Find Me – Chapter 162

Kayla was completely dissociated from reality.  The vision of Emily’s empty room without her in it at this particular moment had thrown her into a PTSD flashback.  She wasn’t oblivious to it, she knew it was happening, but she felt so much comfort and warmth within these pale green walls that weren’t actually there that she didn’t have it in her to leave.  Instead, she succumbed to its siren song and basked in its gorgeous, strawberry golden glow.  Her lost daughter was in her arms.  Her whole husband was there.  She’d soon be pregnant with Stephanie.  Their family would be complete one day when Joey came along so many years from now.  It felt so good she wanted to roll herself up in its repose.  She could have this.  She could have all of this.  All she had to do was stay here.

“Kayla!”  Steve turned her toward him and shook her by the shoulders, but her face stayed turned into the room.  “Kayla, you’re scaring me, please come back to me!”

Suddenly, Emily’s beautiful name blinked from existence on the wall in front of her.  No!  No come back!  Steve’s voice continued to call to her from somewhere else.  She drowned it out with the vision of herself and Emily in the rocking chair. 

“I won’t leave you again, Emily,” Kayla cried as the walls began to fade back to the dirty grey color she knew they really were. 

Steve knew this could not possibly be about their cat, but he looked for her inside the room anyway.  She could have been anywhere amongst the boxes, but the fact was he’d just left her in the kitchen with her morning breakfast of wet food.  Steve turned desperately back to his wife and snapped his fingers in front of her.  “Kayla!”  She continued to weep through the terrifyingly absent stare into the room, so he gripped her tightly by the shoulders again.  He shouted her name over and over, their daughter awake in the bassinet downstairs no longer his first priority. 

Kayla watched the memory of Steve sitting on the floor smile at the wife that nursed their lost daughter.  He tapped his chest with his fist as the love overflowed from his heart.  Then he turned from his Kayla in the rocking chair and looked directly at her in the doorway.  You’ve gotta come out of this! he shouted along with the real one standing in front of her.

“No, I’m not leaving!” she cried as his image flickered before her.

Steve shook Kayla again, this time so forcefully that he recoiled at the act of seeing her body react to his assault upon it.  Now he was afraid if he touched her again he’d make things worse.  Steve clasped his hands together in front of his face with a silent prayer to God to help him. 

The Steve of this memory got up from the floor and went to her.  You have to go back, the vision said to her.

“No, I’m not ready.”

You don’t belong here.

“Don’t you say that!  I love you!”

I love you, too.  But you can’t stay here.

“I’ll jump back.  I’ll find a way.”

You know you can’t.  He flickered before her eyes, and Kayla reached out in an effort to hold on to the memory. 

The flesh and blood Steve near hysteria directly in front of her cried her name in a whine that finally seemed to touch a part of her through the horrible rent in her soul.  He gathered her up in his embrace and cradled the back of her head in his palm.  “Come back to me,” Steve cried into her hair.  “Come back, Sweetness!”

“Please, Steve,” she begged them both.  “I’m not ready.”

It was then that the baby in Kayla’s arms in the rocking chair cried.  The baby in her bassinet in the living room did the same.  “I’m here!” she called to Emily. 

“Where?” she heard the real Steve ask like the disembodied voice he was as the memory Steve stared through her.  “God, baby, where are you?!”

Then her beautiful third born child disappeared from the arms that held her and out of this memory’s vision.  

“NOOOO!!!” and the gut-wrenching sob coming out of Kayla was so awful for her husband that the part of her still present in the here and now felt when it hit his soul.  She heard his voice beg her for what to do and that maybe he should call Marcus.  But all she could focus on was that she was losing Emily again.

Then the Kayla that had been holding Emily looked right at her.  She’s with you every day,” her memory said to her.  All you have to do is remember her.  Then Memory Kayla did the same as her daughter and faded out of existence.  Now she was left only with the flickering image of Memory Steve standing before her. 

“Don’t take this away from me,” she begged him.  “Please let me stay.”

“Kaylaaaaaa,” the real Steve cried as he dropped his face into one hand and tightened his grip around her shoulders with the other.

Can’t you hear that? Memory Steve asked.  A baby is crying for her mama.

That’s when she heard the baby’s cries from downstairs.  Kayla very suddenly quieted.  “Stephanie?” she called softly.

Steve grasped onto that and prompted her.  “Yes!  Baby, Stephanie’s callin’ for you!”

The Memory Steve before her smiled sadly.  Good girl, he said.  He tapped his chest with his closed fist and rubbed it over his heart.  Then he followed his wife and baby out of this flashback. 

The room returned to its actual state before her eyes, and Kayla came back into herself from the protection her mind gave her when the vision of the room began breaking her.

Steve’s breath hitched in his throat when he felt Kayla’s arms move around him.  “Sweetness?”  He pulled out of his strong hold of her and held her out in front of him by her upper arms.  “Kayla?!”

“Steve,” she barely whispered.  “Where … what happened?”

“Do you see me?  Are you here with me?” 

