the kate project

Sarah hated getting lost in her own damn house.

It had only been her house for three days, but she felt the walls moving and the doorways shifting, the contents of rooms rearranging in the dead of night. On day one, she’d stuck her head in the hall closet to put away an armful of hangered coats, only to turn around to find herself in the soon-to-be nursery. A second later, the doorbell had rung, pulling her happily away from her worrying thoughts. On day two, she’d stood up from putting a frozen pizza in the oven and found herself on the front porch, staring at the labyrinthine stained glass in the rose window above the door.

She’d not told Steven, knowing he would brush it off as a bad case of pregnancy brain. Yet it bothered her. Deeply.

She’d taken to napping on the sofa after lunch, the early swell of her belly cradled by the lumpy vintage cushions, covered in olive green velvet gone threadbare in spots. She was just so tired.

Upon waking that Thursday, she immediately sensed the offness of the late afternoon. The slant of light coming through the windows was wrong – the weak, overcast sun had been replaced with a blazing summer heat – and the boxes surrounding the sofa were now miraculously gone.

At first, she wondered if Steven had come home from the university and unpacked his books on the shelves against the far wall, but as she wiped the sleep from her eyes and rose slowly to her feet, it became evident this could not be the case. She ran her fingertip along the front of the shelf containing dozens of black-covered books with gold-stamped esoteric titles on quantum mechanics and thermodynamics, leaving a dark trail in the dust.

Steven taught intro psychology, so, no, he did not unpack these.

She took a step backward, colliding with an ornately carved walnut rocking chair she could have sworn was her mother’s.

A voice whispered just at the edge of her consciousness, I told you there was something wrong with this house.

Another voice, this one very real, this one also very much her own, yet different, rougher, from the back of the house called out. “Are you awake, then?”

She stared down at her dusty fingertip, then again around the foreign and familiar room.

“Not sure I want to be,” she said, panic rising.

She turned when she heard the footsteps in the hall, facing the doorway just in time to see a woman come through the door, dressed in a gauzy white shift dress, hair bobbed and silvered, face wizened.

Sarah recognized herself immediately.

“You’re old!” she nearly screamed.

The corner of her mouth twisted into that smirk she’d seen in the mirror for decades. “No, you’re old.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, no. I am dreaming. This is a dream.”

The older Sarah cocked her head, looking at her with the same expression her mother used to give her when she had said or done something particularly absurd as a child. “Calm down.”

She sat back down heavily onto the old sofa. An afghan was thrown over the arm, which she certainly did not remember – Who even had afghans anymore? Had she really turned into her mother? – and on the table beside the sofa was a small, well-worn black notebook.

Sarah steadied her breath, not lifting her eyes from the well-worn leather sandals she was wearing. Her tanned toes peeked out. They looked old. Everything here was so old. Everything here carried the tang of memory. “Start talking, please.”

The older her hummed. “This is your first time crossing into the limen. You fell asleep on the couch. It’s Thursday afternoon. You’re about four months pregnant with Kate.”

She glanced up to her older face. She hadn’t even learned the gender of her baby yet, let alone picked out names. “Kate?”

“That was the day the fair was in town. We went that night.” The older her held out her hand to younger her and she took it. Her skin was papery and delicate.

Sarah stood. “This is about that woman who came to the door, isn’t it?”

Older Sarah nodded. “Let’s take a walk. We don’t have much time.”

She got to her feet, acutely feeling each bend and flex of her muscles and joints. “What about Kate?”

In the foyer, the older Sarah paused before answering, “Come see for yourself.”

Before Sarah could ask herself another question, she was led out the front door. When she stepped onto the front porch, she noticed the changes quickly: the landscaping of the empty lot next door, the fresh coat of paint on the house across the street, the branches of the pin oak in the front yard grown well past the roofline.

As she followed herself down the walkway, she wondered at the stillness of the day. The smell of fresh bread from the bakery a few blocks away buffeted on a quiet breeze. Music she couldn’t place spilled out of a half-open window somewhere nearby, barely audible. She turned her attention to it but could not pick the melody from her memory. She saw no one else in the road, no one peeking out from behind curtains.

They walked together in silence, Sarah’s head on swivel, taking in the neighborhood as they approached the small park. Just that morning, it had been a bustle of activity as the vendors set up their booths in preparation of the first night of the small county fair. But now it stood empty except for the large, rangy cypress tree at its center and the weathered playground equipment where she thought someday her child might play. Strangely, the park, though square, had three gates, each with a path meeting in the middle at the cypress.

