Forever Layla: A Time Travel Romance

by Melissa Turner Lee

  When I’d finished, David reached in his pocket, pulled out a tissue, and handed it to me. “Want to know where I’ve just been?”

  “Where?” I sniffled as I wiped my eyes and nose.

  “Myrtle Beach 1994 where I watched a goofy kid meet the girl of his dreams.” He pulled me closer, and I let him keep his arm around me. “We’ve had the most beautiful life together.”

  I smiled a halfhearted smile at him. “Yes, we have.” I moved away from him. “I need to get back in there now.”

  “Until we meet again, either on earth or in heaven.”

  I nodded at him and dried my eyes as I headed back around to the door. It was time to get back to my life and finish living it.

  *

  THAT NIGHT, I HELD DJ close to me as I read one of his comic books to him. I kissed the top of his head and breathed in his scent. He still used the tearless baby shampoo. I loved that smell. I squeezed him closer. He was losing that baby softness though, little by little. “I love you, my little man. Did you have a good birthday?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  I kissed him again. “I’m going to my room now, but I’m going to miss you so much.” I always said that as I walked to the switch and turned off the light. I stepped into the hall, closed his door, and rested my head against it.

  I made my way to my room and climbed in bed next to David. He was reading a science journal.

  “I start my classes in Conway next Monday. I’ll be going down every other week for a couple days each week. Do you think you guys will be okay?” I asked.

  “We’ll be fine. We’ll eat junk food and stay up late. DJ will love it,” David said.

  “I’m sure he will.” I leaned closer to him. “It will be good for you to take care of him alone some. Good for both of you.”

  David leaned in and kissed me. “But we will miss you.”

  “And I will miss you.” I grabbed him around the neck and pulled him to me, kissing him again with all that was in me. He dropped his journal to the floor and rolled onto me with the kiss. There wasn’t enough time left, but what I had would be full of as many beautiful memories as I could create.

  Chapter 19

  March 3rd, 2003

  David

  I SLIPPED SOUNDLESSLY INTO THE dim hospital room, not wanting to wake her. I swallowed back the tears as I took a seat beside her bed. It couldn’t be true. Layla was too young to be dying. Cancer. It was one of those far off ugly words that belonged to older people. Not young healthy women with young children. Not my Layla. Other than when she was pregnant, she had never gone to the doctor.

  I bowed my head and stifled the cries as best I could, but they came anyway. This wasn’t part of the dream. Layla and I were meant to be together. We were supposed to grow old together. I was supposed to discover time travel and get rich and pay her back for all the years she supported my dream. I was working so hard to get to that place with her.

  Time travel seemed like a ridiculous childhood dream next to this. I should have been gifted with formulas to cure cancer. I needed a way to save my wife…to save my son’s mother. A child needs a mother. My body shook with the effort to keep the emotion in, while the cry of anguish rattled inside me like an animal in a cage, demanding release.

  “Shhhh… please don’t do that.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  I glanced toward the bed. “I’m sorry I woke you. You need your rest. Go back to sleep.”

  “I’m about to get plenty of sleep. I think I want to spend the time that I have left awake as often as possible. It’s all we have.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? You knew. All this time you knew.”

  Layla shook her head and swallowed. “Why did we both need to suffer? Besides, I couldn’t change it, and I couldn’t live a life dwelling on it. I tried to live your dream with you and act like this day wasn’t coming.”

  “Those occasional nights I caught you crying in your pillow. The way you put DJ to bed at night and always said, ‘I’m going to miss you so much.’ You weren’t talking about going to bed in the next room.”

  She turned her head and faced the other wall. “I…what was I supposed to do? You know where I came from. You know what my task was—to support you, your gift, and the visions you had, and make them real. There is another me who is still out there growing up, and she is going to hear stories of you and Layla. And those stories are going to set her heart afire. They are going to make her daydream of a life with her mad scientist prince working with all his might to create time travel so he can once again see his Layla. My death is part of the catalyst for the discovery.” She turned to face me, her eyes rimmed red from tears. “And some more important ones to come.”

  “That’s what finally fuels my breakthrough? I’m trying to get back to you?”

  She nodded. “And you will.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know.”

  “Have I visited you, from the future?” I asked as my eyes widened at the thought.

  Layla nodded.

  “Then this isn’t the end.”

  “You’ve read the Bible. You know this isn’t the end either way.”

  I crumbled over onto her bed, crying into her neck. “How am I supposed to say goodbye to you?”

  “Don’t say goodbye. Say ‘until we meet again, either on earth or in heaven.’ It’s a farewell with a promise.”

  Layla tried to push herself up, but I didn’t let her. “Please rest.”

  “I need to tell you—I’ve known this was coming, so I’ve made some arrangements for you. I have been putting money away and purchased as much life insurance as I could without looking suspicious. I also purchased another house for you and DJ.”

  “Another house?”

  “Duke didn’t just leave me the business– he left me his house, his money, and everything. I used that money to buy the house near your new college down in Conway.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I needed you to live normally. It’s where I’ve been going every other week. I couldn’t risk changing anything. It was all on me to save everyone else. I did the best I could. But the house, it is a gift for you guys. It’s full of things to help you remember and set up to make new memories.”

