by EJ Valson
I open the efficiently designed zippers and compartments until I finally find an inside pocket. My fingers encounter the cool hard plastic of something about the size of a phone. “Yes!” I say, a little too loud.
I pause for a minute when I realize I don’t remember how to use this type of phone. It is full of buttons and a QWERTY keyboard. It’s nicer than what I used to have when Joe and I were married, but it doesn’t compare to the touchscreen I am used to. I finally locate the contacts list. Mom, Joe, Dad, the Mary person, Joe’s parents, his brother, his sister, and my friend Kelly.
Kelly! Yes, I’m still friends with Kelly. Phew! Everyone I still know is listed here, and even some who I’m no longer in touch with later on in my life. I check the history. It appears I still call my mother frequently, my dad too, Joe about once a day -- looks like mostly lunchtime calls. Kelly...it’s been awhile, but that is consistent with our pattern in my other life.
The dates in the call log are for July 2005. I search for the calendar feature in the phone. The date is July 31st. It hits me like a truck. It is Stella’s 3rd birthday. Where is she? Where am I? I slump to the floor and begin to sob. I ache for my baby. I want to go home.
CHAPTER 5
I sit on the floor for what seems like forever, listening to the sound of blood throbbing through my skull. My heart is wrenching in my chest. Are Michael and Stella out there somewhere in the time that I left? Am I missing in their world? Do they think I left, that I abandoned them in the middle of the night? Are they looking for me? Tears stream down my cheeks and spill onto the floor as these thoughts race through my mind.
The last thing I remember from my other life, before I woke up in this one, is being angry with Michael right before we went to bed. I didn’t want to talk to him so I went to sleep without saying goodnight. Things between us had been awkward and strained for quite a while. Five and a half years of marriage, seven years together and raising a baby had accumulated into more stress than solace.
What was once a beautiful love story was becoming mundane and stale under the pressures of daily life. I resented him for it and hated myself for being resentful. But I couldn’t exactly explain why. I found myself frequently irritated and bored. In fact, my last thought before I fell asleep the night before I arrived here was, “Maybe I don’t belong here anymore.” I meant that literally in the sense of sharing a marital bed with him. The irony of those thoughts is not lost on me in this moment.
Now I am here in this vortex of reality, living in a past I don’t remember at all. My future family is not tangible. The closest person I have to that life is Olivia and she is oblivious to the life we have somewhere else far away in the future. I regret every ounce of my past resentment and wish nothing more than to be back in that life again. But how will I get back, and if I can’t, how on earth will I survive being here, without Michael and Stella?
The only thing that brings slight comfort to me is that the day and month today is almost the same as it was in the life I seem to have left behind. Time is simply off by eight years and a few days. For some reason that fact makes me feel a little more grounded in my current predicament.
I wipe away my tears. I deliberately inhale and exhale. I pray that Michael and Stella are safe, that they don’t notice I am gone, or that they are frozen in time and will wait for me to come back. I have to believe this -- it is the only thing that will get me up off of this unfamiliar floor. I have no answers. I have no one to ask questions of. I’m all alone in this.
I rifle through the rest of my wallet, finding one credit card, a bank card to the same bank that I still bank at in my future, a bulk store membership card and an appointment reminder card. It’s set for Tuesday and it is for a family counselor. What? We are in marriage counseling?
“Dr. M. Fetter, Marriage and Family Counselor, appointment reminder 3:30, Tuesday August 2nd,” the appointment card reads. Great, so now I have an appointment with a shrink and I have no idea why we have been going there. What I am supposed to say, IF I even decide to show up?
I dig through my purse a little more and find a pair of car keys. “Yes!” I exclaim in a loud whisper.
Now I feel a hint of freedom. I guess I’m not really a prisoner after all. I may be stuck in 2005, but at least I am stuck as me. That means I can drive, shop and everything else I’d normally do all the while pretending to be the old Jenni.
I tiptoe into little Olivia’s room and rouse her. She grumbles. I smile as I reflect that she will still be hard to wake up when she gets older. She loves her sleep.
“Baby,” I whisper to her. “Mommy needs to go to the grocery store. Can you get up?”
She sits up half asleep and I pull her out of bed. She rests her head on my shoulder. She is heavy, but I’m enjoying this. I am reminded that you never truly know the last time you will hold your child. If you realized that the next time you rocked your child, pushed their stroller, or carried them would be the last, you would find a way to make it linger longer.
I slip on her sandals, while wondering if I need to bring a diaper bag. No, she is four, she is potty trained. I am not used to leaving the house without extra supplies in tow. I make it out the front door and lock up the house. I see an older Honda sedan in the driveway. This pleases me, because it is not just any Honda, it is my old Honda. Nothing fancy, just a standard model, but when we got it, it felt new to me and I loved it. Seeing it again lifts my spirits.
I put Olivia in her booster seat, then climb into the driver’s seat.
