TIme After Time

on the counter. “Fine. We’ll get a map. But it’s purely for backup.”

The cashier gives us the total but I hold my hand up in the air and tell her to wait. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” Anna cocks her head to the side, and gives me a Haven’t we already covered this? expression, but I laugh under my breath and take off anyway.

I have to snake around a few aisles, but I finally find a small section of bike accessories, and that’s where I find the padlocks. I return to the counter, using a little sleight of hand to keep it hidden from her view.

“Here,” I say as I take my backpack off and hand it to Anna, along with the map. “Find an extremely inconvenient pocket for that, would you?” While she’s busy with the zipper, I remove the padlock and its key from their packaging, and slip them into the front pocket of my jeans.

I look at her and say, “Now we have a destination.”

“We do?”

“Yeah. I want to show you something.”

“Do you need the map?” She smiles.

I look at her and shake my head. “No, I do not need the map.”

* * *

I may need the map. We’ve been walking along the banks of the river for a good forty minutes, and we keep passing bridges, but so far, I haven’t seen the sign that marks the one I need. I give myself one more bridge before I fold. Then I spot it: a dark green sign with white type that reads PONT DES ARTS.

The pedestrian-only footbridge is more crowded than I expected it to be. Couples are sitting on the benches in the center and people are clustered in groups along the railings. Everyone seems to be speaking French.

I find a spot against the railing and sit down. I lean back against a post and Anna sits between my legs. Just as she’s reclining against my chest, a police siren blares by and fades away. “I love how even the most common sounds remind you that you’re somewhere else,” she says.

We’re quiet for a long time, looking out over the water, until Anna twists her neck and looks up at me. “I’ve been dying to ask you something,” she says. I must be wearing an affirmative expression because she suddenly spins around to face me and looks me right in the eye. “When you stopped the fire, did you feel the same way you did after we changed things with Emma?”

Her question catches me off guard and I react by dodging it. “I didn’t stop the fire. I changed a few things leading up to the fire. Big difference.” But Anna stares at me, not letting me off the hook.

I look at her, remembering how I sat in my room that night, picturing the look on Anna’s face when she first saw Emma, unbroken. “Before, during, or after?” I ask.

“All of the above.” She reaches out for the hem of my shirt and plays with it, running her finger back and forth along the edge.

I start to fall back on the things I say when I don’t want to let people in: simple words like “fine” and “good” that slip so easily off my tongue. But instead, I feel myself lean in a little closer, like I’m ready to tell her everything.

“Before? Scared,” I say flatly. “When you asked me to go back and help Emma, I honestly didn’t think I could do over that many days, and even if I could, I had no idea if it would work. Anything could have happened. We could have been knocked back right away. Or we could have changed the sequence of events, but the car accident might have happened a few hours later regardless. The number of things that could have gone wrong were just…” I trail off, shaking my head.

“I thought Emma would be the first and last time I’d ever do anything like that. But when I heard what happened to those kids, I guess I just wanted to try it again. I mean, if could go back two days, why not three? And if it did work, if I could change it… Still, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t terrified the entire time.”

Anna doesn’t say anything, but she’s tracing tiny circles in my palms again, just like she did in Emma’s backyard last night. I think that means I’m supposed to keep talking.

“During, I didn’t think about anything else. I just hoped it would work.” I’m hit with a vision of the school pictures that lined the hallway of apartment 3C.

“And after…” I stop. I don’t know what to say about the after. After I installed the smoke detector and came home, I waited to see the news, and discovered that the do-over had worked. My dad looked proud and shocked at the same time, like I’d hit that inexplicable home run in a tied game, bottom of the ninth.

“After,” I repeat. “It was like being in one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books and I chose a different ending. Those two kids were alive and safe, and I knew they shouldn’t have been. And that was… strange…to know that they died.”

Anna brings my hand to her lips and kisses it. “And what about the side effects?”

“Nothing,” I whisper. “No migraine. No dehydration. No side effects at all. I felt like I could have run around the block.” Another tour boat goes by and we stop to listen to the guide rattle off the interesting facts about this bridge that we’ve heard twice now.

“Do you think—” Anna begins. She stops, waiting for a group of kids in matching soccer uniforms to walk past us. “Do you think it’s possible that do-overs aren’t such a bad thing?”

I shake my head. “What do you mean? That I’m supposed to change things? No way. I did it once for you. I guess I did it this second time for my dad. But those were isolated incidents that I chose to do. It’s not like I’m now on a mission to stop the world’s tragedies. Besides, I still don’t know if there are ramifications or not.” I can’t even say it aloud, but part of me is still wondering if the people whose lives I’ve altered are affected by their changed pasts. Does Emma know at some unconscious level that she was in a massive car accident? Will those two kids…I can’t think about it. “Look, nothing’s changed. I’m purely an observer. I’m not supposed to alter the future.”

“I’m not saying you’re supposed to, just that it felt good when you did. I mean, Emma and Justin are fine, right? Nothing horrible happened to them, they just…got a second chance. And because of you, so did those kids.”

I look past her, staring out over the water. A second chance. I sort of like the idea of that. Not that it matters, since I’m not doing it again.

“Hey,” I say, as I lean back and reach into my front pocket. “I almost forgot why I brought you here in the first place.”

She looks at me with a curious grin. I open her hand and rest the brass padlock in her palm. She takes her eyes off me to look down at it. “Why am I holding a padlock?” The sunlight bounces off the surface as she twists it around, examining it from all sides as if that will enlighten her.

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this—it involves a few future details—but I heard this story and thought it was cool.” I shift in place and take a deep breath. “No one really knows when it started exactly, but by the end of two thousand nine, all of the railings on this bridge will be covered with padlocks. Couples who came to Paris from all over the world started writing their names on them, clipping them to this railing, and tossing the key into the river as a symbol…” Anna’s wearing an expression I can’t read, and I suddenly realize how lame I sound. “…of, like, their… Oh, never mind.” I reach for the padlock, but she snaps her hand closed.

“Stop it. You’re not taking our lock.”

“Yes, I am.” I reach for it again but she laughs and pulls her hand behind her back.

She looks me in the eyes. “Go on.”

“No. I heard that story and thought it was kind of romantic, but now that I say it out loud it sounds so cheesy.”

“No, it doesn’t.” I lean back against the post. Once she can tell I’m not going to try to take it away again, she brings her hand back to her lap and opens her palm. “I love it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She turns the padlock over in her palm again, this time as if she’s admiring it. “We don’t have anything to write with.”

I lean back and pull a black Sharpie from my jeans pocket. When I hand it to her, she laughs. “Typical. Here,” she says, handing me the lock. “You should write it. It was your idea.”

I shake my head. We’re in 1995, in her world, and it seems like something she’s supposed to do. When I tell her this, she uncaps the pen and brings the felt tip to the metal.

“What should I say?”