The flashback was becoming very fuzzy in Kayla’s head.  How did she get here?  Why was Steve crying.  Kayla slowly brought her hands up to her husband’s wet face and wiped his tears away with the soft strokes of her thumbs.  Steve reacted with more tears.

“God, Sweetness,” he cried.  “I’m so scared.”  It was something this Steve wouldn’t easily say.  Did she jump?  She must have jumped.  “What happened to you, honey?” Steve asked gripping her hands on his face.  “Please tell me you’re here, Sweetness.  Please tell me you see me.”

Kayla was confused and didn’t understand where she was.  “See you … yes, I—is it you?  Do you remember Stockholm?” she asked quizzically.  “When are we?”

Steve was crestfallen.  He knew this question was not what it seemed and that it clearly was connected to whatever had just happened.  “I don’t think I remember it the way you want me to,” he said so wisely that the slipstream reacted with pressure in Kayla’s sinuses, and back in the lab Rolf saw a blip in the numbers that made him throw his coffee cup across the room.

Steve wiped at his wet cheeks with the back of his hand and took a very deep breath, forcing himself to find some control.  “Are you here with me, baby?  Are you ok?”  Kayla began crying anew at the state of her husband, causing his eye to continue to water in fear for her.  “Please be ok,” he rasped.  “I don’t know what to do.”

Kayla was now fully conscious and saw very clearly everything around her.  She didn’t know what had just happened to her, but she did know that she was still here and hadn’t jumped.  The trigger of Emily’s room caused her to involuntarily shudder and step back.  “Close the door,” her voice shook.  “We have to keep this door closed.”

Without a word, Steve reached behind him and shut the door.  “Ok, door’s closed,” he said with an appeasing desperation.

“I should have said something when I got home.  I-I-I should have told you.  That we have to keep the door clo—” she swallowed with growing tension, “closed.”

“That’s ok, now you told me.  You never have to see that room again.  Ok, baby?”  Kayla nodded as she stared at the closed door.  Steve engulfed her in his protective embrace.  “Never again.  You never have to see it again.”  He kissed the top of her head and rubbed his cheek over her hair. 

Kayla wanted to run.  Retreat to … somewhere.  The loft maybe.  Home base.  Her parents’ house.  Anywhere but here where Emily was everywhere.  Instead, she slowly pulled away from Steve and backed up against the wall where another timeline held drawings of all three of their children.  What was she going to do?  She knew now that she’d just had a flashback, and as a doctor, she knew that she needed help.  Where exactly she was going to get it she didn’t know.  There was no one she could confide in.  She needed her Steve.  But he wasn’t here.  He was just as lost as she had been.  Kayla had only herself right now. 

Stephanie was still crying.  Immense guilt ran though Kayla.  How long had she been crying?  “S-S-S-Stephanie!”  Kayla turned on her heel and flew down the hallway, down the stairs, and into the living room.  She picked up her daughter and held her tightly to her breast.  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.  “I’m so sorry, Baby Girl.”

“Kayla!” Steve’s unsettled voice called after her.

“I’m ok!” she called back in a controlled voice for the benefit of the baby in her arms.  “Mama’s here, and everything is just fine!”

Steve took Kayla by the shoulder and turned her gently toward him.  “You are not fine.  I’m relieved that you’re you again, but you are not fine.” 

Kayla ached at the sound of her husband’s sniffling state but didn’t have a thing she could say to him.  In absence of a good alternative, she went on the offensive.  “How long was she down here crying?”  It sounded like an accusation.

“Long enough.  I was heating up a bottle when I heard you crying up there and just came running.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again as she swayed her crying baby.  “I’m so sorry.  Let’s get you that bottle.”  She started for the kitchen to pick up where Steve had left off.  “You don’t have to follow me,” she said in a voice she was trying very hard to control.

“Are you serious?” he asked incredulously.  “You just disappeared into that room upstairs.  I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“You don’t trust me?!” she spat as she re-prepared the bottle that Steve had started as Stephanie continued to cry for her meal.

Steve looked wounded.  “I’m worried, baby.  You were—I dunno where you were.  But you scared the living shit out of me.”

“I—you’re right.  No, I’m—I—it was just that room, I—I don’t like that room.”

“Yeah, I kind of got that.  Why?”

“I just don’t.”  Steve was adjusting his patch over and over, and Kayla knew he was fighting to cope.  “God, I have to fix this,” she whispered to herself.

Steve caught the word fix.  “Tell me what to do.  Tell me how to fix it, Sweetness.”

“You can’t!”

“I can!  I’m calling Neil.”

“No, we don’t need to do that.”

“Then Marcus!”

“I’m not sick, I—we don’t need to do that!”

“Then—Kayla, why—Is it—is it—I don’t care why, just—where did you go?  It was like you disappeared into yourself.  I couldn’t find you.”

Kayla replied with a manic laugh.  “You always find me.  You always do.”

“Not this time.  You were lost, Kayla.  I felt like if I let go of you that you might disappear.”