“Hello, old friend,” I say.
“Who’s your friend, Mommy?” Olivia questions.
I smile to myself at her innocence. “The car, Baby, that’s all,” I reply.
She giggles, as she finds my response funny. I push the button to blast the AC on and slowly back out of the driveway onto the unfamiliar street. I still have no idea where I apparently live.
I find the nearest exit to a main street. As I pull up to the stop sign, I look to my left and quickly orient myself. It seems that we live about a mile away from my future house. Coincidentally, to my left happens to be Stella’s future daycare. But the car in the driveway is not that of Stella’s teacher. Instead there is a minivan and a pickup truck. This confirms that Stella’s playschool is not there yet. My heart sinks as I turn left and slowly pass the house. Would Stella ever go there? Would she ever even exist?
I now know exactly where I am. We must have bought a house in the older subdivision down the street from my dad’s manufactured home. The houses here are all ranch style, with large lots. Some are kept up. Others are run down, with old cars in the driveways and overgrown lawns. However, it appears we try to maintain ours well.
I turn right onto the main street, heading towards my future house. This part of town is older, so everything looks pretty much the same. It is still a rural side of town, with hay fields and homes inter-mixed. As I approach the stoplight my heart begins to race. I feel as if I can’t get to my future house soon enough. The light turns green and I proceed straight through rather than turning left at the light to enter the shopping center. I then pass the other entrance into the shopping center.
“Mommy, this isn’t the way to the store,” Olivia chimes in from the back seat. Smart girl knows the way to the store. I should have figured as much.
“Oops! Mommy isn’t thinking. I passed it,” I say, playing dumb. I hope that excuse will work so I can pull into the private road that leads to my real home. As I prepare to turn left, I abruptly stop.
There is no complete driveway. The houses are still in the process of being built. Only frames stand on the small cul-de-sac that will eventually hold five homes. The road is just dirt and gravel, so I slowly drive in and pull all the way to where our house is supposed to be. I put the car in park and stare. My future home is not here. My future family is not here. Nobody lives here.
My heart sinks again. I hold my breath to fight back tears.
“Mommy, where are we?” Olivia asks.
> “I don’t know,” I reply, with a lump in my throat and a deep ache in my heart.
CHAPTER 6
I manage to make it through a simple store trip. Luckily the grocery store is laid out almost the same as it is in the future. I buy a roast chicken, salad, yogurt and a few staples that “future me” just has to have, but “past me” apparently doesn’t take to yet.
I fumble my way through the checkout, putting in my debit pin for my future bank before realizing I don’t actually know the pin for the bank account that I’m sure I must now share with Joe. I am grateful to find checks in my purse, something that I rarely use in my future life. Signing one takes longer than it should because I have to stop mid pen stroke to write Joe’s last name rather than Michael’s.
Shortly after we return to the house, Joe’s diesel truck pulls in the drive. I notice a pile of unfamiliar equipment in the truck bed. I watch Joe shuffle up the walk, his head down. I can tell he is thinking. That is how he always looked when he was deep in thought. It’s an awkward sensation to be thrown back to your past mentally, while standing in it physically. I know how to be married to this man, but not in this year. In my memory, we didn’t make it past Olivia’s second birthday. I brace myself for the facade I must put on.
“Hey, Babe,” he says when he walks in. I hesitate.
“Hi...Hon,” I manage.
He walks towards the kitchen and kisses me on the cheek while he passes. The kiss feels weird. I don’t like it. I feel like I’m betraying Michael. Not only did another man speak to me with affection and kiss me, but this man is my ex-husband. It’s one of the worst types of deceit. I’m sorry Michael, I think to myself.
I pull myself through the ordeal of our first evening together by imagining I’m at home with Michael and Stella. I go on about my evening rituals as I would if Olivia were her younger sister of the future. I make an early dinner, bathe her, read her a story and put her to bed. I hug her extra tight this evening, just in case I don’t see this small Olivia again. She is so sweet and pure and this time with her reminds me of how loving she was to me when she was younger.
When I get a moment, I try to call my mom, but there is no answer. After that I try to call Michael’s cell, but I get a message that the number dialed cannot be reached.
I deflate and decide to head out to the living room. Joe is watching a hunting show on TV. I cringe. I hated those shows when we were married and I tolerated them just so I could spend time with him. I’m certainly over that now. I head back to our bedroom and decide to look through my things. I hadn’t paid much attention when I hurried to dress this morning and grabbed the first t-shirt and pair of shorts I could find.
I open our closet doors. Joe’s clothes take up only about one third of the closet. His section is full of his old jeans and a few dress shirts, but other than that mostly sweatshirts and utility wear. I have a couple of nice dresses, two pairs of low-heeled pumps and a pair of flats and tennis shoes -- but nothing special. “This is what I was afraid of,” I say quietly.
