Vincente

Earth was more home than anywhere. After nearly a lifetime so abruptly interrupted, I was eager to return. I missed my husband, brushing arms and shoulders on the couch while reading books, breakfasts of eggs over easy with Hatch green chiles, tortillas, and stout coffee flavored with cardamom. He delighted to compare current events with past history, poking points in the air with the poised laser of his egg-yolk spattered fork. I missed hiking up into the forest with its lichen-laced sparkling rosy rocks, and the way his face lit-up and eyes got big with a new idea, and the warm smell of his back when curling behind him at night. I missed my children, energetic young adults pursuing their own interests and visiting or calling to bring us up to speed about the things they were discovering and deciding. 

Everything in me wanted to pick up that interrupted lifetime right where I left it. How did that work? What age would I appear to be? Would I return the way I felt, as a woman of late middle age? Or would I be in this body of girl no one would recognize? 

I would have to step back a bit from my emotions, which was not an easy thing to do. There was a purpose to returning that was bigger than me. At least for now. Perhaps there would be a way to go back and complete that unfinished life, but only once certain questions were answered.

I thought about Carmen, my confidant and guide. She was so wise and able to see what was really going on in a situation. She would recognize me as a girl. And she would be able to help come up with a plan. 

I had no idea how time operated with the entry and exit from these worlds. Was it impossible for two of me to exist at the same time in the same world? It was a mere intuitive guess that details in the colored glass could set the date of entry, but I didn’t know if that would really work. 

And, if I arrived at a much younger physical age, was there an advantage to advancing decades further into the future in order to discover the planet of my birth?

Trial and error. Wasn’t that part of the scientific method my children applied so diligently? 

So, when did I want to return? The same year that I left? I didn’t have any details about the future to help me get any further forward in time. It was either 2012 or sooner. 

Although intriguing, something about the idea of crossing paths with myself felt a little too dangerous to be worth testing. What about arriving at a point I knew in 2012 or 2011 with the aim to stay with Carmen in Evanston until I passed my exit date. I’d use that time to come up with a plan with Carmen and then reunite with my family, either as a girl or a woman.  

So, what point?

Carmen sent me an invitation to a reading at her library. Busy in our separate lives, we hadn’t seen each other for a couple of years, so I really wanted to go, but it was the same day my husband was giving a botany talk at the university. I imagined holding the invitation in my hand and could see it clearly. The author’s name was Susan Orleans. I could build a colored glass of the room at the library for readings and put that invitation on the table to set the date. 

It was a relief to decide what to do and I enjoyed the feeling of the tools between my fingers. It was good to score the glass again, to bend the malleable black lines, to immerse myself in the creation of a world I loved. A joy welled up inside me. I was going home.

Although we worked on our colored glass in our separate rooms, we were permitted to eat together at the end of the day in a beautiful dining room down the hall. There were colored glass histories all around us and candles everywhere to flicker light. We sat in chairs that were much larger than they needed to be, but felt comforting and secure. The foods were served in courses and made with care, like the French do, so that you couldn’t really figure out what was in them or how they were made, but the combination of flavors was marvelous. 

“I’m nearly done,” I announced the third night while we were sipping a thick orange puree of soup with a taste that reminded me of the smell of dandelions.

“How in the world do you finish so quickly? This is my twentieth and I’m not even close!” exclaimed my brother.

“And I’ve got a few days yet,” added Anches quietly.

“It’s no matter how quickly we finish. Time is irrelevant. I just wanted to prepare you ahead for my absence tomorrow.”

“Are you still planning to look for us?”

My eyes shot up at Pintor. The way he’d said the words gave them another meaning and I realized that both meanings were true. “Yes.”

Should I tell them what I was thinking? I had so many ideas and I was eager to share them with Carmen and get her thoughts. It was exciting to think about working together on such an intriguing project. I wondered if I would want to come back or live the rest of my life on Earth and die there. How did death factor in with the rules of the Library? How were Holiday visits with Mother and Father accommodated? 

As if in answer to my thoughts, Pintor said, “I’ve decided to enter the glass and return to my world.”

“Do you know what year it is when you’re there?”

“2056.”

Forty-four years later.

“And what about you Anches? What scene are you creating this time?”

“Not the water again. That was not an easy way to enter a world! There’s something else I’ve always imagined that’s completely different. I’m hoping it will reveal something else about the place. And maybe I’ll find some humans like me. It’s worth trying. And I can always come back.”

“See if you can find out the name of the place. Note how many suns and moons it has and the colors of the sky. I’m going to get a PhD in Astrophysics and learn everything I possibly can about the universe. Then I’m going to find you.”

There was an unsettling quiet. The soup bowls were whisked away and plates with colorful creamy delicacies kept them quiet a little longer. 

“I think what happens on Earth is sudden, so you might end up getting caught in it if you stay too long,” my brother said protectively.

“Well, then, I guess your task is to report back exactly what happened and when. Oh, and give me a place with an event, something with a visual detail.”

