Time of Departure (38 page)

At least … on my first visit.

By the time Rebecca was born, strikes and demonstrations were paralyzing Iran. The revolution had begun—and Marc and I were the only two people in the world who knew exactly what would happen at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on my birthday eleven months later. It was painful knowledge that I regretted sharing with him, because in the end, as we both knew, he could do nothing. I told him only because he remembered what I'd said in the police car on our first day, and he had questioned me about it.

By then, we had already agreed that he and Rebecca would leave the country after I was gone, and Marc had quietly bought a house in British Columbia's Fraser Valley, not far from Vancouver.

And by then, I had persuaded him to take me to see Gertie Hopkins.

*   *   *

I was heavily pregnant when we made the trip back to Palatka in late September. I had forced myself to wait until then because I wanted my condition to be glaringly noticeable. I was tying up a loose end, but I was also being prudent.

I wanted to deter retaliation.

We parked near the side entrance to Putnam Community Hospital. It seemed like a lifetime ago that Marc had driven me out of this parking lot.

I asked him to wait in the car.

“Why?”

“I don't want any witnesses. Especially police witnesses.”

“Are you planning to commit a crime?”

“Yes.”

He blinked.

I kissed him. “Don't worry. It'll never go to trial.”

“Will I need to bail you out?”

“I'm not sure. If a sheriff's car arrives before I return, come looking.”

I got out and walked into the hospital.

I had called ahead, without giving a name, so I knew Gertie was on shift. It wasn't hard to find her. She was rushing out of a patient's room on the medical ward and almost ran me over.

“Oh! I'm so sorry!” She stopped and stared at my face. “Butterfly tattoo!”

“That's not my name, Gertie.”

“Right, right, right! Claire … Claire Talbot! How are you doing?” She gaped. “Look at you! When are you due?”

“In two months.”

“Wow! What a comeback!”

“Yeah … I was pretty messed up back then. Do you have a minute? I need to talk to you. In private.”

“Well, I'm due for my break soon, but first I've got to take care of something for a patient.”

“I can wait.”

She pointed. “There's a playroom down the end, on the right. There are no kids on the ward right now. There's a couch.”

“I'll see you there.”

I waited in the playroom. I was standing in front of the couch when Gertie showed up five minutes later.

“Gosh, Claire! You're allowed to sit down!”

I checked for witnesses. There was no one in sight.

I slapped Gertie across the face as hard as I could. She stumbled back and landed on the couch. She stared up at me in utter shock.

“I thought I'd wait for
you
to sit first,” I said as I settled beside her. “I hope that didn't leave a mark.”

“What was that for?” Her voice was a high-pitched squeak, and her eyes were big with tears.

I took her by the hand. She yanked it away and tried to get up. I held her by the arm. “I slapped you so you would always remember this conversation.”

“What conversation? I'm not having one with you! You're crazy! I'm calling the police!”

“He's waiting outside.”

“Who?”

“The detective who came for me that day.”

“You came to assault me, and you brought a policeman with you?”

“He's my husband.”

“What? What is this?”

“Gertie, please listen to me, and never forget what I'm about to tell you. Your life depends on it.”

She gingerly felt her cheek, which was still red where I'd hit her. Her face hardened. “My life? What are you talking about?”

“How old are you?”

“I'll be thirty next month. What's that got to do with—?”

I held up my hand. She shut up. “Two things: First of all, you will live to the age of sixty-two. Second, you will not live
past
the age of sixty-two unless you do exactly as I say!”

“I don't believe in horoscopes!”

I ignored her and kept going. “A few months after your sixty-second birthday, you will get on a train. And on that train you will see me. When you do, you will remember the day I came here and slapped your face. And then you will remember what I told you.”

“You haven't told me anything! You're talking in riddles!” She tried to get up again.

I sank my fingers into her arm.

She winced. “You're hurting me!”

“I'm hurting you so you will remember I told you to get off that train!”

“Get off the train? Why?”

“Because if you don't, you will die.”

I released her arm. I stood up. “I'm sorry I hit you. Just remember what I said. I'll see you in thirty years.”

I could feel her eyes boring into my back as I left the room.

I had paid my dues.

 

56

Soon I will be gone.

Becky sleeps in the crook of my arm while I attempt these final lines. In a few days, I will lose my little angel forever.

It is more than I can bear.

Across the room, Marc tosses and moans. The remorseless torment that has dogged our paths all these months never grants him a moment's rest. He knows what is coming. He tries to prepare himself, but I know his soul is filled with dread.

I have managed to keep my sanity. Marc never stops reminding me of this apparent miracle. But for me it has only been a year, and there were times, as he and I both know, when I barely held on.

As the final days have slouched toward us, Marc has tried to keep the talk hopeful. But hope is not the same thing as optimism, and just as I am dying, so is he. And, just as Old Marc did during my final weeks in the future, Young Marc has become quieter.

And quieter …

It is a cruel thing to know the date of my death. But it is a crueler thing still for the man who loves me beyond all reasoning, and who would gladly barter away his life for mine, to know that date as well.

He holds me. He prays. He weeps until he's exhausted.

But I can offer no solace.

*   *   *

My dear husband—

The thought of what you now face torments me. My life has been short, but my fate more merciful, and that is the cruelest twist of all.

Watch over me and love me until our day returns, and I can love you again.

This is my testament.

And your guide.

 

REBECCA

 

57

August 10, 2008
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

The detectives were on their way to interview a witness, but a dropped 911 call from a screaming child trumps last week's jewelry heist every time.

“Delta Five, you're the closest unit!”

Mattis responded. “Delta Five. Repeat that address!” His partner wrote it down. When his hand reached for the console, she grabbed his sleeve.

“Silent approach, John!”

