“Why did you do that!” I tighten my grip on my daughter, barely able to hear myself speak over her cries.
“I can’t risk him hurting you!” my father says. “It’s a mild sedative, and it was the safest way. He’ll be fine in a couple of hours.”
“Not the point, Dad. He doesn’t understand any of this, and you’re scaring him!”
“Elizabeth, he was going to kill me with that spear if I got too close to him, and you know it. Would you prefer he takes a nap or that we get into a physical altercation?”
I scowl, not wanting to admit that Dad is probably right.
“We aren’t going to leave him out here,” I say. I shuffle Lah to one arm and scoop Lee up with the other. “I’ll take the babies inside, and you carry Ehd.”
I sit next to the fire, stroking my daughter’s cheek. Her brother, still blissfully unaware of what’s happening, naps in the furs next to an unconscious Ehd.
“She’s so small,” I say softly.
Lah nurses quietly as my father settles onto the ground with a small, black briefcase beside him.
“How long has it been?” Dad asks. “In your timeline, how long has it been since I found you?”
“It’s been over a year since you took her. A year and a half, maybe. Why is she so small?”
“A year and a half for you,” Dad says. “For us, it has only been two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” I stare down at my daughter. “How old is she now?”
“I have no idea when you gave birth,” my father says. “Rough guess, four months.”
“Lee was born in the winter,” I say. “He’s almost seven months, I think.” I shake my head. “How is this possible?”
“It’s tricky, all this time travel.” Dad manages to grin. “Getting the date right is nearly impossible. This is my third trip back. On the other two, I was way off on my calculations—once too far in the past, and the other too far in the future. It took a while to get the equations accurate. Too many variables.”
“I’m not even going to try to understand that.”
“Are you going to insist on staying again?” he asks.
“Yes, of course I am. I can’t leave Ehd alone. He was devastated when you took Lah away. He needs me. He needs his family. We belong together, and I’m not going anywhere.”
My father takes a few steady breaths and leans forward to touch the top of Lah’s head.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” Dad says softly. “Your mother’s find—the skeletons—it’s you and him.”
“Yes.” I swallow and look at my father’s crestfallen face. “I’ve known for a while now.”
“I suspected as much,” he says. “The DNA, the button—it all started to fall together when I realized what had happened, but I didn’t want to believe it.”
“It took me a while to accept it,” I say, “but I’ve come to terms with it. I know it’s hard to understand, but this is where I am supposed to be. I’m supposed to be here with Ehd.”
“No other skeletons were found in the vicinity,” Dad says. “I hope that means your children grow up and relocate t
o another area.”
“Yes, I hope so.” My soft words don’t touch my heart. I don’t like the idea of the children going anywhere away from us though I’m glad they will grow up.
“I brought you some things.” Dad reaches over and opens the briefcase. “I couldn’t bring much, but I brought what I thought would be most useful.”
I watch as Dad brings a book out of the briefcase.
“I wanted to bring you an iPad with more information,” he says, “but your mother said anything I brought had to be biodegradable. I had this one specially made out of soy plastics, but there isn’t much storage, and you’ll have to charge the solar cells often to use it. Most of the hard drive is taken up by a book that contains a listing of primitive plants and fungi, their identifying characteristics, medicinal uses, whether or not they’re edible, etcetera. Do you remember how to make proper identification with leaf patterns?”