11 comments/ 13281 views/ 6 favorites A Journey to Reality By: nyte_byrd This story does NOT contain any sexual acts or indications, which is why it is appropriately placed in the "Non-Erotic" section. Please do not read it if you are expecting any. This is an emotional tale of a young woman who takes a journey back in time to learn the truth about her own beginnings, and gets a new outlook on things as a result. ----------------------------- "Just let me use it once, Graham." "No, I need to do some more testing. I'm not even sure the device is really safe." "But it does work, and you've used it with no problems." "Only twice," he flashed a wry grin, "and besides, it's ok for a scientist to be his own guinea pig." Crystal contemplated him for a few moments. She didn't believe in being pushy with friends, but this was important. Through most of her life, she and her mother had not gotten along together, and Crystal had believed for a long time that she was adopted. This was her one chance to find out the truth. "Look, I've stood by you through this whole project. I've located components for you, and covered your backside when everyone wanted to know what you were up to in this little basement lab of yours. The very least you can do is let me try it once." Graham hung his head, and Crystal knew that she had won. "Ok, just ONCE. But you have to do exactly as I say." She smothered a smile as he began to explain the usage of the device that she already knew as well as he did. It was a hand-held apparatus, no bigger than a garage door opener, and it held the power of time travel. "I haven't had any time to do anything new with it." Graham explained. "All we can do is set the year; no date, no time, no location. It will take you to this exact spot however far back in the past you want to go." He grimaced a bit and adjusted his glasses. "Well, within the past 50 years, anyway." "It's fine, I just want to see what things looked like around here the year I was born." That was a lie. With three weeks left until her birthday, what Crystal really wanted to do was find her mother and see if she looked pregnant. Since the woman would have only been 15 years old at the time, Crystal sincerely doubted it. "What exactly was in this spot in 1968 anyway?" "A corn field. Your neighborhood was built in 1966, but mine and everything else this side of Palmer's gas station was still just farm fields back then." "Palmer's has been around that long? Amazing." She shook her head as she thought about the run-down little station at the end of the street. "Ok, so I come out in the middle of some corn. At least nobody will notice me at first." "You need to make sure nobody notices you much at all. When you get there, go straight to the edge of the field, right alongside the gas station. You'll see a small bench next to a phone booth. Just sit there and take in the sights." Crystal gave him a questioning look, followed by a frown. "That's all?" "That's all, and I mean it Crystal. I have no idea how bad we could screw things up if we changed something back in time, and I don't want to find out. I'm not even sure we should be trodding through the corn stalks." "Yeah," she giggled "like that freaky time travel story about the guy who killed the butterfly and screwed up the beauty in his time, or something like that." "Don't laugh, that author may have had a more realistic view than we think." He ran his hand through his hair and continued. "The device will self-activate after exactly 30 minutes to bring you back here, so make sure you're back in the corn where you can't be seen before it does." Graham set the date and then pushed the button to activate the device, which he then handed to her. He pointed to the small blue button on top. "Just push that when you're ready to go." She gave him a re-assuring smile as he backed away from her, and then she took a deep breath and pushed the button. At first she felt nothing at all, but then an overwhelming sensation of floating engulfed her body and her vision clouded until she felt as if she were suspended in a heavy fog. Almost as soon as it had started, the fog dissipated until her eyes focused on the mature corn stalks surrounding her, and the pungent smell of damp soil and foliage greeted her nose. She glanced down at her body and verified that she was still in one piece. Aside from a lingering sensation of light-headedness, she felt fine. Crystal slipped the time travel device into the pocket of her frayed blue jeans and looked at her watch. Graham had said that she'd have 30 minutes before the device transferred her back home, so she didn't have much time to find her mother, even though the town wasn't large. When she reached the edge of the gas station parking lot, she paused to consider her next move. She knew that her mother had dropped out of school the year she'd supposedly gotten pregnant, so finding the girl that was rumored to be fairly wild may be more difficult than Crystal had originally anticipated. Still, if said girl was truly nine months pregnant, that may have slowed her down a bit. Crystal decided to head directly for her grandparent's house, which was located only a six blocks away on the same street that her own house was located on in the future. If she didn't find her mother there, then she could always bully Graham into letting her use the device to try again later. As she hurried along the sidewalk, she marveled at how odd it was to see her own neighborhood so differently, yet eerily the same. In this era, there were no cracks in the clean sidewalks, no litter at the curbs, and every store seemed to glow in its coat of cheerful bright paint. The windows sparkled in the bright sunlight, and a group of bare-footed children bounced past sitting astride some sort of large rubber balls with handles at the top. She passed a barber shop, which would be replaced by a tattoo parlor in her time, and then gazed at the record store in which she knew that none of the customers would understand what a CD or an MP3 was; their music only blared from the tiny grooves of black vinyl platters. A fresh bakery resided where later a cigarette store would be, and a tiny grocery stood on the corner that would only hold an abandoned building in her own time. Crystal stopped in front of the grocery store and eyed the soda machine there, amazed at the sign that boasted that a single dime could buy the refreshment. She fished a coin out of her pocket and fed it into the machine, then marveled at the glass bottle that emerged. Yes, things were very different here. It took her a couple of minutes to figure out how to get the metal cap off of the bottle, and in that time the bell over the grocery store's door jangled as a young girl emerged carrying a small brown paper bag. Crystal froze as she immediately recognized the familiar face of her mother, though thirty-some-odd years younger, and the fact that she was indeed uncomfortably pregnant. The girl never even looked at her as she crossed the street in front of her, and Crystal stared agog as her mother made her way