Spoiler Warning

I wake to the smell of sizzling bacon. After listening to my daily recording, I take the stairs two at a time and greet Mother.

“May fourteenth, 2038. Good morning!” Her smile looks strained, her pinched face unusually pale.

“Morning, dear. Take a seat. There’s something we need to discuss.”

I wake to the smell of sizzling bacon. I instinctively reach for the recording on my nightstand, but it’s not there. Odd. I descend the staircase slowly, pensively. The walls are lined with ornate picture frames brimming with people I don’t recognize. I realize suddenly that I don’t know my way to the bathroom, or even whose face would greet me from the mirror.

A little blond-haired boy sits atop a high stool facing a granite island, his tiny legs swinging with the boundless energy of his youth.

“Hailey!” He shouts with a toothy grin, teetering dangerously far to the left to pat the stool beside him.

I sink into the stool, staring at the familiar back in front of me. Mother?

The woman turns and waves a spatula in greeting. The smile vanishes as she catches my bewildered expression. Her concerned gaze immediately flits to the boy beside me.

“Sammy, why don’t you go watch some cartoons?” He needs no further encouragement, jumping off the stool recklessly with a squeal and hurtling into the living room.

“Do you remember Sammy, honey? Do you remember me?” Her voice is so soft and understanding. Tears spring to my eyes. What is going on?

“I think you’re my mom. I saw you this morning before I woke up.” I try to keep my voice from trembling. Mother reaches for my hands and squeezes them reassuringly.

“Listen to me, Hailey. There is nothing wrong with you. We’re going to get through this together, I promise. Tell me—in your memory, what date was it?”

I walk to school with a map and class schedule in hand, my thoughts racing. I greet each student who approaches me by name, having woken up at dawn to review their names and descriptions.

“April tenth, 2038,” I mutter, before calling loudly, “Hey Beth!” 

History is a special hell. I hadn’t skimmed any of my history notes this morning. I leave every question on the pop quiz blank. My embarrassment only intensifies when we review the answers afterward. Nearly every hand rockets toward the water-stained ceiling. I shove mine under the desk and resist the urge to bury my entire body underneath the wooden shield.

I walk to school with a map and class schedule in hand, my thoughts racing. My meager hope deserts me as I wade through a sea of strangers on my way to class. I feign recognition of the students who approach me, filing their names and faces away until I have a chance to jot them down in my notebook.

I take extensive notes, just as Mother instructed. “I know it’s tedious, but you’ll appreciate it down the road. You can’t rely on memory alone anymore, sweetheart. Your father got an education despite his condition and you will, too.” 

By the time I get off the bus, I’m well acquainted with exhaustion’s shadow. My limbs feel heavy, my movements slow and measured. Mother looks equally drained as we sit down at the kitchen table. She reviews my notebooks carefully, paying special attention to the one earmarked for classmates and teachers.

“Jamie dyes her hair all the time. Don’t rely on hair color for a defining feature,” Mother murmurs thoughtfully, tapping the entry with a painted fingernail. I scratch out blue hair and replace it with panda keychain and freckles.

“Did you do this sort of thing with Dad?” I ask quietly.

She looks up at me sharply. “You need to say the date, Hailey. Before you say anything. Promise me.”

I want to argue, but I trust Mother more than I trust myself. She wouldn’t tell me to do something without good reason.

“February seventh, 2033. I promise.” Her expression softens, and she pulls me into a tight hug.

After Sammy has been put to bed, Mother enters my room and presses a slender watch into my palm.

“This was your father’s. It helped him keep track of the date. Take care of it for me, yeah?” I nod gratefully, my fingers wrapping around the cold metal. My first memory of Dad. Once the door snaps shut, I rip the last few pages from one of my new notebooks and scrawl down everything I’ve learned about the only important person Mother had neglected to talk about in any sort of detail.

In the morning I turn on the light to chaos. My room is blanketed in post-it notes, annotated photo albums, notebooks labeled with just about every topic imaginable, and a tiny recording device with the words PLAY ME RIGHT AWAY painted in purple nail polish.

Class tests the limit of my already stretched short-term memory. Friends pull away, leaving me alone with thoughts of friends yet to come. Even Sammy looks at me wonderingly some days, as though unsure if I’m the same sister that went to bed the night before. I take a photograph of myself each evening, determined to embrace the stranger I’ve become. Soon my walls are plastered with identical exhausted, haunted eyes. One morning I wantonly tear the gaunt faces down and stuff them under my mattress, careful to write down their location in case I change my mind. But I know from my memories that the walls will remain bare for years to come.

