastic school of agriculture, but he isn’t interested in that. He might pursue engineering.

I heard everything she was saying, my mind was very clear yesterday, but all the while I couldn’t help but feel my concern and wounded pride weighing down on my shoulders, and teasing in my ear, reminding me of my failures and my struggle to stay cognizant. I reached out and placed my hand on top of hers.

“Susan,” I said slowly, “it’s okay with me if I live somewhere else now.” I looked in her eyes when I spoke the words, making sure she knew that I was absolutely certain, and was not confused, and had not made a rash decision.

Susan blinked. When she did, I could see the tiny crow’s feet weaving their way around her eyes, wrapping themselves into her cheeks. When your children grow old; that is something you will never forget. It makes you think about all of the years, wondering what you were doing the entire time. It makes you reflect on everything. If you can still recall the memories.

Her face was very distressed momentarily, and her eyes began to water and she sniffled, wiping them with her napkin.

“Mom,” she said gently, “I don’t want you to live anywhere else. You know you’re always welcome with us, no matter what.”

I nodded my head, standing my ground. “I know, Susan, and I cannot thank you enough for all of your kindness throughout your entire life, and especially in the last years after Sam passed. I would have been lost without you.” My mind started to drift then, thinking of Sam. I caught myself, and with all of my might pulled myself back against the current of my mind, focusing on Susan. “However, I know that my mind is not what it used to be. I’m forgetting things; you know it, I know it, and Connor and Todd know it. I’m humiliated, to tell you the truth. I don’t want to feel like this, and I don’t want you to see me like this. And most importantly, I don’t want to put any of you at risk because of my forgetfulness.” I looked away then, down at my napkin and then out the window. Saying it suddenly made it real. I couldn’t run from myself anymore, I couldn’t run from my fading mind. Everything had come to a sudden and terrible crossroads, and I could no longer ignore it.

“Mom,” she said, “You really want this? Are you sure?”

I nodded my head, and then shook it, holding my coffee and fighting off tears of my own. “Do you think I want it? Do you think I want to feel this way?” I blinked them back, one slipping past my eyelashes and rolling down my cheeks, caught in my own wrinkles running down my face. “No one wants to feel like this, no one wants to turn themselves over and admit failure. But I do not want, more than anything, to endanger you or your family because of my inadequacy.”

Susan shook her head. “You have never been, and you will never be inadequate. I want you to have the support you need, and I want you to be in the environment that you are most comfortable with. Stay with us, Mom. You’re not doing anything wrong, and we love you. I love you.” Susan’s face was reddening as she sniffled again, and clenched my hand tighter.

“My darling,” I said, “this is something I need to do. I need you to do it for me. Next week we should begin looking at places. I’m sure there are some nice ones in the area. You just have to promise to come and visit me.”

Susan smiled, then laughed while she choked back tears, her face twisting back, her eyes softly glassy with tears. “Mom,” she said, her voice breaking, “I love you so much.”

I smiled, squeezing her hand, knowing that everything would be all right, and that this was what must happen. “I love you, Susan, I love you so much that I can’t even express it.”

And so that was that. She had conceded and had told Todd as well as Connor. They both came and consoled me, sincere in their sorrow and their sentiment. I was surprised at Connor, for despite my horrible deed, unintentional or not, of locking him out of his own home, he still expressed sincere regret for my leaving. They all loved me. I have always felt so loved by my family, but this show of unconditional support in such a challenging time was something that I needed, and didn’t know how much I needed it until it happened. I will love them until my dying day, they all have become my… everything.

The next week Susan and I had planned to go scouting for a new home for me. I was nervous, knowing then that it was actually happening. It’s so surprising how those feelings creep up on you unexpectedly. I hoped that we’d find a nice place, and felt that we would. I am just not sure what to look for.

The other peculiar, and incredibly frustrating thing that had begun to happen since the decision of my moving was that my mind had begun to become incredibly cloudy. I am not sure if this was out of fear, or perhaps as a defense mechanism. Perhaps my mind was not in fact ready for such a big change, such an act of finality, and is drifting in order to cope. Or, perhaps I was just getting worse. Suddenly. And very unexpectedly. Even then I knew that if this was the case, I would continue to progress into oblivion, and that it was very good that I decided to move myself when I did I did not want to burden Susan and the family any longer or any worse.

I often feel like I’m back in the waves, but more consistently. And the fog is there too, drifting in and out and clouding my thoughts. When the waves sweep me out, the fog rolls in, and I am overwhelmed, and surrounded by the stagnation of my mind. When this happens, I’m not sure where I go. But with every passing day, I have more trouble telling what is what, and who is who. Everything gets jumbled. It’s very upsetting.

