Heart Beat Here

Chapter 1

SIXTEEN

The night after it happens she just has so many questions, but the big one is: What about tomorrow? And then, if she could ask a follow-up, it would be: Does time stop or will it go on without me?

At first, the questions are because of that project at work that has her considering quitting her job for good. The work is good money, enough to keep both of them afloat, though it's not something she's ever wanted to do and that hasn't changed in the two years that she's been there, even if her boss keeps telling her that she's doing good work. Still, she can't afford to lose her job now.

With a little more thought, the questions are because without her, without tomorrow, Lisa has no one.

--

At twenty-four, she had woken up in her sixteen year-old body and in her sixteen year-old life. She had woken up to familiar walls plastered with bad charcoal drawings and sloppy watercolors. She'd shaken her head and closed her eyes and then closed them tighter. She'd run her finger along the furniture - her old desk, with the hearts etched into it with whiteout, her old lava lamp that would shatter at eighteen on college move-in day, her family pictures, of her mom, of her dad.



"Jennie? Come on, honey, it's time to get up." She froze at the sound of her mother's voice. It's a voice she hasn't heard in years. Not since college graduation. This room is pre- college graduation, pre- high school graduation even.

There's a quick rapping on the door. "Jennie! Now." It's the hurried, frustrated tone that's familiar, if she thinks back to the last time, the last several times, in fact, that she talked to her mom.

Her fingers are still frozen on the corner of the picture frame. She notices the chipped finger nail polish and the dried paint staining her palms. She looks down her body and sees her old gym tee-shirt and her favorite sleep shorts, considerably less threadbare. There's no scar on her shin. Her hips don't quite fill out these shorts in the way that she's used to.

She turns toward the mirror above her desk. Her fingers trace her cheeks, a little chubbier, but not much. Still familiar. Then to her eyebrows, a little less kempt. Her nose, her eyes, her dimpled chin - the exact same.

It's a dream. Certainly. She's dreaming again. Of home. Of how things once were. Of childhood pleasures and family and all of the things she misses so acutely.

Except it feels so real. The smell of toast and bacon. Her mother's voice. The feel of the whitewashed old, creaking hardwood beneath her bare feet.

"Jennie. Let's go." Her body freezes again and her eyes dart up to stare at the reflection of her bedroom door in the mirror. She wants to spend more time contemplating her youth in the mirror, running her fingers over possessions once lost to time, wondering if all of this really could be real. But her dad's voice is on the other side of the door and she just has to find out.

"Dad?" She's standing in the hallway and sees the bathroom door cracked open, the electric razor buzzing from behind the door. She walks toward the light, toward the sound. "Dad?" she asks again, louder this time.

She sees his broad shoulders first. She can see him turning toward her, opening the door. She doesn't want to look. She's had this nightmare before - her father's voice, her father's body, and then it disappears and she's jarred awake and there isn't enough oxygen in the room to fill her lungs. When it happens, Lisa wakes with her and pulls Jennie into her and despite the same nightmare every few months, Lisa's tether never strains. She always tugs Jennie back into the calm.

It won't be him, she tries to convince herself.

But it is.

"What are you doing, Jennie?" He says as she shuffles closer. "We need to go in fifteen minutes."

She can't answer. She can only look. She inches closer. She has to touch him.

At any moment, she knows that she'll wake, shaking in Lisa's arms.

"Jennie, go get changed. What are you doing?" Her hand is on his arm and she still must be dreaming and she feels tears prick her eyes. She's not entirely sure what she's doing except just making sure.

"Dad?" She whispers.

"What's wrong, honey?"

If only for an instant, she's suddenly aware. She wipes her eyes and steps back out of the bathroom, back into her room. She's not awake and she's not in Lisa's arms and her dad felt so real, so solid, so strong. So different from the last time she saw him. She's not awake and she's not in Lisa's arms and she has no idea what's going on.

She's not exactly sure how to wake herself up from this dream, but if she does, her father's gone and she's just on the other side of lonely, back at home in the tiny apartment she shares with Lisa. If she doesn't wake up from this dream, he's real.

She resolves to stop trying. To stop shaking her head and hoping to feel Lisa's arms pulling her close. If only for this moment, in this dream, she'll have her father back instead.

She pulls on the sundress and sweater that are hanging on her closet door and maybe she's not meant to wake up from this dream just yet.

"Jennie, we really need to leave honey. Your grandmother is waiting on us," her mother's voice echoes from the bottom of the stairs.

Some pieces start to come together. It's Easter morning. She's struggling to remember which Easter this is. Her mom's fixing her lipstick in the car and her dad is wearing the jacket that has the patches over the elbows. They're in the wagon. It could be any year in high school, really. Everything is familiar, but in a sickening way and she wonders if waking up from this is even an option.

