By the time Stephanie turned eleven years old the following month, everyone who was anyone in their lives had made contact live and in person with Steve. His mother was the first one to show up with Vern in tow. She would have come even earlier, but Adrienne had insisted the entire family come together. That proved to be a cluster fuck getting everyone’s schedules together, especially with Jack’s constant drama.
Thanks to the the previous jumps very recent in their minds, everything was very emotionally complicated where Jack was concerned. He was not really welcome, but the reason for that didn’t belong in this timeline; so, navigating a live and in person visit triggered quite a bit of anxiety for both Kayla and Steve. Luckily, his presence was avoided thanks to his own inability to get his act together with his own currently estranged family in order to make the trip.
Kayla couldn’t really help her reaction to Jack’s voice on the machine, but once it was confirmed that he wouldn’t be making it to LA anytime soon, her concern eased. Steve’s anxiety, however, was different; it was driven by guilt. The sound that came from Kayla when he unknowingly broke through her virginity in Chicago was terrible; but it was actually seeing her in the very moments after Jack had raped her that burned his soul. The vision of her when he came down the spiral staircase too late to prevent her rape … holding her shaking hand … trying to caress the bruises from her face … . The two, unrelated incidents twisted together like a thick vine of guilt that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. But living it all with her was very different than the first time around and would affect him so significantly; no matter how old Steve would get in any timeline, he’d always feel responsible for all the bad things that happened to Kayla, whether they were really his fault or not. Steve would always love a version of his brother, but old wounds were new again, new ones compounded the old, and he was incapable of being a real brother to Jack right now.
The Bradys were begging them to come back to Salem for a visit. Neither of them, however, were willing to make any trips out of their immediate life in Los Angeles. So, somehow, the extended Johnson and Brady families made their trips. Adrienne and Justin came with their four kids under the age of ten, and Jennifer came with Abigail; but it was Jo who laid hands on her son first. And when she did, she collapsed into an absolute puddle. Adrienne did the same, and Steve couldn’t help but become weepy with the onslaught of emotion directed at him. He was the favorite child, Adrienne knew it, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Shawn and Caroline made the rare trip away from what was now the Brady Pub, Bo and Hope came with their newborn son, and Marcus took a break from his Doctors without Borders work. By the time summer was over, their little house was more like the Howard Johnson’s with everyone important to them having made their way to LA to see them.
This was the second time Steve had experienced this celebration of no longer being dead, but it still felt like new territory for him. The last time their world had celebrated Steve’s second lease on life, he didn’t actually remember them enough to appreciate any of it. Now he did, and it was beautiful. After the hell he and Kayla had just been through, Steve was happy to not only see everyone, but to let himself actually enjoy the love that surrounded him.
Unfortunately, Kayla’s relationship with her sister would never be the same in this timeline. Kimberly had taken the fact that Kayla had hid everything from her very personally. It wasn’t really the dishonesty, it was the sharing of it all with Shane. Kayla knew that her sister’s marriage to Phillip was not destined to last and that she and Shane would, ultimately, get back together; so it was utter frustration as Kayla tried to mend this.
“You went behind my back, Kay.” They were in the hospital cafeteria, it had been a particularly grueling day for Kayla, and this was both the first and last conversation they’d have about it.
“I didn’t have much of a choice. I went behind everyone’s back.”
“Oh no, you didn’t.” Kim came back. “Not everyone.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little unfair?”
“No, I don’t. I’m glad Steve is alive, Kay. I’m thankful that God brought him back to you. But no, I do not think what I’m saying is unfair at all.”
“What did you expect me to do?”
“I expected you to let me in on what was going on. Your husband was back from the dead. I know a little something about that. So, you were supposed to trust me.”
“We’re talking about Stefano Dimera, Kim. Shane is ISA.”
“Too,” Kim emphasized. “You were supposed to trust me, too.”
“Telling you meant telling Phillip, and the wider the circle became, the harder it would be to protect everyone.”
“So, while you’re protecting us all, you had me babysitting when you went on dates with your boss. How many of your suitors was Shane protecting, Kayla?”
That statement felt like a slap in the face. Where was this Kimberly coming from? Where was the sister that she’d worked it all out with years ago? “That was uncalled for, and you know it,” she seethed.
“I don’t think it is. I think it’s the truth. You worked with Shane and kept a very important secret from me, then you and Shane together used me to keep keeping it.”
“What?” Kayla was incredulous. “You make it sound like we were colluding or something!” Kim huffed and looked away. When she looked back Kayla was … saddened. Deeply saddened to see that the repair that had been done all those years ago was now undone. Really and truly undone. Kayla sighed. “What is this really about? Keeping Steve a secret, or the relationship I had with Shane? ‘Cause I really thought we were past that.” Kim was leaned forward, palms down on the table. She closed her eyes, leaving the unanswered question to hang in the air. Kayla couldn’t believe this was happening. “You know I don’t hold a candle for Shane,” she barely whispered. “You know that.”
“But have you noticed that he holds one for you?”
Kayla’s denial instinct rose to the surface immediately. “That’s not tr—”
“Save it, Sis.” Kayla could see that Kim wanted to yell this at her but was, instead, she was holding onto her control. “You can lie to yourself all you want, but don’t lie to me. Don’t you dare lie to me. You know damned well that he feels—something. And you went running right to him and shut me out while you did it. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?”
Kayla didn’t know what to say. Her sister was deeply hurt, that was clear. And she was the one who had hurt her. Again. She rubbed at her forehead and sighed deeply. It was true, Kayla knew somewhere deep down that Shane had some leftover feelings in there for her somewhere. And maybe some of her actions on this jump didn’t help that. But she also knew that everything she’d done here was necessary. At least as far as she knew at the time. She also knew that she had a very limited time in this existence, and she was not willing to waste that time worrying about this another moment longer.
Kayla took her sister’s hands. They looked each other in the eye, and Kayla saw such divergence from how this timeline was supposed to go. The obvious differences aside, there was a look in Kim’s eye that simply did not exist in the real 2001. It was a look of pain. Of damage that wasn’t supposed to be there. And in that moment, Kayla knew two things. One, Kim would now have to be extraneous to this jump because she wouldn’t be surviving into the next one, and two, this massive change in her elemental nature and their relationship would add to the slipstream’s instability.