down the opposite sidewalk. Dressed in flat leather sandals, faded bell-bottom blue jeans, and a loose white angel-style top, she was everything that Crystal had ever pictured a typical 60's teen to be. Everyone besides her own mother, that is. Feeling vaguely stunned, Crystal realized that she already had the answer that she had come seeking, but some impulse made her move to follow along at a safe distance, curious to know more about this enigma that was so unlike the woman that she had been at odds with for so many years. She noticed that very few people greeted the girl as they made their way down the street, and that she walked quickly, with her head down so that her long straight hair covered her face. A school bus lumbered past, and the car full of teenagers following behind it slowed as it neared Crystal's mother. They began to yell insulting remarks at the girl, calling her a tramp and worse, and one of them threw something out of the window at her. The girl dodged the item and pretended to ignore them as she continued walking. Crystal felt an uncontrollable fury rise to the surface at the scene playing out before her. This was supposed to be the era of peace and love, wasn't it? So where did these kids come from? She broke into a run and quickly closed the distance between them, throwing her soda bottle at the front of the car and yelling a few obscenities of her own at the horrid teens. They stared at her with astounded looks on their faces as the driver gunned the motor and sped away. She smiled briefly as she thought of what a picture she must have made; a grown woman in attack mode screaming words that only a few sailors in this era probably used. But Crystal's smile faded as she realized that her mother had stopped walking and now stood within a few feet of her. It gave her an odd feeling to look at the girl's swollen belly and know that it was *herself* in there, waiting to come into a world that she would never remember seeing as she was seeing it now. As the girl turned her sad brown eyes up to Crystal and whispered "Thanks," she felt as if some invisible knife had twisted in her heart. This was not the angry judgmental woman that seemed to devote her entire life to telling her daughter everything that she was doing wrong, nor the woman that Crystal had taken to ignoring and avoiding as much as possible. This was just a scared and sad girl, no more than a child herself, who was already paying dearly for one single mistake and collecting the emotional scars that would last her entire life. Crystal just nodded at her... after all, what was one supposed to say to one's own mother before they were even born? "I'm not, you know..." the girl swung her hair away from her face and focused on some point across the road as she spoke. "Not...?" "Not what those kids said about me. I only went with one boy." "Oh?" Crystal ignored the inner voice that reminded her that she'd already done and said more than she should have in this time, but she desperately needed to hear that her mom wasn't the careless hellion that the elder neighborhood gossip had sometimes made her out to be. The girl scuffed her toe along a crack in the sidewalk as she spoke. "He said he loved me, and our love was just beautiful and all that," she shrugged, "And said we'd get married as soon as I was old enough. But then I found out that he was a lot older than he told me. He was really in his 20s, and was already married with kids." "Does he know that you're...?" "Yes. He said the baby's not his." Crystal was suddenly furious at a man she'd never known, the jerk who had sired her. "Who is this guy? Didn't you tell anyone?" Panic flashed in wide brown eyes. "Oh no I can't do that! My father would kill him if he found out, and I don't want dad in jail. My mom couldn't take that." Pondering this entirely different view of the situation, Crystal struggled in silence to come to grips with the new reality that was before her. Her mother was nothing like the ogre that she had created in her mind, and Crystal felt the cold fingers of guilt creeping through her as she thought about what that this girl had endured, and would continue to endure in order to protect those around her. All of the nagging and bullying when Crystal had been younger was just because her mom had wanted better for her, and Crystal was ashamed of herself for the many years that she had retaliated with nothing but meanness. "What's your name anyway?" the girl asked. "Crystal Dawn Nn... Norris," she stopped herself just in time to avoid giving away her true last name: Nichols. "Crystal Dawn," her mother murmured the name distractedly before introducing herself, "I'm Monica Nichols. I live about a half a block up; do you want to hang out for awhile?" Though she knew that she should decline, the temptation to see what her grandparents' house had looked like, combined with a sudden urge to spend more time with her mother made her agree. As they walked along in companionable silence, her mind brought forth yet another issue that had always bothered her. She briefly thought of Graham's warning, but risked changing history by blurting, "You know your baby will have a much better life growing up if you go back to school." Monica gave her an incredulous look. "Oh I can't. They kicked me out you know," she gestured at her stomach, "Because it's a bad example, being PG and all. But I'll try to get a diploma later, and I'm getting a job as soon as the baby's born." Again Crystal was shocked. There had been several pregnant girls in her own high school, who weren't treated any differently than the other students, and they certainly never got kicked out for it. This was an era of much less peace and freedom than she had ever understood. -------------------------------- A feeling of nostalgia washed over Crystal as the girls approached the cornflower blue house with the tiny porch in front. Both of her grandparents had been dead for quite some time, and it seemed like forever since she had enjoyed the hospitality of this home. But even here things were different. The giant lumbering oak tree that stood in the front yard was still nothing but a hopeful branch here, stretching no taller than her chin as its tiny twigs waved at the sun. There were no arching trellises yet to hold the prize roses that her grandmother would grow, and no cheerful carriage lamps to light the walkway. Only a small porch step resided in front of the door, but Crystal could see that work was already being done there to build the large covered patio that she had always known. As she sat on the small retainer wall alongside the end of the driveway, Crystal felt a moment of embarrassment knowing that her own car's bumper would crack that same wall 16 years in the future when she got her driver's license. "Want some? I crave them all the time now." Sitting beside her, Monica had opened the little grocery bag was offering to share the chocolate-covered peanuts inside. A sense of deja-vu washed over Crystal as she reached to retrieve a couple of the treats and murmured her thanks. Her mind