Аннали Ньюиц - The Future of Another Timeline

As quietly as possible, I unlocked the door, took off my sandals, and crept upstairs in the dark. My parents’ bedroom door was closed, and I made it to my room without any confrontations. I was suddenly so tired that I couldn’t do anything other than climb under the covers in my clothes and fall asleep.

The next morning, there was the same eerie silence as the night before. I pulled on jeans and sneakers before going downstairs, my muscles tensed for a fight. But my father had gone to the shop and my mother was on the phone, talking about the Orange Unified School District’s leadership training. She glanced up once from a notepad full of her tidy handwriting, its extreme legibility optimized for filling chalkboards with instructions. I stood in her gaze, waiting for a reaction. But almost immediately, her eyes abandoned me for the notepad.

I poured a cup of coffee and made toast for breakfast, stepping into the familiar role of pretending everything was normal. The L.A. Times was tossed on the table, and I forced myself to read the comics before flipping anxiously to news. There was a slightly more in-depth story than the one in the Weekly about how the Machines were exhibiting new behavior, but it mostly dealt with how India might leave the Chronology Academy and form its own regulatory agency. Nobody in the story talked about actual science, and I had nothing left to distract me from worrying about last night. Had Lizzy followed that guy Elliot and murdered him after I left? What did it mean that Tess remembered a timeline where I’d killed myself?

“You’re on restriction until you leave for UCLA,” my mother said. She’d hung up the phone and was using the impersonal voice she favored when meting out punishments. “Your father and I will talk to you about your behavior tonight.”

That was what I had expected, especially the part where my parents prearranged a yelling session for after work. I knew rationally that the whole situation was absurd because I was moving into the dorms next week. But I felt my eyes throbbing with tears anyway. This always happened when I was in trouble with my dad. It was a physical reaction I couldn’t control, like throwing up. At least this time I was able to blink my eyes clear, dislodge the lump in my throat with a cough, and nod at my mom.

“Do you understand what that means? You do not leave this house until we get home. No talking on the phone, and no inviting friends over.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

As my mom backed her car out of the garage, I thought about Tess. At least there was someone out there, somewhere in time, who knew how fucking shitty this was. Even if it was actually Lizzy, or some version of her. I still didn’t quite understand how that worked. It was scary to think about that other timeline of my life. Based on what Tess said, I must have stayed friends with Lizzy, and killed more men. That might have been enough to make me want to die. Still, I wondered if something else had been different for the other Beth too—something Tess didn’t know. Like maybe there was another horrendous shitshow along the way, some epiphenomenon that spun out of our friendship. Maybe jumping off the bridge was an emotional reflex like my tears, an uncontrollable reaction that took possession of my body. Maybe it was something I’d planned for weeks.

Probably I would never know. Whatever had changed, this version of me did not want to die. All I wanted was to get the hell out of my father’s house and never come back. Monday was move-in day at Dykstra Hall. That meant five days of restriction, then I was gone.

Those thoughts sustained me several hours later, when the plates were cleared from dinner and it was time for our “talk.” My father always started by telling me that he and my mother saw a pattern in my behavior that revealed my basic terribleness as a person. My disobedience was a symptom of how flawed I was. I was a sneak, a lazy cheat, and I was already on my way downhill despite my young age.

During these lectures, I coped by staring at one specific corner of the dining room. It was behind my father’s head, so it looked like I was paying attention, but I was really thinking about the calcium in the white paint, the chalky drywall below it, and then the cellulose and minerals that made up the bones of the house. When that got old, I recalled the first time I saw Grape Ape at a backyard show and how Glorious Garcia sang, “RISE UP RISE UP.” I thought about that painting from their EP Our Time Was Stolen, where the curved rock of the Machine sat undisturbed millions of years ago, long before humans learned to wreck each other’s histories. If I focused hard enough, my father’s face disappeared and so did his voice. It was me and the molecular structure of our house and songs about smashing the chrono-patriarchy.

“We are serious about this, Beth. If you can’t get your act together, that’s it. Say goodbye to the dorms. We won’t pay for them. You’ll live here and commute to L.A. with your dad. And if you can’t handle that, we’ll stop paying for your college, too.” My mother folded her arms.

I thought about my puny bank account, fed by a weekly allowance and summer jobs. If my parents cut me off, I wouldn’t have enough money to pay for a quarter in the dorms. I looked wordlessly at my mother, terrified. The prospect of going to college and getting away from them was the only thing keeping me sane. What if I had to stay here, with no escape hatch?

“You have to earn your right to go to college, Beth.” My father spoke with slow intensity. “You need to show us that you are committed to it. If you disregard rules, it’s clear you’re not ready for this level of responsibility.”

I couldn’t zone out on this conversation anymore. If I didn’t do what they said, my whole life would end. I was so panicked that I couldn’t figure out what exactly they were threatening. Had they already decided to cut me off? Were they saying I couldn’t go to college at all, or that I couldn’t live in the dorms? Everything I’d depended on was being yanked away.

Putting on my good daughter face, I nodded vigorously. “I understand.”

“I want to believe you, but you’ve let us down so many times.” My father sounded sorrowful. “How are we supposed to trust you after the way you’ve acted?”

This was the problem with tuning in to what my parents said during one of these sessions. At a certain point, it was impossible to know what they were upset about. Obviously they wouldn’t nuke my college education for not wearing shoes in the house. But I hadn’t left the house without permission before, so I didn’t understand the “so many times” part. Tess said my father was mentally ill, but that was hard to believe when he sat right in front of me with my mother agreeing with him. They both sounded so rational. I searched my mind for other crimes I might have committed, infractions so huge they added up to the punishment of taking college away. Was it possible they secretly knew about all the shows I went to with Lizzy over the past year? The abortion? Had I done something I didn’t remember?

Tears burned down my cheeks before I could help myself. If I tried to speak my voice would tremble so much it would be an additional humiliation. So I sat silently as my father painstakingly explained how I was a nothing who deserved nothing. If I didn’t pay attention, if I disappeared into the opening of the ancient Machine, I might incur further penalties. I had no choice but to take it all in. Every single word.

In the movies, going off to college is this tearful farewell with the parents forcing their kids to take bags of cookies and saying things like, “Don’t forget to write!” My parents said nothing on the drive from Irvine to Los Angeles. My mother had prepared a list in her tidy handwriting, reiterating our new rules and agreements. I would call them every night from the dorm phone to prove that I wasn’t going out; I would send them Xeroxed copies of all my syllabi so they could track my assignments; I had to earn straight As. Before I got out of the car, I had to sign the checklist. My mom had gotten this idea from one of her books about dealing with “problem students.”