“I am not perfect, Kimmie. I won’t apologize for whatever imperfect actions I’ve had to take with this, because I have my husband back. So, if this is how it’s going to be, then I accept that, and you are free to go ahead and be the best and the brightest.” It was a rare verbal barb, but Kayla had had enough. She then got up from the table and left her sister staring after her.
Kim was not a big part of their lives going forward. She no longer did weekly pickups, there were fewer cousin sleepovers, and their sibling connection was permanently frayed in this timeline. Kayla took some comfort in the knowledge that this wasn’t real and that none of these experiences would stick. But she her disappointment in Kimberly was going to rub off a bit. Stephanie was real, though. To them. And the fact that her experiences wouldn’t stick either was not something they chose to dwell on.
In August Stephanie began 6th grade, the hubbub had finally died down, and life … went on. They weren’t surprised that they hadn’t jumped, but they weren’t getting too comfortable, either. For their entire first year, they were leery to think too much more than a couple weeks ahead, but this existence they were forging was a breath of fresh air. For the first time in years, they had nothing to worry about besides just living. The slipstream’s stability was surely going to manifest in some way, but there was nothing they could do about it. There was no script to stick to, because there was no baseline for them. There was no worry that they’d be ending anyone’s existence when they inevitably left. That was not to say that leaving Stephanie would be easy, because it wouldn’t. But their first born already existed. She’d been made, born, grown, and was alive in their primary timeline. There was a peace in the fact that they’d see her again.
Not so peaceful was something that they’d never discussed. 9/11. They’d made a pretty solid decision that unless they’d jumped into traumatic events or relationships that weren’t their own that they would try not to change anything, especially once they understood that monumental changes meant destabilizing the slipstream. But this was a very different kind of thing. Thousands of people were going to die in this heinous terrorist attack, they knew exactly how it was going to happen, when, and all the details needed to prevent it. They both wanted to try to do something, but neither of them had a clue how to make that work.
“How on earth are we supposed to just sit back and do nothing?” Kayla said during a very solemn evening in the loft sorting it out. “How do we not try to stop it?”
“Sweetness, how’re we supposed to do that?”
“We have a a pretty direct line into the ISA … we did it with Stefano … Is that different?”
“Terrorism? That’s pretty different.”
Kayla half nodded into her resigned shrug. “I guess … but … I mean, they did go after a mafia kingpin on our word alone.”
“But I was solid evidence there, Kayla. It was a fact that I wasn’t actually dead, and that he’d managed to brainwash me. It was human trafficking, and I was bonafide proof. How would either of us have access to world terrorism? It would only raise serious questions that neither of us would ever be able to answer and would probably land one or both of us in custody.” Kayla knew that was true. “I dunno … anonymous tip maybe,” Steve mumbled.
“Pre-9/11, they’d never take it seriously enough to ground four planes.”
Steve stood up from the couch and stared out the window of the loft door. “Baby, we gotta stop doin’ this.” Kayla looked up at him with a sigh. “Back home, this happened. This always happened, it’s the past there. It can’t be changed there. And there is all that matters.”
They stood quietly for a long while before sadly accepting what they knew would always the be end of this conversation. They couldn’t change something this monumental without paying for it. Changes came with a price. Maybe it was a rollercoaster of jumps. Maybe it was a lot worse. This wasn’t just unshared time, which was bad enough, and it wasn’t even someone living that should be dead. It was a world event, and they couldn’t sacrifice their own lives for a timeline that was going to end one way or the other.
On Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, Steve and Kayla made an excuse to keep Stephanie home from school, and the three of them watched the coverage they’d all seen before in another life. It weighed very heavily on them, but they moved on, because they had no choice but to do so.
The sedate terperament of the nation put a damper on their days just as much as it did when they separately lived this last time. But as the weeks passed into Halloween everyone’s mood couldn’t help but lighten. They enjoyed watching Stephanie spend time with her friends and taking turns manning the candy bowl for trick or treaters.
“Real original, Papa,” Stephanie deadpanned as she saw her father in his Halloween costume for the first time in her life. Kayla laughed, not because it was funny, but because she sounded exactly like her father.
“What? You got a thing against pirates?”
“Yes,” she insisted, “they pillage,” she said so holier than thou that she could barely keep up the charade of indignance.
“Little Sweetness, did you or did you not insist that we do a family costume, and did you or did you not pick this out yourself?” Stephanie looked to her mother, similarly bedecked in her own pirate costume and busted up laughing. The three of them matched all the way down to the eyepatches and thoroughly enjoyed themselves on the decorated front lawn with hot cider on the cool Halloween night.
The house looked and smelled warm, fun, and inviting and was, by far, the neighborhood destination of the evening. It didn’thurt that word had spread rather fast among Kayla’s neighbors that her husband had returned after “an extended job with the government.” It was a rather unique, cozy nook in the Los Feliz neighborhood where people didn’t stick their nose into each others’ business … but seeing the one-eyed man as a constant fixture in the front yard, working on the old car, and generally spending as much time outside as he could, they slowly started to come out of the woodwork to say hello. So, by Halloween night there were almost as many people coming to get a cup of cider and chat as there were children coming to get their candy. Steve truly enjoyed being a neighbor again. Knowing who was living next door and across the street and having that sense of community – guarded as it was, because there was no way this was not going to last.
Only it did. Thanksgiving rolled around, and Stephanie made a big to-do of the day she found her father behind the loft couch in the middle of the night. She and Kayla made cupcakes with green sprinkles for sage, and eyepatches, and Steve howled in laughter.
When it became apparent that they were about to spend a second Christmas on this jump, Kayla decided to have a big family gathering. Steve wasn’t sure what put this bee in her bonnet, but she really went to town on it. He wasn’t complaining, but it didn’t escape him that none of this would have happened if Stefano were still alive. In their real timeline, Rolf had been flooding Hope’s head with her Princess Gina imprint. Now that Stefano and Rolf were dead in this timeline, Kayla had managed to get the whole family into Los Angeles, including Marcus. It was one of the few times she and Kimberly had more than cursory conversations with each each other. Jo & Vern, Justin & Adrienne and their four boys, and Marcus squeezed themselves into Steve and Kayla’s tiny home. Everyone else stayed with Kimberly & Paul, who also hosted Christmas day. People, food, presents, food, spirits, and food were absolutely everywhere. It was the largest gathering of Bradys and Johnsons in the history of their families. Three generations and all ages.
