Saturday Afternoons with Ellie by Den Dotson

Elias “Eli” Wells felt the cold thick coffee crawl down his throat. He had left the light brown beverage sitting too long and the heat drained from it. His life felt the same. He had waited too long. He had let himself become preoccupied with things that in the long run turned to dust.

Around him the office was buzzing with his coworkers chatter and rustling. They were preparing to attend a celebration of their mutual success. Their long hours and dedication to their work was about to pay off.

Eli picked up a cheap plastic frame from off his desk. He pulled a tissue from his back pocket and wiped away the dust and grime clouding the image held inside. He had neglected the picture in the same way he had neglected the people pictured in the holograph. As he wiped away the dirt, the light in the room bounced off the holographic image and its illusion of three dimensions returned.

He looked into the scene and his mind drifted back to a time when his family was still all together. His wife Clara and his daughter Ellie stood next to him. Their smiles were real, and in the moment captured in this tiny fragile frame, they had all been happy.

Now he was left alone, except for Saturday afternoons. Sunday through Friday he moved through his life, alone. He had become thin, in spirit as well as in his physique. He simply forgot to eat. In his old life, eating had been a social time.

In the time represented by the picture, he was the kind of husband to rush home to his family. He was also a devoted employee, he often worked late, but when it was time to head home, he couldn’t get there fast enough.

He would slip quietly into the house and as soon as his nose was in the doorway it was filled with the smells of cooking food. As his ears came into the house they heard a spoon touching metal, chemical reactions taking place brought on by heat, and the voice of his wife warning Ellie to “stay back, that’s hot, you’ll get burned.” His hands would discard the necessities of his work, his laptop, briefcase, and empty lunch container, then his fingers would itch in anticipation of touching his wife’s skin, and brushing through his daughter’s hair.

His fingers went momentarily numb and let the hologram in its frame slip through his grip. The corner of the cheap plastic frame impacted the floor of his cubicle and he heard the sound as it cracked. Eli bent over to retrieve the frame and a spiders-web of cracks spread from one corner down over the image of his wife Clara. A tear tried to form in his eye. Now the image displayed his present life, instead of the past.

Eli jumped as his chair was spun around.

“Ah, come on, Eli, this is your big day, more than anyone else’s.”

“You startled me, Mort. I was thinking,” Eli said with a sigh. To his face, the office called Morton Gordon, Mort, to each other, they called him Ton. The man weighed 400 pounds if he weighed an ounce. The fact that Ton could sneak up on him made it clear to Eli how out of it he had become.

“Mort, give me minute, I will be there before the presentation starts,” Eli said rubbing his thumb against the cracks in the frame as if rubbing them could make them close up. It was just like his efforts to heal his family. All his efforts just made the splintering spread.

“I’m saving you a seat, Eli, I want to be the first guy to shake your hand when the Dragon’s Wing launches,” Ton said as he backed out of the small space, leaving Eli to finishing his thinking.

Eli couldn’t help himself, he smiled. Watching Ton maneuver his way out of the opening of his cubicle, caused Eli to picture the Dragon’s Wing awaiting its launch. The name made it sound thin, yet powerful. The truth was the ship looked more like a Dragon’s turd. The vehicle was made from a hollowed out asteroid. The journey it was about to undertake was the longest any human had ever attempted. The robot crew of the ship would strip-mine the inside of the rock to fuel the ship and make replacement parts as equipment wore out. The human crew were Eli and his team’s responsibility. They had perfected the means for the first humans to travel to another star.

Eli noticed the chatter and rustling caused by his excited colleagues fading. The last of his coworkers had left to make their way over to the company auditorium for the presentation. The seat next to Ton would remain empty.

Eli moved his hand over the touch pad built into his desk. The view area in the corner of his cube lit up and the icons representing his life’s work floated in space in front of him. Eli clicked on the icon to connect to the web and typed in the address for the feed showing the launch. Clips of the Dragon’s Wing floating within a large metal superstructure were interspersed with file footage of the human crew training. A stern and determined young lady’s voice gave commentary on what was being shown to her audience. Eli shook his head and lowered the volume to a whisper.

