PROLOGUE

        His last leap began to fade from his mind the instant that Sam Beckett entered the all-encompassing, frustrating, never-ending blue dimension.  Who he had been, where the leap had taken place, even what it was he had set right was gone.  The only thing he knew for a certainty was that Whoever or Whatever was leaping him around had told him the absolute truth; the leaps had become steadily tougher and more lonely.  It didn't matter what situation he was in, or how many people he was around, the feeling of not belonging always managed to make its presence felt.  But as that thought occurred to him, yet again the time traveler felt an all too familiar feeling and he resigned himself as he was dropped into yet another life.

As the leap-in haziness faded and the world became real around him again, Sam couldn’t mistake the sensations of being held familiarly close as well as lips brushing lightly across his cheek, followed by nuzzling near his ear.  Catching a whiff of a familiar spicy aroma made him wonder. ‘Aftershave?’  Then he opened his eyes and he jumped back like he’d been hit with a jolt of electricity.  A sandy-haired teenage boy about his own height with an amorous gleam in his brown eyes and wearing some sort of team jacket stood within arm’s reach of him.

        “What’s the matter Tessa?” Marvin Zang asked softly.

        “Ohhh boy,” Sam whispered involuntarily.

His girlfriend’s bewildered and nervous mannerisms made him wonder for a moment. But hearing her soft, breathy, “Ohhh boy,” brought a knowing smile to Marvin’s lips as he took a step toward her and reached to catch her right hand and pull her close again.

“Ohhh boy, is right,” he said softly as he placed his hands familiarly on her hips and pulled her against him.  “For a minute I wondered if you were enjoying ‘mistletoe practice,” he murmured.  “Glad to know you are.  I know I am.  And you know what they say about ‘mistletoe practice’ don’t you?” he suggested softly as he lowered his head with the obvious intent of kissing her again.

PART ONE

THURSDAY, December 14, 1989

        Keeping his eyes fixed on the boy, inwardly Sam groaned *I’m a girl… a teenage girl! And he… he’s my… her boyfriend.*  The confident half-smile on the boy’s face as he started to lean in made Sam sidle sideways out of the renewed embrace.  As he did so, he spared a glance down at himself.  He was dressed in a scarlet and cream-colored cheerleader’s skirt and a matching sleeveless scarlet top with the team name “Panthers” in cream-color script across the chest.  White tennis shoes and red trimmed ankle socks completed his outfit.  The fact that the hem of the skirt lapped a bit more than halfway up his thighs didn’t do a lot to ease his thoughts.

        “N…no,” Sam stammered. “What do they say?”  Darting looks between the clearly not put off boy and his surroundings, Sam recognized things that told him he was somewhere near a gymnasium.  The sound of a door opening nearby and several other high school boys, all wearing similar jackets as his… boyfriend was wearing just confirmed that he was in a high school and that his host was on the cheerleading squad.

        Not at all put off by his teammates’ hoots and comments as they passed by and between him and Tessa Millikin, Marvin swapped a few comments with them.   He then took advantage of her distraction in watching the others leave to move around behind her and slide his arms around her waist.  Hugging her slim figure back against him, Marvin leaned his head down close to her ear and murmured, “Practice makes perfect.  And we’re so close to perfect, I figured you wouldn’t mind a few minutes of extra practice.  After all, the dance is tomorrow night…”

        Startled, Sam froze in the boy’s embrace, swallowing nervously at the whispered response.

        “Wh... what dance?” he stammered.  Feeling one of the boy’s hands starting to slide slowly up from his waist galvanized Sam and he pulled out of the embrace, turning to face the boy.

        “I think we’ve had enough practice… for today,” he told his host’s boyfriend.

        Having Tessa practically bolt away from him, added to what she’d just said, caused Marvin to look at her closely.  “Tessa, what’s wrong with you?” he demanded.  “You’ve been crabby all day.  It’s not like we’re making out or anything.” …*Yet* In the next moment, though, a look of understanding came into his eyes and he sighed, then swore, “Dammit.”

        “What?” Sam asked hesitantly.

“You’d think with two sisters I’d recognize the signs,” he said, covering his frustration with another sigh before looking at the pretty, green-eyed blonde cheerleader he had just start dating three weeks ago, who was now watching him like she’d never laid eyes on him.  Glancing at her midsection before meeting her eyes again, he said plainly, “You’re … It’s that time of the month, isn’t it?”

        Sam’s face flared scarlet at the question.  However, he had learned early on in his years of leaping to never ignore a gift “out” when presented with one, especially during the times when he leaped into a woman’s life.  Now, even though he didn’t know anything about his host, he opted for a safe, if uncertain, “Uhh…yes.”

        Marvin stared at Tessa’s clearly uncomfortable expression and shook his head and glanced at the floor for a moment. *There goes tonight... and tomorrow night*.

Taking a breath and letting it out slowly, he straightened up. “I’m sorry,” he said with a half-smile. The look of relief coming across Tessa’s face told him he’d said the right thing.  Shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans, he said, “I’ll give you a ride home,” paused, then added, “I’ll wait while you change.”

        “Okay… sure,” Sam said quickly, glancing around the hall, once more empty except for him and his host’s boyfriend.  The sound of the Imaging Chamber door opening somewhere behind him made the leaper grateful that for once, in a manner of speaking, Al had showed up just when he needed him.

        “For the record, your boyfriend’s name is Marvin Zang.  He’s a senior and is a power forward on the school’s basketball team.   And your locker’s in the cheerleaders’ dressing room which is at the other end of the hall, Sam,” Al told him as he double-checked the information on the handlink.  He used his unlit cigar as a pointer to indicate the direction.  “Then take a right and you’ll see a door marked ‘Cheerleaders’ Dressing Room’.  Your locker is marked ‘T. Millikin.’  The ‘T’ stands for Tessa.”

        “I’ll just be a few minutes… Marvin,” Sam told the boy, then wasted no time in hurrying down the hall.  Once far enough from the boy that he felt safe in whispering, Sam demanded under his breath, “Does Ziggy have any idea of why I’m here?  Besides interfering with mistletoe practice?”

        “Mistletoe practice?” Al repeated carefully as he kept pace with Sam, a gleam beginning in his eyes and a grin spreading across his face.

        “Leave it alone,” Sam warned as he made the right turn at the end of the short hall and quickly spotted the door marked “Cheerleaders’ Dressing Room.”  Grabbing the door handle, he yanked the door open and marched in, then immediately stopped at the sight of two girls in different states of dressing; both glanced up at him.

        “For crying out loud, shut the door, Tessa,” Marlie Tabor demanded as she finished fastening her bra.  Reaching into her open locker, she took out a pair of jeans and a fleecy, black long-sleeved pullover with a smiling snowman appliquéd to the front of it, complete with corncob pipe and a top hat, and all dusted with glitter.

        “S…sorry,” Sam stammered, as he turned and closed the door, lingering a moment with his back to the girls.

        Finishing dressing quickly, Marlie grabbed socks and boots from the locker and dropped down on the bench in front it.  Glancing at Tessa still standing with her back to the door, she said, “You going to take a shower, Tessa or are you just going to stand there all night?”

        As Al could testify to, a man’s age had nothing to do with the appreciation of beauty.  Yet even for his unashamed appreciation of the female form, he knew when it wasn’t appropriate to even ‘window shop’, and so kept his imagination locked down, focusing on Sam’s dilemma.

        “Go on, Sam. Take a shower…”

        Sam’s knee-jerk response of, “No!” got him two responses.

Marlie shrugged her shoulders as she finished tying her laces and stood up.  “Suit yourself.  It’s not my business if you wanna go out of here stinking and sweaty, but do the rest of us a favor, okay?  Take your uniform with you.  Don’t leave it here to stink up the locker room over the weekend.”

The other girl, Ann Marie White, came to Sam’s defense.  “Climb down, Marlie,” she told the other girl.  “We’ve all done that at one time or another. And as I recall, you’ve done it twice since October.”  The snotty look that got her didn’t faze her in the slightest. 

Closing her locker, Ann Marie picked up the small, red and cream-colored sports bag with her name printed on one side and walked over to the girl still standing beside the door.  She smiled when Tessa looked at her.

“Ignore her,” she whispered as she reached to open the door.  “She’s just mad because she got a ‘C’ on a chem test, and she and Jason had a fight this afternoon before practice.”

“Thanks,” he said, nodding, stepping back to allow his defender to exit the locker room but made no move to turn around.

“Go on, get a shower,’ she said, a grin spreading across her face. “If I know Marv, he’s waiting to give you a ride home.”

Al rarely wasted an opportunity to rag Sam about his almost prudish ways around women, and now was no exception.

“Sam, the sooner you take a shower, the sooner you can get out of here. And Marv did say he was going to give Tessa a ride home,” Al told him, not trying to hide his amusement at the glare that got him.  Scanning the room, Al pointed to a metal rack stand near the doorway marked “Showers.”  “Towels are over there, Sam.”

Remembering the look in the boy’s eyes at the moment he had leaped into Tessa Millikin’s life, Sam slid another narrow-eyed look at the hologram as he went first to get a towel before going to Tessa’s locker. Keeping custody of his eyes, he undressed and then wrapped the towel around himself.   Grabbing the small plastic container for bar soap that was on the small shelf above the space where he hung his clothes in the locker, Sam turned to go to the showers, then had to bite his tongue when Al prompted him, “Don’t forget your shower cap.”  He managed to get the cap on his head with one hand as he walked away.

Walking beside his friend as he entered the showers, Al just grinned when Sam looked around the shower room.  Seeing that it was empty, he draped the towel on a towel bar near the doorway and went to the showerhead furtherest from the doorway, turned the water on and stepped under the spray.

Moving closer, Al watched Sam as he worked up a lather using the bar of Dove he’d found in Tessa’s locker.

“Sam, they see you as Tessa, not you,” Al pointed out.  He had long ago lost count of how many times he had pointed out that very fact about auras to the leaper.

“A fact for which I am more than singularly grateful at this moment,” Sam responded as he vigorously washed his face then rinsed under the strong spray of water.

“Sam,” Al continued to tease mercilessly.  “For cryin’ out loud, you’re a doctor.”

“That’s not the point and you know it,” Sam retorted, keeping his voice down.  He picked up the bar of soap to finish bathing, but it slipped from his grasp when he started suddenly, startled by the sound of a girl’s voice beside him asking, “What’s not the point, Tessa?”

Reflexively, Sam glanced toward the girl who had chosen to use the showerhead to his left then turned away again just as fast.

Al howled.

“Uh…uh… n..nothing,” Sam stammered as he bent to retrieve the dropped bar of soap.  “I… I was just…thinking…out loud… about something.” He cursed silently when his toe bumped the bar of soap and sent it skittering directly to the girl who had startled him.  “Thanks,” he said when she calmly retrieved the soap then stepped over to return it to him.  He was grateful beyond imagining when she resumed her own shower without further comment.

        Sam completed showering then dressing - in slim dark brown slacks and a dark gold sweater and winter ankle boots-- in record time, absorbing what Al told him about his host, Tessa Millikin, age seventeen and a cheerleader at Parlboro, Michigan.  “And that’s all we know at this point.”

Stuffing the cheerleading outfit into a sports bag identical to the one Ann Marie had carried, except that Tessa’s name was imprinted on it, he had patently ignored the hologram’s every attempt at conversation after giving him the sparse information on Tessa, especially a crack about, “…how adept you’ve become at fastening a bra behind your back.”  The only person Sam didn’t ignore was Angie Miller, the girl who had walked in on him in the shower, as she finished dressing.

        “’Night, Tessa,” Angie called when her friend started for the door, with her sports bag and purse in hand. 

        “Bye,” he responded then left the locker room.  It was only then that he again acknowledged the Observer’s presence.  “Where’s Tessa’s locker?” he asked.

Al pulled out the handlink and pressed several buttons on it.  Glancing down the short hall they were in, he pointed to a set of double doors.  “Go through those doors, then down that hall and turn right.  Tessa’s locker is number 383,” he said, then followed his friend’s quick march away from the physical education area of the school.  “So, are you over your snit, now?” he asked as Sam turned into the school’s main hallway, moving amongst the few students still in the building.  The hallway was lined on either side with narrow, putty-colored lockers hyphenated here and there with doors leading into classrooms. He acknowledged the few who called out to him as they took things out of or put things into their lockers, most putting on coats or jackets before departing the school for the weekend.

Sam chose not to answer Al’s question, instead focusing on scanning the numbers on the front of the lockers.  He had just found Tessa’s locker and asked Al for the combination to it when he heard voices and looked up to see two boys, one of them Marvin Zang, heading toward him.  “Hey, Tessa,” the unidentified boy called out.  “Come on.  We gotta get a move on.  We have to pick up Patti, Fie-Fee, and OK and get home.”

