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“SARAH, SARAH, WAKE up!” Sarah opened her sleepy eyes and peered groggily at Benjamin who was standing in her doorway.
“Ben?” She whispered in confusion as she slowly sat up in bed, before she hurriedly glanced around her. “Ben, what are you doing here? You look so ... young?”
“Come on, Sarah. You’re going to be late for school! Mom wants me to take you, so please, I cannot be late for class this morning.” Sarah frowned before she burst out into a nervous laughter. As though in one motion, she leaped from her bed and fell into her older brother’s arms.
“I’ve missed you, big brother ...” She whispered in his ear before she squeezed him tightly.
“Are you feeling alright?” He stepped back slightly, and gazed apprehensively at her. Sarah grimaced, and realized once again how it seemed as though he hadn’t aged one single minute.
“Come on, Sarah, you have ten minutes, then I’m leaving, with or without you!” He agitatedly turned away from her before he hurriedly made his way downstairs.
“Mom!” Sarah glowered once again and smiled when she recognized Claire’s voice echoing down the passage. “Megan won’t give me back my sneakers!”
Sarah stood in the doorway, and for a moment, she felt entirely disoriented. It suddenly made no sense to her why Claire and Megan, who had grown up and had left home years before, would be arguing about sneakers in their childhood home.
“Megan! Give back your sister’s sneakers now! Don’t let me come up there!”
“Mom! She said I could wear them!” Megan yelled back as she hurriedly ran down the stairs. Claire followed closely behind her as they pushed each other out the way, before rushing into the kitchen.
Sarah stood in silence at the scene that had played out right in front of her only moments earlier. She could have sworn that they were replaying scenes from their teen years, and it felt like a thousand years ago.
While listening to them continue yelling at one another, Sarah was convinced that she was stuck in a vivid dream, only one she had recognized, and one she had lived, once before.
She had only just turned to make her way back into her bedroom, when she heard Robert’s voice behind her, “Good morning, Sissy. Ben is about to leave, you better hurry, or you’ll walk again!”
Sarah burst out crying and flung her arms around Robert, the brother who appeared to be in his third year of medical studies.
“Sarah?”
Robert placed his arms around her and tapped her gently. She retreated slightly, before she hurriedly wiped her tears, and smiled sadly at the brother she hadn’t seen in years.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I just, you guys are all here?” She whispered croakily through the tears that laid squelchy on her face.
“Where else would we be? Come on, you know how Ben gets?” Robert smiled before he turned away from her.
“Wait!” She grabbed him from behind and turned him around to face her.
“How old am I?”
“Sarah, what’s the matter with you?”
“Please Robbie, what year are we in?”
You are sixteen Sarah and it is 1986! You know that! What’s the matter with you?”
Her eyes grew wider and her mouth hung open. She was sixteen again. In her dream, she was back in the year 1986. The same year she became Daniel’s girlfriend.
She was dreaming of a time when life had so much in store for her. She was wholly engrossed in a dream when life seemed so much simpler, and when all she cared about was writing her stories and loving Daniel.
“Yeah, I was just asking. You see Robbie, I think I might be dreaming, and that this is all a dream, and I just want to be here, like I’m really here, you know?” Robert shook his head, before he hurriedly made his way downstairs.
Sarah smiled sadly as she made her way back into her bedroom, almost as though she was wandering through a foggy mist. She sat down on the edge of her bed and glanced around her bedroom.
It was all as it was before, when she was a teenager and when she was sixteen years old. She gazed at each poster against her wall, and she smiled at all the rock stars looking back at her. She hurriedly opened the drawer next to her bed, and quickly took out her journal. When she paged through, she realized that her last entry was in June 1986. She quickly grabbed her school bag, and pulled out her school books. She was desperate to find a date, and when she heard Cindy call for her, she carefully placed the books back into her bag, and rushed into the bathroom.
She stood staring at her reflection in the mirror. It felt as though the girl looking back at her was a total stranger. The girl staring back at her was a young, vibrant and carefree girl who was barely sixteen years old.
She opened the cold-water tap, and quickly splashed her face with ice cold water. When she looked up again, it was the same young girl mimicking her every move. “Damn, this is quite a dream ...”
She brushed her teeth, and quickly tied her hair into a ponytail. She ran back into her bedroom, and promptly threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater before she grabbed her school bag. “Daniel!”
It had suddenly dawned on her that Daniel had not yet died, and that he was still the boy at the ranch next door. When she breathlessly reached the kitchen, she smiled broadly when she saw her parents and all her siblings around the kitchen table.
