Dinner that evening was a strange blend of normalcy and surrealism for Jess. The smells were the same—roast from the crock pot, roasted vegetables, mashed potatoes, and a simple garden salad—but the people at the table were subtly, unnervingly different.
Issac, once Isabelle and formerly her son Jeff, had set the table with a cheerfulness that felt both foreign and unsettling. He moved with a confident, grounded energy, cracking a few harmless dad jokes while pouring milk and sparkling water. Michelle, formerly Her Husband Mike, and the father of the house, Was now carried herself like a career woman & mother with years of polished grace and quiet authority. Her posture was sharper, her smile brighter, and her glances toward Issac lingered with a kind of warmth that felt earned through decades of marriage rather than a fluke of recent memory.
Jess could barely eat, her fork pushing bits of potato around while she watched the dynamic unfold.
"How was your girls trip with Macy to the mall, sweetie?" Michelle asked her, smiling as she reached across the table to refill Jess's water.
"It was... fine," Jess said cautiously, eyes flicking to Issac.
"Did you make sure to stick together?" Issac chimed in, taking a generous bite of roast. "I told you, the mall is filled with creeps and teenage boys."
Jess blinked. Her old self, Jeff, would have groaned at the mention of boys or the mention of being careful at the mall. Now Issac was the one offering advice like a totally present, and overly supportive dad.
"Yeah, I made sure to stick with Macy, and We had our phones ready with speed dial, we stayed in the crowded areas to call for help if we needed!" She replied, cautiously playing along with the same line she gave her now former dad now Grandpa?.
Megan was blissfully unaware, chatting about her day at Harriet’s. Michelle listened attentively, even asking about Harriet’s dad and how he was doing since his surgery. Issac reached over to tuck a loose strand of hair behind Michelle’s ear at one point and whispered something that made her laugh and squeeze his hand.
Jess had to excuse herself from the table after dinner under the pretense of needing to grab something from her room. Once upstairs, she sat on her bed and stared at the floor.
They were happy. Not just content—happy. Functional. Loving. In sync maybe even more then she ever did with Mike...
And yet, they weren’t who they were supposed to be. She wasn’t sure if she could ever convince them of that again, not without the Chronivac. And even if she could…
Would she want to?
Would they want to?
Jess covered her face with her hands. Dinner had given her more than food. It had given her doubts—real, emotional, complicated doubts. This wasn’t just a prank or an punishment body swap anymore. It was a family dynamic that somehow, impossibly, worked. And she wasn’t sure if she had the heart—or the right—to undo it.