She finally popped the nipple into Stephanie’s shrieking mouth.  The baby immediately quieted as she sucked down the formula.  The sudden silence was a relief.

“Give her here,” Steve said.

“What?  No, I’ve got this.”

“No, you don’t.  Give her.”

“No, Steve!  You don’t trust me to feed her?!”

“I don’t trust that whatever took you away isn’t going to do it again!  You’re holding our six-week-old baby, don’t you get it?!”

The bottom fell out of Kayla’s stomach as she finally found real and complete rationality.  He was right.  “Dear God,” she gasped.  “I’m sorry!  My God, Steve, I’m so sorry!”  Kayla immediately transferred their precious bundle to her father and backed away.  She felt the Formica as she gripped the kitchen counter behind her and felt her past settle around her.  She knew Emily’s room had triggered a flashback, like when she’d seen Dr. Rolf at the threshold of his apartment.  That time she came out of it, but this time she’d lost herself.   “I’m sorry,” she repeated with fresh tears making tracks down her face.

“Don’t be sorry, just tell me what’s happening.”

“it’s—hormones?  It’s hormones.”

“Save it, Kayla.  You’ve been off ever since you came home.  Before that.  You knew about Sheila and Isabella.  Then you come home and you don’t like your clothes anymore.  It’s not that they don’t fit you, don’t blame the pregnancy, it’s like what you like and what you don’t just changed overnight.  Suddenly we’re changing Emily’s name to Kitty, then you won’t let me make love to you.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Fair?  Kayla you think I don’t know you?  I can wait for you to be ready, but you are ready.  I see how bad you want me, but you won’t let yourself have it.  You’re not denying me; you’re denying you.  It’s like after Jack.”  Kayla reacted with a tight sound from the back of her throat.  “Something happened to you in prison.”

“No, that’s not it.”

“Oh, but it’s something.  It’s definitely something.  ‘Cause I can see it in your eyes.  You’re different.  And now you’re going all catatonic on me and pretending it’s nothing!” 

He used a gentle but firm voice.  “What happened to you, Kayla?”

She tried to reach for something, anything, but came up with nothing.  “I can’t tell you,” she replied softly.

“Yes, you can.” 

“You don’t understand.”

“That’s right, I don’t.  That’s why you have to tell me.”

Kayla shook her head.  “You just have to let me work it out.”

“You don’t know what I just went though.”

“I’m pretty sure I do.”

“You were not you.  You were talking nonsense.  Do you know what it’s like to watch that?”

“You’d be surprised,” she said.

“Tell me, then,” he begged.  “Tell me what is happening.  What happened in prison?”  Kayla tutted her tongue and dismissed that notion.  “Ok, fine.  If nothing happened to you in prison, then it must be something I did.  It’s Marina.”

“Oh Goooood,” she whined, “please stop talking about her, Steve.  I can’t take any more times we say her name!”

“Ya know what, neither can I!” he finally spat out in something between angry frustration and fearful culpability.  He had been calm, but now he was losing his resolve to be the rational one.  “I’m walking on eggshells worried that you’re going to come to your senses and leave me.  Every day I wonder if this is the day you realize what I caused and divorce me!  You’re not being honest with me, maybe it’s because I wasn’t honest with you!”

Kayla’s face softened.  She ran her fingertips down Steve’s face.  “Never,” she said tenderly.  “I’m not leaving you, baby.  I promise you, I’m not.”

Steve leaned his face into her palm before bringing it to his lips.  “Something’s stayed with you, baby,” he insisted more calmly.  “Something she did.  Was she in that room when she stayed here?”

“No.  I don’t want to talk about that room.  And I don’t want to talk about Marina.”

“Then something I did stayed with you.  You’re still upset about her.  Because of me.”  Steve blew out a big breath.  “I’m gonna fix it.”  He swallowed nervously and would have adjusted his patch if he wasn’t feeding Stephanie.  “I promised to fix it.  We’re gonna get married.  I never asked properly this time.  We can have another wedding, we’ll get married.”

“No, that’s not going to fix things.”

“You won’t marry me?”

“I didn’t say that, I just – I don’t need another wedding, we’re married.”

“No, we’re not.”

“Don’t say that!  We agreed we’d never say that.  I mean—you just said you felt married, we’re married!  I’m so tired of this conversation!”  Her realities were crossing, and the stress was preventing her from keeping them straight when she needed to, so she started to give up.  “You have always been so much better at this than me!  Why did it have to be me first this time?!”

The air in the room shifted as Steve listened to the nonsense start again.  Then something inside of him reset.  He tilted his head and narrowed his eye.  “You almost had me, baby.  You,” Steve chuffed a mirthless chuckle, “really almost got me distracted.”  Kayla’s resolve to obfuscate was about done.  “Kayla?  Up there?  You left the building.  And I’ve never been more scared.  Not when Orpheus had you.  Not when the judge said, ‘guilty.’  Not even when that bitch I thought was dead showed back up here.”  Steve’s voice was low and almost menacing, because that’s how serious he was.  “Now I wanna know what is going on with you, Kayla, and I wanna know right now.”