flashed back to times when she was a very small girl, when she and her mother would share this same candy while watching TV together. Times had not always been bad between them, and she knew that it was her own stubbornness that had helped to put an end to them. She really did like this girl, and knew that if they had been born as peers, they would definitely be friends. It was a haunting thought. Crystal's eyes were now drawn back to the front of her grandparent's house, to the two men that were placing bricks on a bed of gravel to form an intricately patterned patio. Her hand went to the tiny scar on her forehead, realizing that in a little more than a year she would be toddling across it in her tiny Stride Rites, and falling to earn a cut that would require two stitches to close. The candy threatened to stick in her throat as the elder man turned around and she recognized the face of her grandfather. He looked so young, so strong and full of life, and it was all she could do to keep from running to him and throwing her arms around him. She hadn't seen him in over ten years, since he had died shortly after Crystal had graduated college, and it had never occurred to her that she might see him today. Her thoughts churned with a confusing mixture of joy and sadness. Monica's gaze followed hers. "That's my brother Mike, and my dad. Dad doesn't talk to me much right now." The pain in her voice revealed the unspoken truth behind it; her father was ashamed of her. Crystal nodded in heartfelt sympathy as she watched them working in the sun. Mike hadn't really changed all that much over the years, but it was a bit amusing to see him wearing a head band and a tie-dyed shirt, as opposed to the stuffy business suit she'd always seen him in. "Monica honey, who's your friend? Would you like some drinks?" a woman's voice floated from the open kitchen window. "Sure." Monica stood up awkwardly and wiped her hands on her jeans. "Come meet my mom, she's nice." Her mind screamed in denial as her feet followed Monica to the front of the house, but she could think of no polite way to refuse. Why did people always say that it would be nice to see their lost loved ones "just one more time" when all it truly did was make the sadness of loss that much deeper again? Crystal's grandmother had been her very best friend throughout her entire life, and Crystal had missed her dearly. It was horrible knowing that she could not even use this opportunity to say all of the things she wished she'd said before the woman had died, but instead had to act like a complete stranger. A lump rose in her throat as the cheerful woman emerged from the house bearing a tray with glasses of lemonade, but she forced a smile to her own lips and murmured a polite greeting. Numbly, she followed her grandmother and mother as they sat on the tiny step and began to talk. "Mom, this is Crystal." Monica jostled an ice cube around in her mouth as she spoke. "Well hello dear, it's nice to meet you. Do you live around here?" "No ma'am, I'm just visiting for awhile." Her mind scrambled for a way to get off of the subject, and she waved towards her grandfather and uncle. "What are they building?" She knew very well what they were building, but it was all she could think of, and she was relieved when her grandmother began to talk about the new patio, the flowers she was planning to plant, and other such safe subjects. Crystal began to relax a bit, enjoying the sound of her grandmother's voice, but it was a short-lived reprieve from her inner turmoil. "Oh! We've gotten a letter from Bill." The woman beamed happily at Monica. "Far out!" Monica remarked, and then turned her excited gaze to Crystal to explain, "Bill's my oldest brother. It's kind of a big deal when we get a letter since he's still in Vietnam. He's coming home in a few months though." "Cool." Crystal set her glass down and smiled past the blazing pain that gripped her insides, and then bowed her head and faked a sneeze in order to hide the tears that threatened to escape. She felt sick with the realization that the cheerful light of happiness in these women's eyes would be soon extinguished when they learned that Bill would never come home again. He would be killed a few weeks before he was due to leave, in an ambush in some war-torn jungle. Emotion threatened her composure in pounding waves, and Crystal that knew she had to go. Standing casually, she glanced at her watch, gathered her strength and smiled again. "Oh goodness, I've got to go now. I promised to meet someone today and I think I'm late." "Aw, bummer," Monica made a face, "I was hoping you could hang around awhile." "You'll see me again, I'm sure of it." Crystal couldn't control the impulse to give her both her mother and grandmother a quick hug as she thanked them for their hospitality. As an afterthought, she slipped the silver peace symbol necklace off of her neck and handed it to Monica. "I want you to take this, and whenever you're feeling down just remember that you've got a friend who cares." She knew that she would see the necklace again; her mother would give it back to her the year Crystal started high school. Monica smiled brightly. "Thanks. I will." As Crystal reached the sidewalk, she paused to allow a sleek silver Corvette pull into the driveway, and looked up to see Monica smile and wave to the sandy-haired young man behind the wheel. A sense of growing horror washed over her as Crystal realized that this was Monica's elder brother, the one who had died before Crystal was born, and her birthday was only three weeks away. A Journey to Reality: The Sequel Author's note: Time travel has been the stuff of dreams for generations. It has been the basis of classic fiction (H.G. Wells' The Time Machine), bad television (Time Tunnel) and popular films (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and, of course, the Back To The Future trilogy). Recently, a relatively new writer on Literotica, nyte_byrd, wrote an interesting time travel story called, "A Journey to Reality," in the Non-Erotic category. In her story, the narrator, a woman named Crystal, talks her friend, who could be her significant other, into letting her try out a time-travel device he has built in his basement. Graham has tested it twice and come back unscathed, and Crystal wants to use it to go back in time to a point a few weeks before her birth in 1968. Crystal wants to get a sense of what her mother's environment was like at the time of her birth. Her mother, Monica, was a scared 15-year-old when she had Crystal, and she grew to be a bitter woman who was constantly at odds with her daughter. Crystal wants some answers in hopes of perhaps bridging the gap between her and her mother. So she goes back in time, actually meets the 15-year-old Monica, they talk for the half-hour that Crystal is allotted for staying in the past, and she does indeed get a sense of just what her mother and her mother's family had to endure. At story's end, she comes back to the present, and tells Graham she's accepting a lunch date with her mother. One of