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The millennium ticks over. Two-thousand, two-thousand-and-one- the way you’d count in a game of hide and seek with Trudy. Two-thousand-and-two- and again and again, she’s nowhere to be found.
You think about the way the house looked when you came home to Beth. Everything plastered over, new wallpaper, new furniture. You tried to find something, anything that remained. You dug through every closet, every nook and cranny.
By the time you found it –a single record lying under enough boxes to build a new room– she was crying at you. You were kneeling on the floor, and when you looked up at her she looked terrified. You wanted to hold her, to apologize, but you just stood back up, sapped and sagging with the weight of the years you missed.
You asked her to fix you a drink, and said that you would clean everything up. It would be like you had never been there. It would be like you had never left. The truth is, you don’t remember what you said to her, you just know you asked her for a drink. The next day you were on a bus, maybe, and you know the rest of that year was the first of many drenched in a haze.
You think about Trudy. You don’t think about Trudy. You can’t remember, but of course that’s not true. You can remember too many things at once and your head begins to ache. You do remember Trudy, because you remember everything, but you think even if you didn't you would still remember Trudy. Swiss-cheesed to the gills and you would remember Trudy.
Swiss-cheesed to the gills and you could remember anything, you think. It would leave you with a splitting headache, but you’ve spent a long time working through those. And that’s the sort of thing you would think, staring into the fabric of a fermi suit, debating.
Because, because, somewhere you are always pulling the record out of its sleeve, and you haven’t turned to see her tear-streaked face yet, and you are filled with hope. You still have her. In that moment before you approach the counter to talk to the receptionist, you still have her. The gift is in your hands, its recipient is alive and well, they haven’t killed her yet. Before you see the horrible blue reflecting on the mountains, before you ring for Gooshie. You still have her.
Your hand was wet. You complained when she reached for it, you didn’t want to get it on her clothes. When she did you told her sorry sweetheart. And she laughed. Her chest shook as she wrapped your bleeding hand in the Starbright breakroom branded napkins. She was giggling, and the little Starbright logo in the corner of the napkin was starting to look like a red version of the pins they had given you, and for the first time in a long time the haze lifted.
Sam Beckett was a quantum physicist. Born in the small town of Elk Ridge, Indiana. She was a genius, a real child prodigy. Six doctorates, seven degrees, playing Carnegie Hall at sixteen. Playing at the Quantum Leap project-warming, deep down under the earth, piano keys plunking in time to the record spinning in the background.
On a rainy day, in some hallway that may no longer exist or be the place where this conversation took place, she asked for your help. She had the plans, she knew she could do it, but Starbright was going under. She needed funding. And you –here she had pushed her hands towards you, palms up, like the way she would look at a particularly prized farm animal, you assume– you were an admiral! An astronaut! You knew people, you knew how to do it! You could help her! Could you help her, please Al, please?
On a warm night you wrapped your arm around Donna’s shoulders and pointed up, now just a little to right– there! Right there. You didn’t ask her why she was doing it. You didn’t know where she got it from. Two-thousand-and-three, Two-thousand-and-four, Two-thousand-and-five-
Just before she moved back to DC, a few minutes before she climbed into the car and sped off into the desert, she told you. She grabbed your arm and told you she had to tell you. She had to tell you because she couldn’t live with it anymore. She needed to let it go. She needed to free herself from the spectre living in the basement.
You blinked, then grabbed onto her hands. You stood there for a few moments, like you were siphoning it from her, the memory of it. Then, someone cleared their throat, and you let each other go. The dust kicked up behind the car, making it invisible even before it got far enough away. The sun beat down onto the ground, and you marched back into it. And still, still you have her.
The last time you stepped out of the imaging chamber, the last time you saw her, you promised her you wouldn’t give up. The blue flooded your vision, and the nausea came rushing to meet it as it always did, when something had changed. It was deep this time, cloying in a way that made you suddenly very very afraid. Something important had shifted.
You pulled the record out of its sleeve. You sat back on your heels for a moment. You stood, and when you turned- But before you could turn, her hand met your shoulder. Her body was draped over her shoulder, her face was tucked against your back. You began to shake. You cried. You had her. There was no need for a moment trapped in perpetuity because you had always had. There was no reason for you to remember her tear-streaked face. It didn’t exist. It never had.
Once in a while you will wake with a start. Your hand will travel down your face as you sigh and groan. You’ll rise from your bed, always aware of the person in it, on some days a horrific irregularity. On all days a blessing. Your feet will lead you up, up, up towards the surface. The stars will glitter and shine above you. You will feel alive in an electric way as your eyes are drawn to one spot against the black and blue. You will know, as you always have.
You knew of her, before this moment. The genius, the prodigy, the wonder boy. You held your hand out over her sink. It was the same as all of the other Starbright housing, but here or there you could spot her own choices floating amongst the beige and white. Wooden accents, pictures and portraits on the walls. Next to the faucet there was a soap dish shaped like a chicken.
She rounded the corner, rousing you out of your contemplation of interior decorating. She smiled, rambling on about something as she took the tweezers out of her first aid kit. You smiled too. It was serene; her old farmhouse decor, the pieces of glass tinking as they fell into the sink basin. The bandage she wrapped around your palm was patterned.
She looked in your eyes and smiled. You wanted to tell her; it’s a lost cause, this has happened before, it will happen again, that you were sorry and you’d be out of her hair soon anyway, they’ve been fixing to fire you for a while now, and, and, and-Two-thousand-and-six-Two-thousand-and-seven-Two-thousand-and-eight-Two-thousand-and-nine-Two-thousand-and-ten-and-and-and-and-
You smiled back. There, in that moment, in that kitchen, in that hallway, in the imaging chamber, building it, taking it apart again. Yes, of course you would help her. Yes, you’d let her take a clump of cells from your finger. Yes, you’d be her observer. Yes, you know her, of course you know her.
You ran through the grass. You thought you’d maybe lost her for real. You were a little afraid, but you pushed through it. You would find her, you were sure of it. And then, there! There she was, hiding behind a tree, you had found her! Of course you had found her! And of course you hadn’t been scared at all, you were brave.
Still, there, behind the barrel, under the clutter, over the blue- you had her. You would always have her, no matter what. There, in the place no one else would think to look, but you knew. You would always remember, even if she couldn’t, even if she wasn’t around anymore to do it, even if she was choosing to forget, you wouldn’t.
The stars glitter above you. The decade turns again and again. The tip of your finger pulses in time with your head. You can hear yourself saying you remember, saying you won’t forget, saying you’ll always be there. And you will. You always will, of course. You go back to bed, you will try again tomorrow. You will remember.