Including Jack. Who stayed in a hotel. Somehow he’d mended his relationship with Jennifer and Abigail, and this time they all made it. While Jack hadn’t quite developed into the man who would discover his big brother as an orderly five years from now, he really wasn’t the bad guy, either. He knew enough to keep his distance from Kayla, however, so his presence didn’t mar the wonderful holiday that she’d wanted for everyone.
By the time the following spring had rolled around, Steve and Kayla had finally settled into a more comfortable existence. They’s spent not one Chistmas together with their daughter, but two, now, and she’d just turned 12-years-old. That was a hell of a thing for Steve. Kayla remembered the burgeoning teen years with bittersweetness, but she didn’t kid herself, either; she remembered the teenaged girl angst with just as much bitter as she rememberd the sweet. Steve, however, was thrown for a loop.
For Steve, Stephanie’s love for mechanics did not mix well at all with her obvious female development. The first time a boy called the house asking for her, he did not take it well. The kid was just lucky it was Kayla who’d answered the phone or he would have gotten quite the grilling. For her part, Stephanie was pretty oblivious to this, because she wasn’t really there yet; she was just happy to spend time with her cars and her friends, some of which happened to be boys.
The fact that Stephanie was compelling to not only boys but, literally, everyone also did not go over well with the mean girls at school. The queen bee mean girl, in particular, gave Stephanie more grief than she knew what to do with. Amber Clarke was a bully and had been giving Stephanie nothing but trouble since the 2nd grade. The girl was 12 going on 17. She looked the part, she dressed the part, and it only got worse every day. Her parents had lots of money but little time, and they spent the wrong one on her. Amber was a pretty girl all dolled up, but Stephanie was striking so naturally that she didn’t have to give a lot of attention to the things Amber went out of her way to make the most of. The jealousy was deep, and her target’s refusal to let her spirit break made her determined to hurt her every chance she got.
The first day Stephanie wore a bra, Amber was all over it. “Well, look who just left the IBT Club!” Amber smirked as she snapped Stephanie’s backstrap in the locker room. She’d never physically touched Stephanie, so this was a first. She spun around quickly and instinctively put her arms up over her chest with a gasp. Amber mocked her position and laughed.
Stephanie didn’t understand why Amber constantly teased her about her body. It’s not like she was the first girls to get a bra (that was Amber before she actually needed it), or even the second. Stephanie wasn’t naïve, she was just … 12.
“I don’t know what the IBT Club is, but if you touch me again you’re gonna be sorry.”
“It’s the Itty Bitty Titty Club, you idiot. And don’t even think about threatening me, I’ll sue you for everything you’re worth. Which isn’t much.”
“Excuse me?” Stephanie balked as she pulled her sweater over her head.
“You pull anything with me, I’ll take your white trash ass to court.”
Stephanie would have laughed at how absurd she sounded, but Amber had called her all manner of poor a million times, so she was just plain tired of it more than anything else. She rolled her eyes and walked out the locker room door to head for her next class. But middle school was a battlefront in so many ways, and for Amber, this battle wasn’t done yet.
“You’re a greasy, fucking freak,” Amber spat behind Stephanie’s ear. She didn’t see it coming and jumped. Amber laughed. “How are your old cars?”
“They’re great, actually.”
“I can see how much you love them with all that grease all over you every day.”
“I don’t get greasy.”
“Oh yes you do, and no matter how big your tits get, no one one will ever love you because you smell like a gas station.”
At that moment Stephanie hoped several things. She hoped Amber would die before she had to see her again, she hoped she didn’t really smell like a gas station, and she really hoped what she said about no one loving her wouldn’t end up being true. A sick feeling shot through her, and all at once Stephanie wanted to cry. Amber saw it and mocked a pout.
“Aw, Sabrina … are you gonna cry, little baby?”
For the first time, Stephanie abandoned her mother’s direction that she ignore this girl and reacted with something else her mother had said instead.
“IT’S NOT MY FAULT YOUR DAD DOESN’T LOVE YOU!” It was the loudest, boldest, knee-jerk of a reaction that neither of them expected. Everyone within earshot in the hallway turned to look, and Amber tured bright red. For the first time, her own eyes were the ones that watered instead of Stephanie’s.
“What did you say to me, bitch?”
In for a penny in for a pound. “I said you’re jealous. And I’m tired of letting you make fun of me just because your dad doesn’t love you like my dad loves me!”
“Your dad? Your dad?! As if! Your dad doesn’t even work!”
“He had really important work!”
“Well now he stays home like a girl! And he has a patch! Your mom is a doctor, your dad stays at home because you need a babysitter! And he’s not even the Mr. Mom kind, he looks like a hoodlum!”
By now kids were starting to surround them, and Stephanie started to feel strangely at ease. Cramped spaces were kind of her thing, and this sudden emotional purge was galvanizing her.
“A hoodlum?! What are you, 30? You’re trying to say my dad’s a criminal or something?!”
“Well, have you seen him?!”
“Damn straight! My dad’s a badass!”
“Yeah, and he’s got just one eye left to prove it!”
That was the wrong thing to say to Stephanie Kay Johnson.
Steve was alarmed at Kayla’s tone when he answered her call. “Kayla, what’s wrong?”
“It’s Stephanie.”
“What?” Steve’s heart instantly sank. “Is she ok?”
“Oh … she’s fine. The other girl wasn’t so lucky.”
“Huh?”
When Steve and Kayla showed up at the principal’s office, they were not happy. Stephanie was crying, Amber Clarke was crying, and Principal Waulk was pissed.
“Mr. & Mrs. Johnson, your daughter beat up her classmate. That’s a serious offense.”
“That’s Dr. Johnson,” Steve corrected testily.
“Steve, please,” Kayla replied.
“Sorry, Doctor and Mr. Johnson,” the woman said with obvious impatience. “She beat up her classmate.”
“What did she do to Stephanie first?”
“What Steve means,” Kayla interrupted with a warning look at her husband, “is that that’s not like Stephanie at all.”
“No, it’s sure not. Be that as it may, she did.”
“Are you sure? Maybe there was a misunderstanding.” Kayla knew better, though, because she knew that was Amber Clarke sitting out there.
“No misunderstanding. I was actually there when Stephanie threw the first punch.”
“No way,” Steve said. “Stephanie doesn’t doesn’t do that.”
“If I had a dime for every time a parent said, ‘not my kid,’ I’d be rich. Trust me, she hit first.”
