Page 32 of Nineteen Eighty
“You sure? We could grab coffee or something. You don’t have to walk with me.”
“I want to, and I am,” Colleen answered as they entered the crosswalk, passing over the neutral ground before landing at the edges of the Central Business District. “You’re still liking Geneva, then?”
Evangeline nodded, shoving both hands deep in her jean pockets as Colleen leaned into her. “I like what I’m doing. It’s challenging.” Her breath unfurled in the late summer air. “And I’ve met someone.”
Colleen missed a step. “You have?”
“I have.”
“Well, tell me about him!”
“He works with me. He’s tall… Swedish. From Gothenburg, but his mother is Norwegian. Like me, he was recruited straight from university, but he went to school in Zurich. A Cambridge undergrad, though, if you can believe it. He’s smart, Leena… smarter than me, maybe. He comes from a big family, like us. He wants me to meet them at some family reunion he has to attend in the fall. In Malmö.”
“Are you going?”
Evangeline nodded. “I think so.”
“And when do we get to meet your handsome Swede?”
Evangeline thought of said handsome Swede, sleeping peacefully only a few blocks away. “I’ll bring him home for Christmas, if we don’t tire of each other first.”
“I don’t think you’d be talking about him if you thought it was a risk.”
“No… I think… well, I think he’s the one.”
“That’s a big statement.”
“The biggest I can think of.”
They crossed through the Central Business District and into Central City, passing a few blocks in silence. Evangeline was glad Colleen had found out and come. Glad to have the soothing relief her presence could bring. And now that she’d shared the secret of Johan, whatever grew between them felt more real and solid.
She’d bring him home for Christmas. She would. And if he didn’t propose before then, well, she wasn’t an old-fashioned girl, in any case. She’d do it herself.
“I love you, Evangeline,” Colleen said as the old green streetcar rumbled past. “Be happy.”
“I am,” Evangeline replied. “I’m not so easily lost to my grief these days. I know how to come back now.”
Colleen kissed her shoulder. “Good. I’m glad.”
“Because of Cassie. Cassie showed me how to heal. Showed me why I should.”
Colleen raised an imaginary glass to the sky. “For Cassie. A sister in all but name.”
“For Cassie,” Evangeline whispered through her tears.
Elizabeth struggled for breath as she paced the concrete bank of the river, her panic rising with every half-second that passed. It was so dark, like a sea of black and tiny pins of light, and she couldn’t make out a single detail. Every light crest of water became a glimpse of her husband. Each time, a disappointment. She strained to see, screaming Connor’s name, over and over until her voice was hoarse.
She couldn’t swim well, but it wouldn’t stop her from jumping in after him, if she could only see him. There wasn’t anyone else around… no one else had seen him fall in, and so she was on her own unless she wanted to leave and find help, and there was no chance she’d give up an opportunity to spot and save him.
He couldn’t be dead. She’d seen his future, and he still had to live long enough to see one of his own children die. And her. She hadn’t died yet, so he still had to be alive!
You challenged fate, and this is your punishment. You changed the future, all right, Lizzy, just not the way you wanted.
Her horrified belief in the words of the unknown voice speaking these words to her on repetition grew to a near blinding terror, but then she spotted a flurry of movement from the corner of her eye, coming from a small picnic area closer to the stairs leading back up to city level.
A man, hovered over another man. The second man lying supine. Elizabeth raced over, one eye still fixed on the river, as she skipped sideways toward what seemed to be an important scene unfolding.
As she drew closer, the cold air beating havoc into her lungs, she turned her full focus to the two men. The one on the small patch of grass was Connor. The other…