Nine-Tenths (3 page)

“Be quiet, young man,” Alina said sharply.

Garrett flipped his palms up in mock surrender. “I’m just saying.” The boy retrieved the chair, sat down, and put his elbows on the table defiantly. He slumped forward and placed his chin in his hands, looking utterly bored.

Leonard hesitated.
Should I say something further?
He didn’t enjoy being bullied by his imaginary son, but he didn’t want the dream to be ruined by arguments and hostility. The precious moments with Alina brought him such happiness. He decided to steer the discourse in another direction.

“So, Natalia. What does DEPS 007934 mean?”

The young girl eyed her father curiously.

“On your shirt.”

Natalia nodded slowly.

Garrett scoffed. “I knew you were out of it, but this is ridiculous. You went to 7934.”

“It was called Ridgecrest then, Garrett,” Alina explained.

“Right. Ridgecrest. You had competitive sports in those days,” Garrett said, grimacing. He shook his head. “Still, you’ve got to admit, the old man should know his daughter’s school number. That’s not too much to ask.”

Ridgecrest. My middle school,
Leonard thought, feeling dull-witted and out of place.

“And you think he’s a genius,
Mother
.” Garrett laughed. “Inbreed,” he muttered.

A horrible taste burned the back of Leonard’s throat. “I’m sorry, I forgot,” he whispered. “I guess I am getting old.”

He glanced around the table. Natalia stared at him, mystified, almost scared. Garrett maintained an expression of righteous insolence. Alina’s eyes bore into him with a mix of emotions he found hard to decipher. Anger, no. Concern, yes. Bewilderment, definitely.

No longer pleasurable, the dream disturbed Leonard. Thirty-one years haunted by Tommy Richardson, he deserved a nice dream. Still, what good was a story that reminded him of all he might have had but did not pursue? The hostile teenager may as well have been Leonard’s own conscience — ridiculing him as an old man who knows nothing, reminding him that the newer generation is already moving in to embrace the world that had passed Leonard by while he tinkered.

“Excuse me,” he said, standing. “I’m not feeling very well.”

He walked away from the table without so much as a glance back, leaving behind the woman he lost decades ago and making his way to the ten-by-ten prison that had claimed his life.

Chapter Three

“Sweetheart.” A female voice roused Leonard from his slumber.

He moaned and stirred.
Michelle
. He pulled the blanket over his head. “Go away.” She was the last person he wanted to see. Drowning in failure, he mourned the end of his vibrant dream, a dream which slipped away as his brain awakened.
Not now.
Presumably Michelle had returned to retrieve some forgotten items or maybe even to apologize. If she wanted to get back together, he would have nothing of it. On the other hand, perhaps she was eager to wake him up so she could gloat. Surely she saw the state of the room — the fire extinguisher, the foam. It was painfully obvious that something had gone wrong and Michelle would be more than happy to hear every humiliating detail.

“Leave me alone,” he said, squirming deeper under the covers.

“We need to talk, Leonard.” The voice was gentle and compassionate.

Leonard?
Michelle always called him Leo. She only used
Leonard
when she was miffed at him, and she typically said the name with such disdain that it often sounded like an insult. This voice did not belong to Michelle. Leonard sat up abruptly.

Alina.

A prickly sensation crawled up Leonard’s neck. He looked around the room. Renoir, floral bedspread. The clock indicated it was 1:17 a.m. “I’m still dreaming.”

“That explains it,” Alina said in a tone of amusement. “You must have been sleepwalking at the dinner table.”

Leonard did not respond. The beautiful woman mesmerized him — perched upon his bed, her long hair resting on a green t-shirt. He reached out and caressed her face lightly. She touched his hand, sending shivers through his body. A wave of desire flooded his senses and all rational thoughts slipped away. He considered only the idea of laying her on the bed and making up for lost decades.

She whispered in his ear, “Let’s take a walk.”

“I can walk when I’m awake. While I have you, I want to make love to you.”

“We’ll make love when we get back.” Her voice, still very low, sounded sharper, possibly urgent.

“Alina, I’m going to wake up and the last thing I want to do with these fleeting moments is walk.” He stroked the side of her breast.

