Rachel Wachowski was pleased to see her eight-year-old granddaughter Brianna Lambetti enjoy the dinner that she had cooked. The dish had been one of Daniel Madison's favorites back in the sixties, back before he went over there ...
... because of me, thought Rachel. She remembered often pondering the question of what would have happened if she hadn't persuaded Dan to join the Army. But this was in fact the first time she had ever asked herself that question about a past that did not exist until a few hours ago. Rachel had no idea who Dan Madison was until this afternoon.
In the reality that had existed until Wednesday at 3:47 PM, Dan had not served in Vietnam. Marie Strzelec had convinced him to stay in the States, where he married her, had a daughter, went to university, became an archaeologist, and went to an expedition to South America where he found the stone.
On Wednesday afternoon the stone had taken his daughter Linda away from him, replacing her with Julie Lambetti, formerly Julie Santiago.
Linda had become a McMillan and remained one on Thursday night, as she had been at the mall when the 3:47 change occurred.
Julie, on the other hand, was no longer a Madison. Stephanie Sanders, once Stephanie Wright, had taken her place as Stephanie Madison Nguyen.
Rachel Strzelec Wachowski had memories of encountering Stephanie Nguyen every once in a while. Although Stephanie was a Catholic like Rachel, she wasn't a member of the women's group of the church; she only attended Mass on Christmas and Easter.
Stephanie's father Dan used to go to church regularly before Rachel talked him into enlisting. She promised to wait for him. She kept her word ... and he returned with a Vietnamese wife and a half-Vietnamese daughter. Stephanie.
A heartbroken Rachel moved on, at least in her head. She married the late Jim Wachowski, their daughter married Carlo Lambetti, and now her granddaughter Brianna had swallowed her last bite.
"This is great, Grandma. Wish I weren't full so I could have some more. I was starving after the game. Thank you."
"You're welcome, dear." Rachel was grateful to have Brianna in her life. Yet she couldn't help but wonder: what if Dan had still been in her life? What if she had married him? She was going to name their daughter Linda or Julie. She had envisioned herself with Dan and their little girl on an expedition to South America, unearthing who knows what. Something magical, perhaps.
Not that there had been no magic with Jim, a man Rachel recalled vividly even though he had died long before she had stepped into Marie Strzelec Madison's shoes this afternoon.
Marie had no idea that she had started the chain reaction leading to the daily identity disruptions at Lake Point. Dan Madison found the stone because Marie had talked him into staying on an archaeological track. Marie had been Jon's grandmother, watching the Youth Soccer League game this afternoon with her best friend Mrs. Wachowski ... until Rachel replaced her.
In the new history, Rachel Strzelec had wiped out her own chances for happiness with Dan by supporting his desire to serve his nation. She had been so proud of her patriotic boyfriend ... until he wasn't her boyfriend anymore.
Rachel had gotten close to Jim while Dan was away, but her relationship with Jim had been purely platonic until Rachel saw Dan come home with Stephanie and ... some Vietnamese lady.
A betrayed Rachel turned to Jim, and both drifted away from Rachel's best friend Virginia Lynch, the woman who had been destined to be Mrs. Wachowski in the old reality.
In the new reality, the former Rachel Stott had been born into the Strzelec family and had become the matriarch of the Wachowski family. Where were the women she displaced? Were they still women?
The former Marie Strzelec Madison was now a high school junior again. Marie Brewer had told her mother Zoe that Jon Nguyen was now a "handsome tutor who is really smart." Marie would never imagine that her classmate Jon used to be her grandson.
Or that Betty Brewer wasn't her little sister. "Little" was accurate chronologically, but certainly not physically, as Betty was huge. Betty Harris had no problem getting boys into bed. That would be an issue for Betty Brewer ... if she had been interested in something other than expansion. Her passion for competition - for getting top grades and for dominating the student council - had been transferred toward her diet. Studying bored her now. She was a freshman and the youngest of the Brewer girls, but she was heavier than her older sisters in high school.
