The Shifting Zone

Today was the perfect day to go shopping at the Nebraska Crossing Outlet Mall. I bought a gift for my new granddaughter. Noemy and Tim were at the hospital now. Doreen thought a quick trip would be fun and we could go visit right after. This was Noemy’s first and it would take time. She had Tim with her, so she would be fine.

I slowed my pace, pressing my right hand to my forehead, clutching my shopping bag in the other.

“Are you okay, Ellen?” Doreen frowned and touched my arm, ready to steer me to a nearby bench.

“I’m okay. Just feeling a little weird.”

I turned and led the way to sit down. It had been 20 years or more since I felt that Deja Vu feeling tickling behind my eyes. I hated how everything came so up close and personal. It felt like I became so self-aware in that moment I wanted to drop through the floor.

“Let me take your bag,” Doreen said.

She probably thought I was having a stroke. I let the feeling pass and got back up.

“It’s okay. Really. I just got dizzy.”

“Dizzy? Have you been drinking enough water? Should I take you to Urgent Care?”

I shook my head.

“Maybe we should just go home and grab a bite to eat,” I said.

“I want you to take it easy,” she said. I reached for my bag and purse, but she didn’t give it back. Instead, she headed for the front doors.

I got the call that morning from a very frazzled Tim.

“The baby is coming!” He blurted. “They have her resting now. The water hasn’t broken yet.”

Throughout the morning, he filled me in. The contractions were closer, but with this being her first, it could go on into the night.

I should be there now, but there was time. There was always time.

I gazed out of the glass doors. The wind roared up, over the plains, across I-80, blasting dust and corn silt against the store front. I hesitated to step out.

“Come on!” Doreen shot out, fighting against a wind gust. She fought it well.

I, on the other hand, could barely walk. I turned my face away from the blast.

Doreen turned and yelled something and hopped into her blue Cadillac.

I thought she was going to drive it to me, so I stopped to wait. But she didn’t. Instead, she pulled out and drove away. I stood, shocked, then looked down at my empty hands.

When I stepped back into JC Penney, everything looked different. The bench we had sat on was no longer near the door. Now there was a display of white, headless mannequins with shorts and Gap t-shirts in its place.

I stepped outside and looked and sure enough, I was in the Gap store. I looked up and down the line of shops and there wasn’t a JC Penney store anywhere. Where had I bought the dress? Maybe there wasn’t a JC Penney store here.

Annoyance set in as I waited, standing at the door. The wind died down enough, so I went out and looked for anywhere to sit. I wanted to scream because I couldn’t call her. She had my phone!

An hour passed… Why she left me, I would never know. Did I do something? Did I say the wrong thing?

Now my mind was doing flip flops trying to figure out if anything at all happened that I didn’t remember. I sat on the bench, said I was dizzy, then the wind separated us…much like the Nebraska Crossing mall I was now stuck in separated Omaha from Lincoln. In between everything. Limbo…

Growing more frustrated by the minute, I hunted down a security guard near the Polo shop.

“I need help!” I said.

“What’s going on?” He asked pleasantly.

“My friend left me here and I don’t have a phone!”

The young man led the way to the security office.

“She took my purse and phone with her,” I said.

“You can use ours,” a kind lady said. She showed me how to call out, then went back to her work.

I dialed Doreen’s number, but it had that blaring “eh, eh, eh” noise as if it were not in service or off the hook. But Doreen didn’t have a land line. Why didn’t I get her voicemail?

I couldn’t think. Who else could I call? I couldn’t call Noemy because she was having a baby. I could try, though. Maybe Tim could leave for a bit and pick me up.

I almost cried when I realized I could not remember Tim’s number. It was like it never existed.

Who can I call now? No numbers came to mind.

My head swam with a windstorm of doubt and confusion.

I looked around the office for help, but now I was standing in a stairwell somewhere I knew I hadn’t been. The desk was gone. The woman and the security guard were gone too.

Frustrated and a little scared, I stepped out into the open corridors of the Midwest Outlet Malls. That is when I saw a sign that said “Nebraska Crossing”.

I huffed a loud sigh and nearly sat down where I stood. “What the absolute hell is going on?”

Did I say that out loud?

I must have. People stared at me as If I were losing my mind. And of course, I was. This was so full of nuts the squirrel can’t fit into the tree.

I tracked down another security guard. This one was older. My age and a bit more stocky than the last one.

