Seasons Between Us Read online

  Another pause, thankfully more short-lived. “You’re signing up for some weird dreams, my friend,” future-me says.

  “No stranger than your rearranging memories,” I counter.

  “Who says that dreams aren’t just another type of memory?” he replies.

  It’s not the first time he indulges in an attempt at poetry, and as usual it leaves me cold. I chalk it up to the eccentricities of old age: floaty thoughts, less efficient neurons, and so on.

  “One more thing,” he says. “What are we going to call the system?”

  “Hmm. I suppose Version Control is a little on-the-nose?”

  “Dreams are . . .” He drifts off, then completes the thought: “. . . like mercury.”

  Somehow, this makes perfect sense to me. “That’s it,” I say. “Our AIs will be Quicksilvers.”

  “I like it,” he replies. “But I’ve got a thing for Latin. How about Hydrargyros?”

  “Now I’ve got a headache too,” Jann says upon returning from her swim. “Too much sun.”

  “I’m so sorry, babe,” I say. “I think we have medicine.” I lean forward and start rummaging in our bag, but she holds up her hand.

  “I’m a little dehydrated, that’s all. I’m going to go back to the room and take a nap. I’ll be fine.”

  “Oh,” I say, abandoning my clumsy effort to find the medicine. I sit back, unsure what to do to offer further consolation. “Is there anything I can—”

  “I’ve got it,” she says, and smoothly swoops up the room key.

  I picture myself sitting here during the next hour, maybe the next two, surrounded by these loud children, cowering in our artificial island of shade, which offers only a partial reprieve from the castigating heat. The ice in our cooler is half-melted, and I lack the concentration to read. My forehead feels sickly warm to the touch. I could use some quiet time too.

  “I think I’ll join you,” I say. “This is probably enough beach for the first day.”

  She grimaces. “I’d like the room to myself if you don’t mind.”

  This I didn’t expect. “Uh?”

  “You snore,” Jann says. The laugh that follows is humourless.

  “I won’t sleep,” I say. “I promise,” I add, frustrating myself by offering a level of commitment I think is unreasonably conciliatory.

  “But I want to come back here in a bit, and we’ll lose our spot,” she counters.

  “Okay, fine.” I settle into the chair, entrenching myself and making it harder for her to bend down and kiss me, which proves a futile gesture on my part because she makes no such attempt.

  “I’ll be here,” I say as she ambles away.

  As soon as she’s gone, I revisit forecasts for the day. Despite my hewing as close as possible to my optimized actions, everything seems to be going wrong, possibilities wilting before my eyes. I wish I could contact future-me. Even a little guidance could help. What is Hydrargyros missing, I wonder? Given the sensitivity of its models, even a trickle of new data could send me off in a completely new direction. If I could reach future-me, maybe we could arrange for an emergency download.

  I try to redirect my frustration regarding today’s skewedness toward positive action. My options are limited, but not zero. When Jann comes back, I’ll ask her to return the favour and hold down the fort while I make up some reason to step away. Then I’ll drive inland several kilometres and hope to escape the sea’s interference. I start anticipating each step, calculating how long it’ll take to re-adjust our plans and start having a better trip.

  After about an hour I text Jann, but there’s no response. Half an hour later I try again. Should I call her? No, I think. She’s just asleep, recovering from jetlag. She clearly had a hard time nodding off last night, possibly due to my snoring. But how long am I expected to wait here? I could pack up our stuff and return to the parador, but it’s a bit much for one person to carry, and she’ll probably be upset that I lost our spot, and won’t appreciate being woken up.

  No. There’s a better alternative. I perform a quick inventory of our belongings and decide, once I fish out a couple of high-tech items, that there’s nothing so valuable it can’t stay unsupervised for an hour or so.

