The Comeback Mom

by Muriel Jensen

  She tried to jump back, slipped, felt a painful blow to the back of her head and fell into a well of blackness.

  Chapter One

  Libby felt like a pressed cookie—as if she’d been stuffed into a tube, forced through a barbed opening and then baked. She was hot, bruised, and though she had yet to open her eyes, she knew that the single bright light that had knocked her down had somehow reshaped her.

  Just before it struck her, she’d deduced that the light had been attached to the front of a bicycle. She remembered that her last thought before oblivion had been that she couldn’t quite believe this could happen to someone twice in one lifetime. And in front of the same restaurant!

  But it had, as the pain in every limb bore out.

  She opened her eyes and blinked against the bright sunlight coming through the window. She focused on pale-green curtains, white acoustical ceiling tiles, a blank television screen perched on a shelf in a corner.

  She groaned again. The hospital. Just like last time.

  She moved arms and legs carefully, and was relieved to discover that although they caused her great pain, they did seem to be functioning. So she’d been lucky, just as she had been last time. Nothing broken.

  She opened her eyes again, the sounds of quiet conversation filtering into the room as she continued to explore her surroundings. She noticed a smiling face drawn in red felt-tip pen on the wall just opposite the foot of the bed.

  She frowned at that little detail. This must be the same room she’d occupied ten years ago. All hospital rooms did look alike, but she particularly remembered that smiley face. It amazed her that in ten years the housekeeping staff hadn’t painted over it, or found a cleaner that would remove it.

  At least, she thought bracingly, Doris Farthingale, the Gestapo-trained nurse who’d taken care of her ten years ago and who had terrified all the aides and volunteers, had been months from retirement back then. Maybe one of the younger nurses would still be here and they could reminisce.

  “All right, look alive!” a husky voice said. She snatched Libby’s wrist with all the delicacy of a lioness on the hunt and stared at her watch. “So, you’re finally back. You’ve been in and out all night. Maybe we’ll give you some breakfast.”

  It was the same voice. Not only that, those were the same words—verbatim—that she’d heard ten years ago.

  No. That was impossible. Or coincidence. Certainly a nurse could choose to work beyond retirement—but ten years beyond it?

  Libby eyed Farthingale as the nurse concentrated on her watch. She didn’t look ten years older. Of course, middle-aged woman could look the same for a long period. But she thought she remembered that home-done perm in the process of growing out. It looked like a hairstyle Bozo would have been comfortable with.

  Libby peered up into the same square face, saw the same no-nonsense, serviceable twitch of muscle that passed for a smile.

  “Strong. Doctor’s on his way to see you. Everything looks good, though you were out a couple of days. Hit your head on the brick walk. Soon as the doctor’s finished, I’ll let your friends in. They’ve been driving me crazy! Oh. And the nurses in Pediatrics said hello.”

  Libby felt gooseflesh break out on her scalp and along her arms as the nurse pushed the controls on the bed that placed her in a sitting position. This conversation was ten years old. But that couldn’t be.

  She thought back a decade, trying to remember what had happened next. She’d asked about the Bonellos. No. That had been later. First she’d asked what day it was.

  “Doris?” she called as the woman pulled the door open.

  Farthingale turned at the door as though surprised that Libby had deigned to interrupt her departure. “Yes?”

  “What day is it, please?”

  She knew the answer before it came and said the words to herself simultaneously. “Thursday. You slept through Wednesday.”

  Farthingale left the room.

  All right. She wouldn’t panic. There had to be an explanation. Maybe she was delusional. Maybe she was dreaming. Maybe…She smoothed her hair as she reflected, trying to calm herself, then conscious thought stopped abruptly. She could see her hair!

  Goose bumps now broke out on her tongue and the soles of her feet.

  Her hair was short now, not long enough to hang over her shoulder! Even Charlene had remarked on it just the night before—or two nights before—at her birthday dinner!

  She put her hand to the straight, honey-blond ends resting on the front of her hospital gown at her breasts. The hair felt cool and silken against her fingertips. And very real. She touched her forehead and felt long bangs. This was no delusion and no dream.

  Panic rising in her, she climbed gingerly out of bed and carefully covered the few steps to the bathroom at the end of the room. On the narrow wall was a mirror. Libby gasped at what she saw.

  The reflection was hers, all right—just as she’d looked ten years before. Her face was a little rounder, her eyes a little more ingenuous. But how could this be! How could this be?

  The doctor insisted that she was fine. She decided not to mention that she suspected she’d awakened this morning ten years back in time.

  Had he been young and handsome, she might have slipped into the. fictional possibilities of just such a scenario: he would understand her concern, be captivated by her beauty and her singular charm and help her sort through the facts and the clues to find out what had happened. Then he would marry her, move her into his home on Rock Creek Golf Course and buy her a Beamer that matched his.

  But he was middle-aged and harried—just as he’d been ten years ago. He told her she would ache for several days, gave her a prescription for pain and advised her to lay low for a few days and to watch where she was going from now on.

  Then Sara and Charlene came in to pick at her breakfast, help her dress and take her home. Sara was plump, newly married and probably pregnant with her first baby, Libby guessed.