Sam sighed and closed his eyes then opened them again and finished opening Tessa locker.  “Don’t tell me,” he muttered under his breath as he pulled out Tessa’s light blue winter jacket and put it on.  “She’s dating both of them but they don’t know it, and I’ve got to tell one of them he’s outta luck.”

“Relax, Sam,” Al responded.  “The other kid is Tessa’s brother, her only brother, Riordan. Rio for short.  He’s eighteen and a senior and he plays drums in the school’s drum and bugle corps.  And, before you ask,” he added, reading the new information on the handlink.  “Patti, Fee-Fie, and OK are your… Tessa and Rio’s …three youngest sisters.  Fee-Fie is short for Fiona; she’s thirteen and in the seventh grade.  Patti’s fourteen; she’s next after Tessa, and is in the eighth grade. And ‘OK’… that’s short for Olivia Kate… is twelve and the baby of the family.  She started sixth grade this year.”

“Who’s Fraiser?” Sam muttered as he gave a small wave to Marvin and Rio. Closing the locker, he had the strap of his purse over his shoulder and the red and cream sports bag firmly in hand.  He nodded vaguely in response to Al telling him, “Fraiser’s not a who, it’s a what. Fraiser Junior High School is where the three girls go to school.  It’s about five miles from here.”

“What’s the name of this place?” he asked just before the boys reached him.  Then called, “Ready when you are,” to Tessa’s brother as he drew nearer.

Al followed along behind the threesome as they left the school and stepped outside into the frosty December late afternoon.  “You… Tessa, Rio, and Marvin attend Parlboro High School.  She’s a junior this year.  Marvin’s a senior, same as Rio.”

It had been a while since a leap had landed him in a winter setting, and Sam enjoyed the frosty air and the familiar sight of snow covering the ground, the sound of it crunching under his feet as he walked.  It reminded him of home.

Sam didn’t realize that the thought…*Home* summoned by snow reminding him of home had actually slipped out of his mouth until Marvin, who was walking beside him said, “Yeah, home.  Where you guys are going.  Also, where I’ll pick you up at 7:30 tomorrow night to go to the Winter Wonderland Dance.”  But it was a man whom he couldn’t see that knew what the single word had meant.

“You’re not in Indiana, Sam,” Al told him, the levity he’d enjoyed at his friend’s expense a short time past forgotten.  “You’re in Parlboro, Michigan, a little town about thirty miles from Kalamazoo.  And don’t even think about asking what I know is running through that noggin of yours.”

Rio came up to a maroon colored Dodge Caravan and unlocked it and slid behind the wheel.  He started the engine.  “Come on, sis,” he called, idly wondering what she was looking at with such a wistful expression.  For sure it wasn’t Marvin Zang, he thought as he leaned across to unlock the door for her.  “Tess, get in, will you?”

        Sam nodded as he glanced at Rio then back to Al, completely ignoring Marvin.  Ducking his head a moment and turning slightly so Marvin couldn’t see his face, he whispered, “How far?”  Yet again he felt his face get warm when Marvin, whose hearing was sharper than Sam had realized, and thinking that his new girlfriend was talking to him, had stepped closer then turned his back to the Caravan and whispered softly, “As far as you want to go.”

        Al glanced at the boy then ignored him, saying, “As the crow flies… maybe three hundred miles.”  He was about to say more when the handlink chirped.  Putting his now lit cigar in his mouth, an ethereal wisp of its smoke wafting around his head, he checked the information Ziggy was sending.

        “Tessa, come on!” Rio called, honking the horn.  “You two can crawl off in a corner and make kissy face at the dance tomorrow night.  But if we’re late picking up the trio, *you* can explain to Mom why they’re going to be late getting to the caroling party, which is going to make Mom late meeting Dad at the faculty Christmas party.”

Sam divided a look between Al and Marvin then hurried to get in the van after putting the sports bag and his purse in the back behind the seat.

As Rio put the van in gear and headed off to pick up the three younger Millikins, Al had Ziggy readjust his coordinates to keep him with Sam.

“Turn the radio on, Sam,” he instructed then paused when Sam turned and reached over the seat as if going for the sports bag.  He read the leaper’s glance readily.  “Surprisingly, Tessa didn’t freak out, so we’ve got some information, the key word being ‘some’.”  He paused again to listen when Sam tuned in a radio station, then grinned and started singing along as the words, “…you might think there’s no such thing as Santa, but as for me and grandpa, we believe,” filled the Caravan.

        Rio just shook his head and slid a humorous look at his sister.  “You know, for someone who dances to a lot of classical music, I can’t figure out why you like that cornball song.”

        “Different strokes for different folks, pal,” Al defended the song that had caught his attention when it had come out.  “’Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer’ is a cute song.”

        “I like it,” Sam said, though it was the first time he could recall hearing the nonsensical tune.  “It’s funny.”  Sparing a glance toward the back seat he added, “It’s not like it’s imparting some great knowledge or something.”

        Al didn’t miss the subtle request; he’d been dealt it in a myriad of ways more times than he could count.  “Oh, yeah.” Again he looked at the handlink.  “So what we’ve learned so far, besides that your name is Tessa Lynne Millikin and the other stuff you already know, is that you… Tessa is one of nine children.”  He looked up when Sam suddenly turned to look back at him.  “It’s not a typo, Sam. Aaron and Jill Millikin have eight daughters and one son.”  Al glanced at Rio and shook his head.  “Poor guy. He landed right in the middle of them.” To the puzzled look Sam gave him, he answered, “Rio’s got four older sisters: Sophie, Carol-Anne, and the twins, Margaret and Marilyn.  Then he has four younger sisters: Tessa, Patricia, Fiona, and Olivia.”  The look that came over Sam’s face was kind of familiar, considering his own all-female family.  “Don’t worry, Sam.  You’ll get used to fighting with your sisters for time in the bathroom.”  He shrugged and grinned at the dirty look that got him.

        “As for why you’re here, Ziggy’s says there’s an… eighty-one point four percent probability you’re here to keep Tessa from making a mistake.”

        “What kind of mistake?” Sam asked softly, glad that Rio was paying close attention to the traffic instead of him.

        “She gets pregnant at some time over the long Christmas holiday,” Al replied.  “And the baby’s father….”

        “Let me guess... Marvin,” Sam muttered then had to cover when Rio piped in, “It must be serious between you two.  All you’ve babbled about morning, noon and night for the last three weeks is Marvin this and Marvin that.”

        “That’s about to stop,” Sam said softly then looked over at Rio.  “I’m sorry if I’ve been a little….”

“Ga-ga?” Rio quipped with a knowing grin at his sister.  “I’m used to ‘ga-ga’ by now.  Remember how Sophie was about Ron?  And Carol-Anne,” he laughed out loud as he slowed for a traffic light.  “I think of all you girls she’s the only one that Dad seriously thought about duct-taping her mouth shut except at meals.”

        Leaper and hologram ignored the rest of the boy’s cheeky recitation about the other two older sisters as Al interjected himself into the conversation once more.

Catching Sam’s gaze, Al told him, “According to what Ziggy found in the March 1, 1990 edition of the Kalamazoo Gazette, Tessa Lynne Millikin killed herself when she drove a Dodge Caravan… this van… off the road not far from her home and slammed it into a tree on February 28^th.  She was killed on impact.”

“I’d…” Sam glanced at Rio then lowered his voice to a very low whisper.  “I’d be willing to bet that it was the same day she told Marvin about the baby, too.”

Al shook his head as he looked at the handlink for a moment. “Nothing about that, but you’re probably right.  So what are you going to do about it?”

Sam didn’t hesitate as he said, “I’m going to cramp Marvin’s plans.”

“How?” Al asked.

Sam shot him a determined look but remained quiet as Rio left the parking lot, turning left onto the road.

        Thirty minutes later, and amid a three-way non-stop conversation going on amongst the three younger Millikin sisters they’d picked up at the junior high school, Sam had come to a conclusion about sisters... he was glad he had only one!  Glancing over at Rio as he turned the Caravan off the road into a lane leading up to a large two-story farm house painted some shade of a pale yellow that sat back from the road about a quarter of a mile, he wondered how the boy managed to deal so calmly while coping with so many female siblings.

        From the back, Al, as if reading Sam’s mind, said loudly enough to be heard over the three girls, “Speaking as a man in a similar situation -a house full of females -, you learn to deal with it.”  But his comment was lost on Sam as he gazed out at the landscape surrounding and leading up to the house.

        “It’s a farm,” Sam murmured, feeling a sense of kinship with his temporary family as he scanned the fenced areas on either side of the lane.  “Where are the animals?” he couldn’t help wondering aloud.

        Rio snorted.  “In the backseat,” he said, grinning at his sister.  “Or haven’t you noticed the din?”

        “Oh, no,” Sam laughed.  “I meant, where are the cows?”

        Rio slid another look at his sister, a curious expression crossing his face as he guided the van into place near a shiny black Jeep Cherokee.  Turning off the ignition he started to say something to Tessa then paused long enough to look back over the seat and call out loudly to be heard over the chatter, “Patti! For cryin’ out loud…watch out with the door!  You put a ding in the paint on Dad’s Jeep and I wouldn’t wanna be you!”  He waited long enough to watch the younger girls get out, grabbing books and schoolbags and yammering non-stop as they headed for the house.  He jumped a little when the door was slammed shut.  Looking back toward the door, he saw Fee looking at him, sticking her tongue out before running away.

        “Hey! Save the hinges. They gotta last a while, you know? Close it right next time,” he yelled.  Seeing that Tessa was already out and getting her things, Rio caught her attention.  “Tess, you okay?”

        “I’m fine,” Sam said, settling the purse strap over his shoulder and then stepping back to close the door.  Instead of heading for the house immediately though, he made his way to the section of fence nearest him and stood gazing out at the snow blanketing the field, and for a moment he was a boy again on a winter afternoon on his father’s farm… just a few hundred miles from where he was standing.

        “Tessa?”

        “Yeah, Dad?” Sam murmured as he lingered in a memory that had slipped through one of the holes in his memory for a moment.  A strong bump on his shoulder brought him out of his reverie and he looked around to find Rio watching him.

        “Well, for one thing, I’m not Dad,” Rio replied as he came up to his sister.  “Now what’s wrong with you?  You’ve been acting funny since we started home.”  Pulling off one glove, he reached to put his hand on his sister’s forehead only to have it brushed away.

        “I’m fine,” Sam insisted, brushing the boy’s hand away and turning to go to the house.  “Can’t a... girl daydream for a few minutes?”

        “Yeah,” Rio said as he caught up with Tessa.  “But when you,” he gibed, “she of the weekly manicure and fresh nail polish like clockwork, asks where are the animals... I start wondering.”

        Sam paused at the foot of the brick steps leading up to the broad porch that appeared to encircle the house at least half way around.  “What’s wrong with that?”

        Rio studied his sister a moment before leaning in close to her, saying, “Because the only animal we’ve got is Oreo.”  As if on cue, the front door was opened and a black and white terrier mix bolted out and darted toward them, yapping excitedly.  “Hey, Oreo,” he greeted the little dog.  Reaching to pet the family pooch, Rio drew back just as quickly when the dog skidded to a stop at the top step and growled down in his throat, his friendly demeanor gone.  Noticing how the dog was staring at Tessa as he growled, Rio turned back to her.  “Wonder what’s wrong with him.”

        “I don’t have a clue,” Sam said, even though he was quite familiar with Oreo’s reaction. Most family pets he had encountered throughout his leaps had reacted in much the same way.  Hoping to win the dog’s confidence, he climbed a couple of steps, pulled off one glove then slowly offered the back of his hand to the dog.

        Oreo had backed up when Sam climbed the steps then, after eyeing suspiciously the hand the stranger held out, took a wary step forward to lean closer and sniff.  He started slightly when the stranger turned his hand over but he didn’t retreat.  Finally, having sniffed the man’s palm as well as not sensing any danger, Oreo moved closer, allowing the man to lightly scratch behind his ears.

        Sam let out the breath he was holding and smiled as he scratched the little dog’s ears.  “It’s okay, Oreo,” he said softly.

        Rio watched without comment until Tessa at last straightened up then followed her up the steps and into the house, Oreo rushing in ahead of them.

        Feeling like he had cleared one, albeit small, hurdle, when Sam stepped inside the front door he was instantly reminded of the busyness of family life when a woman’s voice called out from a nearby room, “Olivia… Fee… Patti…upstairs, and change your clothes.”

        “Right now?”

“Right now,” Jill Millikin repeated as she came out of the kitchen and crossed the dining room, her cheeks slightly flushed and with a smudge of flour on her right cheek.  She wore a festive green bib apron decorated with elves and Santas over matching red slacks and a knit pullover. The faded but apparently comfortable pair of blue bootie slippers she wore made a soft ‘wush, wush’ as she bustled into the foyer. “Remember, Pastor Ruben said that the group is leaving the Youth Center at six thirty,” she reminded her youngest, who had gone into the living room and flopped on the sofa to watch the program playing on the TV, still wearing her jacket.  “It’s five o’clock now.  So if you’re not changed and ready to go on time then… then I’ll have to call in Mrs. Murdock to sit with you while the rest of the family is out.”