He watched as the file footage changed to more recent clips. The human crew, all three hundred and sixty of them filed onto the ship. They removed their mostly ceremonial spacesuits and stored them for their century spanning journey. They showed the various brave crew-members being strapped into their seats and their vital sign monitoring devices being attached. Then Eli became interested. His face appeared on the screen, with his name printed in a clear bright font near the bottom of the image. Elias Wells, Temporal Engineer for ChronoTech, a UBC company. The interview had been taped months ago. He turned up the volume.

“Tell us, Dr. Wells, how your discoveries will make this history making journey possible,” the young lady, who Eli had forgotten her name, asked.

“I didn’t discover it,” Eli began, and was interrupted.

“Can you explain that, my notes show you as the inventor of this process.”

“My father was a student of Dr. Ronald Mallett, the father of temporal science. It was his discoveries that fueled my work. My father talked endlessly about Dr. Mallet’s belief in man’s ability to control time and its application for human endeavors. My father carried on Dr. Mallet’s work after his death, and I carried on my father’s work after he retired, ten years ago. I simply stripped away the ideas we couldn’t make work, and found a useful purpose for the theories we were able to put into practice.”

“You are too modest, Dr. Wells,” watching the play back Eli noticed the reporter had actually been rather flirty with him. He never noticed such things until after the event was long over. “You and your team at ChronoTech have built the first working time machines.”

“Hardly,” Eli’s recorded voice said, “If anything we have perfected the first time stopping machine. That is where science and fantasy were forced to part ways. A time machine would allow the user to travel back and forth through time like you driving back and forth to work everyday.  This idea is, stated simply, quite impossible. It is as impossible as attempting to travel faster than the speed of light.

The proposal I took to UBC, and for which they created ChronoTech to allow it to become a reality, involved combining the problem of two impossible tasks and making a solution for both. My father, using Dr. Mallet’s theories had built a prototype, time bending machine. I took it to the next step and stopped time entirely. Once time is removed from the equation, building a ship and traveling to the nearest star with a planet in the habitable zone becomes a reasonable goal.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Dr. Wells. Slower and this time in language our vid viewers can follow,” the young woman, stared at Eli in the recording like a groupie staring at a celebrity. She was a science geek, and he could see her hanging on his every word.

“Ok, ok, here’s how I explained it to my daughter Ellie,” Eli began again, only to be interrupted again.

“You have a daughter? How old is she?” the young woman leaned in as Eli like a good father produced a small hologram from his wallet. The vid recording was able to zoom in on the image but the three dimensional qualities were lost in the web broadcast.

“She was twelve when this image was taken,” he explained, “she is very bright, but not all that interested in all of her dad’s science talk. She needed an explanation for a paper she needed to write for school, so I gave her a simple explanation.

“The nearest star with a planet any human would be willing to visit is very far away. So far we had stopped considering a trip there because even with the fastest spaceship we could build, it would take centuries to get there. In the vid shows, the captain of a spaceship would just turn on his magical faster than light engines and be there in minutes. The truth is, there is no such thing as a faster than light engine and there never will be. End of story.

“But what if you could stop time. If time simply stopped for a crew of our fastest spaceship they would strap in here in our solar system and from their point of view, moments later unstrap their seat belts and be circling a distant new world. In effect, these individuals would have traveled through time into the future. Unfortunately, the trip would be one way.

“UBC had the resources through their space exploration divisions to build the ship, they also were kind enough to provide me the funding, personnel and resources to perfect the Mallet temporal device. Combine the two ideas and you are looking at the Dragon’s Wing our first intergalactic spacecraft.”

“So, Elias, I may call you Elias?” Eli didn’t interrupt her and she took his silence as approval, she smiled and blushed a little before continuing, “Elias, can you explain the principle behind how this works. Again, keep in mind my audience are not scientists.”