the most memorable scenes in the Back To The Future series comes at the end of the first installment, when Marty McFly comes back from 1955 and awakens to a completely different reality from the one he left. Because he got his parents to actually fall in love, rather than just drift together, everything in his life is different. I was struck by the similarities between that scene and nyte_byrd's story. I felt like the end left the readers hanging. Did Crystal's visit make a difference? If so, how? So, with nyte_byrd's permission, I've written a follow-up. The story picks up immediately after Crystal tosses the time device back to Graham and rushes to the door to go have lunch with her mom. ------ I dashed out the front door of the house, toward my car, then stopped dead in my tracks. I could sense my jaw hitting the driveway as I gaped at what I was seeing. For one thing, the street where I lived was now a fairly busy four-lane roadway, instead of the modest two-lane it had been 30 minutes earlier. But that wasn't what arrested my attention. Across the street, everything was different. Palmer's Grocery, the tiny mom-and-pop store that had long been abandoned, wasn't abandoned. Not by a long shot. It was a supermarket that took up half the block. And the stores that made up the rest of the block were also different. Gone was the tattoo parlor, replaced by a hair salon. The cigarette shop was a store that sold items for expectant mothers. There was also a Baskin-Robbins store that hadn't been there before, along with a video rental store. As I looked, I noticed that the curb was free of debris, the storefronts were clean and well-maintained, and the houses on my side of the street were neat and tidy, a far cry from the way they had been before. What the hell had happened? I was in a slight daze as I climbed in my car – thank God it was the same – and pulled out onto the street for the six-block drive to my mother's house. When my grandparents started getting ill, Mom had moved back into their house to take care of them. It had been a financial and emotional drain on her, not to mention dealing with all of the ghosts that still lived there, the shades of her dead brothers. Mom had been the youngest of four, and the only daughter, but two of her brothers had died within a short time of each other. Robby, the one closest to Mom in age, had been killed in a car crash a week before I was born. In fact, the shock of his death had sent Mom into slightly premature labor – I was born 13 days before my due date. And Bill, the oldest brother, had been killed in Vietnam a couple of months later. Needless to say, no one in my family remembered 1968 with any fondness at all. Mom had gotten pregnant at 15 and had a baby, and the two boys had been killed, all in the same calendar year. The only one left was the middle brother, Mike, and he and Mom hadn't spoken in years. He was a banker who had developed a sense of superiority over Mom because he'd gone to college and been successful, and she hadn't. He'd also married into one of the town's richest families, and that fed his ego as well. After I was born, Mom had worked at Palmer's, until they closed their doors, then she'd gotten a job on the assembly line at the Johnstown Manufacturing Company, the town's only significant employer. But the factory had become outdated, production had fallen off, and a month ago, they finally succumbed to the reality of their situation and filed bankruptcy. Twenty-five years Mom had worked for them, and all she had to show for it was unemployment benefits. It didn't look like they were going to be able to pay the retirement pension she'd been promised, and at age 53, her prospects for finding another job weren't looking good. That was one reason I hadn't wanted to have lunch with her that day. Well, one of many. I knew what was going to happen. She'd bitch and moan about her sorry former employers, complain about how lonely she was, give me a pity party about how fucked up her life was, then she'd start in on me. She'd tell me I was wasting my time with Graham, that as long as we were living together, he'd never ask me to marry him. She'd rail at me about how my biological clock was ticking away, how at 37 – almost 38 – I was about to run out of time to have children. I'd heard it all before, and while she was right in a lot of ways, I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of agreeing with her. So we'd end up fighting, and I'd go home angry and depressed. It was with all of this in mind that I pulled in the driveway of her house. As soon as I climbed out of my car, I got another big shock. There were toys in the front yard, kids' toys, including a big-wheel tricycle. Huh? As I walked up to the porch, the front door opened and a young black woman stepped outside. She was quite pretty, she had a baby on her shoulder, and I could hear the sounds of another child inside having fun with his lunch. "Can I help you?" she said pleasantly. "Ah, ur, I was looking for my mom," I said. "I thought she lived here." "I'm afraid you're mistaken," the woman said. "We've lived in this house for four years, ever since my husband became a manager at the Toyota plant." "The what?" I said. "You must be from out of town," she said. "Uh, yeah, I am," I stammered. "Toyota built a huge manufacturing plant for component parts on the north side of town," she said. "People who've lived here a long time say it saved this place." "Tell me, do you know Monica Nichols?" I said. "She would have lived here before you came." "No, I don't know her," she said. "I know a Mike Nichols, where I bank, and I know this was his house when he was growing up, but I don't think any of his family have lived here in a number of years." "Well, thanks," I said, then I turned and staggered back to my car. If Mom didn't live here, then where did she live? I pulled out my cell phone, flipped it open and looked up her number. I had to blink my eyes twice to be sure I was seeing things correctly. I saw her number, all right, but right below it was a number for her office. Her office? I dialed the home number, but got no answer. I was about to hang up when an answering machine picked up the call. Now, this was starting to get weird. As far as I knew, Mom had never had an answering machine on any phone she'd ever had. She always groused that nobody ever called her who would bother to leave a message. I listened, fascinated, at the voice on the machine. "Hi, this is Monica and Parker's residence," her voice said. "We can't come to the phone right now, so leave your name and number at the beep, and we'll get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks, and have a blessed day." A couple of things jolted me as I pulled out of the driveway and drove toward Ellis Boulevard, the town's main drag. One, who was Parker? And, second, why would Mom tell callers to have a blessed day? Parker was obviously someone who lived with Mom in this new reality and that was unbelievable to me. Mom hadn't had a boyfriend in years, let alone a live-in boyfriend, and she'd