  Charlene looked fresh and bright, her mass of carrotty hair caught back in a clip.

  Libby let them scold her and bustle around her as Charlene told and retold the story of calling for an ambulance, riding with her to the hospital, phoning Sara and sitting in the waiting room for two days.

  Libby dutifully raised her arms as Sara pulled her sweater over her head. She felt as though she were watching a movie she’d seen before. She knew the dialogue Charlene was about to tell her—that Truffles’s manager had been by to see how she was.

  “Mr. Wainwright from Truffles came by yesterday to see how you were doing,” she said, fluffing Libby’s hair as Libby emerged from the neck of the sweater.

  Sara would tell her he felt responsible.

  “He says he feels responsible, but Charlene saw the whole thing and that messenger was looking in his bag rather than watching where he was going. He should lose his license!”

  Libby felt both an interest and a sort of distance from the goings-on. Even though she knew every line, she was unable to look away.

  She was reliving her life! She’d lost the terror she’d felt earlier when she’d first realized what was happening. If she was indeed going around a second time, then she could relax, because she knew nothing horrible or monumental had happened in the past ten years, except that she’d achieved considerable success in her work. But she couldn’t imagine why on earth it was happening—or what it meant!

  “I’m sorry you were hurt,” Charlene said, pushing her gently onto the bed and slipping her simple black pumps onto her feet, “but this might have been a blessing in disguise. I mean, there’s no way you could have cared for those children and still—”

  “Charlie!” Sara snapped at her.

  Libby frowned from one to the other. The children. In the shock of her life’s reprise, she’d forgotten them.

  Then it hit her like a hammer. That was it! The Bonello children! Charlene was about to tell her that while she’d been unconscious the lawyer had left a message on her answering machine that
a family friend had claimed the children.

  She listened stoically as Sara began gently to explain.

  “Charlie went to your apartment yesterday to make sure everything was okay—you know, that you hadn’t left the iron on or anything. And while she was there, that lawyer called and left a message.”

  She hadn’t asked what he’d said, sensing it was bad news.

  “A family friend has claimed the children, Libby,” Sara went on, just as she had then. “He’s Savannah’s godfather.” She enfolded Libby in a long, firm hug. Then she’d pulled away, her own maternal heart in her eyes. “I know how disappointed you must feel, but you’re going to be a great artist, meet a wonderful man and have beautiful, brilliant children of your own. Now, come on. We’re going to take you home, I’m going to make you breakfast, and you’re going to lie on the sofa and rest all day long.”

  She agreed, because she’d agreed ten years ago. Her friends drove her home.

  She was fascinated, though not entirely surprised, when they took her to her small apartment rather than the hillside split level she’d bought when Rosie had gained national attention and earned her a new publishing contract in the high six figures.

  Charlene tucked her under a blanket on the sofa, while Sara fixed scrambled eggs and toast. They pulled kitchen chairs up beside her and ate off their laps and made plans for the future with false cheer.

  It was bizarre, she thought, to look into the fresh young faces of her friends and know exactly what had become of their hopes, ten years later—that Sara would experience all the happiness with Tony that she foresaw, and that Charlene would have her shop but that she was facing a long search for the man of her dreams.

  She shooed them away when they promised to stay with her the rest of the day.

  “I’ll be fine,” she insisted, waving her cordless phone at them just as she’d done ten years before. “If I need anything, I promise to call.”

  “I took the day off work so I could be with you,” Sara said.

  “Then spend it making something wonderful for dinner. Tony would love that.” She sat up and smiled brightly, trying to look well on the road to recovery. “And you have a Western Civ class this afternoon, don’t you?” she asked Charlene.

  “I can skip once,” Charlene shouted over her shoulder as she carried kitchen chairs back to the table.

  “I thought this was finals week.”

  “I arranged to take a makeup.”

  “Now you don’t have to. I’m fine. Go, both of you. I promise I’ll call if I need the least little thing.”

  They’d protested but they’d gone, just as they had ten years ago. Or now. She had to stop thinking about this as ten years ago because it was now even though she’d done it all ten…before.

  It was all too confusing. All she was beginning to conclude for certain was that this could only be happening because something in the past had to be repaired. Wasn’t that what always motivated the voyager in movies that dealt with time travel?

  Or was that restless spirits?

  She guessed if she had a choice between having been moved around in time and having actually crossed over, she’d gratefully accept what had happened.

  And because she’d come to love Savannah and Zachary so much, she had no doubt at all why she was here—to get them back.

  Now came the tricky part. So far, everything had gone just as it had ten years…the first time. The same words had been spoken, the same small details accomplished.

  But the first time, she’d stayed on the sofa and cried her heart out.

  This time, she was going to endeavor to repair the past, but would the otherworldly conditions that had led her back to this time allow that? Had she come to the correct conclusion? Would she be allowed to get up off the sofa, or would she be held to the events as they’d occurred the first time?

  She tossed the blanket back, stood and waited for some invisible hand to push her back. It didn’t. She walked to the telephone and dialed the. attorney’s number, perching on the edge of the telephone table while the line rang, crossing one leg over the other.

