Recursion(98)

False Memory Syndrome has never plagued the world.

Reality and time have never unraveled in the minds of billions.

And he has never laid eyes on Helena Smith. Their many lifetimes together spent trying to save the world from the effects of the chair have been banished to the wasteland of dead memory.

There is no question—he can feel it in his bones.

This timeline is the first, the original.

Barry looks across the table at Julia and says, “It’s really good to see you.”

They talk about Meghan, what they each imagine she’d be doing with her life, and it’s all Barry can do not to tell Julia that he actually knows. That he’s seen it firsthand in a distant, unreachable memory. That their daughter would have been more vital, more interesting, and kinder than any of their speculation could begin to do her memory justice.

As the food comes, he remembers Meghan sitting at the table with them. Swears he can almost feel her presence, like a phantom limb. And while it hurts, it doesn’t break him the way it once would have. The memory of his daughter hurts because he experienced a beautiful thing that has since gone away. Same as with Julia. Same as with all the loss he has ever experienced.

The last time he lived this moment with Julia, they reminisced about a family trip into the Adirondacks, to Lake Tear of the Clouds, the source of the Hudson.

And the butterfly that kept coming around made him think of Meghan.

Julia says, “You seem better.”

“I do?”

“Yeah.”

It is late autumn in the city, Barry thinking this reality is feeling more solid by the minute. No shifts threatening to upend everything.

He is questioning his memory of all the other timelines. Even Helena feels more like a fading fantasy than a woman he touched and loved.

What feels real in this moment isn’t his phantom memory of watching a shockwave vaporize the Upper West Side. What feels real are the sounds of the city, the people at the tables all around him, his ex-wife, the breath going in and out of his lungs.

For everyone but him, the past is a singular concept.

No conflicting histories.

No false memories.

The dead timelines of mayhem and destruction are his alone to remember.

When the check comes, Julia tries to pay, but he snatches it away and throws down his card.

“Thank you, Barry.”

He reaches across the table and takes hold of her hand, clocking the surprise in her eyes at this gesture of intimacy.

“I need to tell you something, Julia.”

He looks out at the Hudson. The breeze coming off the water carries a cool bite, and the sun is warm on his shoulders. Tourist boats go up and down the river. The noise of traffic is ceaseless on the highway above. The sky crisscrossed with the fading contrails of a thousand jets.

“I was angry with you for a long time.”

“I know,” she says.

“I thought you left me because of Meghan.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. It was too much to keep breathing the same air as you in those dark days.”

He shakes his head. “I think that if you and I could go back to before she died, even if we could somehow prevent it, you still would have gone your way, and I would’ve gone mine. I think we were meant to be together for a time. Perhaps losing Meghan shortened the life-span of us, but even if she had lived, we’d still be apart in this moment.”

“You really believe that?”

“I do, and I’m sorry I held on to the anger. I’m sorry I only see this now. We had so many perfect moments, and for a long time, I couldn’t appreciate them. I could only look back in regret. This is what I wanted to tell you: I wouldn’t change anything. I’m glad you came into my life when you did. I’m glad for the time we had. I’m glad for Meghan, and that she came from the two of us. That she couldn’t have come from any other two people. I wouldn’t take back a second of any of it.”

She wipes away a tear. “All these years, I thought you wished you’d never met me. I thought you blamed me for ruining your life.”

“I was just hurting.”

She squeezes his hand. “I’m sorry we weren’t the ones for each other, Barry. You’re right about that, and I’m sorry for everything else.”





BARRY





November 5, 2018

The loft is on the third floor of a converted warehouse in San Francisco’s Dogpatch, an old shipbuilding neighborhood on the bay.

Barry parks his rental car three blocks away and walks to the entrance of the building.

The fog is so dense it softens the edges of the city, laying a gray primer on everything and diffusing the globes of illumination from the streetlights, turning them into ethereal orbs. It reminds him, in some ways, of the color palette of a dead memory, but he likes the anonymity it provides.

A woman heading out for the evening opens the front door. He slips by her and into the lobby, heading up two flights of stairs and then down a long hallway toward Unit 7.

He knocks, waits.

No one answers.

He knocks again, harder this time, and after a moment, a man’s soft voice bleeds through the door.

“Who is it?”

“Detective Sutton.” Barry steps back and holds his badge to the peephole. “Could I speak with you?”