THREE

 

 

Stout and Jenny sat at the empty bar in the Garden Lounge. They were holding hands and it felt right to be here, as far as Stout was concerned. The dozen booths, the chairs for all the regulars at the long wooden bar, the faint smell of cleaning solution and whisky. This was his home, his safety.

It didn’t make Jenny’s cancer diagnosis any better, but sitting in their normal places at the bar seemed to make them both feel better for the moment.

Richard had said he would be late and they could just go in without him.

They had just come from the doctor again this morning, a second opinion, and there was no doubt that Jenny had stage four cancer. They were giving her six months, tops. Nothing anyone could do.

Outside the heat of the day was baking but the air-conditioning of the bar was holding it back, making everything comfortable.

“We’re going to need to tell the kids,” Jenny said, holding her glass of orange juice over ice that he had poured her, but not drinking it.

Stout smiled at her, took one of her hands and squeezed it. She was always the practical, thinking one. And she had taken this news almost in stride after a short session of crying as he held her.

She was not the type to feel sorry for herself, but instead just face forward to the future. Even as short as it was now looking to be.

Stout couldn’t even imagine the coming Christmas Eve here in the Garden without her sitting beside him as she was doing now.

This morning, the second doctor confirming her diagnosis had only seemed to firm up her resolve and spirit.

He had no idea what he was going to do without her. He just couldn’t let himself think about that. Right now she was here, sitting beside him, and he was going to treasure every moment they had together from this point forward.

He almost couldn’t remember all the decades before the last five years that he had lived without her. Those no longer seemed real.

“We’ll figure out a way to tell them,” Stout said.

“Since their father was taken by cancer,” she said, “this is going to hit them really hard. We’re going to have to help them.”

Stout shook his head and turned and smiled at her.

“You raised three of the strongest humans I have ever had the pleasure to meet,” Stout said. “They are going to help you, not the other way around.”

She laughed, squeezing his hand back. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

At that moment Richard unlocked the front door and strode in, letting it bang closed behind him. He strode up to them.

“I have been ordered,” he said, “to take you both to the Institute as quickly as possible.”

“You told them?” Stout asked, surprised.

Richard nodded. “I just needed someone to talk to and since you two are my best friends, talking with you seemed out of the question. So let’s go.”

Stout just shook his head. “I can’t see what they can do to help.”

“Yes,” Jenny said. “We’re fine. But thank them.”

Richard laughed. “Seriously? They are the ones that built that jukebox time machine, remember? The one that helped you two get together. Duster has more knowledge in his little finger than I have learned in thousands of years of living. And there are more advanced degrees in that building than in a hundred universities combined.”

Stout jerked at that. He kept forgetting that Richard was from a hundred years in the future and had lived at least three or four thousand years in different timelines in the past before he bought the Garden in this timeline.

To Stout, Richard was just Richard, his best friend and the only person he would have trusted with the Garden Lounge and a time travel jukebox.

Jenny glanced at Stout. “They might be able to help? It won’t hurt to find out.”

Stout nodded and stood. “Got any idea what they are thinking?”

“Not a clue,” Richard said. “I told Bonnie about your cancer. She seemed to get angry and went off, made a phone call, and then came back and ordered me to come and get you. Bonnie and Duster started that place and they never order anyone around, so I jumped.”

“Clearly Bonnie has some sort of idea,” Jenny said, shaking her head. “I really like her.”

Stout did as well. He liked all the people from the Institute that he had met. And he always enjoyed having them join them for Christmas Eve here in the Garden. But he wasn’t going to let any hope creep in after this morning.

He just didn’t dare.