Had he said it with any kind of amusement, Kayla would have bristled. But the statement was humorless, and Kayla could see the guilt heat back up that she’d tried to place at bay.
“I’m not doing it again, Kayla. I’m not leaving again!” He held her tighter, and Kayla felt his panic. But her curiosity was stronger. She’d done this before. They both had. And the ridiculous nature of where they now found themselves mixed with the bliss that she couldn’t help but feel sort of eclipsed the fear that his death was right around the corner. Kind of.
“Let’s talk about this,” she said pulling away slightly. “Come here. Come over and sit down.” They went over to the blue and white-striped couch where Steve sat down heavily while Kayla wrapped her left leg under her. Steve was getting more agitated with every moment as the realization of the time they didn’t have hit him.
“Ok, I’m sittin’,” he said, his temper just under the surface.
“Here, I think someone wants her papa back,” she said. Steve calmed immediately upon having his baby in his arms again. A broad smile spread across his face as Stephanie made baby sounds, which Steve mimicked right back to her.
“Papa doesn’t wanna leave his beautiful girls, does he Stephanie?” he baby babbled to her. He gripped her under the arms and stood her up. “Look at me, Mama, I’m almost walkin’. Yes, I am. Papa doesn’t wanna miss that all over again, now does he? No he doesn’t.” He gave her a string of kisses into her little baby neck. “No he sure doesn’t, Mama, he doesn’t want to miss it again.” More kisses, and she squirmed with delight.
Kayla looked on with a mix of emotions as Steve lifted her high and nuzzled her feet, then bounced her up and down on his lap. Watching them made her heart soar. But she did the quick math in her head and knew that they had exactly five weeks to be a family before their worlds came apart.
“I think we should talk about this,” Kayla said. “I mean, we go to bed at home, then we wake up in the loft. Then in the middle of a kiss, we end up in our house. I think we need to figure out why this is happening.” Steve gave her a curious look, almost like he was sizing her up. “What?”
“You, baby. The voice coming out of you. You sound like my Kayla with the voice of old Kayla … young Kayla? I mean—”
“I know what you mean,” she smiled.
“Past Kayla. When I came back, you talked differently. Stronger.” Kayla understood that it was her pattern of speech that naturally changes as we mature through the years that he was referring to. “It’s that way about you that is coming out of your mouth in your past voice right now, and it’s kind of throwing me.”
“I don’t seem like me anymore?” she asked worried.
“Nah, you’re you, baby, I know you’re you. It’s just taking some getting used to.”
“It’s bizarre and doesn’t make any sense, but … I think we agree that we’re really here. That this is real, right?”
“Well, this baby sure is real, isn’t she,” Steve baby talked.
“Yes, she is,” Kayla smiled, reaching over to squeeze her foot.
Steve looked over at his wife and smiled. “You always did know how to bring me back to earth, baby. He cupped her face and looked at her with love and still a bit of wonder.
Steve inhaled deeply and adjusted his patch. “It’s like we’re stuck in movie. Groundhog Day or something. Ya know, like maybe we have to get something right or it’s gonna start over again.”
Kayla thought about that for a second. “But … we didn’t start over again, we leaped from 1986 to now, four years later.”
“We leaped?! Who are you, baby, Dr. Samuel Beckett? What does that make me, Al?”
Kayla didn’t have the foggiest idea what Steve was talking about, but she laughed, anyway. “What’s that a sci-fi movie?”
“TV show. Quantum Leap. This dude kept leaping from one person to another and had to live in their body until he put right what once went wrong. Great show.”
“Ok, sure,” she indulged him with a bit of a laugh, “so we fixed something back at the loft then jumped here? But I don’t think anything really went wrong there. Did it? I don’t remember, it was 20 years ago.”
“For you, it was, baby, it was for you. But for me, this place right now? Yeah, it’s 20 years ago, but in a way it’s not actually that long ago for me. The day I … died – that they took me from you – to the day I got my memory back, that was like from one day to the next for me. So, a part of me remembers the loft like it was five years ago, not 20.”
The reality of Steve’s absence stabbed at Kayla every now and then; this was one of those times, and she got a little sad. “Ok, so did we fix something?” The whole discussion was nuts, but she was grasping at straws and trying to seriously figure out what was going on.
Steve thought hard. But he couldn’t really think of anything that was fixed. “No, baby,” he said dragging his hand down his face,” I don’t think so.
Then she had a thought. “But the pool cue was different. I gave that to you a few days later the first time.”