  Amped up by a sense of urgency commingled with purpose, I half-jog to the car. There’s no traffic at all, and in record time I’m ten kilometres away from the coast. Engaging manual override I pull off the side of the A-7053 and temporarily activate the car’s diagnostic mode, which automatically triggers privacy nets and will buy me enough time for my needs. Windows polarizing, I initiate my neural interface’s encrypted contact protocol and wait for an answer.

  Nothing.

  I try again.

  Nada de nada.

  Again.

  No sirree.

  And then, just as I’m about to give up, a faint response. The message is garbled but not beyond my ability to decipher: Need—closer—

  I cancel diagnostic mode and manually drive another ten kilometres inland, reaching Cerro la Esparta, in Mijas.

  Our connection is much better now, not as seamlessly intimate as I’m used to, but miraculously stronger than I had a right to expect this close to the sea.

  I decide to skip all pleasantries. “This trip is all screwed up,” I say.

  “You’re on sabbatical in the south of Spain with Jann,” future-me replies. “How bad could it be?”

  “Remember that petty bickering you mentioned back when you were applying for associate professorship?”

  “I see,” he says. “Probably just travel grouchiness. Give it another day or so.”

  “No, no,” I say, perplexed at his lack of understanding. “You’re not hearing me. I’m doing the right things, but nothing’s working out the way it should.” The connection goes dead for a time. “You still there?”

  “I’m here,” comes the reply, tepid, measured.

  “What’s the deal?” I ask.

  “I know my timing isn’t good,” he says. “But it’s never going to be ideal, so I may as well lay it on the line now. I’ve got bad news. I’m pulling out.”

  This again? It’s been about ten months since the last time future-me intimated he was dissatisfied with our arrangement. He goes through this periodically, a restlessness that makes him reconsider all of his life choices, including his partnership with me. God, when I get to his age I hope I remember this and can stop myself from having a midlife crisis every year. At any rate, I remind myself not to take it personally, and to focus on the quantifiable.

  Hydrargyros solved our fundamental conundrum. We have measurable proof now of the improvements in both our lives; that’s unshifting ground, to which I cling on this occasion as I have during each of his previous crises of faith. “What could possibly be the problem?” I challenge.

  “Nothing to do with you,” he says. “You’re doing a good job, kid. Better than I would have. I mean, better than I did.”

  “Then why are you talking about quitting on me?” I insist. “On us?”

  I listen hard. His next words, bullet-like, arrive silvered with melancholy. “An end is approaching. It’s simply best to quit while we’re ahead.”

  I dial up the car’s AC, before remembering that it fritzed out on us yesterday. I hold my palm up to my head and rest it there for a moment. “You’re deciding that?” I say. “Right now?”

  “If it’s any consolation,” he says, “please know that I’ve thought it through.”

  “What would provide some actual fucking consolation would be to know why your holiness is bailing.”

  Energy shifts on the other end of our bond. I don’t know how I know this, but I do. Barometric pressures of the soul building, a vortex inside swirling black clouds. I’m simultaneously pulled in and pushed out. I lower the car’s windows, afraid my ears are g
oing to pop and my brain melt. I breathe. I count the times we’ve been here before, on the edge of this precipice, and remind myself that even when it feels hopeless, there’s always a way back to safety. The mental storm activity channeled in from the future begins to dissipate. I should be reassured, or at least appeased, by the downshift. And yet I’m not, for the fading storm system is not replaced by the familiar presence of future-me. He’s still there, yes, but he’s attenuated somehow. We are separated by something more than time now.

  “Have you ever considered the possibility,” he says softly, “that I may have been feeding you lies all this time? Maybe I’m not you from the future. Or maybe I am, but it’s from some other world, some other timeline. I could have made everything up, kid, amused myself by having you lap up absurd fantasies.”

  Away from the cliff, I tell myself. Turn around. The voice inside my head is hoarse, cracked in all the worse ways. “I trust you,” I say, “because I trust myself.”

  “I think if that was true,” he says, “you’d have no use for me.”

