The Long Wait for Tomorrow (22 page)

“-you’re nothing but soul, Kelly,”
Kelly finished off in unison with Edmund.

“OK.” Patrick raised his hand, used to this by now. “How do you explain that, Professor?”

Edmund stared blankly at Kelly.

Kelly gave him a guilty look.

Three knocks on the door, followed by the voice of Edmund’s mother.

Kelly, Patrick, and Edmund shot from their positions and snatched up a few brownies.

The door opened and Rachel-Ann stuck her head in, grinning at the sight of her boys.

“Don’t forget the garbage, honey.”

Patrick caught Kelly’s eye, tapped his wrist.

Kelly nodded, and the three of them made their way down the stairs, through the kitchen, and out the back door. Rachel-Ann showered them with goodbyes, enthusiastic offers to bag the leftover brownies. Edmund, once again, was forced to put another door between himself and his mother. He trudged down the crumbling brick steps, came to a stop before the plastic garbage can, and paused.

“You know, it’s got me to thinking …” Edmund grabbed on
to the handle and began to wheel the receptacle out from behind the house. Patrick and Kelly walked alongside, carrying blue recycling bins filled with empty Deer Park bottles and neatly folded Hamburger Helper boxes. The heat wasn’t all that bad in the shade of Unity Park, and the three of them strolled in amiable unison, stretching the moment.

“I met this guy once …” Edmund swatted at a mosquito, kept on rolling. “Over there, in the park. His name was Lucky, and I think he was kind of drunk. But as my mom was so kind to point out, I so rarely have anyone around to talk to—”

“OK there.” Kelly gave Edmund a slight nudge. “Let’s get back to Lucky.”

Edmund nodded. “Well, we were talking about this very subject. Time travel and all that. Destiny versus chance, free will and … Well, he told me about a theory he had called
the common thread
.”

“What’s that?” Kelly asked with a lazy curiosity.

“He thought that amongst all those cross sections and bifurcations, there is a single thread that follows a path forward in time, yet passes through nearly infinite outcomes at one point or another.”

“Huh?”

“Start at the beginning, and then go forward,” Edmund explained. “Picking paths at random, the only rule being that you have to go forward. Imagine it as a very crooked, highlighted path. It was his idea that this one path could never be strayed from. Think of it as passing through that one line where you decide to go for the store. During that time, if you happen
to coincide with the common thread, there would be no decisions. That one portion of time is immutable. All paths that led there get locked in.”

“Is it possible?”

“It’s
philosophy
.” Edmund rolled his eyes a little, as though the very notion was right up there with Bigfoot and flying ponies. He came to a stop at the edge of the driveway and placed his elbow on the garbage can, leaning against it. “Besides, he insisted that with so many different options happening so often, the odds of the common thread affecting you for more than a split second are nearly infinitesimal.”

Kelly wiped his forehead. “But it could happen for a longer period.”

“Conceivably …” Edmund’s face drained of all emotion, as though realizing this time spent with Patrick and Kelly was about to end, despite all that talk of eternity. “It’d be sad to be stuck with that, wouldn’t it? Nothing changes, and you’re finally … all alone, absolutely helpless?”

Kelly shook his head. “I don’t think anybody’s helpless.”

Edmund kicked at a stray acorn. “But we are alone.”

“I’m going to fix this, Edmund.”

Edmund sniffed abruptly, raised his head. There was no trace of what precious humor or life he’d shown during conversation. His eyes weren’t sad, weren’t angry. The only thing that shone through was a crippling acceptance, a defeated urge to save face in the presence of an ultimately impossible promise.

“Do whatever you like, Kelly.” Edmund shrugged. “You can’t change a damn thing.”

Edmund presented them with a dignified nod, turned, and walked away.

Patrick watched him disappear around the back of his house. He turned to Kelly, found him staring in the same direction, absently scratching the back of his head.

“You did your best,” Patrick said, unsure of what that even meant.

“We’re just getting started,” Kelly informed him, nodding with a slow certainty.

“And we had a deal.”

Kelly took a look around, a barely audible sigh bringing him back to the sights and sounds of the everyday. Afternoon sunlight cut through the trees, a brief history of time shared by all. Kelly tilted his head up toward the branches. He nodded once more, as though acting on silent orders from the shallow rustle of leaves, and turned to Patrick.

“We had a deal,” Kelly agreed, pulling out his car keys. “It’s game time.”

enna had been waiting for them, sitting on the curb in her cheerleading outfit.

Kelly parked in the street, pulled the brake.

Patrick leaped out, playbook tucked under his arm. The proud memories of Edmund’s smile began in the presence of Jenna’s wounded scowl. “Jenna … What are, uh … what are you doing here?”

“I want a lollypop!” she cried, voice shrill.

Kelly and Patrick exchanged a look, almost lost in the early evening.

“I got lost,” Jenna continued to whine sarcastically. “I got lost on my way to Candyland, and no one will help me find my
daddy
!”

“Uh …”

“I got a ride from someone!” She jumped to her feet, pigtails bouncing. “After you two left school without me. After an entire hung over day without seeing you!”

“I’m sorry, baby,” Kelly said earnestly. Slipping back into his poorly researched role as the old Kelly McDermott. He popped the trunk, removed a large bag with his football equipment in it. “Pat and I had some things to take care of. You know how it goes.”