  I was about to tell her she was wrong when someone knocked on the door and entered. A pair of doctors stood in the door. One was a silver-haired doctor who looked to be in his late fifties next to a dark-haired doctor, much younger. They both smiled politely. They looked familiar, but I couldn’t remember if they were the doctors I’d spoken with the day before or not.

  “We are here to check Mrs. Foster. Could you step outside for a bit?”

  “Yes.” I moved closer to Layla’s bed. “I’ll be just outside.”

  “When was the last time you’ve eaten?” she asked.

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Go get something to eat and bring our son here. I want to see DJ.”

  I nodded. “Okay, I will.”

  I drove to Mom’s house in a blur. Just the day before all was well until Layla collapsed. Why hadn’t she told me about her chronic nausea? Why did she feel like it was all on her? In a day, she went from being a healthy, young woman to having stage IV stomach cancer with cancer in the lymph nodes, liver, and pancreas. It was too late for treatment.

  I parked and lumbered up the steps, trying to come up with something to say to DJ. How was I going to prepare him for this? I opened the door and Mom ran to me and threw her arms around me. Dad soon joined her in the hug as I wept.

  I finally pulled away from them. “I’ve come to get something to eat and take DJ to see Layla.”

  My mom turned away from me, covering her mouth, weeping as my dad put a hand on my shoulder. “The hospital just called looking for you.”

  I checked my cell phone in my pocket and saw that it was dead. “What did they want?”

  “I’m sorry son.”

  I looked up at him, tr
ying to make sense. “What?”

  They both just stared and cried.

  “No!” I pointed my finger in my dad’s face and said it again, “No!”

  I turned and marched out of the house and into the yard down to my truck. I opened the door only to slam it shut again before kicking it. I took my fist and slammed it into the side of the truck, feeling my skin give way on impact. I crumpled on the ground as a sharp, numbing pain sliced through me.

  Mom came and knelt beside me. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Does DJ know?”

  “No. I left that for you, but if it’s too much, I will.”

  I stood and stared at the house. “No, I’ll do it. I’m all he has left.” I headed for the house, trying to think of how to tell a six-year-old boy that his mom was gone.

  *

  DJ SAT SILENTLY ON THE church pew beside me, kicking his legs. At six, he knew his mother was gone from us, but didn’t completely comprehend it all. I stared at the urn at the front of the church completely numb as the lady by the piano sang "Amazing Grace." A pot of ashes was all that was left of my wife. Those doctors had sent me away, and I never saw her again. She’d arranged everything to spare me, but it only made me angry. Had she always seen me as the stupid boy she had married? Could she not see me as a man—her husband she could lean on and turn to? I didn’t need to be shielded from everything. The mixture of loving her and missing her and being so very angry at her with no way to tell her...the muddle of emotions I’d lived with for days now.

  The music stopped, and we all filed out as a family and were taken to the fellowship hall where a meal was prepared for us. Mom took DJ and made a plate for him, but I wasn’t hungry. I stepped outside and paced back and forth, alone in the spring air. There was still a chill, and I’d left my jacket inside. I spun suddenly and punched the brick wall. My knuckles made a thump while the skin over it gave way and blood poured.

  The door opened, and Michael came out and saw me. “Man, what have you done?” He stepped back inside before showing up again with a roll of paper towels and a bag of ice. He started to wrap my wrist, but I snatched it all from him.

  “Let me do it. I’m not a kid.”

  Michael’s hands went up in surrender. “I didn’t say you were.”

  “I’m sorry, man. I’m just not myself.”

  He pulled me over to a set of picnic tables, and we had a seat. “I can understand that.”

  “Thanks for coming. I’m sorry I haven’t kept up with you much since the band split up. Life got busy.”

  “I get it. You had a wife and a kid, and I was still living the free life. But I’m still here for you.”

  “Thanks. What are you doing these days?”

  “Sales. I sell quality meats to high-end restaurants. I’m doing pretty good. Lots of travel.”

  “I’m happy for you.” I stood. “I need to get back in and check on DJ.”

  Michael stood and patted my back. “I’ll go in with you.”

  We walked back in together as I prepared myself for another round of people telling me how sorry they were. Moving suddenly sounded like a great idea. A chance to be away from people who would constantly ask me how I was doing.

  Chapter 20

  David

  I PULLED UP TO THE house Layla had purchased. It was a restored two-story Colonial. Grand and classic like her. I stepped out of the truck and stood there for a moment. Why did I need to move here? Layla’s instructions said this is where I would make the breakthrough.

  DJ was out of his booster seat and trying to open the truck door. I’d been a lousy father lately, just going through the motions. He deserved better. I opened the door and grabbed him around the waist. “Let’s fly like Superman.” I pulled him up, glided him through the air, before placing him on the ground beside me. “Let’s go check out our new house.”

