Alone

Jeffrey was only eighteen when he was called to settle his mother's affairs. The fact that Laura Smith owned an apartment surprised him. He had spent his childhood in rental apartments, wherever his mother's job took them. When he figured out other kids had dads, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, Jeffrey asked his mother about his. Laura replied with a dismissive wave, saying that she and Jeffrey were better off by themselves.

When Jeffrey was thirteen his mother took a position overseas. Jeffrey was shipped to boarding school. How miserable he had been that first semester, how he had begged her, during Christmas break, to take him away! She was staying at a hotel near his school, and she had made effusive promises that as soon as the job was done, she would come for him and they would settle down somewhere together.

But over the following six years, she only came for short visits during Jeffrey's breaks. Unlike his peers, he spent every summer at Trentwood Academy. The other kids quickly picked up on Jeffrey's unusual family situation and mercilessly teased him. He learned to keep mostly to himself.

Senior year, Laura never called, and she did not come for Christmas break. By then Jeffrey had grown resentful and he did not even try to call the number his mother had left him.

The police came to talk to Jeffrey in early spring. He told the cop about the last time he had seen his mother. The officer left a business card and instructions to call him if Jeffrey saw Laura or heard anything.

Less than a month before he was to graduate from Trentwood Academy, when Jeffrey was starting to wonder what exactly he was to do, penniless and all alone in the world, he received a call from an estate attorney who let him know his mother had been declared dead. Without a will or other relatives, Jeffrey inherited all his mother's possessions by default.

The apartment was sparsely furnished. Dust had accumulated on every exposed surface. The fridge and pantry were empty. Some clothes and shoes in a closet, towels and toiletries in the bathroom, and a few receipts were all Jeffrey found rummaging through the small dwelling. No personal effects, not even a picture of him. On a whim, Jeffrey looked under the couch and spotted a shape darker than its surroundings. He retrieved a small notebook with a black cover, which felt pleasant to the touch. Soft, but somehow not yielding.

He wondered why the cops, who had searched his mother's apartment for clues in her disappearance, had not brought it up. Hard to believe they would miss this. On the first page were a series of entries that looked like some sort of ledger. The rest of the cream-colored pages were empty.

Jeffrey carefully searched the apartment again, but no new items revealed themselves.

He kept the notebook and sold everything else, including the apartment itself, through the estate lawyer. Jeffrey had enough money to pay for college, which could not be worse than Trentwood. He left the academy before the graduation ceremony. His mom likely dead of a drug overdose or something even more sinister, seeing the other students with their families was not something he was prepared for.

Over the next four years, Jeffrey learned not only accounting, but also how to make friends, how to date, and how to be self-sufficient and content with his life. Being without a family did not engender bullying, but sympathy, and even brought a few girls into his bed.

The little black book stayed at the bottom of one of his suitcases until Jeffrey got his first apartment. He was now a certified accountant for the prestigious Cincinnati law firm of Bernarditto & Bernarditto LLC, having graduated Magna Cum Laude.

He came upon the notebook as he unpacked his meager belongings in the sparsely furnished dwelling, which, compared to his room in college seemed enormous and luxurious.

By now he was familiar with ledgers, but as he studied the neat rows and columns, he still could not make sense of the data presented. There were three columns, one with letters and two with numbers. The numbers had no decimals, and the format was wrong for a double-entry bookkeeping ledger.

The handsome notebook would look good on his desk at work. He could use it to keep his appointments or jot meeting notes. Many of his colleagues used laptops or PDAs; Jeffrey thought he would seem older and more sophisticated if he stuck with paper. The year was 2006.

Two years later, the world entered The Great Recession and junior accountant Jeffrey Smith was laid off along with half of his department. He packed the contents of his desk in a box and left work for the last time.

That evening, drink in hand, Jeffrey stood on his balcony looking at the Cincinnati skyline. It was late November. He wondered what he should do. Many of his laid-off friends and young colleagues were moving back in with their families and grumbling about it. He did not have that option. He likely did not have enough savings to keep him in his expensive rental until the recession ended and he could get another job as an accountant. He would have to break the lease, move into a dump, and take whatever work he found. How he wished for someone to have his back right now, or at least someone to give him some advice born of experience!

Jeffrey went back inside planning to refill his glass. He turned the TV on a news channel and picked up the notebook from the box with work stuff. He felt more anger towards his mother than usual. He had half a mind to rip that first page to shreds or burn it on the balcony.

He was getting tipsy, and extremely tired. The day had been draining. His eyes darted from the page to the TV, unfocused. One of the symbols on the ticker playing at the bottom of the screen matched the letters in one of the entries! Jeffrey instantly became alert and opened his laptop. He searched for the other entries in the notebook. They were all stocks. His mom had listed stocks! What were the numbers? Wait, if he used the European system... they were dates entered without separators!