Stephanie sensed the terrible dynamic in the room and uncharacteristically fussed.  She shoved the bottle out of her mouth with her tongue and cried.  Steve expertly put the bottle down and transferred her to his shoulder to burp her. 

Kayla had wracked her brain trying to figure out how to explain herself, the truth being last on her list.  All she had come up with so far were swings and misses.  So, finally – finally – she stopped trying to look for explanations and plain and simply evaded.  And it was the first thing that felt honest to her the whole day.  “I can’t tell you.”  She’d said those words already, but this time they were so authentic that Steve knew there was real progress.   

“I love you, and there’s nothing you can’t tell me, Kayla.”

“This I can’t tell you.”  She couldn’t meet his eye and kept her gaze on Stephanie in her father’s arm.

“Is it me or not?”

Kayla shook her head and swallowed.  “No.  It’s not you.  It’s not Marina.  It’s not Stephanie.  It’s not hormones.  It’s me.”

“What about you?”

Kayla shook her head.  “Drop this.  There’s nothing I can tell you that you’ll understand.”

“No, Sweetness.  There’s nothing you can tell me that I won’t understand.  Not a thing.  And I can’t believe you can’t trust me to prove it to you.” 

Kayla’s vision blurred as she kept her eye steadily on her daughter.  A single tear fell down her cheek, and she saw in her periphery that Steve’s heart was breaking.  They stood in silence for a long time before Kayla wiped the tear from her face with the heel of her palm.   

“I need some time to myself,” Kayla finally said. 

“Where are you going?” he objected.

“Out to the porch swing.  There’s nothing out there to trigger me.  Please don’t follow me.  I promise not to run away, I just want to be by myself.”  Her staccato words were breathy and gave Steve every reason to believe that she was more lost now than she was when she was inside herself.  But he didn’t know what to do other than let her have the time she said she needed.

“Fine,” Steve replied.  “But we’re not done here.”

“Yes, we are.  Don’t ask me again.  Just let me reset.”

“Kayla—”

“I love you.”

“You love me,” he repeated.  “Then why won’t you look at me?”

Kayla closed her eyes.  When she opened them she continued not looking at him.  “I just need time.  Please give that to me.”

Kayla padded her bare feet out the front door and slumped into the porch swing she’d spent so many hours sitting in before.  The white quilt laid over the back had become warm in the sunlight.  She pulled it over herself from her waist to her toes and just sat.  She let the crisp air flow through her and tried to clear her mind.  “I need you, Steve,” she said.  “I’m not as strong as you.  I can’t do it alone.  Please come home to me or I won’t make it.” 

Against her wishes, Steve had followed quietly behind her.  She didn’t hear him crack the door open and peer out to watch her.  And she didn’t notice him overhear this quiet dialogue with the other version of him.  I’m right here, he replied to her in his head.  Where does she think I am?  Rather than engage her, Steve felt like he was, indeed, betraying her trust and simply closed the door.  “We’re gonna fix your mama, Little Sweetness,” Steve cooed to his daughter.  “We’re not givin’ up, are we?”  Steve went upstairs to lay his baby down for the nap she needed.

An hour later the noonday sun was beating down on the beautiful spring day.  Kayla angled her face up toward the bright warmth and felt it like a balm.  She knew what she had to do.  And that was never ever look into Emily’s room again.  She’d been able to be in every other room in the house, including the guest room where Marina had once slept, so all she had to do was avoid the singular room that had triggered her.  She didn’t know what she was going to do to convince Steve to move on from all of this, but she felt like she at least knew what to do to get herself past these PTSD episodes.

When she walked back into the house, Stephanie wasn’t in her bassinet.  It was extremely quiet in the house; it was her naptime, so she must be in her crib.  “Steve?” she called quietly.  But he wasn’t on the first floor.  She went up the back stairs so that she wouldn’t have to pass Emily’s room.  She silently opened Stephanie’s door and saw her sleeping peacefully in the darkened room.  She smiled and closed the door, relieved that she seemed ok after the morning ordeal. 

Kayla turned into their bedroom and gasped.  Steve sat at the foot of the bed with Kayla’s yellow legal pad in his hands.  It was open to the very last entry.  He looked up at his wife standing in frozen shock.  They stared at each other, mutually devoid of any words to say to each other.  Kayla’s eyes were saucers; Steve’s face was unrecognizably unreadable.  She swallowed, then opened her mouth, but she couldn’t even stammer, let alone speak.  It was Steve who found his voice first.

“What the hell is this about?”  Kayla simply gaped.  “Kayla,” he spat.  “I’m talking to you.”

“I—I know.”

“Answer me.  What is this?”

“You—you have—no right,” she hissed in her lower register.

Steve looked down at the pages in his hands then looked back up.  “These letters are to me, aren’t they?”

“N-no.”

“Got my name on ‘em.  You married to some other guy named Steve?”

