“Oh, there’s my boy. How are you Reno?”
“I’m good, Aunt Myra. How’s your brother?”
“He appreciated you taking the time to answer those questions for him. I bet he read your email a dozen times.”
“I enjoyed the process. It made me think. Sharing my memories of Saul and the children was cathartic for me. Saul didn’t record everything in that journal of his, and now those memories won’t be lost in time.”
“Oh, he put those answers in a safe place – right by the Bixby letter.”
“Hi, Aunt Myra!”
Seeing Journey, she hurried on ahead, leaving Reno to bring up the rear. As he followed the older woman up the stairs, he spotted Lou. He gave her a nod of greeting, then when the opportunity arose, he asked to speak with her.
“Of course.”
Since Myra and her great-niece were visiting, Reno and Lou went for a walk. “Thanks for this. I just wanted a few moments to speak to you in private.”
“Oh? I don’t normally keep secrets from my friend – especially those told to me by her fiancé. She’d kill me.”
Reno laughed at Lou’s candidness. “I can imagine. We don’t want to incur the wrath of Journey, but this is important. And for her own good.”
“You’re still worried about her going through the portal.”
“Of course, I am. I love her. Like you and Kota have both reiterated, we cannot be sure of anything. I may be flung somewhere out in space. Journey was my anchor to this time. Will Cole or Clay be enough of an anchor to pull me back to when I left? I don’t know. What if we get separated? What if something happens to the baby? There’s a chance this pregnancy could be dangerous for her. With medical advancements, she has a good chance here. The past doesn’t offer those types of assurances.”
Lou sighed, folding her arms over her chest as she strode beside him. “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“Too much probably. I keep changing my mind. If only there was a way to know for sure what’s best.”
“Everyone who ever made a hard decision has wished to know for sure. Unless you know a psychic, I can’t help you.”
“A psychic, huh?” He thought a minute. “Journey told me one of the McCoy women or their friends was a pretty famous psychic. Who was that?”
“Oh, I don’t know those people. I was kidding, by the way.”
Reno chuckled. “Yea, I guess I’m grasping at straws.”
They walked up to the paddock fence and looked out at the horses grazing in the field. “Do you have any new insights for me?”
“There are a couple of things.”
“Great. I want to hear anything you’ve got to tell me.”
“I won’t say it’s good news, but I think you have a right to know, or at least consider the point. Now, you know by now that nothing we speak of is anything more than hypothesis. You are the authority on this subject. The rest of us are dreamers – more or less. We might use scientific theories and principles, but in the end, it’s still a guess. The great minds of the early 1900’s vowed airplanes would never fly. Similar great minds insisted we’d never travel in space. So, these naysayers about time travel may well fall into the trap of those who couldn’t fathom the things mankind is capable of.” She waved her hands as if discounting everything she’d just said and almost fell off the fence. If Reno hadn’t put out a hand to catch her, she would’ve landed on her rear. “Thanks. Regardless, I must tell you that it’s the consensus of the scientific community that time travel to the future is a possibility, but time travel to the past is not.”
“What? I don’t buy that.”
“They also say that if one were able to travel to the past that events cannot be changed.”
“How do they know?” He paused for an answer, when he didn’t get one – he answered his own question. “They don’t know, do they?”
“No. Or course not. I’ve been told recently by my esteemed colleagues that my opinion in the matter is an uneducated one, but I tend to agree with you. I feel that if you change the past, it will be like a series of dominoes falling. So, the future would just fall into place. For example, if you go back in time and kill Hitler, then return to this age, World War II and the Holocaust will have never happened, and no one would know the difference. Millions of lives would’ve been saved, and their descendants would’ve lived full and happy lives – or not as the case may be.”
“Journey took me to the Nimitz Museum, but my knowledge of that war is sparse.”
“It’s mind-boggling when you think about it,” Lou continued on with her thought process. “We don’t really know how many times that’s happened, do we? The past might’ve been changed a thousand times. We might all wake up in a new world regularly. Maybe that’s what dreams are all about.”
“No offense, but I think I can rely on Ela’s sight more than I can modern science.”
“You’re probably correct in doing so.” She laughed as she stepped off the fence. “Either way, I’m ready for anything and everything. We’ve got a lot to look forward to. A wedding. A handsome man beauty contest. And a bon voyage party like no other.”
* * *
“Thanks for bringing this, Aunt Myra. Reno is going to love it.” She stared at the beautiful gold pocket watch. “I had no idea this even existed.”
“Neither did I. Myles had it put back for safe keeping. Our father gave it to him. Isn’t it amazing?”
“It is.” She read the inscription with tears in her eyes. For Saul. Reno would be proud of you. Love, Tess.
