Memories are fleeting things.  As the air began to sparkle around her, Mackenzie remembered an argument she’d had with Sean in one of their late-night study sessions.  The conversation had taken hours, but the memory flashed through her mind in a nano-second.

           “That movie was so cool,” Sean had concluded.  His tenor voice rose with intensity.  “They went back in time and opened up a multiverse of timelines.  Just think of it – a dozen copies of themselves living out their lives in different conditions!”

           Mackenzie had shuddered at the thought.  “I prefer to think the universe would merge all those timelines into a single reality once they stopped going back in time.  My philosophy professor called it the ‘universal preference for homeostasis.’ ”

           Sean had wrinkled his freckled nose.  “You’re such a unitarian!  Don’t be a kill joy.”

           It certainly wouldn’t kill her joy today if the unitarian theory of timelines held true.  This time jump was taking considerably longer than she’d expected, however.  Suddenly, Mackenzie felt like she was turning inside out and backward. 

           As the air sparked around her, it spiraled in a dizzying array of colors.  She felt herself upended through the air in a slow somersault.  Even more unsettling was a surge of anger that coursed through her.  She was angry with herself for pulling them away from their task of ‘fixing history,’ while at the same time she felt a surge of hope. 

           Maybe, just maybe, she was merging with her other self, the one that hadn’t made all of those jumps through time.  And maybe Nik and Sean would make it home safe as well.

*  *  *

Dateline: July 4, 2020, Southern California

           Nik’s old wooden garage dissolved into view.  Mackenzie fell off the sidearm of the chair onto the cement floor, bruising her knee. 

           “Whoa, what just happened?”  Sean’s voice was the best thing she’d heard all day. 

           She picked herself up, raced around the sleigh, and hugged him.  “It worked!  You have no idea how worried I’ve been!”

           “What was that for?  And why did you rig it so we had to come back?”

           “Don’t you remember?  You were arrested in New York, and I had to figure out how to rescue you!”

           He frowned.  “I’m not sure how, but I remember being in a prison cell.”

           Behind them, Nik coughed weakly.  “I don’t see what could have gone wrong,” he said.

           “Everything went wrong!”  Mackenzie’s pent-up emotions spilled over.  “Don’t you see?  The thing that made the world a different place wasn’t socialism or anything else.  It was America – not just a place, but American liberty.  There was no freedom here or anywhere else, because we took away the American ideal: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit!”

           “Dude,” was all Sean could manage.

           “I don’t feel so well,” Nik moaned.

           Mackenzie felt his forehead.  “You’re feverish.  Sean, help me get him into the house.”

           He went around the sleigh and took Nik’s other arm.  “What’s the matter with him?”

           “He’s got COVID.” 

           Together, they managed to steady Nik enough to climb out of the time machine and into his house.  Mackenzie turned down the covers of his bed while Sean helped him lie down.

           “Do you think you can call the doctor, or shall I dial 9-1-1?”

           Nik coughed.  “Hand me the phone.  I have Kaiser on speed dial.”

           While he was busy, Mackenzie took out her own phone.  It was down to 20% charge, but that should be enough to call her dad.  She walked down the hall while it dialed.

           Her dad didn’t even say hello.  “Mac!” he almost shouted.  “Where the heck are you?”

           “I’m at the professor’s house with Sean.  Daddy, we were exposed to COVID.  I have to quarantine.  Shall I stay here with them?”

           “Over my dead body!  I’m in quarantine, too.  Come home.”

           “But what about Mama?” she protested.

           “I sent her to stay with Abuela.  Are you coming home, or do I risk getting fitted with an ankle bracelet for going to get you?”

           There was no arguing with that.  “I’ll be home in thirty minutes, Dad.  Bye.”

           She looked up as Sean came into the living room.  “I have to go home.  Does Nik need a ride to the hospital?”

           “His doctor said no.  As long as he’s breathing okay, he just needs to stay here.  You go ahead.  I’ll keep an eye on him.”

           “You sure?”

           He shrugged.  “I can’t go home and infect my roommates.  I’ll order some take-out online.”

