“You know it’s impossible, even by epochй. You have to go back to Sandy, to release Abu, to return, to become one again on the neutron star. You’re half-Magellanic. I’m just an Earther. And I’m pregnant.”
“I love you, Nora.”
“I’ll raise our child, my grandchild, your sibling.”
“I won’t poke my eyes out, Nora.”
“I’m not asking you to. Keep them open. Keep them wide open.”
“I will. . . . Hey!” The cafй was shaking and whipping like a flame in the wind. Izzy was beeping again. “Izzy, who’s doing an epochй?”
“I am, Melba,” Izzy said. “There’s a number of things wrong here. I don’t like monarchies in North America, or Vietnamese troops either, not yet; also, this rest stop belongs in Texas, and Abu?which means you?better haul ass back to the Magellanics right now, if I’m gonna have time to patch you permanent and still make coffee and Danish before the morning shift. Keep a tight ass now, Melly, but don’t bother to buckle up. Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”
“Take this, son!” Johnny threw me his guitar.
The relic background radiation spiked to three point eight, then dipped to three again, and we were gone.
EPILOGUE
Izzy’s epochй left Nora standing between the zucchinis and the cherry tomatoes behind the house Johnny Abilene had built her in upstate New York. Somehow, a year had passed, and her mouth was full of clothespins. She found herself hanging diapers to a yellow nylon line while she stared southwest at dusk’s rosy fingers. She was in the wrong hemisphere to see the Magellanic Clouds. But I could see her?and Junior too, inside, in the wicker basket next to Nora’s bed: Izzovision.
There’s a splash across the southern sky
Named “I love you-oo!”
And I know just what a big man
Ought to do-yodelayhee-do.
I’m sorry I left you somewhere in the blue-boo-hoo-hoo
With your mama singing lullabies to baby-boo . . .
Just gimme a great big Magellanic kiss.
It’s the sort of thing a daddy ought to miss.
I’m gonna bring you right back some day
Though you may be far away,
I can always pull a little stunt
That the folks call “epochй.”
Take a long-lost dad’s advice:
Though yore mama’s Guldang nice,
Save a little bit of love for yodelodelayhee-me!