Mirror, The (32 page)

Ginny sighed.

"I'm not sure how it all works, but I understand the basics. My dad went over them several times when he told us about his trip to 1941. He believes that when a time traveler goes back to the past, he or she creates a new time stream," Ginny said. "What happened before in 1964 has already happened. This is a new 1964."

"Do you mean to say that events are not set in stone?"

"That's exactly what I mean, Nana. That's why Katie and I are trying to be careful. We could do more than influence a few lives in Seattle – much more," Ginny said. She took a breath and stared at Virginia. "In theory, we could rewrite history."

CHAPTER 54: KATIE

Friday, July 17, 1964

"How are you feeling?"

"I've had a rough week, but I'm feeling better today," Mary Hayes said. "There's nothing like good coffee and good company to raise my spirits."

Katie couldn't disagree. Good coffee and company had always worked for her. She couldn't think of a better way to spend a Friday morning – at least this Friday morning – than drinking freshly ground coffee with the mother of the boy she loved.

"Have you heard more from your doctors?"

"No. I probably won't for a couple more weeks, when they get my lab results," Mary said. "That's how cancer works, Katie. It's all about watching and waiting."

Katie sipped her coffee and thought briefly about the person who wasn't there. Mike Hayes had been asked that morning to work a shift for a courtesy clerk who had called in sick.

"How's Mike holding up?"

"He's doing all right. He doesn't say much, of course. He's like a lot of people with stressful lives. He puts his problems in separate boxes and doesn't open any of them until he has to."

Mary took a ginger snap cookie from a large plate and then gazed at Katie with sweet, tired eyes that had seen far too much sadness in forty-plus years.

"How are
you
holding up?" Mary asked.

"I'm doing OK. Why do you ask?"

"I ask because I suspect that you've made Mike's problems your problems."

Katie smiled.

"Is it that obvious?"

"I may be sick, Katie, but I'm not blind. I know you love my boy. I see how you light up when he's happy and how you get sad when he's sad. You wouldn't be human if you didn't feel the same things he's feeling."

Katie nodded.

"I guess I wouldn't. I do love Mike, Mrs. Hayes," Katie said. "I'm having a hard time imagining my life without him – and that's a problem."

"How so?"

"It's a problem because I think Ginny and I are going to return to California in September. It's a problem because we have a family there and Mike has a family here," Katie said. "I just don't see how we can make this work."

Mary sighed.

"Michael has told me as much," she said. "I don't know that there's much I can say about it. Young people have to do what they have to do. I just hope if there's a way you can make it work that you will find it. It would be a shame to see all that love go to waste."

Katie smiled and put her hand on Mary's.

"Michael also told me that you've developed quite an interest in his grandfather," Mary said. "Is there any particular reason why?"

Katie took a moment before responding. She knew it was unusual to express interest in a man she had never met – a man who had been dead for four years – and felt compelled to offer a reason that went beyond simple curiosity.

"I just wanted to know more about him. Patsy told me about his talent as a woodworker and a businessman. Then Mike told me how he became a mentor and a surrogate father. That made him both interesting and relevant."

Mary smiled and nodded.

"Looks like they got it right," Mary said. "My father-in-law was all of those things and more. He was a surrogate father to both of the kids. Patsy doesn't talk about that as much, but she looked up to him too. He was there when
she
needed him."

"He sounds wonderful."

"He was," Mary said. She sipped her coffee. "Would you like to see pictures of him?"

"I'd love to."

"Then sit tight. I'll be back in a jiffy."

Mary got up from the table and walked out of the dining room to a hallway that led to two bedrooms. When she returned a moment later, she carried a large padded album and what looked like an eight-by-ten photograph in a cardboard frame.

Mary pulled her chair next to Katie's, sat down, and placed the album and the framed photo on the table. She turned the photo face down.

"I won't show you everything unless you want me to. I'm sure you have better things to do this morning than go through two hundred pictures."

Katie laughed.

