REDUX by Wyatt Tremblay

Albert Plimpton wiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead with the monogrammed handkerchief his wife had given him for their twentieth wedding anniversary. Long ago, the material had been a brilliant white, but now the cotton was thin and a dirty shade of grey. Shirley had meticulously cross-stitched a simple A. P. in the bottom right corner. God knew she wasn’t much of a seamstress, but she had tried and he loved her for that. Sadly, the letters were a mere hint of their former reddish hue and the P was missing its “leg,” making it look like an odd-shaped O. He chuckled, appreciating the moment of happiness the memory brought before carefully folding the well-used gift and stuffing it in a back pocket of his overalls. Straining to reach behind him, he picked up the heavy pipe wrench he had earlier placed on the cold concrete of the mechanical room’s floor. The faucet he was focused on was difficult to reach and had not seen the light of day for years; not for decades perhaps. Albert pulled a ball-peen hammer from his utility belt with his other hand and tapped lightly on the sides of the rust-encrusted faucet. Flecks of rotted metal dropped to the floor. Satisfied, he dropped the hammer and maneuvered his ample bulk to get both hands on the wrench. He pushed, pulled, jerked and flopped around, groaning and sweating, until he felt a slight movement. Grinning with a sense of impending victory, Albert pushed even harder. With a terrible grinding sound, the valve suddenly snapped and pulled away from the old brick wall it was anchored to. Water geysered out from the broken pipe, slamming into Albert’s face and chest. Choking and cursing, he scrambled back, banging his head on the underside of the cluttered worktable where he had jimmied his upper body to reach the faucet. He loudly chastised himself; he should have shut the main off. The shut-off was an arm’s-length away and it took only a few quick turns of the valve to stifle the icy flow of water.

Albert was very wet. He didn’t particularly enjoy water, other than in a glass with lots of ice; or hot, in a bathtub, but he was a seasoned plumber and that meant he would, more often then not, lose the battle with his elemental nemesis. That hadn’t mattered much when he was younger, but now that he was edging closer to sixty, Albert had less patience for the discomforts of his long career. He grunted and struggled to his feet, wishing he hadn’t let himself get out of shape as much as he had. He could shed fifty pounds, he thought; at least that much, anyway. If Shirley could see him now, he mused, she’d have him on a diet so fast his head would’ve spun clean off his shoulders. He fumbled around for his tools. These he slid into his belt, using a rag to wipe them dry before doing so.

“Weeeell,” he said to the empty room as he glanced at his water-splattered watch. 8:15. “I think I hav’ta call it a day.”

That was when the pain lanced Albert like a knife. It began in the pinky finger of his left hand and shot up to his shoulder as if someone had shoved a crimson-hot poker clear through his arm. He screamed as the agony slammed into his heart and Albert’s legs buckled beneath him. He fell to his knees hard and then tumbled over onto to his side, his head clipping the metal leg of the worktable. Specks, dancing, dark and shifting filled his vision as his lungs struggled to draw air. He felt as if a ton of steel had suddenly crashed onto his chest. 

Albert was dying, and he knew it.

“Oh, God,” he managed to gasp, “not now… not now…”

Gibraltar. He and Shirley were going to Gibraltar in March. Gibraltar. The sea. Not now. He had promised to spread her ashes on the shores of the Mediterranean. Not now. No…

“Albert?”

His head hurt.

“Albert? Wake up, honey.”

Albert became aware of the pink glow of light from behind his eyelids. It must be morning, except… there were no windows in the apartment building’s utility room. The pain. His chest. Was he in the hospital? He opened his eyes and searched for the face of the voice that had spoken to him.

“Hello, Sweetie.”

What? He knew that face… from twenty years ago. Shirley. His wife. Shirley, before… this wasn’t possible. He was hallucinating. He had banged his head on the worktable. He must have a concussion.

Albert sat up quickly and his head throbbed as if a jackhammer was pounding a hole behind his left ear.

“Ouch.” He griped, reaching a hand up to rub the spot.