This is not some dream where she will wake up just before the big moment hits. The big moment has already happened. She's seen her dad, spoken to her dad, touched her dad. He was real. She's never made it that far in her previous dreams - or maybe they're nightmares. Those always stop just before she reaches out to touch him. Not this time.

Nor is this some dream where the bizarre overtakes the ordinary, some dream where monsters lurk in the shadows and everyone’s speaking jibber jabber. Everyone seems to be behaving just as she remembers. (Except maybe for her and her shell-shocked, wide-eyed looks at everyone around her.)

Her grandmother's house is the same as it's always been, a huge Victorian on top of a hill, just like a movie. When she was a girl, on snow days off from school, Jennie and best friend would glide down that hill and dangerously close to the stream at the bottom. After a few hours, they'd retreat to the room in the spire, sipping hot chocolate and whispering about boys.

"Hi dearie," her grandmother clucks, then wraps her arms around Jennie. Her knit sweater scratches at Jennie's skin and for a moment Jennie sinks into feeling that everything is just as it always has been.

"Hi, Grandma. Happy Easter." It's the third or fourth thing she's said since waking up this morning and her voice sounds like it's been out of use for years, scratchy and sore and tired.

"Everything alright, Jennie?" she asks. Her fingers slowly grasp at Jennie's and her skin feels paper thin.

"Yes." Jennie's fingers grip a little too hard. Her grandmother winces before Jennie realizes and quickly lets up. She's still just making sure.

"Alright, love. We've got a feast today, and then you're going to help with the egg dying for the neighborhood children this afternoon."

She remembers now. This is not new. This is not a dream. There are no strange monsters or eerie settings. This is sixteen and it certainly seems real enough.

This is the Easter where her mom scolds her dad for playing too rough and ripping the patch on his jacket and the Easter where the skin on her hands is cracked and sore from dying eggs with the neighborhood kids for too long. There is nothing particularly special about this Easter, as far as she can remember, but at least she remembers now.

Still, if this isn't a dream, if it really is real, what's so special about this Easter? Why is she living it all over again?

Everything happens exactly as it should, with one exception. The exception is her. Not a moment goes by without someone asking if she's alright, without someone's hand grazing her elbow or her shoulder, without someone's concerned eye directed at her. She wants to ask: Am I dreaming? Are you real? but she doesn't want to worry anyone. She's worried enough about what's to come.



She stays up late that night. She's not quite sure why her parents let her, but she finds herself in the living room at half past one. It's deep into the night. At this time last night, she was curled into Lisa, pulling her body tight, still hanging on. She was squeezing her eyes shut, blinking back tears, worried that Lisa could feel them threatening. She was breathing a sigh of relief when Lisa's sleepy form turned into her, lips ghosting her neck, hand idly tracing her back.

Instead, tonight, she's up late and attempting to look interested in the novel she found in her book bag, which she remembers is for school. Really, though, she's caught up in glancing at her father's sleeping figure, gently snoring in the armchair facing the television. His hands have the faintest tint of greens and pinks and blues, too, just like her own.



"Jennie," she feels fingertips brush against her scalp. "Jennie, let's go up to bed, honey." It doesn't sound like Lisa, but she thinks it should. She was asleep and dreaming and now she's waking up from this dream.

Instead, her mother hovers over her from behind the couch. Her fingers move through Jennie's scalp and she offers a gentle smile.

"Mom?" She's been wrapped up in her dad's presence all day and she's just now fully aware of her mom. She's noticing the softness of her eyes, her unforced smile, the way her fingertips soothe her. She wonders when she last interacted with this version of her mom. Whether she ever interacted with this version of her mom. Or maybe she was just a surly teen and this version of her mom was with her all along. And then, once everything happened, this version of her mom was lost forever.

She stumbles up to bed, her mom anchoring her from behind. She misses this unconditional love, this love that doesn't take any work. Over the past few years, it feels like she's been working so hard for love and for so long. It's not that she minds working hard for love, it's just that it is so different from the unconditional type.

She wonders if she'll wake up beside Lisa tomorrow morning. Lisa will be clicking away at her laptop already and Jennie will be dragging herself into the shower to get ready for work. Lisa will push her glasses up into her hair and whisper "Good morning, Jennie," in that way that Jennie hated at first but then couldn't live without.

She wonders if she'll wake up in this house and in this bed tomorrow morning, instead. Her mom's heels will be clicking on the hardwood floors downstairs and Jennie will be dragging herself into the shower to get ready for school. Her dad will pull the electric razor back from his dimpled chin for a moment to say "Good morning, Jennie."

And maybe she'll get to fix everything this time around.