“Hmmm,” he said, wanting to clearly pick his words before using them, “The device stops time from penetrating a small area. Dr. Mallett bent time, we stopped it. Any deeper explanation and I think your viewers would need some coffee,” he grinned at his weak joke.

“Why not just send one space technician in a little capsule then?”

The recorded Eli turned to another person sitting just off screen. The recording panned over to the new face and Eli was out of the picture.

The new face went on to explain how the ship had to be large enough to carry and create enough fuel for such a long journey. Mining robots would turn the raw materials of the asteroid into the means to power the ship. Also artificial intelligence systems and robots would pilot the ship since the crew would be unavailable throughout the voyage. Finally, the need for such a large human crew had to do with maximizing the result when they arrived at their new home. These explorers would be far away, and completely out of touch with their old home. The crew needed to be large enough and diverse enough to land and begin a colony on a new world without any help or guidance.

Eli stared down into his empty coffee cup. He took it and left his cubicle, crossing the empty office to the communal kitchen. He examined one coffee pot and found cold sludge. The second pot held hot coffee only a few hours old, just what he needed to make it through the rest of his day.

The launch was also on a vid screen here in the kitchen. The images had switched to a live broadcast of the preparations for the ship’s imminent launch. Eli chuckled to himself at the silly idea. He looked at his wristwatch. The Dragon’s Wing was already well underway by now, the “live” pictures just hadn’t had time to reach Earth at the all too slow speed of light from the outer edge of the asteroid belt. A little over thirty minutes ago, the Dragon’s Wing had taken flight, slipping out of its metal cocoon and heading out into the outer solar system.

Time. It was all a matter of time. How he had made choices to spend the time he was given in his life had shaped the events that had left him a lonely broken man. All he had left were Saturdays to look forward to the time he could spend with Ellie.

Friday and it was late afternoon. He wouldn’t be getting any more work out of his staff. The celebrations would be starting shortly and then the party would carry on well into the night. He didn’t feel much like celebrating. He just wanted to head home.

Eli took a lid from the station next to the coffee pot and covered his cup. He still needed the caffeine; he would take it to go.

He walked through the empty office, and it reminded him of how he felt most of the time. Even when the cubicles were all filled and voices could be heard everywhere, he felt alone. The most important person in his life had been reduced to an occasional visitor. The rest of these strangers were inconsequential.

He returned to his cubicle, locked down his workstation, retrieved his coat from the back of his chair and headed out of the office. He found his transport in his usual parking spot.

Eli used to pride himself on being a driver. Few people actually drove themselves anywhere anymore. AI were standard equipment on all vehicles, and the transports drove themselves. Eli had adjusted his AI to allow him to take manual control. He used to make Clara smile, and Ellie squeal as he took them on acrobatic spins and hairpin turns. He could make the most mundane trip to the shopping mall into a thrill ride to remember.

Now he slipped into the transport, punched in the code to power up, and set the coordinates for home, with two stops along the way. Eli sat back and sipped his coffee as the vehicle lifted into the air and followed his instructions.

He felt a shiver, riding in the transport brought back too many memories for him. The environment controls were controlling the temperature perfectly, it was not the temperature of the air that caused the shiver.

Eli looked over at the seat next to him and he could still picture Clara sitting there, smiling and laughing as he told her about Ton explaining how thin he was now compared to how big he used to be.

He was driving them home, after a visit to Clara’s parents. He glanced back to see Ellie fast asleep. Her head was pressed against the head rest, her mouth hung slightly open and a small dribble of saliva hung from her lip. At twelve years of age, if Ellie knew someone saw her in such a state she would be embarrassed beyond any hope of a father consoling her. He would keep the moment to himself.

His attention was drawn back to the front by a bright light filling the transport cabin. A large vehicle was too close and heading straight into them. Eli moved hands over controls, fingers pushed all the right buttons, but all he did was far too little, far too late.

He could remember the sounds of shattering glass, tearing metal, and his wife screaming. Why had he lived?

