Chapter 7

Scared First, Happy Later

Jack felt the warmth of the sun touching his face before he even opened his eyes. He could hear the soft ticking of a clock nearby. It was quiet. Keeping his eyes closed, but suddenly aware of everything that had happened the night before, he reached out a hand and felt...nothing. A pillow – headless, and cool to the touch. He sighed, though whether it was one of relief or disappointment he couldn't quite tell.

And then, the sound of a baby crying.

Jack winced and opened his eyes to see the same very lived in bedroom he'd awaken to the morning before. Off to the corner of the room he noticed a door he hadn't paid attention to yesterday, steam billowing out from the cracks. It was clear now that the shower was running and, listening even closer, he noticed the faint sound of a woman humming. Janet.

He swiftly pushed himself up. If there was one sound Jack hated, it was the sound of a baby crying. How long had she been in the shower? What was he going to do? What does anyone do with a crying baby?

Wrapping his arm over his head to block out the sound, Jack trudged over to the door and knocked with his free hand. 'No, you know what?,' he reasoned. 'To hell with it. We're married.' He pushed the door open. "Janet?"

The humming stopped. "Yeah?"

"Uh. Um...the baby. He's crying?"

"Okay?"

"Shouldn't you...don't you have to, like...feed him? Or something?"

The shower curtain slid open. An entirely nude Janet, dripping wet, stood before him. Time suddenly froze. The baby stopped crying. Or at least, Jack could no longer hear him crying. All he could focus on was her. He'd seen glimpses of her body before – these things happened occasionally when you lived together for nearly eight years and had a tendency to barge into unlocked doors without knocking – but this was...everything. The still running water slid down her body, accentuating her curves. She was perfect.

"Really, Jack?" she asked, breaking him out of his trance. She ran her hands over her face to wipe the water away before she noticed him staring. "What are you looking at?" She raised an eyebrow, cheekily.

"You," he said just above a whisper, his eyes still scanning her body.

"Well then why don't you take a picture? It'll last longer," she chuckled, then paused, thinking. "Actually, please don't do that. We already tried that."

Jack's mouth was opened slightly and he struggled to produce words. After some sputtering, he managed to string a sentence together. "P-please help me."

Janet pursed her lips and gave Jack her classic glare. Only she was naked. Janet was doing Janet things...standing in front of him...naked. He couldn't shake it.

"Jack, it's Thursday. You know darn well it's your day."

"But – "

"Your day, Jack!"

"But I – "

"I am no longer listening. I am no longer here. I am on a beach in Mexico," she said as she swung the curtain shut once more.

"But Janet! I...I have no idea what to do next..." the second part of the sentence trailed into a whisper. He turned around like a zombie and began to make his way back out of the bathroom.

"Oh and Jack?" she said, mercifully only poking her head out this time.

"Yeah?" he asked, eagerly turning back around like a puppy waiting for direction.

"The kids' bags are packed and by the door. I'll stop by the bistro for lunch. And don't forget Junior's teddy this time."

Jack nodded slowly, mouthing her words in an attempt to process the information. Everything felt fuzzy.

"I'll see you later, honey. I love you," she added, blowing him a kiss and shutting the shower curtain once more.

He took in her words. They felt so natural. They were natural to her. But what did they mean to him? What did it matter? Say it back, idiot! "I love you too!" he attempted, but it came out as a pathetic high-pitched squeak. He winced at the sound of his own voice, causing him to bump into the door frame before he finally managed to exit the bathroom.

...

Jack speed walked to the door where the crying was coming from. He was on his own now. The girl was on to him and there was no fooling her, but maybe the boy would trust him. He slowly pushed the door open and made eye contact with a ten-month-old child (Janet's eyes, his nose), with tears pooling down his face. He was standing, leaning against the crib's gate. As soon as he saw Jack, he stopped crying.

"Can you talk yet?" he winced. The child continued to stare at him. "Alright, then this is going to be a huge guessing game." He looked around, eyeing the room. A changing table sat next to the crib, and a stack of diapers rested on the edge. "Please tell me you don't need to be changed..."

"Mommy already changed him."