turned her back on religion when the church turned its back on her after she got pregnant with me. Moreover, the voice on the machine sounded bright and cheery, not at all like the raspy, sullen voice I was used to hearing from Mom. I turned onto Ellis, and got yet another shock. What had been a fairly rundown four-lane highway with a few bars, some dingy cafes and even a strip club, was transformed. It was six lanes of highway packed on either side with an overflow of restaurants, fast-food outlets, strip malls, shops and, as I drove aimlessly down the street, a Wal-Mart Supercenter. I was becoming a danger to myself and others who were on the boulevard with me, a lot of others, so I pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall and stopped to get my bearings. Opening up the phone again, I called the number listed under my mom's office. A woman whose voice I didn't recognize answered. "Riley, Matthews and Sullivan, may I help you?" the voice said. "Uh, yeah, I'd like to speak to Monica Nichols, please," I said hesitantly. The woman laughed in a good-natured way. "You mean Monica Sullivan," the woman said. "I'll see if she's free. Who should I say is calling?" "It's Crystal," I said. "Crystal, are you OK?" the woman said. "You, of all people, ought to know that your mother hasn't gone by her maiden name in over 25 years. Has something happened to you that you wouldn't remember that? Hold on a second, I'll put you on." "I'm sorry, I just had a brain fart," I said. I was flabbergasted. How did she know who I was? And what was this about Mom not having used her maiden name in over 25 years? What was going on here? "Crystal? Are you all right?" Mom said as the call was connected. "Martha said you sounded a little strange." "No, I'm fine, Mom, really," I lied. "I just called to see if that lunch offer from last night was still good." "Sure, sweetheart," she said brightly. "I was just on the phone with Parker, and he was going to meet me at McAdory's. You're more than welcome to join us. Why don't you meet us in, say, 20 minutes? That'll give me time to walk down there. I can't stay too long, because I have a client coming in at 2:30 to discuss her divorce. But I've always got time for you. See you in a few. Bye." "Uh, yeah, I'll see you in 20 minutes," I said before flipping the phone closed. Now what? I had no idea what McAdory's was or where it was. I had no idea about anything. So I walked to a cigar shop that was located in the strip mall and asked if they had a telephone directory. The book the clerk pulled out looked nothing like the phone book for this town that I'd seen before. It was considerably thicker than before. The first thing I looked up was Riley, Matthews and Sullivan, and I was astounded to discover that it was a law firm. My mother was a lawyer?! No fucking way. But there it was in the Yellow Pages, offering legal services for reasonable fees. I found the address for her office, then found the address for McAdory's, which appeared to be some sort of upscale deli. I knew about where it should be on Main Street, only the location as I remembered it was close to downtown, and the neighborhood hadn't been very savory. I got up on Main Street, headed toward downtown. I happened to pass Mom's office on the way, and I was very impressed. It was located in an old English-style home that looked very comforting. I drove on a few blocks and found McAdory's, but as I pulled in the parking lot, I got another jolt. The old dilapidated downtown had been completely changed. In fact, right at the corner where McAdory's stood the street was blocked off for a pedestrian mall. There were all sorts of trendy-looking shops, cafes, boutiques, and quite a few nice-looking nightclubs. I had to shake my head vigorously to determine that I was really awake and not asleep dreaming all of this. Satisfied that I was really here, I got out of my car and walked in to McAdory's. The place was packed, and I didn't see Mom at first. Then I heard my name being called and I saw a woman waving at me to come over. It actually took me a couple of seconds before I realized that it was my mother. But this wasn't the mother I'd come to know over the course of my life. No siree. The mom I'd known was a tired-looking, dumpy woman who was 53 going on 60. Her hair was a dull gray, she was lined from years of hard work and worry, and she always wore a frown. This mother was a vivacious, trim woman who was 53 going on 40. Her hair was still her natural dark brown, her skin was smooth and she had an ear-to-ear smile. "Hey, honey," she said as she gave me a hug. Now I knew something was wrong – or right, depending on your point of view. My mother had never called me, "honey," and she'd never hugged me like that, not in a long time. I actually felt tears welling in my eyes. This was the kind of relationship I'd hoped for when I went back to 1968, and to see it come to fruition gave me a real emotional feeling. I sat down then, and it was only then that I noticed the man sitting in the booth next to her. "How've you been, Crystal?" said the man, who I gathered was Parker. I'd never laid eyes on him before, but he obviously knew me. "Uh, oh, fine, a little busy," I said, trying not to let on that I didn't know this man. "We were a little worried you might have been in an accident or something," Parker said. "Your mom said you asked for Monica Nichols, and that sounded like you may have gotten amnesia somehow." "No, like I told ... Martha," I said, quickly recalling the receptionist name. "I had a braineurysm." I looked at the menu, trying to gather my wits. I couldn't let on about what had happened, because then they might really think I was wacky. The waitress came by and I ordered a BLT, then studied the man who apparently was now married to my mother. He was a tall, handsome fellow, a little older than Mom, perhaps 58 to 60. There was an air of confidence about him, perhaps old money, but I didn't get a sense of arrogance. In fact, he seemed to be quite pleasant, with a quick wit and a good sense of humor. He was dressed casually, in khakis and a dress shirt, with loafers. His hair was mostly silver, but he still had all of it. He had on a pair of half-glasses and was perusing some documents. Or he was until Mom told him sternly to put them away. "We get few enough occasions to visit with Crystal these days," she said. "You're not going to spoil it by getting your nose in work." "Yes ma'am," he said with a disarming smile. Mom just shook her head in bemusement and hooked her arm in with his. I had to smile, because it was obvious that they were two people in love. Indeed, even as the thought crossed my mind, their hands clasped in an easy familiarity that told me they'd been in love a long time. Moreover, I got the sense that Parker was a man who was used to giving orders to others, but who gladly took orders from Mom. I was not real familiar with those kinds of loving couples, but I guessed that was what it meant to love someone over a long period of time. "Mom?" I started to ask. I needed some