Jon put down the cup of coffee and looked down. He was dressed in business attire and there was a briefcase sitting by the door to the kitchen.
He heard the sound of someone coming down the stairs. A teenage girl who looked very familiar hurried past. "See you later, Dad."
"Oh, shit," he muttered. He took a sip of the coffee cup without thinking. Wait ... I've tried coffee before, and hate it, he thought. But drinking it seemed almost automatic ... as if his body was used to it.
He looked at his reflection in a steel pot. He was ... his mom's age. Not that he hadn't guessed that. But how was he going to live like this? He didn't even know what his job was, or how to do it. He could get fired ... and now he had to take care of Mikey, Zoe, and ... his mom. Suddenly, the mystery of why the stone had done this to him seemed to be of lesser concern.
While Linda had gone off to meet her friend Jennifer Taylor, Zoe was in the shower, and Mikey was still sleeping. Both were unaware that their sister had been their mother earlier that morning. Jon hadn't just swapped ages with Linda. He had become the son of Linda's parents. After all, he couldn't be the son of a woman who no longer existed. Nor could his siblings. Linda couldn't be her own mother - or the mother of Zoe and Mikey. The magic had changed Jon's dead father to a dead mother in order to explain things.
"I want to make the first wish," Linda said. "I've been thinking about it all night and since you made the last one ..."
"I understand," Jennifer said. "Go ahead."
Linda smiled and said "I wish ..."
