Find Me
Chapter 166
Steve’s lips were warm against the freezing cold metal of the harmonica. Wind whipped through his long, blonde hair that had finally grown out to his natural color from the very unnatural last vestiges of the peroxided hue of his undercover work in Colonel Jericho’s organization. The big, big ‘80’s were giving way to early grunge 90’s, and part of Steve never really left that pop culture frame of mind. He’d lived three years since his memory returned and 14 more jumping, but for him, the sights and sounds and people of the comforting waterfront now passing him to and fro in this early evening hour were the ones that he last felt authentic in. Like truly himself. So, it helped that he was able to be here right now to sort out his feelings. In this time that was more or less the last time he’d experienced his pre-death life. It had been four hours since his arrival into himself, and sitting here on the pier while he mused on this latest reality helped him ease into it. And easing in was necessary, because he was a basket of emotional disorder driven by everything.
The little bundle inside his leather jacket was going to help more, but for now he simply let himself feel it against his chest like a snooze alarm. He hit the proverbial button and gave himself a little more time to blow a comforting bluesy tune. And he did need the comfort, because as far as he was concerned, he and Kayla were about to fly home to an eight-year-old Stephanie after one of the most devastating experiences of his life, learning that Ava had very likely stolen his and Kayla’s child. Now it was a great big nevermind, and getting out of that frame of mind was a loss no matter how many times he experienced that light-switch. Plus, there was no worse way to jump than the stressful, disordered confusion of doing so when you weren’t awake in the first place. Then there was the fact of the time he’d arrived into, which absolutely did not help. The wisdom he possessed now made all the difference in his ability to cope, but turning on an existence from non-existence in the literal blink of an eye was the pure definition of chaos. He’d done this countless times, now, and he was able to accept where he’d arrived; but the fact that it still caused him utter befuddlement annoyed the ever-living shit out of him. So right now, playing reedy notes through one of the harmonicas that had been a consistent presence in all these years as he reflected on everything that happened since his arrival those short hours ago helped him process that annoyance.
The first thing Steve had done when he was able to get his nausea under control was lock eyes with Kayla. That didn’t last long, however, as the blood started to pour from his nose. “Dammit!” he spat.
“It’s ok,” Kayla said shakily, “I’m here. It’s me.”
The fact that Kayla was desperately fighting tears set off higher than usual alarm bells. He looked up at her but was immediately distracted from her late 20s visage as he saw his surroundings for the first time. The Someone’s 1! decorations told him everything he needed to know about what day it was: February 19th or thereabouts, 1991. The version of Stephanie he’d not yet experienced in her mother’s arms whimpering for her cake told him that this was unshared time. The question was how long Kayla had been there without him. The thought of just how long that might be spiked his blood pressure, adding to his physical sickness.
“How long?” he asked through the nosebleed.
“Stop the bleeding first,” she said. “Pinch hard.”
Her non-answer only made Steve’s anxiety worse. She’s the one that arrived first, and all Steve wanted to do right now was find out how long that was and what kind of life she’d been forced to forge for them alone. He asked again, but Kayla was in a a doctor mode version of autopilot. He looked out over the small crowd in his house he hadn’t seen in a very long time. Rather than cut through all the background players, he put his head back down and did as he was told. This arrival felt very off to Steve, and he knew without question that the resulting desperation making him feel dizzy right now was more dread than jump effect. He grabbed Kayla’s hand in a search for stability. In response, she bent down and dropped a kiss onto the top of her husband’s head.
“I’m so happy to see you,” she rasped quietly.
It was a small gesture, but he felt every bit of her knowing reassurance. Both of them wanted more connection right now, but between his bloody nose, their daughter having a melt-down, and a house literally full of people, it was all they could do.
Adrienne was in a panic over what was wrong with her big brother, because some things never changed; and his mother was dutifully cleaning up everything from the plate, to the bloody tissues his sister was wiping his nose with, to the large pieces of smash cake that were smearing everything in his vicinity, because some other things also never changed. Steve didn’t bother protesting all the women going ape shit over him and just let them help him.
Kayla wanted everyone out of her house right now. Every single person, however, was in one form or another completely in the way. Marcus was palpating, Jo and Adrienne were doting, Bo and Kimberly were kid-corralling, children were protesting, Caroline and Shawn were baby bouncing, and Stephanie was shrieking. Trying and failing to disperse everyone while also trying to make sure Steve knew when, where, and who they were while also trying to comfort her screaming one-year-old that she’d finally handed off to her parents caused her own blood pressure to spike.