  And that’s when I know I’ve been shoved over the edge and am plunging down. I feel like the fall may last a lifetime. “You can’t—” I begin.

  “I have to,” he says. “This is going to be your last download from me. I hope things work out for you. I really do. Goodbye, kid.”

  Before I have the chance to respond, the link snaps. I have a hundred things I want to think across time to him and can’t. Before I’m able to consider the implications of my loss, Hydrargyros kicks in with future-me’s latest data. I lose all sense of time during the transfer, and yet I know when it has ended. I feel completely voided, achingly emptied of myself. This is it. Whatever sympathetic resonance joined us, it’s vanished. He’s truly gone now.

  Inaccessible—

  Forever.

  I sit in silence. In time the car alerts me that the diagnostic is complete. I dismiss the results with a limp flick of the wrist and notice my mouth is hanging open. I touch my lips, which I discover are parched.

  The car’s privacy screens deactivate, and I’m once more reachable to the world at large. Messages, held until now, spitfire at me. They’re all from Jann. Concern first, then vexation, then deeper concern, then the sort of stoic resignation that can cloak something disastrous. Shit. Have I really been gone two hours? I dictate a quick reply telling her I’ll be back shortly and programme the car accordingly.

  By the time I make it back to our beach umbrella, now mocked by the sunset, the core of my body has pretzeled itself into an impossible geometry. I’ve become an impostor of myself. My legs feel disconcertingly light and thin, like stalks; my steps seem to hardly leave an impression on the afternoon-kilned sand.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, plopping myself down next to the folding chair currently occupied by Jann.

  I observe her features. A faraway gaze reassembles her face into a stranger’s.

  “Let’s pack up,” she says.

  “Um. Okay.”

  Her movements are quick and efficient. Minutes later, she marches toward the hotel without a backwards glance, and despite her greater load I struggle to keep up. By the time we reach the main street, I’m at least ten feet behind. When we reach the room, she unpacks methodically and steps into the bathroom.

  “Aren’t we going to talk about this?” I say.

  “You apologized already,” she says. The shower begins to run.

  “Right,” I say. “But you didn’t accept my apology. And you’re not curious to know what happened?”

  Moving in and out of the bathroom as she performs various tasks, she chuckles. “So this is somehow my failing, right? I’m the deficient one here. Let’s see: lacks inquisitiveness. I’ll add it to the list.”

  “Seriously. Come on. All I’m saying is, let’s talk for a minute and clear the air.”

  Now she stops, studies me from the lip of the door. “It would take a lot longer than a minute to clear the air.”

  “However long it takes, then.”

  “You really want to do this now?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I am sorry.”

  She dips into the bathroom, turns off the water, and remerges with a certain tightness in her frame, as though her centre of gravity has been displaced to some realm beyond my ability to experience. She sits on the edge of the bed, her back ramrod straight. “What are you apologizing for?”

  “You told me to look after our stuff, and instead I took off and didn’t answer your messages for hours.”

  She smiles. “You can do better than that.”

  Desperate, I tap into the final download from future-me. It offers nothing useful—I’m way too far off course for any of its data to be applicable. So I delete it all and brace myself. “What do you mean?”

  “Awww,” she croons. “Really?”

  “Really what?”

  She sighs, then nods. “Fine, fine. This is not the first time you’ve behaved this way. It’s been going on for months. Actually, now that I think back—” She squints—“it’s been years. I told myself I was being paranoid. That I had trust issues, which I did. But I’ve done the work and things haven’t improved. I’ve gone along with it far too long. Not anymore. Not anymore.”

  “Gone along with what? What are you talking about exactly?”

  “Do you think that by forcing me to spell it out you’re somehow going to gain the upper hand?”

  “Let me get this straight,” I say, and now I find myself pacing. The room is far too hot, and sand sticks in between my toes even though I’ve already cleaned my feet twice. “You’re saying I’m having an affair.”

  “And the prize goes to the brilliant mathematician with the mistress,” she says.