Senior Chrissy Brewer was stuffing herself, hoping to match Betty's weight. As Christina "Tina" Shepard, she had felt she had lagged behind her best friend Nadine Ferguson in terms of faith. That feeling of inadequacy hadn't changed, even though her body and name had changed almost beyond recognition. Again. Yesterday Chrissy had been Chrissy Pasternak, who had joined the softball team under the influence of a different best friend and mother. Without Nadine or Katie Shepard to guide her toward God, Chrissy had substituted the playing field for the church. Unlike the original Christina Pasternak or her replacement Amber Pasternak, the new Christina "Chrissy" Pasternak had been a bit on the heavy side, a trait left over from Tuesday when she had become pot-bellied, freckle-faced freshman band geek Tina Hale playing a very different though still secular tune. Chrissy Brewer couldn't play an instrument anymore, but she still had Tina Hale's freckles - and Chrissy Pasternak's strawberry blonde hair and fair complexion - features originating from the now-nonexistent Brooke Hale and Amber Wellington, daughter of a Fortune 500 CEO.
The stone tried to maintain some degree of physical continuity between identities using the genetic building blocks of an altered person's new family. Chrissy Brewer wasn't related to the Pasternaks, Hales, or Shepards anymore and had never been related to the Wellingtons, but the stone had given her the closest matching DNA from her new parents.
Chrissy had a lifetime of memories of her father feeding her mother and treating her like a queen. Why wouldn't Chrissy want the same for herself? Could this Jon with the weird last name - "Gwen" or something - treat her like her dad someday? Odds were that Jon "Gwen" wasn't into "the food thing," but Chrissy could hope ...
Jon tried in vain to make sense out of his AP textbooks while Sarah and Susan Kim studied. They seem to be more into this academic stuff that me, he thought. Too bad they're not old enough to help me. I could be stuck in these tough classes forever ... at least until I flunk out of them. And if Stephanie is still my mom by then ... my mom forever? ... she'll hate that. I. Am. In. Such. Deep. Shit. And it's all my fault. Man, wish I could talk to Karyn now. But she's gone. There is Tiffany ... yet I don't really know her, and I can't call her even if I wanted to. Where the hell is my phone? More stupidity. And it's all on me ...
Jon had the sinking feeling Stephanie wasn't going to give him his phone back.
Wish I had the stone. "Wish"? That's the word that got me into this mess. I said it. I did this to me, to everyone.
Jon looked up from his book and saw Sarah and Susan with their books. To them. Sarah was a bitch, but did she deserve to turn into a little girl? A better girl, arguably. One who ... likes me? Improvement or not ... and a crush on me isn't an improvement ... I didn't have the right. To mess with her. With her mother. With my mother.
Jon shuddered at the thought of Linda McMillan. He was haunted by his former mother laughing at him. He had no idea where Linda had been at 3:47 today. He wondered if she had been swapped again. Jon figured she was likely to be a stranger now. He might recognize her, but she wouldn't recognize him. That would hurt.
With the stone, Jon had a shot at ending the pain - at restoring some semblance of the status quo. But where was the stone now?
In the last three realities, Jon Madison had gotten the stone from his late maternal grandfather Dan. Dan's daughter had changed from Linda to Julie on Wednesday, but Dan himself hadn't changed.
In the current reality, Dan Madison had long ago lost any interest in South America. He had gone to university to study Vietnamese history after his discharge from the Army. He had written his PhD dissertation on the fourth Chinese domination of Vietnam in the early fifteenth century. He knew more about Vietnam - at least in the past - than his own wife did. He didn't get much of a chance to teach about his favorite country at the college where his granddaughters Melissa and Christine were enrolled, but that was the price he paid to stay in his hometown after years of graduate school. Did he still go to South America and find the stone after retirement? Or had the stone rewritten history so that it belonged to some other family now?