Today I saw Sam. He was standing in the living room, looking for the newspaper. Everyone was at work, and I was home by myself. I couldn’t believe it, it felt like he had been gone almost an entire week. He was wearing his suit, and his badge, as if he had just returned home from work. I called out to him, asking him where he had been, and why he had been gone for so long. I missed him, and he hadn’t done the grocery shopping. I hadn’t wanted to go by myself, so he said he would go with me and then he never came back to help me with it.

He strolled across the room to see me, holding out his arms. I reached out for him, my hands shaking and my heart racing—and then I woke up. I was lying on the couch, asleep, my mind drifting in and out and pulling me into the past. I sat up, tears streaming down my face, crying out his name. It took me a few minutes to realize that it was a dream, and that Sam is still gone, but he is not coming back. He could not travel through time and show up on the other end like my father could. Sam is never coming back, but my mind was trying to resurrect him.

After that, I went and sat in my room, staring out the window, and tried to make sense of things, tried to calm my mind. If I don’t have some grip on reality, I’m not sure what I’ll do. I have to hold on so I don’t slip away completely. But after sitting on the bed for some time, I realized that I am comfortable with the fade. I started crying again, wishing that I could see Sam, and how fantastic it was that he had been there, pining for me and supporting me like he had for so many years. I want him back, and if that means I lose a part of myself in the process, it might be worth the sacrifice.

I’m not sure what day it is again. It’s been a few days since I last wrote, after I saw Sam in the living room. I’m writing today because it has happened. This morning I woke up somewhere strange, and panicked. I searched the little white room with green carpet for a phone and eventually found one, calling Susan. She answered, and I began sobbing. She told me that I was at the new home, where I had asked to be, but she would come and get me if I didn’t like it, she would love to have me back.

I’m mortified. I can’t believe that happened. I can’t believe my mind slipped that much that I wouldn’t have even remembered that I decided to move somewhere else, where there is more support for me. But, if anything, I suppose it cements the decision, confirming that it was in fact in my best interest, if I truly am that confused. I’m crying now, and there are tears spotting the pages, some of the ink has smeared. I’ll give it a go, and hold out as long as I can. I know that I can do it, I just have to try and stay focused.

I picked up the paper, once I had calmed down, and began reading. It took a lot to make sure I didn’t skip over anything, or reread pages, but I’ve done it. John F. Kennedy is president now, and it seems that he’s doing some very lovely things. I believe he really cares about our nation. I never remembered much about him from my studies, except that he was the very attractive president who infamously slept with Marilyn Monroe. Looking at him today in the paper, he is very handsome, but he also appears very intelligent. His new programs to support the health of the nation are impressive. There is a bad taste in my mouth, though, as I remember what will happen to him soon. I’m too old for this burden of knowledge. I have been unable to help anyone, aside from my immediate family in specific, minute circumstances. It all seems so excessive and impractical, nothing but a burden. If I couldn’t stop World War I or II, and didn’t have the guile to do anything about it, I certainly cannot protect John F. Kennedy. And anyway, who would believe a delusional old woman?

I put the newspaper back on the bedside table, and will sit for a while. I’m not sure what to do with myself anymore.

Sam came in to wake me up this morning. His face was red like he had been crying. He looked so young, too. I wondered if I had turned youthful in the night, and hoped so greatly for that to be true. No matter my age, he reached down and grabbed my hand, squeezing it gently when he delivered the news to me that Marilyn Monroe had passed.

I wasn’t sure why, but my eyes suddenly felt hot and lit up with tears. They were so warm, and I was absolutely devastated. She had been an icon. Growing up, I had seen her image pasted around in movies, posters, and the dawning of the internet. Now, she was once again nothing more than a memory, one that had been sealed in immortality while she was still in her prime. It was a tragedy. I squeezed Sam’s hand back, feeling it suddenly disintegrate between my fingertips. I gasped suddenly, and sat back, breathing heavily.

Sam was not in the room. Sam had been dead for over a decade now. I looked down and saw the newspaper in front of me, with the headline describing the tragic fall of the great Ms. Monroe.

Once again, I am embarrassed and humiliated. But this time, it’s only for myself to see. And possibly the nursing staff. I’m sure I’ve given them a rousing thing or two to talk about since I’ve been here. But, I also suppose that everyone who lives here has to be a character in one way or another, debilitated in body or mind. I presume that occurrences such as these are no uncommon thing in the home. I will just have to learn to allow myself more humility towards my own decline, and current state of being.

