back then—Earl Higgins, he’s long since gone to his reward—was bending over to hand her her diploma as she sat in her wheelchair, all dressed up in her cap and gown. The caption underneath said,
Carolyn Poulin reaches a major goal on her long road to recovery.
”
“Was it still there?”
“The story about the graduation was, you bet. Graduation day always makes the front page in smalltown newspapers, you know that, buddy. But after I came back from ’58, the picture was of a boy with a half-assed Beatle haircut standing at the podium and the caption said,
Valedictorian Trevor “Buddy” Briggs speaks to graduation assemblage.
They listed every graduate—there were only a hundred or so—and Carolyn Poulin wasn’t among em. So I checked the graduation story from ’64, which was the year she would have graduated if she hadn’t been busy getting better from being shot in the spine. And bingo. No picture and no special mention, but she was listed right between David Platt and Stephanie Routhier.”
“Just another kid marching to ‘Pomp and Circumstance,’ right?”
“Right. Then I plugged her name into the
Enterprise
’s search function, and got some hits after 1964. Not many, three or four. About what you’d expect for an ordinary woman living an ordinary life. She went to the University of Maine, majored in businessadministration, then went to grad school in New Hampshire. I found one more story, from 1979, not long before the
Enterprise
folded. FORMER LISBON RESIDENT STUDENT WINS NATIONAL DAYLILY COMPETITION, it said. There was a picture of her, standing on her own two good legs, with the winning lily. She lives . . . lived . . . I don’t know which way is right, maybe both . . . in a town outside of Albany, New York.”
“Married? Kids?”
“Don’t think so. In the picture, she’s holding up the winning daylily and there are no rings on her left hand. I know what you’re thinking, not much that changed except for being able to walk. But who can really tell? She was living in a different place and influenced the lives of who knows how many different people. Ones she never would have known if Cullum had shot her and she’d stayed in The Falls. See what I mean?”
What I saw was it was really impossible to tell, one way or another, but I agreed with him, because I wanted to finish with this before he collapsed. And I intended to see him safely into his bed before I left.
“What I’m telling you, Jake, is that you
can
change the past, but it’s not as easy as you might think. That morning I felt like a man trying to fight his way out of a nylon stocking. It would give a little, then snap back just as tight as before. Finally, though, I managed to rip it open.”
“Why would it be hard? Because the past doesn’t
want
to be changed?”
“
Something
doesn’t want it to be changed, I’m pretty sure of that. But it can be. If you take the resistance into account, it can be.” Al was looking at me, eyes bright in his haggard face. “All in all, the story of Carolyn Poulin ends with ‘And she lived happily ever after,’ wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes.”
“Look inside the back cover of the notebook I gave you, buddy, and you might change your mind. Little something I printed out today.”
I did as he asked and found a cardboard pocket. For storing things like office memos and business cards, I assumed. A single sheet of paper was folded into it. I took it out, opened it up, and looked for a long time. It was a computer printout of page 1 of the
Weekly Lisbon Enterprise.
The date below the masthead was June 18, 1965. The headline read: LHS CLASS OF ’65 GOES FORTH IN TEARS, LAUGHTER . In the photograph, a bald man (his mortarboard tucked under his arm so it wouldn’t tumble off his head) was bending over a smiling girl in a wheelchair. He was holding one side of her diploma; she was holding the other.
Carolyn Poulin reaches a major goal on her long road to recovery,
the caption
Carolyn Poulin reaches a major goal on her long road to recovery.
”
“Was it still there?”
“The story about the graduation was, you bet. Graduation day always makes the front page in smalltown newspapers, you know that, buddy. But after I came back from ’58, the picture was of a boy with a half-assed Beatle haircut standing at the podium and the caption said,
Valedictorian Trevor “Buddy” Briggs speaks to graduation assemblage.
They listed every graduate—there were only a hundred or so—and Carolyn Poulin wasn’t among em. So I checked the graduation story from ’64, which was the year she would have graduated if she hadn’t been busy getting better from being shot in the spine. And bingo. No picture and no special mention, but she was listed right between David Platt and Stephanie Routhier.”
“Just another kid marching to ‘Pomp and Circumstance,’ right?”
“Right. Then I plugged her name into the
Enterprise
’s search function, and got some hits after 1964. Not many, three or four. About what you’d expect for an ordinary woman living an ordinary life. She went to the University of Maine, majored in businessadministration, then went to grad school in New Hampshire. I found one more story, from 1979, not long before the
Enterprise
folded. FORMER LISBON RESIDENT STUDENT WINS NATIONAL DAYLILY COMPETITION, it said. There was a picture of her, standing on her own two good legs, with the winning lily. She lives . . . lived . . . I don’t know which way is right, maybe both . . . in a town outside of Albany, New York.”
“Married? Kids?”
“Don’t think so. In the picture, she’s holding up the winning daylily and there are no rings on her left hand. I know what you’re thinking, not much that changed except for being able to walk. But who can really tell? She was living in a different place and influenced the lives of who knows how many different people. Ones she never would have known if Cullum had shot her and she’d stayed in The Falls. See what I mean?”
What I saw was it was really impossible to tell, one way or another, but I agreed with him, because I wanted to finish with this before he collapsed. And I intended to see him safely into his bed before I left.
“What I’m telling you, Jake, is that you
can
change the past, but it’s not as easy as you might think. That morning I felt like a man trying to fight his way out of a nylon stocking. It would give a little, then snap back just as tight as before. Finally, though, I managed to rip it open.”
“Why would it be hard? Because the past doesn’t
want
to be changed?”
“
Something
doesn’t want it to be changed, I’m pretty sure of that. But it can be. If you take the resistance into account, it can be.” Al was looking at me, eyes bright in his haggard face. “All in all, the story of Carolyn Poulin ends with ‘And she lived happily ever after,’ wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes.”
“Look inside the back cover of the notebook I gave you, buddy, and you might change your mind. Little something I printed out today.”
I did as he asked and found a cardboard pocket. For storing things like office memos and business cards, I assumed. A single sheet of paper was folded into it. I took it out, opened it up, and looked for a long time. It was a computer printout of page 1 of the
Weekly Lisbon Enterprise.
The date below the masthead was June 18, 1965. The headline read: LHS CLASS OF ’65 GOES FORTH IN TEARS, LAUGHTER . In the photograph, a bald man (his mortarboard tucked under his arm so it wouldn’t tumble off his head) was bending over a smiling girl in a wheelchair. He was holding one side of her diploma; she was holding the other.
Carolyn Poulin reaches a major goal on her long road to recovery,
the caption
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