“No, she snapped my bra first!” Stephanie yelled in from the outer office. Steve would have huffed out a chuckle at the fact that Stephanie was always good at listening through doorways, but at the mention of someone touching his little girl like that he erupted.”
“SHE WHAT?!” He got up and stared a very scary hole through the window at Amber, whose nose had finally stopped bleeding.
“Steve, calm down!” Kayla insisted, standing up, too.
“See?” Stephanie whispered to Amber. “Badass.”
“Bitch.”
None of the adults heard this exchange, but all of them clearly saw the fear in Amber’s face.
“Well, I sure do see where she gets her temper from,” Mrs. Waulk said.
Now it was Kayla’s turn to reply angrily. “Excuse me, Mrs. Waulk, but I think both Steve and myself come by our tempers right now pretty honestly. I get it, Stephanie hit Amber in the nose. I can see that. But to be fair, you haven’t answered my husband’s question. You know very well that Stephanie is not like this and that Amber has been bullying her for years.
“That’s beside the point.”
“Bullshit,” Steve replied.
“Sir—”
“No, don’t sir him, he’s right. What’s the whole story here? Did you ask Stephanie why she was fighting with Amber?”
“As a matter of fact I did. I do, actually, know what I’m doing. This is the first I’ve heard of the bra-snapping, because she wouldn’t tell me why. Amber, however, says that Stephanie just likes to pick on her.”
“Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” Steve said. Kayla could only roll her eyes to match his thoughts on that, as they both knew better. “Well, let’s get her in here to ask her together then, shall we?”
“Like I said, Mr. Johnson, we know what we’re doing around here, and I’d prefer to wait for Amber’s parents. I questioned them myself, but with only one side’s parents in attendance it’s a pile-on.”
That was fair, so they waited in the office with Stephanie while Amber waited in the outer office with the staff. Kayla offered to check the girl’s nose, but the principal said the school nurse already did and had confirmed that it wasn’t broken. Kayla knew it was hard to truly confirm that without an x-ray, but she chose not to say anything about that and mentally prepared for a home-owners insurance claim. In the meantime, they continued to wait. And wait. And an hour later, they were all still there. Finally, Steve had had enough and went to Amber.
“You wanna tell me what happened?” he asked directly.
“Mr. Johnson, don’t question her.”
“Why? I don’t see you doin’ it. You wanna hear it, too, be my guest, but it’s almost four o’clock, I’m done waitin’.”
Mrs Waulk relented with an exasperated sigh and brought everyone in. It did little good, however, because neither of the girls decided to do much talking.
“Did you or did you not put your hands on Stephanie,” the principal asked with a very final sounding voice. “And I warn you right now, Amber, I’m out of patience, here.”
“No,” she said finding her haughty again. “I put my hands on her bra.”
“That’s pretty much the same thing,” she said.
“No it’s not. And besides, everyone does it.”
“I don’t,” Stephanie said.
“Everyone normal does.”
“Well then,” Steve replied, “that sort it out for ya?” Kayla crossed her arms and shot a look at Amber.
“Is that when you hit her, then?” the principal asked.
“No, that happened in the locker room. It was later, in the hallway.”
“Ok, now we’re getting somewhere. Did she put her hands on you again?”
“No.”
“So she said something, then?” Stephanie nodded. “Sticks and stones, young lady,” Mrs. Waulk chided. Stephanie clicked her tongue and looked away, and Kayla was not happy that her daughter seemed to be getting grilled with not too much of the same for Amber. “What did she say that was so much worse than what happened in the locker room that you actually hit her?” Stephanie just looked down into her lap.
“Stephanie,” her mom prodded. “Just tell us, dollie.” Amber scoffed at Kayla’s use of a pet name, and Kayla looked incredulously at the girl. “You are very rude.”
“Ok, this is why we don’t question both sides without both parents.”
“She’s sitting there mocking all of this,” Kayla shot back.
“You can’t be serious, here,” Steve added. “I’m not sayin’ she deserved it, I’m just askin’ how long we’re supposed to wait for them?”
“Some people work,” Amber shot at him.
Steve saw how this got Stephanie’s dander right up and had a feeling he knew what was happening.
“Mama, I wanna go home. Can I please just go home?” she directed at her principal.”
“Are you going to give us any good reason why you hit her?”
“I think she just did. Amber started it.”
“That may be so, but she’s not saying much to defend herself. You can go, Stephanie, but that’s going to be a day suspension.”
“What?!” Steve was pissed as hell while Amber smirked.
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Kayla said.
“She struck a student. We have zero tolerance for that.”
“So, Princess, here, gets away with her part of it?”
“Did I say that, Mr. Johnson? Amber will receive her own reprimand.”
“Wait, what?” Amber wasn’t smirking anymore.
“You’re not innocent in all this.”
“But Mrs. Waulk!”
“But what? Did you snap her bra?”
“Everyone does that!”
“Well, everyone didn’t get into a fight with Stephanie Johnson, you did.”
“She hit me!”
“Oh, I think she basically hit you back.”
“My dad’s gonna get you in a lot of trouble!”
“You dad isn’t here,” Stephanie said very quickly. “Is he?”
“Stephanie!” Kayla chided. “Don’t make it worse.” But the gears in Steve’s head were going, and he had a pretty good idea that his earlier suspicions were correct.
Amber got two days of detention. One day for the incident, but an extra day for her behavior. Stephanie got a the actual suspension, and it didn’t help her cause that she refused to fully explain herself.
“Ok, Little Sweetness,” Steve said as he drove them home, “it’s just us here, now. Tell us what happened.”
Stephanie just put on the silent treatment and turned away. They decided not to push her (yet) and let her stew in silence. When they got home, Stephanie went to her room, slammed the door, and cried.
No one was in the mood to make any real effort after this particularly bad day, so they ordered pizza, but Stephanie didn’t come out to eat it. She sat with her own thoughts, and it tested her parents’ patience. Finally, at bedtime, she came out, brushed her teeth, and slowly walked into the livingroom where they were watching TV. She sat down on the chair, and Kayla clicked off the TV. Stephanie stared into her lap in silence. Finally she spoke up.
“Am I in trouble?”
Steve and Kayla looked at each other, because they’d already discussed it.
“Yeahp,” Steve said. “Ya are. Ya can’t go off punching people.”
Stephanie nodded. “Ok. What’s my punishment?”
“How about you just tell us what really happened, Baby Girl, and we’ll figure it out from there,” Kayla said gently.
Stephanie withered a little. “I don’t wanna say.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t. Just punish me instead.”
