Golly prompt: Holly + Gail + Family Man (the movie). I don't know if you watched this movie (if you aren't, do it, it's great) 10 years later in San Francisco, Holly's guardian angel shows her what would have happened if she had stayed in Toronto with Gail...
The Family Woman – Part 1
It's late. She's been at the office all day working on her latest research article. It was going to be published by Science, one of the most prestigious and popular science journals but she'd found a small problem with the data. She had needed to get it sorted out before the deadline which was why she was walking to a corner store on her way home. It was the only thing open this late on Christmas Eve, even in a city the size of San Francisco.
She tossed the overpriced, over-processed sandwich on the counter along with a questionable looking apple, and a small chocolate bar. She deserved a treat. The clerk started to ring in her order.
"No big Christmas dinner?" the woman asked the now Director of the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
"Ummmm, no. This is it" she replied sheepishly.
"Where's your family?" the clerk continued, oblivious to Holly's disinterest in the conversation.
"Well, I was supposed to go to my parents' for the holidays but something came up at work, so I'm here instead" she sighed, hoping that was enough to sate this woman's curiosity.
"Family is important, Holly. You work too hard" the clerk – Mona, Holly reads on the nametag- told her with a knowing concern.
"I… uhhhh…" Holly blinked a few times, unsure of how to respond to a complete stranger knowing her name.
"If you aren't careful, life will pass you by. And the worst part is that you won't even know it until it's too late" Mona said as she bagged up the brunette's sad dinner. Mona smiled at her as she handed her the bag and her change.
"Merry Christmas, Dr. Stewart"
"Uh, Merry Christmas to you" Holly replied cautiously as she walked out of the store.
Once she got home she ate her paltry dinner, the only thing she'd had since her oatmeal that morning and promptly fell asleep on the couch, with reruns of Cheers on the TV.
She woke up in the plush comfort of a warm bed. She stretched out, feeling the softness of the sheets against her skin. She rolled over to check the time, thinking she must have moved to her bed in the night, and is shocked to find a cat staring right back at her in place of her alarm clock.
She squinted her eyes to look around the room. Even without her glasses she could tell it's not the bare space of a bedroom she never really decorated. She could see a huge armoire against the wall, a chest of drawers along another, and what she thought must be pictures on the wall across from her- lots of pictures.
She found her glasses under the rump of the cat. Maybe I wandered to the neighbour's somehow she thought. Blinking a few times to get rid of the sleep induced fog in her brain, she focussed on the wall with the photographs. The wall was full of framed and unframed pictures. She got off the bed to look more closely at them, hoping to figure out where she was.
As she approached, she could see they are pictures of a family. She isn't surprised. In the centre is a nice formal shot of the three kids. One, the eldest, was a black girl with deep brown eyes who looked to be in her late teens. A boy, to her right, had olive toned skin, glasses, and looked to be about seven. The third, another girl, had pale skin and platinum blonde hair. The little girl's most striking feature however, were her eyes: piercing blue. This girl stirred memories from Holly's past, but her brain was too tired to figure out who this child reminded her of.
Holly continued to looking at the pictures. Most of them were of the three kids in various stages in their lives so far: a kindergarten graduation, a birthday party, and what appeared to be Halloween, although all three children were wearing the same police uniform.
Huh, Holly thought.
Moving along the frames, she got to one with a woman who is very pregnant. It's a side portrait but the sun shining across the woman's face makes it difficult to make out her features. A deep feeling of love and warmth washed over the brunette, looking at this woman.
She continued her scan of the candid portraits when she got to what appeared to be the blonde woman from the previous photo. She was smiling brightly and looked stunning in her wedding dress. She had the cobalt eyes as the young girl in the first pictures she saw.
Holly really studied the blonde's face now, wondering why she feels so connected to her. Her eyes widened in surprise. The woman is Gail, the police officer she'd dated years ago, whom she'd left when she moved to San Francisco.
How the hell did I get into Gail's house? she started panicking. Is she in San Francisco now? Am I hallucinating? What's the longest nerve in the human body? she tested herself. The sciatic. Name three estimators of time of death? Temperature, rigor, and forensic entomology. I seem to be in charge of my faculties she thought, comforted by the fact that she can recall what she considers basic knowledge.
Still disoriented by the events of the morning, she decided to forgo any conversations with Gail and decided climbing out the window will be the best course of action. Holly was not interested in being arrested for trespassing, breaking and entering, or better yet, stalking!
Before she managed her great escape, the bedroom door flew open and in walked the teenager from the photographs. She stopped and stared at Holly.
"Holly?" she said, confused.
"Sophie" the brunette suddenly remembered.