“Whoa there, Big Boy,” his wife said, her dazzling, expansive smile gracing her face, “you had yourself quite a fall.”

“What?” he managed to ask.

“I told you not to go up on the roof without Benny’s help.”

“What?” He asked again, staring at her but not daring to believe what he was seeing. His wife was dead—had been for over ten years. Breast cancer. They discovered the lumps too late and she had died a tragic and painful death.

Shirley turned her head away—her dark curls bouncing lightly—and spoke to someone just out of Albert’s sight, “Hey Doc, is my husband gonna live or what?”

Albert turned to see to whom his wife was talking to. Doctor Alex Murphy was standing beside another bed and taking the temperature of a young boy. Didn’t old Doc Murphy die last year? Albert recognized the kid. Stanley Kowalski. Hadn’t the Kowalski kid been killed by a suicide boomer in Afghanistan?

What the hell was going on?

Doc Murphy smiled at Albert and winked. “He’s still got a few years in ‘em, Shirley.”

Albert’s mouth was dry—dry like a mouthful of straw—but he pried his lips apart and grabbed Shirley’s hand. “Am I dead?”

Her large dark eyes, so painfully familiar, frowned at him and she looked over at the doctor again, “Doc?”

“Take him home, Shirley. Put ‘em to bed. Doctor’s orders.” And he laughed, his voice like a ghost from the past.

But Albert wouldn’t let go—of her hand or of the question. “Am I dead?”

Shirley shook her head, frowning like he’d just asked the stupidest question in the entire universe; then she hugged him, pulling him close, tight, one gentle hand cupped to the back of his head. “Of course not, you big lug.”

She smelled so good, so familiar, and so desirable, that he began to sob. His heart was breaking. His wife was dead. He reached his arms around her lithe frame and held onto her as if it were their last moment on Earth. There had been that terrible day when it had been their last.

“My, my… what’s come over you?” he heard her ask.

“You’re dead,” he choked.

She pulled back and squashed his face between her small but strong hands, smudging his tears with her thumbs, “Right, Sweetie. You are not getting that insurance money this easily.”

Then she slid her hands down to his shoulders and helped him up. Albert let her. He suddenly felt foolish. She was obviously alive, or this was one hell of a great dream. More of a flash back, really, he thought. He did fall off the roof that one time while cleaning the chimney, but that was a couple of decades ago.

“See ya, Doc,” his wife said as they headed for the door of the ward. “Thanks a bunch.”

“Any time, Shirley. Take care of that man of yours.” Doc Murphy answered, winking at Albert. “Mind your wife now, Albert. Get some rest.”

Albert nodded and smiled. Why was he dreaming about this event? It seemed so real. It felt like he was really back there, like he was twenty years younger, still had a full head of hair, and Benny hadn’t gone off to college yet. Back when Shirley was still healthy, young and sexy. He patted her behind.

She reacted immediately, grabbing his hand and holding it tight in hers, “Hey, Tiger.” Her smouldering dark eyes met his, “I see your libido wasn’t injured in the fall.”

She winked at him. God, it was so real.

They made love that night. It was heated, passionate lovemaking, filled with whispered sweet things, ending with the two of them falling asleep, Albert holding desperately onto her. He had missed her so, had felt so lost without her, but he had moved on, buried the grief in his work… he had to. It would have killed him if he hadn’t.

When he awoke early the next morning, she was still there, still lying beside him, in their bed, in their house, still twenty years ago. What kind of dream was this? Was he in a coma from what he supposed was a heart attack? Did people relive their lives while in a coma, he wondered as he slowly slid out of bed and padded softly to the living room. He didn’t want to disturb his son—tall, dark-haired, athletic, Benny. The kid was only seventeen, then… but, God, he was so bright and so eager to finish his last year of high school. He had his sights set on a technical school out East. He would go, and he would graduate, and then his mother would die, and he and Albert would just gradually and painfully cease talking to each other. He couldn’t explain why… it just happened, like Shirley’s death.