“I mean they’re not meant to be read.  They’re—they’re just a diary.”

“Well, it’s my name on it.  Don’t see ‘Dear Diary’ here.  Do you see that?  I don’t see that.”

Kayla was at such a loss for how to deal with this.  It was the last thing she expected.  She thought about everything she’d written in those pages and knew with a bit of horror that there was, literally, no way that she was going to be able to explain it. 

“You went snooping?”  Her voice trembled with panic.  “How dare you.”

He hadn’t.  What he had done was manage to get Stephanie into a fresh diaper and put down very late for her morning nap.  Then to prevent himself from letting his mind take him to the very scariest of places, he began picking up Kayla’s laundry from the floor so he could distract himself with busywork while she took the time she said she needed.  She never was quite tidy.  It was then that he saw the pen on the floor.  The “Statesville” logo stared up at him like a taunt he had to get out of his sight.  He picked it up and opened her nightstand drawer to put it with the pad he knew she wrote in every night.  He couldn’t help but notice the “Dear Steve” on the page it was opened to after she’d thrown it in there.  Then a sentence jumped out at him.

Every day when you come to see me, I can tell without even asking you about Stockholm that it’s not you yet.  But you’ve been wonderful. 

What?  He read the sentence again.  Every day when you come to see me, I can tell without even asking you about Stockholm that it’s not you yet.  “Stockholm,” he said out loud, trying to make a connection.  “Not me yet?  What does that mean?”  You want to take care of me, and it’s killing you that you can’t.  I have to do something about this guilt.  But you should see the way you hold Stephanie.  Like you were born to be her papa.  I love watching you be a daddy again.  It’s the only joy in this place.  Watching you with her.  I love you.  A chill had run through him.  This was a diary, he’d realized, not just random notes she was making to herself.  Reading it was wrong in any normal circumstance.  But right now things were so far from normal that he was willing to do anything to get a clue to what was going on so that he could help her.  So without a single ounce of remorse, Steve went back to the top and started over with the entire entry.  Part of him thrilled at how much pride she had in him as a father.  But most of him focused on all the other words that made no sense.  “Other you” and jumps” and “age 10” and

“the slipstream” and the entire science fiction vibe made Steve’s blood run cold. 

Steve had gone to the very first page.  It was a series of lists.  Bones of the body, diseases, and a litany of random addresses, many of which he recognized as his own well before he’d ever met her.  The second page contained notes about Marina, a woman named Ava, and lines connecting one note to the next.  She’d written Bo and Hope’s names and something about a cruise.  The third and fourth page held similar kinds of lists, observations, and even some doodles.  It wasn’t until the fifth page that the diary began.  He read the entire page again, then he moved on to the next.  Then the next. Then the one after that.  He read every single one of the 15 entries that Kayla had made since her first one on March 21^st.  Steve counted out loud and used his fingers to back him up and realized that her first entry was the day she’d told him about Sheila and Isabella. 

Steve had just wanted to do a load of laundry.  Now he was sitting in the Twilight Zone trying and failing to process what he was reading in these yellow pages. 

… Every time we’ve been back here at the house it’s like a time warp …

… It’s not really home without you, but the other you is so beautiful …

… But what happened with Marina happened because you weren’t honest with me.  We’ll never really be able to fix that …

… By the time I got home last time she was sleeping through the night …

… Where are you?  Please come home to me …

… It’s only a year after we jumped away from here … I bonded with that timeline …

But it was Kayla’s very last entry, the one she’d just written this morning, apparently, where she kept talking about him in the third person – like he was some kind of imposter – that truly lit his panic on fire. 

How did you do this for two years?  How did you do this in LA before I jumped in?  How am I supposed to go on without you when the other you is right here and loves me so much?  And I love him, too.  He’s you.  I love you.  I love you so much I feel like I’m going to explode.  God, Steve, I don’t know what to do.  Tell me what to do!

Steve threw the legal pad across the room like it was on fire and gripped the tall post beside Kayla’s pillow.  His brain ran wild with all of his wife’s strange behavior since well before her release.  Some things snapped into place.  Others remained a tangle.  But all of them were pieces of the puzzle.  He had no idea what that puzzle was supposed to look like, but there was no question that the pieces all went together.

Steve swallowed down his anxiety and retrieved the legal pad from the floor in front of the dresser.  He sat back down and started reading it again.  That was when Kayla had walked in on this very intimate scene between him and her diary; and he knew from the look on her face that he was absolutely … right to have read it.

So now he sat there looking for the first time at what his wife looked like when she lied through her teeth.

“How dare I?  Baby, you know who the liar in the family is?  Me.  This is the first time I’ve ever seen you do it so goddamned completely.”  Rather than sound angry he was simply melancholy.

Kayla came the rest of the way into the room and snatched the pad away from her husband.  She clutched it to herself and paced.  “You had no right to read any of this!  How did you even know about it?!”

