Page 49 of Life Out of Order

“Yeah, a little bit,” Rosa says. “I was seven when he died. I remember we used to carve pumpkins here every year, and he showed us how to clean the seeds and roast them. Henry was good with kids. He always treated us like short adults.”

“To Henry,” says Charisse, raising her glass, “and all our absent friends and family.” The table goes silent, remembering those who should be here but aren’t. We drink the toast. Then in the quiet I hear a radio playing in the basement, an uncanny voice that reminds me of Ella Fitzgerald singing with her big band: Wild thing, you make my heart sing . . . There’s nothing in the voice that is wrong, exactly, but somehow it seems monstrous, intolerable; the hair on the back of my neck stands up and I have an urge to get out, to leave the house. Lucinda says, “Should I go—?” and Beck says, “No, stay here. I’ll go down in a while.”

Clare says hurriedly, “I think it’s time for pie. Let’s clear the table first.”

We all spring from our chairs, relieved to have something to do. The singing continues, with an overlay of clattering dishes and chatter. Finally it stops just as Beck is pouring coffee for everyone. “Ice cream?” Lucinda asks softly, almost in my ear, and I jump as though she’s goosed me. I let her scoop some vanilla ice cream onto my apple pie. Maybe I should give up trying to improve the world with activism and just start a pie restaurant?

The conversation hums along, and I watch Alba. She seems so happy, here with us, and I would be, too, if I weren’t fixating on this Isadora thing. Alba catches me staring at her, and looks back at me with such a frolicsome expression that when she jumps up and darts down the hall I am out of my chair following her before I think—she leads me into her old bedroom—behind us there is a delayed reaction, nervous laughter; Beck says, “Oh, to be young,” as I shut the bedroom door. I say, “What?” and Alba says, “I dunno, you looked so serious.” She kisses me, and I forget everything else.

When we reappear, the dishes have been washed. Gomez hands me a dishcloth and I start to dry the china. In the dining room, Lucinda dries wineglasses and places them carefully into the cabinet. Charisse and Celia pack plates, saucers, teacups back into zippered pouches, to await another holiday. Downstairs, someone is calling, “Mama! Mama!” Beck opens the heavy door, slips through. I watch it slam behind her. I turn and find Clare watching me. We are alone in the kitchen. I place the china cup I’ve just dried onto its saucer too heavily; it makes an alarming clink but doesn’t break. Clare’s hands reach for it, as though to comfort it. She busies herself putting the cup and saucer into their compartments, zipping them in. From the basement, we can hear muffled conversation. I feel intensely awkward; I think Clare does, too.

“She’s trying to protect you,” Clare says, softly.

“Is that really a good idea?” I ask her. “Maybe it’s more hazardous not to know?”

“I’m not sure,” Clare says. “In my experience, things happen anyway.”

Her expression is so bleak that I don’t know how to reply. Gomez comes in bearing the remains of the pies, and begins to divvy them up into Tupperware.

Once everyone has their shopping bags full of leftovers, we put on our coats, spend another half hour performing our Midwestern Goodbyes, and then at last it’s just the two of us, driving home. Alba fiddles with the radio but can’t find anything she likes and turns it off. It gets dark so early now. We ride along in silence, sluicing down Western Avenue through puddles from earlier rain.

Traffic is light and we are nearly home when Alba says, “Are you okay?”

I don’t know how to answer that. “Why do you keep secrets from me?” I ask Alba.

“I worry,” she replies. “I’m afraid. I see how my mother is; she says she feels free now that her life isn’t bound together with my dad’s into a causal loop, now that she’s not living from one predicted event to the next—she’s just living. But she’s so conditioned to knowing things ahead of time that she sometimes asks me for a little hit of her future, like a recovering addict. When she gets stressed out, she’ll ask me if so-and-so’s going to be okay, or what the stock market will be doing next week. She doesn’t think twice about it, for her it’s normal to know. I worry that if I start dropping pieces of the future into your present, it’ll distort our lives together.”

“I don’t mean that, or, I don’t mean only that,” I say. “You’re secretive about other things, non-time-travel things.” Alba is silent. “What’s in your parents’ basement?”

“You know the answer to that,” Alba says. “Caralora told me you asked her and she told you.”

That’s not the point, I think. It would have been better to hear it from you. “Why am I the only person you know who thought Isadora was a human being?”

“I never said she was a human being—” Alba begins, ever so reasonably.

“Oh, please!” I stop talking because I’m afraid I’m going to start yelling. Neither of us speaks until I pull the car into our carport and turn off the ignition.

“Boundaries,” Alba says, staring straight ahead. “I try to keep people and things defined, separated, as much as I can. In my life, everything blends, everything’s uncanny. I hang out with dead family members, visit places that stopped existing before I was born.” Alba turns to me, gives me her most earnest expression. “Isadora isn’t bad! She was created to do good, but she can be a problem and I’m damned if she’ll find out about you. She’s already got her hooks into Lucinda’s and Caralora’s futures and of course Beck’s and my mother’s lives are warped by Isadora, too. I can’t fix any of that, but I can protect you by making sure you and Isadora know nothing of each other. Okay?”

“Protect me from what?”

“Zach. Argh. I’m going to start calling you Pandora. If I knew exactly what, it would already be inevitable. There are things I know about Isadora’s future and none of them involve you, so we have a real chance of keeping it that way!”

I mull that over. “Maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe Isadora should be wary of me.”

“Trust me, you have better things to do than mess with Isadora.”

“Like what? I’ve been feeling kind of purposeless lately. I could become Isadora’s nemesis.”

“Yeah, no. Isadora doesn’t need a nemesis, she needs a spanking.”

“She actually sounds kind of fun,” I say.

“She used to be whatever Beck programmed her to be, but then she developed a personality and now she’s terrifying,” Alba replies. “Can we get out of the car yet? I’m getting cold.”

“Sure, sorry,” I say. We get out of the car. Alba retrieves the leftovers, we go inside, take off our outerwear, put away the leftovers. When I return to the living room, Alba has opened her violin case and is rosining her bow, getting ready to practice. I get a beer, pour it, stand in the kitchen doorway watching Alba tune up.

She stops and says, “What?”