For his part, all Steve could do was sit there pinching the bridge of his nose as hard as he could while trying not to bite Marcus’s head off. “Homey, you gotta give it a rest, man, I’m fine!”
“I just hope it’s not the chowder,” Caroline replied with worried concern that her precious Brady legacy had gone awry.
Something about the absurdity of Caroline having said this many times before struck both Steve and Kayla so funny that they both chuckled. They heard each other chuckle, they knew exactly why, and as fast as the tension set upon them, it just as suddenly deflated.
It is what it is, dude, Steve resigned to himself, and just went with it when Marcus, ignoring his best friend’s previous protestations, dragged him to his feet. “Now, brother, you can do this the hard way or the easy way, but you are gonna come with me and let me check you over.”
“It’s just a little virus, not even contagious,” Steve sighed with acquiescence, “but ok, let’s go check me.”
Marcus looked at his best friend sideways. “Yeah, ok, Dr. Johnson. Managing the Emergency Center’s gone to your head, my brother.”
“Managing the what now?” he replied, then muttered, “what the fuck did I jump into?” Steve was at full disadvantage, so he let Kayla fully take charge and just followed her lead and tried to keep up. Sighing heavily, Steve got up and allowed himself to be dragged to the bathroom.
Kayla, meanwhile, was somehow holding it together, helped along by their little moment of mirth. She could not have been more prepared for this day, and yet she was still completely distraught. She couldn’t help Steve with his arrival, nor Destination Steve with his departure, and that upset her. She’d been with the other Steve for nearly a year. They’d planned for his departure, had countless conversations about the impending jump, and there were difficult days. But he had accepted with great difficulty and also bravery that it would happen, and they were both as ready as they could be. And yet, watching him literally slip away in horror even as the joy of watching her Steve finally arrive overlap with it was emotionally wretched. The man she’d been with for this past year was gone, their shared memories no longer shared, the one she’d been waiting for had finally arrived, and her feelings about it were exactly what she knew they’d be — conflicted and causing her some emotional turmoil.
So, Kayla did her best to go through the motions of thanking everyone for coming and just act normal, but she felt her anxiety even as she tried getting rid of them. Of all the times to arrive, the slipstream chose right now? And in that moment, she knew it was part of whatever arc they were in; based on where they’d come from, all of it probably related to their children.
Once Jo had mollified her granddaughter with a little bit of her cake, Stephanie began succumbing to the excitement of it all and fell asleep in her grandmother’s arms. Kayla asked her to run Stephanie upstairs for her well-overdue nap while she convinced the masses to leave. When Jo came back down, Steve was just emerging from the bathroom with Marcus.
“Oh, you’re looking a lot less peaked now, son,” she said laying the back of her hand across his forehead. Your color’s back.
“Hi Mama,” Steve replied. It was a weird non-sequitur, but Jo smiled at the way he was smiling at her.
“Yes, hello, yourself,” she laughed. “I guess maybe something just didn’t agree with you.”
Steve nodded. “Yeah.” For him the whole last week had not agreed with him, and seeing her had a calming effect. Steve brought his mom into a hug. “It’s always nice to see you, ya know that?”
“Steve …” she replied in the exact way she always did when he was happy to see her on these jumps.
Marcus was visibly wary. “I dunno, I’m a little worried it could be food poisoning.”
“It’s not,” Steve and Kayla replied in unison.
“You two are being really weird right now, you know that?” Marcus said.
“Son, are you sure you’re ok?” Jo asked still in Steve’s unusual embrace.
“Fine, Mama. Just happy to see you.” Steve looked to Kayla from over his mother’s shoulder, and the look on her face continued to make him uneasy. The very air around him was vague. Uncertain. He felt like he was the only one in the room that hadn’t read the book that everyone else was discussing.
With the rest of the impending chaos of this kind of public arrival now calmed, Kayla used every last bit of patience she had in her to show Jo and Marcus out politely while the desperation for them to all be just gone already consumed her. With a final reassuring smile to Jo that she didn’t feel because she needed one, herself, she closed the door, and the house was finally empty but for the three souls that lived there. She rested her forehead on it and took a deep breath. Kayla sensed Steve standing right behind her. When she turned around her eyes were glassy.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” he replied guardedly.
She held out her hand and squeezed when he took it. Then she clutched it to her chest, and she understood a bit more what it was like for Steve when she’d finally jumped into herself in Cleveland after two years. “It’s finally really you?”
He nodded slightly. “Straight from Chicago 1998.”
