Chapter 8: Home

Everything melted and then I was spinning, space meant nothing, time was inconsequential. I felt utterly at ease, utterly still of mind. I tried to focus outward in space with my mind and then the space folded in on itself until outward and inward were one.

The middle space was inward and was synonymous with the swirling mass of thoughts that floated all around me and that feeling of space seemed to arise inside of ... inside of me. I was.

I opened my eyes.

I was looking up at a white popcorn ceiling. I moved my arms. I was lying on a bed. I felt someone or something lying next to me. I took several long breaths and then I slowly scooted myself off the bed. My eyes began to focus and I looked over at what I had previously touched.

It was Katherine. But it wasn't Katherine either. This Katherine was dressed in designer jeans, a red tee-shirt with 'Depeche Mode is No Romance In China' printed across the chest, and sneakers on her feet. But even odder yet, this Katherine couldn't have been any older then twenty-four or twenty-five years old.

I checked to see that she was breathing. She was.

I looked around. I was in a bedroom that contained all the normal amenities, bed, end tables, lamps, clock-radio, dresser drawer. I walked out of the room looking for a bathroom and located it just off the hall. I went into the bathroom in search of a washcloth I could wet and use on the young Katherine when I caught my reflection in the mirror. I stopped just staring. I was in Jimmy Maxwell's body. My heart began to pound so fiercely it felt as though it would burst out from my chest. I'm back! My mind yelled at me, I'm back!

When? I thought. When? How long? Was I early enough? How long had I been gone?

I dampened a wash cloth and then returned to the bedroom. Katherine was in the same exact position that I had left her in. I moistened her face with cloth and then I bathed her forehead. Her eyes fluttered and then opened. She was looking up at me and when her eyes focused she screamed. It was a loud frightened scream, and then she attempted to scoot farther away up along the bed.

I backed off, then in as calm a voice as I was able to muster I said, "Katherine don't be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you. Have I ever told you that you're terrific? Oh yes, I have, but have I told you today? If not you can whip me." I smiled.

"Sam?" she asked tentatively. "Is that you Sam? Is it really you?"

"Yes it is," I answered, "and Katherine, I didn't get a chance to answer you before you drove us over that cliff but, I love you too."

She tilted her head to the left and then to the right looking up at me, then she said, "I was in love with the other guy but it was his mind that got me. As long as that same mind is in that head I think I can get used it. You know actually, that body is really a major hunk."

Then her face turned serious, "Hey, did we make it. Does this mean were in 1980?"

"I'm not sure of the actual date yet. But you did it Katherine. You did it. It was you. And for that alone I owe you more than my life. I owe you everything." I told her just as seriously.

She climbed off the bed and put her arms around me. We kissed and in that kiss I tried to convey just how much I loved, cared for, and owed this woman that I had only met two days before.

"Wow!" She said looking up at me. "That body certainly hasn't changed the way you kiss. That kiss alone told me you're the Sam Eldon I fell in love with."

"Come with me sweetie. I need to show you something." I said taking her hand and leading her toward the bathroom. "Now don't be shocked, but look."

She looked at herself in the mirror and took a step back with shock. "I'm ... I'm like twenty-four again. Yeah, I am twenty-four. This is the shirt I got when I was twenty-four."

"Uh-huh. Is that a problem?" I asked.

"Uh, no ... no I guess not," She said unable to take her eyes away from the mirror. Then a grin spread across her face.

"What?" I asked.

She turned to look at me still grinning, "No it's not a problem for me ... but it's going to be a thrill for you."

"A thrill?" I questioned.

"Uh-huh. I was a virgin until I was thirty. How do you feel about taking a girl's cherry?" She asked demurely.

I took her into my arms and hugged her stroking her back and buttocks with both my hands. "I fell in love with the older version but this younger version will do very nicely thank you. You still going to let me suckle?"

"Oh yeah. I love the way you suckle." She answered.

I lifted her chin with two fingers then kissed her lightly on the lips, "Feel up to finding out what the date is? I'm praying like hell that it's before Vicky and Clarity got all freaked out."

"Yeah, I'm up to it. That's why we came here right?" She said stroking the side of my face with her hand. "This is going to take some getting use too."

We took a brief, only where the preacher walks, look around the apartments searching for anything significant but the only thing we found, laying atop the bed, were the six neatly folded pages I had ripped out of Caroline Anne Gridley's notebook. I had been holding them in my hand at the time we went over the embankment and I guess they had traveled with me. I carefully placed them inside my pocket.

"I'm hoping," I told Katherine, "that this is the apartment Kim mentioned in her letter that they rented for Jimmy. If it is then the longest I could have been away is a year or so. If that's the case then both Vicky and Clarity may still be okay."

"I hope so Sam" Katherine said. "God I do hope so. I wasn't kidding when I told you I loved your ... wives. Sam ... if we are in time ... and if you're wives are willing to accept me ... can I be your wife too?"

I took her into my arms and looked down into her dark eyes, "Sweetheart, you're the one thing that isn't up for debate. I love you and you are my wife. No matter what, you are my wife. But, I have no doubts that not only will they accept you, but they'll smother you with gratitude for all that you given up to help them."

She kissed me and then she said, "Come on, let's go find our family."

It was about three in the afternoon and after we stepped outside and I had a look around my spirits lifted even higher than they had been, because I immediately recognized where we were. In Kim's letter she had said that they had rented Jimmy an apartment near the Beach house and we were only about four miles away.

"The Beach house is about four miles that way," I told Katherine pointing west. "We didn't find any car keys inside and I checked my pockets but I only found three dollars. So, it looks like we'll have to walk."

Smiling, Katherine took my hand and we starting walking west.

Although I had only been away for a few days it felt like a lifetime to me. Somehow having been separated by so much time and the grave prospect of being unable to get back had made the short time I had actually been away seem so much longer and the closer we got to the Beach house the more anxious I became.

While Katherine and I walked hand in hand, in order to relieve some of the anxiety, I reminisced with Katherine about some of the good times the girls and I had spent together that were too insignificant to mention at the time I had told her my whole story.

Katherine laughed at the funny things, and hit me on the arm when I told her of the teasing I had done.

Jimmy didn't have a wrist watch so I guessed it was a little after four by the time we got to the Beach house. I stopped in front of the house just staring at the front door feeling fear. I don't know what I was afraid of, but I was afraid.

Then the door opened and Jen stepped out. My heart stopped momentarily. She looked so beautiful, so wonderful; I thought I would burst with joy.