Alina pulled back and considered him, frowning. “You
are
awake, Leonard.”

He smiled and returned his attention to her breast.

She grabbed his hand. “Look at me. Do you really believe you’re asleep?”

He nodded.

She glanced apprehensively at all four corners of the ceiling. “What did they do to you?” she mumbled, barely audible. Then she stood up and spoke in an obviously forced, nonchalant tone. “A little fresh air is what you need, sweetheart. Put on your pants and let’s take a quick stroll around the block.”

He looked down. He was sitting in his briefs, wearing a tattered t-shirt. He ran a hand through his thinning hair.

A real stud. No wonder she doesn’t want to have sex with you.

Leonard obliged, and a few minutes later the couple ambled down the sidewalk. A third-quarter moon barely lit their path. They passed a home with a mildly sloping yard and a garden proudly displaying an assortment of late-season flowers. The moon’s glow blanketed the garden in silver-gray, teasing Leonard’s eyes. At that moment, walking with Alina, he longed to see the flowers’ proper colors.

Just beyond the shimmering flowers, a row of bushes marked a small greenbelt. It separated the Tramers’ neighborhood from a bland, high-density development. In Leonard’s real world that area contained luxurious houses situated on skillfully landscaped, multi-acre properties. It struck Leonard as odd. The ugly, stone-gray housing development seemed incongruent. Everything else in the dream was a gentler, lovelier version of what he experienced in his actual life. The cozy home, the beautiful wife, the handsome (although not-both-so-well-behaved) children.

“What about the kids?” Leonard asked, realizing that they were several houses away in the wee hours of the morning.

“They’re fine. It’s you I’m worried about.” She reached out and grabbed his hand. “You’ve been acting so strange lately,” she whispered. “Your memory’s failing. You think you’re asleep. That’s weird, Leonard.”

He spoke in a normal volume. “I’m just—”

“Shh. Keep your voice down. A few more steps.”

Alina glanced nervously over her shoulder before shoving Leonard through the bushes into the open space. She dragged him several yards away from the bushes but remained in the shadow of a huge tree near the center of the greenbelt. She sat down and patted the grass beside her.

“Okay,” she said, “tell me what’s going on.” No longer maintaining a whisper, her voice was nonetheless quiet and cautious. “Are you involved in some kind of human experiment?” She examined his head for scars.

He pulled her hand towards his chest and leaned over to kiss her.

“Leonard,” she said in exasperation. “I’m glad you’re feeling affectionate. You’ve barely noticed my existence for the past several years…but you’re really starting to worry me.”

He barely heard dream-Alina’s words. A feeling of tremendous loss washed over him. A peculiar sensation began in his abdomen and traveled swiftly toward his head, until his scalp tingled. “I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice quiet and sad. “I made all the wrong choices. I should have abandoned my pointless crusade. I should not have let you go.”

Alina’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m here, Leonard.” Her voice trembled and she leaned over, stifling a gasp with her free hand. “But you’ve got to tell me what’s going on. What pointless crusade have they got you working on? Please tell me they haven’t hurt you.”

A cool breeze tickled Leonard’s face. Suddenly, he became aware of the warmth of Alina’s hand and the chill of the moist grass. He felt the dampness seeping through his jeans. It was irritating yet very tangible.

“I’m not asleep, am I?”

Alina shook her head, slipping her hand out of his and pulling her jacket closer to her neck.

“What’s happening?” Leonard whispered.

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

Leonard reevaluated the events which had transpired since he left the smoldering time machine. The household setting, once established, did not morph from one home to another as one might encounter in a dream. The characters, properly developed and realistic, did not blend and fade as the evening wore on. Almost every physical detail seemed to remain in its proper place. All at once, it hit him.

“I didn’t waste my life,” he said. “I didn’t cause the accident. I didn’t become obsessed with the time machine—”

“A time machine?” Alina whispered angrily. “Is that what those fools at the DID are trying to build?”

“Not those fools. This fool.” He pointed at his chest. Then he put both of her hands in his own. “And I didn’t lose you. You didn’t leave me.”