“Tell me again that you remember Stockholm. I need to hear the answer.”
“What is this, twenty questions? I remember. Twenty questions.”
Kayla leaned into Steve and just breathed a sigh. “I’ve had a few false alarms.”
“Pretty sure I’m really me, now,” he joked lightly as they held each other. Then Steve let out an equal sigh in understanding that the gap was large. He looked around the room as they embraced. He hadn’t seen it in a very long time. The smell of Kayla’s hair was a sense memory that reminded him of Emily, and that evoked something in Steve that made him feel more vulnerable, not less.
How long?” he asked again, and this time he knew she was about to give him an answer he was not going to like.
Very softly, Kayla replied, “It’ll be a year next month.”
Steve knew it was coming, but he stiffened anyway. “A year, huh,” he said. Kayla looked up at her husband. She was silent but resolute in meeting his eye with the understanding that this was not what he wanted to hear. As she nodded, the madness-driving loneliness of his two years in Cleveland without her just a few short jumps ago settled upon him in an uninvited reminder. “With the other me?” he asked as neutrally as he could.
Kayla nodded. “It’s February.”
Steve stepped back, placed his hands on his hips, and looked down. “I gathered that,” he replied. He was much evolved in how to process jealousy, but he was still at his core who he was, and prepared for the possibility that she’d have a jump living with his counterpart or not, he didn’t take this as well as ideally he’d wanted to.
“I got here in March, so I was alone for a while, but then, yes, with the other you.”
Steve crossed his arms defensively. “I’m still in the safehouse in Chicago. What Ava did just happened. I—know I’m here now. I know. But I just talked to Stephanie. Wait, where is she?”
“Fell asleep. Napping in her room.”
Steve exhaled heavily. “She was just eight, Kayla,” he gestured his head toward the stairwell. I just fell asleep a minute ago, ready to go home to LA. I mean I … ” Suddenly Kayla’s words hit him with a shiver down his spine. Alone. And now it’s ninety–ONE. “Prison,” Steve rasped. “You jumped into prison.” Kayla nodded. The anxiety and disquiet from Ava’s actions on the previous jump and whatever jealousy Steve was starting to feel at the thought of Kayla living with the other him was sapped right out of him at hearing that she’d jumped back to prison. “Goddammit,” he said quietly. “Sweetness. I’m—I’m so sorry.”
Kayla smiled. “It’s nice to hear you call me that.”
“Haven’t I been calling you that for eleven months?”
Kayla burst into tears. “Please call me Sweetness again. I haven’t heard your voice in a year. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed hearing it.”
Steve understood all too well, but he had to hope that the other Steve took care of her. “Oh, Sweetness. Baby.” Kayla fell into Steve’s arms and held him tightly. “It’s ok, Sweetness. It’s gonna be ok.” He whispered her pet name to her several times as they spent the next moments embracing in quiet connection.
Kayla inhaled her husband. He smelled like he always did, but knowing this was really him – that he’d finally arrived after the longest stretch she’d yet experienced – there was a difference, and no matter how much she loved every version of him, this scent filled her like elixir.
Finally, Kayla wiped her eyes against Steve’s bright, blue button-down shirt. Then she leaned up and kissed him. She felt this chaste, meeting of her warm lips on his like a missing bond that had been reconnected. It made her feel worse, and she knew why. Betrayal. Of both of them – primary Steve for being with the one that belonged here; and of destination Steve for being so happy that hers was finally here and that he was actually the rightful one. It was exactly what she expected. But expecting it and experiencing it were different things.
Their kisses never lied. They weren’t windows so much as huge entryways into each other’s souls. Their truths. Their unvarnished realities of what was happening inside them. And in his wife’s kiss as they held each other, Steve knew something deeper was absolutely not ok. This was one of the worst arrivals he’d ever experienced, and he didn’t know if it was because of where he’d come from or where he now was, but nothing was lining up, and his blood pressure was starting to spike in panic. He pulled out of the kiss and looked down at her, terrible uncertainty reflecting in his eye. “Jesus Christ, Kayla, please tell me we’re ok.”
Kayla’s face fell into a poignant, tender expression. “Yes, baby,” she said, curling her fingers into the sides of his face. It was a loving gesture of absolute and demonstrable love she’d made throughout their relationship whether he had a beard or not. “Yes, we are ok. But a lot has happened. Some of it you’re not going to like.” Kayla’s breath caught in her throat, and she swallowed before going on. “We made a plan for when you got here.” Kayla could see that her husband was struggling to remember what plan she was talking about and clarified. “Me and the other Steve. We made a plan.”
