What if . . . you could redo it all?
The novella. #3 TimeTravel.
If you could go back in time and redo one thing in your life, what would it be?
Anaya, a disillusioned, thirty-five-year-old doctor, has been looking after Gregory, a retired watchmak...
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2001, Seventeen Years Backwards
Her father's eyes glistened as he placed his signature on the final document giving up their house. Their last piece of collateral, surrendered to be declared wholly bankrupt. As the suits locked up their briefcases and sauntered out of the door, they didn't forget to leave instructions for the final handover of the keys. When Anaya went into the kitchen, she caught her dad greedily pop a pill and reach for a glass before her vision blurred and her mind raced back to relive a scene from her past life.
She's home early, hoping to be there before her mother arrives after work, but finds her father there instead.
"Hey, Dad!"
His eyes bulge like the red bulbs that flash outside X-ray rooms, warning against radioactivity. Then he squints as if he can't focus. She doesn't understand why he looks so flushed.
"Oh, Anaya, it's you."
The 's' is slurred and the 'u' sounds strange. All wrong for his usual eloquence.
"Are you... drunk, Dad?"
"You sound just like your mother." He staggers to the bar, his hand unsteady as he pours himself another.
"I think you've had enough." Anaya strides forward to stop him but falters at the craziness in his eyes.
"Who the hell do you think you are? Telling me what to do?" He growls and slams his fist on the counter so hard the empty decanter rocks precariously.
"Is that why we're losing the house? You can't be sober enough to work and you're drinking whatever we have left?"
"Get out!"
But his explosion freezes her in place. It's as if she's pressured the magma too hard and the volcano has erupted.
His face glowers scarlet. When she doesn't move, he charges, scrambling to get to her. "You don't live here anymore. Leave me!"
Anaya is shaking now, whether from anger or fear she doesn't know, but she won't wait around until he reaches her. The stained-glass window on the front door shatters into tiny pieces behind her as it slams shut when he gets to it at last. It sounds like a musical cadence, heightening some eerie psycho movie score.
Quiet and protected by the shadows, she skulks on the porch until her mom drives in. Anaya jumps straight into the car and asks to go somewhere else to talk. They pull over a few blocks away when her mother can't hold it in any longer. It's then that Anaya witnesses her mother living up to her name. When it's really necessary, she has the patience of a saint. Anaya has seen first-hand how quickly her dad becomes aggressive, but things are much worse than she imagines.
"I have to come home soundlessly when he's comatose, and leave early morning as he's waking up. If I suggest getting help, it makes him worse. I'm being a coward, but this is the only way to avoid confrontation." Her mom resembles a ghoul under the street light, her skin sagging from the weight she's shed and the circles under her eyes a bruised black-purple.
