Wrong Place Wrong Time

What Todd says shocks his mother: “I had to” (7). As the police swarm the street, Jen feels “as if she had been deposited at the North Pole” (9). The police handcuff Todd. Jen feels the twin pulls of being a mother and a lawyer. She assures Todd she and Kelly will follow him to the station.

At the station, the cops observe how the stabbing mimics a similar unsolved attack two days earlier on a woman named Nicola Williams. Jen and Kelly are told to go home and return the next morning.

At her house, which is cordoned off by detectives, Jen collapses in helpless tears. Why had she not seen this coming?

Jen awakes with an eerie feeling: “How had she raised a murderer?” (17). She is stunned when Todd comes down for breakfast before going to school. Jen asks him about his arrest. Todd has no idea what she is talking about. Confused, she confirms on her phone that it is Friday, the day before the killing.

Jen is sick to her stomach. Was the whole thing a dream? She returns to the kitchen. The pumpkin Kelly had given her to carve is there, uncarved, although she carved it Saturday. When Todd heads out the door with his backpack, he tells Jen he is stopping at Clio’s, his girlfriend whom Jen has never met. Jen fabricates a reason for Todd to go back to his bedroom and checks his bag. She is chilled to find a knife hidden among his textbooks.

For Jen, the knife is the only proof her dream was not a dream. She confides in Kelly about what happened, and Kelly assures her that finding the knife was some kind of déjà vu.

Jen remembers when she first met Kelly, 20 years earlier. Out of the blue, Kelly had strolled into the law offices where Jen worked to drum up business for his contractor work. They had shared lunch, and Jen knew that she had feelings for him.

Confronted by the knife, Todd tells Jen it belongs to a friend. Jen realizes that Todd is a “boy full of secrets” (35). Kelly, angry over Todd’s evasive attitude, grounds Todd and confiscates the knife. Jen is relieved, certain that she has prevented the killing.

When Jen awakes the next morning, she discovers it is Thursday. She questions her perception of reality. Trying to sort out what is happening, she goes to her law firm. She confides in her friend, Rakeem Kapoor, forgetting for a moment her story might make her seem irrational. He is sympathetic. He tells her déjà vu could be triggered by depression, stress, or even a brain tumor. He advises her to contact Professor Andy Vettese, a friend of his and a theoretical physicist with an interest in time travel. She Googles the name and reads about the bootstrap paradox: Theoretically and with sufficient force, a person could be hurled into a time loop. She is certain the sufficient force is her maternal urge to stop her son from committing murder.

When she arrives home, Todd returns from school and tells her he is going to go meet Clio. When she had lived this day before, Jen had been busy at the office. Now she follows him.

Jen follows Todd to an old building. When she Googles it, she identifies it as the offices of Cutting & Sewing, owned by Ezra Michaels and Joseph Jones. As Todd goes in, another man emerges. Jen recognizes him as the man Todd knifed.

Jen identifies herself to the man Todd knifed as Todd’s mother. He introduces himself as Joseph Jones and says that Todd is dating Ezra’s niece Clio. He leaves. Jen rings the front doorbell. She meets Ezra and a confused Todd, who doesn’t know why she is there. Jen meets the beautiful Clio. An annoyed Todd suggests she go home. She asks to use the bathroom first and takes the opportunity to snoop. She finds Todd’s iPhone and scrolls through lovey text messages between him and Clio.

When she returns home, she texts the physics professor. She tells Kelly how worried she is that Todd may be hanging around the wrong people, and opens his backpack to show him the knife. It isn’t there. Kelly, unperturbed, gives Jen a pumpkin she can carve for Halloween.

That night, she downs lots of coffee, determined to stay awake.

It is 2002, 20 years earlier. Ryan Hiles, age 23, arrives at the police station, both eager and terrified to start his first full day as a cop. Ryan’s older brother had committed petty crimes to help the family financially, and Ryan feels the need to live better, to help their mom, and “to change the world” (63).

His first day is routine. He ends his shift thinking how he had hoped police work “would be different” (69).

It’s 2022. Jen wakes up to Wednesday. Todd denies knowing anything about Jones and heads off to shower. Jen snoops in his Xbox and finds cryptic messages from one of his friends, Connor. Jen decides to pick up Todd from school that afternoon. She asks Connor’s mother, Pauline, whether Connor was acting odd. Pauline says no.

Jen checks public records for Cutting & Sewing, and fears it is a front for illegal operations. She needs Kelly’s help. To prove her time travel story, Jen takes Kelly to a corner in their neighborhood. She watched the news the next day, which is her yesterday, and knows that there will be an accident. She tells Kelly just before the accident happens. Kelly is dumbfounded but says he believes her. Jen feels his commitment is less than wholehearted and for the first time feels “panic and alienation” (85). Before they fall asleep, Kelly asks why he can’t just kill Jones before Todd has a chance to and save Todd? Jen falls asleep.