Free Written in Time by Jerry Ahern

loose a cigarette and Ellen took it, broke off the filter and asked, “Light?”  
    David lit her cigarette with a Bic, and then lit another one for himself. “You’re not in one of the photos.”  
    Ellen felt herself wanting to cry, wanted to say “Give me a hug,” but instead told him, “Probably because I was taking it, if this whole thing is real.”  
    “It can’t be real, Mom.”  
    Ellen exhaled through her nostrils. The nice thing about having given up smoking was that when she occasionally did take a puff—maybe six times a year or so—she could really enjoy it. “You ready to go back inside, Davey?”  
    “In a couple of minutes.”  
    “Smoking’s bad for you, you with your bodybuilding and everything. Don’t want to cut down on your lung capacity. You’ll be one of the top players on the tennis team next year.”  
    “If there is a next year. Why don’t you say that?”  
    “Because I don’t know what’s going on any more than you do. You know your father likes Sherlock Holmes, and there’s something Holmes says about when you’ve eliminated everything that’s probable, no matter how improbable what’s left might seem, it’s the answer. We haven’t eliminated everything yet. So who knows?” Ellen took one more drag on the cigarette and tossed it off the porch, onto the sidewalk.  
    The promised storm hadn’t come just yet, either literally or figuratively.  
    Clarence was saying, “In that one picture of the three of you guys, where’s Ellen?”  
    As Jack started to answer, he saw his wife in the doorway. “David’ll be in here in a couple of minutes.”  
    “Did you hear what I was saying?” Clarence asked her.  
    “Momma was probably taking the photo, like she usually does,” Elizabeth volunteered.  
    “Either that or I’m dead by then,” Ellen said cheerlessly.  
    “Oh, gee, thanks!” Jack snapped. “Don’t you ever, ever say anything like that again, Ellen!” His wife’s eyes hardened, and she’d be angry with him, but Jack Naile didn’t care. “There’s a logical explanation. Elizabeth is probably right.”  
    Clarence—who looked more agitated than Jack had ever seen him—said, “Logical my ass! None of this is logical at all! This is a load of bullshit! Maybe it’s that guy from Arizona who was sending you all the hate mail.”  
    “Nope,” Jack said. “Not him.”  
    Ellen added, “The typewriter used to write the note that came with the page from the magazine was a different machine. Every time I open something strange that comes in the mail, I always check. Not him, Clarence.”  
    “Well, all I know is that some son of a bitch is messin’ with your minds! That’s what it is! If I find out who it is, David and I’ll go beat the living shit out of him! We’ll make that bastard wish he’d never been born.”  
    “What are you volunteering me for?”  
    Jack looked toward the kitchen doorway. David stood there beside his mother. Jack’s and Ellen’s eyes met for an instant, and she didn’t smile at him.  
    Jack’s attention was drawn back to Clarence, who was starting another wave of vituperations. “Nobody messes with my family! No damn way! Whatever the hell nutball is doing this is—”  
    “What if nobody’s doing anything, Clarence?” Elizabeth began. “Y’all. Listen. I mean, this is impossible, right? But the pictures look real. The photo from the magazine looked real. Dad’s talking to the guy at their historical society—chamber of commerce, whatever—and he’s real. All I know about time travel is when we used to watch Dr. Who on Channel Eight on Saturday nights, but it looks like us in those pictures. So these are either terrific fake pictures or, or—”  
    Elizabeth didn’t say anything else, but started to cry.  
    Jack came over and dropped to one knee beside her chair. Ellen was beside them in the next instant, stroking Liz’s head and whispering, “It’ll be okay. Just calm down.