“That’s because she saw things in the ‘30s.”
“No fucking way.”
“To be fair, so did I! I was born in 1930, Gretch. Grew up in the Great Depression. Came of age during World War II. Was a housewife in what my history classes tell me was the biggest economic boom in history. Now, here I am.”
“Do you miss it?”
That tender question hit Thelma where it hurt most. “My old life? Of course I do.”
“What do you miss the most?”
Nobody had asked her that before, and Thelma had to sort through the myriad of images to float up in her mind.Knowingmy exact place. Understanding my budget. Having a smaller world to consider.
“The little things, like nobody being shocked by how I style myself,” she said. “And the big things. Like making breakfast for my children and every trip being a huge adventure for everyone involved. The first time I went to Vegas with Bill, we were the talk of the neighborhood. You have to understand, Vegas was just getting started back then. Half of our neighbors were too scared or pious to go, and the other half were jealous. They all wanted to know what we thought and what we had done that weekend. I talked about Dean Martin, and Bill bragged about winning fifteen dollars at the poker table. Oh, that was a lot of money back then. Like a hundred today, I swear!”
“Do you miss him?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
Gretchen folded her hands behind her head. “Because this whole time, I thought he died while you were married to him. Then I find out you disappeared. You were married one day, and a widow the next.”
Thelma swallowed. “Yes.”
“Wild.”
“Hm. Yes.”
A heavier breeze cut off whatever Thelma had wanted to say next. As she pulled her jacket closer around her body, she thought of the last time she saw her husband.Making toasted cheese sandwiches for our children.It was an image many of the other women she knew would have killed to have, since they had husbands who refused to cook themselves anything but cereal and milk. But Bill was a cook in the Army, and a lot of it was second nature to him.“Before I married you,”he once told Thelma,“I made myself a good meal almost every night. Then you taught me what real home cooking is.”
“I do miss him,” she said when the breeze died down. “He was one of my best friends and a good father. But I also feel terribly about him, because he really did love me, you know? He was far more dedicated to our family than I was. I had an affair, for God’s sake.”
“If you could go back and marry Sandy instead, would you?”
Gretchen must have thought a lot about these questions. Yet Thelma still resented them a little, because she had not expected to be asked that right beside Sandy’s grave.
“There is no sense in that question,” she said to Gretchen. “Not only was that impossible back then, but if I hadn’t married my husband, then I wouldn’t have had my children. I wouldn’t have gone out one night and come forward in time.” She managed to catch Gretchen’s gaze when clouds covered the sun above them. “You and I would have never met.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean…” Thelma tucked her bottom lip into her mouth and licked it while attempting to put her thoughts together. “To be honest, Gretch, I don’t know if there’s a God. So much in my life has rarely made sense when I try to pair it with my faith. I used to think that things were much more rigid, you know? That I must have been punished for my sins by being thrust into the future, to endure this kind of shock to the system, and to see how it affected my family. You know, like Jimmy Stewart inIt’s a Wonderful Life.”
“I guess I follow…”
“But the more I experience this world and get to know the people in it, the less I think of it as a purgatory for the sinful and more as just… something that happened. Maybe it wasn’t on purpose. Maybe it reallywasa fluke that I drove into that fog. It could’ve been anyone! It could’ve been no one! But it was me. Heck, maybe my car driving through that neighborhood prevented some kid from going outside that night. Who knows?Better me than some sneaky eight-year-old like my Robbie getting into all sorts of trouble. There’s this girl in my group named Jo who was a teenager in the 17thcentury when she traveled to the future! How could she have been punished?”
Gretchen nodded.
“It is what it is. I’ve traveled into the future, and I can’t go back. I count my blessings. And one of those blessings is having been able to meet women like you, Gretch.”
In classic Gretchen fashion, she cleared her throat and looked away, hand scratching the back of her head.She’s so adorable. How do I help myself?All Thelma could do was laugh and swallow some of the chilly Christmas air.
“I got to meet my granddaughter as a smart young lady who is already in a healthier relationship than either her father or I was ever in. I get to enjoy the wonders of the internet! I get to eat food from all around the world! Do you know how much my ancestors would have killed to know Ethiopian food?Chinesefood? I’ve had margaritas in the biggest glass you’ve ever seen, Gretchen!”
“I know! I was there!”
“And I got to hold your hand in public. In the middle of Las Vegas.” Thelma was drawn to the headstone beneath the tree. “Do you know how much we would have killed for that back then? It was always one of my dreams to sit with her beneath a tree just like that one and share a kiss while we picnicked on a warm summer day.” She bit her lip again. “Bill and I did it all the time before the children were born. Nobody thought about a man and a woman doing that.”
“I wish I could have met her.”