“Steph—”
“She said something about me, didn’t she?” Steve cut in. “She made fun of me cuz I’m your papa. Right?”
Stephanie and Kayla looked up simultaneously with the same surprise on their faces. “How … how did you know?” Stephanie asked.
“Oh, dollie,” Kayla said and pulled her daughter into her arms.
“Wellp. I’m pretty good at this stuff. You’re … stoic. I kind of know how that is. You didn’t want to hurt my feelings.” Stephanie tried not to cry, but her eyes watered anyway as she nodded. “Ok, you don’t have to tell us what she said. But, Little Sweetness, whatever it was, it’s just words.”
“It didn’t feel like it.”
“I know.”
Kayla chuckled. “He really does.” Her smile was gentle and loving as Steve took his daughter’s hand.
“And I’m gonna tell you something. It’s a secret, now, so don’t go spreadin’ it around. But I still have a hard time keepin’ my cool with stupid people saying stupid stuff.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he nodded.
“It’s true,” Kayla confirmed with a hint of levity.
“But I don’t want you to go defending me. That just makes Princess feel even more high and mighty.” Stephanie laughed. “She doesn’t need a head any bigger than it already is. So, officially, don’t defend me. You know who I am. You know we love you.”
“Unofficially,” Kayla said, “we understand that this was the last straw for you. Wasn’t it?”
Stephanie nodded. “Also … you were right, Mama.”
“About what, baby?”
“Remember when you said Amber was jealous of me cuz her papa doesn’t love her like mine loves me? You were right. She said … things … about Papa and our family, and so I finally just fought back. I said she was just jealous that I have a good father, and I could see how angry she got. You were right, she’s jealous.”
“Then ya know what, you feel sorry for her.”
“I do.”
“And if she ever touches you again, you hit her,” Steve added. Kayla huffed and let the corners of her mouth turn up mirthfully. Then she shrugged a nod of agreement.
“Ok.” But she didn’t smile back. She didn’t want to hurt anyone. She just wanted to be left alone. “So, what’s my punishment?”
“I think this suspension is punishment enough. That’s a big deal, Baby Girl. Tomorrow isn’t going to be like a day off. We’re not having a shopping day or anything.”
Stephanie crossed her arms. “Fine. I get it.”
Truth be told, the suspension was harder on Steve than it was on Stephanie. She did a pretty good job of doing a whole lot of nothing all day long, but by the end of the day the boredom got to both of them, and they cooked dinner together. Kayla had her long shift and hated being away overnight the day of the suspension. But she was glad Stephanie would have this time with her father after whatever it was that Amber put in her head.
The next day Stephanie was back in school, and Kayla came home positively exhausted after a very long surgery that had lasted into the wee hours. Steve was feeling particularly handsy, but she was like the walking dead so he let her sleep. That didn’t last long, however, as Amber Clarke’s mother called. They were surprised it took this long, but she was just as haughty as her daughter. She accused them of raising their daughter in a barn and that they’d be receiving the medical bills. Steve and Kayla both took their turns with the woman. Kayla told her that she was raising a very unkind girl and that maybe the kid could lay off the name-calling bullshit and see how that works out for her. It escalated from there until finally Steve grabbed the phone back.
“Look, I know wicked witches like you, all you know how to do is bully other people, so I see where Amber gets it. So, I’m gonna make you a promise here. If your kid ever touches my daughter’s bra or any other piece of clothing on any other part of her body, I’m gonna beat her up myself. Ya hear me?” Then he clicked off the button and slammed the handset down on the counter. “I miss real, goddamn telephones, baby! The kind that slam!” Kayla just looked at him with eyes that he couldn’t quite read. “You mad at me, now?” Kayla shook her head slowly.
“Nope.”
“Then what?”
“I love how protective you are of your Little Sweetness.”
Steve rubbed at the back of his neck. “I just threatened to beat up a 12-year-old.”
Kayla cocked her head. “You’d never really do that. You’re all bark there.” Steve huffed. “But I love how hard you love.”
Steve fell heavily into the kitchen chair. “Baby, how d’you always know how to calm me down?
Kayla leaned down and kissed his patch. “Had a lot of practice,” she whispered like it was a secret.
“Anything else you wanna practice, Sweetness?”
“Hmmp. Only if you wanna do it with me while I sleep.”
“Aw, c’mon, baby, that’s really no fun.”
“Sorry,” she chuckled, “but I’m basically talking in my sleep right now.”
“Excuses, excuses,” he pouted.
This exchange of jibes may have been in jest, but their challenge to get much sex these days was pretty impressive. For one thing, there was a kid in the house, and that kid had excellent hearing. They’d managed to keep their lovemaking a lot more silent than they’d ever have believed they could. But the bigger challenge was that Kayla just wasn’t home and alert that often. Her hours at the hospital were staggering, as the surgical rotation came with a whole lot more elements than any other rotation. Some weeks she felt like she lived there. When she was home, she was usually sleeping or operating on fumes. It didn’t change their intimacy, but they did miss the ease and incidence of the sex.
Still, they were loving this life. Steve could not believe how amazing Kayla was as doctor and mother, and Kayla could not have been happier watching Steve enjoy being Stephanie’s father at this age. They had not been this happy since they were ripped away from their lives in 1989.
On May 9th, however, both Steve and Kayla awoke with melancholy. It was Joey’s birthday, and they had not seen him in six real time years. It made both of them think about Emily, as well, and Stephanie was well aware that something wasn’t right with her parents.
“What’s wrong with you two?” she asked at breakfast.
“Nothing, Baby Girl, we’re just worn out.”
Stephannie looked sideways at her father. She got why her mom would be exhausted, but why her father? She wasn’t buying it. “Did something happen?”
Steve tried to turn it around for his daughter, but there was a point of no return on the slipstream’s heightened emotions, and he was already past it. “No, everything’s ok.”
“No its not, I can tell.”
“Just woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” Steve pushed back on his chair, stood up to leave, and kissed Stephanie on the top of the head before he headed up to the loft.
“Don’t you worry,” Kayla assured her. “This is nothing a couple good nights’ sleep won’t fix. You’ll see.” Kayla took a deep breath to try to center herself as she tipped back the last of her coffee.
“I think you should have another baby.”
Kayla choked on the coffee.
“Wrong pipe, Mama?” Steve poked his head back in as Kayla hacked. Kayla waved him away and pointed to her throat. “It just went down the wrong pipe,” Stephanie assured him.
