"Liz is asleep, and I was just going inside."
"Oh, do you have to?"
"I do."
"Maybe some other day, then," Curtis stammers. "Good day, Betty. My regards to Lizzie."
Betty nods. "Good day."
"Oh, Betty," Liz says as soon as Curtis is out of earshot, "you were very cruel to Curtis."
"You were the one who fell asleep as soon as he arrived."
"I think he came to see you," Liz admits.
"Me? Why on earth?"
"I think he had, um" Liz pauses "come to court."
"Court!" Betty laughs. "Why, that is the most perfectly absurd thing I've ever heard! Curtis Jest is a boy, and I'm old enough to be his "
"Girlfriend," Liz finishes. "You're only about four biological years apart actually."
"Darling, I'm through with romance, and I have been for some time."
"Saying you're through with romance is like saying you're done with living, Betty. Life is better with a little romance, you know."
"After everything, you can still say that?" Betty raises an eyebrow.
Liz smiles a little and chooses to ignore Betty's question. "Give Curtis a chance, Betty."
"I highly doubt I'll break his heart if I don't. I'm sure he'll have given up by tomorrow," Betty says skeptically.
A week later, Betty and Liz are awakened in the middle of the night by the sounds of an acoustic guitar.
"This one's for you, Betty," Curtis yells from the garden below.
He begins to sing for the first time in almost two years. It's a new song, one Liz has never heard before, one that will later come to be known as "The Betty Song."
By no means is it Curtis Jest's best performance, nor is it his finest moment as a songwriter. The lyrics are (it must be said) rather trite, mainly about the transformative powers of love. In truth, most love songs are exactly the same way.
Owen is devoted to Liz during her recuperation. He visits her every day.
"Liz," Owen asks, "when you were at the bottom of the ocean, what gave you the strength to come back up?"
"I thought I saw my watch floating on the surface, but it turned out to be your boat."
"What watch?" Owen asks after a moment.
"When I lived on Earth, I had this watch. It needed to be fixed actually."
Owen shakes his head. "A broken watch brought you back?"
Liz shrugs. "I know it might not seem so important."
"You can get a new watch on Elsewhere you know."
"Maybe." Liz shrugs again.
The next day, Owen gives Liz a gold watch. Her old one was silver, but Liz doesn't tell him that.
The new one is also not a pocket watch. It is a ladies' watch with a band made of tiny golden links. It is not the sort of thing Liz would normally choose for herself, but she doesn't tell him that either.
"Thank you," Liz replies as Owen clasps the bracelet around her narrow wrist.
"It matches your hair," Owen says, proud of the little gold watch.
"Thank you very much," Liz repeats.
That same afternoon, Jen visits Liz. (She had returned to Owen's after Emily left for keeper-ofbooks training.)
"Did you like the watch?" Jen asks. "I helped Owen pick it out."
"It's really nice," Liz says, scratching Jen between the ears.
"He wasn't sure whether to get silver or gold, but I told him gold. Gold's a great color, don't you think?" asks Jen.
"The best," Liz agrees. "Say, Jen, aren't dogs supposed to be color-blind?"
"No. Who ever said that?"
"It's something they say about dogs on Earth."
"Those Earth people are funny that way," Jen says, shaking her head. "How do they know if we're color-blind if they never even ask us? I mean, they can't even speak the language."
"Good point," Liz says.
"Back on Earth, I once saw this television report that said dogs had no emotions. Can you believe that?" Jen cocks her head. "Say, Liz, I wanted to thank you for letting me stay with you all that time."
"It was no trouble."
"And I'm sorry for that time" Jen lowers her voice "I peed in your bed."
"It's forgotten," Liz reassures Jen.
"Oh good! I couldn't bear it if you were mad at me."
Liz shakes her head. "I wasn't mad at you."
"Owen's much better now," the dog says. "He's learning to speak Canine and everything."
"You aren't mad at him, even a little?" Liz asks.
"Maybe a tiny bit at first, but not anymore. I know he's a good person. And he said he was sorry.
And I love him. And when you love a person, you have to forgive him sometimes. And that's what I think."
Liz nods. "That's a good philosophy," Liz says.
"Would you mind rubbing my belly?" Jen asks, flipping happily onto her back.
Later that night, Liz stares at the gold watch. Ah well, Liz thinks to herself. The watch isn't exactly like the old one, or anything like it, for that matter. But the intention is good. Liz shakes her wrist, causing the links to make a pleasing bell-like tinkle. She puts her wrist to her ear and enjoys the tick of the second hand. Five ticks later, Liz resolves to forgive the watch for its imperfections.
She kisses its face with tenderness. Really, what a marvelous gift, she thinks.
Before long, Liz forgives Owen, too. Yes, he is flawed, but he is also an excellent driving teacher.
If you are going to forgive a person, Liz decides, it is best to do it sooner rather than later. Later, Liz knows from experience, could be sooner than you thought.
************************************
Part III: Antique Lands
Time Passes
There will be other lives.
There will be other lives for nervous boys with sweaty palms, for bittersweet rumblings in the backseats of cars, for caps and gowns in royal blue and crimson, for mothers clasping pretty pearl necklaces around daughters' unlined necks, for your full name read aloud in an auditorium, for brand-new suitcases transporting you to strange new people in strange new lands.
And there will be other lives for unpaid debts, for one-night stands, for Prague and for Paris, for painful shoes with pointy toes, for indecisions and revisions.
And there will be other lives for fathers walking daughters down aisles.
And there will be other lives for sweet babies with skin like milk.
And there will be other lives for a man you don't recognize, for a face in a mirror that is no longer yours, for the funerals of intimates, for shrinking, for teeth that fall out, for hair on your chin, for forgetting everything. Everything.
Oh, there are so many lives. How we wish we could live them concurrently instead of one by one by one. We could select the best pieces of each, stringing them together like a strand of pearls.
But that's not how it works. A human's life is a beautiful mess.
In the year Liz will turn thirteen again, she whispers in Betty's ear, "Happiness is a choice."
"So, what's your choice?" Betty asks.
Liz closes her eyes, and in a split second she chooses.
Five years pass.
When one is happy, time passes quickly. Liz feels as if one evening she went to bed fourteen and the next morning she woke up nine.
Two Weddings
Someone from Earth's been trying to Contact you," Owen announces one evening after work.
Now the head of the Bureau of Supernatural Crime and Contact, he is usually one of the first people on Elsewhere to know about these matters.
"What?" Liz barely looks up from her book. Recently, she has taken to rereading her favorite books from when she first learned to read on Earth.
"What are you reading?" Owen asks.
"Charlotte's Web" Liz says. "It's really sad. One of the main characters just died."