        “Mom!” Olivia popped up off the sofa, her blue eyes wide, her expression scandalized.  “Six thirty’s a whole hour and a half away. I can change in five minutes. Besides, I’m twelve and a half years old! I *don’t* need a babysitter.”

        Setting the sports bag and his purse down on a narrow, padded bench near the front door, Sam took off his jacket.  Glancing around, he saw a door set to the left and behind the front door.  He took a chance that it was the coat closet - it was - and hung his jacket in it.  Hoping for a couple of minutes to talk with Al uninterrupted, Sam worked his way around and sidled into the large comfortable living room, replete with deep pile carpet in a soft honey color.  There was a fireplace, the mantle of which was decked with a swag of pine boughs tied with two large red bows at either end.  Between the bows hung twelve stockings, one for every family member, including Oreo.  But it was the Christmas tree, an eight-foot blue spruce that took up the whole of the large picture window that faced the front yard that was the centerpiece of the room.

The Christmas tree’s branches were adorned with silver tinsel and a variety of red, green, gold, and blue bulbs. There were also some sentimental ornaments, a number of which clearly had been made by little hands in years gone by.  Small red bows adorned the tips of many of the branches and strands of miniature lights were carefully woven amongst the branches. An angel with a flared skirt and a sparkling halo smiled beatifically down from the top of the tree, and there were several wrapped gifts under it.  The bright holiday colors of the tree were set off by the soft gold and cream colors of the wallpaper and furniture and the deep, warm wood tones.  A few throw pillows in bright, festive colors completed the room.

For a moment Sam wandered around acquainting himself with this room of his temporary home before moving to stand near the tree. The position gave him an unobstructed view of the members of the Millikin family he had met so far.

PART TWO

Watching the lively discussion between Olivia and her mother reminded Sam of similar discussions between Katie and their mother.  He couldn’t help chuckling when Olivia grabbed her books and ran up the staircase opposite the living room door, flinging back over her shoulder as she went, “I can’t wait until I’m fifteen!”

        For Al, who had recentered on Sam once he got inside the house, the flurry of kids shedding coats and some or all of them talking at once brought back fond and funny memories of his own brood of daughters at that age.  Jill Millikin’s somewhat harried though unflappable attitude in dealing with her youngest daughter made him laugh.

        “Jill so reminds me of Beth,” he said, moving up to Sam’s side.  “And Olivia is on the button just like Christa was at that age.”

        “I was thinking the same thing about Katie,” Sam whispered back then asked, “Who’s Jill?”

        “Jill Millikin,” he pointed at the somewhat short, sort of plumpish woman with dark hair already showing more than a few strands of gray, as she issued instructions to her second youngest daughter, Fiona.

“Fee-Fie” Millikin, with her short, dark curls and blue eyes and unruffled manner was unmistakably her mother’s daughter.  Unlike her youngest sister, she was already halfway up the stairs, schoolbag hanging by one strap over her shoulder, and carrying a glass of chocolate milk and a handful of the warm chocolate chip cookies, the fragrance of which was perfuming the air.

        “Jill is the mother of this brood,” Al said as he read off the information, surprised that Ziggy and Verbena had been able to get so much from the probably bewildered teenager sitting in the Waiting Room at this moment.  “She and her husband, Aaron met in their senior year at Western Michigan University, married two years later and have stayed that way for twenty-five... make that twenty-six years as of next month on January 27, 1990.  Now he teaches at the university and sells real estate on the side.”

        “With this crowd, he probably has to,” Sam noted softly.

        “And remember, this is only the youngest half of the brood,” Al reminded him.  “Your older sisters will be arriving home for Christmas break this weekend.”  He just grinned when Sam gaped at him then asked, “Where are they going to put them all?  Drive hooks in the wall and hang them up to sleep?”

        “Probably double up with the rest of you girls, is my guess,” the Observer chuckled.  He and Sam both looked up when Jill called, “Tessa, you’re almost as bad as Olivia when it comes to dawdling,” as she came over to him.  “Didn’t you say that Marvin was coming over this evening?”

        “Well, yeah, I guess so.” Sam began.  “But…”

        Jill nodded.  “Good. I picked up your dress from the cleaners this morning while I was in town picking up those last few gifts for Olivia and Fee’s teachers.  It’s in your closet… the dress, not the gifts.  Oh, and I made some vegetable soup today.  It’s my turn to take a dish to Mrs. Warwick today, so would you mind taking some over to her before Marvin gets here?”

        “Sure,” Sam responded. 

        Jill smiled up at her daughter, the one she had nicknamed “Sunshine” as a little girl since she was the only one of her children to have inherited their father’s soft blonde hair color.  “The thermos is on the counter, and I put some of the cookies in a Ziploc bag for her, too,” she said then started back across the room. “I would have gone earlier but….” Jill shook her head and paused to look back at Tessa.  “Anyway, I need to get myself upstairs and get ready.  After I drop the girls off at the Youth Center, I’m meeting your father at the university for the faculty Christmas party. We should be back by eleven, eleven thirty at the latest.”  She then gave her daughter a firm look.  “And remember that Marvin can only stay until ten. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.  Remember what we talked about before, Tessa,” she finished significantly.

        “No problem, Mom,” Sam assured her. “There won’t be any problem with Marvin staying too long because I’m going to call him and cancel our study… date.”

        Jill’s eyes widened at that and she walked back to her daughter.  “Why not?  Are you sick?”  Motherly concern sent her hand to Tessa’s forehead then to her cheeks.  “You don’t have a fever.”  She knew something was up when Tessa didn’t meet her eyes.  A thought occurred to her.  Putting her hand under her daughter’s chin, she lifted the girl’s face until their eyes met.  “Tess, did you and Marvin have a fight?”

        Sam sighed, squirming inside as he looked into Jill Millikin’s eyes, knowing what he had to say to get out of the study date. “No, I didn’t fight with Marvin.  It’s just… I’m not feeling very well right now,” he answered, hoping it would be enough.  It wasn’t.

        “Tessa, stop playing cat and mouse and tell me what’s wrong,” Jill demanded, concern in her gaze.  “Is your stomach upset?”

        “You could say that,” he hedged.

        “Tessa Lynne,” Jill began.

        Mentally Sam crossed his fingers for continuing the white lie begun when he’d first leaped in, then took a deep breath and continued it anyway.  “I… I’ve got cramps. Bad… cramps,” he amended hastily.

        Jill’s gaze softened upon hearing her daughter’s explanation.  “You’re just like I was at your age, honey,” she said softly.  “The first two days are always the worst.”  She patted Tessa’s cheek gently.  “Okay.  After you and Rio take the soup and cookies over to Mrs. Warwick, when you get back take a couple of Midol and get to bed.  That and a hot water bottle for your tummy should do the trick.”  She smiled at Tessa.  “There will be other study dates.”

        “Yeah,” Sam smiled, his face flushed a bright pink, grateful when Tessa’s mother, satisfied with his answer, bustled off.  He watched her pause to speak to Rio for a moment before going upstairs, following Patti.  Sam glanced at Al.  “Well?”

        “Well what?” Al asked, only for the penny to drop the next instant.  Pressing several buttons on the handlink, Al read the information twice.  “Well, that helped the odds but Tessa’s not out of the woods yet.”  Seeing Sam’s expression, he suggested, “Maybe you need to call Marvin and tell him that you aren’t going to the party tomorrow night either.”

        “Come on, Tess,” the sound of Rio calling to his sister interrupted the conversation between leaper and hologram.  “Let’s go.  Maybe you’re… outta commission tonight, but I’ve got a date with Stacy.”

        “Go on, Sam,” Al said, summoning the Imaging Chamber door.  “I’ll check back with you in a bit.” Then with the press of a button, the Imaging Chamber door closed and Sam was alone with his temporary family again.

        Putting on his coat again, he next went into the kitchen, a room almost as big, it seemed at first glance, as the living room.  The delicious aroma of hot soup and chocolate chip cookies made his stomach rumble.  But he ignored his hunger and picked up the tall, grey-green Thermos bottle and the small paper plate of cookies tucked inside a zippered plastic bag and headed for the front door where Rio waited for him.

        “Ready,” he said then went out onto the porch and down the steps.  He started for the van again but veered back to Rio when “his” brother said, “I’m not driving to the end of the lane and back just to deliver some soup across the road.”

        A couple of security lights set along either side of the snowy lane lit their brief walk.  Crossing the road, Sam didn’t comment when Rio put a hand under his elbow as they crossed the road and started up a similar but much shorter lane to the small house set back from the road.  Looking ahead, he saw lights on inside the house and wondered about this Mrs. Warwick.  A couple of minutes later, standing on porch, Sam knocked on the door and waited. The door opened and a gray-haired elderly woman not much taller than Jill Millikin and wearing a thick black shapeless sweater over her housedress peered up at them.

        “Hello, Mrs. Warwick,” Rio greeted her.

        “Oh, hello, Rio,” Eulene Warwick smiled up at the tall young man before peering at Sam.  “Who’s this with you?  Your girlfriend?”

        Rio laughed.  Grinning he replied, “No, this is Tessa, one of my sisters.  Remember, she’s brought things by before.”

        Sam stepped forward. “Hello, Mrs. Warwick,” he said.  “How are you this evening?”

        “Tired,” Eulene responded promptly.  “One of the ladies from the church just brought me home.”  Her smile faded a bit then brightened again though not quite as much as before.  “I spent the afternoon visiting with Felton.  He’s doing… as well as can be expected, I suppose.”  Shivering just then with the cold, she stepped back inside and opened the door wider.  “No sense in trying to heat the great outdoors,” she observed.  “Come inside for a minute.”

        Rio stepped back to let his sister enter ahead of him then carefully closed the door.  Glancing around at the small, somewhat untidy surroundings before looking at his sister, he said, “Mom made soup today and she thought you might like some.”

        The old woman’s face beamed as she motioned for them to follow her.  “The kitchen’s back here,” she called over her shoulder as she went toward the back of the house.

        “We can only stay a few minutes,” Rio whispered to Sam, giving him a certain look.

        Sam wasn’t sure what the look meant, but decided not to argue.  Turning, he followed the elderly woman back to a small kitchen.  Setting the thermos and plate of cookies on the round kitchen table near the doorway, Sam went to help the old woman who, it occurred to him, might be about the same age as his own mother.  He paused a moment at the thought then helped Mrs. Warwick find a bowl and spoon before opening the thermos and pouring some of the fragrant hot vegetable soup into the dish.  When Rio caught his eye, jerking his head subtly toward the door, Sam shook his head slightly and sat down at the table.

        Rio rolled his eyes when his sister not only sat down, but also reached over and pulled out a chair for him.  Brother and sister argued with their eyes; Tessa won.  Al could have told him that he wasn’t going to win.  Those not in the know rarely won an argument when confronted with the Beckett ”puppy dog” look.  Rio sat down.  It wasn’t that he didn’t like the old woman, but making small talk with her wasn’t his idea of a good time, and he did have a date.

        Having won the “argument of the eyes,” Sam shifted his attention back to Mrs. Warwick. He couldn’t help chuckling when she unzipped the bag, selected a cookie and took a generous bite of it followed by a spoonful of soup.

        “This is so good,” Eulene complimented the soup.  “Please tell your mama I said thank you.”  She paused a moment before adding, “I always made soup in the winter.  Clayton liked the bean soup with ham in it.”

        “Is Clayton your husband?” Sam asked politely.  He didn’t know the woman, but a fleeting memory from his youth recalled to him the manners his mother had drilled into him and his siblings.

        Eulene paused, a spoonful of soup halfway to her mouth, and laughed.  “No, no. Felton is my husband. Clayton is our boy.”  Saying the name of her son brought him to mind and she put the spoon down.  “Listen to me.  Calling a grown man a boy.”

        Sam smiled.  “My mom always told… tells me that no matter how old I get I’ll always be her little…girl.”  Glancing over at Rio, his lips twitched a bit as he said, “I’m sure that goes for any mother’s son, too.”

        Eulene laughed.  “Clayton is… thirty-nine now.”  She ate some more of the soup and finished the cookie.

        “Is he coming home for Christmas?” Sam asked.  He winced at the kick in the ankle that got him.

        “I don’t think so,” Eulene said softly before taking another swallow of soup.  “He’s somewhere in Germany.  He’s a captain in the Air Force.”  Taking out another cookie, she took a small bite and chewed it slowly.  Even Rio forgot about being impatient with his sister when the elderly woman said, her voice quivering slightly, “I wish he could though.” She looked at the two young people sitting with her.  “I don’t think Felton will be here next Christmas.”

