[IN PROGRESS]
Martha and James are soulmates trapped together in a never-ending reincarnation loop. Not a bad way to spend eternity, but they wanted more. They wanted a child. Serafina is born and Martha and James are elated to love and raise her a...
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July 6, 2002 |31|
James grabbed a Chicago Cubs t-shirt and a pair of camouflage boxer shorts then added them to the basket of cotton/sturdy blues and greens. His mind was desperate for more details from his past futures, but in the present, there was laundry. A hero's job is never done...
He closed the hamper with his left hand and hugged the basket on his right hip as he left his bedroom. Down the hallway, he passed various framed photographs of a younger Serafina, the three of them together, or Martha and him from before. He continued on through an empty living room and kitchen until finally reaching the garage. There, tucked in the corner, the washer and dryer sat, obscured by the various creative and intellectual stations he and Martha had built for their daughter, once upon a lifetime.
The lego table, ballet bar, and painting easels were vacant, but on one of the beanbag chairs within the reading nook, James spied a tiny Serafina, curled up and sketching on a notepad. He set the laundry next to the machine, then sat next to his daughter. "Whatcha working on, Ser-Bear?"
"Just a memory," they said.
He took a closer look. The pencil sketch was a manga of a boy and girl seated next to one another at a table. As James had come to expect, the artistry was flawless. The characters' features were disproportionate and their emotions, exaggerated - Kishimoto with a dash of Fujiwara, I'd say...
The girl's eyes were comically wide and her smile, wider as she looked up at the boy. The subtlest shading across her cheeks was enough to communicate how utterly smitten she was.
While her hair was tangled and chaotic, his was a suave, Luke Perry pompadour. His shoulders and chest were broad but his expression was fearful as he looked down at what he held in his outstretched hand. It was a pipette with a clear droplet hanging precariously over a test tube partially filled with a darker liquid. Positioned in the dead center of the drawing, his free hand held one of the girl's in anxious solidarity.
Then James knew.
"It's us," he said. "I mean, me and your mom. Chemistry class... That's amazing." Memories flooded. November 11th, 1994... Grape juice and ammonia... Seventeen days after she arrives... The day I askher to the football game...
Over the many lifetimes and many Marthas, James had developed a routine - a streamlined method to quickly earn her trust before dropping the bomb of who he was. Per the routine, that was also the night he would meet Steven, who, despite his frayed relationship with Martha, was the preeminent influence in her life at the time. Making the right impression on him made a significant impression on her.
It was strange, though. James had been desperate to escape the maddening cycle for so long. Looking at the sketch now, however, he couldn't help but feel nostalgia for it. He heard the front door open and close. "Honey? That you?" he called.
