“Yes,” said Austin, and he was rattled that Dad was going to come to Connecticut instead of having Austin go to Chicago. It sounded bad, very bad, and yet he wanted his father here. He said, “Dad, I talked to Mom yesterday, and she’s so angry with me. I didn’t do anything.”
“You forgot her birthday and Mother’s Day.”
“Oh, no! When were they?”
“May sixth and May eleventh. I should have called to remind you.” His father sighed. “There are about a million things I should have done.”
Austin was strangely cheered. Mom hadn’t forgotten him; she was hurt. This sounded like something he could solve, or at least wire flowers.
He could hardly bear to say good-bye to his father. The stretch to Friday seemed like years.
Well, he would make use of the rest of the week.
He and his father had left the 1959 story and entered their own. But the truth of 1959 was out there, and now Austin needed it, too, as much as Macey did.
He reached for a photocopy he’d made of one of Macey’s pages.
Then he picked up the phone.
Austin is leaving.
Macey took the late bus home, listening to the babble around her. Normally she loved other people’s conversations. Today they sounded like ducks quacking.
Austin is leaving.
She made it to the house without breaking down.
She got stranded in the front hall. There seemed no point in going farther.
Macey stared at the wallpaper pattern. It was pale lemon yellow, sparkling with dark gold antique suns and silver rays from shooting stars. It repeated every few feet, so you could follow the stars around the room, like a galaxy.
She could not bear to turn on the television in order to warm herself in front of a fake family.
Austin is leaving.
It was six-fifteen. Still one more hour before her parents got home.
You got kids their moms never home and they burn theirselves in spaghetti water.
Oh, Venita! she thought, feeling physical pain. I didn’t want to have that in common with you.
She got on her bike and rode to Nana and Papa’s. Nana was making dessert, of course, layers of raspberries and white cake and chocolate drizzle and dollops of sweet whipped cream. All the lovely waiting was what Nana loved about cooking. And what had Nana waited for in the middle of the night on December 4, 1959?
“Whip the cream for me, darling,” said Nana.
Macey obeyed. The big countertop mixer whipped by itself while Macey watched the bowl turn. Even though I told Aus that I don’t believe things are meant, I did believe he was meant. Meant for me. Grace and I agreed on that. I believed I had all kinds of time, because it was meant, because Texas was proud of saving me, and we would be together for always.