In my “other” life, I always joke that had I stayed married to Joe I would have ended up frumpy. I went through the “mom hair” phase when Olivia was a baby and I still haven’t lived that down. I wore plain colored shirts, jeans that were too big and sensible shoes. I was always afraid to be fashion-forward in fear of looking too flashy.
When I was twenty-five I became good friends with a coworker who taught me to dress my age, which was certainly not fifty. She helped boost my confidence and we went shopping together often. I found my waistline then too -- quite a contrast to what is hanging in this closet. Here, everything I have is mid-rise and safe.
“Seriously, Jen!” I reprimand myself. “You may be stuck in the past, but you are in your past body and you are damn well going to take advantage of it and look good!”
After setting aside more than half of my wardrobe for donation, I decide to shower and call it a night. I am almost to the bed when I feel two strong arms suddenly squeeze around my waist, followed by lips on my neck.
“AHHHH!!” I scream and push away from Joe.
“What the hell!” Joe exclaims, startled.
“What are you doing?” I ask, still in shock.
“You showered so I thought maybe you were in the mood,” he defends.
Jesus, I think to myself. This is as far as his foreplay goes? But I quickly recover.
“Sorry, you scared me,” I reply, slightly embarrassed. He shakes his head and leaves the room, annoyed.
I am reminded why I have always felt that Joe and I should never have married in the first place. We were once good friends, cared about each other, and had fun together, but we married too young and for the wrong reasons. Our differences in perspectives and values became abundantly clear early in our marriage. Even our friendship turned sour as the distance between us grew. What we once overlooked in each other became resentments instead. That resentment had not waned much over the years.
In my current situation I don’t care about fixing this with him. Our marriage doesn’t matter to me anymore. His feelings don’t either. I just want to go to bed, wake up, and have this be one of the most lifelike and surreal dreams I have ever had.
CHAPTER 7
The horrible sound of a buzzing alarm clock wakes me at 6:00 am. Dammit, I think in response at the irritating sound. Without opening my eyes I know I am still here. Michael and I use our cell phones as alarm clocks, as they have a more pleasant sound that you can set instead of this nuclear power plant alert sound.
Joe sits up on the side of the bed and rubs his eyes, then shuffles to the bathroom. I turn back over on my side and close my eyes again. I hear a flush and water from the sink, then he is back in the room.
“Aren’t you getting up?” he grumbles.
Does he really expect me to get up with him and get him off to work? I stay put. I’m going to hold my ground this time. During our marriage, I catered to his needs too much, and mine were sacrificed. That is going to change if I’m going to be stuck here.
“I thought you wanted to get into work early this morning,” he says, with a puzzled look on his face, his voice edged with irritation.
I work? Oh crap. I begin to fret. Now I have to learn something else new about myself, like where the hell do I work? I sit up, rub my face and eyes, and prepare for another long stressful day. I can go with the flow when I have to, but 24 hours a day is starting to take a toll on me. Joe leaves the bedroom and goes to the kitchen to turn on the coffee pot. Thank God. Apparently he CAN do something helpful, like Michael would do.
I few minutes later I hear him head to Olivia’s room and coax her awake. I am noticing that he seems more involved as a father than I remember. Even during dinner he cut up her chicken and got her more milk. I wonder what brought on this subtle change.
I hop into the shower to wash my face and wake up my body, but keep my hair dry to save time. I’m grateful to find a set of hot rollers to add a little style to my limp and unshaped hair. My makeup supply leaves much to be desired, nothing like what I use in the future. It’s an interesting insight into how I cared for myself in the past -- maybe another reflection of putting my needs last. No mineral-based foundation, no anti-aging creams, no quality mascara. Just the economy line for this girl! Oh well. However, I notice my complexion is nicer than the future version of me, so I guess I will have to make the most of what I have at hand.
When I go to get dressed, I have to make do again with what I can find in the closet in the way of work attire. It seems I have a satisfactory pair of black dress pants and a white blouse that is more fitting than the others. I add some color with a pink tank top and settle for the simple black pumps in the back of the closet.
I hear Joe try to open the bedroom door, but I have locked it. He doesn’t have any right to see me naked. “Hey, why is the door locked?” he asks, annoyed.
I quickly rush to open it. “Sorry,” I grumble.
“You look nice,” he comments, when he
sees me. In my mind I look plain and underdressed.
“Thanks,” I say, feeling a little bad that if this is what his version of my looking “nice” is, then what do I normally look like in his eyes?
Olivia is watching a morning show and eating a nutrition-less kid’s cereal at the coffee table.
Oh, hell no, I say in my mind, my mama instincts flaring. That sugary junk is going out of this house immediately. It’s not a weekend, when special treats are allowed. She is going to school and needs to start her day out right.
“Olivia, would you like some yogurt with granola?” I ask her.
She makes a funny face at me. “No,” she says, looking disgusted.
I walk into the kitchen and make myself a bowl, then I coax her to take a bite.
