The boy’s mother called Dr. Canyon and asked for an emergency session. Peter was the worst he had been. The doctor said he had other patients, but if they wanted to come to Massachusetts he would fit the boy in at the end of the day. At 6 p.m. Peter was at his door.
“I don’t believe I can hold it together anymore,” Peter told him. “Daphne tried to get me to have sex with her.”
Dr. Terry asked if they did anything. Peter said, “She’s a little girl for God’s sake.”
“She’s your age, Pete.”
The boy glared at him and said, “Respect my delusion. I’m sixty-five years old in here! In 2020 I get aroused about once every full moon. But now, this body—fuck, it’s like I’m in a hormone swamp. I didn’t remember how horny fifteen-year-olds are. My sex life has been on a gentle decline for twenty-five years, and now it all comes rushing back at once and I can’t do anything. It’s maddening!”
This was a delicate call. Dr. Terry said, “I’m not condoning underage sex, Pete, but—you know, a little petting is normal.”
Peter exploded. “You’re going to counsel a disturbed adolescent to have sex with a fourteen-year-old? You should lose your license, you charlatan!”
Dr. Terry was surprised by Peter’s anger. His delusion could be progressing toward psychosis. Time to take a chance. He said, “Tell me about your wife, Peter.”
“Fuck off back to Zabriskie Point, you hippie! We have something where I come from called the MeToo movement, Terry. Old men who try to have sex with young girls don’t fare well in 2020.”
The doctor said, “I need to understand the world you believe you come from.”
“We pay for water and television.”
“Tell me about your wife.”
“Janice.”
“Tell me about Janice.”
“I don’t trust you, Terry.”
“You don’t have to. Where do you and Janice live?”
“In Tribeca.”
“Where is Tribeca?”
“It’s a neighborhood in lower Manhattan. We have a house in Westchester. Since the kids left, we spend more time in the city.”
“How many children do you have?”
“Three.”
“What do you do for a living?”
The boy was mistrustful. Dr. Terry picked up a pen and a leather notebook. He flipped it open and gestured for Peter to talk.
“I spent most of my career in radio.”
“Deejay?”
“Programmer. Now I work for a streaming service.”
“What’s that?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“When did you meet Janice?”
“I was thirty. She was twenty-five. She was playing in a band. The Bouviers. They weren’t much, but she was fantastic. A police chief’s daughter from Long Island. Smartest person I ever met.”
“You loved music so much you married a musician.”
“We fall in love with people who are what we wish to be.”
Dr. Terry made a note of that. It calmed Peter to talk about the world he thought he had left. After ten minutes of circling, he spoke freely about the life he believed he had lost.
“For a long while time passed slowly,” Peter said. “High school, college, moving to New York. It was like every month lasted a year. Until Janice and I got married. Then we went into life’s carpool lane. We had twins, a boy and a girl. Janice quit her band. I got a promotion. A friend of mine told me, ‘Children bring money. They leave you no choice.’ We took the kids to preschool. We went on family trips. I worked hard and attended lots of meetings. It was always almost Christmas or almost summer vacation. We had another boy and named him Peter after me. We moved to the house in Westchester but kept the apartment downtown. Our kids became teenagers and gave us the usual grief. I changed jobs for more money. We got a cat, and then we got a dog, too. We went to PTA meetings, school plays, tennis lessons, swim meets, and basketball games. Our parents got old, and we helped take care of them until they died.”
The boy was choking up. Dr. Terry stopped writing. He closed his notebook and said, “Just talk.”
“One minute we’re watching The Little Mermaid, and the next we’re going on university tours. Jenny went to college in North Carolina. James stayed close—NYU. People warned us about the empty nest, but Peter was at home, usually with a houseful of cronies, and James was nearby, and Jenny was back half the year, and the dog was barking at the cat, and I was busy. The nest felt full to me.
“Until the day we left the youngest at college in California. On the flight back to New York Janice and I looked at each other, and it hit us. That’s it. The baby is out of the house. That chapter is over. And the strange thing about it was that the chapter I’ve just described didn’t feel like it took any longer than high school or college had. The three decades we spent as parents with kids in the house felt like four years, more or less. But when I looked up I was sixty and my hair was turning white. Janice is younger than I am, but in photographs we looked like old people. She called us the Van Winkles.
“I started having dreams in which the past and future were mixed up. I’d be with my kids as they are in their twenties but with my parents still young. Or I’d be back in school but my wife would be there too. I enjoyed those dreams. It was like I was taping over old memories and they were bleeding through. That’s why, when I woke up in my childhood bedroom in 1970, I played along. I thought it was another of those dreams. The most vivid yet. It took me a long time to realize I couldn’t get out.”
Peter stopped talking. He sat back and stared at a Navajo mask on the wall.
Terry Canyon spoke quietly. “I want you to go somewhere with me, Peter. Consider this. When you were in 2020, you had your wife and children, but your parents were gone, right? They were a memory.”
“Yes.”
“Even though your parents, whom you loved, were dead, you were generally happy?”
“Yes. I was happy. I had my children and Janice.”
“I know how much you want them back. I can’t see inside your delusion, Peter, but I know it’s as real to you as this table. They’re as real to you as I am.”
“They’re more real to me than you are.”
“In 2020 you had your wife and kids but your parents were a memory. And that memory gave you comfort. Now you’re in 1970. Janice and the children are not here physically but they are alive in your memory. And your parents are with you again. You’re not alone.”
Peter put his head in his hands. “It’s not a fair trade.”
Dr. Terry said, “I know it’s not, Pete. But it might be a way to think about it that doesn’t hurt so much. It might be a way to hang on.”
Peter held his fists against his eyes. Dr. Terry put a hand on his shoulder, and they sat that way without speaking for a long time. Finally, Peter looked up at the clock. It was ten past seven. His mother would be outside. He looked at Dr. Terry evenly and asked if this session replaced Saturday.
The doctor said no, Saturday was still on. This was a bonus.
“Okay,” Peter said, brushing his hair back. “See you Saturday.”
“Count on it.”
At the door Peter stopped and said, “If I remain stuck here, I’ll have to do everything exactly the same to get back to my old life. I’ll have to duplicate every step.”
Dr. Terry said, “That makes sense, I guess.”
“But see, I’ve already changed it. I didn’t become the school lunatic the first time. I didn’t strip naked in front of the class; I didn’t go to a psychiatrist. I never heard of Dr. Terry Canyon. Daphne Burrows never came over to my house and tried to seduce me in the hayloft. I’ve already ruined it.”
“You haven’t ruined anything, Pete. You might be able to make it come out better.”
“No,” the boy said evenly. “I’ve ruined it. I had it perfect the first time, but I had to lose it to know.”