Metal ripped away and a vicious wind tore through the small space. The piece of the transport holding Clara was gone. He had only blinked for a second, or had he been squeezing his eyes shut forever. When he looked, he was staring into open sky. Rain poured in through the hole. Perhaps, it was the wetness hitting him in the face that forced his eyes open. The transport spun. Eli knew they were falling. He heard the vehicles engines crying as they fought against gravity and were losing the battle.

He saw Ellie’s eyes peering from the darkness of the remains of the back seat. She had been awakened by the crash. She was in shock from her injuries. Pieces of metal that moments ago held her mother in place had found their way through her body. Eli could barely make out her cries and whimpers over the sounds of the engines and the roar of the wind.

He remembered the floor of the transport rising to meet him. It was the only indication he had the vehicle had hit the ground. The cabin filled with airbags and safety foam. The engines had slowed their descent enough to allow them to live. Then all was black, until he awoke in the hospital, and his life turned into an unending grey.

Eli awoke and found he couldn’t move. Plastic casts and restraints held his body in a position the doctors felt would allow his injuries to heal. His body would heal. His family was terminal. Clara was gone. Ellie was headed into hell.

He missed his mouth with the coffee and the still hot liquid splashed onto his chin. Eli let the past go, and focused on the present. He reached into a pocket of his jacket and retrieved a tissue to wipe away the stinging coffee. Why couldn’t he pay more attention, and live in the moment, even now?

His first stop before he arrived home was the memorial. Clara had not wanted to be buried. Her remains had been cremated and scattered across the grounds of her parents’ large estate. At the edge of the property, Eli had a memorial placed. It was a traditional hologram grave-marker with a vid of memories a visitor could watch after pushing a button. Eli came here every Friday evening.

He used to watch the vid at least once every visit. He could now pull up the pictures, voices, and music from his memories without the help of the projector. Clara was calling out to him from the hole in his soul. He would never be a whole man again.

He used to cry when he visited Clara. Now the tears refused to come. He wished he could touch her skin again. His fingers still itched to feel her skin against his.

“The Dragon’s Wing left today,” he said. “I always promised I would work fewer hours and be home more once the ship was on its way. I did it. Now who do I spend the time with?

“I miss you. Ellie misses you, but she doesn’t really know how long you have been gone. I promise I will always be there for her.

“She has your eyes, and your smile. She is all I have left of you. I am so, so sorry. Good night, my love.”

Eli felt wetness on his face, and he hoped the tears had found a way to come again. He needed the release. Then his whole face was wet and if there had been tears, they were lost in the rain.

He walked slowly back to the transport and let the rain soak into his clothes. The fabric clung to his skin and the cold covered him. The chill made him alert. He wanted to be present; he had another task to perform.

Ellie was twelve years old when the crash happened, five years before. She loved teddy bears. Most twelve year olds traded their stuffed animals for pop music, cell phones, and more clothes. Ellie had never grown tired of the bears. They decorated her room, she named them, and for some she had made a wardrobe of clothes to wear.

It had taken five years for Eli to allow himself to examine the personal effects returned to him from the crash. The six small boxes had been delivered a few days after he had arrived home from the hospital. He moved them into the basement and left the seals untouched for five years.

He filled his empty Sundays with meaningless cleaning and yard-work, when the weather permitted. This past Sunday had proven to be cold and wet. He decided to clean the basement.

Much of their old life had been collected and packed away. It really was an accident when he pulled over a box and broke its seal before realizing it was one of the containers from the crash.

Sitting on top of the scraps of his old life, lay a battered, torn, teddy bear staring up at him with a sewn on grin.

He pulled the bear toward his face and he smelled Ellie, and Clara. When she turned twelve, Ellie had found she smelled funny. Hormones were running amok in her body, and she was beginning to have sweat that stank like B.O. should. Clara had introduced her daughter to antiperspirant and perfume. Ellie still smelled of adolescent sweat but it was mixed with the smell of Clara’s perfume. To Eli it smelled like roses blooming early in springtime.

He gently examined the bear and took note of every injury. Its fur was torn and matted. One arm hung by a bit of fabric and some weary string. The bear looked like Eli felt inside. The bear he could get repaired. Ellie would be thrilled.