Steve was gobsmacked. “What do you mean?”
Kayla angled a pensive nod. “The other you. He knew. That I was from the future. I told you.”
Steve stepped back with the involuntary reflex of an electric shock, his eye wide with disbelief.
“Dammit, this is so much harder than I even knew it would be,” Kayla said as she rubbed at the bridge of her nose. She took a deep resetting breath. “I tried hiding it for a long time, but it got hard. In fact, it got impossible. I’ve had—some issues.”
“What kind of issues?” Irrational possibilities went through his head related to her assault in the last jump.
“You knew something was wrong. Him. He wasn’t you but he also was, and I have not been coping with things very well, and you noticed.” Emily’s room above them flashed into Kayla’s head. “You—really—noticed. And one day it all came crashing down, and I gave up. You told me to trust you. Begged me,” she said meaningfully, “to trust you. That you’d understand. That it would be ok.” Kayla shrugged. “It wasn’t ok; you were wrong about that. But you were right to trust you. Because you stayed devoted and true. You believed me.” Then softly to herself, “I still can’t believe that you believed me.”
Neither could Steve, and he was having a hard time processing this surreal revelation. “I need you to tell me everything, Kayla. From the beginning.”
“We knew you’d say that.”
“Great,” he replied dryly. They sat on the couch, and Kayla picked up his hand.
“I know you’re entirely out of sorts,” she said with a strength she knew he needed from her right now whether she really had it or not. Then she kissed his palm. “I know nothing makes sense. When I got to Cleveland after two years, you didn’t have me, you were all alone. And I don’t know how you did it. Because I wasn’t alone. I didn’t have you, but the Steve I did have kept me sane. I mean that, he kept me from losing my mind.” Steve reacted to this, but Kayla went on. “I’m going to tell you everything you want to know, but we have a 12-month-old up there that demands our time, which is going to be really short when she wakes up.”
Steve smiled. “Guess I’m gonna get to see her, after all.”
Kayla smiled back knowingly as she threaded her fingers into his. “She’s amazing. She’s every bit your daughter as she’s ever been. And I want you to have time with her. So, this has to happen first.” The plan she and the other Steve prepared was as fresh and ready in Kayla’s mind as the jump project was. So she proceeded to follow it as quickly as she could.
With a lot of interruption that Kayla met with patience and insistence that he also be patient, she brought her husband up to speed. It was Saturday afternoon, February 23rd, 1991, they were celebrating Stephanie’s first birthday, and Steve was unhappily managing the Emergency Center while Kayla stayed home with their baby. Here was one of the places Steve stopped her.
“In what world would I be the one managing the Emergency Center? That’s nuts, baby.”
“We’re in parallel universes, Steve, this is one that exists in.”
Steve made a gesture of hopeless acceptance. “Yeahp, ok, I guess. That’s one way to break the slipstream.”
“That’s not the plan I’m talking about.” Kayla went on to explain that there were endless ways that she could have taken a serious offramp from the established timeline as they’d agreed, but with Steve still being somewhere in limbo she was limiting vast changes.
“So everyone still went on that stupid cruise? Hope’s still presumed dead?”
Kayla nodded. “It was one of the hardest things to do was just let it all happen, and without you there, I had no idea if that was enough of a change or not, but you weren’t here yet, and they’re not real; I had to protect you. The other you had a hard time, too. Knowing how it was going to end up just doing nothing to stop it.”
“So, you really did tell him everything.”
“Almost, yes.” Steve narrowed his eye in question. “Well. You badgered me a lot for the answer to the Stockholm question. Like I said, there were a lot of false alarms, and when you figured out it was a test, you were not happy that I wouldn’t share that with you. We actually had a couple pretty nasty fights about it. Made you feel—like second best.” Kayla teared up. “You tried to hide it, but you felt like you were the consolation prize.” Now she looked down. “I hurt you. I tried not to.” She dropped his hand to wipe at her watery eyes with the heels of her hands. “But it hurt you when I would shut you out. It was so hard. Seeing what I was doing to you.” Some things just had to be – between only us. I never told him what Ava did to us. He knew she existed, and he begged me to say what she did. I wouldn’t. It was too intimate.”
Steve got hopeful. Maybe she didn’t sleep with him without all of him being there. “Was … anything else too intimate?”
