“Papa, can you hand me the needle-nose pliers?”
“Yeah, Pops, hand her the pliers so she can finally give me back my fuckin’ ratchet.”
Two years had passed. It was the fall of 2004, and Randy was a 14-year-old Freshman enrolled in the same YMCA mechanics class that Stephanie had been taking on and off for years and that Steve was now teaching. He’d been at it for quite some time, and he loved it. Especially when he had the opportunity to really make a difference with the kids that came in there. They might not last into the next timeline, but they were there in this one, and this one was when Steve was living these days.
“Randall, man, glad you’re finally takin’ my advice and using the tools I tell ya to, but watch your language in front of my kid or I’ll give ya more than just the ratchet.”
Randy rolled his eyes but still had the sense to give a muffled sorry from under the beat up car he was working on. The other three kids snickered but kept their mouths shut while they worked their own engines. Meanwhile, Stephanie rolled out from under the junker in her corner of the room. Steve stood right above his daughter as she whispered up to him.
“I’m 14 years old, Papa, I don’t have virgin ears.”
“The hell ya don’t, now get back to that muffler.” Stephanie rolled her own eyes but smiled just the same. No part of her didn’t love the fact that her father was there teaching this class. She never got tired of being with either him or her mother. She was always a family kind of girl, but this version of her was extremely so, for obvious reasons. She was so proud to be his daughter that she didn’t mind sharing him with the class.
Steve loved teaching this class as much as Stephanie loved having him there. It wasn’t long into their second year that he knew house husband wasn’t the same here as it was with Emily. Stephanie wasn’t a baby that needed constant attention. She was in school most of the time, she had a lot of friends, and when she wasn’t busy with one or the other she didn’t need a babysitter. There was only so much working out and being inside his own head that Steve could handle without going insane.
It had all happened pretty organically; Steve took over Stephanie’s pickups, but they didn’t want to change her routine too much, so they kept her YMCA programs. He couldn’t help but linger now and then when he was the one to drop her off. Then when the instructor was running late, he lingered long enough to start messing around with the cars that the Y brought in for them. Soon he was shooting the shit with the instructors, then lending a hand to the kids, and before he knew it he had a job. The first time Stephanie called him Papa in class, one of the smart-ass boys picked up on it and called him Pops. Now that’s what everyone at the YMCA called him. It hadn’t eluded either Steve or Kayla how similar this job was to when he worked with at-risk kids at the Salem Community Center all those years ago.
it was just before Halloween, and they were a month into this series of classes. The next once-weekly class would start the first week in January, and Steve was on the schedule to teach it. It was the most advanced auto mechanics that Stephanie would finally get to learn, and both of them were looking forward to it. Unfortunately, neither of them would make it far enough in this timeline to get there.
In the years that had passed, Kayla had become a full-fledged doctor in the surgical department at Cedars Sinai Hospital. True to their word, she and Sam had stayed very good friends, and he tried everything he had to woo her … not to him but back to Oncology. Despite her significant surgical adeptness, it hadn’t happened overnight, and she had to endure the exhausting surgical rotation exactly as she had her first time around. She knew it was going to be more exhausting than oncology, but it made sense to stick to that. It was always what she loved most, so fatigue or not, it was also exhilarating. She couldn’t help but feel very prideful when she appeared to have so much more talent than someone with her experience should. Steve didn’t understand why it wasn’t smooth sailing for her uniquely otherworldly advantages.
“I don’t get it, baby, you know more than all of ‘em combined, why you gotta take the slow train, here?” Kayla was flat on her back on their bed while Steve rubbed her feet after a very long shift.
“The rules of medical school didn’t get the memo that I’m too old for this,” she replied groggily. “If I tell them why I should get fast-tracked, I’ll end up on the wrong end of the psych rotation.”
Kayla was prepared for the residency schedule, but she’d forgotten how different Dr. Brian Bond was as an attending physician than Sam was. No more coddling, and Brian also made no room for pettiness.
“This isn’t high school, Dr. Tompkins,” Dr. Bond said the very first time Stacy tried to jockey for position over her colleagues. “We’re cutting people open here, so you can shut that shit down right now before you end up slicing off the wrong thing during a fit of pettiness.”