Kayla made a thumbs up and mouthed an “I’m fine” before waving him away again. Steve shrugged and went back upstairs. Finally Kayla stopped coughing and took her daughter into her bedroom to get her schoolwork together. She didn’t want this in earshot of her depressed husband.
“Where did that come from, Stephanie?”
“Don’t you think you should? I mean, now that Papa’s back, wouldn’t you like to have more kids? You always said that you and Papa wanted lots of kids before he came back, right?”
“Yes, but it’s complicated.”
“Why?”
“Ok, ya know what, let’s just get you to school. Believe me when I say, we’re very happy being just your parents right now.”
“Right now? So maybe later?”
Kayla didn’t answer this and instead put on a stern tone. “Stephanie? School.”
They left the house for school and work, and Kayla decided the phone was not the best way to tell Steve that this conversation had happened. That didn’t stop Stephanie from bringing it up with the other half on the way home.
“Papa?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“I know you’re down in the dumps or something, so I think it would help if you and Mama had a baby.”
Steve was rolling to a stop and reacted with a very hard stop on the brake. “What now?”
“I would love a brother or a sister. I know Mama wants more kids.”
“She told you that?”
“Yes. All that time before you were gone, she said you two wanted to have a big family. So now you should.”
“Ok, so she didn’t tell you that today or nothin’.” He lifted lifted off the brake slowly.
“No, today she said it was complicated.” Now he hit it hard again. “Papa, I’m gonna throw up if you keep doing that.”
“Today? When today?”
“This morning. She said it was complicated, but it seems pretty easy to me, you just do it, and don’t be careful, and then you get a baby.”
Steve was not prepared for the mechanics of sex rolling so easily off Stephanie’s tongue, especially as it related to him and Kayla as her parents. And for one of the rare times in his life, Steve not only blushed, but he was speechless. One thing he definitely wasn’t for the moment was depressed.
“Right? I mean, you’re home now. You’re back. You said work is never going to take you again, and you’re never working for the ISA again, right? You’re going to be with us forever, so wouldn’t it be ok to have another baby now? I could babysit. I’m old enough. They have babysitting certification, and I could get certified so you could leave the baby with me. So you guys could go have dates and stuff. I could even go have a sleepover at Aunt Kimberly’s so you two could, ya know, do it, and remember, make sure you’re not careful.” Steve wasn’t sure Stephanie even knew what being careful meant. How did she know that? “And that Stefano person is dead now, right? He can’t get to us. And Rolf isn’t making you jump right now.”
“What did you just say?” Steve finally found his voice, and it came out too harshly. Stephanie visibly shrank down into the seat a little. “Shit, sorry, Little Sweetness.”
“You just swore, Papa.”
“Crap,” he said, very genuinely annoyed with himself.
“Papa!”
“That’s not a swear word, and that’s not the point right now! Sorry, I didn’t meant to yell at you, but what did you just say about – Rolf. Jumping. What did—where—how do you—where did you hear that?”
“Papa, I’m 12. I know where babies come from. It’s not the stork.”
“Not that, Stephanie, the Rolf thing.”
“Oh. I heard you and Mama talk about it a few times.”
“When? We don’t … what did you hear?”
“I don’t know, just that you haven’t jumped. Do you mean the one from the Muppet Show? Like when he plays the piano you’re supposed to jump like exercise? I don’t get it.”
Steve laughed at her interpretation, but the fact that she’d heard anything wasn’t amusing at all. Steve pulled over into a parking lot and threw the car into Park.
“Ok, listen, Little Sweetness. This is really grown up stuff you’re talking about, and some stuff has to just stay grown up between me and your Mama.”
“I’m just saying I would really love a baby brother or sister, and I don’t have to be a grown-up to know you have sex.”
“Stephanie! The Rolf stuff! I’m talking about the Rolf stuff! And the sex stuff,” he added, “just so we’re clear.”
Stephanie crossed her arms and looked at her father sideways. “Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Whatever.”
“Whatever?!”
“Let’s just go home,” she huffed.
“You’d better not be gettin’ an attitude with me, Stephanie.”
“I’m not,” she said with nothing but attitude.
“Coulda fooled me.” Silence. “Fine.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
This was weird. Steve was … angry with her. He’d never been angry with her in the last year and a half he’d been here. He didn’t like it. And what’s more, he didn’t know what to do with it. Even with the Amber incident, it wasn’t like this. He hadn’t had to discipline a teenager before. And of all days, on Joey’s birthday. It was just plain weird.
They drove home in silence, and the minute they pulled into the driveway Stephanie got out and slammed the door shut before heading inside and doing the same with her bedroom door. Kayla wasn’t home yet so the only person there with any affection for him at the moment was Kitty, who really just wanted her lunch.
An hour later, Stephanie was loitering at the bottom of the loft stairs.
“I hear ya down there, Little Sweetness.”
“Can I come up?”
“Of course, you can. You don’t have to ask.”
Stephanie came up and immediately snuggled up to her father’s side. “I’m sorry,” she muffled.
“Yeah, me, too.”
“I don’t know why I got mad.”
Kayla’s warning of teenage girl drama, real and imagined, resonated in his head. “It’s ok, baby. I just want you to do me a favor, then I’ll do one for you.”
Stephanie lifted her head to look at him. “Ok.”
“I hear you, you want a sister or brother. So you promise to just leave that right there with us, and if we decide to do that, then I promise you’ll be the first to know. Until then, we’re just the three of us. Ok?”
Stephanie nodded.
“And no more goin’ to Mama then to me if you don’t get the answer you wanted the first time.” Stephanie tried not to smile, but guilty was all over her face. “First of all, don’t do that, it’s not nice. Second of all, if you’re gonna do that, you don’t tell us that you did it, that just defeats the whole purpose. Gotta be smarter with that, now.” Stephanie all out laughed at this.
“Thanks for the tip.”
“Yeah, you’re growin’ up, ya need more mature tips.”
“But don’t do that, though, right?”
“Right.” Kayla’s key sounded in the door, and Stephanie got up to greet her. “And one more thing.” Stephanie turned back to him. “Do not mention Rolf to anyone. That name stays in this house.” He was very serious about this. “Got me?”
Stephanie nodded her head. “Got you.”
While Stephanie did her homework in her room, Steve pulled his wife out the front door and practically dragged her all the way to the edge of the small lawn.
