Starting Over

The crushing headache was expected, and having every nerve ending screaming like she was being electrocuted. But it only lasted a moment, as she had been promised, and she swam back to consciousness moaning and cradling her head. The pain faded quickly, almost instantly, and she slowly raised her head and looked around.  

Sarah expected to be disoriented, so she wasn’t alarmed that she couldn’t place where she was right away. She should be in the bedroom she shared with her sister in the apartment on Glendale Road. She was in bed, and no one was in the dim room with her. She sat up cautiously and put her feet on the ground. She had studied the few pictures she had of this apartment – her childhood bedroom with Ellen was mint green with two twin beds against the walls, a few scant feet between them. This was familiar, but didn’t seem right. She was on the edge of a double bed with a blue and white knit afghan. The room seemed huge – she couldn’t reach over and touch the other bed. Didn’t they always say things were smaller than you remembered?  Was she in her mom’s bed?  

That must be it. She couldn’t remember ever waking up in her mom’s bed when she was in seventh grade, but she must have. She groped around and found the bedside lamp. Why was nothing where it was supposed to be? Had she forgotten so much of her childhood?

She carefully stood up, then looked down and froze. She was wearing a short silky pink nightie, like a slip. She had never owned anything like that as a child. Her mom insisted on full coverage pajamas, with so many people in the apartment. Had she been kidnapped? She didn’t remember that, either.

She was still standing frozen a moment later, trying to figure out what had happened, when a man walked into the room.  Her heart caught in her throat, and her first thought Someone broke in!  Her second thought was Why don’t I remember that?  

Then she realized the man was holding an infant, and he smiled at her. 

It all clicked and her stomach dropped and she felt like she was going to throw up.  She remembered this room now.

“Jerry?” she whispered. 

“Hi, sweetie.” He came over and handed her the baby and she took it automatically.  “Emily woke up early.  Are you OK? Did I hear you yell or something?” 

“No,” Sarah said. “No, no. no.  This isn’t right.” 

“Are you OK?” Jerry stepped closer and put a hand on her back. Her knees gave out and she sat back on the bed, him supporting her. 

“No.” She looked around frantically. The baby had wrapped its little hand in her nightgown and laid its head on her chest. By seventh grade she had held a baby maybe three times in her life, so that’s what finally convinced her of what had happened.  This felt like the most natural thing in the world, and her arms and body wrapped around the little thing like it belonged there. Which it did, of course.

“This is supposed to be seventh grade,” she said. “Beginning of summer right after seventh grade. This isn’t right.” Even through her panic she was automatically rocking the baby. Emily. Rocking Emily, her baby. Her first baby.   

“What is seventh grade?” Jerry was looking concerned, his brow furrowed, as he sat next to her. But he was young! So young. With hair, and some muscle, and no pot belly, and a smooth baby face. Once she focused on him, she couldn’t take her eyes off of him. 

“How old are you?” she asked. 

“What?”  

“How old am I? What year is it?”  

“Sarah, are you ok? Do you know where you are?”

“Just – please. What year is it?” she asked again.

“It’s 1986. You are 22, I’m 24. Emily is six months old. Are you having a stroke? Should I call an ambulance?”  

“Oh my God. Where are we? I mean, what address?  What town?”  She was rocking the baby more frantically and he reached over and eased Emily out of her arms.

“Sarah, it’s OK. We are at 3543 Cleander. Wilmington. We moved here two years ago, right after we got married.” 

“No,” she moaned. “It’s too late. They never said this could happen.”  

“Sarah, it’s ok.” He wrapped an arm around her, cuddling the baby with the other arm. “Just tell me what going on.” 

“I was supposed to come back to 1976. Right before eighth grade. That was the last chance to change things. I could do really well in eighth grade, go to a different high school, go to college. Now it’s going to be the same!” She was crying now, for all the lost chances, all the years of being stuck crashing in on her at once.

“Shh, sweetheart, it’s ok. It was just a dream.” He left her for a moment, but it was just to put Emily in a bouncer seat. He came right back and wrapped her up in his arms and kissed her head. “Sarah, it’s me. It’s Ok. Everyone is Ok.” 

“No.” She shook her head against him, even as she burrowed her head into his chest. “I never go back to school. We have three kids in less than three years. Jeremy has ADHD and dyslexia – I spend my whole life in IEP meetings. God, he’s a rough kid. Poor Emily – she has to grow up so fast.”  She shakes her head back and forth, tears soaking into his shirt. “I can’t. I can’t, Jerry. I don’t know how I did it the first time.”  

He gently stroked her back. “What’s an IEP?” he asked.  

“You leave me.” She pulled back and looked at him, her face stricken. “That was the last thing. I just shut down. You said I had left you a long time ago. What could I do? I tried, Jerry. I tried so hard!”  She was wailing now, huge sobs shaking her. Little Emily startled in her seat.  

“No," he said. "It was a dream. It never happened. Sarah. Look at me.” He gently moved her face to look at him. “Look at me. I will never leave you. I don’t care if we have a dozen kids, and they’re all – I don’t know – hamsters. I promise.”  

She choked back a laugh, despite herself. “I thought you were having an affair. I thought we could fix that. But you weren’t. You just didn’t want to be around us!” 

