Did his parents exist here? The fact that he still had the same last name gave him hope … though the fact that Zoe was no longer his sister did not. The fact that he was older - a high school graduate! - also didn’t help.
Googling himself didn’t reveal anything about his parents. Or his younger brother Mikey. He wasn’t a star yet, so detailed biographical information about him wasn’t public.
The theater arts high school that he graduated from was far from where Lake Point used to be.
Jon shuddered. Severing his bonds with Zoe and Karyn was bad enough. But erasing a whole town off the map?
No, not quite … Jon discovered in Google Maps that there was a city called Valley Lake where the towns of Lake Point and Mount Valley used to be. Looking up Valley Lake in Wikipedia, Jon learned that the two towns had merged long ago.
Jon looked up his address in Google Maps, changing “Lake Point” to “Valley Lake”. Nothing. Zooming in on Valley Lake revealed that his street didn’t exist anymore. The layout and street names were alien to him. At least the shape of the lake was the same. The big things - the lake, the United States, the human species, the Earth - were unchanged. But the details mattered to Jon. Karyn. Even Zoe. Not his favorite - Georgia would spell that “favourite” now! - person in the world, yet … he missed her so.
Jon couldn’t let go of the hope that his parents were still around. Maybe on a different street in Lake Valley. Maybe near his new high school. Maybe …
Jon looked through his laptop for photos of his family. He found pictures of a girl he had never seen before in a folder labeled “Jessica”. He figured out that Jessica was his … sister. It was weird to see pictures of him with that stranger … and no other siblings.
No folder labeled “Mikey”. How would Jon ever find his brother? If Zoe had become a Brit with a totally different name, Mikey might be in another country … maybe even one where English wasn’t spoken. He might not even be able to talk to whoever Mikey was now!
Jon expected to be able to talk to his parents. But maybe Madison was a stage name and they were immigrants who spoke some European language. Jon didn’t feel bilingual. But obviously he didn’t have the memories of the actor Jon Madison, so he couldn’t be sure that actor’s first language was English.
At least he was sure he had parents. He couldn’t be a clone or android, right? He discovered folders labeled “Mom” and “Dad”. He wondered which folder he should open first.
