“I know he’s cheating on me.” She told her own lover that evening.

I heard her say it.

From time to time, Mycah would whisk me away from our current target to witness the doings of some other, related, target.

This was one of those instances.

“I’m telling you, Jean, they’ve been friends as long as he and I have, and there’s never been anything but camaraderie between them.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“You are a jealous little monster.”

“It’s not jealousy…I’m not jealous.”

“I know. I’ve known you long enough to see it for what it really is.”

“What is it, then?”

“You don’t like the idea of someone getting over on you.”

“It drives me mad.”

“I know.”

“So why don’t I feel it with you? Why only with him?”

“Do you want honesty, or mollification?”

“Honesty…always.”

“Ok, here goes.” He took a long, deep breath, then laid out precisely what her problem was with her esteemed husband. “He’s smarter than us.”

“Shut up. Be serious.”

“I am being serious, Jean. I’ve felt exactly what you’re feeling. I’ve just known him longer, so I’ve had more time to understand it.”

“He’s smart, yes, but what does that have to do…”

“You trust me because you’re as smart as me. We’re on the same wavelength. The same page. We finish each other’s sentences. When have you ever finished one of his?”

“I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about, most of the time.”

“Me either. But it must be something, because the world loves him.”

“They did. This Traveler business might just wreck his career.”

“And if it does?”

“I might need to borrow your couch.”

“Ha, I’d never let you sleep on the couch. Not when I have a perfectly good guest bed.”

“Oh, that’s funny!” She punched him lightly on the shoulder, then kissed it better. They rolled around a bit, finally coming to rest on their backs, gazing up at the stippled ceiling.

“Do you remember much from high school?”

“I remember quite a lot, why?”

“If you’re like me, and I know you are, then smart kids made you uncomfortable. They did me.”

“We teased them.”

“So did I, in the beginning. Except for him. I don’t know why, but I always looked at him like a little brother. It’s odd. He’s six months older than me. Still, there’s something…childish about him. Not maturity wise, so much. It’s just…”

“For a smart guy he’s got no common sense.”

“Yeah. Nail on the head. Gold star for Jeannie. You couldn’t tell it by reading his books, though.”

“He doesn’t come off that way in his books, because he cheats. He uses other people’s stories. If he’s writing a book about firefighters, he goes and lives with firefighters for several months…and he just listens to them. He soaks up their jargon, their institutional knowledge, their traditional sense of humor. That’s why he comes off sounding like an expert.”

“He makes it look so easy.”

“Maybe it is, for him.”

“Yeah, I don’t doubt it. He’s just built different. Things that were easy for most of us, growing up, seemed so difficult for him.”

“When we met, I was after you, not him.”

“I know. I should have swept you away.”

“I wouldn’t have gone. You were cute, and all, but he offered something you couldn’t. Security.”

“Yeah, I’m never gonna be rich.”

“I’m OK with that, now. But back then…”

“You were a gold digger. You can say it.”

“I was horrible! Lawd! What was wrong with me!”

“You were worth it, I’m sure. You still are.”

“Then why do I feel so terrible?”

“Don’t. You’re not allowed to do that when you’re with me.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Don’t make me tickle you.”

“No, Don’t you dare! Ah! Stop, Mitchell Henderson, you…STOP!”

He didn’t, not for several more minutes. Not until her melancholy was replaced by the bright glow of utter joy. Then he kissed her deeply, and I turned away. I have never been loved so truly, except by my prince, and it hurts me to watch others in the midst of it when he is so far from me.

“You don’t have to watch, Ravenna, but you should listen." Mycah said. "The decision she makes tonight is only one of many stones that will dislodge from under Roana Ignah’s feet.”

It didn’t take long for her to reveal that decision to us and her lover. “I’m divorcing him.” She said, plainly and without feeling. I could tell it had been building in her for some time.

“Are you serious?” He sat up straight and she rose to meet him.

“He’s finally given me an out. I hate that story. I hate that he let David King talk him into it. I hate the ideas he let out of that silly head of his. How can I live with him, knowing that he wrote that book with that…girl…in mind? The things he imagined doing to her. The things he wrote about doing to her. I just don’t know how I can stay with him, after that.”

“I know. I can’t even look him in the eye. He must have buried that stuff pretty deep. He never…well, I can’t say that. There were signs, I just didn’t string them all together.”

“Like what?”

“Off-color jokes, that sort of thing.”

“Like what?”

“I like my ladies like I like my scotch…twelve years old.”

“What!?!”

“He said things like that to me a lot when we were kids. And he would go ga-ga over some girl and I’d have to tell him that she was obviously underage. I just thought he was a bad judge when it came to females. I mean, some of you look younger than you are.” She smiled perceptibly at the compliment. “But some of the ones he wanted to pursue were seriously underage. I wrote it off as a problem with his vision – like he just wasn’t seeing them clearly. I mean, once I pointed it out he recognized the truth of it and moved on.”

“I’m five years younger than him.”

“So?”

“When he turned eighteen, I was only thirteen.”

“We hadn’t met you, yet. You were twenty-one when…”

“And he was twenty-six.”

“That’s not as large of a gap, mentally speaking, as eighteen and thirteen. Besides, I was twenty-six, too.”

“Cradle robber.”

She laughed, then he laughed, and they rolled around a bit more, then they both turned their attention back to pointing out Roana’s faults – ever careful to gloss over their own.

Mycah whisked us away.

We had seen all that we needed to see.

“Can’t we warn him?” I asked, naively.

“What is done, is done. Ro’I has already fallen. We cannot stop it. We can only return to the scene of the crime.”

“Time travel sucks, if you ask me. If we can’t interfere, I mean. We could fix the world. You know that, right? If we could interfere!”

“You are operating under the misconception that the world is broken, Ravenna. I can assure you, it is not.”

“How can you say that, Mycah? The world is a mess!”

“From your perspective, it seems that way.”

“My perspective? You mean everybody’s perspective! The one thing we all agree on is just how screwed up the world is!”

“Looking up, out of the dust, the stars seem oh, so bright.”

“What!?! What’s that supposed to mean?”

He didn’t answer, no matter how I raved. It was his signature move – rile me up, then turn his back.

It worked every time, right up until the last time.