The Rockmore House

22 | Sparks

Mrs. Birch gave the class a one minute warning while I was still finishing the second to last essay question on our test and hadn't even read the last question yet. One minute wasn't going to cut it. The digital wall clock read 12:33pm.

I clenched my cramping hand into a tight fist and stretched my fingers out as I read the last question.

"Describe the fluid-mosaic model of a plasma membrane. Discuss the role of the membrane in the movement of materials through it by active transport and passive transport."

I would have to write as much as I could in the time I had and give up on the rest. The room had become completely silent other than the sound of my pencil scratching away on the test packet. How did everyone finish before me? Were they all quietly watching me panic? Somehow I finished what I had to say about the plasma membrane's role in passive transport and finally exhaled. When I set my pencil down and looked around, everyone else in the room was frozen. The clock still said it was 12:33.

I cheated. And I didn't even mean to do it.

Everyone else sprung back into action and I spent the actual last minute of class reading over my answers. Later, once the test was turned in, I thought I probably should have spent that time erasing my illegitimate answer, but by then it was too late to do the right thing.

~~~~~~

Later that night, at the end of a busy Friday night shift at the Shipyard, I checked my phone and found a missed call and four texts from my mom.

I got in a little fender bender today

I'm okay, but the car is not

You're coming back to my house after work, right?

Just warning you, my face is not pretty

I texted her to let her know I was on my way home, but it didn't matter because when I got there, she was asleep. She was in her usual spot on the couch in the den, with her neck bent at an uncomfortable looking angle. Even in the dim light of the table lamp, the left side of her face looked bad, like it had the worst rug burn in the world. I sat next to her and tapped her shoulder until her eyes fluttered open.

"Hey Mom, why don't you go to bed?"

"But it's not my bedtime," she mumbled.

"Where's Chris? Shouldn't someone be monitoring you for concussion symptoms or something?"

"He's upstairs. I'm fine, really." She stretched and yawned. "Nothing that time and a couple extra chiropractor visits can't fix."

"What happened?"

"I went out to lunch with some coworkers, then someone braked unexpectedly in front of me when I was on my way to visit one of the factories. Luckily the airbag went off." She smiled weakly and grimaced. "Oh, that hurts."

"The airbag did that to you?"

"Better my face than my brain," she said defensively.

"What time did it happen?"

"After lunch. Like twelve-something."

My stomach dropped. "What time exactly?"

"I can tell you that, because I was reading a text when it happened," she admitted. "Let this be a lesson to you. Stay off of your phone while you're driving." She picked up her phone and adjusted her reading glasses that were still askew from when she dozed off. "Let's see. Twelve thirty-four."

"Mom," I whimpered. I buried my face in her shoulder and started quietly sobbing.

When I reversed time, was I only messing with the people around me, or with everyone, everywhere? Did I cause some kind of time hiccup that contributed to my mom's accident?