Jack produced a startled bleating noise, jumping in alarm and nearly knocking over the changing table. He collected himself and turned around to see Jamie standing by the door.

"Hi there...J...Janey?"

"Jamie."

"Right! Jamie! I was just about to, uh..."

"Junior needs his bottle."

"...feed Junior. Right." He turned around, hoping to find the items he needed. Would it be in here? The kitchen? He panicked and sifted through the room – Junior began crying again as Jack knocked over toys and books on shelves, stopped a lamp from nearly crashing to the ground, then got down on his knees to look under the bed. He felt a presence to his right and looked up. Jamie was standing next to him with a bottle in her hand. "Here ya go."

On the ground, Jack was eye level with Jamie. He slowly grabbed the bottle from her and they eyed one another suspiciously. "You're awfully smart for your age, aren't you?" Jack said, breaking the awkward silence.

"Yeah. Mommy says it's because I take after her."

He produced another slow nod. "I can tell."

Junior produced a sound that may have been an attempt to say the word "milk" and Jack turned toward him to give him the bottle. He happily grabbed it from him and contentedly slumped back down into his crib.

"Kid's got a great set of motor skills on him," Jack said to Jamie, tossing his thumb back. "I bet you he also gets that from mommy," he laughed awkwardly.

Jamie just stared at him, her face scrunched. Jack was about to attempt to break the awkward silence with another joke when she spoke. "You're not my real dad, are you?"

The smile fell from his face. Maybe it was the way she'd said it, but he suddenly felt incredibly guilty. The jig was up. He couldn't lie to her. A guilty smile formed on his face in an attempt to soften the blow. "No. I'm sorry, I'm not."

Jamie's face grew more visibly upset, but she remained determinedly stoic. "Where did my real dad go?"

Now he felt downright terrible. Even though this was not, he reminded himself, his fault. It was entirely Dr. Prescott's. Still, he was the face of the problem and he owed her some sort of explanation that a five-year-old would understand. He kneeled down so he was eye level with her once more. "I don't know. But, hey, I bet you he'll be back real soon, okay?"

"You promise?"

Her eyes bore into his. It was almost like looking into a mirror; they really were carbon copies of his own eyes, the same sad, hooded gaze. He sighed. Could he promise her anything? But before he could speak, he felt her hands on his face.

"The power of Christ compels you!" she yelled, and he jumped back.

"What the?" he shrieked.

"What day is my birthday?" she demanded.

"Uh...I...October...?"

Jamie's shoulders slumped. "It was worth a try."

"You think I'm possessed?!"

She shrugged. "Or an alien. Or something."

"How do you know The Exorcist? You're, like, five!"

"You let me watch it. I had nightmares. Mommy was real mad."

Jack shook his head and ran the back of his hand along his forehead. "Well, I'm not possessed. Or an alien. I'm just...a little lost, that's all."

A pout formed on Jamie's face and she began to tear up.

"No, no! Don't...don't cry! Please, don't cry!" he walked back over to her.

"Do you like kids?" she asked, her throat choked up.

"I...yeah! Sure I do! They're o – yeah!" he stumbled over his words.

"Can you still cook my favorite food?"

"I'm actually a star chef, so I know I could," he affirmed confidently.

"Do you know what it is?"

"Hmm...you know, I think you look like you'd really appreciate my crepes suzette," he said confidently.

Jamie scrunched her face, disgusted. "No, macaroni and cheese."

"Oh...well, yeah I'm sure I could whip something up. No problem. I've been wanting to experiment with some French cheeses to – "

"From the box," she added.

"...right. Yeah, or that. I can do that too."

She eyed him again, almost but not yet quite satisfied. "Do you promise not to kill us all?" she asked.

"I promise."

She looked off to the side and bit the inside of her cheek, deliberating. Finally, she looked up at him and smiled.

...

"So let me make sure I'm hearing you right," Jack repeated himself while looking into the rearview mirror of the hideous Ford Windstar. "I definitely still operate Jack's Bistro?"

Junior stared silently back at him, bottle in mouth and his Teddy beside him. Jamie nodded.

"And it's just the one restaurant?"

There was another set of stares and a nod in response.

