The End Came With a Kiss (7 page)

"I’m slipping away," she says, distantly, without emotion, only acceptance. Her grief is complete.

"I’m with you," I say, feebly. "I’m not going anywhere."

"It’s- hard to- think." Her words are slow and labored.

"Then don’t think. Just rest."

"I’m afraid- to rest," she says dryly. "Afraid of- what I’m- becoming." I grip her tighter. The pain is so great, I feel I might die with her. Her head slogs toward me. Her beautiful green eyes lock onto mine. "Will you- still love me?"

"Oh, Kate, I will love you forever," I say, tears brimming.

"But I won’t- be able to love you back." The exertion causes her to pant lightly.

"Then I will love you enough for both of us."

Her smile is weak. "You say the nicest things."

I want to lift her closer. I want to kiss her eyes and her cheeks and feel the warmth of her skin on my face, but her tears are poison. All I can do is watch her, hold her, and hope to comfort her with my words.

"We will find a cure for this, and I
will
bring you back. This is only temporary. Remember that. No matter what happens, remember this is only temporary."

Her eyes gloss over.

"I will save you, Kate."

This produces another weak smile.

"No matter how deep, no matter how far, when I call to you, you come back to me. Okay?"

Her lips twitch, but no promise is made. She is too far away now, slipping deeper into the cold dark. There is no last spasm, no grimace of pain. The light simply goes out and she's gone. My wife is dead, but my body does not react to her passing, partly out of shock, partly because I have convinced myself that she is only sleeping—that, like an ironic twist to Sleeping Beauty, I will bring her back by reversing the kiss that has enchanted her. This is only one of the many foolish things I will allow myself to believe to keep my heart from shattering.

I study her. For an eternity. So still. So breathtakingly beautiful. Once again my eyes begin to trace the dark lines where her tears have caused her eyeliner to run.

A chair squelches. I turn and see her sitting at the mirror in our bedroom. Another memory is playing out, even while I am still in this one. I crawl out from under Kate’s head, lay it gently on the wooden floorboards, and stand. The old memory is fading, the new one taking its place. I’m not on the porch anymore, I’m in the doorway of my bedroom.

I hear Lau’s voice. "The more you see it as time travel, the more real it will become."

Okay. It is no longer the day my wife died. This is the next day. I remember now. This was a hard day. I lift my forearm and pull my dress-shirt sleeve back. Where are the scratches she gave me? They’re not there. Of course they’re not. They’ve healed.

I’m here, but I’m not really here. I can sense it now. There is a current. If I let go, it will carry me through this memory, but if I want, I can resist it. I can step outside the current. I choose not to. Not yet. Something has drawn me here.

The current brings me into the room to stand behind Katherine as she brushes her hair in the mirror. She smiles at me. I smile back. I know it’s just an automated response, but on this day I convince myself that it is more. I need it to be more.

The current of time draws me around her like an eddy, causing me to sit down on a chair next to her. She puts the brush down and turns. It feels so real. The way she is staring at me with that half smirk on her face. Then without warning, it melts and is replaced by the haunting stare she is prone to. Her face and eyes are unmoving. Her body rigid. Her chest still. Like a mannequin. Perfectly beautiful, save for the streaks of black left from the tears of her final moments. They are a constant reminder that she is dead. Katherine would not have gone two minutes without fixing herself.

I stay in the current as it guides me to get up and grab a wet cloth from the bathroom. Kate is brushing her hair again. I repeat my actions. I stand behind her and she smiles at me. I smile back and take a seat next to her. She responds again by setting the brush down and turning toward me. There’s the half smirk, then the dead stare, as before.

"I know you can hear me, Kate," my voice says. "I’m going to help you. Everything is okay. Don't be afraid."

Cautiously, I dab the cloth on her left cheek and withdraw my hand. She does not bare her teeth or growl. We’re off to a good start. My invasive behavior doesn’t appear to threaten her. I dab the other cheek and withdraw. Her breath begins a slow rhythmic flutter. I recognize this flutter. It is a good sound. But in this snapshot of time, it puts me on edge, because I haven’t experienced it before. I feel myself draw back further and wait. My ribs ache from the exertion—a gentle reminder of what she did to me earlier.

Slowly, her breathing returns to normal—that is—it stops entirely, and I make another attempt to clean her makeup. There is no reaction.

"Good," I say warmly. "See? This isn’t so bad."

I get a few dabs in before she begins to pant again. But I don’t mind waiting; she’s always been patient with me. That’s how she is. Even when I would come home from work, sometimes after nine, she wouldn’t say a word about her inconvenience or that the dinner she slaved to make sat on the leftover shelf in the fridge. She could see the weariness in my eyes and sense when the pressure was getting to me. When I would retreat to my recliner, still working through the problems of the day, she would stand behind me and rub my forehead, cheeks, and temples with her warm fingers. She wouldn’t ask how my day went but simply remind me that work was over.

If fate had unfolded differently, and she were the one caring for me, she would do it without hesitation. I know she would because she has already sacrificed in so many ways. We both have. That’s what makes our bond strong. We’ve seen enough trials to know that, no matter what, we are in this together. It doesn’t matter what life throws at us, we will stay strong for each other till the end. It is our oath.

My introspection is interrupted by a voice—and a pang of adrenaline stabs my gut. "Come look at the dresses, Daddy! There’s so many dresses!" I am drawn into another memory, another position on my timeline, but I’m not ready for this one. I can’t see her. Not yet. The pain is too great.

I will honey,
I think.
I promise. Just not yet.

It’s hard, but I push the memory away. There’s no time for that now anyway. I need to find the original compound. The clues are somewhere in my timeline. To find them, I need to go back to the beginning, but how do I do that? How does this dream thing work?