“That might be difficult,” he said and quickly responded to my scowl, “but I’ll try.”

We finished our meals and said good night to one another as if for the last time.

Lying in bed, trying to sleep, I thought about meeting my husband and children again as a young teenager rather than the woman in her forties that they knew. They were capable of imagining strange things, but it was going to be a bit unsettling for them. They knew my past. They knew I’d arrived from another world and Carmen taught me to speak and read. They would be able to grasp what was happening. It would be necessary for them to understand in order to devote themselves to the cause of finding my home world.

The next day, I finished the colored glass. It was beautiful, better than my first one. Without hesitation, I held it up to the wall and let go. Crash. It was such a shock. I hadn’t doubted for a minute that the colored glass would affix itself the same way it did so readily last time. What was wrong?

I down looked at it. Much of it was broken and I’d have to do most of it all over again. Had I made an error somewhere? Something that was not true to the scene? Did I remember the reading room correctly? 

I spent the rest of the day rebuilding the glass. It was almost time for dinner when I lifted it up to the wall again. This time I didn’t let go so quickly. No change. It wouldn’t hold to the wall.

I decided to set it down a few minutes and try again. No change. 

I laid down on the bed to think. There must be something wrong with the invitation. Maybe it never was on the table of the reading room. If I remove it, though, I run the risk of arriving at any time and that was not ideal. Was there some other way I could designate the date?

The obvious choice was a newspaper. So many people had stopped reading newspapers. Would Carmen’s library still subscribe to one? And if so, did I even remember the name of a newspaper? 

“I’m back!” I said as I entered the dining room.

“So, how was it? Did you get your PhD in Astrophysics?” asked Anches.

“Yes, I did. You’re speaking with Dr. Althea Vincente!” I proclaimed triumphantly, but I couldn’t hold the ruse. “No, no, the colored glass isn’t ready yet. I didn’t go.”

“What name did you say?” Pintor seemed startled.

“Althea Vincente. That’s my full name on Earth. I married Oscar Vincente.”

Pintor, whose skin was a bit lighter than mine anyway, went ashen and reached out for the table with his hand. 

“What’s wrong?”

“I – I – I don’t know how to say this.”

“Do you know that name?”

“Yes. I know a Vincente. Theo Vincente.”

“That’s my son’s name.”

“Oh.”

Pintor pulled out his usual chair, sat down, and took a quick drink from his goblet.

“Well, I guess, that explains it,” he said while we took our seats.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, he knew things. Knew things he shouldn’t know. Wow. My mind is blown. He was my nephew!”

“We don’t know that for sure. Describe him to me.”

“My height. Olive complected with glowing green eyes. Broad shouldered. Oh, and he has a scar on the palm of his right hand.”

“Accident with a saw. Yep. Tell me more.”

“Reads all the time. Smiles a lot. Thick lips. And he likes to carve anything he can find that’s carvable.”

My eyes filled with tears remembering my son and all of the beautiful things he made and the fear that I might not see him again and the fear that things would be different when I did.

“Yes, that’s my son. Do you know him well?”

“He’s my best friend, Althea. Co-pilot of my ship before we lost her. Best man at my wedding.”

There was more to the story that Pintor didn’t want to tell me and I didn’t want to know. Not yet.

“Well, let’s eat,” I said and we began to dip our spoons into the evening’s hot puree, mulling over the mysteries of time and place. We ate most of the meal in silence.

After the meal, about to repeat our goodbyes once again, Anches said, “There’s something I need to show you. Follow me.”

He led us out into the hallway and as we followed him down the twisting paths, I became concerned that we might get tangled into the library and not find our way back to our rooms.

“Where are you taking us?” I asked.

“It’s just a little further,” Anches said. “I would describe it, but it’s much better if you see it yourselves.”

And then, we were in an open space, like a plaza in the middle of the Library, complete with gazebo. The space was round and the walls filled with colored glass. There were benches that seemed strategically located so that you could sit and view the glass like benches in an art museum. It was strange to imagine people paying admission to visit the Library like they would on Earth. 

Anches didn’t pause but moved right up to one of the sections of glass and said, “Look!”

And there we were. Our story. Me, my brother, Anches sitting at the dinner table sipping thick purreed soup in our oversized chairs. I felt nauseous with a strange panic that we were being watched or, worse, controlled, or that I was looking outside of my own existence, watching what happened as it was happening, somehow alive in the glass. 

“Can we see what happens next?” I asked.

Next: What I Didn’t See Coming

This is the eleventh part in a series of stories. Following are the previous installments starting with the first:
1.   The Library
2.   Listen, Move, Hide, Repeat
3.   A Necessary State of Alarm
4.   Anches
5.   A Question in Colored Glass
6.   How a Lifetime Friendship Began
7.   In the World I Created
8.   To Make Things Right Again
9.   Escape from the Library
10. Pintor’s World