Albert sat down in his leather lounger, which didn’t look as good as it did now, snagged the remote and flipped the power on the television and switched it to one of the news channels. Grain reports. Metals down. Weather. Sunny most of the day, some wind with a chance of showers in the evening. The farmers would like that. Had liked that, he corrected himself. Mulroney was off to Washington to chat with Reagan over the North American Free Trade Agreement. He laughed softly at that. Twenty years later NAFTA was still a mixed blessing for most and a down-right curse for others. Some local news: a small truck fire over at the mill; two-car collision, no one injured; some kids painted a cow pink (he marvelled that he actually remembered that); and the missing three-year-old child, Alice Featherington, had not been found, yet.

Albert hunched forward. He knew where Alice Featherington was. She had wondered off from her family’s farmhouse and had fallen into a steep-walled ravine. It was almost impossible to see her, even from the bottom of the prairie scar, or to hear her cries for help, unless you knew where to look. Her father would find her decomposed body the following spring. Had found her body, he corrected himself.

Wasn’t that ravine a couple of miles from his own home, Albert questioned himself. It was. He had gone there shortly after they found the little girl’s body, just to look and see where she had died. It was a heartbreaking day for the community.

Albert stood up, smiling. Now this was a dream. He could change the past, alter the future, and control destiny. For a moment, he wondered if he could fly. He liked dreams where he flew. First things first, he reasoned, and he slipped back into the bedroom to dress.

He stubbed his foot against the bed and woke Shirley. She smiled broadly, running a hand through her tussled hair.

“Hey, Tiger… I’m still swooning from last night. What got into you?”

He grinned boyishly and bent over her and kissed her long and passionately.

“Where you off to?” she moaned as he pulled away.

Should he tell her? What the hell, why not? It was only a dream, after all.

“I know where that Featherington child is.”

She sat up, wrapping the quilt around her. “What? They found her?”

He grinned. “No, not yet.”

“But, you said—”

“I know where she is. I’m heading out there right now to get her.”

Shirley swung her legs out and stood, pulling the quilt even tighter around her. “I don’t get it. You know where Mabel’s girl is?”

He nodded, cinching up his belt. He couldn’t believe what great shape he had been in back then. When he woke up from this coma, he vowed he would lose the weight.

“Al, you’re not making sense. How is it you know where she is?”

He drew her close, kissing her forehead. “Because this is my dream. This happened twenty years ago, and I know where they will find her months from now.”

She frowned, like she had yesterday when he had asked her if he was dead. “Your dream?”

“Yes. Alice Feathering died from exposure. It was a terrible thing. This is my dream, I can change that, maybe even change what happened to you.”

He turned to leave, but Shirley grabbed his arm. “What do you mean, ‘change what happened’ to me?”

It’s a dream, he told himself. He could do whatever he wanted and change anything, anything at all. “Come with me.”

The frown did not leave her face. “To find Alice?”

“To find Alice.”

“You’re serious?”

He shrugged. “It’s my dream.”

Shirley said very little as she dressed, much to Albert’s disappointment. He had wondered if he could control what she would say or do, but it hadn’t worked, no matter how hard he had focused his thoughts toward her. He began to think that maybe this was one of those dreams that carried you along for the ride. It took her only a few moments to dress and to grab them both a couple of apples and travel mugs of instant coffee made from hot tap water. Minutes later they were in the Chevy, charting a course through the awakening streets and heading for the edge of town. The ravine was not far from where the road formed a junction with the Trans- Canada Highway. A kilometre past the intersection, Albert turned off onto the gravel road that led out to the Featherington’s farm; then he launched out onto an even rougher and dustier track that quickly ended at the crack, in the face of the Alberta prairie.

Shirley launched herself from the vehicle and called Alice’s name, but they heard no reply. Albert knew they wouldn’t. Volunteer searchers had gone over this area and no one had found the missing child, not until after she had died.

Albert led his wife down a trail that snaked into the ravine. The child, he remembered, had been found at the far end, trapped between two boulders and the overhang of sod that had effectively hidden her from searching eyes.