“So, what, you were supposed to do that earlier then? How could that have made a difference? I was standing in a towel in your apartment with your mom about to have a coronary, how would giving me the pool cue have fixed anything?“
Kayla thought about it, but the whole concept of having to fix something wasn’t really gelling for her. “Maybe we just—”
“Five weeks!” Steve cut her off with a sudden realization. “Sweetness … in five weeks I die. They take me away. We can fix that! He handed Stephanie back to Kayla and shot up to his feet, suddenly revved up with possibility. “Oh Baby,” he turned on his heel. “We know how it happens, right? All I have to do is not go to that dock that day. And make sure Bo doesn’t go either!”
The possibility of avoiding the whole ordeal that was Steve’s disappearance cast a whole new spin on where they were. And it quickly became irresistible.
“You … don’t go to the dock,” she said softly with dawning understanding, “and we … put it right.”
“We can forget the whole thing ever happened, baby. And start over!” Kayla was excited by the possibility. Too excited. In fact, she was suddenly feeling completely desperate. A shadow crossed her features. “Sweetness? What’s wrong?”
Kayla got up and bounced Stephanie. “Forget it?” she laughed without humor. “I wish I could. I won’t lie, I’ve tried to forget that horrible night every single day since you were taken away. It’s like a wound that won’t ever completely heal. We have you back, but the pain never went away. It was the worst day of my entire life, Steve. The day I lost you. I can’t lose you again.”
“Baby, you’re not gonna lose me, now. You won’t have to go through that again. None of us do. I can be there for Stephanie’s first steps. First word. All her firsts.” He grabbed Kayla into a fierce embrace. “And we can have the life we were supposed to have!”
Now Kayla was crying, and the baby started to fuss. “I don’t know, I … it doesn’t really seem to all fit. Why did we go to the loft first? What got put right there? Why not just jump right here? Or leap? Or whatever. Maybe … maybe we’re on the wrong track.”
“What other track is there? What else makes sense?”
“None of this makes sense!” she yelled, angered for the first time since this whole thing began. “None of it makes any kind of logical sense! How is any of this even possible?! We don’t know what’s happening with us, Steve! We don’t know where Joe is, we don’t even know for sure that there’s life outside this house, and we don’t know how long this is going to last!”
“Well, I don’t have an explanation!” Steve roared, getting mad right along with her. “And I don’t wanna die, Kayla! I want my life back! I want my 16 years back, baby! They were stolen from me,” Steve pounded his chest, “and I want ‘em back!”
Stephanie started to cry, and Steve felt immediate remorse for having scared his daughter. His anger receding with the cries of his baby, Steve went to her and placed tender kisses on her head. “I’m so sorry, Little Sweetness. Papa’s sorry. Papa just loves you so much, that’s all. It’s just that I don’t want to leave you.” He brought his eyes up to Kayla and saw her tears burning hot down her cheeks. “I love your mama, too. I’m sorry, baby. I’m just trying to make something fit, here. Make … it up to you.”
Kayla wiped her tears with the heel of her hand. “I know,” she said. I know you just want to fix it. To put it right.” Steve looked at her through a green eye that looked the same to her no matter when they were and nodded through the lump in his throat. “You know what else, Steve?
“What? He choked.”
“I think we shouldn’t think about it right now. I think we should just enjoy this day. See what it brings.” Steve took a deep breath and nodded, calming down as best he could. “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry, and I think we should just enjoy each other and worry about all of this “when” stuff later.
“Ok,” he said, kissing Stephanie on the head. “Ok, baby. We’ll just enjoy this day.”
The baby was still crying, and Kayla tried to soothe her with a soft shuh-shuh-shuh-shuh-shuh.
An awkward silence then fell upon them. Steve’s brain was in such a knot trying to figure it all out that it wasn’t until she’d suggested food that he listened to the signals this body was giving him. “Are you hungry?” Kayla asked.
“Not only am I hungry, Sweetness, I have to pee.”
Kayla laughed, and the awkward was broken. “Well that makes two of us.”
They got up and Kayla said, “I think we should go get dressed, maybe?”
“He looked at her and just kind of gave up. “Ok,” he smiled.
They headed up the stairs, put Stephanie in her crib, and Steve looked back at her. The call of nature was pulling him, but he was leery to leave her room. “What if she’s not there when we come back?”
“Maybe … maybe I should stay here while you go get ready.”
The fear that one of them would turn around and the other would be gone was apparent, even if not spoken. “No, I don’t think we should be apart.”
“What about Stephanie?”
“Didn’t you say we have a bouncy seat?”
They found it in the closet and brought everything into their bedroom. Kayla placed the baby in it, and she watched as Stephanie contentedly bounced for the time being.
