I couldn’t phone Stephanie. I wasn’t sure I’d’ve wanted to. But Sjoberg had.
“We’ll see you in three weeks,” he said one afternoon. “I’m releasing you as an outpatient to your family. They’re in the visitors’ room.”
I stared at him. “You mean I’m in my ex-wife’s goddamn custody?”
“They’re simply here to pick you up,” he said. “You wanted to see your daughters, didn’t you?”
“Well, sure.”
He studied me. If it was a test, I was flunking.
“How do I get my quilt?”
I’d pictured it so many times, them laughing and hugging and kissing me. My heart swelled when I glimpsed them in their spotless dresses, hair brushed, faces scrubbed and glowing. Hope had just turned five, Susy three. Killer cute. My little girls. I burst through the doors and slid on my knees before them, calling their names, arms out to enfold them.
Hope hung back shyly. Susy hid behind her.
“Girls,” said Stephanie, from above.
Hope climbed dutifully into my lap. Susy, clinging to her, followed suit.
I pulled them close and kissed them, smelling their freshness. “Glad to see me?”
Hope nodded.
“We got a new daddy too,” said Susy, pointing to a man standing beside Stephanie. “Daddy Dave!”
I glanced up, half expecting Anchorman. But it wasn’t. Daddy Dave was about my age, medium build, rust-colored hair. Three-piece suit—his a darker gray than Stephanie’s—right out of GQ. A polo player. Or should be. He smiled with an appropriate measure of friendliness.
“Daddy Dave wants to ’dopt us,” said Susy.
Jesus Christ.
“The wedding was last month,” said Stephanie. “We mailed you an invitation.”
I saw her gray eyes noting my full beard, registering details of my antique clothing. Very little would escape her, I knew. She looked thinner, cheeks almost gaunt, hair cut short. Streamlined. Best of breed. It was good to be able to look at her without the old anger.
“. . . naturally since we nor anyone else knew how to find you,” she was saying, “or even if you were . . .”
“I was alive,” I said. “Working back East. Sorry about the support. I’ll make it up.”
Contempt flickered in the cool eyes, as if to say, “Who needs your money?” It occurred to me that she was probably enjoying this. Now I was not only an irresponsible, violent drunk but a full-fledged head case.
I didn’t care. Stephanie had her own problems and vulnerabilities. And Hope picked that moment to reduce me to silly putty by creeping close and putting her arms around my neck and kissing my cheek. “We still love you, Daddy,” she whispered.
Susy looked up at me and nodded.
Oh, lord.
Outside on the sidewalk Daddy Dave opened the door of a gleaming German sedan. The girls showed me a menagerie of expensive stuffed animals he had bought them and asked me to ride with them. Daddy Dave nodded neutrally.
“I don’t think I’m up to automobiles yet, thanks.”
Stephanie smirked and stepped in. A swivel of slender hips, a flash of pale stockings.
“I’ll be in touch,” I said.
Her lips curved ironically, eyes hidden behind dark glasses. Then the quilt caught her attention. She lifted the glasses. “Isn’t that your grandmother’s?”
“Almost.” My glance fell on one of the patches from Cait’s dress. The quilt had come through time unchanged: no aging, none of Grandma’s patches. “Almost,” I repeated. “Not quite.”
I rented a place in North Beach. My previous landlord had put my stuff in storage. I retrieved it by paying five months’ fees—easily done, once my credit cards were restored.
The Newspaper Guild prevented the Chronicle from firing me—which I suspect old Salvio would have preferred—but could not avert a major reassignment. I drew obits and nightside cop checks, the most dismal blood-and-gore beat imaginable. I worked four-thirty to midnight, often drawing the overnight shift till 3 a.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays off.
Everybody was surprised that I didn’t complain. Cubs usually got stuck with the night police beat. It was punishment. I didn’t care. Day or night or what sort of story made little difference. I worked thoroughly, mechanically.
Sjoberg asked repeatedly about my father during our sessions. There wasn’t much I could tell him.
I assumed, as a working hypothesis, that either I had been summoned by Colm, or in fact had once been Colm. That was my best guess and that was how it felt to me during the experience. Why it had happened I didn’t know. That’s what I wanted Sjoberg to help me figure out.
The trouble was that no matter how fascinating he found my accounts, no matter how inexplicably detailed, he could not help viewing them as manifestations of deep-rooted problems. He invariably returned to my father, suggesting that I was sublimating feelings of rage and rejection through complicated fantasies. Once he even hinted that I had abandoned my daughters in retaliation for my father’s abandoning me, and then subconsciously concocted the time-travel stuff to stave off guilt.
It was too deep for me. I knew what I had experienced. And that was all I knew.
After six months I stopped seeing him. We weren’t getting anywhere. And I felt okay, in the sense that I was coping reasonably well, not suicidal, not drinking. Most of all, with each passing month, I knew more clearly that I wanted to go back again.
The watch ran erratically, though it didn’t look bad. Too many makeshift parts, the repairman said. I wound it faithfully each day with Andy’s key, resetting it frequently.
It became clear that although Hope and Susy were central to my new life, I was an adjunct to theirs. Stephanie at first refused to budge on the terms of the custody order: one visit per week, during which she seldom strayed farther than the next room. In time she loosened and let me take the girls out.
It was a losing proposition. I got one day a week; Daddy Dave got them all. By the time I saw their day-care papers, he’d already lavished praise. If I bought dolls, he’d buy a whole damn dollhouse. I had the impression he couldn’t