        When Tessa stood up, Rio got up too. But instead of turning for the door, he watched her step around to their elderly neighbor, kneel down beside her chair and hug her.

        “Christmas is the time of miracles,” Sam whispered close to Mrs. Warwick’s ear as he hugged her again then released his hold on her.  Kneeling back, he smiled into her misty blue eyes then stood up.

        “Tessa,” Rio caught his sister’s attention.  “We really need to go,” he didn’t try to hide the hint of impatience in his voice as she looked at him.  Glancing at his watch, he reminded her, “Mom and the girls have to leave soon,” then moved to stand in the doorway to the hall, his hands in his coat pockets.

Like his sisters before and after him had done, Rio had learned at an early age about charity and charitable acts to “Others less fortunate,” especially during the Christmas season.  But that didn’t mean that he particularly liked hanging around after performing the act of charity.  Little kids and even families were easier to relate to, but elderly people made him uncomfortable.

He made polite responses to the elderly woman as they all returned to the front door, where he hurried down the steps to wait while his sister exchanged a few more words with Mrs. Warwick.  He barely hid a sigh of relief when Tessa finally joined him and they started for home.

“I thought you weren’t feeling well,” he commented as they trudged through the snow.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Sam asked, pausing to look both ways before crossing the road and starting up the long lane toward the Millikin house.  Security lights affixed to poles spaced along the lane came on just then.  He paused then followed after Rio as he strode toward home.  Catching up to him, he said, “Rio?”

“You cancel a study date with Marvin because you’re not ‘feeling well’,” Rio came back, never slowing down, his breath making soft white plumes in the cold night air. “But for Mrs. Warwick you were ready to sit down and discuss everything under the sun.”

Sam stopped in his steps, staring at the boy, not a little surprised at his attitude.  “Well, besides the fact that it’s Christmas time, Mrs. Warwick is our neighbor and she’s alone...”

Rio stopped and turned around to see Tessa standing about ten feet behind him, her hands in her coat pockets.  “She’s got her husband…” he began.

“And she’s worried about him, not to mention that she’s lonely for him, too,” Sam finished his thought.  “Weren’t you listening?  He’s in the hospital, Rio.  It sounds like he’s really ill.”

“Tessa, you know as well as I do that the charity guild Mom belongs to adopted Mrs. Warwick as their Christmas project this year.”

“Mrs. Warwick is a person, not a ‘project’,” Sam came back.  He wondered if Rio heard him or was simply ignoring the comment.

“She’s got lots of people looking out for her, taking her shopping… to the hospital.  She doesn’t need us to sit and watch her eat soup, and make small talk for crying out loud.  Now come on,” Rio said, his tone clipped, his expression plainly impatient.  “Maybe you’re not gonna see Marvin tonight, but I am going to see Stacy, and I still have to shower.”

Listening to the boy, Sam was reminded, vaguely, about his own upbringing and being taught to respect his elders.  Holding gazes with Rio for a moment he sighed and walked quickly to reach him.  They continued on in silence for a moment, snow crunching under their boots as they went.

        “Why don’t you like Mrs. Warwick?”

        “I never said I didn’t like Mrs. Warwick,” Rio parried the question.  “I just don’t like being around people like her.”

        Rio’s words clicked the missing piece into place in Sam’s mind, and he put a hand on the boy’s arm and stopped him again.  He ignored Rio’s impatient, “Now what is it?”

        “You mean ‘old’ people,” Sam said quietly, watching Rio’s face in the bright security lights shining down on the area.  He took a stab in the dark, asking, “So being around our grandparents makes you uncomfortable as well?”

        “Grandma Schrader is nothing like Mrs. Warwick,” Rio defended himself.  “You know it’s true. Grandpa Schrader died seven years ago, but you didn’t see her acting like Mrs. Warwick.  Always needing something, someone to take her somewhere, do something for her...”

        “Her husband is in the hospital,” Sam reminded him, not at all put off by the boy’s attitude. “And her son is stationed half a world away in Germany.  Grandma Schrader, on the other hand, had all of us… and the rest of the family to rely on. I’m guessing that the Warwicks don’t have any other family, at least close by.  But we’re their neighbors, and, neighbors …good neighbors… help each other out.”

        “Hey, it’s not like we don’t take our turns bringing her food and shoveling her driveway and stuff,” Rio came back.  “We do.  And we do the same stuff for Mr. Jamison, and the Butlers, too. But we’ve got our own lives, our own stuff, more important things to do besides handing out charity.”

        The words came to Sam unbidden, tumbling out, each word seeming to hang in the air as it was spoken before becoming a link in the complete thought.

“Faith, hope and charity He gave us, these three, and the greatest of these is charity,” he said softly, watching Rio’s face.

Giving his sister a hard stare, the boy turned and marched rapidly toward their home.  The porch lights as well as the warm light from the various second story windows made a welcoming beacon in the rapidly falling winter evening.  “Maybe they don’t have much to do any more, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us should have to pick up their slack.”

        Sam stared after the youth as he walked away, continuing toward the house, as he finally recognized what was behind Rio’s attitude.  “You don’t like her because she’s old,” Sam called out clearly then jogged through the snow to catch up with him.  Matching strides with the boy, he went on. “Rio, getting older is not a disease.  It’s a part of life.  It happens to all of us.” When that didn’t get a response, he asked, “What if that was Mom?”

“It’s not Mom,” Rio insisted, stopping just about a hundred yards from the house.  “Mom will never be like that.”

“Like what?” Sam asked. “Old? Or alone?”  He paused then added, “I said what *if* it was her?” he pressed his point.  “Suppose it was Dad laying in the hospital and none of us… or any of the family… could be there to help Mom?  Wouldn’t you want… hope that her neighbors would be there to help her out?”

“We are doing our part to help out Mrs. Warwick,” Rio almost shouted at Sam.  “We bring her food… and do all the things like I said a minute ago.  She gets everything she needs.”

“What about companionship?”  Sam asked clearly, his voice soft as he looked into Rio’s eyes.  “What about someone to just sit and talk to about everyday things for a few minutes?”  Pausing, he turned his head and looked at the large, warmly lit house then back to the boy.  “Rio, what if, for whatever reason, it was you all alone in our house?   What if people just brought you food and did those other things and then left without saying anything to you, or worse made polite conversation?  You know, talking and smiling to you but when you look in their eyes they’re anywhere but with you.  How would you feel, especially at Christmas?”

The harsh retort that Rio had been about to fling at his sister didn’t make it to his lips.  Since they had left the school an hour or so before, he had noticed Tessa’s behavior was off.  Usually she was the one who groused - out of earshot of their parents - about taking her turn with their elderly neighbor.  But now she was defending the old woman.  What’s more, she had put a question to him that made him stop and think.  And the more Tessa’s question circulated in his thoughts, the more he felt like squirming.

        As he looked into the teenager’s eyes, Sam was quietly grateful.  Grateful for the vague sliver of a memory of being able to be with his siblings and their mother, though in the aura of someone else, when their father had died. He watched quietly as Rio Millikin was confronted by a new truth about himself.

        “I never know what to say to her,” Rio admitted.

        Putting a hand on Rio’s arm, Sam said, “I’m not saying you have to go every day.  But when you do go over to her house, spend a few minutes talking with her about… the weather… Christmas …school  …anything.  And I’ll bet that there will be times when she does most of the talking. But…”

        “Okay,” Rio conceded.

        “…whether you’re doing the talking or she is,” Sam urged. “Listen… really listen to her. Just like you want others to listen to you when you talk.”

        “Okay, okay,” Rio repeated. “Tessa… okay.”

        “Okay,” Sam agreed at last then led the way up the steps and into the hustle and bustle of the Millikin house.

        Looking around, Rio saw two cars parked in the yard that hadn’t been there before they had gone to visit their neighbor.  “The M&Ms are home.”

“Who?” Sam asked as they reached then climbed the front steps.

Rio glanced at his sister as she opened the door then followed her inside.  His question, “Are you sure you’re all right?” was forgotten as he heard the phone ring, followed immediately by the sound of his sister, Marilyn calling out, “I’ll get it,” followed an instant later by, “Mom, it’s Mrs. Addison. She wants to know if you can swing by and pick up Jerry and Linda on your way to the youth center with Patti and the others.”

For the next forty-five minutes, Sam became thoroughly enmeshed as one of the Millikin daughters after he fumbled his way through finding Tessa’s bedroom, which she shared with Patti.  He found himself envying Rio who retreated to his solitary room at the opposite end of the long second story hallway.  He, on the other hand, found himself involved in at least three conversations with the twins, Marilyn and Margaret (the “M&Ms”) both just arriving back from work and dancing practice, respectively.

He also found himself trying to relate to Olivia who came to him, after changing into jeans and a fun Christmas sweatshirt, for help in braiding her hair so, “It’s not getting in my eyes every time the wind blows while we’re singing.”  And he was more than grateful when a miniscule snippet of a memory of his sister, Katie, when she was about Olivia’s age, aided him in managing to achieve two more or less respectable braids.  He smiled when Olivia threw her arms around his neck in a tight hug and ran back to her room to put her boots on again.

At ten minutes to six, Sam, grateful for the gift of quick study in new situations that leaping had taught him, was in the thick of helping the Millikin girls and their mother get started out the front door.  He thought he had counted them all, and Rio, leaving and was closing the door when he heard, “Tessa,” coming from the direction of the kitchen and turned to see Jill, now wearing a lovely dress of dark red silk with a matching long-sleeved lace bolero jacket coming toward him carrying a hot water bottle in one hand and a pill bottle in the other.

“Here’s the Midol - good thing I remembered to get some while I was at the drugstore this morning,” Jill said as she handed the medication and the hot water bottle to Sam.

“Thanks,” Sam murmured, clutching the not too full hot water bottle as he glanced at the label on the bottle.

Jill scanned her daughter’s face.  “Have you talked to Marvin yet?” When Tessa admitted that she hadn’t, she said, “Well, after you do, you take two Midol and get to bed.”

“I will, Mom,” he assured her weakly, nodding when she reminded him, “And be sure to lock all the doors before you go upstairs.”

He watched as she walked into the living room to retrieve and put on her coat then picked up her purse, checking its contents as she went to the door.  Sam went to open the door for her, nodding for what seemed the hundredth time when she reminded him, “Remember, Dad and I will be home no later than 11:30, and Rio is supposed to be back by 10:30. And if you need us...”

“The number is on the pad by the phone,” Sam finished the sentence with a smile before encouraging her, “I’ll be fine, Mom.  Now you better get going. You still have to stop by the Addisons’ on your way.”

Jill started to say something but forgot what it was when the phone rang and started to go to answer it.  Sam moved more quickly and got to the phone first.

“Hello?”  His stomach sank a bit when he heard Marvin’s voice. “Oh, hi, Marvin,” he said, his gaze finding Jill’s.  When she started toward him, he said into the phone, “Marvin, hang on a second,” then put his hand over the mouthpiece.  “I’ll be fine,” he whispered to her then waited until she had gone out the front door and closed it.

He was just removing his hand from the mouthpiece when he started slightly at the sound of the Imagining Chamber door opening behind him.

“Hey, Sam, how’s it going in the house of buttons and bows and frills and stuff?” the Observer teased as he walked over to him.

Raising his voice a bit, Sam looked at Al as he said, “Umm, Marvin... about tonight...” Al got the message and shut up, clearly all ears for the conversation about to ensue.

Having raised four daughters of his own, the explanation Sam gave to Marvin was one Al Calavicci had heard on several occasions during his girls’ dating years.  Now, watching Sam close his eyes and sigh as he pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment after at last hanging up the phone, Al could just about picture in his mind how well Marvin had taken the canceled date.

“Sam...”

“I’ve got to check the doors. It’ll just take a minute.”

Al took the hint and waited near the staircase.  The expression on his friend’s face when he returned to the large foyer was familiar.

“You okay, kid?” he asked as Sam picked up the hot water bottle and the Midol.

“I’ve got a headache,” Sam answered as he stuffed the feminine pain medication in a pocket of his slacks before heading upstairs.

In the bedroom he was temporarily sharing with Rio’s younger sister, Patti, Sam sighed wearily as he changed out of the slacks and sweater, and pulled on the pink cotton flannel pajamas he found at the bottom of a stack of more frou-frou night wear.  After a few minutes in the bathroom to brush his teeth, he turned out the light and went back down the hall to his bedroom.  Right now all he wanted to do was to crawl into bed, turn off the light and get some sleep.

“Maybe you should take the Midol,” Al suggested carefully.  He took the look that got him in stride.  “Hey, all I’m saying is that speaking from personal experience as a husband as well as the father of four daughters...”

“Al, I’m a man. Trust me when I say that the last thing I need right now is Midol,” Sam snapped, his tone more than a bit testy.

