“Smell that?” she said to someone else. “Come on. Let’s flip him over.”
Before I could protest, two pairs of rough hands gripped me without warning and rolled me onto my side. I tried to scream, but the sound that left my mouth was barely a moan. I was facing the window now, my back exposed. As they pried the soiled diaper from my body, I caught a brief image of Christine on the change table. Her sweet, trusting face as I held her ankles with one hand and wiped with the other, as gently as I could.
“God,” the woman said. “Hold this. It’s everywhere.”
“This” apparently referred to my leg. New hands took hold of my thigh. I arched and scream-moaned again, as they scoured my anus with what felt like an acid-soaked rag. A bird flashed past the window. A fleeting streak of darkness. Dad stepped into my line of vision and took a thermometer from my mouth.
“Jesus. You’re burning up.”
“Sorry,” I murmured.
“Don’t be stupid.” He smoothed my hair back from my forehead, then retreated from the bed.
“Come back,” I whispered.
I’d been fitted with a clean diaper. Hands wedged under me and prepared to return me to a supine position. “Stop,” I muttered, but an agonizing jerk forced me back to where I’d started. Through spots of pain, Meredith swam into view, hovering over me, naked and smiling. I stared at her in astonishment, tears slipping down my face. My bedding was hastily rearranged, the sheet jerked up to my chest. Then, without having said a word to me, my tormentors left the room.
Darkness spread across the ceiling. After a moment, I could make out plush blackout drapes and a blank flat screen television at my feet. I lifted my head without pain. The clock on the motel nightstand read 10:37 a.m. I sat up and swung my legs off the bed, stunned by the ease of motion. I’d never travelled so far into the future before. Contrary to what I’d been telling Dr. Patel, I’d been jumping around in time ever since he’d discharged me, often finding myself alone in Dad’s old house, always avoiding any conscious thought of Christine. Now that I knew what lay beyond that time, I felt compelled to get moving while I was still physically able. I jumped out of bed and quickly showered and dressed, then grabbed my phone and wallet and stepped out onto the motel parking lot. Two doors down, a young family was in the process of loading up their minivan—on an early Christmas holiday, I assumed. In the back of the vehicle, I could see a small girl strapped into her car seat like a fighter pilot, staring at a flickering handheld device, while her father tried to puzzle their luggage into place behind her.
A woman came out and talked to the man. They looked like models from a catalogue, attractive and sportily dressed, with perfect hair. They didn’t look at me, but I could tell by the stiffness of their exchange that they were aware of me watching them. I wanted to say something, to show them that I was harmless, that I too had a daughter, that we were essentially the same. But as they carried on packing their things and talking in falsely bright voices, I found myself hating them, wishing their trip would end in disaster.
The man closed the hatch and gave me an alpha male stare. I pulled out my phone and frowned at the blank display, as if I’d just gotten an important text. Then I put my head down and walked off through the parking lot to the bus stop. The minivan rolled past a minute later, hardly making a sound, the man and his wife both wearing sunglasses and looking straight ahead, their daughter barely visible in the darkened back window. I shaded my eyes against the late morning sun. After days of cold, relentless showers, the clouds had finally cleared off, and while the air remained cool, the city looked vibrant and invigorated. I consulted the timetable on the pole in front of me and let several buses pass before climbing on a packed double-decker, requesting a transfer from the driver. Warehouses and old brick buildings slid past until we came to a central transportation hub, where I switched buses and headed east, towards the university. At the student union building, I got off and wandered around the campus, unshaven, wearing clothes that hadn’t been washed in weeks. A low, sinister-looking building had been erected across from the library since I’d last been there. I stopped to read the sign on the lawn:
INTERFAITH CHAPEL.
OPEN 9AM TO 6PM.
ALL WELCOME.
The front doors were tinted, obscuring the interior of the building. I pictured faiths of all stripes, holding hands and singing non-specific hymns to the beat of a tambourine. I thought about going inside.
“Felix?”
I turned to find a smiling, well-dressed Asian man with a briefcase. “I thought it was you!” Wariness entered his face as he registered the finer details of my appearance, from my oversized second-hand parka to my falling-apart shoes. “Wow. It’s been a long time.” He chuckled. “You don’t remember me, do you.”
“Um…”
“Henry Thu,” he said. “We were roommates in first year.”
“Oh… right.”
“So what have you been doing all this time?”
I shrugged and muttered something that had the cadence of speech but no actual meaning. He nodded seriously, as if I’d strung together a coherent sentence. “Okay, okay… Well, I’ve been teaching here for a few years now. Married. Two kids. Both in school…” His eyes slid over to the interfaith chapel then came back to me. “So you’ve been well?”
I nodded automatically, wondering if he thought of us as friends.
“That’s good.” He looked at his watch and made a face. “Geez, I should really get going. I’ve got a class in ten minutes. But it was great seeing you again. Take care of yourself, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, blinking back tears.
Henry walked off briskly, not looking back, our old dormitory tower just visible beyond the sprawl of classroom buildings. I began to follow him, thinking I’d handled the exchange all wrong, but I lost sight of him in a crowd of chatting students and found myself standing by one of the roads that looped through the campus. Another bus came along and I climbed on, using my transfer to get downtown, where I wandered past my first apartment, then walked down to Zoe’s high-rise and Kim’s place above the Chinese grocer, forcing myself to make eye contact with everyone I saw, willing them to grab hold of me and stop my gathering momentum. My transfer had expired by this time and I stopped in a convenience store to make change for bus fare. The old man behind the counter insisted I buy something first and I grabbed a cheap pair of sunglasses and a ball cap from a clearance bin, putting them on the instant I walked out the door. Everything was coming together. The bus I’d been thinking about all day rolled up, as if summoned. I was the only passenger, riding towards a part of the city I’d passed through many times before but never stopped in. All the usual landmarks streamed by, my breathing slowing as we came in sight of a rundown church with a hand-painted sign above the door: SUNNYVIEW DAYCARE.
I reached for the wire above the window and pulled. The bus rolled to a stop directly in front of the church. I climbed off, sunglasses and hat on. Across the street, a man in a panel van spoke into his wrist. A sniper scope glinted from a neighbouring rooftop. I found the main entrance around the side of the building and hauled open a heavy wooden door. In the dim, empty foyer, a sign directed me down a flight of stairs to a long hallway lined with tiny shoes and colourful knapsacks on hooks. I took off my sunglasses, slowing at what appeared to be Christine’s bag, hung beside a closed door, behind which cheerful music was playing. Feeling surprisingly calm, I opened the door and stepped into a large and noisy space with a low ceiling and a scuffed parquet floor. I scanned the room, counting two adults, both women, along with fifteen or so kids, clustered around different play areas.