"So there I laid," Mr. Li continued, "for more than six months. Getting worse every day, getting weaker, my mind and judgement deteriorating. Sometimes I was delirious, sometimes I couldn't even keep track of which day it was. And then came the final day, the day I met you. All that day I felt myself becoming more and more aware, more alert than I'd been in years.
The time of my death had come and the clarity that went with the gift was manifesting itself. The clarity was there, but my judgment was impaired severely. No offense Bill, but I never would have given you what I did if I'd been in my right mind. Never.
"But I didn't think of such things as the consequences of my actions. I didn't think about how dangerous a thing I was doing, I only thought about how, after the year I'd spent seeing the worst of America, seeing myself dying in that concentration camp, someone had finally come along that possessed some basic human kindness, some empathy. Someone who treated people with respect. I decided to take a chance on you and I offered you my gift. I had no time to explain the ramifications to you; it was an impulsive decision in the last few seconds of my life. I still had the ability to withdraw the offer if you had wished for world peace or immortality or something like that. Something that would have had dire consequences to fate and the world.
"But you didn't. You asked to be fifteen again, knowing what you knew at that point. That seemed almost noble to me. You obviously didn't believe anything would come of it but you used the gift for personal betterment. That was what it was intended for. I honestly didn't see the consequences to fate that might have occurred if you had been a less moral person than I thought you were. Thankfully my instincts were mostly right about you.
"At the moment of truth, at my dying seconds, I thought it had all been for nothing. When my grandfather passed the gift on to me in that house in Nanking, I'd felt a definite power shifting from his body to mine. It was the gift. I'd felt it enter me, felt it as a presence in me ever since that day. I knew at that instant that my wish had been granted and that the gift was now mine to pass on. I knew it."
"I didn't feel anything like that when you died," I told him, confused. "Nothing like that at all. To tell you the truth Mr. Li, I didn't think much about you at all once I wrote the paperwork and left the hospital. It was my nature. I could not allow myself to get involved in the tragedy I witnessed for my own sanity. And I never felt anything enter my body. If I have the gift with me now, I don't feel it at all."
"I understand your feelings at my death Bill," he told me. "I was in war and I probably understand them better than you do. I saw human suffering and loss during the war on a scale that you probably can't even imagine. So don't feel sorry for forgetting about me after you left. But as for the passing of the gift, you didn't feel it pass to you and I didn't feel it leave me because it involved time travel. Your wish was granted but it set up a paradox. Two people cannot possess the gift at the same time. It was not passed to you because by granting your wish I was left alive. That was why I thought it didn't work.
"I remember dying. It's not an unpleasant experience I might add. In fact, it feels almost blissful when your body finally accepts its demise. I'd never felt more at peace, more free of pain. I remember grieving absently that the gift had died with me. Everything finally went black. I was at rest.
"And then, seemingly seconds later I woke up in my small house in San Francisco and it was 1982 again. My body was functioning properly, my brain was functioning properly, and I had every memory of what had just happened. I was horrified by what I had done, by what I had put at risk. I could have destroyed the world Bill if you had wished for the wrong thing or if you had treated your gift differently once you were sent back."
"I knew that I was going to have to find you immediately and keep a close eye upon you." He cast a smile, "It's a good thing that you wore a nametag with your first and last on it or I might never have found you. You never told me your name.
"I moved to Spokane, leaving my small house in the hands of a real estate company. I located you as a teenager and I've been keeping an eye on you ever since, making sure you didn't put anything at risk." He gazed at me meaningfully, a little apologetically, "I'm sorry to say that I was prepared to arrange your death if you started to go too far off the path of morality."
I was shocked. "My death?"
"Yes," he nodded. "I would have done it without hesitation if you were putting the fabric of existence at risk. You came close a few times. I must say you were not very moral when you first returned. You put at risk more than twenty relationships by your philandering. You tried to stop an historical event from happening in Beirut."
"You knew about Beirut?" I asked, astonished, "how?"
"You had copies of your letters in your house, did you not?" he asked mildly. "I simply entered it when no one was home and took a look."
"You were in my house?!"
"Bill," he said, "I don't think you realize even today what was at stake with your wish. What you wished for was something I had no right granting. It put the entire world at risk. Of course I was in your house. I was in it more than a hundred times over the years, snooping through your things, trying to see what you were up to. I've been in the house that you share with Nina now at least fifty times. I've been watching you obsessively through my telescope. I needed to make sure that you've stayed on the straight and narrow. I don't think you realize the responsibility that I feel for empowering you in this way. You could have destroyed the world by utilizing your gift in the wrong way. Literally destroyed it. I was obligated to keep an eye on you."
"Jesus," I muttered, wondering at the fact that this man had been watching my every move for the last seventeen years. It was a spooky feeling.
"It was touch and go with you for a while," Mr. Li went on. "You teetered on the very brink of temptation those first few years. Thankfully I discovered the same thing that you and Tracy did, that fate tends to keep things in line despite your interference."
I looked sharply at him, "You know what Tracy and I talked about?"
"Your house was bugged," Mr. Li said. "I had transmitters in your telephones and in every room of the house. I listened to everything that you said to anybody." He gave me a stern, disapproving father look, "I heard every one of your "study sessions". I listened when you told Tracy about your gift. I listened when you told your father about your gift. I listened to your father and Tracy when you weren't there to see if they would tell anyone else about it. I couldn't monitor Tracy at Berkeley from Spokane unfortunately but I was able to bug your father's office. He kept the knowledge to himself and so, apparently, did Tracy.
"You gradually realized the proper use of the gift, for personal betterment.
You found love, which is perhaps the greatest thing on this earth. You did use the gift for money and you are very rich now, but you've never used it for power or influence. You've chosen well Bill. Only one time was I obligated to interfere in any way."
"What do you mean?" I asked, still trying to grapple with the knowledge that Mr. Li probably had logs of every time I'd taken a shit over the last seventeen years.