“’Cause I live with you, Kayla!”  He got up and closed their door before checking the volume of the baby monitor on his nightstand.  “What it’s a secret?  I live here, I sleep in this room with you.  You write in it after you feed her!  I went to put the pen back and saw my name.  So, yeah, I looked.  After what happened this morning, yes, I goddamn looked!”

“How much did you read?” she asked, desperate for damage control.

“All of it.”

Kayla cringed.  “Oh God.”

“Twice.”  She made a terrible sound that originated in the depth of her soul.  She felt her pulse quicken.  The amplification effect was taking her blood pressure into the stratosphere of hypertension.  “Didn’t understand a word of it.”  Somewhere deep down, however, he thought maybe he did.

“Calm,” Kayla said tightly.  “I have to.  Calm down.  Gonna.  Pass out.”  She clutched her chest.  “I’m—I’m—can’t—breathe.”

Steve was up like a shot.  The moment she was conscious of her need to fight the amplification effect, it let go of her, causing her blood pressure to drop fast.  Kayla collapsed; Steve caught her and lifted her into his arms.  It was the second time in three hours that, in one way or another, she’d checked out on him. 

“Sweetness.  Dammit, you’re killing me.”

Steve was married to a nurse, he knew what to do for people who fainted.  He gently laid her down on the bed, went to their bathroom to get the alcohol they kept in the medicine cabinet, and poured half the bottle onto the nearest towel.  He ran back to her and shoved it under her nose.  Moments later, she opened her eyes. 

“That’s it, baby, come on back now,” Steve said.  He sounded almost like the last day hadn’t happened.

“Steve?” she scrunched up her nose.

“Yep.  Can you wake up for me, please, baby?”

She batted the towel away from her and leaned up.  Then she remembered what was happening and fell back down.  “You know what, I don’t think so,” she closed her eyes.  “It’s easier if I just not.”

“You’ve got some explaining to do, and I’m not taking no for an answer.  So come on now.”  He pulled Kayla up into a sitting position and basically boxed her in by sitting beside her as she pulled herself up to sit against the headboard.  She crossed her arms and looked away.  Steve leaned across her grabbed the legal pad that was starting to look like it had seen better days and dropped it onto her lap.  “I’ve got questions, Kayla.”

“Well, I have no answers.”

“Oh, the hell you don’t.”

“I have no answers you’ll understand,” she corrected.

“I can understand anything you explain to me.”

“Curiosity killed the cat, Steve.”

“Who is Emily?”  Kayla’s breath caught in her throat.  “You kept calling to her when you were staring into that room.  You weren’t calling the cat.”

“Kitty.”

“You weren’t calling Kitty.  Who is she?”

“Please don’t make me talk about her,” Kayla barely whispered as her eyes watered.

Steve saw how deeply affected she was and wisely backed off.  “Ok.  I don’t wanna hurt you, Sweetness.  I’m sorry.”  Kayla finally let herself look right in his eye, and the effect it had on her husband was like a soft, uplifting breeze.  She thanked him with just her expression alone, and the love she felt peeling off of him, despite it all, kept her on just this side of not crumbling.  “But I want you to tell me what is happening.  No lies.  No look at the shiny thing over here.  The truth.”

“You won’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

A strangled sob escaped from Kayla’s throat. 

“Sweetness.  This is it.  We’re at the end of this.  I’m not gonna ask again.”  His deep timbre was like the rose against her skin.  “There is nothing you could say to me that I wouldn’t believe.  And there’s nothing you could say that would make me stop loving you.  Now for the last time – for the very last time – right now.”  Steve tapped the diary.  “Tell me.” 

Kayla looked this timeline’s Steve in the eye.  He looked like her husband.  He sounded like her husband.  Was he her husband?  She didn’t really know the answer to that ethical question.  But she did know one thing.  She trusted him.  With her life.

“I don’t belong here,” she said very softly.  “I’m not the Kayla of this timeline.”  She left it there and watched carefully for his reaction. 

Steve swallowed hard.  “Go on.”

“Go on?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“You said you’re not from here.  I’m listening.  Go on.”

“I’m from … the future.”  Steve sat rock still.  “From … 2009.”  Steve didn’t react.  Her next words came out in a mad string of run-on verbosity that, once started, didn’t stop.  Guess I’m really doing this.  “I’ve been jumping back and forth through time for the last 12 years.  We both have.  I’m here.  I jumped in three weeks ago.  You’re not here yet.  You’re still from this timeline.  And I am just about ready to crawl in a hole and never come out, I’m so unable to cope.  I’ve never been without you for this long.  You’ve been without me, but this is the first time I’ve had to do it for this long, and it’s hard.  I’m so lucky that I jumped somewhere you know me and love me.  Because it’s not always that way.  But I don’t know where the other you is, I don’t know when you’re going to get here, and when you do I’m going to lose this you forever.  I don’t know how much time I have to set things right. So much is going to happen, and if I don’t make sure to change it we’re going to be in so much trouble.  I don’t know how much time I have with Stephanie.  I was gone so much longer the first time.  And I’m lonely.  It’s not that you’re not enough.  I love you.  I love all the yous.  But it’s not the same, and you’re going to be so jealous when you get here, and I know what that’s like, and when the stress gets bad, it spikes our blood pressure, and it’s dangerous.  That’s why I fainted, ‘cause it came back down so fast.  It happens a lot.  You seem to tolerate it better, I think it’s why my ear was bleeding, that’s new.  So, that’s what’s happening.”

