He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
She picked up the loose-leaf notebook on the table in front of her. It was very old, the binding cracked and torn, its pages yellow and crumbling. She made no effort to hand it to him.
“This is the first one. I had my backpack with me when we went through time and Sam and I started keeping our notes on these pages. It was all an accident, you see. He couldn’t get us back.” She rubbed the binder, her expression sad. She looked up at him earnestly. “You must try to accept it, Sam. Try to understand. Read the journals. Sam and I kept a section for memories of our time. We wanted a record of what had happened in our history and of what our world was like in 2006. For comparison, you see.”
He shook his head again. “Comparison with what?”
“We changed things, Sam. Some changes were inevitable, just because we existed in 1906. Some things, we changed deliberately. Other changes occurred as a result of the first changes, a domino effect. You realize we had almost no control.”
“I don’t believe this.”
She didn’t respond and he continued. “We don’t know what travel backwards through time would do. Are there parallel time streams? Tangential time streams? I don’t see how we can go back to the same time stream and create a loop, but maybe that’s what happens. We just don’t know!”
She held out a hand. “You didn’t know when it happened, either. We’re pretty sure we started a tangential time stream. But we don’t know. That’s one of things you’ll have to work on. But you see,” she handed him the book; he wouldn’t have taken it, but it was too heavy for her and he didn’t want her to hurt herself, “your older self did not want you to waste time redoing his work. He wanted you to have this information so you could begin where he left off.”
He closed his eyes, hoping it would all be gone when he opened them. That didn’t work, of course. When he opened his eyes, she was watching him. “Your husband was not from the future. I know about the Andrews family. Everyone does.”
Her smile was soft. “No, he wasn’t. Tom Andrews was born in 1873. I met him in 1906. I loved him almost at once. I didn’t know who he was, but Sam did.” Her gaze was direct. “I could not have just let him die, Sam. I had to warn him about his future and Sam agreed. It’s the first time we deliberately tried to change something.”
“Are you saying he died earlier in your history? Before 1961?” Sam struggled to keep up with the changing tenses and her confusing way of calling both him and this older self she said she knew, by the same name.
She thought about it, looking at her hands for a moment, as they rested in her lap, before looking back up at him. “Read the journals. I’m not willing to actually give them to you, yet. I’d like to request that you leave them here for now, but you are welcome to spend as much time here as you wish. You can even move in, if that would help you.” She stood, her gaze piercing. “There is a foundation established to provide you with funds for this work, should you decide to pursue it. There will be rules, particularly regarding my children and their descendants. I’m not willing for them to be hurt by this. I’ll give you some time, now. Please, look them over.”
He stared at the notebook as she made her slow way to the door. His hypothesis predicted this, but it made no conjecture about the consequences. Nothing was in there about the people and the lives affected by time travel. Perhaps it was fitting that his own life was disrupted by this. He looked up to ask her a question, but she was gone, the door closed. His own hand shook a bit, as he reached to turn the cover of the book.
About the Author
Marlene Dotterer grew up as a desert rat in Tucson, Arizona. In 1990, she loaded her five children into the family station wagon, and drove north-west to the foggy San Francisco Bay Area. To stay warm, she tackled many enterprises, earning a degree in geology, working for a national laboratory, and running her own business as a personal chef. She is a frustrated gardener, loves to cook, and teaches natural childbirth classes. She says she writes, “to silence the voices,” obsessed with the possibilities of other worlds and other times.
She is married to The Best Husband in the World, and lives in Pleasant Hill, California.
Her website is http://www.marlenedotterer.wordpress.com
Please visit for a peek at the next book in The Time Travel Journals series:
Acknowledgements
There is a wealth of Titanic information in the world. I spent over a year plowing through a lot of it. Shan F. Bullock’s little book, “Thomas Andrews, Shipbuilder,” was the source of my inspiration. M.A. Kibble’s website, “Thomas Andrews, Builder of the Ship of Dreams,” while not a new site, is still the definitive page for information about Thomas Andrews. The people at Encyclopedia Titanica are always ready for advice or debate, and always good for a laugh. The Titanic Inquiry Project, with every word of both the British and American inquiries scanned into the World Wide Web, is a wonder of the electronic age. The Belfast Titanic Society is a constant source of inspiration. And jealousy. I always wish I was there. I am grateful to all the people who contribute to these sites.
Closer to home (sort of), I send humble thanks to the members of the Online Writers Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. Amy Raby, Jesse Bangs, David Fortier, Rhonda Garcia, and Greg Byrne deserve several pitchers of beer for their faithful reading of forty chapters and three revisions. You guys made a real writer of me.
Special thanks to Daniel Hawkes, who never doubted I could do it, and whose thoughtful editing of the first version made it a book to be proud of. And also to Stefan Finsterle, who provided a review of the final draft that was the equal of any peer review given to a scientific colleague. You guys rock.
My most heartfelt thanks, and all my love, go to Rick, “the Best Husband in the World.” He didn’t know he married a writer, but he persevered when these strangers took up residence in our house via my obsessed mind, and I disappeared nightly behind my computer screen. For better or worse, indeed. I love you, darling.
And finally, to Thomas Andrews, February 7, 1873 — April 15, 1912. He had no idea of the inspiration he would provide to so many people through the ages. He just lived his life with all the goodness and joy instilled within him by nature and a loving family. I wish he could have had a full span of years. I hope he would be pleased with my feeble attempt to give him another chance at life.
Copyright
Copyright 2011 by Marlene Dotterer
Cover design by Laura Shinn
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be submitted online at www.marlenedotterer.wordpress.com/contact.
While based on historical events, this is a work of fiction. Characters, places, organizations, events, and dialogue are the products of the author’s imagination and may differ from the historical record.