On Monday afternoon, during lunch, Eli had gone to a seamstress he had found on the web during the morning. She had assured him, via text message, she could mend the bear.

The shop was small and tucked into a strip mall. It was situated between a gun store and a payday loan office. This was not the neighborhood Eli was used to visiting.

A bell rang as he entered the door. Eli looked up and examined the bell. It was a real bell on a curled piece of metal. The metal flexed as the door slid under it and the bell rang. Most shops that wanted the quaint sound of a bell when customers entered, used sensors and an electronic recording. Eli felt comfort in seeing the real bell.

The seamstress was an old woman named Annie. Eli made himself grin, imagining her name might be short for Annabelle. She crept around the counter and had a hand on his hand in greeting before he had a chance to object.

“You must be Elias,” her voice was like wheels moving through gravel, “come in, come in, and let’s see our patient.”

Annie had not seen an image of Eli during their text message exchange, and he had not had a chance to introduce himself. She just knew.

“Hello, Annie,” Eli said, trying to form a full grown smile. His face had forgotten how to make one.

“Never mind, the pleasantries,” she said, “We have an injury to repair, and you look like a busy fellow. I know I have lots of things to do.”

Eli took a seat at a table, Annie indicated as a place for their meeting. He set the rumpled brown paper bag with the bear in it between them,  and gently unwrapped Annie’s new patient.

Annie lifted a pair of glasses she wore on a chain around her neck, to her eyes and stared at the damaged animal.

“Uh, huh,” she said, “Hmm, ah,” she continued mentally noting each and every area that needed her attention. “Can you give me till Friday?” she asked.

“Friday? Sure, Friday would be great,” Eli said. He had been sure she was going to tell him the case was hopeless and the last bit of hope for repairing part of his family’s old life would have been gone.

He offered her money ahead of time and she refused. She shook his hand again, and had him out the door within another minute.

Now Friday had come. The transport set down in the parking lot, and he walked past men sharing beers and loud conversation outside the loan office. Obviously one of them had scored a loan and they were celebrating.

He smiled as he heard the bell announce his entrance, and there, right on cue, was Annie holding what appeared to be a brand new bear.

“I cleaned her fur, and fixed all the boo-boos,” she said.

Eli took the offered bear and stared at it speechless.

“You can check my work if you like,” she continued, “I did my best to hide the stitches.”

Eli briefly looked the bear over. It was Ellie’s bear, there was no doubt, but all evidence of the accident’s effect on it was gone.

“How much do I owe you?” Eli asked, “Your work is amazing.”

“You can’t pay me yet,” Annie said, “You don’t own that bear. You take her home to her owner. If the lady who owns the bear is happy, you mail me a check, or drop it by when you are in the neighborhood. Better yet, I take money on my website, I accept Paypal.”

Eli smiled, and then he couldn’t help himself. He hugged Annie with the bear in between them. “But how much?” he asked again.

“You decide how much it was worth, when you show the little lady,” Annie said, “You will know how much it was worth.” Annie looked Eli over in his wet clothes. Then she took the bear and wrapped it in plastic.

She shook Eli’s hand after placing the bear in his other hand. Annie had him back out of her store and on the pavement in a moment. Eli beamed as he walked to the car.

He sat in the vehicle and stared at the bear all the way home. The bear’s shiny plastic eyes looked back at him from inside the shrink wrap. He saw Ellie’s eyes staring at him from the back seat, during the crash. Her eyes knew her mother was gone. Her eyes knew her father was to blame. Her eyes knew everything.

Eli still lived in the house they had all shared as a family. He walked through the door leading from the transport hangar, dropped his wet coat on the floor, set the bear in a chair in the living room and headed to the kitchen.

Since losing Clara, he had made a habit of eating boxed frozen dinners. The nutritional value was minimal, the taste was marginal, and the space it filled in his stomach was acceptable. He no longer found joy in meals. He mentally knew his continued existence required he occasionally eat. He didn’t have to like it. He carried his excuse for dinner into the living room and plopped down on the couch.

