The next day, your European History professor assigns a term paper on the Middle Ages. You decide to write about the Albigensian Crusade of 1209. It's an obscure enough subject that it keeps you in the library for late hours.
But finally you can't ignore Kathy and Jim's phone calls beg off on their invitations any longer. You spend a long evening at The Slice, drinking and having staring contests which quickly devolve into which-one-can-gross-the-other-one-out-faster contests to right-out mutual roasting. Somehow, they seem to know that you and Inez have broken up, because neither of them asks where she is or even mentions her name.
Sometime in the deep, late hours of the evening-turned-morning, you're sitting sideways in a corner booth with Kathy leaning back against you, draping her arms around your next lasciviously. You glance over at Jim, who's just watching you, glassy-eyed. The next thing you know, Roger the Bartender is kicking the three of you out. The early November chill sobers you up, but only a little.
Kathy and Jim's building is closer than your dorm, so the three of you stagger up to their apartment. The next thing you know, you're waking up lying on the floor of their living room, your cheek pressed so deep into the woven carpet in front of the TV that it leaves grooves in your skin. Kathy and Jim must still be passed out in their own room, you decide, so you just slip out of the apartment and make your slow way home, shading your eyes against the sunlight.
You're so hung over, though, that you can't think about breakfast, let alone about the Albigensian Crusade. You reach your dorm room and the only piece of furniture that registers on your awareness is the bed, which you gratefully collapse into.
You wake up mid-afternoon, and spend the rest of the day playing online poker. You've been at it for a few hours before you realize that it's never once crossed your mind to use the house key to win the games. But your heart isn't in it, and you end up losing a hundred bucks over the course of the evening. No big deal.
When you get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, your foot hits something that glides a few feet across the floor. It's Inez's crumpled Tao Te Ching. You toss it in the trash.
The lecture the next day in your Political Science class is on Chapter 10 of Keynes' The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money – which, admittedly, you never actually read, but just sort of skimmed through over breakfast that morning. You've never been a big fan of Keynesian economics, but the way that Professor Marsh talks about it, you understand the concept of the multiplier better than you ever have before. You resolve to go back and read the chapter more carefully that evening.
When you get back to your dorm that afternoon, there's a man waiting for you in the lobby, sitting there wearing his raincoat like he's on a train platform instead of in an overstuffed armchair.
"Father," you say, startled. "I didn't expect to see you."
"I didn't expect to be here," Father says sourly. "Can we go somewhere to talk?"
You bow your head slightly and then sweep your hand in the general direction of the elevators.
"You know," you say on the ride up, "I can't remember you ever coming to visit me on campus before."
"I'm pretty sure both of us prefer it that way," Father returns, evenly. The elevator's only other passenger – an Asian woman who looks twelve years old – glances in Father's direction and then quickly back down at her shoes. Father just stares blandly up at the numbers lighting up above the double doors.
It's amazing to see him this young. You realize with a start that this version of Father from twenty years ago is only a few years older than you are now – or, rather, than you were, back when you first learned that you had a missing wife.
An eternity later, the elevator doors slide open. "Did you drive down, or…?" you ask as you lead him down the hall, letting your voice trail off as an invitation to conversation that Father simply ignores.
It's only when you close your dorm room door behind you that your father's face finally expresses some emotion, as his eyes slowly drift around the room. If you had to put a name on it, you'd call it "mild disappointment."
"Why are you here, Father?" you ask.
Father still won't meet your eye. He's studying the Jackson Pollock poster hanging above your desk. "I have a message for you."
"From who?"
"From you."
When you don't answer, Father finally turns to face you, his eyes narrowing like a professor who's just asked a freshman to solve a senior-level math problem. And then you get it.
"You're not the Father from this time," you say.
He shakes his head. "I really wanted to stay out of this. First of all, it's none of my business. Secondly, if you're going to inherit the House someday, it's well past time for you to learn how to use it."
"And you've always been a throw-them-in-the-deep-end-of-the-pool kind of guy."
"Exactly."
"But then I gave you a message. For me. And the 'I' in this case is…."
"…several years further along the timeline past the day you came back here." He pauses in front of your desk chair as if he's considering sitting in it, but decides to start pacing instead. It being a dorm room, there isn't much ground for him to cover, but he still manages to do it slowly somehow, with the demeanor of a man spending a Tuesday afternoon at the Louvre.
"Why didn't I just come myself?" you ask him.
"Because you're already here," Father answers. "It's best not to get too hung up on the details. Suffice it to say that there's a question that your Future You really wants to ask yourself at this specific point in time."
"Which is what?"
Father pauses, pursing his lips. "I believe your exact words were, 'Just what the hell are you doing?'"
"That sounds more like a you question than a me question," you note.
"I don't particularly care one way or the other," Father says. "But you seemed to be quite frustrated over the matter." Father pauses on his tenth lap to address you directly again. "So, just what the hell are you doing?"
Now you're completely lost. "Trying to get Inez back," you remind him.
"But you're not," Father points out. "According to Future You, whose memory seems quite keen on the subject, you've done just about everything for the past week except try to get Inez back."
"Well…" It's your turn to stare down at your shoes. "She said 'no.'"
"Well then go back and try again."
"But –" Exasperated, you fall backwards into the chair, your hands falling into your lap. "It doesn't feel over."
"And what exactly does 'over' feel like?" Father asks.
"I'm still not 100% sure why Inez doesn't want to see me anymore," you explain. "It just feels like one huge loose end. And then there's something weird going on between Jim and Kathy – I have no idea what that's all about."
"And you're expecting the answer to just drop into your lap?" Father asks. "That everything gets tied up in a pretty little bow?"
"Well, I…" but your voice drifts off.
"I've been alive for sixty-five years," Father says. "Trust me: there are no little bows."
"So then what? What do I do?"
"There are only two options," Father says. "You go back and keep trying. Or you stop trying and come back home with me."
And you know he's right. Of course he's right: he's always right. And now that he's laid it all out so clearly, it's obvious what you should do.