Page 158 of Life Out of Order

“No,” Beck says. “2098 isn’t anything I know about.”

“The thing I wanted to ask you, have you heard of anything traveling out of the Interstices? Can it work both ways?”

“It’s not supposed to,” Beck says.

“Something named Isadora possessed a woman,” Clare says.

“Could she pass for a human?” Beck asks.

“She seemed extremely glitchy,” I say, “so who knows? As soon as she delivered the message she was gone. She was very focused on that, and not too interested in the niceties of being in a body. But listen: The woman she was inhabiting was Nadia Kendrick.”

“Nadia!” Clare cries.

“Nadia is all right,” I say. “She’s on her way home, no harm done. Let me tell you what happened in the order it happened in, maybe then it will make sense to you.” I leave out everything to do with Oliver. When I mention Jasper, Beck goes still. She was not afraid before, but she is now. When I tell her that Jasper has died, Beck says, “Poor soul.” Clare takes her hand. When I am finished speaking, Beck says, “Thank you.”

I have one question. “Why did you put Isadora online, Beck?”

“It was time,” Beck replies. I start to repeat my question, but she shakes her head.

“What happens now?” Clare wonders.

“We wait,” Beck says. “I wish we knew where Lucinda is right now. I know Alba said she would be okay, but if there’s one person I can imagine Isadora seeking out in this world, it’s Lucinda.”

I hadn’t thought of that. “But Lucinda doesn’t have the implant. Does she?”

“No, but she mentioned that the artist she works for has been bugging her to get it. That woman is so ridiculous. I warned Lucinda—it’s not safe.”

Clare says, “Let’s call David and Nancy, and Caralora. They’ll want to know that we have news of Nadia and Nick. Zach, would you like to stay for dinner?”

Of course I would; I’m desperate for human interaction. They ply me with gyros and retsina, and we have a pleasant evening, just like old times. They don’t ask me about Alba or the state of our marriage, and I don’t ask them where she is. At the end of the night, they decide that I shouldn’t drive and they let me sleep in Alba’s old room, where there is no evidence of Alba having been here recently. I’m drunk enough to fall asleep, but wake up too early, crying. In the morning, I leave a note to thank them, and I drive back to our empty house in the never-ending rain, where I climb into bed in my clothes because what even is the point anymore.

Vanishing Point

Sunday, December 10, 2006 (Alba is 40, Henry is 43)

Alba: I arrive in my childhood bedroom, unsure of the year; it’s nighttime, winter. My little violin case is on my unmade bed; the games and dolls and bears strewn around the room hint that it is 2005 or 2006. I go to my parents’ bedroom and borrow one of my mother’s sweaters and a pair of her jeans. Then I wander through the house, looking for company. I hear barking and I veer toward the back of the house.

When I was little, our neighbors had a golden retriever named Snoop. When he was a puppy he was often bored and he used to chase his tail, which was long and fringed and easily caught. Then he would keep swirling, tail in mouth, around and around until he fell over. Then he would get up and do it again.

Dad is sitting in his wheelchair at his desk, watching Snoop barking and nipping and running in circles in the snow-covered floodlit yard. I come in and watch with him.

“I feel like that,” he says, as though I’ve been there with him for hours. “Round and round he goes. Where he stops, nobody knows.”

I look at Dad. He is super skinny and he sounds exhausted. In a few weeks he will be dead, but of course he has no idea, tonight, that the end is so close. Or maybe he does. I’ve never asked.

“Do you ever wish you could stop time traveling, Alba?”

“I can’t imagine it. Can you?”

“No.”

I get a chair from the dining room and sit down next to the desk, facing Dad. My back is to the window, but I can hear Snoop barking excitedly. I glance over my shoulder to see our neighbor letting him into the house, then all is quiet.

“How are you?” he asks. “When are you coming from?”

“2041.”

He smiles. “So long from now. This is the oldest I’ve seen you.”