answers, but I wasn't sure how to ask the questions I needed to get those answers. "What, sweetheart?" she said. There it was, another endearment, given casually, like she'd been doing it my whole life, which had not been the case. "What was it like right after I was born?" I said. "I know we've talked a lot about it, but there's something missing." "Like what?" Mom said. "School," I said, hoping that would be enough. "Oh, now, surely you know everything there is to know about that," she said. "But I don't know if I've ever told you why I was so determined to get back into the high school. Not too long before you were born, I met a lady outside Palmer's. Of course, it wasn't like the Palmer's of today." I felt a knot growing in my stomach, because I knew where this story was going. "I didn't know who she was, and I only knew her for a short time," Mom continued. "She was visiting from out of town. But in that short time, she showed me kindness like no one else had. She defended my honor, and she gave me a piece of advice that I never forgot. She told me, 'your baby will have a much better life if you go back to school.' Of course, I didn't think that was possible at the time. But after Robby and Bill were killed, I just couldn't see wasting my life like that. I knew I'd never get my diploma if I was working full-time, so I made up my mind that I was going to re-enroll in school. You know the rest. Without that woman's friendship, without her words of encouragement, I don't think I'd have had the guts to stick it out, because let me tell you, it wasn't easy. Thank God for Mr. Riley, bless his soul. He believed in me when no one else did, and he helped put me through college after I graduated. I'd love to find that woman and thank her for changing my life. I named you after her, you know. Her name was Crystal Dawn ... something. I don't remember her last name. But I remember Crystal Dawn. I named you after her so I wouldn't forget her and what she meant to me." It was all I could do to keep from bursting into tears right then. I hastily excused myself and dashed to the bathroom before I lost it completely. Mom and Parker were looking at my oddly when I returned, after restoring my composure. My sandwich was on the table and I ate in silence, while Mom and Parker talked about their work that day. When we were almost finished, Mom looked at me with a serious look. "So how's work?" she said. "Have you given any thought to accepting that promotion?" "What promotion?" I said. "You know, taking on the charge nurse job," she said. "It's extra money, but it's also extra headaches. You do well enough financially, especially now that Graham's moved in to help out, so if you don't feel like you want that responsibility, just say no." This was something new. I had been a nurse for over 15 years at the local hospital, but this was the first I'd heard about being offered the position as charge nurse. "I'll think about it," was all I said. We were just about finished when Mom's cell phone rang. She answered it and talked cheerfully with someone named Billy, something about a get-together the following night and something about a surprise. "I'll ask her," Mom said finally. "Love you too." "That was Billy," Mom said. "He and Annie have some big news they want to share with all of us. I told him we'd plan to have a family gathering tomorrow afternoon at the house. I want you and Graham to come also. Bring your swimsuits, we'll get some burgers and we'll make a day of it. I'll call Mike and see if they can make it. Be nice to have to whole family there for a change." I think I stared, because Mom looked at me funny. The old Mom would have eaten barbed wire before she invited Mike and his family to her place. Oh, and who was Billy? Did I have a little brother I knew nothing about? "Are you sure you're all right?" Mom said. "You've been acting awfully funny all day." "Mom, I'm fine," I said. "In fact, I've never been better." We all got up to go then. As we were walking out, a number of people stopped to speak to both Mom and Parker, and I got the sense that they were both quite prominent in town. People treated them with respect, and that made my heart feel good. A Journey to Reality: The Sequel After Parker settled the bill, he gave Mom a kiss then sent her on her way back to her office. When she was a half-block down the street, he pulled me aside. "Crystal, I am a little worried about you," Parker said. "Something's bothering you, I can tell. You've been very emotional today, and a little spacy, and that's so unlike you. Is everything all right?" "I'm just under a lot of stress right now, Dad," I said, then I caught myself. I'd called him Dad, casually, without even thinking about it. And I realized that he was my dad. Not my real dad, of course, but he was the man who had helped Mom raise me in this new reality, and that made him Dad. "Well, your mom noticed it, too," he said. "She's concerned too. I know she wishes you and Graham would start considering a more serious relationship. I don't have to tell you how she feels about that. But we both know that you're an adult and that we can't tell you how to live your life. All we can do is love you, and be there if you ever need us. And Crystal, don't hesitate to call." "Thanks, Dad," I said again. "Sometimes I guess I forget about what she went through with me, and that affects the way she thinks." "Oh, she's a remarkable woman, your mother," he said. "I don't think I could have done what she did at her age. It's funny, though. I'd never heard the story about the mysterious woman who gave her hope when she was pregnant with you. Had you?" "No, no I hadn't," I said. "Oh well, gotta run," Parker said. "Even semi-retired, I get the work piled on. See you tomorrow?" "Sure, Dad, I'll see you tomorrow," I said. "Love you. "Love you too," he said and gave me a hug. I got in my car, a feeling of panic growing. Was this all just an illusion, a result of Graham's time machine? Suddenly, I needed to get home, needed to talk straight with Graham. I'd changed history, changed it profoundly, and all of a sudden, I was scared. I managed to make it back to my house without incident. I pulled into the driveway and just sat there for a few seconds shaking. Then I went inside. Graham was just sitting at kitchen table looking at a magazine, which he put down when I came in. "How was lunch?" he said, with a weird little half-smile on his face. "It was ... different," I said hesitantly. "I can imagine," he said, fixing me with a disconcerting stare and the same enigmatic smile. "I guess it goes without saying that you didn't stay on the bench at Palmer's when you went back, did you." "Graham, I'm sorry," I said. "She was literally the first person I ran into, and she looked so miserable, so sad. But I honestly wasn't going to do anything until a carload of punks drove by and called her a bunch of names. It really pissed me off, so I yelled at them, told them to fuck off. Then we talked. That's all I did, just talked with her." "That's it; just talked," Graham said. "Nothing