September 18, 1990
Steve and Kayla layed in bed facing each other with their same young faces. The relief she had felt at hearing the baby cry lasted just moments before heartache set back in. If Steve was right, and that was Stephanie in there, then where was their son? Who was taking care of him? Just as quickly, however, the cries made her realize that there was another baby that needed taking care of.
Kayla had strangely accepted that she was in the loft, but now that they were at the house, she was wary anew. And damned curious. She knew it wasn’t a dream, they were really at the loft in 1986. Now that they seemed to have left the past as quickly as they’d arrived there, it left a string of unanswered questions queuing up in their heads.
Steve was in shock, but more to the point, the severely guarded look on Kayla’s face made him worried she would doubt he was real again. Whatever was happening here, he believed she was with him, and he needed her to have that same belief in him or he was going to lose his mind. “It’s me, baby,” Steve said tilting his head to square his eye upon her bewildered ones. “You know it’s me, right? And that’s you in there?”
“It’s me, Steve,” Kayla softly replied. “The loft … We’re not there anymore. This is the house.”
Relief flooded through him, and he leaned his head down to kiss her hand. Well-past confusion and somewhat past awe, Steve had now moved into a remote sort of fascination. He felt somewhat outside himself, like an observer watching this very weird movie that happened to be about him.
But first, there was a baby crying.
“And that means,” he replied, “that that’s Stephanie in there, Sweetness.”
“Are you sure? Maybe –”
“Kayla, there’s a baby crying for its mama in there, does it matter which one it is?”
“No, I guess it doesn’t,” Kayla said. She pulled back the bedcovers and absently registered the nightgown she was wearing and the sheets that were on the bed. Making mental notes of these little details, her brain got working in some measure on the date.
Steve said, “why don’t I go see who we’ve got,” knowing full well it was his daughter in there.
“No. I remember the way.”
She left the room and headed down the hall to the baby’s room. The pictures on the walls, the color of the paint, the sound of her feet shuffling across the floor – they were exactly as she remembered them. With every second and every step, Kayla’s hope that she’d find Joe in there grew. She knew the truth all the while but couldn’t bear to let that hope go. Sure enough, when she arrived at the infant’s room and opened that door, it was Stephanie that stared out from her crib at her mother. The beautiful eyes of her baby daughter sent a thrill of delight through Kayla, and she went to her baby without hesitation.
“Stephanie,” she cooed. “Baby girl. Would you look at this beautiful baby girl in there! Good morning.” Her smile as she sing-songed her words to Stephanie made the baby girl squeal. “Well, I think it’s morning.” Kayla reached into the crib and scooped her up. Stephanie was younger here than Joe was, maybe six months old, she guessed. It has to be 1990, she thought.
Kayla nuzzled her little one, kissed her soft cheek, and wondered how her dark haired, brown-eyed beauty had ever been this small. Momentarily content in her mother’s arms, Stephanie had begun to fuss with a wet diaper. Instinctively, Kayla went right to the changing table and got her into a clean diaper like it was yesterday. She picked up the baby and kissed her tummy. It was just moments before she started crying again.
“I think you’re hungry, baby.” Kayla felt to confirm what she instinctively knew. “I’m sorry, Baby Girl, but the factory seems to have dried up.” Where did we keep the formula?
Not really sure what to do next, Kayla turned to head down to the kitchen when she saw Steve standing in the doorway.
“How long have you been there?”
“You think I was going to let you out of my sight on this insane trip of ours? I followed you out the door.”
Kayla smiled. “I’m glad you did.”
Steve walked into the room and took it in. “I remember when I set this up for you. I wanted to surprise you after that long ordeal. I wanted to give you the most beautiful nursery.”
“And you did, too. I was definitely surprised. Your mom did such a nice job.”
“Hey, that was me that picked out all the decorations, now.”
“I know, I know,” she giggled.
Steve reached out to his daughter and put his hand on her head. “Hey, Little Sweetness. It’s me. Your papa. Remember me?”
In answer, Stephanie grabbed his finger and dragged it into her mouth. Looking at his baby for the first time in so long took his breath away.
Kayla saw this, and her heart broke just a little. “She needs a feeding,” she said gently. She then looked down to her chest and then back up at Steve. “I don’t have any milk.”
“We did it differently with Little Sweetness. Used that powdered stuff.”
“The formula. We need to, ah – go to the kitchen. Downstairs.” Such a milestone going from one room to the next, to the unknown. But it had to be done. “Come with me?” Kayla asked softly.