He turned on the vid screen and scrolled through the channels. Almost every channel had some variation of the coverage of the launch of the Dragon’s Wing. The entertainment and gossip channels interviewed celebrities and asked what they had been wearing when they watched the launch. It was big news. He should be elated. He chewed his food and only tasted burnt ash.

The evening blurred. Allowing himself to relax for a moment, let his exhaustion wash over him. This life was killing him.

He awoke still sitting on the couch with the empty food container sitting in his lap. Daylight was tearing through the windows and ripping at his eyes. It was Saturday morning.

Eli carried the container to the recycling slot and put his utensils in the sink. He rinsed out the coffee pot, filled the coffee machine’s reservoir with water, and decided to take a shower while it brewed.

In the bathroom, he slipped out of his still moist clothes and stared at himself in the mirror. His body was wasting away. He had been a plump slightly overweight man when his family was whole. He wasn’t exactly fat. He had that fullness a man achieved when he found contentment. He enjoyed meals and time spent on leisurely moments with his wife and daughter. He had been happy and soft.

The five years since the accident had taken a toll on his body. The roundness had melted away to show the hard angles of bones showing through skin and thinned muscle. He didn’t look fit, just frail. His once filled out skin, now hung over his skeleton like carelessly hung clothes on wire hangers. Dark circles held up his eyes. His cheeks were beginning to sag. The touches of grey in his hair were spreading to take over his scalp. He had aged fifteen years in the last five.

Eli stepped into the shower and let the warm water flow across his body. He closed his eyes and it had been a mistake. The warm water became blood running over his skin. He couldn’t get it off and he wasn’t sure whose blood covered him. He forced his eyes open and he was back in the shower. He foamed up with deodorant soap, and let the memories run down the drain. He kept his eyes open even when soap splashed into them and he felt the sting. Nothing was worth closing his eyes again. Nothing.

He dressed in a hooded sweatshirt with a large kangaroo pocket. His wife used to call it “old blue”. He also slipped into some old faded blue jeans and a pair of high top sneakers. These are the clothes he would wear every day if corporate culture would allow it.

He wandered the house and went into his office. He sat at the desk and pulled an envelope out of the drawer. Inside were the papers that closed the door on any chance of happiness for Eli. It was the report on Ellie’s condition after the accident. He reached inside the envelope and pulled out the sheets of paper and the pieces of film illustrating the words in the reports. His daughter was dying.

Her injuries from the accident were surprisingly minor. She had cuts from flying glass and metal shrapnel. The doctors were able to extract every piece with the help of body scans. It was the dangers not caused by the accident; the disease the body scans also showed that would kill Ellie.

Centered in her brain, and slowly spreading through her body was a hungry cancer. The tumors were feeding on Ellie and eating away Eli’s last chance at a life with his daughter.

He did the math to be certain. One year. 365 days. 24 hours in each day. He had approximately eight thousand seven hundred and sixty hours. Ellie would still need to sleep, about 10 hours a night considering the chemotherapy would make her tired. That left 14 hours a day. Five thousand one hundred and ten hours. When he took her home, the doctors assured him she would have at least a year as long as she followed her treatment. One more year with his daughter, wasn’t nearly enough.

He moved the prototype from his lab in the workshop behind the house. He worked every moment he wasn’t at the hospital. The last few days Ellie was admitted, he didn’t sleep at all. Time was his enemy and this fight he was going to win. Five thousand one hundred and ten hours.

He arranged for a treatment facility to be assembled in Ellie’s bedroom. He would monitor her progress and have a visiting nurse give the chemotherapy. He would explain to them the new procedures they would need to follow. Five thousand one hundred and ten hours. How long could he make it last?

The prototype’s range was extended as he placed the components in and around Ellie’s room. He would tell her it was all part of her treatment. The equipment was there to keep her alive and it wouldn’t be a lie. Five thousand one hundred and ten hours.

