The dinner table at Mom's place hadn't changed—same scratched wooden surface, same mismatched chairs, same smell of oregano and sofrito mixing with fresh bread. But the envelope I'd placed next to her plate held something that would change everything: the deed to a brownstone in Park Slope, paid in full. In my previous timeline, it had taken another decade to move her out of the Bronx.
"Mi hijo," Maria said, spooning more rice onto my plate despite my protests, "you're too skinny. These fancy studios don't feed you right?" Her eyes flickered to the envelope but didn't touch it. She'd grown suspicious of my success—not of its legitimacy, but of its speed. Sometimes I caught her watching me with a look that said I'd become a stranger wearing her son's face.
"The studios feed me fine, Mom. But nothing beats your cooking." I took another bite of pot roast, letting the familiar flavors ground me in the present. "How's the hospital?"
She wiped her hands on her apron—the same one she'd worn in both timelines, its flower pattern faded from a thousand washes. "Dr. Martinez asked about you today. Said he heard your song on the radio." Pride and worry warred in her voice. "His daughter wants to be a singer now. I told him, 'My Marcus, he worked hard for years—'"
"Mom." I set down my fork. "About that. There's something on the table for you."
The envelope sat between us like a confession. In my first life, I'd waited too long to take care of her, too caught up in the industry's undertow. I watched her hands—strong hands, nurse's hands—shake slightly as she opened it.
"Marcus." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "This is..."
"Park Slope. Three stories. Garden in the back." I swallowed hard. "The neighborhood's good. Close to better hospitals, if you want to transfer. Or..." The next words stuck in my throat. In both timelines, I'd never dared suggest it. "Or you could retire early. The foundation I'm starting—"
"Foundation?" Those sharp mother's eyes found mine. "Marcus Johnson, what aren't you telling me?"
Everything, I wanted to say. That I'd lived this life before. That I'd watched her work herself to exhaustion for another fifteen years. That in another timeline, I'd stood by her hospital bed making promises too late to matter.
Instead, I said, "I just want to take care of you, Mom. The way you always took care of me."
She studied the deed again, her fingers tracing the address. "This kind of money, this fast... people will talk."
"Let them." I reached for her hand. "Everything's legal. Everything's clean. I just... I know where music is going. What it's worth. And I'm not waiting to prove it."
The clock on her wall ticked in the silence—the same clock that had counted out my childhood hours, now marking time in a rapidly diverging timeline. Outside, a car stereo played the hook from Beyoncé's single, our shared secret floating up six stories to her window:
*Time bends like silver in the night
Yesterday's dreams turn to gold...*
"There's something different about you lately," Mom said finally. "Since last year. Like you grew up overnight." She touched my cheek, the way she used to when I had fever dreams as a child. "Sometimes you look at things like... like you're remembering them instead of seeing them for the first time."
My heart stuttered. Of everyone in this timeline, she would be the one to notice. Mothers carried their own kind of time travel, after all—always seeing their children across the years.
"I had to grow up sometime," I said softly. "Had to learn what matters."
She folded the deed carefully, squaring its corners with the precision she used for hospital charts. "This house... you're sure?"
"As sure as I am that you deserve it." I managed a smile. "Besides, the kitchen's twice this size. Think of all the pot roast you could make."
She laughed then, the sound cutting through years of worry—both lived and unlived. "Ay, dios mío. My son, the big producer, still only thinks about his stomach."
But when she hugged me goodbye later, her arms held on a moment longer than usual. Perhaps she sensed the weight of futures altered, of time rewritten. Or perhaps she simply knew, as mothers do, that her son was carrying something heavier than success.
I walked back to my car through streets that felt simultaneously foreign and familiar. Tomorrow, Rico would start booking the sessions that would reshape the next decade of music. Beyoncé's team would send the contract that would intertwine our destinies ahead of schedule. The industry would continue its evolutionary leap forward, guided by knowledge it didn't know it was receiving.
But tonight, I'd given my mother the key to a better future—one that wouldn't cost her another fifteen years of night shifts and worried prayers. Some changes to the timeline were worth any price they might demand.
The car stereo came to life with another one of my productions, its carefully buried innovations already influencing a generation of producers. I let it play as I drove through the Bronx night, each note a stepping stone between the future I'd left and the one I was building, one track at a time.