“This way,” he directed, taking Shirley’s hand.

“You’re sure?” she asked.

“I came here after they found her. I was curious.”

“After? You mean, in your dream?”

He laughed as he lifted her down into the rocky bottom of the old riverbed. “This is my dream… and you are beautiful.”

Shirley smiled, returning his youthful kiss, but he could tell she worried about him. She probably suspected that he was still delusional after his fall from the roof, and she was playing along. Albert didn’t care; he was enjoying himself. It was fascinating to be able to manipulate his dreams like this, especially if it meant he could change the outcome of a tragic event, even if only in the dream.

As they neared the place where Albert knew Alice had been found, he began to call out the girl’s name. Shirley heard the pitiful cries first.

“Oh, my God,” his wife gasped as he began to pull the clod of soil away from where the little girl had been trapped.

Alice was there… dirty, soiled, face streaked with muddy tears, but alive. Feeling immense personal satisfaction, Albert lifted the edge of one of the boulders and Shirley pulled the girl free.

“I can’t believe this, Albert,” his wife cried, trying to remain calm for the child’s sake. “How could you have known she was here?”

Albert brushed debris from the girl’s dress and matted hair, and beamed, “This is my dream…”

“Enough already about that, Albert. How did you know?”

How did he know? This was his dream. He would know, wouldn’t he? It was a dream, wasn’t it?

Albert drove in troubled silence to the Featherington farm, his mind plagued with doubts and an equal amount of questions. Even during the excited, teary reunion with the child’s parents, Albert was distant. He could feel Shirley watching; she had always been quick to spot his moods.

“You should be happy, you know. You’re a hero,” she said moments after they returned to the Trans- Canada.

He shrugged and let his eyes turn briefly to her. “This is too real. I’ve never had a dream like this. I’m either in one helluva coma or I’m dead and this is poor man’s heaven.”

His wife grimaced. “Why do you keep saying you’re dreaming?”

Albert looked at Shirley, at her beautiful face, the graceful lines of her body, and wondered; if he could rescue little Alice Featherington in his dreams, he could prevent Shirley from dying. Couldn’t he?

“You died, you know,” he said quietly, trying to keep his eyes clear and focused on the road as they entered the town’s outskirts.

“Al… why are you saying this?” The distress in her voice was real… too real for a simple dream.

“It’s true. You have three lumps in your right breast. You don’t check yourself for such things ‘cause you think you’re young, but you’ll find them in about four years from now, and it’ll be too late. The cancer will have spread through all your organs by then, and—”

“Albert! Why are you doing this?”

He turned the vehicle down their street. “Because it’s true.”

“In your dream?”

“This is my dream, and it did happen. I knew where the Featherington girl was because it did happen—twenty years ago. And, fourteen years ago you died and I’ve been alone ever since.”

He parked the truck in their driveway and killed the motor. They sat in silence, Albert staring ahead at the house he and Benny were in the middle of painting. Shirley’s gaze was hard on his face. He could feel it—feel her eyes on him. This had been one hell of a dream, but now he wanted to wake up. It wasn’t fun anymore.

A sound caused him to turn his head. Shirley’s hands were under her sweater. She was kneading and poking her right breast. He watched her and began to smile. Maybe the dream wasn’t so bad after all; maybe he could change his future, their future… in the dream at least.

“Lower,” he said.

“Where?” she almost barked at him.

“Lower. Further, toward your side. They’re in a diagonal row.”

He reached over and moved one of her hands.

“Oh my God,” she breathed, “I can feel them. They’re really small.”

He nodded and their eyes met, and she began to cry.

“I don’t understand,” she said as he pulled her to him.

“It’s just a dream, Babe. Only this time, I can make it all better. I saved the kid and now I can save you.”

They cried, sharing tears between kisses and desperate hugs. Albert was remarkably happy. This was one amazing dream… or was it?

He didn’t know, and—quite frankly—he didn’t care.

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