Steve stared at Kayla.  He said nothing.  His expression was unreadable. 

“And now you’re questioning my sanity.”   

Steve adjusted his patch for the millionth time that day, plowed his hand through his hair, and picked up Kayla’s left hand.  He fingered her wedding ring, and a few moments later set her hand back down on top of the legal pad.  He got up and slipped his feet into his boots sitting in front of the dresser.  Kayla sat up very straight. 

“Where are you going?” she asked alarmed.

“I’ll be back.”

Kayla launched herself out of the bed.  “I sound insane, I know.  I told you you wouldn’t believe me!  Please don’t leave me!”

Steve held her by the shoulders.  “I could never leave you.  I won’t ever leave you.  I said I’ll be back, and I will.”

“No, no, no, no, no, nooooo, you can’t leave now!”

“Kayla.  You stay here with the baby.”

“We have to talk!”

“Now you wanna talk?  Now?  My turn to make the decisions on what we’re talking about and when we’re talking about it.  Now I will be back.”

“Are you going to bring a doctor back or something?”

“No.  I’m coming back with just me.  Can I trust you not to do anything stupid?”

Kayla understood what he was asking.  And she couldn’t blame him.  She nodded.  “When—”

“Shh.”  Steve put his finger on her lips.  “Shh.”  Then he kissed her forehead.  “Soon.”

Moments later, Kayla heard the front door shut and the car start in the circle drive then drive away. 

Kayla spent the next five hours in purgatory.  She didn’t know what Steve was thinking, where he’d gone, or what was going to happen next.  She questioned what the hell she was thinking.  What have I done?  What was he supposed to do with this information, say, “ok, Sweetness, thanks for telling me, now let’s get back to normal?”  Yeah, that was not going to happen.  What was going to happen was anyone’s guess, but tacit acceptance was not an option Kayla imagined was on the table.  He promised to be back, and she believed that he would be.  It was when that was the big question. 

She was sick with worry.  Kayla went to Stephanie when she woke up, and she worried.  She played with the baby and tried not to cry.  She fed her daughter and cried anyway.  She did the laundry Steve was about to do and got angry.  First with herself, then with him, then with Rolf, then with herself again.  Stephanie went down for her afternoon nap, and Kayla wondered if Steve was maybe not coming home, after all. 

Finally, at 7pm, Kayla heard the keys rattle in the front door.  She put Stephanie down in her bassinet with two rattles and turned the new mobile on that they’d just purchased for it.  She ran into the foyer just as Steve had the deadbolt turned.  She didn’t know what she was expecting, but what she saw when her husband walked into the house was not it. 

“H-h-hi,” she said, licking her dry lips. 

“Hi,” Steve replied.  They stood in awkward silence for a several moments.  Steve’s boots produced a heavy footfall as he rocked back and forth on his heels a couple times.

“Do you still love me?” Kayla asked with real fear.

“Not sure who else you thought these would be for,” Steve said as he held the enormous bouquet of yellow roses out for her.  “When are you gonna believe me when I say I could never stop loving you?”

Kayla took the roses and couldn’t hide it when her lip quivered.  “Thank you,” she said, holding them to her.  “You don’t have to believe me.  What I told you.”

“I believe you.  Everything you told me.”

“I—what?”

“I believe every single thing you told me.”

Kayla was gobsmacked.  “How?”

“Because you’re my wife.  And I promised you that I would.”    

Kayla felt weak.  It was truly the opposite of what she’d expected.  She couldn’t cry.  She could barely speak.  “You’re appeasing me.  Right?  You believe that I believe it, but you don’t actually believe it.  Right?”

“No.  I’m not appeasing you, Sweetness.  I believe you.”  She let the breath go that she’d been holding at the same time that she lost her grip on the roses.  No-no-no, don’t you pass out again.”  He stepped up and reached out his steadying hand to grab hers. 

“I’m not going to pass out.  I just can’t believe it.  You’re—you’re telling me the truth?”

“Are you?”  Steve bent down to pick up the roses and gave them back to her.

Kayla nodded as she held them in the crook of her arm.  “Yeah.  I really am.”

“Then I really am too.” 

Still in their same positions in the foyer, Kayla’s knees buckled, and she plopped down onto the bench in front of the stairwell.  Steve sat beside her and set the bag he’d held in his hands down on his other side.  Kayla immediately leaned up against him as close as she could get and shoved her head into his neck.  “I love you so much.  God, Steve, I love you so much.”

Steve held her.  “Which me are you talking about?” he asked.