           She put a hand on the doorknob and turned back.  “Thanks.  It’s been an adventure.”

           There was one more thing she needed to do, however.  She had left the people-sized door of the garage open as they went through with Nik, and now she slipped back in to make sure that their multiverse timelines stayed unified.  The quartz crystal rods under the time machine’s dashboard popped out of place easily, and she wrapped them in her Indian blanket from the mission.  She grabbed their other artifacts as well and loaded them into her subcompact.

           With herself in possession of the books and papers, Sean and Nik wouldn’t be able to call their experiences a dream.  Without the crystal rods, she hoped the time machine would be permanently disabled.  Nik would just have to research his dissertation the safe, old-fashioned way: at the library.

           Driving home, Mackenzie tried to remember where her day had started.  The protest over Jefferson Canyon Road seemed so long ago.  It was all very recent for her dad, however, who was waiting by the front door.

           “You have a lot of explaining to do, young lady,” he said in his best chief-of-police voice.  He pulled her into a bear hug as his tone softened.  “So do I.”

*  *  *

           A shower and clean sweats brightened her outlook.  Three days in the same pair of jeans was a bit much.  Mackenzie curled up on the couch and brushed her wet hair.

           “You smell better,” her dad said, handing her phone back.  “I believe your story, because I believe you, but the pictures helped.  I like the one of Washington at the river.”

           She pulled her fingers through a wet tangle.  “At first canceling the Declaration seemed like such a good idea, but by the end of it, I was afraid I’d never see you again.”

           “That’s sort of how the protests went today, too, isn’t it?”  Dad had that lecture tone in his voice.  “You know that nobody disagrees with the original premise of your protest.  No one should be treated badly, by law enforcement or anyone else.  Your socialist conclusions are what I have a problem with.”

           “What happened after I left?”  She pulled her hair into a bun and secured it with a pony holder. 

           “You saw the boy beat the street sign with a baseball bat, right?  After that, a couple of loony kids used the COVID-in-a-crowded-theater trick to exit, stage right, leaving pandemonium in their wake.  You can bet I didn’t tell the mayor whose kid that was!”

           The cat jumped into her lap, and she pulled him into a hug.  He tolerated it, as he always did, with a purr and a flick of his tail.  “You knew?” she said finally.

           Dad leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.  “Like I wouldn’t recognize my own child, even if she thinks she’s too big for her britches.  In the chaos that erupted, three of your friends got arrested for assault, and the government is sending a team to track down everyone else and get them tested for COVID.”

           “Is that why you’re quarantined?”  The cat jumped down, and she grabbed a throw pillow to hold.

           “No.  The mayor wasn’t pleased that I broke up a ‘peaceful’ protest – never mind the baseball bats and coronavirus.  He wanted to put me on unpaid administrative leave, but he can’t until my mandatory sick leave runs out.”

           “I’m sorry,” she said in a tiny voice.  She’d never dreamed her dad could get fired, least of all for something she had been involved with.

           Dad levered his six-foot frame out of his easy chair and came to sit on the couch beside her.  “Sweetheart, I’ve listened to all the reasons you kids have been giving for why you’re protesting, and I think you’re missing something.” 

           He smothered her hand with both of his.  “You all point to the mistakes made by the founders as a reason to tear down their statues and, as you call it, ‘cancel’ them.  You even went so far as to ‘cancel’ the Declaration, with drastic consequences.”

           Mackenzie couldn’t get her hand free, so she stared at the stain on the carpet – the one she made when she spilled hot chocolate that time.

           “No, honey, look at me.”  He brought her gaze back to his green eyes and bristly gray eyebrows.  “You made some really big mistakes today.  You also did what you could to correct them.  Should you be ‘canceled’ for your mistakes, or forgiven and remembered for what you did well?”

           “I don’t want anyone to remember me,” she began.  “But I want to make it right with you, Daddy.  I love you.”

           He engulfed her in a giant bear hug.  “I love you too, and I forgive you.  The question is, do you have it in your heart to forgive America?  For all her flaws, she created something worth saving; something the entire world longs for.  Like your pastor friend said, don’t give up on the ideals of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit.  Work to make them better.”