It had been far too long for Sarah, and as she stood staring at them, listening to their squabbles, she dabbed at a lost tear that had once again, rolled carelessly down her cheek.
“What’s the matter, Sarah?” Thomas was at once concerned by the expression on Sarah’s face. She smiled before she quickly slid in beside Benjamin.
“Nothing, daddy ...”
“Sarah, you are not going to make me late. You have five minutes ...” Benjamin was at once agitated by Sarah’s passiveness.
“I’ll just have coffee. Can we stop off at Daniel’s? She whispered before she poured herself a cup of coffee.
“I don’t have time, Sarah.”
“Never mind, I’ll walk to school. I need to see Daniel ...”
“You can see him after school, Sarah. It’s too far to walk, and you’ll be late. Besides, Daniel has class this morning, so you might see him for a few minutes before he leaves for class. Also, don’t forget that it’s your turn to shelve the returns at the bookstore today ...” Cindy took a bite of her toast, and stared curiously at her youngest daughter.
“I must see him, mom! I’ll be at the bookstore, I promise.” She rose to her feet and placed her cup of coffee back down on the kitchen table. “That’s if, I don’t wake up before then ...” She whispered inaudibly before she smiled, and turned away from the Swanson clan.
Just as she was about to leave the kitchen, she turned back to the family she had yearned for, with her entire heart. “I, I love you guys, all of you ...” She whispered croakily before she waved and ran out the front door. Thomas frowned, and could in no way at all, shake the feeling that all was not well with Sarah.
SARAH FEARFULLY MADE her way down the road that led to the Kingsley ranch. She was intensely afraid of seeing Daniel again, but excited that she was dreaming about him again for the very first time since she heard that he had died.
She was anxious to reach him, and when she saw the big white house on the hill, she was sure that her heart was about to hammer from her chest. She opened the gate that would place her on a familiar, soothing path that would lead her right up to his front porch. When she reached the terrace, she at once recognized the swing they had sat on together almost a hundred times before.
She smiled sadly when she thought back to the hundreds of moments they sat there for the first time as children, and then again late at night, as teenagers. She nervously made her way to the front door, and was at once aware of voices that were coming through from the other side of the walls.
Sarah knocked softly and was almost at once greeted by Margie’s familiar face. She had never noticed before how beautiful Margie was. She gazed at her and was once again reminded of their meeting at the store only the day before. Sarah was sad to realize how Daniel’s death had taken a toll on her, and how Margie had aged at an alarming rate after he had died.
“Hi Sè, come on in!”
Sarah smiled and quickly made her way into the Kingsley home. “He’s in his bedroom ...”
“Thank you ...” She smiled before she turned away.
“Margie, Daniel is lucky to have you.” Sarah whispered and almost as though she was tiptoeing, she made her way down the hall.
When she reached his closed bedroom door, she hesitated before she knocked gently. Her entire body had begun to quiver, and her hands were violently shuddering as she waited to hear his voice.
“Come in!”
When she heard his voice, she was sure that her heart was about to leap right out of her chest. She could not lift her arms to open the door, and she was sure that her legs were about to give way underneath her. For a moment, her stomach turned and into the very core of her, she felt a jolt rush through her.
“Sarah?” He had opened the door, and was standing right in front of her. “Why are you just standing there? Come on in ...” He turned away from her, and quickly made his way back to his desk.
Sarah could barely move. It felt to her as though her entire world had stood still. She was once again sure that Daniel Kingsley was the only man she could ever love, and that her dream had reached her just in time. She thought back to the world outside of her dream, and she thought back to the reality of his illness, and his death. Her heart felt as though it would shatter by the very thought, and she was certain she could almost hear it splinter into a thousand pieces.
The pain that had begun to consume her entirely overwhelmed her, almost as though her soul was throbbing from deep inside of her. She lowered her head into her hands before she burst out crying.
Daniel looked up and noticed that she hadn’t moved. She was sobbing bitterly in her hands, and it suddenly scared him almost to death to see her in such an inexplicable state. As if in one motion, he had bolted from his seat and rushed over to her. “Sarah?” He whispered raucously when he placed his arms around her. She rested her head on his chest and placed her arms firmly around him. “What happened, Sè?”
He led her into his bedroom, before he closed his bedroom door behind them. He sat her down on his bed, moments before he sat down beside her. He held her protectively against him, and left her to cry in his arms. When her shuddering and sobbing began to subside, she looked up, and gazed into his eyes. “I never thought I’d see you again ...” She whispered huskily, while her body continued quivering slightly.
