Free Between Seasons by Aida Brassington

was pretty great. She would have hated what you’ve done to the house, though.”
    “Hey, I bet my office was your room – you look tall. Those marks on the closet door are probably from you, right? Your mother looks just like the kind of mom who would force you to stand there and let her fuss over how tall you were getting .” She laughed, a quiet rumble , running her fingers over the photo again before setting it on the table next to her bed.
    “I miss her,” Patrick blurted. “I miss them both.”
    Sara reclined against her headboard again, picking up the book and rubbing her thumb along spine. A few moments later she swung her legs over the side of the bed, bare legs pale against the dark green sheets, and grabbed her typewriting machine before easing into the armchair in the corner. She pushed herself back and crossed her legs, flipping the top part up. She looked excited and too wide awake for the hour, and within minutes she typ ed frantically, muttering to herself about inspiration and memories.
    Patrick crept up to the chair, laughing at himself about his instinct to still be stealthy when there was no chance anyone could hear him, hovering at her shoulder and reading her typed words out loud:
The ocean was relatively calm, hardly a wind to blow the old blanket on the sand my mother spread on the sand , joking with my dad about sand crabs and warning him to put his hat on. Dad was balding, the horseshoe ring-pattern of his hair thinning even as I watched.
“Tommy,” my mother chirped, turning to me and adjusting the straps of her burgundy bathing suit, “Did you r emember to pack the sandwiches?”
“Yeah, Ma. I grabbed two bologna for me and the tuna salad for you. Dad’s got two salamis. Oh, and I packed a couple of Tabs.” It had always been my responsibility to pack the cooler for the beach… at least since I turned fifteen .”
    Patrick gaped at Sara as she continued typing. How was she doing it ? It was exactly what had happened that day. Aside from the name Tommy, it was as if she was reading his memories. He stood abruptly and skittered away from her, thoughts racing to figure out what the Hell was going on. Sara kept typing away, but he was afraid to see what else she wrote .
    It wasn’t possible.
    He paced her bedroom, obsessively thinking about what else had happened that day. He remembered the lifeguards racing out to save some poor moron who had gotten caught in a riptide and the dolphins his mother had seen swimming beyond the big waves. On the ride home from the shore, his dad had insisted on stopping at some shack on the side of the road selling watermelon.
    With great trepidation, he returned to Sara’s side and looked over her shoulder. It was there. It was all there. Every detail of that day, typed out and staring at him, almost mocking him. She even wrote about Mary and her freckles, although Sara’s version had renamed the girl Karen.
    Sara stopped typing and read the words in a whisper. “Wow, that’s not bad. Maybe I can use it as a short story .”
    “What… the… Hell… Sara?” Patrick’s eyes fought to escape his head, and he backed toward the door, wincing as the slow gel feeling of its surface hit him. He had to get away from her… from this. His mind was absolutely blown, and he had to find somewhere alone to think about what it meant.
    He ended up in his bedroom… well, Sara’s office now. The smooth walls of his room felt comforting against his back as he slumped into a corner, eyes still wide and staring. Despite all that he’d dealt with over the last several weeks –discovering forty years had blown by, being told his parents were dead, getting used to all the changes Sara made to the house and sharing it with her –he’d never felt more confused.
    “I don’t get it,” he said, the heel of his hand pressing into his forehead. “My own parents could barely tell I was here, but somehow Sara magically writes a memory? Why are you doing this to me?”