“I’m lost!” I said. “I need to get home now!”

The man stared at me as if I had grown two heads, then his eyes softened.

What was he thinking? Maybe I have Dementia at 50? I guess I can’t blame him because I think I do too.

He led me in a much different direction than the other security guard. This time, we went toward the parking lot, straight to a police car idling outside of the Gap Store. But wait, was it now on the North side of the building? Wasn’t it on the West side before?

I tried to explain to the police officer what happened.

“Can I take you to the station?” He asked kindly.

“Am I under arrest?” I asked. “Well maybe that would be better than being stuck here.”

He chuckled and assured me that I was definitely not under arrest.

“I will help you get in touch with someone who can get you home so you can go visit that grandbaby in the hospital.”

At the station, I opened my mouth to give the officer Doreen’s number, but I drew a blank…for Tim’s number too. It was like my brain had become the liminal space zone everyone talked about on Tik Tok.

“Do you know your son’s number?” The police officer asked.

“Jordan? He’s probably in class, but maybe he can help figure this out.”

“What’s his number?”

“402-916-2289.”

The officer looked skeptical but dialed the number. He shook his head.

Tears started to fill my eyes.

“It’s all I can think of!” I said, my voice trembling.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said, patting my hand. “Let’s get you settled and we will figure this out.”

He took me to a room with a plush sofa and a television. A video game controller sat on the coffee table.

“Let me do some research and I will find your son. We can have you home soon. Would you like some coffee?”

He picked up the tv controller beside the tv and handed it to me.

He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he swiftly turned and left. When he returned, he placed a mug of coffee and a package of donuts on the table in front of me. I didn’t dare tell him I was watching my sugar. I was hungry anyway and what would it hurt?

“My son is in New York!” I said. “He’s going to school to be a doctor. It might be better if you call Tim. My daughter’s at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Lincoln.”

“I’ll see what I can do. I have your name, but can I get your address?”

My mind went entirely blank. It felt like I was seeing multiple homes all at once in my head. Whatever Voodoo was in the air, it had me all messed up.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I will see what I can do.” The man left.

***

It felt like I sat in that room alone for hours. Good thing I wasn’t being investigated. Hopefully that wasn’t coming next because my mind was broken.

After a few minutes, I picked up the controller and flipped on the tv. Good! The last person here had the console set, so I could just choose a game. I really wanted to be home playing World of Warcraft, but at the moment, that seemed like a far-fetched dream.

Instead, I chose the Animal Farm Bowling game. Every shot was perfect as if I had played this game many times before. I knew, though, that the first levels are always easy.

I lost myself in the game, forgetting I was sitting in a small state police office in what seemed to be a family room. I didn’t know they had a room like this.

Oh well, in a few minutes, everything would just shift again, and I would discover that it never existed at all. Maybe I would find myself at the mall again. Please, Universe, if you do that, put me back when I was still with Doreen. I would hold on to her arm and not let her run off again.

“Oh, COME ON! That was a perfect shot!” I yelled at the screen.

At that moment, the door opened and there stood Jordan—but he was heavier than I remember him. And he had a wife. And there was a small child peeking out from behind him…

“Jordan?”

“Mom, where have you been? We’ve been looking for you everywhere. Noemy called and said you went out for a walk and never came back!”

“What? What are you talking about?” I was thoroughly confused now. “I was looking for you. Noemy should be at the hospital with Tim.”

“Who’s Tim?”

Okay, this is it. Grab the straight jacket and wheel me away. I don’t think I can take another minute of this day. I put the controller down and stood up.

“Are you going to take me home?”

We left the police office and Jordan helped me into his bright red Kia Forte, his family climbing in back.

“I thought you hated red. And are you going to tell me who these lovely people are?” I smiled back at the small, frail looking woman with mousy brown hair and the boy who must be around 4 years old. The woman’s eyes darted quickly to her husband, but she didn’t say a word.

“Mom, you already know Vicky and Timmy spends every Saturday with you. Are you feeling alright?”

The thought occurred to me then that I had better stop acting confused. They might just drop me off at the neared mental hospital for real. Well, maybe not. But they would think I needed to be checked out to make sure I didn’t have something going on.

“How did the nice police officer find you?” I asked.

“He didn’t. We found you. You were on the news.”

“What?” Oh no, that can’t be true. There’s no way.

“Yeah, no one could calm you down. You were crying and flailing your arms around and looking like a wild cave woman.”