Also unlike Sam, Brian Bond was known as quite a player, and everyone was pretty sure Stacy had moved on from Sam and slept with Brian the first chance she’d had. Which was why Raj, Kayla, and Stacy alike all gaped like trouts at this during their team meeting shortly after Kayla’s return. It was effective, though, because there was very little issue with Stacy going forward. Her hatred for Kayla clearly wasn’t going to change, but the manifestation of it was kept to a minimum, during the surgical rotation.
Now in October of 2004, history repeated itself quite nicely. Her residency rotations were long over, and while the perception of her advanced knowledge didn’t eliminate her rotations, it did make the administration snap her up as one of their first choices as an attending surgeon. Her hours were still long, and she didn’t have a whole lot of seniority, but she was one of the most respected physicians in the hospital. That wasn’t the reason she loved it more now than the first time around, though; it was because now she got to do it with her family to come home to at the end of every shift.
It was while Kayla was prepping for an appendectomy and Steve was handing Randy the ratchet that both of them individually got an overwhelming sense of nausea. It was like a wave of homesickness, only with an oppressive darkness fueling the queasy. Kayla’s eyes watered as she stood at the sink with the water rinsing the scrub from her arms. Steve felt it as a hopelessness, and in that moment he wasn’t sure if he wanted to puke or jump off a bridge. Or both. They both felt it for only a matter of seconds, then it was gone.
“Pops?” Steve didn’t hear Randy as he hovered a foot out of the kid’s reach with the ratchet. “Earth to Pops,” he repeated. When Steve continued to stare through him blankly, Randy tried one more time. “Yo, POPS!”
Stephanie rolled back out from her Ford Impala. “Papa?” Stephanie called. He turned back to Stephanie as the fog lifted. But the look on his face for the second that it had lingered scared her. “Are you ok?” she asked sitting up.
It’s not that he hadn’t heard Randy, he was just too overwhelmed with the feeling to think clearly. “What?”
“What’s wrong?”
Steve saw the worried look on Stephanie’s face and sobered up. “Nothin’. Nothin’, I was just … got distracted.”
The explanation was good enough for Randy as he caught the tool Steve tossed him, but Stephanie cocked her head at her father. Her narrowed eyes told him that she wasn’t buying it; but the truth was that Steve wasn’t sure what had just happened, because it felt a little like after a jump, but … not quite.
No one noticed Kayla’s momentary lapse into otherness, but when it was over there was no relief. She was two days late in getting her period, and this felt an awful lot like morning sickness; so when it passed the panic rose within her. Oh God! She had a surgery to do, however, so she swallowed that fear down and was able to refocus and make it through the surgery.
That night Stephanie eyed both of her parents with curious scrutiny. “What’s with you two?” she asked over the chili and pasta she, herself, had made that night.
“What do you mean?” Steve and Kayla both replied equally dully and in unison. Stephanie put down her fork and crossed her arms.
“Um, that, maybe? I thought it was just Papa, but it’s both of you.”
They had been in their own heads, but now they both looked up into each other’s eyes with interest.
“I just, ah … I’m tired,” Kayla said guardedly. Had a really long day. You know how surgery is.”
“Didn’t you say you just had one appendix to take out?” Stephanie asked.
“Yes.”
Stephanie lifted an eyebrow so much like her Aunt Hope that Kayla could swear they were blood related. “Mama, those are so easy, I could have done it. You are so hiding something,” she said.
Kayla chuckled, but there was no humor there. “No I’m not, Baby Girl. But what happened with your Papa?”
“He zombied out during class,” she said.
Kayla looked quizzically to her husband, who let out a chuckle of his own. “Little Sweetness, I was distracted for a sec, it happens.”
They were feeding their daughter a line and trying to put on brave faces. They knew it, they knew each other knew it, and they understood that they were trying to make sure Stephanie didn’t know it.
“Ok. Whatever,” Stephanie replied cooly.
“Uh oh, Sweetness. She broke out the ‘whatever’ on us.” Things were sounding more authentic to Stephanie with that one, and she couldn’t help but grin. “Ok, so I see your ‘whatever’ and raise you a ‘fine.’ As in, will ya trust me when I tell ya, ain’t nothin’ goin’ on here, baby, we’re fine.”
She looked from her dad to her mom and back again and shrugged. Her instinct said something was funky, but hoped, not for the first time that maybe it was a baby on the way that they were trying not to tell her about yet.
