Chapter 1: Consequences Aftermath

“Zora!” Denise stated firmly without giving Thomas a second look. She was at the kitchen sink doing dishes.

He was standing in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. He was naked and erect. Looped over his dick was the pair of handcuffs Denise had gotten earlier in the year. He was gyrating his hips to make the handcuffs swing like tassels on a stripper’s tits.

“The rodeo is in town. Come see if you can tame this wild beast,” he chortled. He raised his left hand over his head like he was holding a cowboy hat and with his right hand he grabbed his cock like he was holding a saddle horn ready to ride the baddest bull in the yard.

“Zora,” said Denise again without looking at Thomas.

Thomas’s return to the eighties occurred on Thanksgiving Day two years ago. Last year, on Thanksgiving, Thomas was forced to choose if he wanted to stay in the eighties or return to his old timeline. When he chose to stay there were three consequences that hurt those closest to him. Last month, on his two year anniversary, Denise was forced to make the choice. When she chose for him to stay, she was teleported into the future and spent about twelve hours with a fifty-something Thomas. The consequence of her decision was that when she returned to the eighties Thomas now exhibited some of the crude gruffness of his old self, almost always in a sexually explicit manner.

Out of the corner of her eye, Denise saw Thomas’s movements slow, then he turned and slipped back into the bedroom without a word. When they realized Thomas would have bouts of crude behavior and commentary, they came up with a word that was supposed to signal to Thomas that he was not himself. Hence, the name, “Zora.” Thomas loved Corvettes in his future timeline as well as now in the eighties, so the name of the “Father of the Corvette,” seemed appropriate. Ideally, upon hearing the name Zora, they theorized Thomas could then try and fight whatever force was causing him to act inappropriately. The tactic had only been moderately successful.

Denise sighed as she put the last of the glasses she was washing into the strainer and glanced at the calender hanging on the cabinet. She used a pen attached to a string to make a small notation on today’s date.

It was the last Saturday before Christmas. It had been almost a month since Thanksgiving and her decision to keep Thomas in the eighties. Luckily, only Denise was aware of the change in Thomas. The mark she made on the calendar indicated when Thomas channeled his old self and said or did something out of character. There was no obvious pattern but the frequency of occurrences seemed to have decreased compared to the past two weeks. She was starting to form a theory. Her working idea was that the dementor – for lack of a better term for the thing that forced them to make a decision the past two Thanksgivings – needed to somehow be present to force Thomas into his crude behaviors. It was possible that the reduced frequency of Thomas’s outbursts indicated the dementor was getting bored with tormenting Denise through Thomas’s behavior.

Denise wiped down the counter top and then turned to the refrigerator to see if they had anything that could be made for lunch. Before she opened the fridge door the phone rang.

“Hello?” she answered.

“DENISE!” her mom cried out. Before Denise could reply her mom started to bawl uncontrollably.

“Mom? Mom! What’s the matter?” Denise yelled into the phone.

Between hiccups and coughing fits, her mom finally said, “It’s your dad, he had a stroke or a heart attack. We just got to the hospital. They took him to the back and I have to wait in the ER lounge. I am using the phone at the nurses station.”

“What! Is he OK?”

Before Denise said anything else she realized her mom probably knew no more information than what she had already said. Instead, Denise took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, then spoke firmly into the phone.

“Mom, are you OK? If you start to feel woozy or weak, talk to a nurse immediately. I am leaving for the hospital right now and will be there in fifteen to twenty minutes.”

Thomas walked into the kitchen and heard the end of Denise’s conversation.

Denise hung up and rested her head against the phone. Thomas wrapped his arms around her and said, “I heard the end of your call. The hospital? What’s going on?”

“It’s dad. He had a stroke or a heart attack. I need to get to the hospital.”

She turned and was relieved to see that Thomas had put on suitable clothes.

“Let’s go,” he said. He did a quick look around the kitchen to make sure the stove, oven, and faucet were all turned off. Denise grabbed her purse off the kitchen table en route to the back door.

While it was December, it was a pleasant day with temperatures in the fifties and a sunny sky with no trace of clouds. Thomas opened the garage door and clicked his key fob to unlock the Corvette. He helped Denise into the passenger seat and then scooted around the car to slip into the driver’s seat.

“As short as your call was, I assume your mom didn’t really know anything?”

Denise kept her face passive as she tried to control the emotions roiling inside her brain.

“Correct. All she said was possible stroke or heart attack. They had just taken him to the back to start tests so mom doesn’t know anything. They couldn’t have been there more than a few minutes before mom called. She was calling me from the nurses station in the emergency room.”

Thomas nodded. He goosed the gas pedal on the sports car to shoot through a light as it turned from yellow to red.

“No need to push it,” Denise said flatly. “A few more minutes won’t make much of a difference.”

Thomas did not respond. Even though Denise said one thing, he knew she was quite eager to get to the hospital to be with her mom.

At the hospital, Thomas pulled into the emergency room drop off lane. The sliding door into the hospital opened and an attendant appeared. Before he could say anything Denise had exited the car and was headed inside. Thomas waved at the guy to indicate he was just doing a drop off before he pulled away to find a parking spot.

Ten minutes later, Thomas entered the ER lounge. He asked a nurse at the front desk about Bernard Hoffman. The nurse pointed to the corner of the room where Denise and her mom, Darlene, were talking with a doctor. Both of their faces looked strained.

Thomas heard the end of the conversation. “Plan on at least six hours for the surgery, then another hour or so to get him transferred to an ICU room and conscious. I know this is a lot to hear but it is actually one of the best outcomes. We know what likely happened and were able to find the blood clot immediately. I’ll be back out to talk with you as soon as the surgery is over.”

The doctor turned and left the three of them to process the latest news.

“It sounds like it will be several hours,” Thomas said, “let’s go find the cafeteria.”

Neither woman reacted so Thomas crooked his elbow around Denise’s arm and gently touched Darlene’s shoulder.

“Come on, let’s go find the cafeteria,” he repeated.

They took their time walking to the cafeteria. Thomas got Darlene and Denise settled at a table near a window. He then went to collect a sandwich, a few bags of chips, cookies, and a combination of sodas and coffees.

As he expected, no one was really interested in the sandwich even though he brought a knife and cut it into bite-sized pieces. At least the chips and cookies were mostly finished, and there was nothing left of the coffee and soda.