That was faster than Kayla expected. She knew this was coming, and she knew she had to be completely honest when it did. She bravely looked him in the eye and slowly shook her head. She was silent as she closely watched this unavoidable truth settle upon him.
The emotions roiling within Steve were many, they were complicated, and they were happening faster than he had the luxury of dealing with. They’d always known that this happening again was a when not an if, and his thoughts went right to his time in LA when he’d finally made love to a version of Kayla that didn’t include her primary awareness. His guilt over it had been overwhelming, eating at him from the inside out. Until she got there. And learned it had happened. And handled it. Like the strong one. Like the smart one. Like his anchor. She forgave him. She didn’t leave him. And he was going to respect her now that the tables were turned. That didn’t mean that he was doing well. He finally dropped her gaze and nodded. It was all he could do.
“Do you forgive me?” Kayla asked, her voice tight.
“Yeah,” his voice broke looking back up. “There’s nothing to forgive.” He meant it, but his heart was pounding, the amplification effect making this harder than it already was.
Kayla wanted to hold him. She was so relieved that he was finally here that all she could think about was clutching on to him before he disappeared again. But Steve had crossed his arms again and was absently tapping his finger against his upper arm. And Kayla knew she was going to have to wait, because this plan couldn’t. “I’ll be right back,” she said as she stood up off the couch.
“Where are you going?”
“To get something.”
“I’m not mad,” he insisted. “I don’t want you to go, please, baby.”
Kayla let him pull her into exactly the embrace she desperately wanted and closed her eyes to the feel of him really there, really holding her. But she knew in her bones that indulging in it was the wrong move.
I’m gonna wanna be all over you when I get here, Sweetness, she recalled the other Steve saying. I’m gonna be a mess. But you gotta stay strong and stick with the plan. More tears leaked from her eyes, which she wiped away before she pulled back a final time. “It’s ok, it’ll only take a minute.” Then with difficulty, Kayla left the man she’d been pining for for literally eleven months and disappeared up the stairs.
Steve felt like his skin was on fire. He loved this house, but right now it felt almost oppressive. He awkwardly walked around the room to burn off the anxiety ratcheting up in his chest, pink and orange streamers starting to hang from the door jambs where the tape wasn’t holding. He had to get his head in the here and now, but it was a struggle to get unstuck from the there and then. When they’d gone to bed last night, Kayla was almost physically recovered from her ordeal with Ava, the clomid had just about worn off, and they were ready to get on Shane’s private jet to go back home to their little house in Los Feliz where Stephanie was eight-years-old, her stuffed animals were waiting to meet her papa, and the cat about to be renamed Kitty for at least the third time threw up hairballs and liked to drink from the toilet. Flipping existential switches was always very difficult; this time was one of the hardest. Somewhere deep down he knew it was the trauma of Ava’s deep violation. It felt somehow worse than being stolen from his own head all those years ago by Lawrence Alamain. He paced the foyer with his hands on his hips and said to himself, “I think I need therapy.”
“We both need therapy,” Kayla said from the livingroom doorway.
Steve jumped at Kayla’s voice suddenly behind him and clutched his chest. “Jeez, baby, you startled me.”
“Sorry!”
He glanced at the stairwell. “Where did you come from?”
“Back stairs.”
“Oh.”
Kayla could see he was confused. She took him by the hand to sit together on the couch and handed him what she’d gone upstairs to retrieve. “I take the back stairs a lot now. This will help explain it. And everything else, too.”
Steve took the odd bundle. “What’s this?”
“This is how you saved me from myself. You bought me this diary on the day that I told you that we’re jumping through time.”
“I believed you?” he asked incredulously.
“I admit I was shocked, but yes, you did. It started with what you read on this legal pad,” she pointed. “Start with that.”
“What, you want me to read it?”
“Yes.”
Steve felt very uncomfortable and a little bit frustrated. “This is the plan? The two of you came up with?” Kayla nodded. “Why can’t you just tell me, baby.”
Kayla brushed her lips across her husband’s again and combed her fingers through his hair that had grown on the longer side. “I am,” she said. “I am going to tell you every single thing you want to know.” Then she wrapped her hands around his holding the bundle. “It’s all here. It was meant for you. I didn’t really know it when I started, but I realized it quickly. I made memories with the other you that we’re not going to be able to recreate this time.” She felt it when Steve’s chest tightened. “This,” she gently shook these two small but precious volumes, “is how. I got the idea from you, when you wrote me the emails in LA. When you’re done with these, you can ask me anything you want. There’s no question I won’t answer.”
