"Have you ever thought about some of the decisions you've made in life? Well, of course you have, but have you ever wondered what would have happened if you hadn't made those decisions? To think about it seems inevitable sometimes. We often think and dream about what our life could be like, or what it could have been like. But what if you could actually see it?"
"No! Daddy, don't go! There's going to be an accident. You're not going to make it. Dad!" Why couldn't he hear me? I waved my arms frantically and jumped up and down. He couldn't see me either.
"Daddy!" I screamed.
He turned and looked right at me. "Fiona." He could see me! He was walking towards me!
Then he bent down and outstretched his arms. I was about to run to him when a little girl ran…through me…from behind.
Into his arms.
He lifted her into the air. "I'm going to go on a little trip, baby. But I'll be back before you know it. I'll miss you." He kissed her on the forehead and put her down.
"But you're not going to come back! Please!" He didn't even know I was there.
I ran after him. I tripped on something and fell face first to the ground.
I snapped up my head. I was on the floor of the bus. Just a bad dream. Again. I really needed to stop or get some kind of control over these nightmares.
My hair was all in my face like I had been twisting around. I brushed it aside and struggled to stand up – still tangled in blankets. I had to wait a second for my eyes to adjust to the blackness around me.
I tried to walk over to the blinds to open them, but I tripped on something and fell with another loud thump.
"Fiona?" Jack walked in and opened the blinds. It was still night but the streetlights shone through the window. Jack looked down at me. "Are you okay?" he smirked.
I decided not to tell him the truth. I had been having these dreams for a while.
"Sorry. I know I woke you up. I…uh…fell. Just a bad dream."
"You sure you're okay?"
"Yeah, Jack. Thanks. Go back to sleep." I went to my own bed, checked the clock. 4:00. Still so much time left until the morning. But I knew I could not go back to sleep. Not after that dream. No way.
Jack sighed, shook his head, and then walked away.
I turned to my left. My laptop was sitting there all cold and lonely. So I opened it up and turned it on.
Something on top of my bed caught my attention suddenly. It was a package, not yet opened. And it was addressed to me. It hadn't been there a second ago.
My attention left the laptop as I picked up the package slowly. It didn't even have a stamp on it. So I looked around the room quickly. There was no one that I could see.
I cautiously sat down on my bed to open the envelope. I tore away the tape that sealed it shut and eagerly pulled out the single sheet of paper contained in the envelope. I took one more look around the room but still saw no one.
The paper had a simple type of writing on it, written in strong black ink. It read:
Fiona. Go to the corner of Lemon and Golden Spring. Talk to Mike.
I read the letter over and over. I actually knew where that was.
But where did that letter come from? And why did they want me to go there?
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I still couldn't fall asleep that night. I basically was just waiting for the sun to come up. Thank goodness for the Internet.
As soon as my mom woke up I showed her the letter.
She looked at it with a weird look on her face. "Who wrote this?"
"I don't know. I found it sitting there on my bed – just like I told you." I didn't understand why she was getting so freaked about the letter. I mean, I would understand if she were concerned about how I got it. But for the past few minutes she had been asking questions like, "Who wrote this?"
"Fiona, if this is some kind of joke –"
"Mom! How many times to I have to tell you? I didn't do this. I don't know who did."
"What's wrong, Mom? Is there something you're not telling us?" Jack asked calmly. He was sitting around the table with us. It was just the three of us.
My mom let out a long sigh before speaking. "I…" She shook her head. "This can't be. That's impossible. Who ever did this has a really sick mind."
Jack put his hand on her shoulder. "What's wrong?"
She paused again. "Rick – your father – wrote me a letter exactly like that a long time ago. There's this little sandwich shop on the corner. We used to eat there all the time before you kids were born. This is his writing too. Well, I mean, it looks like his writing. It was Valentine's Day when he wrote me this. He had a surprise for me…"
Jack shot me a look. I shrugged. "Maybe Daddy's trying to send us a message or something!" I said excitedly.
"Fi –" both Jack and my mom said at exactly the same time.
"Seriously," I started. "I think he wants me to meet him there!"