"And...business is doing well? Hopefully?" he winced.

Jamie shrugged. "I guess."

"Alright. I can work with that. No problem, I can work with that. We...are going to have fun day at the Bistro, kids. Because your dad, for whatever reason in hell – I mean heck – decided not to take off the day after Christmas."

He put his foot to the gas pedal and pulled out of the driveway. It still took a few attempts to figure his way out of the neighborhood but walking Chrissy the night before had at least given him a better idea of where they were. The route to the Bistro, however – a trip down memory lane – he still knew like the back of his hand. Before he knew it, there it was. The outside still looked the same – the brick exterior, the logo he'd designed with the help of Janet and the others, the curtains that Janet had picked out. He sighed and pulled into the parking space he'd always used in the back and helped the kids out of the van. 'Here goes nothing,' he thought.

Carrying Junior in one arm and holding Jamie's hand with the other, he attempted to knock on the back door with his hip, completely unsure of who he'd find waiting for him – if anyone showed up before him at all. But before his hip made contact, the door swung open.

"Jefe!" the short man before him exclaimed. "And you brought the little niños! Ah, how nice. Come on, come in!" the man shuffled everyone inside.

"Felipe!" Jamie exclaimed, hugging on to his leg. Jack stared at them, eyes wide open and completely horrified.

"Jamie, mi amor! You get bigger each time I see you!" he hugged her back, then looked over at Jack, his tone flatlining. "The little ones will be out of my kitchen when I am cooking, yes?"

Jack nodded, stunned, speechless.

Felipe's cheery tone returned, and he continued to hug Jamie, "Ah, so nice! To see you, that is!"

Jamie turned toward Jack. "Daddy, can I go color?"

Jack, still processing, took a moment to respond. "Huh? Oh, yeah, sure." She ran into the dining room while Jack absentmindedly placed Junior in a highchair that sat in the kitchen for that exact purpose. He shoveled out toys and distractions he'd placed in his pocket onto the highchair's table without taking an eye off Felipe.

Felipe raised an eyebrow. "Is there a problem, Jefe?" he asked in his thick accent.

'10,000 problems' Jack heard the voice in his head cry, but he just shook his head. "Uh...no! No, uh...this is...you being here is, uh, something that I'm...completely used to. I love my job," he pathetically feigned.

Felipe continued to eye Jack suspiciously. "Something wrong? You seem...worried."

"No! I just wanted you to know, in the spirit of the, um, holiday season...that I love working with you. So very much...you do work here, don't you?"

"Ah, you kid!" Felipe chuckled, pointing at Jack. "Funny guy, Jack, you're a funny guy.

"And you! Are the best damn...uh...line chef..." he guessed a title, hoping.

"Watch it, jefe."

"Sous chef...?"

Felipe nodded his approval.

"...Best damn sous chef a head chef could ask for. Please tell me I'm still head chef," Jack added, running the first sentence into the second.

"For now," Felipe said as he began sharpening a couple of knives. He laughed to show he was joking and Jack awkwardly laughed back until they were both laughing like a couple of maniacs, then they both stopped abruptly and eyed each other.

"Say Felipe, how long have you been working here now?" Jack fished.

"Hmm," Felipe stopped, genuinely thinking. "I guess as long as you and the lady have been married."

Jack muttered a 'damn' under his breath. That didn't really narrow things down, but he supposed Jamie's age did. Four years? Five?

Felipe, genuinely getting to work preparing for the day now, spoke to Jack with his back turned. "Yes, yes, ever since Janet suggested I fill in for your while you two went on your honeymoon. And to think, how it has turned into such a beautiful partnership, eh jefe?" he turned and winked.

"I...don't doubt that it's lovely," Jack winced when Felipe's back was turned again.

"I relent to the sharing of the kitchen, and you also relent to the sharing of the kitchen. That is because of your saint of a wife. To think, jefe, without her management skills, you'd barely have any help around here. Terco," he muttered the Spanish word for stubborn under his breath.

Jack squinted, suspecting the word was a minor insult, but he stopped when he processed what Felipe had said. "Janet helps manage the bistro?"

