The Time Traveler's Almanac

Julia caught the amusement and look of calculation in her husband’s eyes. Did his kid in short pants gain him more votes from women who thought it was adorable than he lost from men who thought it was snooty?

“In matters like this, we defer to the upper chamber,” he said with a quick, lopsided smile and nodded to Julia.

She felt all the pangs of a mother whose child is growing up. But she negotiated briskly. The first demand was a throwaway as she and her son both knew.

“No crewcut. None of the boys at your school have them. The brothers don’t approve.” The brothers made her Protestant skin crawl. But they were most useful at times like this.

“Long pants outside school? Please!” he asked. “Billy Chervot and his brothers all get to wear blue jeans!” Next year would be Timothy’s last with the brothers. Then he’d be at Grafton and out in the world.

“Perhaps. For informal occasions.”

“Jeans!”

“We shall see.” He would be wearing them, she knew, obviously beloved, worn ones. On a drizzly morning in Maine. His hair would be short. He’d have spent that summer in a crewcut.

Julia had studied every detail of a certain photo. She estimated Tim’s age at around fifteen. The shot showed him as he approached Stoneham Cabin. He wore his father’s old naval flight jacket, still too big for him, though he had already gotten tall.

“Mount Airey?” the eleven-year-old Tim had asked. She heard herself saying. “Yes. That should be fine. Check in with Mrs. Eder when you’re going. And tell her when you come back. Be sure to let me know if anything up there needs to be done.” Her son left the room smiling. “What’s the big deal about that damned cabin?” her husband asked.

Julia shrugged. “THE WASPS OF THE EASTERN UNITED STATES,” she said and they both laughed. The title of her grandfather’s tome was a joke between them. It referred to things no outsider could ever understand or would want to. Julia returned to her list. She had memorized every detail of the photo of their son. He had tears in his eyes. The sight made her afraid for them all.

Her husband held out a page of notes. “Take a look. I’m extending an olive branch to Mrs. Roosevelt. Her husband and my dad disagreed.” He grinned. Franklin Roosevelt, patrician reformer and Timothy Macauley, machine politician, had famously loathed each other.

Julia stared at her husband’s handwriting. Whatever the words said would work. The third photo in the leather folder her grandmother had given her showed FDR’s widow on a platform with Robert. Julia recognized a victory night.

She could trace a kind of tale with the photos. She met her husband. He triumphed. Their son went for comfort to the Rex. A story was told. Or, as in the Iliad, part of one.

That day in the study in Georgetown, she looked at Robert Macauley, in the reading glasses he never wore publicly, and felt overwhelming tenderness. Julia could call up every detail of the photo of their meeting.

Only the boy in the background looked directly at the couple who stared into each other’s eyes. He smiled. His hand was raised. Something gold caught the sun. A ring? A tiny bow?

Had Robert and she been hit with Eros’ arrow? All she knew was that the love she felt was very real.

How clever they were, the gods, to give mortals just enough of a glimpse of their workings to fascinate. But never to let them know everything.

That summer, her son went up Mount Airey alone. It bothered Julia as one more sign he was passing out of her control. “The gods won’t want to lose this one m’lady,” Smalley had told her.

Over the next few years, Timothy entered puberty, went away to school, had secrets. His distance increased. When the family spent time at Joyous Garde, Tim would go to the Cabin often and report to her in privacy. Mundane matters like “Smalley says the back eaves need to be reshingled.” Or vast, disturbing ones like, “That jungle portal is impassable now. Smalley says soon ours will be the only one left.”

Then came a lovely day in late August 1954. Sun streamed through the windows of Joyous Garde, sailboats bounced on the water. In the ballroom, staff moved furniture. A distant phone rang. A reception was to be held that evening. Senator Macauley would be flying in from Buffalo that afternoon. Julia’s secretary, her face frozen and wide-eyed held out a telephone and couldn’t speak. Against all advice, trusting in the good fortune which had carried him so far, her husband had taken off in the face of a sudden Great Lakes storm. Thunder, lightning and hail had swept the region. Radio contact with Robert Macauley’s one-engine plane had been lost.

The crash site wasn’t found until late that night. The death wasn’t confirmed until the next morning. When Julia looked for him, Timothy was gone. The day was cloudy with a chill drizzle. She stood on the porch of Old Cottage a bit later when he returned. His eyes red. Dressed as he was in the photo.