She hurried through the rest of her chili and went to get ready to be picked up by her friend’s mom to see a movie, which marked the end of the discussion about the big nothing. After all, it was not the first time that Stephanie overanalyzed everything her parents did, said, and looked at. She was well into her Freshman year in high school, teen angst emerged right on schedule, and she had lingering PTSD from the ordeal four years earlier that took form of watching her parents like hawks. So this overreaction was par for the course from this version of their daughter.
After dinner they dispersed into extremely normal, routine, after-dinner stuff, but both Steve and Kayla knew they were biding their time until they were alone. That did not, however, stop the next ripple from happening. Steve in the back yard working on damaging a carborator for class at the same time that Kayla dropped the dish she’d been washing. Like before, it was gone as soon as it hit, but for those handful of seconds it was extremely unpleasant.
Kayla cursed at the broken dish in the sink, and eyed her purse on the back counter with the unopened pregnancy test in it. She motioned to Steve through the window that Stephanie was leaving for the night, then cursed louder when she cut herself on one of the glass shards. Steve wiped off his hands on a rag and headed inside to find his wife running her finger under water.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Broke a dish.” Her irritated tone was rivaled by her irritated face. “Cut myself.”
“Ya ok?”
“Yeah.” Steve peered into the sink. “It’s just a cut,” Kayla snapped, “stop hovering!”
Steve shot her a look and replied, “Well, ok, Doctor, heel thyself, why dontcha.”
Kayla rolled her eyes. “Sorry,” she muttered.
“Bad mood?” She nodded and darted her eyes up at Steve with something he immediately recognized as her holding something back. He said nothing but stared a hole through her with his arms crossed. “And tired,” she finally added.
Stephanie, who was the opposite of tired, bounded out of her room. They both hugged their daughter goodbye.
“Love you guys,” Stephanie said.
Kayla swallowed down her worry and grinned at her daughter. “I love you, Baby Girl.” Kayla tousled Stephanie’s hair and ran a hand lovingly over her face. “Not too much popcorn.”
“Aw man, but I love popcorn.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t love you.”
Stephanie nodded with a bit of an eyeroll. “Which of you passed that gene on to me?”
“She did/He did,” they said together.
They all chuckled before Steve kissed his daughter on the top of her head. He could still do that, but she was too tall for Kayla to do now and settled for her temple.
“Hey,” Stephanie said with enthusiasm, “speaking of genes, I’ve got a great idea.”
“Here we go,” Steve said.
“What? I’m just saying, you’ve got the house to yourselves.”
“Be careful what you wish for, Little Sweetness, we’ll put you on diaper duty.”
Kayla visibly stiffened and Steve practically felt it. Now he tried to look his wife in the eyes, but she avoided the connection as she chided not so playfully, “Steve, don’t encourage her.”
“Hmm,” Stephanie sort of muttered. “Not pregnant, then, I guess.”
This whole line of discussion made Kayla very tense, and she wanted it to end right now. “For the millionth time,” Kayla snapped, “if there’s something to tell you we will!”
Stephanie looked a little wounded. She was rarely on the receiving end of her parents’ annoyance. “Okay, sorry, jeez, you don’t have to be so mad.”
Kayla rubbed at her temple. “I’m … sorry, I need to just lie down. Not feeling great. I don’t mean to take it out on you.” Stephanie nodded and smiled lightly. “Ok, go on,” Kayla said with a more encouraging smile of her own. Steve watched this exchange carefully and knew their conversation wasn’t going to be good.
“You go have a good time.”
“It’s just … ya know, again. House to yourselves for like four hours. Do I need to draw you a picture?”
“I’m not hearing this, Little Sweetness,” Steve said with a screwed up face. “They’re waitin’ for ya, now, go.”
Stephanie grudgingly stopped. “Ok, bye, you guys, I love you!” Then she ran out the door.
“Wait!” Steve yelled. Both Stephanie and Kayla were caught off-guard by the strange desperation in his tone. “I just want another hug. Come’ere.” Stephanie felt no self-consciousness in getting public displays of affection from her parents, and this was no exception. Her father wanted another hug, she wasn’t going to question it. She smiled and leaned back in from the front stoop.
“I love you, Papa.”
“I love you, too, Little Sweetness.”
She did the same for her mom, and Kayla felt a strange sense of tenderness. “You have a good time, ok?”
“I will, Mama. I love you.”
“I love you, Stephanie.”
They waved as they drove away. Then they sat on the stoop as they’d done so many times before, the mid-evening sun shedding dappled light over them from the horizon. After a long series of moments Steve took Kayla’s hand in his own and broke the uneasy silence.