“Steve, what is with you?!”
“Keep your voice down,” he commanded.
“Why, what’s wrong?” Kayla was worried.
“I just got one question for you Sweetness,” he said without a whole lot of affection to the pet name. He knew she didn’t like it when he did that. “When were you gonna tell me that Stephanie asked you to have another baby?”
Kayla was kind of stunned. “How did you know she asked me? Did you hear us this morning?”
“No, she asked me after school.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?!”
“I … wait a minute, what is this? Are you mad at me?”
“Little bit, yeah.” It sounded like a lot bit.
“Well excuse the hell out of me for trying not to kick you when you were already down!” it was a shouting match now, albeit in a whisper. “You were already upset.”
“So you couldn’t tell me later?”
“It is later! What did you think, I wasn’t gonna say anything at all?”
“Why didn’t you call me, then?”
“’Cause I wanted to do it in person and not over the phone, so sue me!” Steve put his hands on his hips and blustered. “You didn’t pick up the phone, either.”
“That was different. I was mad.”
“Oh, please.” Steve turned away from her and paced. “How many times have you kept something from me for my own good? That’s exactly what I was doing.”
Steve turned back to her and put his hands on his hips again. “Sorry.”
“Fine.”
“Oh not again. Stephanie gave me the fine-whatever treatment all the way home.”
Kayla chuckled. “Yikes.”
“Yeah, have a little pitty on me.” Kayla folded her arms in front of her. “I am sorry, ok. Really. It was just a shock to hear her say that she’d already talked to you about it and that you hadn’t told me. Oh, and by the way, did you know babies don’t come from the stork?”
“Yeah, I’d heard that.”
“She tell you that we should just ‘do it,’” he used air quotes, “and that she knows where babies come from? Said she could have a sleepover with Jeannie so we could have sex.”
“Wow. Ok, that’s new. Yeah, though, she had sex ed in 5th grade, plus I had the talk with her when I did the obstetrics rotation in ’99.”
“So, what did you tell her about a baby.”
“I didn’t tell her anything. What did you tell her?”
“I told her she’d be the first to know but not to get her heart set on it.”
Steve took Kayla’s hair between his fingers. “That’s the easy one, though, there’s more.”
Steve told his wife about Stephanie knowing about Rolf. She wasn’t as shocked as Steve, but it was a wake up call to her that they needed to be more careful. Stephanie’s room was right below the loft, and her bedroom window looked out onto the backyard. The real question was what to tell her about Rolf. Some version of the truth? Something about the Muppets? Something in between? By dinnertime they’d made a decision.
“Your papa and I need to talk to you about a few things.”
Stephanie put her fork down. “The baby?”
“There is no baby, Stephanie. Sometimes we get sad, though, because … there were a couple times we … wanted one … but when we got you, we were so happy.”
“You almost had … other babies?”
Steve nodded. “But you’re the baby we had. And we couldn’t have had a more perfect one.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Kayla shook her head. “That’s all we can say about that, Baby Girl. Sometimes things happen with moms and dads, and they stay just between them. But we’re telling you so you know, we would love … another baby. But we’re not going to try to make that happen right now.”
“Never?”
“Maybe not never, Little Sweetness. But not right now. Remember my promise, though?”
“You’ll tell me first.”
“Yeahp.” He took his daughter’s hand and squeezed it. She really was growing up, he could see it physically, but also in her demeanor. “The other thing we have to talk about is Rolf.”
“Stephanie, when did you hear us talk aobut him?”
“So, it’s not the muppets, is it?”
Kayla just stared at her husband. “No,” she confirmed while her eyes were still locked on him.
“I dunno, you’re usually up there when you talk about that stuff. The back yard once, I think.” They both made a mental note of places their voices carried then asked her exactly what she heard. It turned out she didn’t really hear anything more than what she’d already said, that Rolf wasn’t making them jump. “Can you please just tell me what that means?”
“You were right about Stefano. He was the man that kept me from you and your Mama all those years. He’s dead and can’t hurt us or anone else ever again. Rolf is a doctor that used to work for him.”
“So he’s bad, too?”
“Yes/No” Steve and Kayla answered together.”
“No/Yes,” they corrected themselves.
“Which is it?”
“Honestly, neither,” Kayla said truthfully. “He’s … dead now, too, so the stuff he was doing with jumping doesn’t matter anymore. That’s all we meant by that.”
Stephanie processed this for a moment, and then took a final stab at her green beans. “Ok.”
“And remember what I said. We don’t mention him to anyone other than ourselves. Right?”
“Right, got it. Why?”
“Because Stefano hurt a lot of people,” Kayla explained, “and the worst thing we can do is keep him relevant by continuing to talk about him and his people.”
Steve smiled at his wife. She always eventually knew the exact right thing to say to put a topic to bed. “What she said,” he deadpanned. They all laughed. “Really, though, baby. What she said.”
Stephanie nodded. “Ok, I promise.”
Stephanie helped her mother load the dishes into the dishwasher that night. Before she disappeared into her room to read her book for Literature class, she got the last word in on the previous subject. “Just saying, I’d make a great bsbysitter.”
Unfortunately, this whole subject of babies, beginning with Joey’s birthday, gave Steve and Kayla a lot of pause. They were really gun-shy starting that night and lasting a very long time. Because they absolutely, positively could not get pregnant.
That fear had been a problem for them before, and they knew it was a rabbit hole that was bad for them. But once down that rabbit hole, it was very hard to get back out. They’d been there a year and a half, which was the second longest jump they’d ever had. It felt instinctively long-term. But they knew better than to get 100% comfortable. They felt more relaxed now than a year ago, but there was no question that they’d jump. And they couldn’t lose another baby. They didn’t want a repeat of the wedge that fear drove early in Kayla’s pregnancy with Emily, but they were genuinely scared. They were both afraid another pregnancy would break them from the inside out.
They slept close, they maintained their intimacy, and they had more oral sex than they would have otherwise. They didn’t stop making love altogether, but they fought their urges to be with each other more often than not. By summer Kayla had brought home a stock of condoms from the hospital, and that along with Kayla’s birth control pill gave them a little more comfort.
The last weekend before school started in August of 2002 was Shane’s weekend for the kids, and he took them and Stephanie on an overnight to Disneyland. It was a heatwave, and thanks to the air conditioner going 24/7 at full blast, the unit had died.
“Welcome to the club, you’re on the list,” the HVAC guy said.