“You have to ask?”
They headed down the hall and to the staircase of the house Kayla had been secretly pining to move back to since Steve’s memories returned a year and a half before. Every step evoked new recognition and familiarity with the things they once owned, some they still did and some they did not. Having arrived at the kitchen, it was like the end of a long essay, pretty confident in themselves that they got it right.
“You know where it is,” Kayla asked?
“Yeah, actually, I do. Remember I did this for a few months while you were in prison.”
“I remember,” she said not really interested in reliving that particular memory. “It was a long time ago.”
Yet on the first try, Steve opened a kitchen cabinet with three cans of baby formula, only one of which was opened. “Yeah, well, for someone with memory problems, I seem to be 1 in 0 here.” He then opened a couple drawers and found what he was looking for. “And look, I found the bottle, too.”
“That’s 2 in 0 then, huh?” Kayla smiled at this handsome husband of hers while he continued to prepare Stephanie’s bottle. “Swish?”
Steve looked up at her with love. “Yeah, baby,” he said softly. “Nothin’ but net.”
Stephanie had begun to fuss with the sounds she’d come to know as those that precede being fed and started kicking her legs. Steve finished with the bottle and then held it out to Kayla. She looked at it briefly then shook her head and held Stephanie out to her father. “I think you should,” she said.
Red flags went off for Steve immediately. Did she wish this were Joe? Was there some kind if pain she was working through here?
Steve’s concern was impossible to miss, and Kayla corrected it right away. “No! I’m fine! You just look so content with the bottle in your hand, and you missed out on so much of her life, I just thought you might want to have this … chance.”
And the truth was that he did. He really did. And he knew his wife well enough to know that she meant it. Steve nodded with a small smile and took the warm, squirmy bundle his wife handed him. With practiced ease, he settled the small baby into the crook of his arm and popped the nipple into her open mouth. Kayla then walked with him into the livingroom and watched them settle onto the couch.
Steve gazed into the very alert eyes of his baby. A baby he had not seen in almost 19 years. In real time it didn’t feel like 19 years to him, but he knew all the same that it was. And now here he was with his baby Stephanie, getting to do this again. What a gift, Steve thought. Stephanie fixed him with a stare that would one day melt hearts (starting with his), and the warm feelings he had for her overcame his ability to keep his emotions in check. Tears clouded his vision. He became overwhelmed with loss.
“Steve,” Kayla soothed as she went to him and put her knowing arms around him.
“Oh Kayla,” he cried. “I missed so much. I missed it. The whole damn thing. Her whole childhood I wasn’t there. I left my baby without a father, Sweetness. What kind of man does that? A man like my old man does that. How could I do that to my daughter, baby?”
“Shhh. You didn’t do that, that was done to you, Steve. It was done to both of you. To all of us. You were stolen from her. None of that was your fault.”
“I love her so much, Kayla. How could I have let them beat it out of me?”
“You didn’t! Baby, you didn’t!” she tried to console him. “Remember what you said, the memories of us that you didn’t even know you had are what kept you going. You had her in your heart. And you came back to our lives.”
“Well not this part of your lives,” he hissed. “They took me away and she grew up without me. I want my baby girl back,” he yelled too loudly. “I want my family back, Kayla! I want to watch my Little Sweetness walk and talk and ride a bike and wear clothes I don’t like.” Kayla placed comforting kisses on his shoulder and laid her head down upon them.
He felt Kayla’s comfort and tried to take strength from it. Through his tears and anger, he watched his baby eat from the bottle his steady hand provided. Then as if she knew her papa needed her, she shot up a tiny hand searching for something to hold on to. To Kayla’s utter happiness, the baby found her target in Steve’s pinky. His big, tanned finger in the impossibly tiny pale ones belonging to his daughter lulled his anger. The shame, however, didn’t ebb.
“I’m ashamed, Kayla. I let you be programmed out of me. I don’t know how you were able to forgive me.”
Kayla moved from the couch to kneel on the floor in front of him, Stephanie feeding between them. “Listen to me,” she said with a desperate hand on his arm. “Baby, listen to me right now. You failed no one. Not Stephanie, not me. You are my hero, Steve Johnson. You came back to us. We win.”
He finally looked down at her through his crying green eye and kissed her temple. Kayla wiped his tears with her thumb and leaned over to kiss Stephanie’s head. Steve took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of formula and Stephanie’s sweet baby breath, and leaned his head to the side to wipe the remaining tears off on his shoulder.
