“You mean you’re now able to forgive yourself for not living up to Mother’s agenda?”

“Nothing to forgive.”

“But are you able to forgive her for having that agenda?”

“I said my shrink was good. I didn’t say she worked miracles.”

Cleo told the shrink about how she could transport herself through time and space.

“Grief,” said Dr. Mary Porter, “can do strange things to a person’s head. Remember that, at the time, you were on painkillers, you were sleep-deprived, and you were most likely suffering from post-traumatic stress.”

They discussed many things, but often the conversation would swing back to dreams Cleo had had as a child. There was one dream in particular that, no matter how many years passed, remained solidly ingrained in her memory.

“I’m little, and I’m alone in the woods,” she told Dr. Porter. “But I’m not scared. I’m skipping and chanting jump-rope rhymes. Old lady, old lady, turn around. I’m wearing a red velvet dress with black patent-leather shoes. I can feel the breeze on my skin, I can smell the heavy vegetation. And suddenly I come upon three people, two men and a woman. They’re standing there in the middle of the woods. An intrusion on an otherwise happy moment. One of the men turns around and yells at me, and his face is pretty and ugly at the same time. And then I see he has a gun in his hand.”

As a child, Cleo would come out of the daydream with her body covered in sweat. It always seemed so real. So vivid.

“What do you think that was about?” Cleo asked Dr. Porter. Even though she hadn’t had the dream in years, she could still remember it the way someone else might remember a wedding or a graduation.

“No one really understands the intricacies of the human mind,” Dr. Porter told her. “Personally, I think dreams, daydreams included, are a way for us to subconsciously heal ourselves. A way for us to make things right. There may have been something going on in your childhood, something you may not even remember now, but whatever it was, your subconscious wanted to fix it, make it better. And since you quit having the dream, whatever it was that was bothering you must have gone away.”

It seemed like a good enough answer to Cleo.

With continued counseling, Dr. Porter helped Cleo get past her eating disorder and her grief, but Cleo could never convince Dr. Porter that one January she’d transported herself back in time. And Dr. Porter could never fully convince Cleo that she hadn’t.

Chapter Fourteen

It was officially his day off, so after dropping Cleo at the motel, Daniel swung by the gas station to pick up a six-pack of beer and cigarettes. He’d quit smoking three years ago, but his nerves were frazzled. He ordered the cigarettes from the clerk, then, at the last minute, took a detour down a nearby aisle, picked up a package of condoms, and tossed them on the counter along with the beer and cigarettes. He stared at the clerk, daring him to say something about his purchases.

Admirably poker-faced, the clerk rang up the items, bagged everything, and gave Daniel his change.

Daniel grabbed the stiff paper bag and left, figuring everybody in town would know that the town cop was not only drinking on duty, he was getting laid and enjoying a good smoke afterward as well.

Outside, he almost mowed down a woman with two little kids. He sidestepped, mumbled an apology, then looked directly at the woman.

Julia Bell.

That was the bad thing about a small town. Your past was always jumping up, smacking you in the face. “Julia?” he asked, even though he knew it was his old girlfriend. He’d kept reluctant tabs on her. Years ago, his mother had written to let him know Julia had gotten married. And written again when she was pregnant with her first child. After his mother’s funeral, he’d spotted Julia’s name in the guestbook and knew she’d been there, even though he hadn’t seen her.

She was heavier now, but not overweight. And she’d lost the sparkle, but she had something else, something that was maybe better-contentment. Daniel knew contentment was what Julia had wanted out of life.

Back then, sharing a can of cold spaghetti hadn’t cut it, hadn’t been the adventure for Julia that it had been for him.

“Hi, Daniel.” She smiled up at him in a calm, happy-to-see-an-old-classmate sort of way, while his heart thundered in his chest.

“Yours?” he asked, even though he knew they were. Two girls. He’d caught their names in the county paper a few times. School stuff.

“Sara’s five and Jessie’s six.”

“Are you still teaching school?”

“Second grade. I love it. I was sorry to hear about your mother,” she said. A look that was part pity, part understanding crossed her features. “And I know how badly you always wanted to get out of this town. I think it’s great what you’re doing for Beau.”

She would understand. And it was a weird feeling knowing she was possibly the only person on earth who would, because thinking back to when they’d been together was like remembering two completely different people.

One of the girls made a little squealing sound. He looked over to see the older one sticking out her tongue. The younger one swung a fist and Julia had to intervene. “Don’t hit your sister.”

“She’s making faces.”

“Are you making faces, Sara?”

Sara shook her head. As soon as Julia turned back to Jessie, Sara stuck out her tongue again.

“It was nice seeing you,” Julia said, distracted now with the battle taking place. “I’d better get going.”

“Yeah, nice seeing you.”

He stood there a moment, the cold beer chilling his arm and chest. I could have been part of a life like that, he thought. If only I hadn’t always been reaching for something that wasn’t there.

At home Daniel took a beer bottle from the six-pack, put the cardboard container in the refrigerator, grabbed a book of matches, and went outside for a smoke.

Premonition greeted him, happy to have the company, even if it was only Daniel. Daniel swung his leg over the lounge chair and sat down, adjusting his hips and legs until he was comfortable. He put the open beer beside him on the cement patio then pulled the cigarette pack from his shirt pocket. He opened the cigarettes and tapped one out. At first he just held it, enjoying the smooth feel of the paper and the smell of tobacco. He finally stuck the cigarette in his mouth, fished the matches from his pocket, and lit the cigarette, drawing the sweet smoke deep into his lungs.

There had been a spread of several years in his childhood when he’d wanted to become a priest. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t Catholic. He’d been taken with the majesty of high mass and the mysterious, old-world feel of the Catholic Church before it decided to go hip. But then, several years later, he found out priests couldn’t have sex, so that was the end of that.

He met Julia Bell upon returning from his year in Scotland. While he was gone, her parents had moved to Egypt from St. Louis, looking for a safe place to raise Julia and her two younger brothers. She had a smile that could knock a guy sideways.

He told her of his dreams to see the world. He talked to her about Scotland and his family crest and how he wanted to go back there someday, maybe live there. He told her that he wanted to go as far north as Siberia, as far south as Tasmania. And even though she didn’t know a lot about the places he spoke of, she begged to hear his stories, begged to hear his dreams.

“Let’s go to Europe when school’s over,” he said a few months before they graduated from high school. “We can stay in hostels.”

Ever since getting back from Scotland, he’d been working his butt off, saving every penny he made so that he could return. Julia wasn’t as excited about it as he thought she’d be. That was something he should have taken as a warning.