“How it
goes?
You disappear this morning, show up again acting like nothing’s wrong. You get into a fight with Cody, then disappear again, and now you’re here talking about how it
goes?
What could
that possibly
mean anymore?”

“Maybe this should wait until after the game,” Patrick intervened begrudgingly. Growing a little tired of being Kelly’s public defender. Certainly losing his touch. “I mean … you know, state championship and all.”

“The game, huh?” Jenna put her hands on her hips, the classic starting position for any cheer. Patrick almost expected more sarcasm, maybe an ironic tirade in the form of a saccharine chant. Instead, she just laid out a hypothetical. “It’s third and eight on the fifty-yard line. Wellspring’s trailing by one with thirty seconds left in the second half. Wilson’s caught on to your running game, and Cody’s asking for a deep fade, left. Do
you
call it,
Kelly
?”

Kelly didn’t answer.

Patrick had to resist the urge to peek into the playbook.

Jenna caught him eyeballing it, and rolled her own. “Yeah, you two are a pair of regular, all-American, USDA-approved football stars. You want to tell me what’s going on, Kelly?”

“I’ve got to get dressed,” Kelly said, heading up the driveway.

Jenna didn’t like that, and the two of them argued their way along the driveway, up the stairs, and across the deck without a second glance at the destructive results of the previous night’s romp.

By the time they entered the house, Patrick found it was becoming nearly unbearable. He hung back in the kitchen.
Watched them head along the downstairs hallway and up the stairs, flared passions sufficiently apparent in each thudding footstep.

Patrick groaned and retreated to the den.

He could still hear the stomping of feet, trace exactly where they were, almost what they were doing. Their voices poured through the air vents, filtered through minuscule cracks in the ceiling and floors. Taking charge of his life via remote control, Patrick turned on the TV, pumped up the volume, and clicked over to BET J.

There wasn’t much time to enjoy it.

“You can’t even get dressed without my help!” Jenna was spewing, hopping down the steps, arms in the air. Kelly followed her down, dressed in full football regalia. “You tried to wrap your shoulder pads around your legs!”

“So I’m a little fuzzy on details!” Kelly took the bag he was carrying, now filled with his street clothes, and tossed it at Patrick. “Has it ever occurred to you that
I
might be hungover?”

“No!”

“There is no such thing, Jenna!” Kelly put up his hand in a dismissive block. “There is no such thing as the
New Kelly McDermott.”

“Well, that’s too bad …,” Jenna said, arms crossed. “Because I’m breaking up with the Old Kelly McDermott. I’m dumping him for the new one, because I like the New Kelly McDermott
better
!”

“There is a scrappy minority that seems to believe the same thing,” Patrick offered, switching sides without even realizing it.

“You want me to win this game or not?” Kelly snapped.

Patrick closed his mouth.

Jenna glanced between the two of them, just another suspicion to add to her list.

And with an impending conflict of interest about to explode in his face, Patrick did what he had always considered to be an airtight retreat in times of distress. Excused himself to the bathroom with no real need to go. Just headed through the kitchen and up the stairs, covering his ears as their voices began to collide once more.

Patrick dropped the toilet cover, sat down with a hefty grunt.

Closed his eyes, hung his head. The flotsam and jetsam of the past day and a half whirled in the darkness. Patrick felt he could fall asleep right there, like a victim in shock. His head began to buzz in rhythmic bursts. On again, off again. He thought about popping an aspirin when the buzzing simply stopped.

Undoubtedly, the most precise headache he’d ever experienced.

The buzzing started up again, and Patrick opened his eyes.

Lifting his head, he realized that this wasn’t simply in his head.

Just pretty damn close.

He reached out, grabbed hold of the white wicker laundry basket, pulled it between his legs. The entire basket was vibrating. Patrick tore off the lid. Peered into the pile of sweat-encrusted
clothes and began to rummage violently like a rogue bear.

When his hand finally wrapped around it, Patrick didn’t make the immediate connection. The buzzing tumor was removed, and all at once, he remembered. That first morning. Kelly taking his fully charged cell phone and dropping it in there without a second thought.

Patrick flipped it open as the buzzing stopped.

15
MISSED CALLS.

Thumbing the arrow pad, he navigated to the call-history menu.

Scanned the list, landing on the last three missed calls.

His heart skipped a beat, and he thumbed his way to voice mail. He skipped every message up to the one that had him praying.

“Kelly, it’s Mom …”

Patrick leaned back against the toilet tank, recognizing the tone. One that might have passed for concern had it been anybody else’s mother. Patrick knew better.

“Your principal called us today. He didn’t realize we were out of town, but I told him we were glad he did. Call us back, we’d like to have a talk with you.”

“Love you, too, Mom,” Patrick muttered on Kelly’s behalf.

The next message was from Kelly’s father. One that might have passed for concern had it been anyone else’s father. Patrick knew better.

“Well, Kelly, we’ve cut our stay short for you. We’ll be arriving
on the 7240 on American. It should land at four p.m. Don’t know if we’ll make it in time to see your game. We still want to talk to you.”

Patrick had an urge to bolt from the ceramic throne. He would, in a moment, but there was the matter of that last message. Never mind that he had a good idea what it would be, what was about to happen. He stayed glued to his seat, phone bolted to his ear.

“Hey, Kelly. We were hoping you’d be there, help us with our luggage. If you feel like calling back one of these days, you can tell us when your game starts. We’re about a block away, guess we’ll see you or we won’t.”