Steve ran his thumbs over the soft, yellow cover and grinned. “I got you this?” Kayla nodded. “Yellow,” he said knowingly. “Did I bring you roses, too?”
“As a matter of fact, you did.” Steve smirked a little laugh, and Kayla smiled.
Steve felt the reality of his existence, and it made him shaky. I made memories with the other you … A year. Nearly a solid year of memories were in these pages. The sheer amount of life he’d missed while what felt too much like another man was with his family made him shaky.
Steve stood up and took a few steps toward the foyer. Then he turned back around, paced a bit, and sat back down, his elbows resting uncomfortably on this thighs. He felt completely disconnected.
Kayla reached for his hand. “Steve—”
“My head thinks I’ve been stewing in Chicago. I missed a whole year, Kayla. And I’m still not here, my head – it’s still … seeing you on that operating table. And the toys. The playpen over there.” His voice was tight. “The last time we were here those were Emily’s toys.” He looked down at the diary and legal pad, the bottom edges curled up. “I don’t know … where should I …?”
Kayla’s heart ached watching him mentally flail. She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him tightly to her. “Shh. Shh, baby. You’re home. Right here with me, you know I am always home. Do you feel me here?”
Steve let himself melt into the warmth of her body holding him. “Yeah, Sweetness. I do.”
“Good, you just hold on to me and let me make it better. We always make each other better.” She stroked her palm up and down over Steve’s back. “Because when we’re together we’re home.” This time when Kayla’s lips swept over her husband’s, Steve felt comfort, solace, and truth in her words.
Suddenly, all of the mental and emotional anguish he’d suffered in every single jump since leaving his beautiful life here in this house rose to the surface in a cacophony of pain. He’d processed it, but now it rose to the surface and was made so much worse with the anguish of the jumps after being ripped away from his life in LA. Spending years separated by childhood, then silence, then the slipstream, just to find each other having been unspeakably violated before finally arriving after another year of separation that he’d never get to share – it all now exploded in a solar flare from the deep place his pain usually lay in remission.
Steve dropped the diaries and held Kayla back in a fierce clutch. It was too much. He felt it churning in his brain like dust particles hitting a vortex. The only thing stopping that vortex from becoming a black hole right now was the presence of his wife in his arms.
Kayla had always been afraid that Steve wouldn’t cope well when he finally got here. Now she knew she’d been right. She met his desperate kisses and would have sold her soul to help him.
“I love you,” she breathed. Steve couldn’t say anything, because he was crying. “Shh,” she kissed him. “You’re home, baby, you’re finally home.”
Kayla pulled Steve to lay atop her on the couch. Their lips never parted for long as they removed the clothing between them. The house was chilly as the sun began setting on the February afternoon, but a beam of sun shone in through the dusk to gently illuminate them in its golden hue.
The blue and white striped couch was old and well-worn the last time they made love on it in the loft of their little house in LA. Today the paradox of its existence rang in both of their heads as they tenderly made love upon it again.
Steve felt Kayla’s safety and reassurance in every stroke of his penis inside of her. He felt her fingers brush his face in comfort, and he knew her heart was with him as her thighs rubbed against his gently driving hips. As he felt his gratification about to crest, he wrapped his left arm tightly around her back against the couch, used his other to hold her hand between them, sped up his movements, and kissed her deeply as he came. Their intimacy forged the connection Steve so badly needed, the depth of his love for Kayla profound.
“Hold me, Sweetness,” Steve cried softly as Kayla tasted his tears in their kisses.
“Forever.” Kayla’s own tears leaked down the sides of her face. “I’ll hold you forever.”
They lay in silent embrace for several minutes sharing gentle caresses before they each visited the bathroom and put their jeans back on.
When Steve returned to the livingroom, Kayla wasn’t there. His heart started to race before he heard where she’d gone through the monitor. Stephanie was awake. And now as he ascended the steps of this beautiful wood-paneled stairwell for the first time in more than a decade, his heart really did pound.
Kayla heard her husband approaching, and she was just as eager for this moment as she was when they spoke to the 8-year-old version of this baby in Chicago. When he appeared in the doorway, Kayla felt that rare spike of appreciation for their existence here so that her husband could have this chance that had been stolen from him. Sure enough, Steve’s first look at his year-old daughter in her mother’s arms lit him up.
“This is your daughter,” Kayla smiled warmly.
As if on cue, Stephanie reached for her father. “Puh-puh,” she whimpered sleepily, still not quite over the sudden change in her entire dynamic.