“...and it’s also good for headaches.”

“Al!”

“Well, you said you had a headache.”

Muttering under his breath, Sam retrieved the bottle of Midol from the pocket of the slacks.  Stalking back down the hall to the bathroom, he put the bottle of medicine in the medicine chest.   Seeing a bottle of Tylenol there, he shook out two tablets and swallowed them with a handful of water.

Back in the bedroom, he crawled between the sheets and turned on his side as he pulled the covers up to his chin.  Snuggling his head on the pillow, the weary leaper reached to switch off the bedside lamp.

Al waited until Sam was settled before moving to the foot of the bed.  “You forgot your hot water bottle,” he couldn’t help teasing.

“Al,” Sam warned softly but hesitated in turning off the light.  Rising up on one elbow he fixed the hologram with a look.  “Why haven’t I leaped?  I kept them apart tonight.”

Glancing at the handlink again, Al said, “Yeah.  Well, you’ve certainly improved the odds.”

Sam sat up in bed at that.  “What do you mean I improved the odds?  I cancelled the study date which means that Marvin and Tessa didn’t spend a couple of hours too many alone in the house.”

“That’s true,” Al agreed.  “And because of that, you’ve improved the odds of preventing Tessa’s committing suicide in March by fifty percent.”

Sam stared at the hologram.  “So what else is there for me to do, short of hanging around here for the next three months?”

Al couldn’t help the mental picture or the subsequent small grin that started across his face as a result of that picture.  With some little effort he managed to hold his tongue to keep from it from wagging more than it should at the moment.

“Ziggy says that to improve Tessa’s odds to ninety-six point seven two percent against her getting pregnant by Marvin, all you have to do is...”

Whatever else Al had been about to say, Sam didn’t hear as he suddenly leaped, yanked from the warmth of a comfortable bed on a cold winter night and once again into the vast blue nothingness that was neither hot nor cold, to await his next assignment.

He didn’t have long to wait.  Even without any way of knowing how much time had passed, it seemed like he’d only had enough time to catch his breath before he felt the draw of his next assignment.  Knowing it was useless to fight it, Sam Beckett ‘sighed’ and went with the pull.

PART THREE

Friday, December 15, 1989

Being suddenly assaulted by the huge startling sound of what seemed to be an army of drums all around him, before he could open his eyes, Sam jumped about three inches off the floor.  Flinging down whatever it was he had been holding, he clapped his hands over his ears then opened his eyes when the drumming stopped.

*Just great,* he thought as he looked around at the group of high-school boys who had obviously been intensely focused on the piece of music they had been practicing a moment ago, all now staring at him.  “I’m sorry,” he began.  That was all he was able to get out before a man’s voice behind him drew Sam’s attention and he turned around.

“Let me see that hand, Rio,” said Stuart Adler, the director of Parlboro High School’s Drum & Bugle Corps for the last seven years, as he approached the tall lanky senior.

Sam met the man’s gaze, a puzzled look furrowing his forehead.  “What? My hand? Oh, no, no.  It’s okay, really.  I just… uh… I just had got a cramp for a second, but it’s okay now.  See?” Lifting his right hand, Sam flexed his fingers rapidly to prove his point.

Stuart Adler couldn’t fault Rio Millikin for his desire to avoid being replaced in the unit.  Schooling themselves to perfection since being invited to participate in the 1990 Rose Parade had been the focus of Parlboro’s small drum & bugle corps for the last ten months.  Now, with a little more than two weeks to go before they were to leave for California was a bad time for one of the corps’ best drummers to have a recurring problem with his hand crop up again.  But to ignore a problem, any problem at this juncture was not an option.  So when Rio began flexing his fingers, Stuart Adler grabbed the young man’s hand and manipulated his wrist gently but with a purpose.

“Ahh!” Sam winced at a sharp twinge that occurred during the teacher’s manipulation of his wrist. He tried pulling away and was successful but not before there was another sharp twinge in the same place on the back of his wrist.  This time there was also a moment of numbness that flared down into his hand before fading.  Massaging his hand and wrist gently, Sam met the music director’s gaze.  “It’s okay,” he insisted.  “It was just a cramp.”

Instead of arguing with the determined young man, Stuart studied Rio for a moment then bent down to retrieve the dropped drumsticks.  Straightening up, he held them out to Rio.

“Pick up from where we stopped and play through the end of the piece,” Stuart ordered quietly.

Sam looked at the drumsticks offered to him then back to the teacher. “My wrist is fine,” he insisted, but it was plain by the teacher’s expression that he wasn’t convinced.  The leaper couldn’t blame him for not believing him, but it was for the wrong reasons-though there was no way he could explain that to the teacher. Sam loved music, loved playing the piano or strumming a guitar whenever a leap gave him the chance to do so; drums, however, were another matter.  Somewhere in the vague and hazy shadows of his memory lingered enough of one to tell the time traveler that playing any percussion instrument, especially drums, had not been one of the countless skills that he had achieved through his genius.

“There’s nothing wrong…” he began again, but Stuart Adler wasn’t buying it.

“If there is nothing wrong with your wrist, Rio,” he said, his tone reasonable but firm, “then you shouldn’t have any problem in doing what I ask, should you?”

Sam never liked it when a leap in instantly put him on the spot, especially in a group of any size, and even more so when he had no idea how to do whatever it was his host could do.  Licking his lips a couple of times he met the music director’s eyes yet again as he reached to take the drumsticks.  Adjusting his stance slightly, the marching snare Sam was wearing drew his attention for a second as he shifted one of the drumsticks to his left hand.  From somewhere out of his Swiss-cheesed mind came a fleeting notion of how to hold the drumsticks - he hoped - but that was all.

Though strict in his teaching style, Stuart was always willing to work with a student to overcome a problem or difficulty.  And it wasn’t his habit to embarrass or humiliate any student in front a class.  But with the trip to Pasadena scheduled to get underway three days after Christmas, neither he nor Parlboro’s Drum & Bugle Corps, and especially not Rio, could afford to ignore any injury, no matter how minor it might appear to be.  Now he watched the teenager, hoping that this was just a stupid joke.  He didn’t want to think that the ‘Parlboro Thunderers,’ a nickname someone had coined about the corps three or four years before, might be one drummer short on the first day of 1990 when they stepped off when the Rose Parade started down Pasadena Boulevard in seventeen days.

        “Well?”

“Come on, Millikin, play it already. Quit horsing around,” said one of the other drummers.  Sam turned his head to see who had spoken, but all eyes were on him and no one in particular made any move to identify himself as the speaker.

        “Rio?”

        Turning back to the teacher, there was only one thing Sam could do, besides wondering why Al had not yet appeared to help him out.  By the expression in the teacher’s eyes, he had no doubt the man knew what he was about to say.

        “I can’t,” Sam said, then glanced down at the drumsticks he held.

        Stuart sighed upon hearing the admission.  “I didn’t think so,” he told the young man, not unkindly.  “I’ve noticed that you’ve been favoring that wrist off and on for the last two weeks.” He wondered momentarily at Rio’s startled reaction then dismissed it.  “Go home and rest your wrist, Rio,” he told him, lifting a hand to wave off the protest that he was certain was about to be offered.  “Go see your doctor as soon as possible.”  He watched as the young man nodded after a moment then glanced around and headed for the practice room door.  “Rio,” he called out.

        Sam paused and turned back toward the teacher. “Yes, sir?”

        “Go see your doctor,” the teacher repeated. “Do whatever he says, and if... *if* he okays the wrist in writing by the twenty-sixth, you can go to Pasadena.”

        *What’s in Pasadena?* Sam wondered, searching his Swiss-cheesed memory, then hastily added, “Yes, sir.  Thanks,” and continued out of the room.  He was grateful that he hadn’t completely ruined his host’s chances for whatever event the group was rehearsing so diligently for.  As the door of the practice room closed behind him, Sam started for the door marked “Exit” then stopped and looked around at the familiar sound of the Imaging Chamber door opening nearby.

        “Don’t you think you should put your drum away before you go outside, Sam?” Al asked as he pushed a button on the handlink to close the Imaging Chamber door.  “Unless you’re going to practice marching in snow almost up to your knees.  Not to mention, that it would also make putting your jacket on a heck of a lot easier.”

        “Snow?” Sam repeated, keeping his voice low as he moved closer to Al.  The awkward feeling of the lightweight carrying apparatus for the drum on his shoulders made him stop.  “Where do I put this thing?” he asked.  “Even more important, where am I and who am I?”

        The Observer glanced around and pointed to an open door to the left.  “That’s the equipment room, Sam,” then followed his friend inside, pointing out the drum locker with a nameplate bearing Rio Millikin’ name.  Before Sam could ask, he pressed a sequence of buttons on the handlink and said aloud, “Ziggy get the combination for the kid’s drum locker.”  A moment later, he said, “Twelve to the right, eighteen to the left, five right then zero to the left.”

        After getting the locker open, Sam carefully extricated himself from the drum and the carrying apparatus.  Putting the instrument and carrier into the locker, Sam closed it and spun the lock, not missing a single word of what the Observer was saying.

        “It’s December 15, 1989 and, you’ve leaped into Rio Millikin, in the town of Parlboro, Michigan, population 7,012. It’s a small town about fifteen miles or so outside the city limits of Kalamazoo, Michigan,” Al said as he read the information on the handlink’s small screen. “You’re eighteen years old, a high school senior - one of 107 in this year’s graduating class - and a member of Parlboro High School’s Drum & Bugle Corps Rio’s been a member since he was a freshman.”

        “He’s also got a problem with his right wrist, which is why the teacher just sent him...er, me, home,” Sam interjected as he looked around the equipment room then headed for the row of winter jackets hung on a row of hooks on the wall.  “Which one is mine?”

        Al glanced at the row of winter coats then said, “Probably that dark green jacket parka with “R. Millikin” across the back.”  He just grinned at the look that earned him.  “You asked,” he quipped then moved on to other information, following Sam as he made his way out of the equipment room and then out into the hallway outside the practice area.

        “Ziggy located his school records, and you’re right, Sam.  Rio started playing drums in junior high school but then started having problems with his right wrist in his junior and senior years.  In fact, six weeks after the corps’ upcoming trip to California to march in the Rose Parade…”

“In Pasadena,” Sam interjected.

Al glanced at him. “Yeah. Right where the Rose Parade has been held since it began back in 1890.  In fact, when Parlboro got the invitation to participate in the 1990 Tournament of Roses Parade, the whole town was celebrating, since the parade would coincide with its own celebration of its one hundred sixty years of existence.”

        There were several questions that sprang to Sam’s mind but were dismissed since none of them had anything to do with why he had leaped into Rio Millikin’s life.

        Searching the pockets of the jacket, Sam found gloves.  Pulling them on he asked, “So why am I here, Al? And by the way, where do I live?”

        Al punched in the requested information, responding a moment later, “According to Ziggy, Rio lives with his parents, Jill and Aaron Millikin and four of his sisters at 12477 Rivendale Road. It’s about a fifteen-minute drive from here.  Got your keys?”

        “He’s got four sisters?” Sam stopped to look at the hologram.

         “You weren’t listening, Sam,” Al told him.  “I said that Rio’s got eight sisters.”   At the leaper’s expression, he grinned as he double-checked the information.  “Don’t look at me like that, Sam.  You heard me right.  Rio Millikin has eight sisters.”

        Sam pulled off the glove from his right hand and dug in his pants pocket to retrieve the keys.  Looking around, he spotted the exit and went outside, his breath almost taken away by the intensity of the cold winter air that engulfed him.  Squinting against the glare reflected off of the afternoon sunshine on the snow, retrieved from somewhere in his Swiss-cheesed memory, came past memories of other winters spent as a youth on his parents’ farm in Elk Ridge, Indiana.  In that moment, no matter what faced him, Sam suddenly felt closer to home than he ever had.  Home.

“Al, how far is it from here to Elk Ridge?” Sam asked. Checking his coat pockets again, he found a pair of sunglasses.  Slipping them on he surveyed the simple layout of the school buildings. 

From where he stood in front of the musical arts building that was connected by an enclosed walkway to the large main structure of the main school building, Sam saw a good-sized parking lot that was about a third full of cars and trucks.  Moving down the brief walkway leading up to the front door of the music department, Sam smiled to himself at the sound of snow crunching underfoot as he started down the walk.  Pausing where the walk ended at the sidewalk which intersected it, he looked right and saw at the far end of the school the familiar sight of bleachers framing a football field now covered in a blanket of snow. Realizing that Al hadn’t answered him, Sam looked at the hologram keeping pace with him.