Felipe huffed, but it wasn't unkind. "If it weren't for her, we wouldn't have Judy, or David, or Louise, or Mikey!"

"The bistro has employees? Plural?" Jack shrieked excitedly.

As if on cue, a middle-aged woman with bright red hair and heavy eyeliner burst into the door. "Morning everyone!" she said in a singsong voice.

"Hola, Judy!"

"Hola, Felipe. Hola, Jack," she said, playfully pronouncing the h. "Figured I'd come in early since the week between Christmas and New Year's is always weird. The little one's asking for you, Jack. I'll keep an eye on this one," she said, making funny faces at Junior who squealed with delight. Jack instantly adored Judy.

"I'll be damned," Jack said to himself as he made his way out of the kitchen. "We have employees."

Jamie sat in the empty dining room with her back to Jack, humming to herself and kicking her legs that didn't reach the ground. She looked over her shoulder when she heard Jack approaching.

"I drew you a picture," she said, nonchalant.

"You drew a picture? For me?" he asked, pleasantly surprised. He craned his neck to get a look at it.

"Look, it's mom, me, Junior, you, and the monster inside you," she said, pointing to a red mark of scribbles inside the stick figure drawing of himself. It had a smile on its scribbly face. "It's smiling, though," she said, holding it up for him to get a closer look. "Because it's a nice monster."

Jack nodded awkwardly. "Uh, wow. You're awfully creative, aren't you?"

Jamie shrugged. "I like drawing a lot."

Jack sighed through a smile. "You think the monster is going to be okay?" he asked.

She inspected him for a moment. "Mmm, I think so. You seem scared right now, but I think you're going to get happy."

"Yeah? How so?" he asked. He was still smiling, half playing along, half hoping that a five-year-old child might have some answers.

She thought for a second. "Sometimes you have to be scared first to get happy later."

The smile fell from his face as her simplistic, yet insightful, words hit him. How had a little girl managed to read him for filth? The thought, of course, was immediately followed by the awareness that this was, of course, Janet's child. Insight and wisdom were inherited traits, even at a tender age. They made eye contact and Jamie smiled. "Did you come up with that all by yourself?

"Yeah," she nodded casually, not processing the weight of the moment. "And Mr. Rogers said so, too. Can I go show my picture to Felipe and Judy now?"

"Sure," he smiled.

She got up quickly, nearly tripping over her own two feet before she barged through the kitchen door. Jack laughed faintly. Maybe she wasn't all Janet.

Turning back around, and no longer distracted, Jack finally took a moment to take in the ambience of the old restaurant. For the most part, it looked almost exactly as he'd remembered it – the same tables and chairs, the same light sconces on the walls, the same pictures. He noted that new flooring had been put in and that the wallpaper had been updated, although it was still the same deep red color. Well-tended plants were dispersed around the room. It was his restaurant as he'd remembered it...but nicer, somehow – as if even more love had been injected into the very soul of the place.

Jack was jolted out of his reverie whena young, tall, gangly guy who appeared to be in his late 20s walked in through the dining room door. "I have arrived!" he announced.

"You sure have," Jack grumbled, holding his hand to his chest in alarm.

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. I'm just in a really good mood. This new coffee place called Starbucks just opened up and I'm completely and entirely high on caffeine because I wanted to try everything on the menu. I figure they're not our competition just yet, but we could get ahead by adding some fancy coffee items to our repertoire. You know, but make it French? It's the future, Jack, I'm telling you. It may be the caffeine talking, but I think I've seen God. I'm gonna get to experimenting quick right now before we open," he said in what seemed like one big breath before slapping Jack on the back and heading toward the kitchen.

Jack just stared into the distance for a moment, stunned. Another employee?! Before he could process further, the man walked back out. "Oh, I almost forgot! Tell Janet I said thank you for the Boston fern. Even though I told her not to give me a Christmas present. She's too kind."

"Uh...okay, uh...uh..." Jack paused, pretending to reach for the guy's name.

"Mikey...?" he replied, slowly, raising an eyebrow.

"Mikey. Right. I'll tell her, Mikey."

"Thanks Jack. Everything alright with you?"