“Why is everyone calling you Callie if your name is Hailey?” A curly-haired girl asks boldly, settling in beside me on the bench and gesturing to my name tag.

“August twenty-sixth, 2036. It’s short for Calendar. A stupid nickname they came up with in middle school.”

The girl blinks twice, then offers a wry smile. “August twenty-sixth, 2036. I’m Beth.” Short for Bethany, though she hates it when people call her that. She extends a hand. I shake it, striking up a conversation with my best friend of two years for the first time.

Why is everyone calling you Callie if your name is Hailey? I write furiously, eager to jot down our first interaction before it slips away. I’d seen Beth for months now. My scattered mind has been fairly inundated with memories of her curly bob and wicked grin. The boisterous laughter at her stupid jokes, the way she chewed on her pen until it burst during a tense geometry midterm, the multiple parking tickets she’d managed to acquire while still on her learner’s permit, the funeral of her pet hamster, Huey. August twenty-sixth, 2036. I hug the notebook tightly.

Mother becomes increasingly irritable as the gap between my memories and the present begins to shrink. When I ask Sammy to pass the salt without remembering to say the date first, she slams her hand on the table. I flinch, my jaw tightening in mounting frustration. Sammy shrinks back and begins to cry. My heart breaks for him. I know how little attention he’s gotten since this nightmare has started. The confusion must be overwhelming. I begin to apologize, but Mother shakes her head and points upstairs. I slam the door viciously, ignoring the echoes of fights and door slams to come.

That night, Sammy sneaks into my bed and unceremoniously squeezes my cheek. I open one eye a crack.

“I’m awake, bud.” I sit up and brush away his tears. He crawls silently into my lap and throws his arms around my neck, fresh tears staining the back of my shirt. We sit together for a long time.

“You’re not like Hailey and now Mommy is acting funny too,” Sammy chokes out, pulling back and wiping at his face impatiently.

“What’s Hailey like?” I ask, cleaning his face calmly with my sleeve. Sammy merely shakes his head. “Hmm…Does Hailey have your pretty curls?” I tug a blond strand playfully. He giggles and shakes his head. “Nah,” I agree. "She’s got boring hair.”

“Can Hailey remember every dinosaur fossil in the museum?” Sammy’s eyes light up.

“T-Rex, Stegosaurus, Velociraptor…” I smile in the darkness as he rattles off memories I can only picture on a page.

“Hailey loves me,” he says abruptly, looking up at me with a familiar haunted expression. I return his gaze.

“This Hailey loves you. And tomorrow’s Hailey. And the one after that. Mom and I will never stop loving you. That doesn’t change.”

I wait for his breathing to slow and tiny snores to escape him before I lift him into my arms and carry him back to his bedroom. I can’t risk falling asleep beside him. I could wake up confused and scare him.

I turn on the lamp on my nightstand and dig through my bins until I find the notebook I’m looking for. I stare at the dozens of pages I’ve filled detailing my days with Sammy. It occurs to me that I’ve never had to read them in the morning before I could love him. It didn’t matter if I couldn’t remember his face or name. I woke up loving him, and I went to sleep loving him. I smile tiredly, returning the notebook and falling back into bed. Maybe when he’s older, I can tell him what a gift he is. The memory I’ll never lose.

I can’t quite grasp Mother’s sudden bouts of anger and sadness. Life has become infinitely easier since the present has begun approaching the future. I can actually maintain a friendship, for one. I feel like I’ve known Beth since middle school. Which I kinda have, in a roundabout sort of way. My mind has long since adjusted to the new normal. Strict routines, lots of coffee, and snuggles with Sammy help me to cope through the bad and tiring bits. My closet and bedroom floor are covered in notebooks. I have a life I can review. Future faces I see daily. A brother who has started to look and act the same age as my memories. These are all good things. Why can’t Mother see that?

At night I scribble down another fight only to crumple it up and toss it. Blank slates are a blessing. Don’t go through the effort just so you can wake up mad at her.

Where am I? I glance at the address scribbled on my forearm, comparing it to the large brass numbers inscribed on the nondescript building. A bespectacled man emerges from the door, a twitchy hand running through an unruly mop of blonde curls. “May fourteenth, 2038. Hi, Dad.”

He smiles excitedly. “May fourteenth, 2038. It’s good to see you, kiddo.”

Where am I? I untangle myself from scratchy bedsheets and press the button on the recording. Once I’m finished, I tear apart the room for a pen and scrawl the address onto my arm before it slips away. I don a long-sleeved shirt and follow the smell of breakfast, armed with my makeshift notebook on Dad.

