"But…"
"Dad." I said. "I've learned that you can't change the world with this gift. All you can do is try to change a few things around you and even that is difficult and sometimes impossible. Our destiny has been altered because of my interference and we have Tracy when she should be dead. Fate will hopefully accept the consequences of that and adjust itself accordingly. I'm confident that that will happen, okay? If there are some minor changes from this interference there's nothing that you or I could do about them. I couldn't very well have let Tracy die just because there was a possibility that someone else down the road would get hurt or killed.
"I told Tracy not too long ago that I was not the type of person to carelessly hurt someone in my own self-interest just because I didn't know the person getting hurt. I stand by that statement but, unfortunately you sometimes have to take that risk anyway. It's the lesser of two evils, do you understand?"
"Yeah." He nodded. "I think so."
"Look at it this way." I told him. "Remember the story I told you about the kid that was choking on the hot dog?"
He nodded. "The one that Nina wrote you up for saving."
"Right." I said. "I saved that kid's life in that timeline. He hasn't even been born yet but I'm scheduled to save his life. What is going to happen when that kid chokes on that hot dog and Bill, paramedic extradonaire, is not there to save him because Bill never became a paramedic in the first place?"
"I suppose some other paramedic will show up at the call." He said.
"Right." I nodded. "Now modesty aside, I was a pretty damn good paramedic. There were others at the company that were not as good at it. There were some that were damn incompetent in fact. Suppose one of them shows up. Suppose they do not clue in to the fact that the kid is choking and don't clear his airway in time?"
"Then he'll die." Dad answered.
"Maybe." I nodded. "But you see, I'm inclined to believe that this kid will live. No matter how incompetent the medic that shows up is, he or she will attempt to put in a breathing tube. When someone is not breathing, that is what you do. So even if the rest of the clues don't inform him or her that they are dealing with an airway obstruction they will still put a laryngoscope into the kid's mouth at some point and try to put a tube down. At that point they will not be able to help but see that there is a large piece of hot dog in his trachea and they will remove it.
"Now it is possible that the extra minute or so that this might take will mean the difference between life and death for the kid, but I doubt it. This kid is meant to live and he probably will. Those drunk driving laws were meant to get passed and they probably will. And if either of those things don't work out this way, all I can say is that I was acting as I thought was best. And that's what you should say too."
We sat quietly for a few minutes while Dad digested all of this. Finally he looked up at me.
"You were right about my opinion of you changing." He told me. "I'll be forced to think of you as an adult now. An adult with opinions and ethics based on years of learning. I'm not sure how to feel about that. I'm going to have to stop thinking of you as a son and start thinking of you as an equal. I don't have anything else to teach you."
"Dad," I said, "I still am your son. Everything that I am, everything that I was is based on the way you raised me. My moral code, my ethics, all of that is from you and Mom. Sure, some of it took place in an alternate time-line but it was still you and Mom and the part that really counted was the part I learned long before I was even a teenager. You're still my Dad and you always will be."
"I never thought I'd have a son," He told me, "Who was only six years younger than me."
I laughed. "And I never thought I'd sit down and smoke a joint with my Dad either. But there you have it."
"There you have it." He repeated.
"What about Mom?" I asked next.
"What about her?" He said.
"Are you going to tell her all of this? Or would you like me to tell her?"
He took a deep breath. "What do you think?" He asked.
"To be honest Dad, I really don't know. I'm not sure Mom would care too much for the knowledge that her son is only three years younger than she is.
She especially wouldn't care for the part about the teenaged girls or Anita."
"Oh she knows about the teenaged girls." Dad assured me. "You didn't really think you were putting one over on anybody, did you?"
"No." I said. "I gradually came to the realization that my actions were not as secret as I thought they were. What I meant was that she wouldn't care for the knowledge that her thirty-two year old son was doing those things."
"You're probably right." He said. "And I imagine she had more than just a simple suspicion about Anita and you. She probably didn't want to face up to it, but I'm sure she had her suspicions."
I nodded, feeling shame and embarrassment at the thought that my mother knew about my sexual exploits.
"How about this?" Dad said. "Why don't we keep your secret between us for the time being. I don't see any good that could come of telling her and I can think of several bads that could come of it. If, at some point in the future, a reason to tell her develops then we'll sit down and have a talk with her."
"Sounds good Dad." I told him and then smiled. "Did Mom used to smoke pot with you back in college?"
He chuckled. "You know your Uncle Dave, Mom's brother?"
"Of course." I said.
"The Uncle Dave that is the conservative republican lobbyist for the insurance industry?"
"Yes."
Dad smiled. "He used to sell us the pot back in college. Pretty good shit for that time too."
I did not hear from Nina over the next two days. She didn't call me, come over, send a carrier pigeon, or send up smoke signals. I had no way of knowing if she was making any headway with her parents.
The Saturday afternoon before the start of school Tracy flew back to California. We all gave her hugs and she was admonished by my Mother to keep in touch. Dad and I had discussed Tracy and had seen no real reason to tell her that Dad was in on my secret. As her plane climbed into the sky she still thought she was alone in her knowledge of her brother's special difference.
First thing Monday morning, the first day of school of 1984, I took up position near the front of the school where Nina's mother dropped her off. It was snowing once again, a light flurry with little wind, and I stood unobtrusively near some parked cars, my hood pulled tightly over my head. Kids, dejected to be back at school so soon, walked to and fro providing me with camoflaugh. Ten minutes before class started Mrs. Blackmore pulled her car to the curb and Nina, dressed in the same down jacket she wore on the night of our first kiss, hopped out. She gave a half-hearted wave to her mother and began heading up the walkway where Richie Fairview and I had met so long ago.
When Mrs. Blackmore pulled away from the curb I broke into a run, catching up with Nina in less than ten seconds, just as she entered the quad.
"Nina." I called, feeling nervous at the reception I was going to receive. Was she mad at me? Had her parents talked her into abandoning me?
She turned at the sound of her name and I slowed to a walk, my eyes searching her face.
"Bill!" She said happily, rushing to me. She threw her arms around me and we embraced tightly, right there on the quad, right in front of hundreds of students. More than a few of them gave us some strange looks but I didn't care.
"Oh God Bill." She told me, kissing my cheek and hugging me tighter. "I missed you so much. I'm so sorry for what happened. I'm so embarrassed that my dad came over there."
"It's okay Nina." I told her. "I'm just glad you still like me."
"Of course I like you Bill. I love you. Nothing is going to change that."