Lost in Time(81)

*

On a Thursday in late November, Adeline stood on the stoop of her childhood home, watching the leaves of the maple trees rattle in the wind, the orange, red, gold, and brown tones mixing together as if the trees were on fire.

The door opened, and Sam ushered Adeline inside. Ryan was sitting on the floor of the living room, playing with magnetic blocks. The boy was about five years old, and at his father’s behest he did a minimalist greeting and returned to building his castle.

As her mother approached, Adeline extended her hand, but the woman held out her arms and hugged her. Adeline thought her mother’s arms felt frail, but her eyes still showed a strength that warmed Adeline’s heart.

Her counterpart was nowhere to be found. Young Adeline was likely at a friend’s house, supposedly doing homework while actually gossiping the night away.

It was an unusually warm night, so they had dinner on the porch, her mother wrapped in a shawl, her father in the V-neck sweater he had worn to work.

When the meal was done, Adeline’s mother rose to clear the plates, but Adeline reached out and gently gripped her mother’s wrist. “Please, let me.”

When the dishes were collected, Adeline’s mother showed her the sewing room. “It used to be a nursery for Ryan. I’ve been working in here since…”

Adeline thought she was going to say, Since I got sick. Instead, she said, “Since I stopped teaching.”

Adeline picked up two pieces of cloth, consulted the pattern her mother had printed off the internet, and held them under the needle at the sewing machine. “Would you mind?”

Her mother smiled. “Not at all.”

A minute later, when the sewing machine whined down to silence, her mother shook her head. “Didn’t know you sewed.”

“My mom taught me.”

“Same here. I’ve been trying to get Adeline into it, but she has zero interest.”

She studied the pieces of cloth. “It’s been good therapy for me. Takes my mind off of everything. And makes me feel like I’m creating something to leave behind… that they’ll remember me by.”

Adeline nodded. She didn’t trust her voice enough to speak. Someone her mother just met wouldn’t be as emotional as she felt then.

“Lately,” her mother said, “I’ve been too tired to make much progress. I mostly sit in here finding patterns for quilts that I will probably never make. But it feels good to have plans.”

Adeline didn’t know if she meant plans for the quilts or a plan to make them—a plan to live that long. She tried as hard as she could steady her own voice. “I could help you.”

“I couldn’t ask you…”

“I’d enjoy it. I lost my mother a long time ago. It would be kind of nice to sew again. It would remind me of her.”

They began that night, and once again, Adeline sensed that it wasn’t just pieces of cloth they were sewing together. For her, she was joining the pieces of the past, and it made her so happy.





FIFTY-FIVE


In the months that followed, Adeline spent several evenings a week at her childhood home, sewing and talking and enjoying those fleeting moments with her mother. She was doing what she wished she had done as a child. Back then, Adeline had always assumed her mother would get better. That it would all pass. Losing her had been unimaginable. That’s part of why it had hit her so hard.

The pieces of fabric weren’t the only things she was assembling.

In the Nevada desert, she was buying large tracts of land. The previous year, she had acquired a solar company, and they were already getting permits for the expansive solar field that would become known as the sea of glass.

The plans she filed with the state and federal regulatory agencies called for a massive power plant that could bring cheaper energy to the region. But she knew the power wouldn’t be sold. It would be used to send people to the past. Including her father someday.

In the Absolom Sciences lab in Palo Alto, the machine was close to completion—or failure, depending on one’s perspective.

Thousands of miles away, in the middle of the Pacific, Absolom Island was progressing nicely. The port was operational, and construction was well underway on the housing village, offices, and recreational facilities. She had told the construction companies that she was building a resort. Her checks had cleared, so they hadn’t asked any other questions.

*

One Thursday morning, Elliott gathered everyone in the lab. He held up a small silver bar with an Absolom Sciences serial number.

“Ladies and gentlemen, behold one of the biggest, and possibly most expensive, scientific blunders in human history. And unfortunately, our blunder.”

He placed the tuning bar in a small Absolom prototype, closed the door, and nodded to Sam, who typed on a keyboard.

A second later, the lights dimmed, and through the glass window on the door, the box flashed, and the bar was gone.

At the computer, Sam said, “Quantum entanglement tracking confirms that the bar should be three hundred miles away, in Death Valley.”

He clicked the mouse and a live video stream appeared. Sam switched to the recorded footage, showing that there was nothing there.

“Elliott and I have repeated this exercise…” His head tilted back, gaze fixed on the ceiling. “Four million, two hundred and eighteen thousand times. Same thing every time. Entanglement tracking confirms the payload was delivered, yet it’s not there.”