Kayla didn’t like the sound of that. “Wait, when will you be able to come repair it?
“Maybe Monday.”
“You can’t be serious,” she huffed.
“Yeah, I am. Sorry, everyone’s units are goin’ down, ma’am. Whaddya expect in this heatwave?”
A working air conditioner, maybe?
Steve had built a sizeable deck in the backyard that connected to the back stairs up to the loft. Half of it was under those stairs to provide a small outdoor room. It didn’t have walls, but the stairs created half a ceiling, and it had a very small, wicker, L-shaped sectional couch with all-weather cushions. It was by far the coolest spot in the entire house, inside or out. Unfortunately, that wasn’t saying much. After a long day of shopping for Stephanie’s school supplies and new clothes, Kayla would have given her left arm to be back in one of the air conditioned stores instead of the too-warm deck where Steve found her splayed out in just a tank and underwear.
“Baby, what are you doin’ half naked out here?”
“Trying to stay cool.”
“Naked?”
“I’m only half-naked, you just said so, yourself.”
“The neighbors are gonna see you.”
“No they’re not. Just that window can see into this spot,” she said as she pointed to the upper floor of the house right next door, “and Alexis already left for college.” It was Alexis’s room that window belonged to, Steve and Kayla knew these neighbors well.
“Ok, but … you can’t lay there half-naked or any other kind of naked like that and not expect me to want a piece of that.
“In this heat?”
Steve leered at her. “I think we proved a long time ago that we do our best work in the heat.”
Kayla grinned “I don’t know, maybe you should remind me.”
“Right here?” he dared.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Ooh, my baby’s frisky tonight.” He turned to go back in the back door, but Kayla only leaned up on her elbows and smoldered at him.
“Going so soon?”
She was serious. And it turned him on. “You’re full of surprises, baby.”
Kayla sat up and undid her bra. Then she leaned back and spread her legs just a bit. “It was too hot for that.”
Steve’s dick was standing straight up. He just stared at her. They hadn’t made love in more than a week. And now, in this heat, all they wanted to do was ride each other.
“You’re hot, huh, Sweetness?”
“You tell me.”
Steve knelt down in front of her and parted her legs Then he lowered his mouth to her breast, licked her right nipple, and blew on it. This had its desired effect, and he smiled as he saw her skin ripple. He gave her left nipple the same treatment, and then he repeated it.
“Better now?”
“A little,” she said.
“Oh, that’s not good enough.”
Steve pulled Kayla’s underwear down, and she lifted her hips so he could get them off. Then he sat on his bottom, pulled her legs over his shoulders and separated her labia with his thumbs. Kayla moaned softly as he blew on her clitoris. There was no moon, the lights were off, and it was dark enough that even if someone was in the one room with a good view, it would have been hard to see any detail. That didn’t mean that their voices wouldn’t carry. So the sound of her quiet but public pleasure as he gave a soft lick to her clit excited him. He continued to lick her with just the tip of his tongue while his cock longed for some attention.
“God, Steve, I love you,” she panted.
Those words, this heat, the memories of their first time in similar heat and in similar surroundings, and the desperation of his arousal worked Steve into a singular desperation to be inside his wife. Before he knew what he was doing, he pulled Kayla to the deck with him, rolled her beneath him, and entered her hard and fast. Kayla cried out in pleasure with the sudden penetration.
“I’m sorry, baby… I had to… I want you so bad.”
“I want you more.”
“Sweetness …Kayla …” He lowered his lips to his wife’s neck and sucked. She clenched her vaginal muscles, and Steve began pumping.
The feel of Steve’s lips sucking the exact spot that felt so good every time made her greedy. She filled her palms with Steve’s ass and pushed him inside of her as he thrust. “Yes! Hard! Fast!”
Steve slid in and out of Kayla with carnality. Her wet heat felt so good on his cock, he wanted to feel this way forever. He moaned her name and felt his orgasm start to crest.
“I’m close, Steve … I’m so close!”
Steve withdrew to sit up against the couch, then pulled her back to straddle his lap. Now facing him on top, she rocked fast so that her clit would rub in ecstasy agsint his shaft. “Come on, baby!” he encouraged, “that’s it, take it!”
Immediately, Kayla erupted. She froze as waves of orgasm rushed through her, tossing her this way and that. Steve contined his thrusts, furthering his own pleasure. She was overstimulatd, but she wanted more.
“I want another one,” she whimpered as she started meeting his thrusts again. “Don’t stop.”
Steve kissed her lips hotly. “I love you, baby.”
“I love you, too,” she panted.
“Now fuck me.”
Kayla rode past the bundle of nerves screaming at her and found her orgasm building again. “Oh God!”
“I’m coming, Kayla!”
Steve’s cock pulsed with pleasure as he held her naked body in the heat of the night, but Kayla didn’t stop until her second orgasm ripped through her just as Steve’s cock lurched inside her a final time.
They lay together on the deck slick with sweat and sex, and neither of them could focus. The high was intense, and it took several minutes for them to catch their breath and come back down to earth.
When Steve finally opened his eyes Kayla was turned on her side, watching him. He knew what she was thinking. No condom. They didn’t say anything though. Eventually, Steve took Kayla’s hand in his and kissed her fingertips.
“We’re going to be ok.”
Kayla nodded. “I know.”
“Do you?”
She smiled sweetly. “As much as you do.
“I couldn’t help it.”
“I wanted you to.”
Steve nodded. “I miss making love to you.”
“We do other—”
“It’s not the same.” Kayla ran her finger over Steve’s left eyebrow and down over his patch. “I love all the other stuff, too. But sometimes we need … it’s not the same.”
“You’re right. I’m not sorry. I’ll never be sorry. No matter what happens.”
Very sotly, Steve repeated what she said. “No matter what happens,” he agreed and kissed her fingertips again.
They were nearing the end of their second year at this jump. The longer they went without a jump, the less on alert they were for it. Life had become very ordinary and normal for them, and they reveled in it. They wouldn’t be giving Stephanie a sibling, to her chagrin, but as promised, she never spoke of it or Rolf again. They didn’t feel like the jump would be coming any time soon, and they were right. It was a very long term jump with ordinary ups and downs of family life, and they were truly happy. There was, however, going to be a dark hell to pay down the road for this life they had no choice but to make for Stephanie and themselves. When that happened it was going to be the beginning of the end. Until then, though, they lived in not-so-ignorant bliss.