"Excuse me for a second, Mom." Jack led me off the bus. Once off he stopped me. "What are you doing, Fi? Whether you're doing it intentionally or not, you should talk about Dad like that. Especially in front of Mom. Where did you find that letter, anyway? You didn't write it, did you?"
"I found it on my bed, Jack. There was an envelope. I opened it and there was the letter."
"Okay, so you don't want to tell me –"
"I'm not lying."
"When I went into your room last night, there was no envelope."
"I know! That's what I thought too. But right after you left, I looked on my bed and there was an envelope right there."
Jack looked like he was about to start yelling at me, which he hardly ever does. But right then, my mom walked off the bus and said, "Okay."
Jack and I turned towards her.
"Okay," she repeated. "I'll take you to that place, Fi. We'll go right now. But I'm not staying for very long."
"Maybe I should come," Jack said.
"No. It's okay. You should stay here with Clu until Ned and everyone comes back from dinner. Come on, Fi."
"Mom…"
"It's okay, Jack. I'll be fine." She smiled a little bit and motioned for me to come over.
The whole drive there was in silence. I didn't know why my mom had decided to take me. She wasn't like that. She wasn't into the supernatural stuff like me…and my dad. Maybe after that one incident with Aunt Rachel on the rooftop, she has a little string of hope to hang on to.
We parked the car in the very small parking lot in front of the sandwich shop.
I unbuckled my seatbelt and opened the door. My mom didn't move. "Mom, are you coming?"
She looked like she was in a daze. She sighed, "Yeah. Yes, I'm coming." As soon as she stepped out of the car she took a long, deep breath. "Smells just like it used to."
"There was a sound of bells as we opened the door and stepped into the shop.
"How can I –" A man who had been walking in from the back room interrupted himself. "Molly?" His eyes were almost as wide as his smile. I shot a look to his nametag. It was Mike.
He jumped over the counter to give her a hug. "I haven't seen you in so long!"
"I know, Mike." My mom looked just as shocked as he was.
"Geez, it must be, what? Like almost 14 years? You haven't changed a bit! How come you haven't come by to see me?"
"I tried, a long time ago, but you weren't here. They said you had quit."
"Oh, I never quit. I was just out for about six years because of a back surgery. Hey…this is your daughter, right?" His glance moved over to me.
My mom put her hands on my shoulders. "Yep. This is Fiona. Fiona, meet Mike. He was one of our best friends growing up. We came here so much. After…uh…afterwards, I came back a few times to say bye, but they told me Mike had quit. Mike always helped with your father's Valentine's gifts."
"Rick was great. They were always his idea. By the way, where is Rick?"
My mom looked shocked, hurt even. "You haven't heard? Rick was in an accident, a really long time ago. He died, Mike."
Mike got this 'oh please' look on his face. "Come on, Molly. Don't joke like that."
"I'm not joking. This is serious. He died when Fiona was still very young." I saw a tear trickle down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly so Mike wouldn't see.
But his expression hadn't changed. "Right…then would you explain to me how I could have seen him yesterday?"
My heart skipped a beat. "You saw Daddy?"
"Yesterday. He told me you would come by."
My mom's mouth dropped open. Then she shook her head. "Don't joke like that, Mike."
"Seriously," he answered. "I wouldn't joke about Rick."
"I…" then she closed her mouth and looked away.
"Wait," I said to Mike. "So you say you saw Daddy? What did he say to you?"
Mike looked a little concerned about my mom, but he answered me anyway. "He just told me that you would come by soon. Then he gave me a package to give to you." He turned around and pulled a little package out from under the desk.
I took it from his outstretched hand and started unwrapping it.
Mike walked over to my mom and put his arm around her. "It's okay, I'm sorry Molly…"
Inside the package was a picture of our family and a mirror. The mirror had little buttons on the bottom.
As soon as I looked at it a blue light turned on, outlining the mirror. I saw a reflection of myself. I pushed one of the buttons. The reflection changed. I saw myself, sitting in a room reading, with short hair. I was tempted to press a big red button on the top that looked odd, but something told me not to.
So I kept pushing the old button. I kept seeing different versions of myself. Actually, I wasn't even in some of them. But they all seemed to be visions of my life, or some version of it.
