(OLD VERSION) Atonement: Chapter Three

A dreamless night passed, leaving Joyce to slowly awaken as the shafts of light shone through her window. Her eyes slowly fluttered open and she unconsciously reached her hand up to cover them to avoid being blinded. It was a solid minute in her half-awake state before she realized the cold damp feeling around her. Joyce sat up quickly, looking down at the sheets and instantly realizing what had happened.

“Dammit…” she sighed - and then stopped herself. Was her voice...higher pitched? That couldn’t be right. She was just waking up, so she must just still be out of it from the craziness of the day before. The day before...wait, this was Connie’s house!

Suddenly worried about the fact that she had managed to make a mess of the gift that she had so graciously been given, Joyce attempted to jump out of the bed onto the floor - and immediately fell flat on her face. Tears began to fall from her eyes as Joyce felt pain shoot through her nose. The thumping sound of footsteps quickly approached her room and Connie burst through the door.

“Joyce! Are you okay?” It took Connie only seconds of glancing around the room to notice what had happened to the bed and to Joyce. She crouched down and lifted Joyce off of the ground and into a sitting position. “Hey. That looks like it hurt.” Connie reached into her pocket and pulled out a couple of tissues, using one to wipe off Joyce’s face before handing her another. “That should help with the bleeding.”

Sure enough, blood covered the tissue that Connie pulled back from Joyce’s face. “Ouch...um...thanks.” Joyce attempted to smile, but winced as another wave of pain went through her nose.

A confused look crossed Connie’s face, her eyes glancing up and down Joyce. “Joyce...I’m not sure what, but something doesn’t quite look right here.”

“What? Oh. The bed.” Joyce blushed red as she remembered her apparent accident earlier.

“No. You look...different. Here, stand up for me, okay?” Connie reached out, grasping under Joyce’s arms and lifting straight up.

Joyce realized right away what Connie was referring to. “Are you...taller?” she asked, noticing that Connie seemed a foot or two above herself.

“I...I think you’ve gotten smaller. You look and sound several years younger, Joyce. Maybe...eleven? Twelve if I was feeling generous.” A tone of concern entered Connie’s voice for the first time since Joyce had met her. “Between that and the bedsheets, I’m not quite sure what to think.”

“What? No way that’s possible.” Disbelief was of course Joyce’s first reaction, but as she examined herself as well as the room around her, no better conclusion came to her own mind.

A thought coming to her, she walked on over to the bathroom she remembered from her tour of the house the day before. “Joyce? What are you doing?” Joyce had no time or thought to respond to Connie as she walked into the bathroom, closing the door to get at the full-length mirror right behind.

And there she was. Distinctly shorter. Clothes basically falling off of her body. Much less developed curves. And finally, a face spotted with bright red, tear-streaked eyes.

Joyce fell to her knees and began to sob, entirely overwhelmed in a completely different way than before. For the first time in years, her crying became audible, her wailing drawing Connie to burst through yet another door to hold the girl tightly in her arms.

“Shh...it’ll be okay. I have no idea what’s happened, but we’ll deal with it, okay?” Connie’s words just brought forth more tears from Joyce, who was by now burying her face in Connie’s chest. Connie sighed and continued to hold the girl but reached over with one hand to turn on the bathtub faucet, beginning to fill the tub with warm water. “Come on, Joyce. How about you take a bath and then we talk a bit? You know, try to figure things out.” Silent nodding answered her question as Joyce reluctantly peeled herself away from Connie, standing up and pulling off her clothes without a care that Connie was standing right there.

Connie quickly made her way out of the bathroom, closing the door behind her and facing forward only to find Alyssa staring up at her, a concerning question in her eyes. “Mommy? Is Joyce sad?”

Connie responded instinctively, hoping that reassuring Alyssa would do the same for her. She lifted the girl into her arms with a bit of a nuzzle. “Alyssa, Joyce is just having a hard time getting used to everything here. She also might be a bit...littler than yesterday, but please don’t tease her about it, okay?”

In the matter-of-fact way that children tend to approach life, Alyssa responded instantly. “Okay, mommy. I’m hungry.” A nervous chuckle and a ruffling of hair later, Connie was off to prepare breakfast on this craziest of days.

Emotional numbness set in for Joyce as she climbed out of her bath what seemed like an eternity later. She dried herself with the nearby too-big towel out of habit and wrapped it around her body before taking a cautious step outside of the bathroom. Walking forward at an almost reluctant pace, it didn’t take too long before she found Connie in the finishing stages of cooking a large breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and bacon. Surprisingly, Alyssa was nowhere to be seen. Joyce was too deadened to take much notice as she quietly sat down at the nearest chair.

The clink of a plate being set in front of her caused Joyce to look up. Connie finished setting the table and took her seat next to Joyce, reaching a reassuring arm out and around Joyce’s shoulder. “Hey. Get some food in your stomach, alright? No matter what happens, that’s important.” Connie continued to rub Joyce’s back as she spoke and Joyce almost robotically began to eat. “I sent Alyssa to go play by herself so we could have some time to talk. To be entirely honest with you, I have no idea what’s happening or what to do about it. I imagine you don’t either.” Joyce slowed her eating, responding with only a subtle shake of her head. Connie took that as her cue to continue on.

“Unless I’m completely wrong, you seem to be a bit younger than yesterday. I can’t think of any sort of rational explanation, but looking at you now compared to yesterday, I don’t know what other conclusion I could draw.” Connie took the opportunity to offer yet another kind but worried-looking smile. “Kind of funny, isn’t it. I knew I’d be helping you start over, but I thought that had a bit different meaning.”

As she heard and began to comprehend Connie’s words, Joyce froze up. After a second of silent thought, she looked directly at Connie. “That lady.”

Connie’s concern and confusion were again evident on her face. “What lady?”

“Yesterday, just seconds before you came in to pick me up. This lady - Abby or something - she came in and offered me the chance to ‘start over’. I assumed she was just having me sign paperwork for this whole program thing, but she used those same exact words.”

Connie’s face darkened with further worry as she heard this. “I was standing right outside that room for several minutes before I had the courage to head inside. Nobody else went in there besides you.” The pair was together in silent contemplation for a few seconds before Connie again spoke up. “I’ll see if I can find anything out. For now, and I know this may be near-impossible, you should relax. You don’t need to deal with all of this at once. Maybe you’ll wake up tomorrow and everything will be back to normal.”

Before Joyce could react, Connie leaned over and planted a kiss on her forehead, squeezing her momentarily in a hug as she did so. “I told you I’d help you, and I plan to do just that.” As Connie stood and walked out of the room towards her office, Joyce was left in awe by her words and actions. For the third time in the last day, Joyce felt tears drip down her face.