           He patted her shoulder and got up.  “Let’s make some hot chocolate.  Looking at that stain always makes me hungry.  Besides, we’re going to be spending a lot of time together.  With me cooking, though, you’re going to eat more bacon and eggs than tofu!”

           She laughed and followed him to the kitchen.  “This adventure kind of wrecked my diet, anyway.”  She took the teakettle to the sink and filled it.

           “Speaking of your adventure, I have an assignment for you.”

           “What’s that?”  She hefted the kettle onto the stove and went to the cupboard to rummage for cocoa mix.

           “We have two weeks of quarantine, and we’re going to accomplish three things.  One – we’re going to pack up the house and paint the walls.  Your mom and I are moving to Texas.”

           She looked up in surprise.  “What about Abuela?”

           His gray eyebrow shot up.  “Mom’s helping her pack, and we’re hoping you’ll come with us.  The mayor is going to replace me as soon as he can, and I want to get ahead of it.  You’re welcome to join us.”

           She nodded.  “Of course.  What else?”

           “Two – you’re going to write down your travels.  Use that history book and your pictures to help you remember.  Call Sean if you have to.  But I think your friends need to hear your new perspective on America.”

           The box of cocoa mix was being stubborn, so she yanked it down.  A bag of pretzels fell out with it.  “No one is going to believe me!”

           “If you make it into a novel, it won’t matter.  You just need to get them to think.  You should illustrate it, too.  Not with your photographs, but use the photos to create original works of art to sell with your book.  And three – you need to get your copy of Jefferson’s essay into a museum and get Bonhoeffer’s book translated.  I can help you with those.”

           The teakettle started to whistle, and Dad shook packets of cocoa into their mugs. 

           “One thing I don’t understand,” she said, pouring hot water over the powder.  “When we succeeded in canceling America, it seems like we canceled socialism as well.  But wasn’t Karl Marx from Europe?”

           Dad tossed a few marshmallows in each cup.  “I think so.  But consider this:  his ideas were radical, even for his own time.  He wasn’t the first to suggest socialism as an answer to unbridled capitalism, either.  But what is capitalism?”

           Her eyebrows scrunched together as she tried to remember that lecture.  “Socialism is government ownership or control of the means of production.  Capitalism is the opposite.”

           He stirred his cocoa slowly.  “So, capitalism in essence is freedom.  In your alternate timeline, without freedom, the monarchies of the world never toppled.  Wouldn’t the existence of kings and serfs mean that government already owned or controlled the means of production?  Socialism wasn’t necessary.  It seems that America inspired her own worst enemy.” 

           He threw his spoon in the sink as he continued.  “To the average citizen, it doesn’t matter whether they have a king or a politburo.   Without freedom, democracy devolves into another form of tyranny.  Every country in history has had some form of tyranny, because rights could be granted or removed by the government.  America said our rights came from God, which limited the power of government and gave rise to liberty.  That’s why Ben Franklin said America was a republic, if we can keep it.”

           Mac blew across her mug, impatient for that first sweet sip.  “And it’s my job to help us keep it, right?”

           Her dad gave her a hug.  “That’s the job of every American.  Let’s do our part, shall we?”

Disclaimer for social media: This is historical fiction for entertainment only. Any resemblance to living persons is accidental. Resemblance to current events is pure imagination. Interaction with actual history is sheer conjecture. (The rest of us already knew this, right?)

Footnotes for chapter 11 can be found here.

This was the final chapter of the novella, Fixing History. Want to read a different chapter? Visit the index page and see if another chapter has been published. Want to hear about the author’s next project? Sign up for email notifications. Or join the conversation on Facebook. It’s a great way to ask questions or make comments directly to the author.

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Copyright © 2020 by Carolyn Van Gorkom

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author, except as provided by USA copyright law.

Cover illustration: cropped flag from a larger oil painting by Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome, Artist. Betsy Ross,/ J.L.G. Ferris. , ca. 1932. Cleveland, Ohio: The Foundation Press, Inc., July 28. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002719536/.  Public domain.  No known restrictions on publication. No renewal in Copyright office, 11/91.