else." "I walked with her to her house," I said. "And Gram – her mother – gave me a glass of water. That's it. God, you don't know how hard it was to not do anything when Robby drove up, knowing he was going to die in a few days. But I didn't. I let that happen." And I broke down and cried then. The whole experience had unnerved me so, coupled with some delayed grief over the death of someone I'd never met. Graham stood up and gathered me in his arms, soothing me. He has his faults, but one of the things I love about him is his compassionate nature. He knows how to comfort me. When he got me calmed down, he gently steered me to a kitchen chair and set some papers in front of me. "I'm going to walk across the street and check out the new supermarket," he said with a puckish grin. "Read those printouts, then we'll talk." He kissed me lightly, then headed out the front door. I looked at the sheets he'd set before me and began to read. I gasped as I saw the one on top. It was a copy of an archived story from the town's newspaper from about 18 months ago, titled, "Dynamic Duo," and it was about Parker and my mom. Basically, it was about how they had impacted the area through their lives. I was astounded, to say the least. It started out talking about Mom, how she'd been a 15-year-old single mother without much future. But after losing her brothers, she said she decided she wanted to make them proud of her. "I wanted them to look down on me from heaven and know that I'd done right by their memory," she was quoted in the story. So at the start of the spring semester in 1969, she'd sought to re-enroll at the high school, to resume her schooling. But the school had rejected her application, on nebulous moral grounds. Undaunted, she'd found a lawyer in town named Tom Riley who agreed to handle her case pro bono, and they had filed suit against the school district. She made the claim that the decision by the school district to bar her from returning to school violated her civil rights, that she was being discriminated against because she was female. Mr. Riley got her story out to the big-city media, and it made national news. Faced with a storm of negative publicity, the school board backed down, and in January of 1970, she went back to the high school, resuming her sophomore year after two years away. The experience had changed her. Where before she had been an underachiever in the classroom, now she was single-minded about her education. She said in the story that having a small child at home forced her to discipline herself and budget her time. Two years later, when she graduated, it was with high honors, and when she walked across the stage to receive her diploma, she got a standing ovation. Her experience in fighting for her legal rights had ignited a fire of passion for the law, and she went to the state university, completed a difficult pre-law curriculum in 3 1/2 years and went on to law school, where she graduated third in a class of 128. During her last year of law school, she had meet a prosperous real estate agent named Parker Sullivan, who as it turned out was a scion of one of the wealthiest families in the state. But he was a self-made man, who had taken a small inheritance and turned it into a profitable company. He was six years older than Monica, but they fell fast in love and were married in 1978, when Mom was 25 and he was 31. I would have been 8 at the time, and as I sat there, I could feel a fog of memory in my mind, like I actually remembered her wedding. After finishing law school, Mom and Parker made a pivotal decision. Mom had offers to work for firms in larger cities, and in the city where the university is located and where Parker's business was. But Mom had one offer she felt she couldn't turn down, from Tom Riley back here. Mr. Riley had been her defender and her mentor, and she felt she owed it to him to come back. Parker said he was leery of moving here, because it had all the earmarks of a dying Rust Belt town. After doing some digging around however, Parker found things to like about the area, such as a population that was used to hard work and plenty of available land, so he urged Mom to accept a job as a junior member of Riley and Matthews. Parker opened a branch of his company in town and he set about remaking the town. At this point, the story focused more on Parker, and I learned about what a remarkable man he was. The first thing he noted was the inefficient way the Johnstown factory was being run. So he talked his family into buying a sizable amount of the company's stock, then found his way onto the company's board of directors. Within two years, he'd managed to force the plant's old guard out and replaced them with younger men and women who put through a major renovation of the plant. By 1985, the plant was turning a profit again. It's still up and doing well, by the way. Meanwhile, Parker was quietly buying up farms in the area that, for whatever reason, were going under. He offered cash-strapped farmers top dollar for their land, and gained a reputation as a fair dealer when buying and selling real estate. Dissatisfied with the cautious, conservative nature of the local government, he decided in 1989 to run for mayor on a platform of spurring economic development. The incumbent tried to paint Parker as an out-of-town shyster, but his record of success with the Johnstown company and a general desire among the electorate for change swept him into office. Once in the mayor's office, Parker set about working to land the Toyota plant. He'd heard through the grapevine that Toyota was looking to build a large components plant in the United States, somewhere in the heartland. Parker decided that our town had as much to offer as other towns that were vying for the automaker's contract, and he worked hard to get it. After being re-elected in 1993 – in a pretty close race – he doubled his efforts. In 1995, after five years of negotiations, he stood on a stage in the state capitol with the governor and other high-ranking state officials to announce that the plant would be built here. It would bring 6,000 jobs by itself, and three times that number in everything that went with it. It took another five years of construction before the plant was fully operational, but now it was centerpiece of our part of the state, and our town's population had quadrupled in just 15 years. Parker stayed on as mayor through a third term, but in 1999, he had a minor heart attack and had bypass surgery. He'd been "semi-retired" since leaving office in 2002. Of course, selling his land-holdings, to developers and Toyota, made him and Mom a fortune, which they had plowed back into the community in various charities and services. Mom had made junior partner in 1984, and in 1991, Mr. Riley had invited her to buy into the firm as a full partner. Mr. Riley had retired not long afterward and had died in 1998. Mom had spoken at his memorial service, giving a tear-filled and heartfelt eulogy that credited him for what she had become. Although Mr. Riley and Mr. Matthews were both now