  Was she imagining it, or did she feel particularly buoyant and agile? Was this some user-friendly parallel universe in which she would find herself more comfortable than she’d been before?

  Miller’s secretary connected her.

  “Elizabeth!” the attorney said, his tone concerned. “Are you all right? I’m so sorry about the accident.”

  She smiled. Those were the first words since she’d awakened that morning that she hadn’t heard before. She’d turned a new page, moved into a new phase of the past. She frowned for a moment over the notion that that was even possible, then put it aside.

  If she was to go on with righting the past, she had to stop worrying about just where it was and simply live it.

  “I’m bruised but fine, John,” she replied. “Your message said that a family friend has claimed the children.”

  “Yes.” His tone was apologetic. “I’m sorry there wasn’t a better way to tell you, but when I left the message I didn’t know you’d been in an accident, and you were expected at my office the evening before. When you didn’t come, I thought you’d changed your mind. Until your friend heard my message and called to tell me what had happened to you.”

  “I know, it’s no one’s fault. It was just one of those strange quirks of fate, I guess.” A little shudder bumped up her spine as she said the words. Quirk, indeed. “Can you tell me about the family friend? He didn’t come to see the children at the hospital.”

  She heard the rustle of papers on the other end of the line.

  “No. Seems he’d been to Scotland on business, then went fishing in the wilds with a friend. They put themselves deliberately out of reach for a few days, never suspecting, I’m sure, that such a tragedy would occur. Anyway, as soon as he heard, he flew right back. He’s an architectural historian who now runs a kind of architectural salvage business.”

  Libby wrinkled her nose, though there was no one to see the gesture. Architectural historian. That sounded fogeyish. Poor children. And it intensified her sense of rightness about her mission. She’d definitely been sent back in time to rescue those children from the dreary prospect of life with an academic.

  “Does he live here in Portland?” she asked hopefully.

  “No, on the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington. He’s taking the children there tomorrow.”

  Libby stood and squared her shoulders, determined that it was time to begin building her case for her guardianship of the children.

  “You’re sure he’s qualified to care for the children?” she asked. “I mean, doesn’t there have to be some legal procedure—”

  “He’s planning to adopt, of course,” Miller replied. “Ransom is Savannah’s godfather. As young parents the Bonellos probably felt pretty invincible and didn’t bother to draw up wills, but I checked Ransom’s claim with church records and it’s valid. And Children’s Services seems quite satisfied with him. They’ve even agreed to let him take the children out of state pending the final decree. As I said, he lives on the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington. There’ll be a few visits from a caseworker, but I’m sure his adoption of the children will be uncontested.” There was a moment’s pause, then he added quietly, “I know you grew fond of the children, Libby, but I promise you I wouldn’t put them into a situation I felt at all uncertain about.”

  Libby’s new buoyancy evaporated with that news. But she was supposed to assume their care. Wasn’t that why she was brought back? Wasn’t that why not having them had haunted her for ten years?

  “John…I didn’t get to say goodbye to the children,” she said, trying to remain calm. “Would you tell me where they are?”

  Another pause. “With him,” he answered finally. “They’re spending the night at the Rockland. The presidential suite. But, Libby…”

  Hmm. The presidential suite? A fogey with a taste for the good life. “Thank you, John,” she said, and hung up.r />
  Libby showered, washed her hair and tried to pin it up for a mature look, but quickly changed her mind when the bruise at the back of her head ached in response.

  She was surprised to open her closet and find her clothes comfortingly familiar, but then, all she wore were classic casual slacks and sweaters, and she never discarded anything that was comfortable, no matter how old it was.

  She pulled on butternut-colored woolen slacks, a moss-green sweater that she accented with a paisley scarf in earth tones, and topped the look with a slouchy velvet hat the same color as the sweater. She checked her reflection in the mirror, and decided she looked about fourteen.

  She pushed her hair up into the hat, unrolled the brim and stepped back for a critical appraisal. Now she looked eighty.

  She pulled off the hat, went back to the closet and snatched a small brown tweed close-fitting hat off the shelf. It boasted a long, swept-back plume secured to the right side with a jeweled pin. She held her bangs back and fitted the hat low on her forehead.

  It didn’t hide her long hair, but it did give her an air of eccentricity and maturity. The last thing she wanted was for the fogey to think he was dealing with an insecure young woman with limited prospects and an uncertain look in her eye.

  She squared her shoulders. So she’d had a confrontation with a bicycle and been tossed ten years into the past. She was determined to be in charge of her present—wherever—whenever—that was.

  She grabbed her purse. That, too, was familiar, and all she’d ever carried since Sara and Charlene had given it to her when she’d graduated from the Museum School. It was soft brown leather and large enough to hold a sketch pad, as well as everything else essential to her peace of mind.

  She laughed a little hysterically at the blue Toyota in her driveway, then climbed into it, dismissing the Mercedes convertible from her mind. It was out there somewhere, ten years into her future, and she had to make do with the Celica she’d bought used when she’d graduated.

  She wondered idly as she headed for the freeway and downtown what getting the children from the fogey would do to the future. Wouldn’t a station wagon be more appropriate to her life than the Mercedes?