  “I swear to you,” I say, voice deepening. “I haven’t been with anyone but you since the day we met.”

  She snorts. “That’s a convenient way of redefining terms so that you don’t actually have to admit culpability. I never said you were sleeping with someone. I don’t know if you’re talking to a gal or a guy. Honestly, I don’t care. Your focus and your heart aren’t in this relationship—that’s what matters. You’re not here, with me. And I’m not doing it anymore.”

  I look at Jann. Her head tilts down, and I want to close the distance between us and hold her. I want to stroke her hair, cup her face in mine and kiss her. I want so many impossible things.

  Most impossible of all, and most fervently desired, I wish I had data, concreteness, precision, specificity. I want to talk to myself. I don’t even care what future-me says. The inaudible sound of my mind reaching back through time would be enough to soothe me, to steer me, to provide hope. Old people, future-me once told me, are simply regular people who happen to be old. At this most inappropriate moment, I marvel at the wisdom of that declaration.

  “If I tried to explain, Jann, you wouldn’t believe—” I begin.

  “You’re right,” she interjects. “And it would be silly of you to expect me to. So let’s skip it.”

  Other words from remembered conversations with a me who doesn’t yet exist drift into my consciousness, as though underlining Jann’s worst fears about me. Though I don’t read much fiction, future-me will apparently fall in love with the classics when he enters his sixties. He once remarked to me that the bildungsroman should be supplanted with the reifungsroman—the novel of “ripening.” That’s where life takes us these days, he said, if we’re lucky. Is this what luck looks like? Is this maturation?

  I say something to Jann, largely because the silence is unbearable, and she replies, and we continue expending words without advancing meaning. I sense myself detach. I’m watching an actor, now, putting on some kitchen-sink melodrama. It’s not a bad performance at first, though admittedly a little stiff, but it soon teeters over into histrionics. The female lead maintains a more discipli
ned approach, projecting a sense of injured pride precisely by dint of the emotions she chooses not to reveal. The actors proceed to delve into several meaty pages of dialogue. They visibly enjoy each fresh salvo of delicately chosen words of injury, but truly what they relish are the implied, rather than the explicit, accusations. Eventually, though, both actors grow weary of the script, and of the kind of shadowy sordidness that seems to have swamped the production—where is the director? Is there no one at the helm?—and finally they retreat into obdurate silence. The woman, after a sorrowful glance at the man she once loved, leaves the room. The man lies down on the bed, his eyes open, his hands still, barely moving through the night. He is transfixed by something the audience will never understand. When she returns, during the pre-dawn, only curt gestures and logistical words are exchanged. The vacation has come to an end. Everything is finished. Many struggles lie ahead, and terrible darknesses. The bedraggled actors contend also with a different, megalithic truth: they who never created life have on this night and day co-authored a spectacularly bathetic death, one from whose grip they will never be free.

  On the return flight to Toronto, Jann and I soar over the Atlantic, the last time we will travel anywhere together. I feel forsaken not only by future-me, but also by past-me. I become immaterial and exist nowhere, suspended between water and sky, between who I was and who I’ll never be.

  There is something truly sad about the idea that I couldn’t keep myself interested even in me.

  Or is this what I wanted all along?

  On the appointed day, I take the time to make myself an elaborate breakfast involving steel cut oats with cinnamon pears, and coconut and cardamom filled crepes. I savour each bite of this impromptu feast, making it last as long as possible.

  Then I enter my self-driving car and observe the late September chestnut foliage on the twenty-minute drive. I reflect on cycles of death and renewal. Maybe, I ponder as I enter the medical centre’s parking structure, I had it wrong. Maybe I misjudged future-me. Perhaps he didn’t cut me off voluntarily, but was diagnosed with an incurable illness, and wanted to spare us both a hopeless, agonizingly disintegrating relationship. Best to quit while we’re ahead, isn’t that what he said?