Rosalind couldn't believe Nora managed to pull off something as important as stealing a phone from the CEO's office in a major corporation building. Edison hadn't been wrong about her sneaking abilities.
She spent most of the taxi ride to the Book Nook trying to crack the passcode. If she tried too many times, she would be locked out so she had to be smart about it.
First, she tried her parents' wedding anniversary. Then her father's birthday. Then the birthdays of all three of his children. Then their mother's birthday. None of it worked. Of course someone as smart as him wouldn't use such an obvious passcode!
Were there any other significant dates in his life? Significant numbers? People tended to use things they would remember for their passcodes as opposed to random strings of numbers. The passcode Rosalind tended to use consisted of part of her school ID number since she had that memorized.
Supposedly, every combination of numbers in the world existed in pi since it was infinite. Would he do something related to pi? Her father did love math. He used to do practice calculus problems with her for fun.
He was a numbers person. Maybe he chose a significant one other than pi. Euler's number…the golden ratio…Planck's constant…something!
Rosalind was running out of tries. She wracked her brains trying to think of any other potentially significant numbers based on her father's interests. He was considered a genius in the fields of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and engineering.
She tried Avogadro's number. Nothing. The speed of light. Still nothing. Out of sheer desperation, she tried the first part of the gravitational constant, 6.67300, and the phone unlocked.
"Yes! I've got it!" she cackled gleefully.
Geez. Leave it to the great Julian Shea to pick something so obscure as his phone passcode. It was a miracle she managed to get it at all.
"You unlocked it?" Edison asked as he clasped his hands together in front of his chest.
"Yep. Now all I have to do is use the internet to look up the number for the Book Nook and get someone on the phone that will delay Mom for us. I hope we get there soon…we're running out of time."
When they arrived, Rosalind impatiently bought Nora her gummy worms to keep her quiet and made the call. An employee answered on the fourth ring. "Book Nook, how can I help you?"
"Hi, may I speak to Isabel Shea please?" she asked politely.
Edison looked at her funny. "Her full name is Isabel?"
"Are you stupid?! Did you really think her name was Izzy? She doesn't like her full name any more than we like ours," she hissed as she covered the speaker with her hand.
All three Shea children had been named after famous scientists or innovators. Rosalind felt like her name was far too long and girly for her but she couldn't hate it completely since it was pretty cool to be named after one of the people who helped discovered the molecular structure of DNA.
When she was a baby, her parents called her Rozzy and that shortened to Roz as she got older. The only times she got called Rosalind were on the first day of school before her new teachers knew better and when she was in trouble.
"Oh. Right," Edison muttered before accepting another gummy worm from Nora.
"I'm sorry, she's about to leave for the day. I can take a message or—" the employee said but Rosalind cut her off.
"It's really important! I'm her daughter. Please stop her for me."
"Oh. Hang on a minute then." The voice became fainter as if the person was shouting away from the phone. "Hey, Izzy! Your daughter's on the phone for you! It sounds urgent."
A moment later, her mother's voice came on the line and she went weak in the knees. She hadn't heard that voice in more than two years and had missed it desperately. "Roz, is that you? What's going on? I was just about to head out to get you guys."
At this point in time, she had still been at an elementary school but in the process of testing into high school classes. She and Edison had been at the same place while Nora was at a preschool not too far from there.
They had hit a snag. In all their planning, they hadn't come up with a viable excuse to keep their mother at work until after the mugger would have passed by the area without a victim.
Rosalind had never been good at making things up. She wasn't the imaginative type in the slightest, preferring things that were concrete and scientific. However, there was someone here who was excellent at improvising.
"Ed will tell you. Here he is!"
She shoved the phone at her brother, whose startled expression looked rather like an owl's as his mouth was full of gummy worms. She mouthed "sorry" as he glared at her but he did what she wanted.
"Hey, Mom. I have something very super incredibly important to tell you and it's so very super incredibly important that it can't wait until you pick us up because…" He continued rambling about something she could barely keep track of while using as many words as possible to delay time.
What time was it? According to the police report, shots were fired at 3:17 PM. If they held her until 3:30, the mugger should have passed by.
She tapped her finger against the wrist not wearing the time machine watch and her brother held the phone away from his ear to check the time before mouthing "three fourteen" at her. Would he really be able to hold her off for another sixteen minutes when she knew this time's Nora was waiting to be picked up too?
Each passing minute made her heart race faster and her little sister began tugging on her shirt because her gummy worms were gone and she was bored. "Shh! Not now," she snapped.
"But Roz, I wanna see Mommy."
So did she but that wasn't going to happen until this business was taken care of. Edison was getting noticeably antsy as well as he continued spinning his yarn about who knew what. Time was ticking. They were almost in the clear!
He continually checked the phone until they were good. He nearly wilted in relief. "…you know what, Mom? I can tell you the rest another time. Forget I said anything. I'll see you later, okay? I love you."
Rosalind faintly heard her slightly confused response. "O…kay? I love you too. See you soon, Eddie."
He hung up and clutched the phone in his fist with a stricken expression on his face. "It's been a long time since anyone called me Eddie."
After she died, he thought it was too babyish and that he needed to man up to protect his sisters so he started going by Ed. He said it sounded tougher and Rosalind wasn't about to argue with him.
She clapped a hand on his shoulder. "You did good, Ed. Once the timeline resets, I'm sure you'll be able to hear it again."
He shot her a weak smile. "You think so?"
"Yeah. I guess all we have to do now is wait."
They watched Izzy leave the store and head in the direction of the nearest parking lot feeling a distinct sense of relief. She was fine. Everything was going to go back to normal just like their dad wanted and it would all be over.
"That guy is looking at us funny," Nora pointed out as she tugged on her sister's shirt again.
Rosalind turned and noticed the cashier was indeed eyeing them with suspicion. He probably thought they were loitering at this point so it would be in their best interest to get out of here. They couldn't get busted for loitering walking down the street.
"Let's go," she said as she took Nora's hand and led her siblings out of the store.