That thought filled Adeline with sadness. She knew the future. Knew that her mother would never do any of those things.
But her mother didn’t.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
Adeline looked up. Her mother had read the emotion on her face. She had always been good at that.
“Nothing. Just thinking.”
“Well, be careful of your thoughts. They’re more powerful than you think.”
Her mother flipped open a notebook. “By the way, someone dropped the class yesterday. Probably a good thing—he was failing. I don’t know for sure, but I might be able to add you.”
“That’s okay. Really.”
Her mother studied her. “Are you a student here, Adeline?”
“I am. Just not right now.”
“That’s all right. But are you all right?”
“I’m just trying to get back on my feet. Life has sort of thrown me for a loop.”
Her mother formed that kind smile that had been the hallmark of her youth. “It happens. Life is about getting up. Not avoiding falling down.”
FORTY-EIGHT
A week later, Adeline returned to Shen Photo in East Palo Alto.
Her new identity was waiting for her. As far as she could tell, everything checked out. It was a big piece in the puzzle that was the next nineteen years—until the moment she would place herself in that Absolom machine to travel back here to 2008.
*
Adeline set up an investment account at E*Trade. She remembered the broad strokes of the global financial crisis that was just starting to unfold—and even recalled some of the key dates.
She took bearish positions on firms she knew would collapse. She felt a bit guilty about betting against the companies, but she found absolution in the idea that this had already happened, and that the money she would make would ensure the future was possible. The profits from the E*Trade account would fund San Andreas Capital, which would fund various start-ups and eventually Absolom （and her trip to the past）。
With her E*Trade account, she could short stocks and buy puts, but she wanted to go further. She needed more leveraged investments to increase her returns.
She found a small brokerage firm in San Francisco that was willing to allow her to buy credit default swaps for mortgage-backed securities issued by companies she knew were on the verge of collapse.
While she was buying up the troubled assets, she watched as officials from those companies appeared on TV, insisting that their portfolios of subprime mortgages were simply facing a stress test and were fine.
They were not fine.
And the credit default swaps backing their securities might not have been fine either if not for the Federal Reserve, which stepped in and essentially guaranteed them in order to restore confidence in the financial system.
Over the course of a year, Adeline turned a few thousand dollars into tens of millions. Not enough to draw too much attention, but enough to do what she needed to do. It was a nice nest egg to grow, and it would grow to be all the money she needed to create the future.
As the year progressed, it wasn’t the growth in her brokerage account that interested her. It was a thing she hadn’t expected: how close she became with her mother.
Three times a week, she joined her in class. She also began coming to her mother’s office after class to help prepare for future lectures and grade papers.
In a sense, it was the thing Adeline had most wanted in life: a second chance to be with her mother, as a young adult, almost as peers, sharing an experience that was special to both of them.
Adeline knew it couldn’t last. For that reason, she savored every second.
They were eating Chinese take-out in her mother’s office, grading finals, when her mother said: “What are your plans for the summer?”
“I’m not sure. I know I have to move. My sublet is up.”
“Are you staying in the area?”
“Planning on it. Why?”
“Well, I’m actually looking for some help around the house. I don’t know if I mentioned it, but my husband is a postdoc in the physics department. He’s gotten a job for the summer in Geneva, at CERN. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. They’re building this massive machine called the Large Hadron Collider. Have you heard of it?”
Adeline smiled. “I have.”
“Well, Sam is nuts over it. So is his friend, Elliott. He’s been working on the project and has gotten Sam a job there this summer. It’s supposed to start up on September tenth, and Elliott wants Sam to be there. This is like the Super Bowl of all Super Bowls for them. Sort of geeky, but it’s also sort of adorable. Their entire community has been working on this machine for a decade. It’s a big deal.”