Maybe he does, the voice inside me says. Think how gentle he was when you fell apart. Think how he looked into your eyes and told you his feelings overwhelmed him.
I push away the voice, confused. I’m pulled in so many directions, I don’t know what to think. I don’t know how to feel.
I do know this: I’d rather put my energies into the man who is inextricably twined in my life. “I don’t want to talk about Tanner. I want to talk about you.” I take a few tentative steps toward Preston.
I may not know him, but I want to. I want to understand him, his thoughts, his feelings. I want our relationship to be real, not just in name but also in meaning. Time, as we both well know, might be even more fleeting than the scant number of minutes we do have.
“I’m sorry you’ve been handed this fate,” I say. “It can’t be easy.”
His eyes widen, and all of a sudden, his cheeks are wet, as though the tears have sprouted from his skin. “Don’t misunderstand me, Jessa. I would do anything to keep Callie alive, and I’m happy to be here now, with you. But I can never have my family back. I don’t get to grow old with the woman I love. I don’t get to see my little girl—I mean, both my little girls—grow up. My future is your past. You’ve both been through incredibly tough times, and I wasn’t there to help you.”
I swallow hard, even though I know his tears are not for me. Have never been for me. He’s including me in his regrets to be polite, but I heard his slip-up. His concern is for his little girl. His Callie. The one who existed when he left home.
“She didn’t blame you,” I whisper. “Did you know she used to tell me stories about you? Over and over again, so that she wouldn’t forget. So that I would know you, too.” I smile, but the tears I won’t shed coalesce in a lump in my throat. I knew him, but he didn’t have a clue that I was alive. “She loved you so much.”
“I love her. And it helps to have both of you here, in the present, even if Callie’s not awake.” He sits and studies his hands, those long, beautiful fingers that figured so prominently in Callie’s stories. “But it kills me to leave your mother behind. The thought of never seeing her again is like a machete to my heart.”
“Why can’t you see her?” I sit down, too. Not across from him but next to him. As though we can make up for our emotional distance with physical proximity. “She’s right here, a few miles away. Once the riot settles, we can both go over there.”
He coughs. Must be choking on saliva, since he hasn’t drunk any coffee in the last few minutes. “I can’t do that,” he rasps. “She wouldn’t want me, and it would just be painful for both of us.”
“Why wouldn’t she want you? She never remarried. She said she’d already married her soul mate. Any other relationship, by definition, would be less. I mean, I know it’s weird, ’cause she’s so much older than you…”
“You think I care about that?” he says fiercely. “I fell in love with Phoebe. She will always be beautiful to me, no matter what her age is. She will always be the love of my life.”
“Don’t you think she feels the same way?”
He moves his shoulders, so lost, so lonely. A single traveler, bobbing helplessly in the sea of time. “To me, only a few months have passed. I’m just as in love with her as I’ve always been. But for her, twenty-three years have gone by. Twenty-three years where she thinks I abandoned her. Where she believes I prioritized another time, another place, over her.” He shakes his head slowly. “I just don’t know how she’ll feel.”
“You’ll never know until you try.” Awkwardly, I place my hand on his arm. “Will you at least think about what I said?”
He covers my hand with his. No longer uncertain. No longer hesitant. “Now that you’ve brought it up, I won’t be able to think about anything else.”
36
Thirty minutes after breakfast—congee with salty egg and black chicken from the Meal Assembler—Tanner vibrates the floor and waltzes in.
I frown. Preston’s in the study with Callie, checking her vitals, so it’s up to me to play hostess. “It’s Saturday. This isn’t a TechRA lab. What are you doing here?”
Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the most welcoming greeting ever. It’s the best I can do.
He slowly takes off his jacket—uninvited—and slips out of his shoes—unasked. His hair is back to its silky state, falling over his eyes, and his muscular chest is hidden beneath a black thermal shirt. The fact that I was pressed against his chest not too long ago makes me frown even harder.
“Preston filled me in last night. About everything.” Tanner’s tone is neutral. He could be talking about the weather or a new record for his wind sprints.
I bristle anyway. “Haven’t you ruined enough lives? This isn’t your business.”
“It is, actually. I’m Preston’s research assistant, and now that he’s linked to the subject, literally, he can no longer be an impartial observer. I’m here to double-check his findings and run some data streams, so that we can tweak the experiment if necessary.”
I flush. “That’s my sister you’re talking about. Not an experiment.”
“This experiment happens to be saving Callie’s life. Preston requested—and I agree—that we make it our top priority. I’m prepared to put my full attention on the matter. Unless you prefer I don’t?” He raises an eyebrow.
He’s talking like a scientist again, and I hate him for it. At least I think that’s hate I’m feeling. Sticky, all-encompassing, black-tar anger. I have so many reasons to hurl plates at him, so many reasons to pound my fists against his chest—and hope like Limbo it hurts. But with all these reasons, why do I only feel like I want to cry?
I shoot to my feet before he can sense any weakness. “Do what you have to do. Just don’t expect me to thank you for it.”
“You wouldn’t thank me for saving your sister’s life?”
“Not when you endangered it in the first place.” I leave the room without a backward glance. If Preston wants a host for his guest, he’ll have to come out and play one himself.
I retreat to Preston’s sleeping area. It’s the only unoccupied room in the apartment. Maybe I shouldn’t be in here without his permission, but he is my father. If only in name. If only across time. I normally wouldn’t dream of invading his privacy, but today, my desire to get away from Tanner outweighs my civility.
The room is simple, the furnishing basic. Holo-screens on the walls. A retractable bed with a temperature- and pressure-modulated mattress. A washer-closet that launders clothes when you hang them up and close the door. But no personal trinkets, no customized holos. Nothing that would reveal that this room belongs to Preston instead of someone else.
It doesn’t surprise me. I don’t think travelers can transport physical objects. That’s why Mikey’s trying to figure out how to push prosthetic limbs through time.
All of a sudden, other questions pop up, one after the other, multiplying like weeds. Why did he come here? Once he arrived, what did he do? Who did he talk to? How did he get clothes? Shelter? How was he assigned a position as a scientist, much less the lead on Callie’s case?
I wander around the room, trailing my fingers over the furniture. Maybe someday I’ll get the chance to ask him. Maybe we’ll sit, away from this chaos, unconcerned with riots and saving lives, and I’ll teach him how to build a fire—a real one, not the kind you turn on with the flip of a switch. A fire like the ones we had in the wilderness. We’ll roast marshmallows on a stick—the closest I get to cooking manually—and he’ll tell me his life’s stories. Our relationship wouldn’t be strained or awkward, and it would be like we were actually father and daughter.