“You go first,” Kayla said. Steve kissed his wife on the top of her head, this new surrounding making them, once again, shy to kiss each other yet.
When Steve entered the bathroom, he about flipped out at the guy staring back at him from the mirror. He hadn’t looked at himself since this thing began, and like Kayla had experienced in the loft, the young face he saw in the mirror was shocking. But also kind of comforting. This was how he saw himself. For two years, ever since he’d gotten his memory back, Steve had been looking at himself wondering how he’d aged so quickly. For him, he was just in his 30’s a minute ago. The 50-something face he’d been wearing since then was the one that was kind of foreign to him and that, truth be told, he still wasn’t quite used to. So, this face? This was him. He was back. He ran his hand through his long hair, and thought, mullet my ass. This thing looked good on me.
Kayla watched him through the open bathroom door and knew exactly what was going on. “Bit of a shock isn’t it?” she called in through the door.
“Huh?”
“Seeing yourself for the first time. I went through the same thing at the loft.”
Steve was feeling suddenly alive. The worry about his impending death and how they got there and what was happening was replaced with the sense that he was home. That this was right. That he was right. That he wanted to go live this day. Kayla was right, the best thing to do, he thought, was enjoy their family and live today.
Steve didn’t realize how badly he’d had to pee until he finally relieved himself. If that’s not real, I don’t know what is, he thought. Yep, this body is definitely real. He started the shower, and yelled, “Baby, the toothbrushes are just where they’re supposed to be!” Even the toothpaste tube had been squeezed down to half. And he couldn’t help but wonder what their bodies were doing before they got there. Was it business as usual for them until they got there in bed that morning, or were they actually 1990 Steve and Kayla whose future awareness suddenly “turned on?” His mind began swimming again, and he didn’t want to go there, he just wanted to be with his wife and daughter. So, he pushed it aside, got in the shower, and let the hot water wash over him, cleansing the confusion out of him for the moment.
Kayla sat on the floor facing Stephanie in the bouncy seat and kept an equal eye between her and the bathroom, making sure Steve was still there. It wasn’t so irrational, as she really didn’t know how long this was going to last. Already they’d been here in the house more than twice as long as they’d been at the loft, so she wasn’t sure what to expect.
Steve emerged in a towel, his tanned body still slick from the shower. Kayla licked her lips and absently let them part a bit. It didn’t matter what decade they were in, that act always sparked Steve’s arousal.
“Are you, ah, ready?”
He leered at her and smirked, then looked down at his towel. “What do you think, Sweetness?”
She got up from the floor and walked over to him. “That’s not what I meant,” she smiled playfully, placing her palms tenderly on his chest. But his tattoo called to her, and she couldn’t resist covering its handle with her soft lips.
“Oh baby,” he sighed as he grabbed the back of her head and wondered what making love in these young bodies would be like.
Then Kayla heard the baby squeal and looked up at her husband. “We’re not alone, here ya know,” she grinned at him.”
“Yeah, just like home, huh?” he smiled back. But the reference to Joey caused a stab through Kayla’s heart that sank her mood. Steve saw immediately that he’d said the wrong thing and felt his son’s absence just the same. “I’m sorry, Sweetness,” and embraced her with apology. “I didn’t mean to say that.”
“No, it’s ok.” She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his chest. She wondered again who was taking care of her baby, but then she looked back at her other baby and remembered her purpose. “I … I think maybe we should just … ya know … do what we’d normally do. Did. Eat something. Be together I can go to the bathroom for starters.” Steve chuckled. “Maybe we can go in the yard … see what’s out there.”
“Ok, Sweetness,” he said and brushed a kiss onto her temple.
Kayla looked up to him, and the wall of uncertainty that came down at the loft came down here, too. As they locked eyes she threaded her hands through his hair and pulled him down to her lips. Their kiss was warm and tender, and they took sweet pleasure in the feel of themselves in each others’ arms.
She pulled away and smiled up at him. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, baby. So much.”
With another kiss to his tattoo, Kayla said, “I think I’m going to go in and have a turn now. You think you have things handled in here?”
“Yeah,” he blew out his breath, “I think I can find a shirt and jeans somewhere.”
“Ok,” she smiled and headed into the bathroom. “I’ll be right back, Baby Girl,” she cooed to Stephanie.”
“Sweetness!” Steve called.
“Yeah,” Kayla poked her head back out.
Steve’s look was serious. “Leave the door open.”
Kayla nodded knowingly. “Don’t leave the room, ok?”
“I’m not taking my eye off either of my girls. And when you’re done in there, I’m gonna whip us up a big breakfast.” “Sounds great,” she said. She gave him a smile and headed in for her own shower.