“No, no.” He pulled her close and wrapped her up again, stroking her back. “Sarah, stop. It was a dream. It never happened. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. You are going back to school when Emily is three, remember? It’s ok. I’m right here.” He cradled her and kissed her head, and finally she started to calm.  

“It doesn’t have to go that way?” she asked, her voice shaky.  

“No, it is not going that way. It was a dream.” 

“Do you love me?” she asked, her voice still shaky.

“Oh my God. I love you so much. More than anything in the world. Why would you dream something like that? Baby, I’m here. No matter what.” She felt him still, the gentle rocking paused, as he became lost in thought. “The baby’s a lot, isn’t it?” he asked.  “I know we didn’t plan on it so soon. Is that what’s hard? How can I help?”  

“I loved that baby so much.” A sob escaped her. “It hurts how much I love her. But I remember, it felt like the rest of my life disappeared sometimes.”  

“I’m here,” he repeated. “It’s ok.”  

“My mom!” She sat bolt upright. “Is my mom OK? I don’t remember when –“  

“Yes, of course. We saw her last week.” 

“Oh thank God. I need to see her. She never met our little one, Charlie.  She was gone. And I was so busy with Emily and Jeremy -” She broke into tears again.  

“Sure. We’ll call her,” he said reassuringly, but his face was etched in worry. “Sarah, it was a dream. Wow. So I’m going to call in, I’ll stay home with you and Emily today. OK?” 

“You never call in sick.” She frowned up at him. “You were working all the time.” 

“What the hell? What kind of dream was this? I’m home all the time. Two weeks ago I took a day so you could get your nails done with your mom.” 

“Oh, yeah.” She held up a hand and looked at her nails, still pink and sparkly. “I forgot. We never did that when I was a kid. That was so much fun.”  She leaned up against him again.  “It’s later, I think, that you aren’t around much. After you get the promotion.” 

“I get promoted?” He cradled her head, and smiled when she finally slipped her arms around him. “That’s nice.” 

“Division head, actually. At Clarkson.”  

“I’m not at Clarkson. I’m shift manager at Safeway.”  

“You will be. You don’t really like it, though. You have to travel so much, and there’s a lot of pressure. You hate shareholders.” 

He laughed. “I hate shareholders? I’m not even sure what a shareholder is.”  

“We have to think about that when it comes. I know it’s hard to turn down a promotion, but you were miserable. We all were.”  

“All right, sweetheart. We’ll think about it.” He pulled back to look at her again. “Are you OK now? You know it was just a dream?”  

“Oh – sure, why not?” She sat up and wiped her tears away. “They told us not to tell, but it doesn’t matter. You don’t believe me anyway, do you?”  

“Believe what?” 

“I’m 62. I lived a whole life and messed up most of it, and I paid someone a lot of money to send me back so I could do it right.”  

“Um.” The worried look was back on his face. “Do you want me to believe that?”  

“No.” She took a breath and sat up. She managed a weak smile. “If you did believe that, or anyway if you thought I believed that, you would have to get me locked up, huh? No, just a dream.”  She shook her head. “Wait. Listen, though. How would you feel if we don’t have any more kids?”  

“Um – sad, I guess. We both always wanted a big family. We can talk about it, I hope, but I can’t make you have kids.”  

“It’s just – Jeremy is rough. We try so hard, and bail him out of jail, and I don’t even know where he is now. Well, I mean in 2024. And Charlie –“ A long breath shuddered through her body. “You were in Phoenix for work when the accident happened. That’s what tore us up, I think. I knew that wasn’t your fault, but I could not forgive you for being gone when he died.” 

“When he died? We had a kid that died?”   

“It was horrible.” She looked at him with wide eyes.  “Oh my God. I just realized – no matter what, we won’t have those kids. It won’t be the same egg and sperm. Jeremy and Charlie will never exist.” 

“Oh – kay. It’s sounds like you didn’t want those kids anyway,” Jerry said cautiously.   

“I don’t know what I want. But my babies!” She burst into tears again.  

Jerry patted her gingerly. “Sarah, I’m starting to get a little freaked out. Is this real, or not? Are you ok? I am just about to go get you checked out for a mental breakdown or something.”  

“Ok. You’re right. I better get it together.” She sat up again, grabbed the tissue box and wiped her nose. “We got this, right?” 

“You bet we got this, sweetheart. Whatever it is.”  

“I had forgotten. I forgot it was so great when we started. I thought I had to skip the whole thing.”  

“Getting weird again, Sarah.”  

“No, just a dream,” she said hurriedly. “Ha ha, what a crazy dream. But no one died, and you aren’t a division head, and I’m going back to school, and Emily is great, and you love me. And I adore you, by the way. I forgot.” 

“You forgot you adored me?” he asked. 

“It was a long time ago,” she explained, then at his look added, “What a crazy dream, right? Anyway, it’s fine now. I can change things. We just go from here.”  

“So you’re ok? We’re good?”

“Yes. Yeah, I’m ok. It’s gonna be ok.” She took a big breath.  

“Well, good.” He leaned back and heaved a sigh of his own. “Welcome back, I guess.” 

“Oh, sweetheart!” She threw her arms around him, holding on tight. “Thank you! It’s so good to be back!”