"Actually, I don't. There's nothing I'd rather do right now than go through each one."

Mary smiled.

"I just had to say that for the record, dear. I know you want to see them."

Over the next hour Katie saw photos not only of Grandpa Hayes but also of Mitch, Mike, and Patsy. She saw a man behind a lathe and a jigsaw and kids on tricycles, bicycles, and even horses. She saw Patsy in a prom dress and Mike in a baseball uniform. She saw a family that had enjoyed at least a few moments of happiness over the past twenty-some years.

Katie also saw several pictures of the man Mary Duncan had married in 1940. Tall, dark, and unusually handsome, Jack Hayes looked like a man who belonged on top of a wedding cake. He did not, however, look like a happy man. Even in photos taken before Mitch got sick, Jack did not smile. He wore the face of someone who was lost, preoccupied, even tormented.

Katie found the Christmas pictures even more difficult to look at. Between 1955 and 1958, the number of smiles fell more rapidly than the number of people gathered around the tree. No one smiled in a family photo taken in December 1957.

When Katie turned the last page in the album and closed the cover, she felt she had a better understanding of a family that had endured so much. She had a greater appreciation of the Hayes women and the young man who still haunted her dreams. She did not, however, have an answer to a question that had nagged at her for days.

"These are beautiful photos, Mrs. Hayes. Thank you for sharing them."

"You're welcome, dear," Mary said.

Mary cocked her head and looked at Katie closely.

"Is something wrong? You look puzzled."

"I was just thinking about something I didn't see in the album," Katie said. "Except for Grandpa Mike, I didn't see any grandparents. How come none of the others are pictured?"

Mary sighed.

"It's simple, really. They all died before I was married," Mary said. "My parents died in a train accident when I was seventeen. Jack's mother, as you know, died giving birth to him."

"Do you have photos of them?"

"I have several of my parents. They're in a box in my closet if you'd like to see them."

"Maybe later," Katie said. "Do you have any pictures of your husband's mother?"

"I do. I have one. It was taken on her wedding day," Mary said. "It's the picture on this table, the one I've saved for last."

"May I see it?"

Mary nodded.

"You may," Mary said. "But when you look at it, I want you to remember one thing."

"What's that?"

"It's just a picture, dear. It's just a picture."

Suddenly filled with apprehension, Katie put a hand on the photo and pulled it closer. She cleared her mind, sighed, and flipped the picture over. What she saw took her breath away.

She looked first at the groom. Grandpa Hayes was as dashing on his wedding day in 1917 as he had been later in life. At age nineteen, he was the spitting image of a courtesy clerk currently working the morning shift at Greer's Grocery.

Then Katie turned to the bride. For a few seconds, she could do nothing but stare dreamily at the long, lacy, pearly wedding dress that seemed to flow off the photo. She could only imagine what it was like to wear such a gown on such an important day.

Even the dress, however, could not compete with the woman who wore it. When Katherine Smith gazed upon Katherine Hayes, she saw more than a woman with platinum hair, gentle eyes, and a button nose. She saw the face of the girl she had seen in the mirror for nineteen years.

She saw herself.

CHAPTER 55: GINNY

Bainbridge Island, Washington
–
Sunday, July 19, 1964

Ginny wrapped the bed sheet around her bare shoulders and stared out a window at a scene fit for the cover of
Sunset
magazine. To her left, birds flew between a weathered gray fence and blackberry bushes. To her right, Douglas firs soared above ferns and wildflowers. Straight ahead lay a rocky beach and an unobstructed view of Puget Sound.

No matter where she looked, she found beauty, inspiration, and even a measure of comfort. She did not, however, find the one thing she had hoped to find in this secluded corner of Bainbridge Island. She did not find peace.

Ginny looked over her shoulder at a rumpled bed and saw that Steve Carrington was as locked in slumber as a bear in January. That, she decided, was a good thing. She didn't feel much like talking and definitely didn't want to discuss the particulars and parameters of a relationship that she knew would have to end.