“Of course I’m not going to leave you.” She tilted her head and gazed at him. “I just want to make sure you’re okay. Tonight you really scared me. Natalia too, I fear.”

Leonard prattled on as if she weren’t there. “I had children. We…we had children.”

She chuckled. “I’m glad you remember.”

“But you see, I don’t remember.”

Alina frowned. She appeared somewhat frightened. “You don’t remember? Leonard, you’re not making sense. Are you saying you’ve lost your memories?”

“I don’t even remember our wedding, Alina.”

Her lips quivered. “What have they done to you?”

“But perhaps I can find those memories. If this life really happened, it’s got to be in here somewhere.” He tapped his head with one finger.

She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean by ‘if this life really happened’?”

Leonard took a deep breath, puffing out his cheeks before releasing the air. “Let me explain.”

Alina searched their surroundings tentatively, as if looking for eavesdroppers. Satisfied, she nodded. “Please do.”

“I killed a boy.”

“Oh my God.”

He held up both hands in a stop gesture. “No, wait. Listen. In my original timeline, when I was twenty-one, I caused an accident that killed a boy. You don’t remember?”

“
Your original timeline?
” she asked, eyeing him doubtfully.

“After the tragedy, I spent my entire life building a time machine.”

Her doubtful expression magnified.

He touched her shoulder. “You left me before you went off to med school.”

“Really? Then why did I marry you when I became a resident?”

Leonard sighed in frustration. “I was talking about the other timeline…the one where I killed a boy and wasted my life trying to bring him back.”

Alina folded her arms. “So how did you get to
this
timeline?” she asked sarcastically. “Let me guess. You got into your time machine and wound up at our dining room table, suddenly the father of two children.”

Leonard grimaced. “Something like that.”

Alina laughed loudly. Then she covered her mouth and inspected the greenbelt for onlookers.

Leonard continued, “I went back to that day, the day of the accident, trying to prevent it. In spite of my efforts, the accident happened anyway…only I didn’t cause it. I intended to change the boy’s life, to give him back the life I took with my carelessness. But it looks like the only life I changed was my own.”

Alina’s expression softened. She regarded her husband with a look of compassion.

A strange sadness overcame Leonard. “Not just my own.” He touched her hair, smoothing it along her shoulder. “How I pity the man whose heart is now broken because I got you instead of him.” Leaning in to steal a kiss, he closed his eyes.

She pushed him back abruptly. “What do you mean?”

“I’m assuming you married someone…in the other timeline. Now he’s history and you’re mine again.”

“You really believe this, don’t you?”

“It’s what happened, Alina. I wish I knew all the details about my life with you. This life.” He looked up at the stars. “God, I’d give anything to experience that. Please let me find those memories.” His voice brightened. “Do we have any videos?”

“Tons. Maybe they will jog your memory and shake loose this alternate timeline delusion.”

He grabbed her forcefully by the shoulders. “It’s real.”

“Leonard,” she cried out loud, while simultaneously trying to hush herself.

“You have to believe me.”

“Where is this time machine?” she whispered.

Leonard groaned. “That’s just it. I didn’t build it.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I didn’t build the damn thing.”

Alina started crying. “Leonard, please. Please keep your voice down.”

“I wish I could show you the time machine. I really do. When I stepped out of the closet, I was here in this reality, and the time machine was gone.”

“The time machine was in our closet? I think I would have noticed it.”

“That’s the point. I didn’t build it. I married you and had a family and a…” He paused to regain his composure. “…a life,” he whispered wistfully. “A life I don’t remember.”

“I’ll help you remember, sweetheart. We’ll get it back.”

He cocked his head. “Why are we living in my parents’ house? If I married you and had a life, why didn’t we buy our own place?”

Alina bit her lip. “You’re scaring me.” She shook her head repeatedly.

Leonard touched her tenderly, trying to allay her fears. “Just pretend I’m a stranger and explain it to me.”

Alina nodded. “Okay. You loved your parents’ house. They went to Florida and it was a perfect first house for us. I’m not fond of having no master bedroom and sharing one and a half bathrooms with two teenagers, but we’re lucky.”

“Perfect first house. I can see that. But when we outgrew it, why didn’t we move?”