“That can’t be true!”

“No, you were fine,” he said with a laugh. “I can’t believe I got you again.”

He loved to tease me. I knew that. I felt a warmth fill me because in this crazy upside-down day, I needed to know that something hadn’t changed.

“The news reporter just said that you were unable to remember who you are and asked for the public to take a look to help identify you.”

“I knew who I was! I just couldn’t remember anyone’s number or my address. I think it was just stress, though. I forget things when I get frustrated.”

“We’ll get you home and you can rest. Did you eat anything?”

“Donuts and coffee. I couldn’t buy anything, go figure. And shouldn’t we be going to see if Noemy has had her baby?”

“Noemy doesn’t have a baby,” Jordan said quietly.

“I know, but she will soon. She is at St. Elizabeth, isn’t she? Her husband Tim said she was getting close.”

“No, Mom. She’s not there. She’s at her home in Springfield. She’s never been married.”

I gasped. This felt so much like the movie “Groundhog Day” except it wasn’t everything repeating itself. It felt more like dimensions were interweaving faster and faster until everything you thought you knew was just one big glob of nonsense in your head.

“Springfield. You mean she doesn’t live with me? I thought she told you that I had gone on a walk and never came back.” I was trying to keep everything straight.

“No. When I called her, she said you haven’t spoken to her in three years. Ever since you tried to get her to go to church and wouldn’t stop. She stopped calling.”

A wave of sadness hit me, as if I remembered, but not really. That never happened. I talked to Noemy every night. It was Jordan who I lost contact with. He was so far away in New York…

“Where do you live now?” I asked.

“Three blocks down from you on Elm Street.”

This was a new and comforting thought. Maybe I dropped into the reality of my dreams and was just finding this out.

“That is wonderful,” I said.

When we reached home, Jordan opened my car door. I pushed his hand away. I’m not some old lady who needs help standing.

Vicky took his hand as they followed me up to my small white bungalow with blue trim. I almost said, “I live here?”

But that would be a dead giveaway that we probably should be driving to the ER.

“I don’t have my key,” I said.

“Of course!” Jordan pulled out a spare and opened the door.

He glanced at the kitchen table and I looked too. There was my purse. And my phone was plugged into the charger in the kitchen.

“You really shouldn’t leave the phone connected like that,” Jordan said. “It’s one of the things causing more house fires.”

I opened my mouth to say, “I know!” but I held my tongue.

Instead, I wrapped my arms around him and said, “I love you, Son.”

“I love you too, Mom.”

Things began to shimmer and all I could think was, wait! I didn’t get a chance to call Noemy. I can’t have her thinking I’m mad at her. And what about Vicky and my grandson Jimmy?

I felt the tickle in my forehead and I dropped my head into my hand to find myself sitting on that bench that seemed to have a life of its own.

I opened my eyes and Doreen sat beside me looking concerned.

“I can drive the car up to the door, if you like. It looks like the wind is picking up.”

“NO!” I said more sharply than I intended. “I’m going with you!”

And together we made our way to the car. Hopefully now, whatever time or place was doing, the game was over. I don’t like playing games like that. And I have some calls to make. And I have a son to encourage to find someone named Vicky. Well, I won’t go that far.

***

That night, Doreen came to have dinner with Noemy and me. Go figure, she really wasn’t in the hospital. There never was a Tim. Unless there’s a parallel universe out there where I have a son-in-law and a newborn grandbaby named Claire.

After today, I know it can happen.

In this reality, Noemy lived with me. I had been so hard on her, telling her she needed to be like her brother and go to college, but now I saw that I should lighten up. Life just wasn’t that serious.

Mending a relationship would take time and we had plenty of it.

Doreen brought salad and garlic bread while I shoved a frozen Stouffer’s Lasagna into the oven. Dining in at its finest! Who needs fancy restaurants? I sure didn’t today. I wanted to be right here at home with the people I love.

Noemy called Jordan and had him on speaker phone. He laughed when I told him about my crazy day.

“You could make a movie out of that, Mom!” He said. “I can’t wait to come home. I miss you guys.”

That’s when I felt a familiar tingle and I dropped the phone onto the table. The wind began whipping against the windows.

I grabbed Noemy’s hand because I wasn’t going through this alone.

“Hold on tight!” I said. “I hope you like crazy adventures!

“Why?” Noemy asked.

But the wind whipped into the room and drowned all sound as we were swept away.