Steve had taken her to the rustic cabin on Saturday morning after picking her up in his Stingray and driving her to the Salmon Bay marina. He had said he had wanted a weekend alone to "rejuvenate" their friendship and move past the ugliness of the lunch on the lake.

Ginny conceded that he had made progress on that front. She had found it difficult to think about Richard, Joyce, and Connie when Steve took her boating, fishing, and hiking. She had found it impossible when he insisted on making her dinner. Even so, she knew that even the most romantic of weekends could not alter a simple fact: the relationship had changed.

She turned away from the window and walked through the single-room cabin to a gas range, where a teapot began to announce its presence to the world. She turned off the burner, dropped a bag of orange pekoe in a mug, and then filled the mug with steaming water. When the liquid cooled to a temperature that didn't burn lips on contact, she returned to the window.

Ginny stared again at the water and the city across the sound. The morning fog had lifted, revealing a metropolis both familiar and foreign. She saw the two-year-old Space Needle and the waterfront, of course. She even spotted the Smith Tower, a building she had adopted as her own on a field trip in the first grade. Little else, however, stood out. The gleaming skyscrapers and sports palaces she had known as a youth were still decades away.

She didn't bother looking for a large gray house in Madison Park. Even if she had the ability to look over hills and buildings and spot split-level homes ten miles away, she knew she wouldn't find it. The House of Joel and Grace had yet to be built.

That didn't mean she didn't
want
to find it. She wanted to reclaim nearly everything about her former life, from her family and friends to her car and dog. Though she had been able to put on a brave face for several weeks, she could not deny the obvious. The separation was starting to take a toll. Like Katie had been from the start, she was homesick.

Ginny still believed she would find her way back. She had twice written to Cedar River Country Fair officials to confirm both the dates of the fair and their plans to feature an exhibit with a roomful of reflective glass. She had even inquired about a large, oval mirror that hung on a wall and was assured that it, too, would be part of the mix.

Her most immediate challenge was figuring out how to get through the next several weeks without leaving a trail of wreckage behind. Though Ginny was sure she could make it to September without triggering a war or a financial crisis, she was not as sure she could make it without breaking hearts, disappointing friends, or pushing lives in different directions.

Part of her, of course, didn't want to play it safe. She wanted to do more with James before she left and definitely wanted to spend more time with Nana and the grandmother she planned to see again. She wanted to treat the summer like a Europhile might treat a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe. She wanted to make the most of every minute, even if doing so deepened the pain of parting and brought about new risk. The ability to travel through time and experience people from the past continued to have great appeal.

Ginny sipped the last of her tea and started toward the stove for more when she felt a pair of eyes track her movements. The hibernating bear had awoken.

"The toga party was in May, Ginny."

She turned her head and smiled.

"Watch your mouth, mister, or I'll drop this sheet and change into my birthday suit."

Steve grinned.

"I can think of worse things."

Steve sat up in the bed.

"Why are you up so early?" he asked.

Ginny returned to the window and sat on the sill.

"I couldn't sleep. I've been thinking a lot."

"Thinking about what?"

Ginny spread her hands across the windowsill.

"About us."

"That doesn't sound good."

"It's neither good nor bad. It's just thinking."

"That's not very clear, Ginny."

Steve patted the mattress and smiled.

"Why don't you come back to bed? You don't want me to be lonely."

Ginny laughed.

"You, Mr. Carrington, will never be lonely."

"What do you mean?"

Ginny put her mug on the sill and returned to the bed. When she got under the covers, she wrapped herself in one of his arms, burrowed into Steve's side, and offered a sad smile.

"What I mean is that no matter what you do or where you go, you will always have someone at your table or in your car or in your bed."

Steve pulled her closer.

"I don't want just someone. I want you."

"You have me – today anyway."

"I don't just want you today, Ginny. I thought I made that clear," Steve said. He kissed her on top of her head. "This doesn't have to end."