Just then Stephanie let out a string of baby sounds, and Steve realized that she’d emptied the bottle. “Boy, she ate that right up, didn’t she?”
“She sure did, didn’t you baby girl?”
He lifted the baby above his head and made baby noises back to her, then got up and walked over to the fireplace while patting a gentle hand on her back to burp her. “Look at these old pictures, Sweetness.”
“I know. They’re great, aren’t they? We still have a lot of them up, you know.”
“Yeah, not all of them, though, look at this one from your parent’s anniversary party.
“Oh, yeah. That dress. Horrible.”
“Nah, you looked good to me.” He looked over at Kayla then back up at the picture. “And all that hair again.”
“Too much, I know,” she laughed.
“No,” he said. “I liked it, baby.”
Kayla smiled at the memory of how lost they were in each other that night.
Steve continued to roam the living room looking at everything, taking it in, showing it all to Stephanie and explaining mundane things, including what a shelf is, that it’s nice to put nice photos in a frame, and that you should always pick up after yourself so your toys don’t get lost. For her part, Kayla pretty much stayed where she was on the couch watching them, wondering if this would disappear in a flash like last time. Finally, she spoke up.
“Ya know, Steve … we’ve been here, uh, a while.” He knew what she was saying but didn’t reply, letting her finish her thought. “We weren’t at the loft very long, but we’ve been here at least an hour.”
“I know, baby. I think we should talk about what’s happening to us.” Stephanie had fallen asleep in her father’s strong arms. He kissed her head and looked around in wonder at the lack of baby things in their living room. “Where’s the pack and play?”
“They didn’t make them then,” Kayla said. “We had a bouncy seat. Later I got a … playpen.” She thought better of the “later” part, but Steve let it pass.
“I don’t wanna put her down.”
“Then don’t,” Kayla said.
Steve smiled down at her from the center of the living room, then went and sat beside her.
“The loft really happened, didn’t it? I mean, that felt real to me.”
“It felt real to me, too, baby. It was real.”
“Then … what’s this? How did we suddenly get here? When do you think we are, exactly?”
“Well, it has to be 1990, Stephanie was born in May.”
“Am I still in prison do you think?”
“How can you be, you’re right here.”
“How do we know that? We woke up here, but we’re still us. I mean, we’re the us from home. From – I … I mean …” Kayla struggled to put this whole thing into coherent words.”
“We still have these young faces, baby. It’s like our bodies from 1990 are thinking like the ones from 2009.” Steve lost what the point was. “Wait, what was the question?”
“Am I in prison?”
“No, baby, you’re home. We’re just at home. Seems like not a care in the world.”
Kayla was staring at Stephanie sleeping in her father’s arms. She was biting her bottom lip, and he could tell she wanted to have a turn.
“Here, baby,” he said as he transferred Stephanie into Kayla’s arms. “I think she needs some time with her mama.”
“Stephanie,” she whispered. She enjoyed the familiar feel of her in her arms.
“When did she lose all that blonde hair?” Steve asked.
Kayla chuckled. “It started to get darker when she was about four. Then suddenly one day before I knew it, our daughter was a brunette.”
“Where’d she get that from? I think it’s your brothers’ fault. Let’s blame Roman.”
Kayla laughed, and Steve’s mood improved with the sound of it.
“So, what month do you think this is, summer, maybe?”
Steve headed for the front door. “I’ll go take a look.”
“No!”
Steve stopped short and looked at her with concern. “What?”
“Don’t go!”
“I’m just going to open the front door, baby,”
Kayla got up to go with him. “I don’t want us to be separated.”
Steve went to her. “I know, I’m scared, too.” He took her hand. “Let’s go together.”
Upon opening the front door, they felt a warm breeze blow through leaves of changing colors. It felt like late summer. More reliable, however, was the newspaper sitting on their front stoop. “Perfect,” Steve said, bending down to get it as Kayla looked out the door cautiously.
“What’s the date?” Kayla asked, starting to bounce her now waking baby.
Steve unfolded the paper as Kayla craned her neck to see. The date said September 18, 1990.
Steve closed the door and plowed his hand through his hair.
“What do we do now?” Kayla asked.
“I don’t know, baby,” he said as he adjusted his patch and then pulled them toward him. He held them tightly, kissing the top of his wife’s head. But we should probably find it out soon.”
“Why?” “Because I die in a month.”