“May thirteenth, 2038. Why did you tell me that Dad is dead?” I ask suddenly. Mother slides a plate of waffles towards me with a large sigh.

“I never told you that your father is dead, Hailey. He’s not in our lives. It’s as simple as that.”

“But I’m going to see him tomorrow,” I protest. She shakes her head vehemently and takes the syrup bottle from Sammy, who’s been busying himself pouring its entire contents onto his plate.

“No, you’re not. You’re not going anywhere tomorrow. We don’t know what happens when you catch up to your memories.”

I open my mouth to argue, but Mother shoots me a warning look. “Maybe we can schedule a visit sometime down the road,” she offers.

I tug on my sleeve self-consciously. Mother’s right. We don’t know what will happen. I have to see Dad while I know I still have the chance.

I wake to the smell of sizzling bacon. After listening to my daily recording, I take the stairs two at a time and greet Mother.

“May fourteenth, 2038. Good morning!” Her smile looks strained, her pinched face unusually pale.

“Morning, dear. Take a seat. There’s something we need to discuss.”

I sit, fidgeting nervously.

“I know that I’ve been especially hard on you. Your father wasn’t in a great place when he left. I was afraid that—well, I’ve been leading you blindly all these years. But you’ve still managed to rebuild a life for yourself. I just want you to know how proud I am.”

I rise slowly from my stool and circle the island to embrace her. I bury my head in her shoulder and vainly attempt to push from my mind the nagging thought that this is a goodbye.

I don’t go to school. I sit with Sammy and grant him full control over the remote. He can barely contain himself. I’m not the biggest fan of his choices, but spending time with him is more than enough. After dinner, I slip into mom’s bedroom and leave a note. I sneak out the back door and walk into the fading sunlight.

I glance at the address scribbled on my forearm, comparing it to the large brass numbers inscribed on the nondescript building. A bespectacled man emerges from the door, a twitchy hand running through an unruly mop of blonde curls. “May fourteenth, 2038. Hi, Dad.”

He smiles excitedly. “May fourteenth, 2038. It’s good to see you, kiddo.”

Dad ushers me through the door, grinning ear to ear. “I’m so glad you came,” he confesses, bustling around the kitchen. “Let me make us some tea.”

I nod anxiously, wandering the living room. The walls are white and unadorned. There are open moving boxes dotted about the house. I suppose it’s a good thing I came before he left. I settle into a worn armchair and accept a cup of tea. Dad pulls a chair from the kitchen and sits directly across from me. He takes a sip, his wide eyes trained on mine. I drink hesitantly, then cough. I’ve never tasted something quite so bitter.

“Are you moving?” I ask, hoping to break the awkward silence that has settled over us both.

He nods solemnly, staring at me with unblinking eyes. “Yes. I saw the moving boxes in my memories, so I must be leaving soon.”

My smile slips slightly. “You had no intention of leaving?”

He lifts his shoulders slightly in a lame shrug. “Did you have any intention of coming here before you saw yourself do it?” I don’t think the significance of those events are exactly comparable, but I fall silent.

“I saw you come here years ago,” he rambles fervently. “It’s why I left. But you came. You understand that memories of the future can no more be altered than memories of the past.”

My stomach stirs unpleasantly, heat rising to my cheeks. “I don’t think I understand. You left because you saw me visit you?”

He bobs his head in agreement. “I was so afraid. I tried everything I could think of to change things. I started off small. I saw a spider eat a fly. Five years later, I try to wave the fly away. In its haste to escape me, it flew right into her web. Nothing ever worked.”

I can sympathize. I once tried to stop Beth’s older sister from squishing Huey, only to find that my strangled scream was what caused her to step back onto him in surprise.

Dad catches my expression and nods knowingly. “You’ve seen it happen. You know there’s no escape.”

His words become jumbled in my head. The feeling in the pit of my stomach worsens. I should have listened to Mother. Coming here was a mistake. He’s not quite…right.

“Is this what’s going to happen to me?” I ask tentatively.

Dad shakes his head, the eerie grin returning. “That’s the beauty of today! I would never let what’s happening to me happen to you. No confusion, no relationships made new each day, no thoughts trapped in tomorrow’s snare. I’ve cured you.”

I look down at the cup in my trembling hands, a feeling of dread ballooning inside of me.

My vision blurs. Everything leaves me, even my fear. Through bleary eyes I see a mess of blond curls. Sammy. “This Hailey loves you,” I mumble. The darkness captures my words and gingerly wraps me in their warmth.

“This Hailey loves y