Hope was dead in him when he climbed the hill on the fourth day — and then suddenly alive again when he saw her standing in the sun. She was wearing a black dress this time, and he should have guessed the reason for her absence; but he didn’t — not till he came up to her and saw the tears start from her eyes and the telltale trembling of her lip. “Julie, what’s the matter?”
She clung to him, her shoulders shaking, and pressed her face against his coat. “My father died,” she said, and somehow he knew that these were her first tears, that she had sat tearless through the wake and funeral and had not broken down till now.
He put his arms around her gently. He had never kissed her and he did not kiss her now, not really. His lips brushed her forehead and briefly touched her hair — that was all. “I’m sorry, Julie,” he said. “I know how much he meant to you.”
“He knew he was dying all along,” she said. “He must have known it ever since the Strontium 90 experiment he conducted at the laboratory. But he never told anyone — he never even told me…. I don’t want to live. Without him there’s nothing left to live for — nothing, nothing, nothing!”
He held her tightly. “You’ll find something, Julie. Someone. You’re young yet. You’re still a child, really.”
Her head jerked back, and she raised suddenly tearless eyes to his. “I’m not a child! Don’t you dare call me a child!”
Startled, he released her and stepped back. He had never seen her angry before. “I didn’t mean—” he began.
Her anger was as evanescent as it had been abrupt. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt my feelings, Mr. Randolph. But I’m not a child, honest I’m not. Promise me you’ll never call me one again.”
“All right,” he said. “I promise.”
“And now I must go,” she said. “I have a thousand things to do.”
“Will — will you be here tomorrow?”
She looked at him for a long time. A mist, like the aftermath of a summer shower, made her blue eyes glisten. “Time machines run down,” she said. “They have parts that need to be replaced — and I don’t know how to replace them. Ours — mine may be good for one more trip, but I’m not sure.”
“But you’ll try to come, won’t you?”
She nodded. “Yes, I’ll try. And, Mr. Randolph?”
“Yes, Julie?”
“In case I don’t make it — and for the record — I love you.”
She was gone then, running lightly down the hill, and a moment later she disappeared into the grove of sugar maples. His hands were trembling when he lighted his pipe, and the match burned his fingers. Afterward he could not remember returning to the cabin or fixing supper or going to bed, and yet he must have done all of those things, because he awoke in his own room, and when he went into the kitchen there were supper dishes standing on the drain-board.
He washed the dishes and made coffee. He spent the morning fishing off the pier, keeping his mind blank. He would face reality later. Right now it was enough for him to know that she loved him, that in a few short hours he would see her again. Surely even a run-down time machine should have no trouble transporting her from the hamlet to the hill.
He arrived there early and sat down on the granite bench and waited for her to come out of the woods and climb the slope. He could feel the hammering of his heart and he knew that his hands were trembling. Day before yesterday I saw a rabbit, and yesterday a deer, and today, you.
He waited and he waited, but she did not come. She did not come the next day either. When the shadows began to lengthen and the air grow chill, he descended the hill and entered the grove of sugar maples. Presently he found a path and he followed it into the forest proper and through the forest to the hamlet. He stopped at the small post office and checked to see if he had any mail. After the wizened postmaster told him there was none, he lingered for a moment. “Is — is there a family by the name of Danvers living anywhere around here?” he blurted.
The postmaster shook his head. “Never heard of them.”
“Has there been a funeral in town recently?
“Not for nigh onto a year.”
After that, although he visited the hill every afternoon till his vacation ran out, he knew in his heart that she would not return, that she was lost to him as utterly as if she had never been. Evenings he haunted the hamlet, hoping desperately that the postmaster had been mistaken; but he saw no sign of Julie, and the description he gave of her to the passers-by evoked only negative responses.
Early in October he returned to the city. He did his best to act toward Anne as though nothing had changed between them; but she seemed to know the minute she saw him that something had changed. And although she asked no questions, she grew quieter and quieter as the weeks went by, and the fear in her eyes that had puzzled him before became more and more pronounced.
He began driving into the country Sunday afternoons and visiting the hilltop. The woods were golden now, and the sky was even bluer than it had been a month ago. For hours he sat on the granite bench, staring at the spot where she had disappeared. Day before yesterday I saw a rabbit, and yesterday a deer, and today, you.
Then, on a rainy night in mid-November, he found the suitcase. It was Anne’s, and he found it quite by accident. She had gone into town to play bingo, and he had the house to himself; and after spending two hours watching four jaded TV programs, he remembered the jigsaw puzzles he had stored away the previous winter.
Desperate for something — anything at all — to take his mind off Julie, he went up to the attic to get them. The suitcase fell from a shelf while he was rummaging through the various boxes piled beside it, and it sprang open when it struck the floor.
He bent over to pick it up. It was the same suitcase she had brought with her to the little apartment they had rented after their marriage, and he remembered how she had always kept it locked and remembered her telling him laughingly that there were some things a wife had to keep a secret even from her husband. The lock had rusted over the years, and the fall had broken it.
He started to close the lid, paused when he saw the protruding hem of a white dress. The material was vaguely familiar. He had seen material similar to it not very long ago — material that brought to mind cotton candy and sea foam and snow.
He raised the lid and picked up the dress with trembling fingers. He held it by the shoulders and let it unfold itself, and it hung there in the room like gently falling snow. He looked at it for a long time, his throat tight. Then, tenderly, he folded it again and replaced it in the suitcase and closed the lid. He returned the suitcase to its niche under the eaves. Day before yesterday I saw a rabbit, and yesterday a deer, and today, you.
Rain thrummed on the roof. The tightness of his throat was so acute now that he thought for a moment that he was going to cry. Slowly he descended the attic stairs. He went down the spiral stairway into the living room. The clock on the mantel said 10:14. In just a few minutes the bingo bus would let her off at the corner, and she would come walking down the street and up the walk to the front door. Anne would… Julie would. Julianne?
Was that her full name? Probably. People invariably retained part of their original names when adopting aliases; and having completely altered her last name, she had probably thought it safe to take liberties with her first. She must have done other things, too, in addition to changing her name, to elude the time police. No wonder she had never wanted her picture taken! And how terrified she must have been on that long-ago day when she had stepped timidly into his office to apply for a job! All alone in a strange generation, not knowing for sure whether her father’s concept of time was valid, not knowing for sure whether the man who would love her in his forties would feel the same way toward her in his twenties. She had come back all right, just as she had said she would.