“What, what are you talking about, Sarah?”
She gently shook her head and quickly wiped the endless supply of tears from her eyes. “I just, I am so glad to see you, Danny ...”
“Hey, what’s going on, Sè?” He took her hands into his, and nervously squeezed them. “I’m not going anywhere ...”
She smiled when she noticed the tenderness in his eyes. “But you are, Danny. You’re going to be gone someday, not too long from now, you’re going to be gone.”
“Sarah, I don’t know what’s going on, but I swear, I’m not going anywhere!”
She bowed her head, before she again, swabbed at the tears that had continued to roll onto her cheeks. “What day is it today, Daniel?”
Daniel frowned, and hesitated for a moment. “June 16th?”
She smiled and realized that they had not yet been on their trip, and that Daniel had not yet picked up the virus that would ultimately take his life. He had not yet been exposed to the very dread of the reality that had begun to haunt her.
“Why do you ask?”
“Just asking ...” She paused, before she leaned closer.
“Danny, you must listen to me, please. I know I sound crazy, and I know I seem crazier than anything you’ll ever understand, but, if this is just a dream, I might not sound as foolish as I think I would ...” She paused when she considered her words for a moment. “December, in 1997, something really bad is going to happen, and, and it all starts with your trip to Spain this year. You can’t go, you have to listen to me, Danny.”
Daniel frowned as he stared blankly at Sarah. “That’s eleven years from now?”
She nodded and quickly turned away when she noticed the confusion in his eyes.
“You can’t possibly know what’s going to happen eleven years from now?”
“Danny, it starts with your holiday at the end of the year. You can’t go! You are going to pick up a virus. And in December 1997, you are going to get really sick. It will be bad, and you’ll be sick for three years, and then, then you’re going to die. In March of 2000, you’ll, you’re going to die, Danny, and you ... I won’t know until a year later ...”
Daniel frowned and stood up before he made his way over to his bedroom window. He ran his fingers through his hair, before he turned back to her. Sarah was sure that he had believed her, after all, it was a dream and one she could manipulate any way she wanted.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you, Sarah? This trip is a family reunion. Our last visit with my grandmother. You are sounding like a crazy person?”
Sarah got up and slowly made her way over to Daniel. She gently touched his face, while gazing into his frosty, captivating eyes. “Danny, please, I am begging you. If that’s all you ever do, don’t go on that trip. Don’t go, please!” She grabbed onto him with both her hands as she pleaded and begged Daniel to believe her.
“Stop, Sarah! Just stop! This is crazy!”
Sarah despondently lowered her head when she realized how fanatical and foolish she sounded. “I know, but Danny, this is crazy to me too. Yesterday, I was thirty-one years old, and today, I am sixteen again. I fell asleep on your grave last night, and woke up to this? You never told me, Danny, and you wouldn’t let anyone tell me you were sick. You just died, without me?”
“Sarah, you are making no sense!” Daniel grabbed her by her shoulders, and gently shook her.
“Margie, she is going to be a wedding planner; did you know that? Did you even know that that is what she is dreaming of? And Mark, Mark is going to be a lawyer and you, Danny, you will be a CA at your own firm, four years before you die.”
“Yes, Sarah, that is what I am studying for, and that is what Mark is in his final year of. But, you are wrong about Margaret. She doesn’t know what she wants yet. Besides, my dad will never approve of her becoming some or other party planner?”
“Then, let’s go ask her!” Sarah yelled out at the top of her voice as her frustration grew.
“Fine!” He grabbed Sarah by her arm, and yanked open his bedroom door.
“Margie!” He yelled down the hallway as Sarah remained silent.
“What?” Margie yelled back, irritated by Daniel’s impatience.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“Nothing!” She yelled back in anger and frustration before she appeared in front of Daniel and Sarah.
“Margie, aren’t you dreaming of becoming a wedding planner someday?” Margie’s eyes grew bigger before she frowned and glared at Sarah. “No?”
Sarah lowered her head, when she realized that Margie was her only chance to prove to Daniel that she was telling the truth.
“See!” Daniel turned to Sarah, and smiled before Margie hurriedly slipped away, and disappeared into her bedroom.
“Danny, I don’t care what Margie says. That is how it’s going to end, you’ll see, and when she is a wedding planner, it will be too late. By the time you remember this conversation someday, it will be too late! When you remember all of this, it will be too late!” Sarah yelled out before she ran down the hall, and out of the front door of the Kingsley home.