  I ambled to the door, put the key in the knob, and turned. I stepped into the entryway and found an open floor plan. The house was furnished. Everything about it was Layla. I stepped forward to the stairway and up to the first landing. Pictures lined the wall our wedding... birthdays. The wedding cake topper sat on a shelf in the corner, with the selfie of us drinking champagne just below it. I took the wedding picture down and held it to my chest as I sat down on the stairs and started crying. Man, I was such a girl.

  I looked up and realized DJ wasn’t in the house. He hadn’t followed me. I charged out the front door, forgetting the picture was still in my hand.

  “DJ!”

  I glanced about, heading back for the truck to see if maybe he got back in it. “DJ, where are you son?”

  He wasn’t there.

  Panic filled my heart at the thought of losing him too. “DJ!”

  I ran around to the backyard. There in the yard was a fort swing set. DJ sat on one of the swings while a girl, about twice his height, with messy mud-colored hair pushed him. I stepped closer. The girl looked to be about eleven or twelve and wore old worn clothes. She looked all disheveled with dirt smudged on her cheeks.

  I sighed. “DJ, I told you to follow me. I didn’t know where you were.”

  “I was about to, but then Lauren Kate came outside and asked me if we were the new neighbors.”

  The plain-looking girl grinned at me.

  I stuck out my hand, unsure of what else to do. “Nice to meet you.”

  She stood there awkwardly for few moments before she took it quickly and let go of it just as quickly.

  “What’s that?” DJ took the photo from me. “It’s you and Mom.”

  The messy girl looked over his shoulder. “She looks like a movie star.”

  “That’s my mom,” DJ answered her.

  “She’s very pretty.”

  “She died.”

  The little girl bent down on DJ’s level. “I’m sorry. My mom died too when I was almost four. I don’t remember a lot about her.”

  “Daddy’s going to make a time machine and go back to get her, and I’m going to figure out a cure for cancer so I can save her when he does.”

  The girl’s mud-brown eyes grew wide as she looked up at me.

  I grabbed hold of DJ and pulled him to my side. “It was nice meeting you, Lori.”

  “Lauren Kate.”

  “Sorry, Lauren Kate, but we need to look around our house and unpack. Maybe DJ can come back out and play later.”

  “See ya later, DJ. Maybe we could read some of your comic books later.”

  “Okay. I’ll bring some to the fort when I come back out.”

  I pulled DJ into the house and closed the door before kneeling to his level. “DJ, you can’t go around telling people about my plans for time travel.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it makes us sound crazy. And what was that you told her about you making a cure for cancer?”

  “Yeah, that’s my plan. You go get her, and I’ll cure her.”

  “That’s sweet, but you’re just a kid.”

  “I won’t always be a kid. I keep seeing it in my head. They are these bubbles popping off, making more bubbles, but then some of them start making dirty bubbles, and more dirty bubbles pop off those to make more dirty bubbles. I’ve got to figure out how to make the bubbles clean again.”

  “Where did you see this? On television?”

  “No, in my head. Sometimes I just see, and it’s like there is a hill between me and the answer to make the dirty bubbles clean again, and I’ve just got to get over that hill and find it.”

  I did a half-smile as I felt a new kinship with my boy. “Wait right here.”

  I walked out to the truck and opened the box where I kept empty notebooks and took it inside. I knelt down and handed it to him. “This is your first notebook. Whenever you see the bubbles in your head, write down what you see.”

  “What if I can’t spell all the words right yet?”

  “Write it the best you can or draw a picture. When this notebook is full, put it under your bed, and I’ll give you anot
her one.”

  DJ smiled, and I gave him a big hug. “Now run upstairs and see if you can figure out which room mom made for you.”

  DJ went up the stairs, when a knock came from the door behind me. I turned around to find Michael staring at me through the screen door. He was clean shaven, in a form-fitting polo shirt and khakis. I smiled at him and motioned him, thinking about how, in Layla’s words, he used to dress like a lumberjack.

  “Get in here.” I met him with a hug and a slap on the back. “I’m glad you could join us. Did Shelly come with you?”

  “No, Shelly and I aren’t together anymore.”

  “I’m sorry about that. I thought maybe she was going to be the one.”

  “Not everyone gets a Layla.”

  “How long are you staying?”

  “I can stay about six days, and then it’s about six weeks out at my sales territory. I was thinking since that’s kind of my pattern that maybe I could make this my home base for a while. Help you with the kid and all.”

  “Sure, but no women in and out of here. Okay?”

  “No problem.”

  *

  WE BROUGHT ALL OUR CLOTHES in, and mysteriously, Layla already had a room for Michael with pictures of 90s alternative bands all around the room. The fridge was even stocked with Cheerwine for me and juice boxes for DJ. Us guys were all in the kitchen deciding what to do for dinner when the doorbell rang.

  “It’s probably Lauren Kate.” DJ ran to the door and pulled it open. “Dad, it’s a delivery for you.” I followed him to the door and found a woman holding a floral arrangement on the porch.

  “Delivery for David Foster.”

  “I’m David”

  “Here you go. Have a great evening.”

  I took the flowers and brought them into the kitchen and placed them on the table.

  “Who are those from?” Michael asked as I opened the card to find out.