— Yes.
Claire took a breath.
— Good.
— Good?
— Not good as in pleasant.
— Of course.
— Just clear.
Clarity was a sufficient reward.
EPILOGUE — RETURNING TOO SOON
David turned fifty.
Claire turned forty-seven.
The medical check-ups were now much less frequent.
Claire's hair had a few gray strands.
She refused to dye it.
— It cost me too much effort to get my hair back to argue over its color now.
David:
— A strange argument.
— It works.
Margaret was seventy-eight.
The relationship was stable.
Not intimate like before.
Perhaps more honest.
The trust was managed by a professional committee.
David had voting rights for part of it.
Margaret, none.
She learned to live without that authority.
Not happy every day.
But living.
One afternoon, David found his old military bag.
Claire:
— The one from your return?
— Yes.
— Throw it away once and for all.
— It has a history.
— So do medical bills, and we don't frame those.
David laughed.
Opened a pocket.
Inside was a plane ticket.
The date: forty-eight days early.
He looked at it.
For years he had thought: How fortunate that I returned early.
Later, he understood that the thought concealed a danger.
If he had returned on the scheduled date, what would have happened?
Claire might have moved out.
The project might have been refinanced.
Margaret might have confessed.
Or maybe not.
David and Claire might have gotten divorced.
Or discovered the lie later.
He didn't know.
Life doesn't grant an alternate timeline.
Claire took the ticket.
— Are you doing that again?
— Doing what?
— Inventing parallel universes.
— A little bit.
— Stop it.
— Yeah.
She tore the ticket in two.
David:
— That was a keepsake!
— Now it's two keepsakes.
— How wild.
She threw it away.
David looked at her.
— So, you don't think it was a good thing that I came back early?
Claire thought about it.
— It was a good thing to discover the truth.
— I don't need to turn a date into destiny.
— You always ruin my poetic lines.
— That's marriage.
They laughed.