For Your Own Reasons

A what-if story meant to make us remember that marrying the right person is more important than anything.

  Copyright © 2009 by Kherry McKay

 

 

     "I think we should get married," he said.
     She looked away. The meadows were stippled with Blue Bells, a carpet of violet that spread out toward the late afternoon sun. West of Austin, they were about twenty minutes from Ladybird Johnson's ranch. It was an April Texas.
     "We haven't seen each other in almost two months," she said.
     He started to disagree, then realized he couldn't. A buzz of cicadas rang out between the high notes of the Cardinals and the sound of the wind touching the uppermost branches of nearby trees.
     "I didn't know you were pregnant," he offered.
     She nodded. This was obvious.  "I didn't want to bother you," she said.  "You told me you'd moved on."
     "I did?" His tone was softly incredulous, but she could hear the fear in it.
     She smiled. "It's O.K."
     "I think we should still get married."
     "Why?"
     "Well, you're having the baby, right?"
     "Yes, I am."
     "And the baby's going to need a father, right?" After he said this, a strange sound surprised them both. A low hum as if from an alien technology was  heard, followed by a whoosh of air. A silver pill-shaped object, the size of two telephone booths welded together, zoomed into view and landed next to them. A door materialized on the side of the object, and opened. From inside the strange machine, a man appeared. He was older than either of them, maybe thirty-five. He had prematurely silver hair laced around a pilgarlic head. He was skinny, perhaps six-foot-two.
     "Hello," the man said.
     "Uh," they both said, unsure exactly what to say or do.
     "I've come," said the man, "to talk to you about your plans."
     They nodded as if this was what they had expected him to say, as if people floated down from the sky in silver pill-shaped vehicles all the time.
     "First, I'm no relation to either of you. You are Ida and John, right?"
     "Yes," Ida said.
     "Good. Well, it's important to settle our relationship, or rather, non-relationship, up front."
     "I had thought," John interrupted, "the craft you came in might have been a time machine, and you were our. . . the child. . . in question."
     "Perfectly understandable, " the man said. "I would have thought so too."
     That made John blink. It was the strangest moment of his life.
     "I'm not kin to either of you, but I am yours and Ida's future daughter's friend. Heddy's, Heddy who appears to be on her way into your lives." At this, the man swallowed, trying not to show any impoliteness.
     "You're from the future?" Ida asked.
     "One future. There are many."
     They nodded. The sun threw pink flares from the west, sign of its impending departure from the sky.
     "Why have you come?" John asked.
     The man looked at them with chagrin.
     "Have you come," asked Ida, "to talk John out of marrying me?"
     "No. We in the future have learned there's no point in trying to affect the past. At any moment, billions of universes shoot off in every direction. All choices have their validity. Good can come from any contigency, any action. Even from bad luck and bad choices."
     "We didn't catch your name," John said. "And why you are here?"
     "I came to pay my respect to both the marriage and the non-marriage, the Yea, the Nay. I came to the moment when the universe, in its present form, can go either way. To feel the moment with you. To be with you in it. Your moment of decision. . . ."
     "Why on Earth!?" asked John.
     The man looked at him. "If you marry Ida, she will not marry another man two years from now. And Heddy will grow up with you as her father."
     "That sounds good," said Ida.
     "Yes, but it conduces to Ida spending a weekend at a woman's retreat about ten years from now and befriending a young woman named Tammy."
     "This is getting complicated."
     "As a result of getting to know Ida, Tammy decides not to break up with me. I become Tammy's husband a few years later.
     "Years after that, our daughter, Kendra grows up and wins the Nobel Prize in physics. She will solve the Drake Equation and fuse Hawking space into the well known Newtonian space-time continuum."
     "That's amazing!" John shouted.
     "That's my daughter! I'm so proud of her!"
     "Your wife won't leave you because Ida becomes her friend?" John asked.
     "Yes."
     "And for this to happen, John has to marry me?" added Ida.
     "Yes, but I'm not worried about my life. I come from a universe in which everything happens just right. There are many possibilities, as I mentioned."
     "Then why have you come?" asked Ida.
     "I've come as a favor to Heddy."
     "Our daughter?" said Ida.
     The man nodded. "She told me to come and tell you to marry only for your own reasons — and not for anyone elses."
     The two of them looked at each other.
     The man reentered the capsule. It began to hum again, and then he was gone.
     John and Ida stared the fleeing object, then at each other, waiting for the other to say something into the Texas evening air. The sun had started to set over the horizon.
     "Well," Ida said. "Looks like we should think this thing through."
     "I guess we should. It's neat that you might help Tammy one day," he added.
     "Yes," said Ida.
     John looked away from her and realized he did not love her.

Reviews

[deer-heart]

At first I felt unpleasantly surprised at the sci-fi twist. But as I kept reading, I started to really, really like the concept, and the fellow, whatever his name is, grew on me =P Altogether it was thoughtful and interesting, very unique. It makes me wish that some little person from the future would show up at my house sometime and tell me a few what-ifs. Well done.

[Samuel Dickens]

First of all, I'm familiar with that part of Texas, having lived there for several years. This story resonates with the sci-fi buff in me, and I like the premise. Oh, how I needed a visit such as that, and on more than one occasion, too. Nice job, Kherry.