Steve felt warmth flow through him to hear her call him by his name, because first meetings of new versions of Stephanie never got old. Other than her longer hair, she didn’t look that different than when he said goodbye to her on his deathbed when she was eight months old. Four months is a long time in baby development, though, and Stephanie’s sweet little baby voice calling him Papa was a new little joy that he was happy to experience.
“Yeah, she is,” he replied with a smile the little girl immediately connected with. Steve took her and felt instantly right. He wasn’t going to be adjusted here in this jump yet, but in this moment, he felt himself start to click into place.
Stephanie shoved her warm little head into the crook of Steve’s neck, and that caused the same happiness to avail itself in him that did so when her mother burrowed into him. That’s all it took for the momentary but truly instant reversal of the rabbit hole he was about to go down. Steve brought Stephanie’s little hand to his lips and made kissy smacks. “Thank you, Little Sweetness,” he whispered. Then he took a deep breath and released the tension that their reality fomented in him. He looked up into his wife’s eyes and saw such dolefulness as they started to shine with unshed tears. He reached for her and brought her against him, and the three of them embraced.
“Someone has a fresh clean diaper, doesn’t she?” Kayla sing-songed.
“Clean diaper?!” Steve parroted. “Well, hold on, what about all these friends of yours, Little Sweetness, do they need new diapers too?” Steve picked up a stuffed animal from the changing table that Kayla had just changed her daughter on. “This one looks pretty familiar.” Indeed, Puppy, who seemed to be at that top of the pecking order when the 10-year-old introduced them, looked pretty spiffy. “Puppy?” he directed toward the head stuffy, “do you need a diaper, or are you good?” Then he brought Puppy to his ear and nodded at the stuffed animal’s purported response. “Uh-huh … Uh-huh … Yeahp, ok.” Stephanie smiled at this exchange of her funny father talking to Puppy. “Sweetness, I have it on good authority that Puppy is not in need of no diaperin’. We’re good.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Kayla replied.
Steve nestled Puppy into Stephanie’s arms while Stephanie sat snugly in her father’s, and everyone was very content in this moment.
On the way back down the stairs, Steve stopped abruptly at Emily’s room. “What’s in here?” he asked as he placed his palm gingerly on the door.”
“Nothing. We don’t open that door. I—I need it closed.” Steve nodded but stared at the door. “Steve?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you ok?”
He had been, but now he wasn’t. “Not really.”
Kayla took his hand. “Come on. Don’t linger here.” Steve nodded and let his wife lead him back downstairs.
A dinner consisting of leftover Portillo’s roast beef and buttered noodles in various states of preparedness depending on if you were a baby or the baby’s parent was the first meal they had together of this jump. Steve wasn’t feeling as awkward, but he wasn’t feeling completely connected, either. He needed to understand what he and Kayla’s relationship had been for the past year. He needed the details. He didn’t understand how he’d believed her when she told him she was from the future. He was astonished and, frankly, confounded as to how he was the one managing the Emergency Center.
“Not the Community Center, baby?” he asked as he watched his daughter shove handfuls of her leftover cake into her mouth. “You’re sure I’m runnin’ a medical clinic?”
“Yep.”
“Like, I got an office?”
“You sure do.”
“And I’m liking this?”
“You are not. You hate that job.”
Steve guffawed, and it was nice for Kayla to hear him genuinely laugh. “Why the fuck am I there?”
“Language, please? She’s one.”
Steve looked at Stephanie, whose attention span in this moment was strictly limited to her cake. “Papa gotta watch his mouth now, Little Sweetness.” She showed no reaction in the slightest when he then he covered her ears with his hands. “You keep eatin’ that cake while I earmuff you here.” Then to Kayla he repeated in a whisper, “Why the fuck am I there?”
Kayla shook her head and chuckled. “It’s actually a kind of a long story, and you’re going to read about it in the diary. She got up, retrieved the diary and legal pad from where Steve had dropped them, and then came and sat back down.
“Sorry I just dropped those like that,” he said from behind her as she straightened them and placed them on the kitchen table.
“It’s ok,” she smiled. “But these are actually precious, so for real, be careful with them.”
Steve was clearly impatient. “I dunno, Sweetness, this cake is distracting me.” He grabbed a whole piece off the table with his hands and shoved the entire thing into his mouth just like Stephanie, and the little girl howled in laughter. Kayla, however, wasn’t laughing.
“Wha?” Steve asked with a mouthful of cake. Stephanie continued to laugh, but Kayla looked … hurt. Oh shit. Steve swallowed everything in his mouth and wiped off his hands. “These are real important to you. I’m sorry.”