Al had hesitated a moment about answering Sam’s question, watching his friend making his way down the shoveled walk as he headed for the parking lot a couple of hundred feet in front of the building. But Sam hadn’t asked where he lived, just how far it was from his present location; Al decided it was an ‘inside the bounds’ question, and punched in the request on the handlink as he followed Sam. Upon reaching Sam, he said, “Elk Ridge is roughly three hundred miles south-southwest from here. But,” he hurried to add, “You know the rules. Especially Rule Numero Uno: “The time traveler shall not…”

“Yeah, Al, I know, I know,” Sam said as he pulled his gloves on again and started for the parking lot, brushing aside the twinge of sadness that he was so relatively close to his hometown but unable to go there even to just drive through it.

“So which car is mine?” Sam asked as he approached the rows of cars and trucks, mentally shifting gears to focus on what he was here to fix in Rio Millikin life.

Punching the keys on the handlink again, Al answered, “You have a minivan...a 1985 Dodge Caravan, uh…its maroon-colored.  The license plate is KBJ 319.” Pausing he joined Sam in scanning the parking lot.  “There’s a Caravan over there,” he said, pointing to the middle section of the parking lot.

“There’s another one on the last row, here,” Sam said as he started for the vehicle he had spotted.  “Check out the other one.”

The hologram popped out, reappearing near the maroon Caravan he had seen.  Glancing at the license plate, he was about to call out when he heard Sam’s voice.

“It’s this one, Al,” Sam called out when he walked around the vehicle to see the rear license plate.  He was just unlocking the driver’s side door when Al reappeared beside him.  Getting in, Sam started the engine.

“So, has Ziggy figured out exactly what it is I’m here to do?”  Sam asked as he turned on the heater and adjusted the vents.

“Based on the information I’ve already given you, this is what Ziggy has been able to determine so far,” Al told him as he pressed buttons on the handlink. “There’s a seventy point three five percent probability that you’re just here to make sure that Rio follows his doctor’s orders about taking care of his wrist before the school drum and bugle corps goes to California to march in the Tournament of Roses Parade in a little less than two weeks from today.”  He paused as Sam put the Caravan in gear and backed out of the parking space then started driving slowly away from the school.  It was just by chance that Al glanced out the window and spied a pretty blonde teenage girl wearing dark blue slacks, snow boots and a light blue parka, running after the vehicle, carrying a book bag and purse in one hand and wildly waving the other one and yelling, “Rio! Rio!”

“Sam, stop!” Al said, immediately glad he wasn’t really in the truck when Sam stepped on the brake suddenly, causing the rear end of the van to skew slightly as it came to a halt.

“What’s wrong?” Sam demanded.

“I think your sister, Tessa,” Al clarified as he read the new bit of information scrolling across the handlink’s small screen, “would appreciate you not leaving her to walk four miles home in today’s twenty-nine degree weather.”  Man and hologram jumped slightly when a green-mittened hand suddenly smacked the passenger-side window before the door was jerked open.

“Hey, ding-dong,” seventeen year old Tessa Millikin groused, tossing her book bag and purse on the floorboard before climbing in and closing the door firmly.  Shifting to get comfortable, she brushed back the hood of her parka then reached over and gave Sam a backhanded smack on the arm. “Didn’t you hear me hollering?” she demanded, her tone evidence that she was more annoyed than angry. “Or were you still trying to figure out how you’re going to get away with not wearing a suit to the Winter Wonderland Dance tomorrow night?  All I can say, Rio, is if you show up at Stacy’s front door wearing slacks and a sport coat, you are so gonna be in the dog house. Like you won’t believe how fast you’ll be crawling into it,” Tessa continued to rag her brother as she fastened her seat belt. Then her eyes brightened as she warmed to the ragging session.  “Oh, no, no!  Don’t tell me that you’re still trying to hatch something that will get you out of going to the recital and the Arts Society Christmas dinner next Saturday?”

Sam darted a look at Al who now appeared to be wedged between the seat and the dashboard. “Well, I… uh…”

“No, Sam. You are not trying to get out of going to the special recital that the Eugenie Hyatt-Hines Ballet School puts on every year at the Kreiger Auditorium for kids in the elementary schools in the area.”

‘Ballet?’ A dreadful picture of himself on a stage wearing white tights... or…Oh God!... even worse, some frilly tutu, flashed across his mind.  Keeping his eyes and attention focused on getting out of the school parking lot, he cleared his throat then licked his lips before repeating uncertainly, “B...ballet? Uh… I’m…”

“Yeah.  The whole family is going,” Tessa said, ignoring Rio’s behavior; it was an all too familiar scenario.  For as long as she could remember, her brother hated getting dressed up. Not just to attend some Christmas season recital that Margaret was in, or some other such formal gathering.  Rio simply hated getting “decked out” for any reason, period.

“Are you okay?” she demanded.  “It’s just the special performance the school puts on for the kids every year.”

“She’s right, Sam,” Al agreed with the girl.  “Rio’s parents are alumni of WMU as well as being supporters of helping underprivileged kids get a chance to experience the arts.”

Relief flooded through Sam as he breathed a sigh of relief.  “Yeah. Yeah we are.”  He took a quick breath and let it out. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Yeah, right,” Tessa gibed, her eyes showing that she wasn’t buying.

        “Honest,” Sam responded to Tessa’s accusation, his gaze flicking from her face to the road.  “I was thinking about...my wrist,” he told her.

        Tessa forgot about her annoyance when she heard what her brother was saying.  “What’s wrong with it?” she demanded.

        Preferring to keep to the truth, Sam glanced momentarily at his right wrist then over at Tessa’s intense gaze.  “Mr…..”

        “Adler,” Al supplied quickly.

        “I had a problem with the music we were practicing,” he told her as he brought the van to a halt at a stop sign.  Glancing both ways, Sam was grateful again when Al told him, “Turn left.”  Once he had made a successful turn onto the road, Sam looked over at his companion.  Her focused attention told him that she expected to hear more from him.  “Mr. Adler sent me home,” he admitted then sighed softly before saying, “He told me to go see the doctor and...”

        “And?” Tessa prompted immediately.

        Sam kept his eyes on the road and the occasional car or truck that passed them.  “He said that if the doctor okays my wrist by the twenty-sixth that I can still go to California.”

        “Oh, Rio,” Tessa said softly, her annoyance forgotten as she reached out to rest her hand on Sam’s right wrist for a moment.  She was as aware as everybody else in Parlboro just what an honor it was to be invited to march in the Tournament of Roses Parade.  Parlboro’s Drum & Bugle Corps had been practicing with relentless discipline since receiving the invitation just before school had let out for the summer at the beginning of June.

        “Do you think it will be better by then?” she asked.  When Rio had started experiencing tingling then numbness in his wrist at the beginning of July, a trip to the doctor and then an orthopedic specialist revealed that he had strong symptomology of Carpel Tunnel Syndrome.  She remembered how he’d fought and argued with his parents about the possibility of surgery.  He had convinced them and then endured three weeks of wearing a fiberglass brace on his hand and wrist.  With the same focus and determination he had displayed in becoming one of the best high school drummers in the district, Rio had obeyed the doctor’s orders and endured the brace.  She had watched her brother diligently perform the exercises prescribed when the brace had come off at last, not even touching a drumstick until Dr. Straffin had pronounced the wrist healed. Even then Rio had slowly resumed practicing.  For the remainder of the summer he had gradually worked his way back to the level and intensity of the rest of the corps.  Everything was going fine, until now.

        Sam had noticed when Tessa became quiet, glancing at her a couple of times as he took the turns dictated by Al.

        “Rivendale Road is coming up on your right, Sam,” Al said.

        Slowing to make the turn, Sam guided the truck through it and continued down the country road flanked on either side by fields blanketed with snow.  Again he looked over at the quiet teenage girl with curly blonde hair now chewing on her lower lip.

        “Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he assured her, smiling when she looked over at him.  “There’s still twelve days ‘til the twenty-sixth.”

        Tessa turned her head to look at her brother, a vague wondering in her gaze.  “Yeah, you’re right,” she said finally. There was something about the way Rio was handling the situation that niggled at her.  “Are you okay, Rio?  I mean, besides your wrist?”

“I’m fine,” Sam said as he drove.  “Except for my wrist, of course.”

Tessa’s green eyes narrowed slightly as she continued looking at her brother.  Then as suddenly as the considering look had appeared in her eyes, it vanished and she grinned at him.

“Now you have no excuse for missing Margaret’s recital a week from Saturday,” she told him then giggled, her eyes suddenly gleaming mischievously as she looked at her brother.

Sam, glancing over at the girl, recognized the gleam; he recalled seeing similar gleams in Katie’s eyes from time to time.

        “What?” he demanded.  “Come, out with it.”

        Tessa leaned her head back and laughed then said, “It also means that you can’t not go to the Arts Appreciation Society’s Christmas dinner right after the recital Saturday evening, either.”

        “But...”

        “Uh uh,” Tessa Millikin took great glee in verbally pouncing on her brother. “Unless of course you intend on explaining to Stacy why you didn’t show up.”

        “Stacy?” Sam repeated the name weakly even as he recognized the countryside along the road he was taking to get himself and Tessa home.

        It wasn’t often that Tessa got the chance to tease Rio about Stacy, but his reaction was too good to pass up.

        “Oh, Stacy’s going to love it when I tell her you pretended not to know her.  I mean, you two have only been going out since the Valentine’s Day dance in February and now... you don’t know her?”

        “I didn’t say I don’t know her,” Sam responded.  “It’s just... why is this dinner so special?  And I am going,” he finished, chancing a glance at Al.

        Tessa shrugged as she looked over at Rio.  “Because it follows right after the recital?  Or maybe it’s because Stacy’s dad is the president of the Arts Appreciation Society, which Mom and Dad have belonged to since before Margaret and Marilyn were born. Or maybe…”

        Sam rolled his eyes at the never-ending response.  “Okay, I get it,” he said as he spied the by now familiar mailbox at the turn into the lane that led up to the Millikin home where, for whatever reason, GTFW had decided he wasn’t yet finished.  He bantered back and forth with Tessa as he navigated the lane up to the house.

PART FOUR

Pulling into the paved area to the left of the garage where all four of the family’s vehicles were parked, Sam saw Jill Millikin taking bags of groceries out of the back of her car.  Parking quickly, he hurried to help her.

        “Here, let me get that, Mom,” he said, reaching to claim the two heavy bags she had in hand.  Shifting the bags to one arm, he said, “Give me a couple of more.”

        The one thing about having as many children as she did, Jill always knew there were plenty of hands to help.  Giving Sam an appreciative smile, she took another bag from the trunk and gave it to him.  “You got that?”

        “Absolutely,” Sam said. “One more.  I can handle it.”

        “Rio, if your hand’s bothering you, you shouldn’t be carrying all that stuff,” Tessa said just then.

        When her daughter had come up to the car, Jill had reached to hand her a grocery bag, but stopped at the comment she made.  Turning to her son, she asked, “What’s wrong with your hand, Rio?”

        “Nothing,” Sam insisted.  “I...”

        “Mr. Adler sent him home,” Tessa filled in.  “Said he had to go see the doctor...”

        “Tessa, I can speak for myself if you don’t mind,” Sam said, shooting a look at his temporary younger sister; it did no good.  Tessa completely missed it, having already started into the house lugging the bag of groceries as well as her book bag and purse. Sam shifted one of the bags of groceries to his free hand and turned back to Jill Millikin.

        “Let’s have it, Rio,” Jill said, reaching to take back the third bag she’d handed to him.  “What happened to your hand?”

        It didn’t matter that the short woman with some gray streaks in her dark hair and blue eyes wasn’t his real mother. She was a mother, and as always when dealing with a female parent during a leap into a child’s life, Sam always got the feeling that she could see right through him.  With that patented patient “well?” look in her eyes, he explained.

        “I sorta...”

        “Sorta?” Jill echoed the word.

        Sam sighed then came out with it straight, if you could call a small white lie “straight.”  “I had a problem with my hand,” he told her.  The look in her eyes demanded more explanation, so he added, “I dropped one of my drumsticks and ...when Mr. Adler asked me to pick up from where I messed up, I... couldn’t.”

        “Were your fingers tingling or numb?”

        “A little,” Sam admitted. “But it only lasted a few seconds.”

        Jill’s gaze went to her son’s right wrist then back to his eyes.  “And what about going to the doctor?”  Inside she had her fingers crossed but didn’t let it show on her face.

        Sam noticed Al fiddling with the handlink as he answered Jill.  “Mr. Adler told me to go see the doctor a.s.a.p. and if he okays it in writing by the 26^th then I can still go to California with the rest of the corps.”

        During the exchange between Sam and Jill, Al had pulled out the handlink to check something. But that was forgotten as he watched the feed from Ziggy regarding the present conversation.  He didn’t interrupt mother and ”son”, just watched the percentages changing for Rio Millikin.

