Infinite(73)

“I know. It’s still hard for me to believe.”

“I always thought that you would become a priest.”

Roscoe chuckled. “Yeah. That was a tough call, but I’ve never looked back. Plus, I get to work with my mom. Most days, that’s a blessing. Other days . . . well, you know how she is.”

I smiled.

Back in high school, Roscoe had gone in the opposite direction. He’d decided that going into the ministry would allow him to do more good for people than medicine, by helping them find meaning in the losses and setbacks of their lives. He’d also rolled his eyes in exasperation at the idea of ever being able to work in a clinic with his mother.

“So what’s up?” Roscoe asked.

“I have something to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“It’s hard to explain and even harder to believe.”

“Try me.”

I took a breath and considered what I would say. I’d thought about trying to pry my life’s history out of him without telling him what was really going on, but Roscoe was my best friend, and we still had a pledge of never lying to each other. On the other hand, I wasn’t sure if a doctor would take a leap of faith about unseen worlds as readily as a priest. Somehow, I had to prove that what was happening to me was real.

“Where should I be right now?” I asked him.

“What do you mean?”

“If I wasn’t here in the clinic with you, where would you expect to find me?”

“I don’t know. At your office, I guess.”

I leaned across his desk, picked up the phone, and handed it to him. “Call me.”

“What?”

“Call my office. Ask to talk to me.”

“Why?”

“Please, Roscoe. Just do it.”

With a look of confusion, he punched a button for the speakerphone and then pressed a speed dial number. The phone buzzed on the other end, and after several rings, a young woman answered.

“Chicago Housing Solutions.”

“Dana, it’s Roscoe Tate,” he said, his foghorn voice as deep as ever.

“Oh, hey, Dr. Tate. Are you looking for Dylan?”

“I am. Do you know where he is?”

“Sure, he’s on the other line. Do you want me to tell him you’re holding?”

Roscoe didn’t say anything for a long time. He stared across the desk at me, and his brow furrowed, like a mathematician confronting an insoluble problem. He stayed silent for so long that the woman on the phone finally broke in again.

“Dr. Tate? Are you still there? Do you want me to get Dylan for you?”

His eyes never left me. “Dana, are you saying that Dylan’s in the office with you? Are you sure about that?”

“I’m looking right at him,” she replied. “Actually, he just finished up his call. You want me to put him on?”

“Yes, please.”

A few seconds passed. Then we both heard my own voice on the other end of the phone. There was no mistaking it.

“Roscoe. Hey, buddy.”

“Dylan,” Roscoe murmured. He opened his mouth to talk, but seemed unable to decide what to say next.

“What’s up, Doc? You need something?”

Roscoe propped his arms on the desk and then balanced his chin on his hands. Our faces were barely a foot apart. He didn’t have the look of a man who thought he was in the midst of a prank or an April Fool’s joke. His eyes were serious, the same as mine. He spoke into the speakerphone, but he stared at me as he did.

I knew he was talking to both of us.

“Listen, I have a strange question for you,” Roscoe said. “It came up with a patient today, and I thought you might remember. There was an old woman who used to work behind the counter at Lutz’s bakery for a while. I think they found out her husband was some kind of Nazi. We used to make fun of her name while we were eating our pastries. Do you remember what it was?”

On the phone, Dylan answered immediately in a singsong chant.

So did I, mouthing the same words silently to Roscoe from the other side of the desk.

“Friedegunde, Friedegunde, face like die Hunde.”

Roscoe closed his eyes in disbelief. We’d both passed the test, and neither one of us could have faked it. A long time passed before he said softly, “Yes, that was it. Now I remember.”

“We weren’t very nice back then, were we?” Dylan said with a laugh.

“Well, we were nine,” Roscoe replied, opening his eyes and considering me like an alien come to earth. Which, in some ways, I was.

“So why did you want to know about old Friedegunde?” the other Dylan asked.

I put my finger over my lips and shook my head.

“I’ll tell you later, buddy,” Roscoe said into the speakerphone. “Gotta go for now.”

“Okay, catch ya later,” Dylan replied.

Roscoe stabbed the button on his phone to end the call.

“All right,” he said to me, his voice a block of ice. “Who the hell are you?”





CHAPTER 29

I’d barely begun telling Roscoe the story when he shut me down. At the first mention of the Many Worlds, he put up his hands, unwilling to hear more. He had patients to see, and they came first. What it really meant was that he needed time to process the idea in his head. Roscoe never leaped to judgment about anything. He thought about things. He evaluated all the factors and made plans. He was cautious. In other words, he was everything I wasn’t.