Older Sarah guided her to a bench, and they sat down together slowly. The whole ordeal felt choreographed. Sarah looked at her older self expectantly, and she looked up at the sky. It was a cloudless day.

At length she said, “You get used to it. Losing time, I mean. It does get easier.”

“Okay,” she said, focusing her attention on the young woman who had come through the gate on the other end of the park.

It was the same woman who had been at her door days before, smiling brightly and talking to her about a project at the university. The young woman was unmistakable, with short spiky hair the exact color of a ripe kumquat, eyes shielded from the bright sun by dark sunglasses. She walked with purpose, which gave her a commanding presence despite her slim build.

Sarah instinctively ran her hand down the side of her stomach to cradle the burgeoning bump.

“Sarah, look at me.”

Sarah turned her attention from the young woman to her older self.

“There are three things you need to know,” she told her. “Tonight, at the fair, take the money.”

Sarah opened her mouth, but snapped it shut again when the older Sarah held up her hand.

“If you wake up in this place again, come here to the crossroads.”

Sarah nodded, assuming this would all make sense soon. She looked down at her hand on her belly. A shadow fell across her vision. “The third?”

“The third thing,” older Sarah said with an affectionate smile, “is that it’s time to meet your daughter.”

Sarah looked up to find the young woman with the orange hair standing in front of their bench.

When Sarah woke up from her much-needed nap, it was later in the afternoon than she was expecting. She heard the clock strike four in the foyer and knew that Steven would be home soon. She knew that they would talk about their days. She would tell him she’d had a dream of meeting their daughter, and he’d laugh and say something about being careful not to have sharp cheese at lunch. Tonight, they would eat dinner at the fair, as planned, and they would ride the Ferris wheel to get a proper look at their small town, as planned.

At the fair that night, they were having a great time, eating popcorn as they ambled along the gangway between the rows of tents, her arm looped through his. They made their way to the far end of the park, to the tiny Ferris wheel that had been hastily set up in the road in front of the dentist office. When they were almost to the front of the line, Sarah’s stomach did an impressive flip, followed by a fluttering staccato of clenches that had Sarah making excuses.

“No, you go ahead,” she told Steven as she stepped out of line. “Have fun. Tell me if you can see our house from there.”

She took a seat on a nearby bench, watching as he climbed into the gondola and it rose into the air. She smoothed her palm down and around the side of her growing belly.

Steven waved down from the apex of the ride, and she waved back, smiling. A large group of high schoolers congregated then, blocking her view as they passed around a silver flask and made jokes.

She had that feeling of standing on the edge of something, ready to step out into the unknown of her new life. She was just thinking that she should write this down, to remember this night for the rest of her life, when the orange-haired woman took the seat next to her on the bench and took off her sunglasses. In the party glow of the Ferris wheel lights, Sarah recognized Steven’s eyes in the younger woman’s face.

Her daughter handed her a small black notebook and an impressively thick envelope.

“What’s this?” she asked, feeling the weight of the envelope in her hand.

“An investment, of sorts,” Kate said. “Twenty grand. You’ll know what to do with it.”

“And this?” she asked, arching her eyebrow as she held up the black notebook.

Kate smiled, revealing too straight, too white teeth. She must have great dental in the future. “Write down as many details as you can remember.”

The crowd of high schoolers began to dissipate, and she heard the Ferris wheel grinding to a halt, then the unmistakable metal-on-metal scream of the safety bars being lifted.

“I want to know everything about this project,” Sarah said, slipping the envelope into the notebook and her notebook into her purse.

“We have plenty of time,” Kate said, leaning in for a tight hug before quickly standing and checking over her shoulder. “Thanks, Mom.”

The crowd thinned, and Kate had disappeared with it when Steven stepped into view. Sarah stood, unnecessarily smoothing her shirt over her belly.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked, real concern on his face.

“You know, it might have been the baby quickening.” She smiled. “What do you think of Kate, if it’s a girl?”

Steven beamed, hands immediately going to her belly. “You could make a case for Kate, I suppose.”

“It’s settled then,” she said, looping her arm through his and steering them along one of the three sidewalks that led to the park’s center.

A gaggle of children were playing tag, chasing each other in circles around the cypress tree. Steven caught her eye and they exchanged small, hopeful smiles before continuing home, the first stars of the evening pushing through the darkness gathering in the west.