Chapter 57: September 14 1982

Ruby Pegg knows who I am. Not that I’m Michael, she thinks I’m Darren. And obviously she doesn’t know I’m a time-traveller, but she must have seen an article written about her stabbing me. From the articles that stated I was a Massachusetts resident, in town for a Cincinnati Reds game. That was quick thinking on Elliot’s part, but Ruby didn’t buy it.

I don’t know how you know what you know, but if you don’t quit following me, I’ll kill that pretty girlfriend of yours. I know where you live, and I suspect if you knew where I was staying you would have done something about it by now. Stay away.

Below that was a jewel drawn with a red crayon. I received that in my mailbox yesterday after work. There was no postage on it, it was hand delivered.

“Don’t worry, this is all going how it’s supposed to,” Elliot tried to reassure me when Melanie and I drove over this morning to talk to him and Judy about it.

“If you tell me that Melanie doesn’t get hurt, or worse… If you assure me of that, I will do nothing.”

“If I tell you she does—which I’m not saying— you’ll just do something stupid to try to stop it, and make it happen. What’s supposed to happen is happening.” 

He was calmer than me, he was calm in general, and I was not. I said something to him that I probably shouldn’t have.

“That’s easy for you to say. Your plan allows for your mom to be out of jail, but we could have prevented a few of these deaths, and I’m not ok with just letting people die, especially Melanie. My whole point of coming back here was to change the future, not to just play act thirty years of pre-written time.”

Baby Elliot started crying in his room, I had woken him up by yelling too loudly. Judy ran off to get him.

“You’re upsetting me!” Grown-up Elliot said, pointing to the other room.

“I’m not joking around,” I responded.

“Ruby Pegg is not going to kill Melanie. Are you fucking happy now, Dad?”

I sighed and felt relief wash over me, and then looked at him, he was blushing, there was sweat at his hair line. I had learned in the last few months that this was a tell-tale sign that he was lying.

“You’re lying,” I said once Melanie went to join Judy.

He shook his head, “I’m not lying. I’m just not telling you the whole truth. Ruby Pegg doesn’t kill Melanie. That is true. I will not tell you more than that.”

“Fuck Elliot, you can’t lay that on me and not explain things.”

He sighed, “Melanie isn’t alive in my present day. You seeing your grandmother, your parents, knowing that you weren’t able to see them in your present, that is what seeing Melanie is like for me. I know Judy is my mom, but so is Melanie. Ok?”

I hugged him, and we started crying. Judy and Melanie walked in with baby Elliot, and saw us hugging and crying. It devolved into a whole tearfest.

I’ve thought about it a lot in the past few hours, and I’m going to try to not get too upset about what he told me. Melanie is twenty-six years old, and we have twenty eight years until I will come back in time, and Elliot leaves after that. So, I may have twenty eight more years with her. That’s not terrible. That math wouldn’t be bad if I weren’t a time traveller, and didn’t know what the future might hold. So, I have to try to be ok with that.