My mom came up behind me, surprising me. "What is that?" she asked, he eyes still wet.
I handed it to her and watched over her shoulder as she sat down. The reflection changed to her own. I showed her which button to press and the image began changing to other versions of herself, doing different things.
She stopped at one where my dad had just walked in the door. She looked at it for a few more seconds, and then glared at Mike. "What is this?" she asked again.
Mike just looked back at her. My mom took another look at the mirror. Then she pressed the button at the top.
"Wait!" I tried to warn my mom. Something wasn't right.
Suddenly she began to disappear. It looked like she was fading away.
Instincts. I grabbed her arm.
And then I was standing in a room. My mom stood a step in front of me, wide-eyed. I followed her gaze.
My dad was standing right there in front of us.
I froze. He didn't look like a ghost this time.
He looked just as shocked as we were. "Fiona, you…Molly…but you're…dead…"
My mom opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. She just stared.
They slowly began walking toward each other, neither one believing that the other was real.
They each put up one hand. Their palms touched as they neared. Both were speechless.
My mom suddenly started disappearing once again. My dad's eyes grew wide. "Mom!" It was too late. She disappeared.
My dad stood there with wet eyes, his hand still reaching in the air.
I ran to him and hugged him, never wanting to let go.
"Fi, what's going on?" he whispered. I wiped away a tear and explained everything that had happened.
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"This is an alternate reality for you," he told me once I had finished.
"What?"
"Some people say that your life is like a line. Every time you make a decision, the line branches and you go a different way. But you see, each of those lines continues. And the only way to jump from line to line is by using a device called a Turak. I think that's the mirror you got."
"So something that I decided created this place?"
"Yes, I just don't see how something you did –"
I interrupted him. "Wait. I was looking over Mom's shoulder when we came here."
"This is one of your mom's realities."
"But then why did she disappear?" I asked. My dad looked at me and sat me down on the couch.
"Fi, in this reality, your mom's dead." He paused. "I think that if you die somewhere, you can no longer exist in that reality."
I looked around. "Where am I, then?" My dad looked away. "But I can't be dead, because then I would have disappeared like Mom, right?"
"There was an accident. That's where your mom died. You and Jack were in the car too. Both of you were still alive, but seriously hurt and in a coma."
"Why did you, or your ghost send me here? Or is this even where I'm supposed to be?"
"I think this is where you need to be. We both needed to meet each other."
"You're alone," I realized.
"Yes." His gaze shifted to my hand. "The ring. Weird things happen to you too?"
I smiled. "Always."
We continued to talk for hours, exchanging different stories of supernatural experiences and things that had happened to us. It was amazing, talking to my dad for the first real time ever. Finding out how much we really were alike.
And now that I had, I didn't ever want to stop. I didn't want to let go. I didn't want to lose my dad…again.
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I fell asleep on a couch late that night during our conversation. When I woke up the next morning, I was covered in blankets. The air smelled of eggs and bacon.
"Daddy?"
He came walking over from the kitchen. "Hey, the sleepyhead is up. I'm just cooking you some breakfast, honey." He gave me a kiss on the forehead and walked back to the kitchen.
It was unbelievable. Everything I had wished for. The dad I'd always wanted was right there in front of me, and I could talk to him.
But it wasn't right.
This wasn't my life, but I didn't know how to return to my old life.
I went and sat down on a stool by the counter, watching my dad cook. He smiled and put a plate full of food in front of me. He put down a plate for himself across from me. Then he pulled up a stool and sat down behind the counter.
"You know, this is a dream come true for me," he said.
I took a bite out of the bacon. It was perfect. Crispy, but not burnt. "For me too. I always wished for this." I smiled.
"So how's my cooking?"
"The best!" I paused for a second. "I'm not just here so we can meet each other, am I?"
My dad paused and took another bite of his toast. "Fi, I would love more than anything for you to stay here with me forever. You know that. But the truth is, there's another 'you' here. And your mom and your brother are probably worried, wondering what happened to you. They need you. Probably more than I do."
You know that feeling you get in the back of your throat when you're about to cry, but you're trying to stop it? It feels like there's a lump there, and you can't make it go away? That's what I felt right then.