        Giving her son a firm look, Jill took the sack of groceries he was holding in his right hand then closed the trunk lid firmly before indicating for him to walk ahead of her to the house, talking as they went

“As soon as we get inside, I’ll call Dr. Straffin.”  Glancing at the lowering late afternoon sky, she added, “Maybe I can catch them before the office closes for the day, and see about getting you into tomorrow or Thursday.”  Her tone one said loud and clear that she wasn’t to be argued with about it. “And you’re going to soak your hand and wrist in some hot water with Epsom salts after dinner. And find that brace and bandage you had to wear last summer, and put it on after you finish soaking that hand.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sam responded as he made his way along the walk that ran alongside the house that led to the back door set near the kitchen.  Reaching it, he opened then held it to allow Jill to enter ahead of him.  As she moved past him, he heard the handlink chirp and turned to look at Al who had followed them.  Even as he listened to what the Observer was saying, Sam was already beginning to feel the first familiar tingles deep inside.

“That’s it, Sam,” Al said, his fingers skimming over a couple of buttons as he read the information.  “Jill gets Rio an appointment tomorrow with the orthopedist he saw this past summer. He gets some medication, and with the soaking and wearing the wrist brace up to the 26^th when Rio goes back to get checked out, the doctor okays him for the trip to the Rose Parade. And two months after he gets back from Pasadena, he has surgery to correct the carpal tunnel problem.”

“And he’s okay, today? In the future, I mean?” Sam asked as he entered the kitchen and set the bag of groceries on the table, glancing at Jill Millikin already standing by the phone on the kitchen wall near the door leading into the dining room and speaking animatedly to someone at the doctor’s office he was certain.  When she turned and saw him, Jill smiled and nodded; Sam responded in kind.

“Oh yeah,” Al assured him.  “He went to college and became a physical therapist, and he played in the marching band all four years.”  He paused when Jill hung up the phone and came toward Sam.

“I managed to get you an appointment for ten thirty,” Jill said as she bustled over to Sam.  “Now you…”

Sam didn’t hear the rest of what Jill Millikin’s was saying as he was suddenly enveloped in the bright blue haze as he leaped out.  Yet it seemed that as fast as he leaped out of Rio Millikin’s life, he felt himself begin to assume the substance and shape of the next person whose life needed something fixed.  However, he wasn’t in the least prepared for the sight or sounds that assailed him when he opened his eyes.

PART FOUR

As if leaping yet again into the Millikin family wasn’t enough to add to the steadfast question of ‘why?’ now whirling through his brain, the back door burst open just then to admit a pretty young woman with bright blue eyes and wearing a plum-colored jacket, white knit cap with a small green pom-pom and jeans.  “I’m home!” Sophie Millikin announced with a grin as she was enveloped in her mother’s arms. “Hey, Rio!” she called out, grinning when her brother just waved a hand at her before grabbing the phone.

“Sophie!” two young voices squealed delightedly from the door near Rio made the eldest Millikin daughter spin around to see her two youngest sisters coming tearing into the kitchen and make a beeline for her.  She laughed as she was entangled in more warm hugs.  She paused a moment in the midst of the group greeting when she saw Tessa’s bumbling near fall over one of the kitchen chairs, yet even that was forgotten when Rio hissed at their mother about the caller on the phone.

“Who is it, Rio?” Jill asked as she disentangled herself and moved around the happy, giggling tangle of her daughters and started toward her son.  It was the look in his eyes that hurried her the last few steps, reaching for the phone that he was holding out to her.

“It’s Mrs. Warwick,” Rio replied, one hand over the mouthpiece. Relinquishing the phone to her, he moved to one side as Jill took the receiver from him and put it her ear.

“Hello. Yes, this is Jill Millikin. Mrs. Warwick?  What is it?”

Under cover of the boisterous reunion of sisters, Sam had checked and recognizing the dark blue slacks and snow boots parka that Tessa Millikin had been wearing when she got into the van he had been driving... when?  There was no denying that for whatever reason, he was once more in the aura of Tessa Millikin.  But his attention was diverted when the Imaging Chamber door opened just then and Al stepped out.  The look of surprise on his face when even he recognized the leaper’s surroundings was unmistakable.

“Did somebody hit the replay button when I wasn’t looking?” Al asked as he moved over to Sam. 

“You tell me,” Sam murmured under his breath as he pulled off his green mittens and stuffed them in his pockets.

“I mean, come on. Three leaps into the same family?  And twice into one person and in twenty-four hours -for you- , give or take an hour.”

“A better question might be why I’ve leaped back into Tessa’s life,” Sam whispered back as he inched forward in an attempt to hear Jill’s side of the conversation.  Hearing Rio say, “It’s Mrs. Warwick” had struck a familiar chord with him and he wanted to catch as much of Jill Millikin’s side of the conversation as possible.

Sam’s question distracted Al from trying to figure out why his friend seemed to be caught in a time-traveling game of leapfrog with this family.  Taking the handlink from the pocket of his forest green suit coat, he quickly retrieved Ziggy’s calculations.

“Well, when you leaped out of Tessa’s life the first time, we were talking about what you had to do to boost her chances of not getting pregnant by her boyfriend over this weekend.”

Sam frowned at that then nodded his head slowly. “Yeah. I… she…” he stopped and shook his head slightly then said, “I canceled a study date... and you said...”

“That it had improved her odds of not getting pregnant by Marvin this weekend,” Al finished Sam’s sentence.  “But you leaped out before I could tell you what you had to do to boost that percentage to almost a hundred percent.”

Forgetting about the several Millikin family members in the kitchen with him, Sam turned to face Al.  This was one of those rare leaps when it appeared he was getting one of his most oft made requests, namely to leap in, have the facts immediately available to set right what once went wrong and then leap out. At least he hoped it was going to be that easy.  “Tell me,” he urged softly, so focused on the hologram that he didn’t notice that Jill had hung up the phone.

Al skimmed his fingertips over the buttons on the handlink as he retrieved the balance of Ziggy’s original prediction.

“Ziggy re-ran the scenario again, and came up with the same percentage,” Al said as he watched the concise wording scrolling on the handlink’s small screen. “She’s says that all you have to do is just stay home tonight and not go to this Winter Wonderland Dance.”

“But won’t Marvin break up with her over this?” Al didn’t have to run this question by Ziggy.

“Speaking from years of experience with my own girls, there’s a better than average chance he will. But you and I both know it’s not the end of the world for her.”  Seeing Sam’s expression at that, he reminded him, “Hey, if it means that Tessa doesn’t get pregnant by him, it also means that she won’t be buying a one-way ticket on the suicide express at the end of February.”  Meeting his friend’s eyes he added, “You know as well as I do, Sam, that a few tears now are better than what she’s facing if you don’t do this.”

        When he had first begun leaping, there were many times when Sam was assailed by guilt when what he had to do to correct whatever needed fixing had to be accomplished on the back of ending a relationship.  But as the years of leaping added up and much of his naiveté was rubbed away by reality, he began to realize and accept that the pain of a particular relationship ending “now” was far better than history repeating itself for the one he had been sent to help.  Now, looking into his friend’s dark eyes, Sam knew that breaking this special holiday dance date with Marvin was going to save Tessa Millikin from shame and despair that had originally ended in suicide.

        “What’s his number?” he said softly.

        “Whose number?” Jill asked as she came up to her daughter.  Having seen Tessa apparently talking to herself made her wonder.  She had noticed little things about Tessa’s behavior the day before that had seemed...off.

        “Oh, uh… I was just trying to remember Marvin’s phone number,” Sam answered.

        Rio, brushing past his mother and Tessa, heard what she said and snorted.  “I thought you had that tattooed on your brain the day after he asked you to go to the Winter Wonderland Dance.”

        “Rio! Shush,” Jill scolded lightly.  Sam answered the teenager’s smug grin with a narrow-eyed stare.

        “Tessa?” Jill attracted her daughter’s attention again.

        Punching in the request on the handlink, Al retrieved the phone number.  “Sam, Marvin’s home phone number is 319-0789.”

        “319-0789,” Sam repeated softly as he started to step away from Jill to go to the phone. “319-0789,” he repeated again.  He didn’t notice her following him or stopping almost behind him as he picked up the phone handset and quickly dialed the number.  The line rang twice before it was answered by a man; Marvin’s father he assumed.

        “Hello, Mr. Zang?  This is Tessa... Tessa Millikin.” Sam chewed lightly on his lower lip as Mr. Zang responded.  “I’m fine, thanks. Uh, Mr. Zang, is Marvin there? I need to talk to him. It’s...” he glanced up and found Al beside him. “It’s about the dance tonight. Yes, I’ll hold.”  A moment later he heard Marvin’s voice say, “Hi, Tessa. What’s up?”  There was no easy way to do it so, taking a deep breath and blowing it out softly, Sam took the plunge.

        “Marvin... I...” Sam swallowed then blurted out, “Marvin, I’m still not feeling well because... you know. So I’m not going to the dance tonight.” 

He had to jerk the phone away from his ear when Marvin yelled, “Whadda you mean you’re not going tonight?!  It’s all you’ve talked about since I asked you two weeks ago! And now, when I’m supposed to pick you up in three hours, all of a sudden you’re not going?”

        It was the longest two minutes Sam could recall spending on the phone with anyone, as he alternately listened to and tried to talk to the boy.  Finally, it seemed that some of Tessa Millikin’s personality psycho-senergized with his mind because suddenly he’d had enough.

        “I said I’m not feeling well and I’m not going,” Sam snapped into the phone.  “And that’s all there is to it.”  His lips pressed together at the boy’s response. “Listen you trying having cramps that a Neanderthal like you can’t imagine and see how hot you feel.  Believe me,” Sam snapped, a gut instinct telling him that the words pouring from his lips were filtering across time from a teenage girl in the Waiting Room. “I am not the mood for dancing... or anything else for that matter.”

        “Tessa,” Marvin’s voice was hot and angry in Sam’s ear.  “If you don’t go with me, I swear I’ll find someone else to take to the dance. And if that happens, we’re through. I’m not kidding, Tessa.”

        Sam knew a threat when he heard one.  He didn’t realize that Jill and the others had gone silent, as they listened to - they thought - Tessa arguing with her boyfriend.

        “Well neither am I,” Sam snapped sharply.  “Happy hunting!”  Slamming the phone into its cradle, he turned around and froze when he found every eye in the room on him.  When the handlink chirped, he gaze went to the hologram just as Al glanced at the new history information scrolling across its screen.

“You did it, Sam,” he said, glancing up just in time to see the blue haze surround Sam before he disappeared in a wink of bright blue light.

Saturday, DECEMBER 16, 2004

        He always remembered the blue when he leaped out, followed by some period of time in the endless interim where he waited.  Yet this time when Sam felt himself in that place, he could only attribute to instinct that he knew as it faded yet again, that he was leaving it again far sooner than usual, whatever usual might be.

        ‘But how do you define’ normal’ in this place?’

        Whomever or Whatever was leaping the quantum physicist around in time didn’t allow him time to speculate.  Instead, it sent Sam Beckett hurtling into the next person who needed a second chance.  But...

        “Ohhhh…boy!” flew from his lips in the same split second that the world teetered precariously under his feet just before he went down in a heap of white tulle, white tights, and matching flat-toed slippers tied with white satin ribbons.  The flowing melody of classical music that had been playing stopped and before Sam could get his bearings, he was surrounded by six other girls dressed in a similar manner, or rather five who were wearing what looked like long fluffy dresses and the same sort of slippers.  One of the girls was dressed in a black…

        “Tutu,” he murmured.

        “Margaret,” the girl in black asked him, concern in her brown eyes.  “What happened? Are you hurt?”

        “No, I don’t think so.  I just… fell,” Sam said the first thing that came to mind. Most of the dancers laughed and a couple of them sighed and started to move away.  “I’m sorry,” he said a bit louder.

        “Back to your places,” a strong, accented female voice called out.  “You will do it again.  This is the last rehearsal before the dress rehearsal on Wednesday.” The sharp sound of clapped hands sent the three remaining dancers, including the one in black, moving away, one of them murmuring, “Yes, Miss Eugenia.”

As they parted, Sam now matched the clapped hands to the diminutive woman, Eugenia Hyatt-Hines Anderson, daughter of the school’s founder as well as its current director, approaching him, her manner that of one in charge.  She was dressed in black leotards, tights and a pink calf-length wrap around practice skirt and pink ballet slippers.  Her manner, as well as the gray streaks in her black hair, scrapped back and done up in a tight French twist, as well as her piercing dark eyes told him she was the instructor.

        Going down on one knee beside the fallen dancer, she brushed back the tulle skirt to get a better look at the ankle Margaret was massaging.

        “What happened? Can you move it?  Is there any pain?” she asked.

“I must have caught my shoe on something on the floor,” Sam answered, watching the woman as she took his foot and ankle in her hands and gently manipulated it.  “But it’s fine, there’s no pain. I can move it.”

        Standing again, Madame Eugenia bade Sam get up, keeping an eagle eye on his feet.

        “Can you walk?” she asked.