“Do you know for sure?”
Kayla shrugged a small shake of her head. “I’m two days late and been nauseous. Brought a test home.”
Steve sighed very deeply. “So probably.”
Kayla nodded and squeezed Steve’s hand.
Just then another wave hit them, and this time intense memories of Emily washed over Kayla with such intensity that she couldn’t help but begin crying. Steve felt it, too, but he just felt … strange. And very insecure. Kayla buried her head in Steve’s shoulder. He reached his left hand across them and held her by the back of her head. He wanted to be strong and comfort her, but the ripple’s effect weakened him. Made him feel hopeless. Steve’s own eyes watered before it passed. Finally, Kayla calmed down, and Steve’s rationality returned.
“You take the test yet?”
“No,” she sniffled as she wiped her nose.”
“Ok, so maybe you’re not.”
“I got pregnant on the pill last time.”
“But now we use condoms, too.” It was true, their sexual relationship was a lot less intercourse and a lot more of everything else, but when they did make love, they hadn’t failed to use a condom in more than two years. These symptoms could not be ignored, however, and they needed to be sure. So, they got up, went into the house, and Kayla peed on a stick.
Kayla sat on the toilet lid while Steve sat on the edge of the tub for the next six minutes. They said very little in that time; all of it had already been said many years ago in a jump they’d left their precious daughter in to never live another single day past the age when they’d said goodbye to her.
It had been a long time – a very long time – since they’d discussed anything other than life in the here and now. If it wasn’t Joey’s or Emily’s birthdays, they didn’t really bring up jumping, Rolf, the slipstream or their lost daughter. But now it all ratcheted up in Kayla.
“I miss Emily,” she whispered. Visions of all three of her children crashed over her in real fear of the unavoidable future. “I want all of my babies back. I can’t lose another one.”
Tears fell from Steve’s face now, too. He felt hopeless and lost. And now he felt the pain of heartbreak, too.
Steve and Kayla had no idea that right now Rolf was in his lab with his head in his hands and an empty bottle of vodka laying on the floor. Rolf, on the other hand, had a very good idea of what was about to happen to Steve and Kayla. He was very aware of the misery their actions were about to bring them.
They held on to each other as a final ripple moved through them … and then it was gone. The intensity of heartbreak lessened with it as the waters calmed back to an even surface, but the emotions lingered. Kayla pulled back from Steve and saw his face was as wet as hers.
Kayla took a deep breath and wiped her face with the palms of her hands. She did the same for Steve, then kissed his patch.
“I love when you do that, Sweetness,” he said softly.”
“I know,” she smiled sadly. Steve palmed her cheek, and she turned her face into it. Then she looked up. “Ok, it’s time.” She stood up to get the test from where it had been laying flat on the shelf behind her.
“Wait,” Steve said and pulled her back down. He held her hands to his chest and said, “No matter what happens, right now Kayla … we’re going to be ok. I promise you. I won’t lose myself this time.”
Kayla smiled with a warmth that melted her husband’s heart. “I know. I really do know.” They kissed lovingly, their lips lingering on each other with promise. When they parted, Kayla stood up again. This time she eyed him before turning to pick up the test. “You ready?”
“Yeahp.” Kayla picked it up, and when her eyes got big, Steve exhaled heavily. “Well, Stephanie finally got her wish.”
“Or not,” Kayla replied incredulously.
“Say what?”
“It’s negative.”
“It – neg – what?”
“Only one line. Not pregnant.”
Steve took the test from her and looked at it. Then he looked at the sheet of instructions that they unfolded from the box and read, just like everyone else, no matter how many times they’ve done this. They squinted and struggled to see a second pink line that didn’t appear to be there. “Did you pee enough?”
“Maybe not?” she said while being quite sure she did. “Let me do it again,” she said, afraid to be too relieved, and dug into her purse for the other two tests she’d brought home. Kayla chugged water, and thirty long minutes later peed on the second stick, only ending up with the same result.
“But, you’re late, right? How can you be late on the pill?”
“I got pregnant with Emily on the pill, remember? It happens.” Her relief was plastered all over her face. Sheer, utter relief.
Steve matched it with a leaned shoulder against the doorway and adjusted his patch. “I was really scared there, baby.”
“I was, too.”
They held each other tightly and smiled with their relief. “I meant it, though, Kayla,” Steve said into her hair. “We would have been ok.”