After all, for me, there is no longer any help. Every day, my imagination, or perhaps my memories, seem to bleed further into reality.

Sometimes, I am spared for a few minutes. When my imagination isn’t acting up, my thoughts are actually relatively clear. I am able to remember things, and identify current events. I try to read the newspaper every day and focus on the happenings around the world to jog my mind and keep myself going. The newspaper helps focus my thoughts and gives me something else to think about, rather than yearning for my lost family, or for the one that still loves me to come and visit soon. It is not a bad place where I live, I am just lost in my own solitude.

I’ve met some of the other people who live here, but have trouble recalling their names or faces. The nurses take me to my meals and outside to get fresh air. Sometimes Susan will come and visit, but I can never remember when she is coming next, or even when she came last. Todd and Connor have been here too, but I don’t recall what we talked about. Probably about the news.

I seem to be able to keep track of the newspaper headlines better than my own day to day existence. They are the only chronological thing I can seem to keep track of. Even if they have nothing to do with me or those I love. Nevertheless, I am very glad that I have kept up with my newspaper reading, and will not stop it. I feel that it will help keep me from slipping into oblivion.

One of the headlines that sticks out especially in my mind was the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Sam’s image was not there to give me the news this time. I love seeing him, but when I realize that I have been dreaming, caught in a delusional or hallucinogenic state, it is comforting and yet very much disturbing. I prefer to see him when I sleep, because then I have some way to rationalize it.

On the day that the poor Kennedy boy was shot, the nurses gathered us all up and wheeled us down to the main dining hall. I had no idea what was happening, and was very fearful. I can’t seem to recall the timeline of historical events anymore before they happen, but as soon as something does, the memories from my history courses, or my pop culture knowledge from childhood flood back to me, enveloping me in their smells and sounds and emotions. As soon as they flicked on the big, boxed television in the main room and his face came clearly into view, my heart sank. I knew what had happened.

Part of me wishes that I had followed his presidency more. I knew he did wonderful things and worked to improve the health of the nation, but I hadn’t followed these headlines much, at least not that I could recall. Either way, I understand the gravity of it all and realize that it is a national and international tragedy. For the first time in my life, though, I heard about what happened to Jacqui. That was in the newspaper. I imagined her there, covered in the blood of her husband, partner, and love of her life. I was so incredibly devastated when Sam passed—and still am—I am not sure how any man or woman could survive something so horrific and traumatizing. My heart went out to her, and it still does.

I also, very clearly, remember the day that I saw the headline that the Beatles had come to America. My heart leapt out of my chest. Clearly, I was and had not been a child of the Sixties, but my mother was. She used to play the Beatles for me on our little CD player—and we would dance in the living room, singing
Hey Jude
, and
I Wanna Hold Your Hand
at the top of our lungs. It was stunning to me to know that I had made it all the way up to that era, to the beginning of the Beatles. I had just rolled into my eighties. Which was entirely shocking. I thought about all of the death that had come before me, all of the tragedies, personal and external, that I had lived through and somehow managed to come out on the other side, to live to see George Harrison put his bowl-shaped head on the front of my newspaper. I smiled; there was something very novel, and very satisfying about it. Too bad the images will fade. Maybe it’s better that way.

Sometimes I feel that way, and I picture what would happen if my mother could see me now. Old and ragged, my skin hanging limply from my form, old, weathered, and thin. My figure seems so delicate now. I think my mother would cry if she saw me, remembering the young girl that had left her standing alone in the driveway, now aged and dying before she herself had even given birth to me. It is very strange. As much as I love Sam, and Susan, and would not take my experience back for the world, I still feel as if I do not belong where I am. I still see my family, and they come to visit and Susan consoles me, but now, with my main form of interaction with the world being the newspaper, and the little images that fill my mind, blurring the lines between past and future, I feel more and more alien. I don’t like it in the least.

It’s getting worse. I’m beginning to see my father.

Instead of Sam coming to visit me in the night, it is he who shows up in my little, cream-colored room, waiting for me to awaken. I wonder if it is happening because of my feelings of displacement and separation from the world that I am living in and existing in. Honestly, I’m not certain, but it haunts me. The feelings, and the figure have been haunting me for almost a week now.

A recent encounter happened after I had fallen asleep for a short nap. The other thing I am beginning to loathe about old age, is my inability to sleep for long durations. I always seem to be disturbed, by someone or something, or by myself. I feel restless and anxious, and grab randomly at things around me, resting on the small dresser next to my bed, fiddling with my hairbrush or newspaper, waiting to go to sleep. But on this particular evening, I had fallen asleep quite easily. And then I awoke to a startle, something crashing on the floor of my room.