“Every you that ever lived, Steve Johnson.  Every single one.”  She raised her head up and kissed him.  Steve kissed her back, and for the life of her, he felt like he was supposed to.  He felt like her husband.  Finally, she pulled away and rained kissed all over his face.  “I love you,” she said between each one.  “I love you.”

“I love you, too, baby,” he assured her, enjoying her lip-smacking assault.

Kayla sat back and lifted her left leg under her to face him more squarely on the bench and placed the roses aside on the floor for now.  “Where did you go?” she asked. 

“Well, the florist for one thing.”

“That didn’t take you five hours.”

“Stopped for a Big Mac, too.”

“Steve!” she pawed at him.  “I’m serious, I was scared.  Where did you go?”

“I’m sorry, Sweetness.  I went to the library.”  Kayla cocked her head in question.  “Read everything I could on time travel.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not kidding.  I didn’t know what to make of any of this, and it’s not like anyone we know can help.  Maybe that Eugene Bradford guy.  He’s a scientist, right, knew that Mike’s lab was gonna blow up, remember that?”  Kayla nodded.  “You know where he is?”

“Ah, no actually.”

“Yeah, so I went to the library and got real up close and personal with Dewey Decimal.  He led me to all kinds of books that I didn’t understand a lick of.  Had to look at a few versions for the kiddies.  It’s called quantum mechanics.  A whole lot of equations that made my head hurt.  But I got it down to a few theories.  You know which one of ‘em it is?”

Kayla nodded.  “I don’t know what it’s called, but I know which one is happening.”

“Is that what happened up in that room?  Were you time travelling?”

Kayla’s eyes went from hopeful to sad.  “No.  That was different.”  Steve looked at her expectantly.  “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“I don’t want any secrets, Sweetness.”  Kayla cocked her head in mild recrimination of where secret-keeping had gotten them.  “Now who’s not being fair,” Steve replied to her silent indictment.  “Hardly the same thing.”

“Let’s not go there.”

“Huh?”

Kayla huffed.  “2000’s slang.  Keeping up with it is,” she exhaled heavily, “really hard.  It means I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, that’s too bad.  We’re talking about it.  Because I’ve never been so scared in my entire life.  What was that?” 

Kayla refused to produce more tears.  She got up and went for the living room doorway.  “She’s our daughter, isn’t she?”

Kayla stopped at the threshold and gripped the door jamb.  God, how did you know?  “Yes,” she confirmed with her back to him.  There was no more point in hiding it.  “Emily is our daughter.”

“Jesus,” Steve whispered.  “Where … where is she?”

“Not here,” Kayla replied with great difficulty.  “I can’t talk about her.  It’s too painful.  That’s what that was.  It was pain consuming me.”

Steve got up and embraced his wife from behind.  He wrapped himself around her, completely surrounding her in his protective arms.  “Here,” he said as he held up the bag from the boutique that Kayla was vaguely aware of.  “I think this will help.”  Kayla took the bag from him and leaned her head back against his strong chest as he towered over her barefooted frame.  “Open it, baby.”

She reached into the bag and took out a mid-sized, hardcover book.  It had a buttery soft, lemon yellow binding of real leather, that felt lovely beneath her fingers.  The edging of the pages were a very light, shiny, metallic blue that offset the paleness of the leather like a sunlit day.  She opened it to find more than 100 beautifully crafted and bound blank pages.  It was a diary. 

“You’re almost out of room, Sweetness.  And as long as you don’t keep any secrets from me—that I need to know about—I won’t read this one. 

“Oh, Steve.”  Now she was crying.  “This is so beautiful.  In every way, this is beautiful.  “Thank you.”

“There’s a new pen in there, too.  Writes real nice, I tested it myself.  I don’t want you usin’ that other one.  It’s not good for you.” 

Kayla took the heavy, ballpoint pen out of the bag and gazed at it.  “My god, you’re the most thoughtful man.”  Then she went back to the foyer and retrieved the flowers.  “Always yellow,” she whispered, musing on how lovingly meaningful he always was.  Even when she presented him with something, literally, insane.

“There’s 12 of them.  One for every year you’ve been time traveling,” he said in reverent commitment.  “I’m here for you.  Believe you.  And these are to show that to you.”

Kayla turned to Steve, walked into his arms, and held him tightly around his chest.  “I don’t know what to say, Steve.  I love this.  And I just don’t know what to say.”

Steve stroked the back of Kayla’s very long-haired, shiny blonde head.  “I’ll help you with what to say.  Because I have questions.”

Kayla closed her eyes.  “You might not like the answers.”

Steve kept stroking his wife’s hair.  “I can take it.  You just have to trust me, Sweetness.”

Kayla nodded a shrug.  “I do.”

“Then I’m gonna ask ‘em.”  Steve kissed her head and continued stroking her hair.

“Ok.  I’ll give you the answers.”

If someone had told Kayla that she’d be telling a destination Steve everything he wanted to know about their last 12 years time travelling and that he would accept everything she said as the truth, she never would have believed it.  But for the next many hours into the night, that’s exactly what she did.

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