Moving On, Part II

Chapter 10 "Alternate Universe"

In order to understand events that transpired soon after Jackie and Hyde encountered each other again, it is important to look back and then to skip ahead a bit in this story. Because, how this tightly knit community, or family, made up of the Formans, the Pinciottis, Hyde, Jackie, Kelso, and Fez, appeared to think and feel, how they behaved, was so different from the recent past, it seemed as if this were an alternate universe. But, it wasn't.

Kitty Forman took to her bed one week after Eric left and after all of them heard Kelso's story. During that week, she was able to stay so busy that she was able to put any troubling thoughts, or painful feelings, away.

Kitty had always loved to bake, and there was always someone hanging around her kitchen who loved to eat the brownies, cookies, muffins, and cheese puffs she made with her extra special ingredient, love, added in. So, when she started to bake and cook after Eric and Hyde had gone, it didn't seem out of the ordinary. That is until her kitchen began to look like the kitchen of a large restaurant with capacity enough to feed the multitudes, especially if the multitudes had a big sweet tooth. Every inch of countertop, the kitchen table, had stacks of her dishes.

Once she started to fill up the surfaces in the living room, Red put his foot down. He gave her a couple of her little yellow pills, and had her lie down in bed. She didn't leave her bedroom for two weeks, she was so upset.

Kitty started to think and wonder about all the changes of the past year. First, Fez and Laurie had a sham wedding so that Fez could stay in the country; then Red had a heart attack; then Eric left Donna at the alter; then Eric spent a whole year doing nothing but chasing butterflies figuratively and, sadly, literally; then Jackie moved to Chicago where she and Michael were caught in a tryst; Steven disappeared entirely; and last her precious baby boy left for a year to teach in Africa. Her heart truly broke when she thought about Steven and Eric. She had no one to take care of, and she didn't know the whereabouts of any of her children, not even Laurie who was somewhere in Canada.

There were other things too. When Laurie came back from her honeymoon which she spent with her "friend" Carlos while Fez stayed at home, she was a different person. And it wasn't just how she acted. She looked like another woman. She was taller. Her eyes were brown, instead of blue. Her voice took on a lower pitch. She had less energy. Kitty asked herself had she ever really known her daughter at all.

Red opened his own business, and spent all of Eric's college tuition. Red had never been the type of man to risk his life savings on a risky venture. And, he had always been very responsible, and, although he rode Eric, Red wanted the best future possible for his son which included college. Red even started dying his hair this deep shade of red, which, Jackie, in her characteristically shallow, critical way, said, made him look like a clown. Fortunately, Jackie didn't say this while Red was home. Kitty did have to agree with her about Red's hair.

In an even more surprising development that could have come out of fiction, Kitty discovered that Steven had an unknown biological father, who was rich and black. Steven went from pauper to prince, and his hair magically changed into the color and texture of a black man. At least, Steven still wore his sunglass all the time. Kitty preferred that he take them off, because his blue eyes were very pretty. But, she did appreciate the consistency.

Eric, too, seemed strangely different. He abandoned Donna the night before their wedding was to take place which was on her birthday. Kitty never would have imagined in a million years that Eric, her gentle and thoughtful son would have done such a heartless thing to the girl he had loved his entire life. Kitty could have seen Laurie doing this, but not Eric. Kitty still adored Eric, but she couldn't deny that he began to act, well, stupid. When he went to a Packers game with Red and all the kids, he wore another team's jersey and got into a fight with some guy in the stands, which he said he won because he trained himself to fight using Spiderman comics. Eric's love of Star Wars, action figures, and comic books took on a perverse, even a deviant, intensity. At least that's what Red said. And she agreed. Even Eric's hair took on a stiff, unreal quality, as though were wearing a wig. Worst of all, Eric chose to leave home and to go, of all places, to Africa. Eric had always been afraid of the unknown, not to mention large bugs and predatory animals. Kitty worried that Eric could die in Africa, or even worse, that he would marry some slutty girl whom he met there and never return home.

At least Kelso and Fez stayed the same. Both boys were still very immature, almost child-like. Kelso was still a kettlehead, and Fez, a pervert, a pervert who wore his pants and shirts too tight. Donna was, more or less, the same. Jackie, too, stayed consistent, except that she all of a sudden wanted a career, badly enough to move to Chicago, and that she had gotten together with Michael, after just leaving home and Steven, for a week.

How had all these unbelievable things come to pass? Kitty thought maybe the kids had too many choices, too much freedom. She didn't know. She also did not know yet that even odder things would occur during the rest of the year. Sometimes, ignorance is best.

Red was very sweet while Kitty was so upset. Like he always did when needed, he took care of her. Kitty finally emerged once Red had news from Eric, and she knew that he was safe, and once Red told her that Steven had spent all this time in Las Vegas to clear his head, and that he would be home in three days. Donna told Kitty that Jackie planned to move back home to work everything out with Steven. She planned to arrive on the day Steven did. Kitty was unsure how that would go. She was also a little worried.