        “I think so.”

        “Do so,” she ordered.  It didn’t escape her experienced eye when Sam stumbled awkwardly as he took a couple of steps, wincing as the precisely fitted - and highly uncomfortable-- pointe slippers pinched his toes.  “Wait.”

        Being totally out of his element at the moment, and praying that Al didn’t show up before he had a chance to get changed out of his present attire, Sam stopped.  He hoped she wasn’t going to ask him to do something … like dance.

        Turning, Madame Eugenia’s eyes searched for someone off-stage.  “Karl!”

When Karl, a 40-ish man of average appearance and wearing a focused if harried expression, and carrying a clipboard, hurried over to her she ordered, “I want this floor checked carefully after the rehearsal finishes.”  Glancing at Sam, she added, “Margaret says that she stumbled from possibly catching her shoe on something.”

        “Yes, Madame,” Karl replied, making a notation on his clipboard.  “I’ll see that it’s examined thoroughly before we lock up.”

        “The performance is one week from today, and the stage must be perfect.”

        “Yes, Madame.”

        During the conversation, Sam remained silent, deciding it was best to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.

‘Easier said than done when it’s a six foot four-inch man dressed in a woman’s leotard, tights and this … whatever kind of skirt it is… and the most miserable shoes in the world. Even if I know they don’t see me, I still feel like they can.’

He started, startled when he realized the instructor was addressing him.  “I’m sorry… Madame,” he just remembered to add the title of respect.  “What did you say?”

        Madame Eugenia’s gaze narrowed slightly as she fixed her student with a pointed look.  “You may leave the class early today,” she informed Sam.  “Soak your ankle tonight and keep it wrapped this weekend.  Come to see me before the three o’clock class on Monday.”

        Relief flooded through Sam at the reprieve he’d just received from the possibility of having to make a complete fool of himself as well the very real likelihood breaking an ankle by attempting to dance in the pinching dance shoes on his feet.

“Yes, Madame… Eugenia,” he acknowledged her instructions.  Turning, he saw a door and a large viewing window.  There were some other people watching, most of them students waiting for friends to finish the last Saturday class.  Among the faces Sam thought he glimpsed one that seemed vaguely familiar.  But he heard the instructor’s voice again and turned to her once more.

        “Miss Millikin,” Eugenia said, her voice clear and crisp.  “When I choreographed this scene it was for six girls to dance with Odette, not five.  It’s rather too late now for someone to step in to fill your place.  If there is no pain after a night’s rest, do some simple exercises at home this weekend to keep it limber.”

        Again Sam responded respectfully and started again for the door, his feet, especially his toes, protesting the tight confines of the shoes.  Yet something the instructor had said kept trying to catch his attention from the periphery of his mind and he didn’t notice the pinching.  And when he reached the door and stepped out into the room, Sam forgot completely about the pain when the ‘something’ finally connected with his thoughts and it hit him what that something was.

        “She called me Miss Millikin,” he whispered, not noticing as a young woman, who, if he’d looked at her he would have recognized her, came up to him.  “Margaret… Millikin.  No, no, it can’t be…”

        “I saw you fall, Margie.  What happened?” Marilyn, younger than her twin by three and a half minutes, asked.

        Sam stared at the contours of the girl’s face, his all too recent visits to her family now aiding him in recognizing who he was without a word of help from a certain holographic Observer.

        “Margie?” he asked hesitantly.

        Marilyn Millikin rolled her eyes.  “Excuse me,” she said exaggeratedly.  “Margaret… are you okay?”

        “Uh, huh,” Sam murmured, dazed… stunned was more like it… to discover that he had ‘come home again’ to the Millikin family.  “Just… my shoe must’ve caught on something.  She… Madame Eugenia said I could leave early.”

        “That’s great,” Marilyn said with a pleased smile.  “Now we can stop at Piper’s and get that special ribbon Mom wants for Fee-Fie’s dress.”

        “Mom…” Sam said hesitantly.

        “Yeah. Remember she went with Rio to see Dr. Straffin about his wrist.”

        That seemed to strike a note with Sam and he tried to catch that note, but it was gone.  “Yeah... his wrist.”

        Marilyn just shook her head. “Go on and change.  I’ll wait in the car.”  Seeing her sister just staring at her, Marilyn took her by the arm and gave her a light push toward the door marked “Dressing Room.” “Just change your shoes, and put your clothes on over your workout stuff.”

        “What about the skirt?” 

A lean and limber young man standing nearby snorted.  “You know the rules about taking costumes, even practice stuff off the premises without Madame E.’s express permission.”

        “Yeah,” Sam fumbled with a sheepish half smile. “I guess I forgot.”

        The young man replied, “Forget once, and I promise you, you won’t ever do it again.”

        In the dressing room, Sam tried to look like he knew what he was doing there.  It only took him ten minutes to find Margaret’s things and then take off the long tulle skirt and after looking around for where to put it, folded it carefully and laid it on the shelf where he’d found Margaret’s street clothes, purse and carry bag.  The toe shoes were shed with great relief and shoved into the carry bag.

        Grabbing his things, Sam wasted no time on chit-chat with the few other dancers who were changing, and rushed out to find Marilyn.  Pausing just outside the main door, he zipped up his jacket then scanned the few cars waiting at the curb.  The honking of a horn and seeing Marilyn watching him from the blue Ford Taurus sent Sam quickly to get in the car.

        The drive to whatever store they had to stop at was easier than Sam had expected; all he had to do was make a few appropriate conversational punctuation marks…”Really?” …. “You’re not serious?” … “Well, you’ve got a point,” and let his temporary twin’s gift of gab fill in all the rest of the spaces.  But as he glanced out at the traffic and the stores and people going in and out of the stores along the way, even Marilyn’s near non-stop chatter had the comfortable feeling of familiarity.

       His prior rapid succession leaps into the Millikin family stood Sam in good stead.  The few moments in which he'd met the "M&Ms" ... He smiled as the nickname for the twins slipped effortlessly back into his mind ...now reminded him of these two mirror images of each other and their penchant for talking.

        "Must be where Patti gets it from," he murmured.

        "Where Patti gets what from?" Marilyn asked, glancing over at Sam, pausing in her monologue about her boss and the Christmas shopping she still had to finish.

        "I was just thinking about how she's always talking about... something," Sam said.  From somewhere within the flurry of memories of the past however many days since he had first become, for all intents and purposes, a member of the family, came one that made him chuckle.

        "What?" Marilyn asked, glancing briefly at her sister then focusing on navigating a left turn from the intersection onto Morgan Street, her eyes scanning the store fronts as she looked for the small notions store that was the only place that carried the unique ribbon lace her mother needed.  Her sister's infectious laugh brought a grin to her face.  “Oh, there’s a space right in front of the store,” Marilyn said and quickly nosed the car into it.

Not wanting to be a distraction, Sam held his comment until Marilyn put the car in park.  Then as she turned off the ignition, he said, “I was just thinking…” …and remembering from the last time I was here!… “…about how much Patti reminds me of a chatterbox.”

Marilyn laughed aloud as she grabbed her purse and started to get out of the car.  “She just got more than her fair share of the Millikin women’s gift of gab.”

Sam’s laughter blended with hers. “Yeah. A few days ago,” he said, a memory of the pretty girl with her mother’s dark curls and blue eyes popping into place in his mind with effortless ease. “Patti and three of her friends were on the phone at the same time.”  He laughed again and shook his head lightly.

        “How do you know how many of them were talking?” Marilyn grinned.

        Sam’s grin was sheepish but unrepentant as he admitted, “I picked up an extension and heard them.  Heard four…” he held up four fingers, wiggling them for emphasis. “…four of them…”

        “Let me guess,” Marilyn interjected with a laugh. “It was Tonya, Nancy and Carleen.”

        Sam paused, as vague snippets of that wildly fast and furious gabble of young girl voices skipped, hit or miss, through his head. After a moment he nodded, chuckling.  “You’re right.  And they were all talking at the same time.”  He shook his head again.  “I’m still trying to figure out how any of them heard anything the others said!”  Glancing over at Marilyn’s sparkling blue eyes, he said, “That’s when I dubbed them the ‘The Four Magpies Sisters’.”

        “Oh I bet they ‘loved’ that!”

        Sam laughed. “What do you think?” he asked, grinning.  He shook his head again then added as an afterthought, “And they’re on the phone at least an hour almost every night. What do they find to talk about?”

        Marilyn laughed again as she looked out her window before opening the door and getting out.  “No, no.  You stay put. I’ll get the ribbon,” she said quickly when Sam started to get out.

        “I’ll come in with you,” Sam said then logic tweaked that intent.  “You’re right,” he acquiesced.

“You’re right... I’m right,” Marilyn said, her ever ready grin once more in place.  “The last thing you need to do is slip on a patch of ice and twist your ankle.  Especially after taking that fall.”        Looking into her twin’s eyes, Marilyn smiled at her.  “I won’t be five minutes.”  With that said, she straightened up, moved around the car and stepped up on the sidewalk.

        Sam watched Marilyn’s trim figure as she walked quickly to the store entrance set between two modest display windows then allowed his gaze to stray to the items on display.

In one window were a couple of little girls’ party dresses; one was made of maroon velvet trimmed with a sparkly white lace along the bodice and the cuffs of the long sleeves.  The other, a jumper dress, was also made of velvet but was dark blue and displayed with a long-sleeved white blouse with more of the sparkly white lace on the cuffs and on the Peter Pan collar.

        He didn’t realize how engrossed he was in looking at the items displayed until the sound of a familiar voice behind him made him jump.

        “Why aren’t you inside with your sister?” Al asked.

        Shifting around so he could look over the seat at the hologram, Sam said, “Because she insisted I stay here to keep from hurting my ankle again.  Something you would have known about if you had shown up when I leaped in.”

        “What’s wrong with your ankle?” Al asked, peering over the seat to get a look at Sam’s feet.

        “Nothing,” Sam replied.  “But the instructor sent me home early and told me…”

        “Told Margaret,” Al corrected.

        Sam rolled his eyes.  “Yes, okay. Technically she told Margaret to go home and soak her ankle and take special care of it since she… Margaret has to dance in a recital a week from today.”

        “And because of you,” Al informed him as he took the handlink from the pocket of the teal and emerald pin-striped shirt that so emphatically accented the dark tangerine slacks he was wearing. “Margaret is going to do just that.”

        Sam looked closely at the Observer, a puzzled frown furrowing his forehead.  “What?  I haven’t done anything that I’m aware.”

        Al glanced at the handlink then at his friend.  “Sure you have,” he said then filled in the gaps at the quizzical “And?” look Sam shot him.  “According to Margaret’s medical records, in the original history, when she got out of the car to go into the store with her sister, she slipped on a patch of ice on the sidewalk beside the car.”

        “And she twisted her ankle and couldn’t dance in the recital, right?”

        Al double-checked the information then continued.  “Yes and no.  Yes, she twisted her ankle, but when she slipped and fell, her right knee hit the edge of the curb and damaged her knee quite badly.”  He paused a moment then finished.  “She had surgery on the knee but her hopes of dancing professionally were gone.”

        “And now?” Sam asked as the bright tinkling of a bell caught his attention and he glanced around to see another customer enter the little store.  His gaze lingered on the bright red script lettering on the door: “LeVonne Piper’s Piping, Ribbons & Notions Shoppe”.

        Craning his head, Sam could just see Marilyn inside the store at a counter talking with a woman then let his gaze drift to the store’s other display window.  He studied what looked like craft items arranged carefully with spools of brightly colored ribbons and other sewing knick-knacks, before turning back to the hologram lounging in the back seat, the smoke from one of his favorite Chivello cigars wafting lazily around his head.

        “And?” Sam prompted the Observer.

        Al shrugged lightly as he met Sam’s gaze.  “Because you weren’t as impetuous as a nineteen year old girl, and stayed in the car, Margaret’s ankle is fine for the benefit recital next Saturday afternoon.  And she went on to dance professionally for seven years with the Detroit City Ballet.  She never made it as a principal dancer, but…what the heck,” he shrugged.  “She loved being a member of the corps de ballet. After that, she came back to Kalamazoo and was hired as an instructor at the Eugenie Hyatt-Hines Ballet School.”

        The sound of the tinkling bell caught Sam’s attention again.  He turned and saw Marilyn coming out of the little shop with a small package in her hand and a spring in her step.  Seeing her smile at him, Sam responded in kind just before he leaped.

December 17, 1989

        When he eventually felt the all too familiar sensation of time slowing as he was drawn toward his next assignment, it was as if his very being sensed where he was going to be when he opened his eyes.  The thought that ran through Sam’s mind when he found himself sitting in a church pew next to the, by this time, familiar figure of Jill Millikin, was...

‘Why’?  What is it to do with this family that I haven’t accomplished yet that keeps pulling me back?’

To Be Continued…