I hear Lau’s irritated voice. "It’s not like dreaming. It’s time travel."

All right. This all started before Betty got sick, so I need to go to that point and work my way backwards. I stand and look at my wife. The time stream pulls at me but I resist it. I can’t be here, I have to go back to the office, to where Betty kisses Brent. I walk toward the door to the bedroom and imagine it’s the door to my office at work. As I get closer the hallway of my house grows faint and I see the familiar marble wall behind the desk of my Administrative Assistant. There is a hollow echo of conversation which solidifies as I break the threshold. "Mr. Carter, Mr. Prescott would like to have a word with you in his office when you get a minute."

"Tell him I can be up in ten," I say, feeling myself lock into the stream. "I have to stop by the lab first."

"Yes, sir," is all she says, followed by rapid clicking of a keyboard.

I stride down the corridor and cut through the cubicles to avoid Kevin from accounting. He’s standing at the far corner of the cubicles trolling for conversation on his break—which usually lasts from eight a.m. to four p.m.

The head of product testing pops up from a cubicle to my right. "Mr. Carter. I’m glad I caught you."

I feel myself slow. "Yes, Brent, what can I help you with?"

"I need you to sign off on the next wave of testing."

"Sure. Pass it by Lara." My Administrative Assistant handles most of the lower end decisions. I’d be surprised by Brent bringing this to me, if I hadn’t already experienced this.

"I need to know if my team is going to have lead. We put in late hours on that hair gel campaign."

And there it is. That’s why he can’t go through Lara. "I already told you, Brent. There’s no lead on this thing. We need all of you."

"But you’ll need someone to coordinate the teams. It’s going to get confusing."

"I’m going to have Lau or one of his assistants take lead on this. You’re doing a great job, Brent. This is not a reflection on you. I just need these tests to happen quickly, and the lab knows what they need. Your job is to make sure your team is ready at a moment's notice—like you always do. Can you do that for me?"

He attempts to hide his disappointment. "Yes, sir. Can do."

To the left I see Betty exiting the lab, writing on a clipboard. I feel myself turn to intercept her at the end of the corridor of half-walled cubicles. This is where it happens, the first time I notice anything peculiar. I walk in front of her and she jolts to a stop. "Oh! Mr. Carter. I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there."

"Are those test results?" I ask.

"Yes. For Brent. I mean, Mr. Kale." As she says his name, the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. It feels so real. I’m here again, the moment it all began, fully aware of what is about to happen—and there’s nothing I can do stop it.

"Are those for me," says a voice behind me. I step aside and Brent joins us.

Betty’s eyes light up as she hands the clipboard to him. Suddenly I feel myself slipping out of the time stream. Is it because I didn’t have a look of sheer horror on my face that day? It takes effort, but I attempt to relax and let myself be part of the memory.

"These look good, Betty. Good work," says Brent.

"You’re sweet," she replies, with a twinkle in her eye. And before Brent has a chance to react, she leans in and gives him a peck on the lips.

Brent lets out an awkward laugh. "What was that?"

"What?" asks Betty, confused by his reaction.

He laughs again, not sure exactly what to say. Betty is a ten, by anyone’s standards, a true Asian beauty with jet black hair and a bright white smile. Brent is perhaps a six on his best day. Even if her intentions are merely playful, there’s no way he’s going to rock this boat.

"Well, I’d love to chit chat, but we’re on a tight schedule," she says with smoldering eyes. "See you boys later." With that, she turns and heads back toward the lab.

"What was that?" my voice says, with a playfulness I do not feel.

"You got me," says Brent wiping his lips with his fingertips. "But whatever it was, give me more of that."

I can’t believe my ears. Did he actually say give me more of that? My stomach rolls. This time, there is no staying in the stream. I take a shaky step back and watch the scene go on without me. Brent says a few more things to the empty space where I was standing and heads back to his office.

I can’t believe how blind we were, how easily entrapped by our love of pleasure. Rather than correct Betty for her inappropriate behavior, we shrugged it off as harmless fun. Brent even pursued it. I saw him several times that day strategically placing himself where she would cross his path, each time taking in her kisses with hungry lips. And it wasn’t long before everyone was doing it. You’d think we would have noticed how strange it was, but it was subtle, insidious, engulfing us like a warm blanket on a cold winter day.

I snap from my contemplation and realize I am in a new memory. But which one? I’m on the other side of the room now. As my eyes bring my surroundings into focus, I see one of our mail carriers coming toward me—Clayton Shlemic. Shlemic is a heavy-set young man in his early twenties, but he still has the acne of a teenager. Kevin intercepts him at the corner of the cubicles as I walk past them to the coffee alcove.

"You look happy," says Kevin with a probing tone.

"Dude, I don’t know if it’s this new cologne I’m using or what, but the girls are going crazy for me."

I look over my shoulder just in time to see Kevin lean in for a sniff.

"I don’t want to be a jerk, but it kinda smells like medicine."

"Well if it’s medicine, then
the love doctor is in, baby!
" he sings.

Kevin’s face scrunches.

"You know Wanda on the 23rd?"

"The emo girl with the cat obsession?"

"Yeah," says Clayton as though Kevin has just said something complimentary. "She wouldn’t give me the time of day three weeks ago, but now she’s all over me like a cheap sweater."

"Lucky you," says Kevin with a lift of his brows.

"And Sheila from the cafeteria made a beeline right to me and practically sucked my lower lip off."

"Sucked your lip off?" says Kevin, with a squint.

"Okay. It was just a little one, but I could feel the passion behind it, dude."

"I hate to dash your hope upon the rocks, Clay, but they’re probably just taking part in that new French fad thing. You know, greeting with a kiss."

"Dude, this was real. We had a connection."