I shot up in bed, looking around blindly for what or where the noise had come from. I reached over to my little dresser and grabbed my glasses, placing them on the bridge of my nose.

It was my father. He was in the corner, wrapping himself in a bathrobe that had been draped over a chair. He hadn’t aged a day since I last saw him in the woods on that frigid morning when we fell through time. I grabbed my chest then, feeling it tighten, and prepared for my heart to come to a halt altogether. This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be real.

He stood up, his eyes were bloodshot, and his face looked tired as it always did whenever he went on an excursion. Then, suddenly, he dropped to his knees, crying out, “Alice?”

I felt faint. All of the blood drained from my face, and I stretched out my hands to him.
Why was this happening?
How was this possible? And why would he come to me now, when I am old and gray and dying?

But I continued to stretch out my hands. My wrinkled and thinning fingers touched the air near where he sat on the carpet; his face contorted up and tears streaming from his eyes. My heart hadn’t stopped yet, and I suddenly knew that it wouldn’t. I only feared now that I was already dead. I had moved on, and was going to heaven, to join my family once again.

“
Alice!
” he said again, “is it you? Darling, is it you?” He was sobbing now, his breaths were heavy and his shoulders sighed, shuddering up and down. I couldn’t fathom it. It couldn’t be real. How could it be real?

He reached out his hands, and grabbed mine. His hands were strong and youthful still, and I felt mine disappear in his, frail and weak. The emotions were overwhelming, I had no idea what was happening, and was so incredibly disoriented, I cried out, and clung to his hand. It was my father. It was my father, after all of these years he had come back to me.
He had come back to me
.

He began rubbing my hands, and through his tears he uttered words. “I am so sorry, my darling, I am so sorry, I left you there, I left you back in time and I have never forgiven myself. I never can, I left you to live there, I abandoned you. My girl, my sweet baby girl, and look at you. You have lived, you have lived without me and I couldn’t save you, oh God,
Alice
…” His sobs came in heavy gasps again. “
Alice
, what have I done?”

My voice cracked as I tried to speak. Tears were blinding me, my already pathetic vision distorted. “Dad? Daddy, is it really you? I don’t believe it, it can’t be you, you can’t control where you go, how did this happen?” And then I stopped, looking down at his hands, and in his eyes. “You did leave me. You left me alone, and now… now I am old. I am a grandmother, with a daughter and a grandson. You left me alone in the woods…” My breath caught in my throat and I cried out, “I never stopped thinking about you and Mom…I never did…and I didn’t tell anyone. Over all of these years I didn’t tell anyone…but how, how could you come back to me now? Come back to find me like this?”

He blinked the tears away, mucus streaming from his nose, and his eyes beginning to swell from the tears. “I come to the same places, I always fall through, to the same places…” he said, “I kept ending up in a field, just back a few years, to when you were ten years old. It took me a while to place it. The place was where they had demolished this building, the living center…” He paused, looking away from me. “I didn’t know you would be here. I didn’t know that this would happen. I haven’t stopped looking for you. Every time I’ve gone back, I’ve even gone back to those woods, I search. I search and I ask, and I hope and I pray, and nothing has happened. I don’t know how I ended up in this room, but I saw your picture when I fell, the picture there, of you and your husband…
married
?” His voice broke again when he said it, smiling and blinking back tears. “Alice, if there was anything I could change, I never would have left you in those woods, it haunts me, I love you, you are my daughter, and all I have ever wanted to do is protect you.”

“I know,” I cried, “I forgave you a long time ago. In my youth I was angry, but I realized that you would never do anything to hurt me. What pained me was the thought of you and Mom, searching for me, hoping that I would return, but knowing the impossibility of that ever happening…” I gasped again, putting a hand over my mouth and looking to the sky. It was unbelievable.

“If you could, if you do, go back in time, and find me, find me as a young girl again, as your daughter, take me back. If I am with my family, leave me. Leave me there, I love them so and they are all I have ever wanted in my life. But if you do find me, take me back with you!” I cried and screamed, and held his hand as tight as I could.

He started to speak, but his image shifted. The pixels came back out, and his silenced voice screamed, his mouth opening and closing as his body faded in and out, and began to drift, drift back somewhere in time, to search for me, unrelenting, through the ages.

And then I woke up. It was about five o’clock in the morning, and I woke up sobbing, in night sweats. It would happen again, in variations, for days to come. My father, lost in time, visiting me only through my delusions. I sat in my solitude and cried, wishing more than anything that I could vanish, too.