He gave a quick nod. His partner had a sixth sense, and she was usually right. He braked and took the cutoff onto Grange Street. They cleared traffic with their lights and the occasional quick burp on the yelper. The Crown Vic burned down Grange and took the corner at Barker in a four-wheel slide. Mattis was ex–Unit B Traffic and it showed. He handled the big car like it was part of his body.

His partner already had the map up on her screen. She pointed. “It's the gray one!”

They were angled to the curb and out of the car in seconds.

The house was a run-down leftover from the 1940s, with asphalt siding and a daylight basement. “Check the back!” Mattis whispered as he double-timed for the steps leading up to the front door.

She wove past a pair of garbage cans, ducked under the boughs of a mature cedar, and stepped onto a strip of weed-choked lawn. Halfway along the side of the house, she came to a door with an overhanging porch light. The door was ajar a few inches.

She saw the back of someone's head on the floor inside the door.

She heard Mattis knock on the upstairs door and call, “Police!”

She drew her weapon.

Cautiously, she pushed on the door. The gap widened, revealing a ground-floor apartment.

The head belonged to a woman. But there was no body attached.

She took a horrified step back. After a few seconds of frozen shock, her training kicked in. “John!” she yelled. “Down here!”

Then she heard it.

A cry.

It was a child's voice.

She pushed the door open and stepped into a scene from hell.

The woman's body lay in a spreading lake of blood a few feet from her head. Next to it was an overturned coffee table, and beyond that, on a ratty couch, lay the body of a young girl. She was maybe ten or eleven years old. She was sprawled like a rag doll, and her throat was a gaping, bloody mess.

The cry came again. It rose to a wail and then ended, cut off abruptly.

She ran, clearing every doorway, every room, as she went. She reached the final bedroom. The door was shut. She kicked it open and came in low.

A wild-eyed, unshaven man was squatting in a corner with the child's small body positioned directly in front of him. He held a bloody hand across the girl's mouth and a vicious, blood-streaked blade pressed to her throat.

“Let her go!”

“She's coming with me!” he hissed. “We're a family!”

She looked into the little girl's eyes and saw terror in its purest form.

“Release her!
NOW!”

“No!”

She saw his elbow rise.

She saw the blade change angle.

RCMP Sergeant Rebecca Hastings shot Wayde Patrick Elgin, estranged husband of Jacqueline Anne Elgin and father of two, in the precise center in his labium superius oris, one millimeter below his nose. The 147-grain hollow-point slug tore through his head, destroyed his brain stem, and blasted gore and bone fragments across the wallpaper behind him.

The knife dropped from boneless fingers, and the girl ran shrieking into Rebecca's arms.

When Mattis found her, she was still cradling a horrified six-year-old. He took in the scene at a glance. He put a gentle hand on Rebecca's shoulder. “At least you saved one.”

Tears coursed down Rebecca's face as she caressed the shuddering child.

“I'm not sure I did,” she replied.

*   *   *

Three months later, Rebecca was sitting in a witness box at the provincial courthouse in Vancouver. All seven members of a coroner's jury were leaning forward in their seats, rapt with horror, as she described those final moments in that basement suite. Two jurors and a number of members of the packed public gallery were in tears.

The coroner held up a hand, interrupting her testimony. “Excuse me … a moment, please.” The coroner faced the jury. She spoke in a gentle tone. “Mr. Foreman, does the jury need a break?”

The man swiveled in his seat, scanning faces. Almost in unison, the panel members shook their heads. One of the more visibly distraught jurors replied in a loud whisper: “No! Please just let her finish.”

The foreman rose to his feet. “Madam Coroner, the jury would like to continue.”

“All right. Thank you.” She turned to Rebecca. “Please continue, Sergeant.”

Rebecca resumed her testimony. A few minutes later, the public entrance opened and a tall man stepped into the courtroom. At first she didn't notice him. But as a row of spectators shifted to make room for the latecomer, the rustling sound drew her attention.

Rebecca watched her father take his seat. When he saw her looking at him, he gave an imperceptible nod and sat very, very still.

Thirty-five minutes later, she found him waiting in the lobby.

November 28, 2008
Cross Creek, Florida

She experienced the near death of too much knowledge.

She wept. She raged.

But she finally understood.

She finally understood why her father had insisted she accompany him to Florida for her thirtieth birthday. Why he'd refused to take no for an answer. Why he'd visited her unit while she was off-shift and leaned hard on the OIC until the man agreed to reschedule her leave.

Her father had wanted her isolated.

Her father had wanted complete control, so he could manage the fallout.

That morning, he'd brought her breakfast in bed. Along with the eggs and toast and coffee and orange juice came a dog-eared manuscript. Most of it was typed, but the final pages were written in a looping natural hand.

In thirty years, not once had her father mentioned the manuscript's existence.

While she spent the day, propped by pillows, reading her mother's impossible story of her impossible life, her father had left her alone. He lay on his bed, as motionless as a stone effigy on a tomb … and waited.

The story was beyond belief, beyond logic, beyond comprehension, but it explained so much:

Why she had been raised in Canada by a single American father …

Why her father had never remarried …

Why she'd never seen a photograph of her mother …

Why her father had told her that her mother's parents were both dead …

Why there had always been so much mystery about her mother's death …

And it explained her father's impenetrable silences. Silences that had eventually driven them apart.

*   *   *

He found her on the bathroom floor. He carried her to his bed. He held her for hours. He talked to her softly. He sat up all night, watching her sleep.

By morning, she was shaky but ready to talk. He brought her coffee on the veranda. She was sitting in the old rocker. It had been her mother's favorite chair. She desperately wanted to feel a physical connection, but it was just an old chair. The story was the connection. She had never believed in out-of-body experiences, but now she was living one. Her body was here, but some other part of her was … somewhere else.