"You're alone here, though."
"Not completely. You and Jack are there in the hospital. You can't stay here."
A previous experience flashed through my mind. I remembered a girl sitting in a hospital bed. I remembered a mistake in her wiring, causing her to be hooked up to the Internet. I remembered her being lost, next to a movie theater playing The Man From Snowy River.
"I have an idea," I said.
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Right after breakfast we drove to the hospital. Almost everyone there knew my dad. It made me sad because I realized that he came here often. More than often. He probably came here almost everyday, if not everyday.
When asked which room I wanted to go in first, I chose Jack's. I didn't know why.
I didn't expect what I saw when I walked in.
Jack looked different. He didn't even look like he was sleeping. He looked sick. He was pale, and way too skinny. His hair was longer and insulin tubes came out of his arms. He had a large scar on the left side of his face. He didn't look like Jack at all.
I turned around and buried my face in my dad's shoulder.
"I…I don't know what to say," he said. "I don't know how to be a dad right now."
"Just don't leave," I whispered. "Please just stay here with me."
"I'm not going anywhere," he answered.
I pulled my dad's laptop out of my jacket and placed it down on the table. I plugged it in to the phone line.
Then I took off my hood and hat. I wore them so no one would accidentally recognize me. But no one was coming in this room, now.
My dad closed the door. "I can get him hooked up to the Internet," he told me. "You sure this is going to work?"
"It's a long shot. But it's better then nothing."
I could have laughed when I turned on the laptop. My dad had a website just like mine.
After a few minutes the Instant Message box finally popped up. It was from an unknown source. I clicked reply.
Dad? It wrote.
"How…?" I asked.
"I don't know," my dad shook his head. He was standing behind me, watching the whole thing.
Jack, is that you? I typed.
Yes.
"Ask him where he is," my Dad said excitedly. "We need to get him home."
Where are you? I asked.
I don't know. I'm
lost. I can't find how to get home.
I moved out of the way to let my dad type. What's around you, Jack?
Trees. Lots of
trees. I think I'm in a park. Wait – I am. I see a yellow slide right over there. I think I've been here before.
You have. Your
mom and I used to take you there all the time, remember? There are swings. Red swings. Do you see
them?
A large smile filled my dad's face as Jack wrote, Yes! I do! They're right next to me on my right side.
"I can take him home. Thank you, Fi. So much."
It took my dad less than three minutes to lead Jack home.
I watched the tears flow down my dad's face as Jack's eyes opened for the first time in a very long time.
I watched my dad hug Jack and tell him how much he missed him.
Suddenly a nurse burst in the room. "Rick, you need to see your daughter right now. She's gone into cardiac arrest."
She couldn't see me. I was behind a wall. Two steps closer and I would be revealed.
My dad looked up at me quickly, and then back at the nurse. "Jack… He just woke up."
"What the – We need doctors in her immediately!" She ran off.
My dad looked at Jack and back at me, not knowing what to do. "I'll be back soon, Jack." He ran out the door.
I put on my hood, my hat, and followed closely behind. My room wasn't too far away.
I stayed outside and put my hands on the glass, watching from outside. Doctors surrounded me, her. They were already giving her shock treatments. Her heart monitor was flat lining.
My dad stood to the side, watching, not wanting to believe what was happening.
After a couple more shock treatments, the doctors backed off. "I'm so sorry, Rick. She hasn't been doing good for a while… We tried, Rick. I'm so sorry…"
"No…"
All of a sudden I noticed my hand start to fade away. Start to disappear.
My dad looked up at me at that exact moment. "Fi!" he screamed. His hand reached out from behind the glass, as if trying to reach me.
I was back on the tour bus. My mom and Jack were sitting side by side in front of me. They both looked like they had been crying.
Even Jack.
"Fi! Where did you come from?" They both hugged me and I began crying.
"Where did you go?" Jack asked me.
"I was with Daddy."
No one said anything. I didn't know if they believed me or not. But I didn't care.
I was sad that I hadn't been able to save myself. But I had saved Jack. And no matter what, my Dad wasn't going to be alone.
I continued, "I love you, Mom. I love you too, Jack. We're going to be okay. We're all going to be okay."