Kayla pulled back and grinned. “Well … you do like it when I’m big with your babies.”
Steve grinned back and nodded. “I do. Always have.”
They went up to the loft and spent time quietly just enjoying the quiet.
“Wait, why did you get nauseous?” Steve asked. He’d had his head in his Motorola RAZR playing snake, which wasn’t as good as the games on his phone in 2009, but a lot better than the no phone he had in every other jump.
Kayla looked up from the book she was reading. Her head was resting on her husband’s thigh. “Probably hungry,” she shrugged.
Stephanie was due home any moment, so Kayla closed the book and stretched deeply. Her breasts rose as she did, but Steve’s eye was firmly upon her beautiful face. Kayla swung her legs over and stood up.
“Where ya goin’, baby, you were layin’ here so nice.”
“Hmmp,” she smiled. Then she leaned a hand against Steve’s knee to stand up and said, “It was very nice, but I’ve got an early shift tomorrow.”
The tug at Kayla’s midsection was so severe she actually fell hard back into the couch. “Oh God.” She barely got the words out.
“Uh oh. Maybe you’re sick, Sweetness.”
“No … noooooo …” The room was tilting and she began to shake. “It’s here.”
Steve’s stomach flipped and his heart began to race. “Sweetness?!” The panic in the word matched hers. “I – I – Jesus! I don’t feel it yet! Are you sure!”
Kayla hadn’t felt it in more than four years, but there was no doubt in her mind. It all began to fall into place. Somehow she knew. It rushed into her without any form or order, but it somehow made sense in the precious seconds she had left in 2004. In this loft of their little house.
Another second ticked by and a vertigo so intense attacked like a marauder. She couldn’t speak or she’d pass out. She held on to Steve for dear life. Stephanie…
“Baby, stay with me!” That’s when Steve felt a punch in his own gut so hard he felt the air leave his lungs. His grip on Kayla intensified, and she knew the jump had found him, too.
Kayla forced herself to find a very brief moment of self-control as she watched Steve try desperately to right himself. “Steve,” she cried softly, pulling back from him slightly. “Look at me. Please!” When he did she made the sign for “courage.” Steve’s eye watered as tears rolled down her own cheeks. Time felt so very slow but it had, in fact, been only seconds. “This life – here with you and our daughter – with Stephanie,” her voice broke on her name, “is beautiful.”
Kayla’s words brought Steve into something coherent. He felt like time had stood still, even though he knew it was about to soldier on. Where were they going to go? What was going to happen from here? He would find her. They saw the love in each other’s eyes – and they also saw the very real fear – even as the rest of the room hung at an impossible angle.
Now Steve repeated the sign for “courage” and then held his wife’s face in his palms. “No matter what happens, right now Kayla … we’re going to be ok. I promise you.” They were the same words he’d said to her just two hours earlier, their meaning not really any different. “I won’t lose us. I will find you.”
“We’ll find each other,” she gasped. “No matter what!”
“No matter what!” Then as the room spun around them, they kissed, and the devotion was tangible.
“I’m home!” Stephanie yelled from the front door. It was the most bittersweet sound either of them had ever heard. The opportunity to say goodbye without their baby girl even knowing that it was goodbye. Because 12.2 seconds was almost up, and then everything would cease. She would freeze in time as the timeline ended. “Guys?!”
It took all the effort they had left in their bodies as the slipstream closed in around them, but they were motivated by the love for their daughter. “Up here, baby girl!” Kayla yelled.
“Oh, ok! I had raisinets instead of popcorn!”
“Have I told you today that I love you, Little Sweetness?” Steve yelled down with a voice far steadier than was true.
“You tell me every day, Papa.” Her voice was closer; she was making her way to the stairs. They didn’t want her to see them like this, but they had only moments left.
“I love you, too, Baby Girl. More than anything in the world.”
“Raisinets are not dessert, they’re a runner-up snack to popcorn,” Stephanie said as she opened the fridge and went hunting for an apple. And I love you guys, too!”
It was the very last thing either of them would hear Stephanie or anyone else say in this timeline. What a gift, Kayla thought as she felt herself leave her body. She tried to hold on to him. To tell him she loved him. To hear her daughter’s voice one more time.
To stay.
But Steve felt when her body stiffened and her soul was gone. He held her tightly against him on the couch of the loft and smiled with gratitude for the last four years this jump had given him, listening to the final sounds of his daughter rummaging around in the refrigerator.