Page 2 of Intersect
“It’s already 10,” she frets. “Any later and you’ll have skippedbreakfast.”
I laugh. “I skip breakfast almost daily, Mom. It’sfine.”
She frowns but puts the pan away, going to the counter instead and returning with a stack of mail. “We’ll need to contact everyone and tell them the wedding is off,” she says. “And then return the gifts that arrived here. If you’re sure you want to dothis.”
I meet her eye. My conversation with Nick last night eradicated any lingering concern I felt about calling things off. “I’msure.”
She glances at me with something that looks an awful lot like suspicion. “You seem pretty lighthearted for someone who just called off her wedding,” shesays.
Guilt makes my pulse go from a slow march to a jog. I hate lying, and it’s impossible for me to pretend I’m anything but thrilled right now. Not when Nick waits back in D.C. Especially not when every time I close my eyes I’m seeing him shirtless, muscles straining as he pulls the trailer out of the water. Or remembering the way he kissed…and if his abilities there are any indication, he’s going to be very good ateverything.
* * *
I spendthe morning sending emails, calling all the vendors to cancel, and my mother helps where she can. As I’m shuffling through the RSVPs, looking at names of distant relatives I barely know, I think once again of the Rule of Threes. Even if there can’t be more than three time travelers in one family, I still don’t see what that could have to do withus. My uncle is gay, so I seriously doubt he’s accidentally sired a time-traveling daughter. That only leaves my dad’s sister, who ran off to Paris after high school and was never heard from again. The way she left the farm behind always made her a bit of a hero in my eyes, growingup.
“Did Dad ever look for Aunt Sarah after she left?” Iask.
“I’m not sure,” she says briskly, staring at her computer screen. “I know they spoke, but he never wanted to talk to me aboutit.”
My eyes lift from the RSVPs. My father wasn’t an evasive person by nature. Why was he where his sister was concerned? “Did she stay in Paris? She never came back tovisit?”
My mother’s expression sours a bit. “If she did, she never came to visitus.”
In a way it seems as if she didn’t even exist. My father almost never mentioned her, even when he discussed his childhood. “I’ve never even seen a picture of her. Haveyou?”
“No,” she replies, her fingers flying over the keyboard. “Damn these people to hell. They haven’t shipped anything yet but they’re refusing to cancel theorder.”
“You’ve never seen asinglephoto?” Iask.
“She was strange about it apparently, hated having her picturetaken.”
I freeze. Rose refused to have her photo taken too—with her favorite band, no less. It didn’t occur to me when it happened, but what teenager refuses a photo with her favorite band? Maybe one who wants no photographic evidence that she existed in any time at all. Does that mean my aunt can time travel? It could, but it still feels like a huge leap to take. It’s just as possible she simply hated something about herself—crooked teeth or a big nose—and refused to be photographed. And even if she does time travel, the bigger question is this: what is my mother capable of? In last night’s dream it seemed that she didn’t just carry the mutation…she time traveled, and did so enthusiastically. So if that really happened, in some other life, what would have changed it so much this timearound?
“What do you think about time travel?” I ask, watching her faceclosely.
She frowns, her brows coming together, her mind still on her irritation with the vendor. “I likedOutlanderwell enough, but I’m more of a mystery person Iguess.”
I hear nothing hidden in her response, but surely there’s some piece of her that at least responds to the idea of it when she did it so gleefully in another life. “I was just kind of wondering if you think it’s possible?” Ipersist.
Her mouth sags and then her eyes brim with tears. “Oh honey,” she says, as the tears start to fall. “No, I don’t think itis.”
* * *
“I’m staying another night,”I tellNick.
I hear his disappointment in the ensuing silence. “Why?”
I laugh miserably. “I made the fatal error of asking my mom what she thought about time travel to see if she’d react in some telling way. Now she’s convinced Jeff is right about the tumor making me crazy. She can’t stopcrying.”
“Has she stopped trying to convince you to go through with the wedding atleast?”
I lean back against the headboard of my bed and close my eyes. “More or less. She obviously still wishes I would, but it’s hard to argue with a dyinggirl.”
“Don’t say that,” he snaps. “You have no idea if it’strue.”
My heart twists a little. The closer we become, the harder it will get knowing I’m going to have to say goodbye to him. Which means it will become harder for him too. But I don’t want to think about that right now. I want to enjoythis.
“How are things there, withyou?”