Kayla crossed her arms. “Why don’t you want to read them?” Her tone was as sad as her face.
“I do, I just—”
“No, you don’t. You’re avoiding them. Why?”
Now the tears that had assailed him earlier started to burn at the back of his eye again. “You had a life with him for a real long time, and I won’t ever be part of it.”
“I had a life with you. And you’re going to be part of it because those diaries—they’re my heart.”
It took until this moment, but Steve’s constitution finally shifted. Steve had spent two years utterly alone while Kayla lived her own life without him, and when she arrived, instead of freaking out she kept her head for him. Now she was the one who had to do it by herself. She had the other Steve, but the stress of not knowing where he was or if the slipstream was so broken that he was lost had to have been harrowing. He was upset and damaged and feeling vulnerable, but he was also being selfish and he knew it was time to man up.
Steve leaned back in his chair and dragged a palm down his face. “Baby, I’m sorry. You’re right, I’m sorry.” The corner of Kayla’s mouth turned up slightly in acknowledgment, but her eyes remained sad. “I’m a selfish prick.”
“Language, and you’re not.” Steve shot her a look that said not to patronize him. “Ok, you’re a little selfish. But you’re not a prick.”
“Language, Sweetness.” Then Steve picked up the yellow diary and ran his finger down the soft leather cover. “I don’t think I can read these here. I’m gonna be distracted. Is that ok? If I get some air.”
Kayla didn’t want to let him out of her sight. But she understood. “I’ve been waiting eleven months for you.” She stroked her finger down his patch and was pleased when this evoked a smile from him. “I can wait a little longer, so you can have what you need. These are what I’ve been doing instead of the jump project. I’ll be there in every word. So wherever you go, just take good care of them.”
Suddenly, Steve very much wanted to do exactly as she said, and he wanted to do it right now. Steve airplaned his daughter to her playpen, then he kissed her belly, evoking giggles. “Take good care of Puppy, Little Sweetness, Papa’s gotta go do somethin’.” Steve spotted his leather jacket on the bench, grabbed it, and put it on. It would have been too big on the body he’d just jumped from, but It felt very comfortable and familiar on his currently larger frame. He held the diaries to himself as he opened the door. Before he walked through it he turned back to Kayla, and put her palm on his cheek. “I love you, Kayla.” It was the first time he’d said it since he’d jumped in. She didn’t need him to explain why, she knew. “I’m comin’ back. You know that, right?”
“Of course, I do.” But something about her voice gave him pause.
“Do you want me to stay?”
Kayla shook her head. “I have missed you and been terrified of where you were for almost a year. I know that means we’re going to have to adjust. But the other you knew that. You took care of me. And you took care of you, too. You need to do this. I’ll be there in the words.” She then gently pushed the bundle to his chest. “I wrote them. But they’re not actually mine; they’re yours.”
Steve would never tire of how much he loved his wife.
He tucked the bundle into his jacket, zipped it up, and kissed her deeply before finally heading out the door to his car. The sound of the engine roaring to life felt like the old friend his leather jacket did. He didn’t look back in the rearview mirror when he exited his circle drive, because if he did, he would have backed up and gone back in the house.
Kayla felt history repeat itself when Steve left with the diaries. He promised he’d be back, and she knew he would. “Both of us need a fuck ton of therapy,” Kayla said aloud as Steve drove away. Then as Stephanie called for her she closed the door and added. “Language.”
Now Steve sat on the pier, blowing aimlessly but no less melodically through his harmonica. He felt the weight of the diaries inside his jacket and didn’t know if the words they held were going to help him or hurt him, but he did feel the importance of owning them.
It started with what you read on this legal pad. Start with that.
Steve looked out over the river he’d gotten married on not once but twice and smiled at the memories of how happy he was on those days. The man he was the first time this day happened was in miserable exile in plain sight in a warehouse nearby before being transferred to a boat somewhere on this very same river. The man who belonged in this body never had to experience that, he got to stay with his family. Now it was time to read how that version of their lives went down. He took the pad of yellow paper out of his jacket and admired the doodles and random notes on each of the first few pages. He did not love the random anatomical lists, because he was well aware now that those were a sign that Kayla was struggling to cope. A few pages in he got to the first real entry. He brushed his fingertips over Kayla’s clear handwriting. “Ready or not, Sweetness.” Then he began reading.
March 21, 1990
Dear Steve …
Chapter 167 (coming soon. Really.) >>