February Exclusive - Typo - Part 4

Jessica is furious.

And in spite of everything, Jessica focuses on calm thoughts. On cool, green grass. Clear blue skies. Because she gets the feeling that if she lets herself embrace a full toddler tantrum, she’ll forget about the missing ‘2’ in her birthday balloons. She’ll forget all about typos.

She sits on the living room carpet, and her parents sit on the ground beside her.

She looks at her mother. “No one’s coming?”

Mom nods to confirm.

“You didn’t just text Grandma? You called?  You know how she is.”

“I called her,” Mom says. “It’s all cancelled. Told them you were sick.”

Jessica nods. And then she looks at her father. “What did you do, Dad? What is this?” She waves at herself. “I’m tiny.”

“You’re adorable,” her mother says, apparently unable to help it. Her daughter glares. “Sorry.”

“It’s time,” Dad says. “It’s a shift. I mean, we all went back, but in your case…” He shrugs. “We were going to explain, but we didn’t think…your two-year-old mind, well, we didn’t think you’d remember the past.”

“The future, you mean.”

Dad smiles. “Guess so.”

Jessica runs her finger up the zipper of her pajamas. It feels ticklish on her fingertips, and the feeling is at once so fascinating and soothing that she makes up her mind to not do it again. No self-soothing. Nothing that makes her want to pick the Binky back up. Nothing to distract her from the rest of the story.

“So,” she says, to both her parents, “We time-travel now? That’s something we do?”

Dad looks to Mom, who shrugs. “It was your father’s idea.”

Dad sighs. “Kind of like time travel. The shift means we got younger as well.”

“And now I have to grow up all over again,” says Jessica. She narrows her eyes. “How do we get back?”

Dad shakes his head. “Only one way. We get older.”

Jessica looks squarely at him. “Crappiest birthday present you ever gave me.”

Dad reaches for his daughter’s little hand, and she lets him.

“We messed up our finances. Covid blew a hole in the business. We were about to lose everything.” He looks down. Perhaps he’s ashamed. “The time shift, it gives us a fresh start, but we can only go back.” He looks at Jessica. “And we couldn’t go back further than…we didn’t want to risk losing you.”

Jessica sighs. “This is pretty crazy,” she says dolefully.

“You’re taking it very well,” says Mom.

The two-year-old sighs again. “I don’t want to lose my memories.” She thinks of Jacob and waiting 17 years to meet him. She thinks of doing every day at St. Mary’s, and then ever class at Whitworth, all over again. She groans. “This is gonna be tough.”

Mom looks at her daughter. “Can you do it?” she asks tenderly. “We didn’t plan on torturing you with this.”

Jessica puts her chubby hands together, looks at her mom and dad in turn. “We know the future, don’t we.”

“Pretty much,” her father replies. “Until 2023.”

Jessica looks indulgently at her parents. She thinks of changing her college major from International Studies to Finance. And then she ponders whether she’ll need a degree at all. “We’re gonna makes a lot of money. Aren’t we.”

Dad grins. “Reckon so.”

The toddler nods. She points imperiously towards the kitchen. “Then get busy. You owe me some pancakes.”

THE END

Jessica is furious when her cake reads that she's turning 2 instead of 22, but the 'mistakes' don't end there - Anonymous1812