He wired the power matrix into the house. He contacted the electric utility and received a certification for in-home equipment necessary to sustain a life. The woman from the utility company assured him his connection to the electrical grid would be maintained as a priority and his added expense due to high energy consumption would be eligible for subsidies. Five thousand one hundred and ten hours.

“Dad, this place is a mess,” was the first thing Ellie said as she reentered their home. Dust covered everything. Empty boxes and bits of equipment and wire were everywhere.

“I have been trying to catch up on some work,” Eli told her.

“Maybe you could catch up on some cleaning,” Ellie said, trying to coax a smile from her dad.

“I’m sorry your room is going to look more like the hospital, than the way you left it. I had to install a lot of medical equipment so they would allow you to come home.”

“It’s ok, Dad,” Ellie said, she huffed and moved through the house, “It’s good to be home.”

Eli noticed the extra effort it took Ellie to simply get in the house and go down the hall to her room.

“What is all this stuff?” she asked as they arrived at her bedroom door. Eli had installed pieces of the prototype around the door and covering the walls. He needed a complete field if his plan was going to work.

“Part of the in-home treatment,” Eli sort of lied, “They are better at hiding these things at the hospital. I kept most of it on the outside so you would feel more comfortable.”

Ellie slid into her room and fell onto her bed. The hospital recommended he get a hospital-style bed. Eli refused. He wanted Ellie to have as much normal as he could give her until the end.

“Do you mind if I take a nap?” Ellie asked. “I’m excited to be home and all, just really tired. See you when I wake up?”

“I will have some lunch ready.” Eli left the room turned out the lights, activated the new equipment in the hall and time stood still for Ellie.

Saturday was the day he spent time with Ellie. It was all about the math. Five thousand one hundred and ten hours. He would spend two hours every Saturday with her. Every seven weeks he would spend five weeks visiting her while she slept. Parceling out the time he would stretch one year into nearly fifty. He would grow old, and possibly die of old age before she would turn thirteen.

He did his best to maintain a normal life for her. He let her friends visit. He explained to them the limitations of their coming over before he let them in with Ellie. Two hours was the limit, it would be too tiring for her to be entertained longer. Ellie complained. But was happy to have the visitors.

A few Saturdays they would go out if she wasn’t feeling too tired. She wasn’t a prisoner she just lived on a different timeline than everyone else.

It took about a year before she figured it out. They had gone out to the mall and were eating tempura in the food court.

“Dad, what day is it?”

Eli said, “Satur…,” before stopping himself. He tried to do a quick calculation in his head. What day would it be for her.

“It’s Saturday, isn’t it. It’s always Saturday. It’s ok, Daddy. I think I know what you have done for me.”

Eli looked down at his hands in his lap. The fingers started trembling. “I can’t lose you, not like your mother,” he said trying to keep the words steady. If he let his hands shake maybe he could keep the tremor from spreading to the rest of his body. Hearing her call him ‘Daddy’ nearly broke his heart.

“Daddy, it’s ok. I’ve thought about it. I am like one of your space people. I get to see the future without getting old. I get to be twelve forever,” Ellie looked at him, and her eyes forced his head up. He felt them staring at him and he had to look back.

“You’re going to miss so much,” he said, “I wanted to torment your first boyfriend. I wanted to teach you to drive.” The words slipped out before he could catch them. Ellie’s eyes lost their brightness. Her mouth hardened into a tight knot. “Sorry, I’m sorry,” he said.

“I need to walk a bit,” she said, pushing away from the table.

Ellie walked alone for the rest of the time they spent at the mall. She came back to the table and wanted to go home. They rode home in the transport in silence. Ellie went back to her room, and time stopped.

This Saturday would be different, Eli was sure of it. He had the bear, and he had the launch to talk about. It was going to be a good Saturday.

Eli fixed lunch for both of them. Real food, Ellie’s favorite, tuna salad with hard-boiled eggs and lots of relish mixed in. He lightly toasted the bread and piled the tuna on thick. He even made a third sandwich for the bear.

