First Real Kiss

Below it was a to-do list. Pick up dry cleaning, organize all client files, tidy client meeting room, wrap gift for Mom and Dad, tell my husband I love him ten times.

Her husband.

Husband?

I backed away. My foot caught on a plastic something on the floor, and a dog dish skittered across the wood slats behind me. I turned, and along its side was painted the word Jasper. Ah, food for Jasper.

“Jasper?” I called softly. A dog could come bounding at me at any moment—and it would either recognize me or it would bark alarm at me for being an intruder in what might be my own life. “Jasper?” I whispered again.

Instead of a bark, however, something else sounded over the whir of a lawnmower outside.

A baby’s cry.

Baby! I pitched sideways, my eyes raking the area. A framed photograph on the wall showed Ms. Chandler—whoever she was—standing with me, and she held an infant.

I’m a dad? My heart lurched and my head spun, and suddenly I didn’t know up from down. I held tight to the kitchen counter. I also saw a wedding photo but couldn’t make out the faces. They blurred. There was another picture, featuring an older couple, and the woman sort of resembled my wife.

Wife!

What was happening here? I needed to call Lola. My sister Lola would know what was going on. She’d clear things up.

I felt for my phone, but my hands wouldn’t move. My feet grew into the hardwood floor. My arms turned into sacks of wet cement.

Everything went dark.

***

A machine beeped, a rhythm that matched my heart rate—fast.

I shaded my eyes, a harsh fluorescent light’s glare surrounding me instead of the soft, sunny lighting of the kitchen I’d been walking around only a second ago. My head split in pain. I struggled to sit up.

“Dr. Hotwell.” A nurse smiled at me. “You’re finally awake.”

“I am?”