"No, yeah. I was just, uh, admiring the place before you walked in. It looks nice, right?"

"It always looks nice," Mikey said, tapping Jack on the shoulder again. "Thank your wife. Always thank your wife."

Mikey walked back into the kitchen, leaving Jack alone once more. He couldn't help but be reminded of how much Janet had done to help him get this place off the ground in the beginning. All of his friends had been great, really. The girls, Furley, even Larry pitching in to make the grand opening a success. But somehow it was Janet who'd had the biggest impact. She'd been the one who'd motivated him when he felt like all hope was lost, who had given him the motivation to try, one step at a time, even when he'd felt like giving up. Who, let's face it, was responsible for most of the interior design. The Bistro had been his dream, and she had irrevocably tied herself to that dream. Janet and the Bistro were linked, and he'd let them both go.

...

Jack had figured he needed to make the best of an... interesting situation by getting busy, attempting to think back to his old routine. "Take it easy," Judy had said, after helping Jack wrangle the kids (Junior had been offered a shiny spoon, which he'd been intensely fascinated by while Jamie helped her fold napkins). "Monday's not your day." Jack had asked if he'd ever finally made an office for himself, and Felipe, Judy, and Mikey had laughed. "If you need a minute, we can handle things," Mikey offered, nodding to the upstairs apartment.

Jack had suddenly remembered the apartment existed, having blocked it out of his head for years now. When things ended with Vicky, he'd put it in his past. He'd become very good at doing that. And now here he was, having to relive another part of his life...a part he didn't especially care to remember.

But now, standing at the landing at the top of the stairs in front of the door, he felt that something was off. Slowly he twisted the knob, letting the door swing open with a gentle nudge. Instead of the multiroom apartment he'd lived in with Vicky, a bedroom with a door off to the left stood before him.

He entered slowly, gazing around, completely puzzled. None of it made any sense. Where was the old living room? The kitchen? How had an entire apartment disappeared? He poked his head out of the door for a second to make sure he was in the right place and, sure enough, it was the same old landing.

"What?!" he shrieked for what felt like the millionth time in the past 24 hours. He slumped down into the desk chair next to the door, dropping his head into his hands for a moment before running his hands over his face and through his hair. But he'd agreed with himself to attempt to lean into the psychosis, so that's what he was going to do.

Looking around some more, he noted that Janet's touch was present here as well. He could tell her vintage style of interior decorating anywhere. Ferns, Devil's Ivy, and other house plants adorned the windowsills and corners. His eyes landed on the pictures that hung on the walls - a family photo of the four of them, Jamie as a baby, and on the desk, a picture of him and Janet on what he presumed was their wedding day, she in the long, white gown she'd told him she'd always dreamed of. They were outside in front of a church, the sun brightly shining. On the picture frame was a date – September 21st, 1985, a year after Janet's wedding with Phillip that didn't happen – the one he'd stopped.

An award that the Bistro had won in 1986 hung proudly framed above his desk, which must've been around the same time Jamie was born. The award was made out to the owner of Jack's Bistro, which now appeared to be Jack himself, meaning he'd purchased it from Vicky's father at some point just as he'd done in his regular life. He smiled a sad smile before noting an article that lay on his desk, one about a local celebrity chef.

"Guy Frisco," Jack grumbled under his breath. That could've been him. It was him in another life.

Was that life better? Was it better to attain success if it came at a cost? Had it been what he'd really wanted, or had this other life been what he'd wanted all along?

Over the next few hours, Jack attempted some bookkeeping (everything was meticulously recorded – Janet's obvious contribution), more pondering, checking in on the kids (he was pleasantly shocked at how quickly that instinct seemed to kick in), and pondering some more, before he heard Jamie's voice downstairs.

"Mommy!" her squeal carried all the way upstairs.

Jack smiled and put down his pen. He gave the room another once over and scratched his head, then made his way down.

When he rounded the corner, he made eye contact with Janet, Junior in her arms and Jamie at her feet. "Hi," she smiled, eyes sparkling.

"Hey," he smiled back, feeling something for what felt like the first time in years.

"Ready for lunch?" she asked.

"Ready as I'll ever be."