passed on, Mom had kept their names on the firm in their memory. But it was now her firm, completely, and she had become famous for taking on indigent cases, lost causes and any other case that tweaked her social conscience. I finished the article and just sat back stunned. One sentence, one little word of hope, had changed a lost, frightened little girl into a strong, confident woman and a decrepit, dying little town into an economic dynamo. The rest of the documents Graham had laid out for me were pretty much in the same vein. One I saw was a sports article about Billy Sullivan being named Most Valuable Player in his conference as a basketball player for a small college. Another was an announcement of his wedding to one Annie Powell two years ago, and my name turned up as one of the bridesmaids. Just then, Graham came back with several bags full of groceries. "You need to check this place out," he gushed. "They've got the best meat department I've ever seen. Good-looking steaks at a decent price." "I'm sure it's nice," I said softly. "So, what do you think of the Crystal Effect?" he said, nodding in the direction of the articles I'd just finished reading. We had talked a lot about the so-called Butterfly Effect, based on a sci-fi story where a man went back in time, accidentally killed a butterfly, and from that one act, killed all the beauty in the future world. Now, here was Graham talking about the effects of my return to 1968 and the changes they had wrought "I don't know what to say," I said. "I want to show you something," Graham said, and he led me over to the trash bin. He lifted the top and I gasped when I saw the pieces of his time device. It appeared that he'd taken a mallet and smashed it into very small pieces. "Graham!" I said. "You spent months on that machine. It worked." "It worked too well," Graham said. "I didn't quite understand the power that we were dealing with, the power to utterly change time. It's too much, too dangerous. If one innocent little comment like you made to Monica can have this kind of effect, who knows what could happen if this ever got in the hands of someone with evil intent. I had to destroy it. We got lucky this time. The change you effected worked out well, at least as far as we know now. Next time? Who knows." "I'm sorry, Graham," I said. "Oh, don't be," he said. "It was too much to ask for you to just sit there when your mom walked by. Human nature – your nature – is to reach out and help those who are down on their luck. That's why you're such a good nurse. And, truthfully, you really didn't do much, except that what you gave your mother was something extremely powerful. You gave her hope. But the rest she did on her own. She took the hope you gave her and ran with it." "She did, didn't she," I said. "And she had the great good luck to marry someone like Parker. I'm going to enjoy getting to know him. By the way, we've been invited to their house tomorrow for a family get-together. Seems I have a little brother named Billy – I'm guessing he's named for my Uncle Bill who died in Vietnam – and he has a surprise to tell. I guess we're going to have to figure out where their house is." We laughed then Graham pulled me to him and kissed me. "Why don't we give them a surprise of our own," he said. "What do you mean?" I asked. "Crystal, we've been living together for almost a year now," he said. "At first, I wasn't sure what to make of you, and it was kind of hard because I'm not sure you really knew yourself. But after today, I think you've found what you were missing in your life. And there's something else we're missing in our lives." "What's that?" I said. "I'm tired of just shacking up," he said. "So I think it's time we made this arrangement a little more permanent." "Graham, what are you saying?" I said, not quite willing to believe what my heart was telling me. "Crystal, will you marry me?" Graham said. "Oh my God!" I exclaimed as I hugged his neck tight while jumping up and down excitedly. "God, yes, yes, yes. Absolutely!" "You know, I'm sure in this new town you created there's bound to be a good jeweler somewhere," he said. "Let's go!" I said, and we headed out the door together. As we got to the car, we both just stared at the new world that had come about because I'd given my mother hope. Then we laughed, got in the car and drove off to buy an engagement ring. A Journey to Reality He would be drag racing when his car veered off the road and struck a tree, and as she stared at the shiny car she wanted nothing more than to somehow destroy that horrid machine, to scream at him to sell it, and to demand that he stay far away from Ellis Boulevard until he did. But she did none of these things. She was certain that that was just the sort of interference Graham had cautioned her about, and she somehow knew that any warning she gave would not only frighten them, but would fail to stop the event. As Crystal hurried down the sidewalk she allowed the first of her tears to fall. Why had she never realized how much pain her family had suffered? Or how much her mom had gone through in such a short time and at such a young age? It was so much different to face the people that the tragic events were about to happen to, rather than hear about it decades afterwards in passing conversations, and she hated the fact that she couldn't stop any of it. Crystal didn't even remember walking back through town, but when she reached the center of the corn field she dropped to the ground and sobbed out her despair and frustration. It was all so unfair. These were good people, people who didn't deserve what life would bring them, and she loved them with all her heart. She cried for the tragedies that they would endure, for her helplessness to stop it, and for the years she had lost with her mom. She should have stayed on the gas station's bench, as Graham had told her to do, should have listened to him and avoided all of this pain. She cried until she felt the familiar floating sensation wrap around her, and dried her eyes quickly as the misty cloud of the time transfer took her back to her own era. As the shroud lifted, she saw Graham standing in front of her, his expression immediately shifting to a look of concern. "What happened? Are you all right?" "I'm fine, just allergic to corn," she lied. "Oh. Well, you should have told me." He eyed her for a few moments, and knew that he suspected she wasn't telling the truth. "So how was it?" She paused thoughtfully. "It wasn't what I expected." "Oh? Hey! Where you going?" Crystal had already crossed the lab and scooped up her car keys and purse. She then remembered that she still had the time travel device, and quickly fished it out of her pocket and held it out to Graham as she spoke. "My mom called last night and wanted to have with me lunch today. I think I'll take her up on it after all." She smiled at Graham's astonished expression as she hurried out to her car. She was definitely going to accept the lunch date, but first she was going to stop by the store and pick up a bag of chocolate-covered peanuts.