Kit said he’d made her grow up. Olivia said that having to deal with his life wore her out so much that she’d become old early.
Smiling at the thoughts, she stretched, trying to flex her muscles, taking note of the changes in her body. Her stomach was bigger, the skin more loose. She put her hand on it and closed her eyes for a moment. Having four children had stretched her. How she’d complained to Kit! But of course she’d really wanted reassurance that he still loved her even if the beautiful twenty-two-year-old body was gone. He always proved it by making love to her. Like his hair, that part of him had never faded in strength.
She opened the office door and leaned against the jamb. Too much was in her mind! Giving up Tisha was clear, but so was holding her daughter as her family and Kit’s looked on. A top hospital and staff had been able to save Olivia’s reproductive system after the difficult birth. At the time, Kit was still in Libya, but they managed to get word to him that his daughter and wife were well.
Right now her memory of tears was mixed with thoughts of joy. Thoughts of traveling with Kit were intertwined with memories of trying to manage appliance stores. Kevin’s inactivity even as a child was twisted around the blazing energy of her and Kit’s three sons.
When Olivia opened her eyes, Arrieta was standing there looking concerned. “Are you all right?”
Olivia pushed away from the door. “I think I will be, but my mind needs to settle.”
“Come and have some tea. I made some cream cookies.”
Olivia sat down at the table and sipped her tea. Her head came up. “My father! He didn’t die at his workbench!” She began to remember. “I threw a fit and made him have his heart checked. Kit’s family got him really good treatment. It’s slowly coming back to me.” She ate a cookie. “Kit and I own the whole Camden estate. It was a wedding gift from his parents. And the cottage is my office. Oh! I have a degree in psychology. I see patients.” She smiled. “After our little wedding, my parents were very happy when I told them that until Kit returned I was going back to school to study psychology. My father said that half of the world was crazy so I’d always have work.” She couldn’t help the tears that came to her eyes. “I miss them so much!”
She put her hands to her head. “If I think of a person or a place, the memory comes to me. But my life with Alan is still clear. Did he marry Diane and have Kevin? Did she die? What about Willie? What happened to all of them?” She rubbed her forehead. “I seem to remember that Trumbull Appliances was sold. I think it’s now a furniture store.” She was thinking hard. “Wait! Alan and Willie did get married. I was in Richmond then, living with my parents and I was hugely pregnant. I was very pleased to hear of the wedding. Mom said she didn’t know I knew them, and I didn’t. Not in that life.”
Olivia looked up at Arrieta. “They divorced! Now I remember. Willie left Alan and married the man who built those ticky-tacky houses near us at Camden Hall. Kit said he wished he’d bought that land in memory of...” Olivia smiled. “Of our naked scurry across there. Young Pete still has my bra in a frame in his house. I wonder if Elise’s is there too? Did that happen with her? Or was that wiped out like my marriage to Alan was?”
“Beats me,” Arrieta said. “I’m new at this.” She gave Olivia a hard look. “But you need to know everything since you’re going to take over Dr. Hightower’s job.”
“Oh,” Olivia said. “There is that memory buried under all of them. I don’t know if I can do that.”
“You have to,” Arrieta said. “And you have to keep what you do a secret. The reason I moved here is to be near you.” She look so frightened that she might pass out.
Olivia got up, put her arm around the girl, and led her to sit down. “Everything will work out—you’ll see.” She glanced at the door. “How long will they stay in their trance?”
“Until I pull them out. I just think very hard and tell them to come back and they do. But those two are so happy they could stay forever. They don’t want to wake up.”
“But I did?”
“I don’t think you’ve solved everything in your life. Aunt Primrose told me this might happen. When people only go back a few years, it’s easier, but you went back a long time—and you had two complete lives. It’s harder for you to sort things out.”
“I don’t understand why Alan and Willie didn’t stay together. You should have seen them in the hospital when he was dying. She cried incessantly. She kept begging me to find a way to cure him.”
“How could you do that?”
“I don’t know,” Olivia said. “They seemed to think I could do anything.” She paused. “I need some answers. I know where Willie and her second husband live. I need to go see her. Now. Can you...?”
“Can I keep them asleep until you get back? I’ll try, but they’ll want you to be here after they wake up. Elise especially. That girl has grown to love you.”
“It’s mutual.”
“Take your time. Do what you need to.”
Minutes later, Olivia was driving down FM 77 toward the town. Willie and her husband lived in a huge house on the outskirts. Olivia had seen the house only once, and it had been the talk of everyone. It’s like that awful place Kevin and Hildy lived in, Olivia thought. But now that was in a time that had never happened.
As she drove slowly through the town, she remembered when Kit had driven her around.
She’d looked at each house and thought of who lived where and what had happened to them. Even though she’d tried to warn people, the same tragedies nearly always happened. And right now she was thinking of them as her failures.
But at the end of the street, she pulled the car over and turned off the engine. The yellow house on the end had not been the scene of unspeakable tragedy. The girl who’d grown up there had not slit her wrists because she’d been bullied at school.
At first the memory was vague, but as Olivia looked at the house it became more clear. She and Kit and Tisha were in Summer Hill on vacation. Olivia had her degree then, but she hadn’t practiced much. They were by the lake with a picnic lunch when she saw a girl being teased by two others, and the girl looked like she was going to cry.
Olivia didn’t know why she was so drawn to the situation, but she knew she had to step in. The girl, Lisa, had parents who were too busy, too extroverted to see what was being done to their quiet, introverted daughter. Olivia invited the girl to join them and after that day, they started corresponding. When she was back in Summer Hill, they talked.
On the day that would have been when Lisa committed suicide, Olivia knew she had to get to the school. She didn’t know why, but she ran to the girls’ locker room just in time to keep the boys out, and she got Lisa’s clothes back to her.
After that, Olivia had long professional talks with the principal about those bratty girls, and with Lisa’s parents.
Today, Lisa was married with two children and she taught elementary school.
Olivia sat in the car for a few moments to let the memories sift through her brain. It’s like waiting for the cream to come to the surface, she thought. Maybe she hadn’t been able to save everyone, but at least she’d succeeded with a few.
When she pulled in to Willie’s driveway, she wondered what she’d find. For those three weeks when she was in 1970, Kit had enjoyed tales of the internet and cell phones and overnight delivery with the passion of a drug addict. But he’d deeply disliked what she’d told him about her marriage—and he disagreed with it all. “I pushed my way into his life,” she said. “I needed a child. I was starving. You can’t sympathize because you’re not a mother.”
“It’s true that I don’t understand men who don’t support their family,” Kit said.