Capítulo 34: The Weight of Morning
The sun rose over the Bronx like a spotlight operator taking their cue, washing Jerome Avenue in shades of promise. My Toyota Corolla—seventeen years younger than when I'd last seen it in my other life—hummed beneath me as I navigated the familiar streets made strange by time's recession. The demo CD from our all-night session sat on the passenger seat, its surface catching the morning light like an oracle's mirror.
The final track we'd laid down still echoed in my mind:
*[Verse 1]*
*Morning light hits different when you've seen it twice*
*Each dawn a reminder of paradise*
*Lost and found again in time's embrace*
*Every choice I make leaves a different trace*
*In the book of days yet to come alive*
*Writing chapters that never survived*
*In that other life, that parallel stream*
*Where this morning was just another dream*
The bodega on the corner was still Kim's in 2004—it wouldn't become Miguel's for another three years. Through the window, I could see Mrs. Kim stocking the shelves, her movements a ritual I'd forgotten. She'd been at my graduation in the other timeline. Now that future felt as ephemeral as morning mist.
My phone buzzed—the flip phone still strange in my hand. A text from Rico:
"Labels already calling. Word's spreading about last night. We gonna be rich, kid."
But wealth wasn't the goal—at least, not the only one. In my other timeline, I'd learned too late that money without purpose was just golden handcuffs. I typed back carefully:
"Keep them waiting. Trust the plan."
The plan. Every move calculated, every choice weighted with the knowledge of two decades. I parked in front of our building, the same one where Ma still lived in 2024. But now, in 2004, the graffiti was different, the security door hadn't been upgraded yet, and the future was soft clay in my hands.
The smell of coffee and plantains greeted me as I opened our apartment door. Ma stood at the stove, her hair not yet touched by the gray that would come with years of worry. She turned, and the look in her eyes stopped me cold—a mixture of pride, concern, and something else. Something that reminded me she'd raised me alone, that she knew me better than anyone across any timeline.
"You look different," she said softly, spatula paused mid-flip. "Something changed last night."
If she only knew how right she was. In my pocket, the demo CD felt heavy with possibility. I'd recorded different music this time, better music, infused with twenty years of unlearned lessons. The lyrics from our final take floated through my memory:
*[Hook]*
*Time ain't just a river*
*It's an ocean deep and wide*
*Every choice a current*
*Every memory a tide*
*Dancing through the waters*
*Of the might-have-been*
*Till tomorrow's stories*
*Let yesterday begin*
"The battle went well," I said, accepting the coffee she offered. The mug was one I remembered breaking in 2006—another small detail made precious by temporal distance. "But it's what happened after... Ma, I think things are about to change for us."
She sat across from me, her own coffee untouched. "I heard you come in at dawn. You were in the studio?" Her voice carried old worries about late nights, bad influences, dreams too big for their britches. In my other life, those worries had been justified more often than not.
"Something's coming, Ma. Something good. I need you to trust me."
"Marcus." She reached across the table, her hand warm against mine. "You're seventeen. You're supposed to be worried about graduation, about college applications. This music thing..."
I squeezed her hand, feeling the calluses from years of typing medical records. In my other timeline, she'd worked that job until 2019. Not this time.
"I had this dream," I said carefully, each word a bridge between realities. "About the future. About who we could become. And last night, in that studio, it started coming true."
She studied my face with the intensity that had caught every childhood lie, every teenage evasion. But there was no lie now—only truths too complex to speak.
*[Verse 2]*
*Mother's eyes reading stories yet to come*
*In the face of her son who's already run*
*Through two decades of choices, now undone*
*Every worry she carries weighs a ton*
*But trust the vision, trust the plan unveiled*
*Time's a circle where love never failed*
*Just a few more moves till we reach that day*
*When all her sacrifices find their way*
*To pay her back in ways she never dreamed*
*Future's brighter than it first seemed*
"Eat something," she said finally, sliding a plate of plantains toward me. "Then sleep. Whatever's coming, it'll wait until you've rested."
I smiled, remembering this moment from my other life—except then, I'd been returning from a night of aimless wandering, no victory, no demo, no future unfolding according to plan. The weight of her love, unchanged across timelines, pressed against my chest.
"Yeah," I said, tasting the sweetness of the plantains, the familiar comfort of home. "Just a few hours. Then everything changes."
Through the window, the Bronx continued its morning dance, unaware that its rhythm was being subtly altered, its future rewritten by a son who'd already lived it once. I closed my eyes, letting the exhaustion of creation wash over me, while in my pocket, the demo CD waited to birth a new timeline, one where every dream came with the wisdom to make it real.
The morning light painted possibilities across our kitchen table, and somewhere in the city, tomorrow was already listening.
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