Chapter

18

I knew I was dreaming because Mitch was there. He stood in a grassy meadow, looking very tall and handsome in his tuxedo. Rows of chairs stood on either side of an aisle lined with flowers. The tall grass brushed against my long train as I walked toward him. I blushed as I caught his expression. He was looking at me with an intense appreciation. I glanced around, relieved to see that we were alone. He was so good-looking and his blue eyes were filled with so much love it almost hurt to look at him.

I walked slowly, each step deliberate as I moved toward him and watched his smile gradually grow. After about five steps or so, I realized he wasn’t getting any closer. He smiled and held out his hands to me, and I picked up the pace of my steps, hurrying now. But no matter how quickly I walked, he stayed just as far away. I passed row after row, all beribboned and bedecked with flowers, and suddenly I could hear my shoes clicking as the grass turned to wooden floor.

And Mitch was still just as many steps away.

His smile faltered, and there was an expression of disappointment on his face. I could read the thought in his eyes, Why aren’t you coming to take my hand? I tried to tell him I was coming, but I couldn’t force the words out. I ran faster, but now he wasn’t staying in one place, and he began to drift away. Shadowy walls sprang up around me, creating a room that expanded in length until I was looking at Mitch at the end of a long tunnel. I moved to pick up the train of my wedding dress and sprint even faster, but my hands encountered only a knee-length skirt. I realized in horror that I was wearing the black dress I had purchased for Mitch’s funeral. My ears started to ring, and I screamed as the tunnel grew so long that Mitch was no longer in sight. I stood alone in a chapel with only a casket, black and cold, looming in front of me.

The ringing in my ears intensified until it was shrill and piercing and, with a start, I sat up in bed to the sound of the telephone. I was disoriented, unsure of how long I had been sleeping. I stumbled down the hall to my parents’ room, trying to reach the phone, but my mother was already there. She picked up the receiver.

“Hello? Who? No, I’m sorry, there’s no one here by that name. No, it’s no problem. Good-bye.” She hung up the phone and then looked up with a start. “Annie. You scared me. I didn’t know you were home.”

She took a long look at me, and her eyes grew wide. I felt another shiver rip through me, banging my teeth together violently. “Honey? Are you sick?” She hurried over to me and felt my forehead with the back of her hand. “You’re soaked. Why didn’t you change your clothes? Annie? Honey?” I heard her speaking but I couldn’t answer, my teeth were chattering so hard. Her voice grew in volume and pitch. “Annie? Come on. Let’s get you in the tub.” She ushered me into the bathroom and filled the tub with hot water while she stripped me down and wrapped me in a thick towel. I let her do it, not having the energy to protest.

The water was almost too hot against my icy skin, and I eased in bit by bit, allowing each part of my body to acclimate to the temperature.

The hot water began to work its magic, and the tension gradually leached out of my muscles. Mom made sure I was warming up before she left to get me some hot peppermint tea. I sank down into the water, letting it cover my ears as if I could block out the noises in my head. As the cold gradually seeped away, I was left with an overwhelming sense of confusion and fear. It had suddenly hit me on the way home just how trapped I was, how any choice I made had the potential for colossal disaster. I had come within seconds of seeing Mitch. I still ached for it more than anything. But the fight with Corrie and the revelation with Sam had made me realize now just how dangerous that could have been.

What would I have done, anyway? Ask a twenty-three-year-old stranger to my high school dance? I shuddered, knowing that was exactly what I would have done.

Mom came back in with the tea, and I sipped the hot, fragrant liquid gratefully, allowing it to warm me inside while the water continued to warm my skin. The questions kept bubbling up through the steamy haze.

So what if I had asked him to the dance? Would it have messed everything up? Would it have meant that we embarked on a course that diverged from the one I had followed originally? What if it meant I would never have had my life with him? Would my children never even have been born? That fear had nagged at me before but somehow hadn’t really hit me until today. I had no idea what to do now. Anything I did could take me in a direction that I didn’t want to go. How could I live through this life again without changing anything? I didn’t remember enough of my life to be able to duplicate it exactly. I wasn’t the same person now that I had been as a teenager. It seemed inevitable that if I stayed here I would ruin everything. That left me with just one question.

The water was starting to cool, and the shivers were returning. I drained the tub enough to make room for more hot water, all the while considering that question.

How could I get back to my life? It was a hard life in many ways, but I knew now that I wouldn’t trade it. I had spent thirteen years with the most amazing man in the world, someone who loved me unconditionally and made me truly happy. I had three beautiful, intelligent, funny children who meant everything to me. I needed to get home to them. It stood to reason that if I had somehow traveled back in time, then there had to be a way to get home again. What was it?

That was the question that I latched on to. What could I do to get home again? My thoughts spun in circles as I looked for an answer. I even considered whether there was anyone I could talk to about it. I couldn’t think of a single person who would take me seriously and be able to help me. I was, by all empirical evidence, an overly dramatic sixteen-year-old who had recently threatened to commit suicide and was now in the care of a psychologist. Who was going to believe that I was really a thirty-eight-year-old, time-traveling mother of three? I laughed out loud at the thought, my sarcastic mirth turning suddenly into a deep cough.

The water had cooled again, so I drained the tub and wrapped up in a towel, then went to my room. My limbs felt like Jell-O with all my strength gone. I shivered while I found some comfortable sweats and a T-shirt and dug in my drawer for my thickest socks. I added two extra blankets to my bed and climbed in, my hair still wrapped in a towel, and tried to force my brain to come up with a solution to this impossible situation.

I heard the garage door open and Mom left, probably to pick up Dan and Rachel. I remembered now that I had promised to do the grocery shopping. Just the thought of leaving my room, even leaving my bed, was too frightening. I stayed huddled under the quilts, playing over and over in my head every mistake I had made in the past few days. The list was long, and I shuddered to think how many there were that I didn’t even know about. I heard Mom return with the kids, but then my attention faded back to my fear again. The hours passed as I drifted back and forth between those frantic, searching thoughts and the reality of my surroundings. The next thing I knew, it was dark and Mom was calling everyone to dinner.

Hannah knocked and then opened the door a crack.

“Mom wants to know if you are coming down for dinner,” she asked. I tried to force myself to pay attention to her words, and it occurred to me, somewhere in the back of my mind, that her tone was civil. Concerned even.

“No, thanks,” I said, hoarsely. “I don’t feel up to it.”

Hannah shrugged and was about to close the door when I remembered something.

“Hey, Hannah, did you ask Travis?” I asked, making an attempt to force some life into my voice. She smiled.

“Yeah, I didn’t do anything fancy, just asked him after school if he wanted to go, and he said yes. I told him we would be going with you, and he said that sounded good. I still have to ask Mom, but we can figure out the details later when you’re feeling better.” She was trying to sound casual about it, but there was an undercurrent of excitement in her voice. Still, at the mention of them going to the dance with me, I groaned. She seemed not to notice. She just closed the door softly and left me to my misery again.

Now I had made Corrie mad at me, and I was still expected to go to the dance. I didn’t remember going the first time around. Would it mess everything up for me to go now? More of those same questions I couldn’t answer. Finally I put on my headphones and turned on the radio, hoping to drown them out at least for a little while.