Eli spread a tablecloth over a service trolley Clara used to use to serve at dinner parties. He tucked the bear under the cloth and set the three paper-plates on top. The wheels buzzed as he shoved the cart down the carpeted hallway.

He stepped around the cart and powered down the prototype unit. He felt the time bending energy ripple across his skin when he got this close. He wondered if Ellie dreamed when she was in no-time. He at first called it ‘time-out’ but didn’t want to think of her as being in trouble. He switched to calling her time away no-time. Did she feel time moving by around her? She had to be seeing the difference in her father week after week as he withered away. But was the time stopping machine able to stop all feeling from entering her room.

“Hello, my sunshine,” Eli said as he whizzed the cart into her room. Ellie was sitting at her desk right where he had left her a week ago.

“I was writing in my journal,” she said, “The words were flowing and now I can’t remember what I was writing about. Hmm, I’m sure it will come back to me. Is that tuna?”

“Lightly brown toast, and almost more egg and relish than fish, just the way you like it,” Eli said. He felt a smile trying to curl his lips. He was having a moment of happiness, and he wanted to rush over to the time machine and keep it forever. As soon as he let his mind drift to the machine and away from his daughter the moment was gone. The smile died before it was born.

“Three plates,” Ellie tilted her head, and asked. “Whose coming?”

“An old friend,” Eli said, as he slid the restored bear from under the tablecloth.

He walked the bear over to his daughter’s outstretched arms.

“Walter!” Ellie exclaimed, immediately recognizing the bear, “Walter, I thought I had lost you.” Then she started to shake and she began to cry, “This bear, was with me that night, this bear, this bear…”

“He’s good as new,” Eli offered. “I had him repaired, the lady did her best to hide the stitches and to clean his fur.”

“Oh, Walter, Walter,” Ellie said. She got up from her desk and took Walter to her bed. She curled up with the bear in a fetal position and she wept.

Eli didn’t know what to do. He expected smiles and a hug. How could he have been so wrong? He so wanted something to be back to normal after the accident. He wanted to put it all back the way it was. Walter was the only piece of that night he thought he could actually fix.

“Dad, I can’t do this anymore,” Ellie said. “I can’t keep letting time slip by around me. I want to die, in real-time, like I was supposed to.”

“No,” Eli said, he felt the trembling coming on, “No. Don’t say that Ellie. I don’t want to lock you in here but I will. They might find a cure; the chemo might work. You just need to be patient.”

“Dad, you can’t fix me like Walter,” Ellie said, “He looks good on the outside, but inside he has Mom’s blood on him. So do I. I don’t want to live so long with Mom’s blood on me.”

“Oh Ellie,” Eli could feel his nerves burning, the tremors were spreading, the crying was coming and he wasn’t sure he could stop it. He wanted the release but he wanted to keep it from his daughter. “Your Mom would want you to live. You’re all I have left.”

“This is about you!” she said in an unexpected burst of anger. “You let it happen, you keep me locked in here, you can’t bear to be alone, you want me alive for yourself. What about me? I want a real life, for the time I have left. My friends are graduating from high school. I missed my prom. I want to kiss a boy before I die. Dad, please let me go.”

Eli’s heart was tearing into pieces. He wanted his daughter in his life. He wanted his daughter to be happy. He wanted it all to be ok.

“I can’t,” he said, “You’re all I have left.”

He left the sandwiches on the tray and left the room. He activated the time machine. He would have a week to make it all better. A week to cry, and brood and try to forgive himself for what he had done to his wife and daughter. Was she right? Was she alive for him?

He went to his study, activated his workstation and brought up Annie’s web address. He clicked the PayPal link and sent her one hundred dollars. Annie had done her best. It was Eli who needed to hide his stitches.

He cried for an hour alone. Then he went back down the hall, and turned off the switch for good.

Five years, he had used five hundred and twenty hours, roughly, he would have four thousand five hundred and ninety hours left. Ellie deserved to use her hours however she wanted them.

What could they do with four thousand five hundred and ninety hours all in a row? It was up to Ellie. It was her life.