Two dates for each stock. Day, month, last two digits of the year. For the stock that had caught his eye, $PKREM, the first date was the following week. The second date was three months in the future.

This was beyond trippy, thought Jeffrey as he guzzled another glass of Scotch. His mother, over six years before, had listed stocks and what looked like ‘buy’ and ‘sell’ dates. He checked some of the early entries. Sure enough, if he had bought and sold as per the notebook, he would have already made a tidy sum of money.

Head spinning, Jeffrey put the notebook down and lay on the couch. Despite himself, he fell asleep within minutes.

When the first $PKREM date came, Jeffrey was at the doors of the small brokerage firm of Panelli & Sawn at 9:00 AM.

"You want to buy Parker-Embossy Inc.?" asked Mr. Panelli incredulously.

Jeffrey nodded, then added, as if he needed to justify his purchase, "They dropped twenty percent since last week."

"Young man, the market is still in free fall. You are positive?"

"Yes," said Jeffrey, even though he was not. It would not be out of character for his mother to disappoint him even from beyond the grave.

"Three thousand on Parker-Embossy," he added firmly.

"Ok, don't say I didn't warn you."

If he stretched his remaining funds, he could make rent for the next three months. Barely.

Three months later, Jeffrey triumphantly walked into his broker's office and collected $20,000, half the earnings of his $PKREM shares. The rest he invested in Rhinodex Pharmaceuticals, which, the notebook said, he was supposed to hold for two months.

He had his first meal in a restaurant in three months the same day and vowed to himself to never touch ramen noodles again.

Two months later, he collected $200,000. Panelli now regarded Jeffrey as a financial prodigy the likes of Warren Buffet. Within a year, the same opinion was expressed by the Financial Times. The economy was chugging along again, and Jeffrey Smith was riding the recovery wave like a pro surfer.

One fine summer Sunday Jeffrey left his Park Avenue penthouse for his favorite brunch place. It took months to get a reservation, but the table with the best view was always available for him at 11:00 AM on Sundays.

When he entered the place Simon, the maître d', greeted him with a confused look.

"Mr. Smith, I didn't realize you stepped out."

Jeffrey threw the man an equally confused look as Simon busied with new arrivals instead of taking Jeffrey to his table. Jeffrey shrugged and headed over to his spot. A half-consumed Bloody Mary was on the table. The service was getting sloppy. Maybe he should find another Sunday brunch place. Seconds after Jeffrey sat down another man took the opposite seat.

Jeffrey stared incomprehensibly at a face that was much like his own, but not exactly.

"Laura Smith." said the man.

Jeffrey opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Simon appeared at his side, but something in Jeffrey's expression made him vanish with alacrity.

"Who are you?" he managed to ask.

"Tell me you know Laura Smith." said the man, now pleading.

"She was my mother," said Jeffrey.

"Was?"

"She vanished years ago. Who are you?"

"Vanished? Not dead?"

"She was declared dead. Body was not found. Who the hell are you?"

"Laura left you stock tips, right?"

Jeffrey's heart gave a start. Was he in trouble? Had his mother been involved in some illegal market manipulation scheme?

"Don't worry…", started the man.

"Who...who are you, sir?" asked Jeffrey.

"I'm Carl. Laura and I were together for a few years."

"When was this relationship occurring? You're a bit young to have dated my mother." The man was Jeffrey's age, maybe slightly older.

"She left me two years ago, Jeffrey. I loved her. I love her."

Jeffrey opened his mouth to ask the man, probably a blackmailer, how much he wanted for his silence, but Carl raised his hand.

"Remember the scar?"

Jeffrey nodded. His mother had a scar behind her left ear, only visible if she pulled her hair back. The mention of his mother's scar dispelled all doubts. This man had known Laura well.

Carl took a sip from his Bloody Mary. Jeffrey wished he had a stiff drink himself.

"The scar is from when I removed her tracker. I am a doctor. Your mother, Jeffrey, was, is, will be, a time traveler. The thing in her neck, not something we can make in this day and age. Or implant without leaving a scar." He smiled. "We put it in a plastic bottle, then drove to the Gowanus Canal in the middle of the night and she lobbed it out the car window. She had strong arms, your mother ... Maybe it was the pregnancy that drove her away from me. She was on the run, wouldn't tell me more, she said, for my safety."

"Who are you?" Jeffrey pleaded.

"When I saw your picture in the newspaper, I knew instantly. I am your father, Jeffrey," said Carl, starting to sob.

"I missed your childhood. It's so unfair. I still love her, but how could she be so cruel! She took you, unborn, away from me and into the past! She took YEARS!"

Jeffrey swallowed back his tears. Carl grabbed his hand and Jeffrey let him keep it.

"We'll make up for it." he finally managed to say.

"And we'll keep our eyes open, Jeffrey," said Carl, a smile breaking through tears. "Who knows, someday we might run into her again. Together."