“She was the maid of honor at my wedding.” Thelma still wore her wedding ring, but she thought of Sandy, naked, in a marital bed that belonged to someone else while the husband was away at work. “She was important to me.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Can I tell you a secret, Miriam? Something that I’ve always wanted to get off my chest?”
“Sure thing.”
Thelma focused on the purple clouds appearing on the skyline. They reminded her of the color of Sandy’s favorite winter sweater, which “garishly” mismatched her orange and brown wardrobe.
“I was in love with her. But it wasn’t meant to be.”
Miriam continued to stare at Thelma from the corner of her eye; Thelma continued to gaze at the hazy sunset.
“Did she know?”
Thelma smiled, sighing with her whole chest. “Of course. I told her as much a few hours before I ended up here.” The breeze picked up, bringing with it the scent of pavement and poppies. “She knew how it was. We all did.”
Miriam opened her mouth.
“Maybe things could have been different…” Thelma interrupted. “If we could have been married.”
She wouldn’t have had her children, though. But she also wouldn’t have run out at seven in the evening, only to drive far into the future.
I wouldn’t have abandoned my children to whatever fate God saw fit for them.
She wondered if Robbie and Debbie had been steadfast in their adversity.
Chapter five
While You Were Gone
Thelma’s life was now in stasis. It was government protocol for time travelers to remain in custody for at least a month, although Thelma heard it could last longer if there were no family members to release someone to. As it was, Robbie remained her closest living relative who could take her in – and he remained in deep denial, to the point that Thelma often didn’t visit with him when hedidcome by the FBI field office to fill out paperwork and have one-on-one counseling about what he was going through. The only one to regularly drop by to visit was Megan, the grown granddaughter Thelma couldn’t have fathomed existing only a couple of weeks before.
Meanwhile, Thelma was plenty busy. When she wasn’t attending her counseling, she was gently introduced to the modern America of 2018.
It surprised her how much the FBI let her direct things.They must be used to people having such a hard time coping that they’ve learned self-direction is the way to go.For media, Thelma asked for a daily delivery of the LA Times. She was givena device called a “laptop” that was connected to the building’s “intranet,” which allowed her to search for things on a website called “Wikipedia.” Thelma was at first intimidated by the device, but after a few demonstrations from Miriam, she got the hang of turning it on, moving the cursor, and opening “websites” like Wikipedia. She wasn’t a great typist, but it slowly came to her as she practiced by typing in different names.
Which included her name.Thelma Van der Graaf.
Was it strange that she should have a page on this site? Which included the same picture from her missing poster?
She already knew from the FBI agents and her counselor that her case would never be officially “solved.” Instead, she would be given a new Social Security number and, for all intents and purposes, a new identity. The public couldn’t know about time travel. There were already a number of conspiracy theories about the fog and visitors from the past, and the FBI had a small team that dedicated whole days to discovering and tracking down discussions so they could put a stop to it.
So she looked at a page full of speculation about how and why she disappeared. The leading theory was that she was carjacked, and her body and car were never recovered. Bill had been a suspect for years, of course, but Thelma couldn’t find any information about how it affected him or his ability to keep raising their children.Bill… I’m so sorry.It was all she could think of as she imagined her husband’s panic when an hour had gone by and there was no sign of his wife. When did he realize she was missing? When did he call the police? What did he say to Robbie and Debbie? What did the neighbors think?
Had he remarried? Did he have other children?
Thelma surprised herself with how casually she thought about it. What didn’t surprise her was how little she already missed Bill, who had been a dear friend, but at the end of the day wasa means to an end. He was the father of her children and her primary provider… but had shelovedhim?
Part of her counseling was going through these feelings, but she was also allowed to ask for updates on people she knew. Bill was the first person she asked about. She knew he was long dead, but how had his life fared in the wake of her disappearance?
The agency provided her with what they could find and what Robbie had told them when asked.Remarried a woman named Mary in 1962 after the government declared our marriage over because I had been missing for so long. Stayed in city planning until his retirement in the late ‘70s. Got to travel and buy a boat before he passed away. No more children.The thing that stuck out was the dang boat. Was he really into boating? Thelma had no idea!
When asked who she wanted to know about next, she took a night to think it over. Eventually, she returned with Sandy’s name.
This gave her greater apprehension than Bill. After all, Sandy might still be alive. If so, would she be allowed to visit the elderly Sandy? Would she even still have her mind?
The file appeared the next day. The counselor kept a straight face as Thelma looked through it.
