At the outset of World War II, Young Harry Mack is flying a bomber to Europe for the lend-lease program. The plane malfunctions and is heading for a crash-landing on the coast of neutral Ireland when an equally young Niamh calls to her selkie sisters of the sea to save the plane’s occupants. Even at the time, Niamh knows there will be a cost for their aid, but that cost isn’t revealed until the end of a long marriage between the two when Niamh, now suffering from dementia, and an aging Harry, regretful of his philandering life, take a time-travel-infused road trip.
Will this whole dream last through all that drive and any time after they get there? Is he losing it, maybe, the way Niamh is? Are they both lying in a mortuary somewhere, dead and cold, and this is some kind of afterlife? Has time been changed somehow, so he can do better for her this time around? Jesus, would that even work? Could he be better. do better, given the chance?

Variants

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  1. “Walking to Boston” by Rick Wilber, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, October/November 2015.
    2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Rick Wilber