Grandma's Game Plan

My name is Sarah Miller, and at twenty-two, my suburban New Jersey life felt like it was shrinking daily.

The reason? Brenda Hayes, my father's "executive assistant," a title as flimsy as her tight dresses, who was steadily dismantling our family.

She was younger than my mom, Carol, and my father, Rick, was completely under Brenda's spell, treating my kind, gentle mother like a faded photograph.

I watched my mother's spirit dim, powerless, full of a quiet sadness that broke my heart.

I saw the truth about Brenda and Rick' s affair, but my desperate protests only made my father angry and defensive, and earned me Brenda's chilling, venomous glare.

One evening, driving home from my part-time library job, blinding headlights and screeching tires suddenly filled my vision.

A monstrous crash. Pain, then utter darkness.

My life, systematically destroyed by what I instinctively knew was Brenda' s work, became a body in a hospital bed, entangled in wires and tubes, in a persistent vegetative state.

They called it a hit-and-run, convenient, but I was a prisoner in my own skull, aware of the injustice, burning with a helpless rage.

Then, a flicker.

I woke up.

But it wasn' t my own body, nor was I in my sterile hospital room.

My consciousness had inexplicably lodged itself inside my grandmother Esther' s body, recovering from a minor heart procedure in a different hospital.

And when I saw the newspaper on the bedside table, a chilling realization hit me.

The date was three months before my accident.

I was in the past, in my grandmother' s aging body.

This wasn't just impossible; it was a miraculous, terrifying chance.

A chance to save my mother from her slow demise.

A chance to stop Brenda Hayes before she could ruin everything.

A cold, unyielding fury, sharpened by my previous helplessness, solidified within Esther' s frame.

Brenda Hayes was finally going to pay, and this time, I had a plan.

My name was Sarah Miller, and I was twenty-two.

Life in our suburban New Jersey town felt small, shrinking daily.

It shrank because of Brenda Hayes.

Brenda was my father' s "executive assistant," a title as flimsy as her tight dresses.

She was younger than my mom, Carol, with a hard, shiny look.

My father, Rick Miller, owned a chain of hardware stores.

Successful, people said.

Morally bankrupt, I saw.

Brenda had him wrapped around her little finger.

He' d started talking about Mom like she was a burden, a faded photograph.

Mom, who gave up her graphic design dreams to be a homemaker, to raise me.

She was kind, gentle, and now, mostly silent, her eyes holding a permanent sadness.

Brenda wanted to replace her, it was obvious.

She even had a son, Jason, around ten, from a previous relationship.

Brenda was already parading him around as Rick' s potential stepson.

I was an obstacle to Brenda. A vocal one.

I told Dad what I thought of Brenda, of how he was treating Mom.

He didn' t listen. He just got angry, defensive.

Brenda' s smile, when she looked at me, was pure venom.

One evening, I was driving home from my part-time library job.

Headlights, blinding, from a car speeding through a stop sign.

A screech of tires, then a monstrous crash.

Pain, then nothing.

Darkness.

My life, systematically destroyed.

Brenda' s work, I knew it, even in the void.

A hit-and-run, they' d call it.

Convenient.

I was left in a persistent vegetative state.

A body in a bed, wires and tubes.

That' s what I became.

Weeks, or maybe months, passed in that silent, unresponsive world.

I was a prisoner in my own skull.

Then, a flicker.

Not in my hospital room, but somewhere else.

A different kind of awareness.

My maternal grandmother, Esther Kowalski, had just undergone a minor heart procedure.

She was in her late sixties, recently widowed.

A pragmatic woman, Polish-American, no-nonsense.

Stern, sometimes, but fair. She loved her daughter, my mother, fiercely, in her own way.

Esther was recovering in a different hospital.

And then, she woke up.

But it wasn' t Esther who woke up.

It was me. Sarah.

My consciousness, somehow, inexplicably, was inside her body.

The world swam into focus through Esther' s eyes.

The hospital room, the smell of antiseptic, the slight ache in Esther' s chest.

A nurse bustled in.

"Mrs. Kowalski? You' re awake. How are you feeling?"

I tried to speak. Esther' s voice, raspy and older, came out.

"Fine," I managed.

My mind reeled. This was impossible.

But it was real. I could feel Esther' s hands, see the age spots.

And then a chilling, electrifying thought.

The date. I saw a newspaper on the bedside table.

I focused, my heart, or rather Esther' s heart, pounding.

The date was three months before my accident.

Before the hit-and-run. Before the coma.

I was in my grandmother' s body, and I was in the past.

A chance.

A chance to save my mother.

A chance to stop Brenda.

A cold fury, a sharp determination, solidified within me, within Esther' s frame.

Brenda Hayes was going to pay.