Bari Lynn Hein

Fall Back

PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2026: VOL. 41.

Dawn rolled over and squinted at her cellphone screen: 1:58. Yes! She had always

wanted to see this happen.

1:59. She rubbed her eyes and focused. Behind her, Sonny sighed.

One o’clock in the morning again.

It was over. No fanfare.

For a fraction of a second, she pictured Keenen in the room across the hall,

witnessing the same nonevent on the corner of his computer screen.

She turned toward Sonny, who was sitting upright with his phone in his hand.

“It’s done that seven times now.”

“What’re you talking—”

“The clock’s gone back an hour seven times. The sun should be up by now, but

it’s still dark outside.”

“Sonny, are you OK?”

“It should be eight o’clock right now. No. Well. Seven o’clock. But it’s not. It’s

like we’re stuck in a perpetual time loop.”

“You were having a bad dream.”

Dawn was surprised by how rested she felt, as if she had gotten a full night’s

sleep.

“You don’t believe me,” he said.

“Actually, I do.” She waited for his eyes to meet hers. “Disbelief abandoned me

six months ago,” she said.

He turned away, picked up his cellphone again, started scrolling through his

Instagram feed.

She said, “How ’bout if I make us some oatmeal and tea?”

“I don’t want oatmeal and tea,” he said, his voice monotone. “We have oatmeal

and tea every morning.”

Dawn suppressed a frustrated grunt. “Fine. Then let’s go into the kitchen and find

something else to eat.” She got up and opened the bedroom door. She glanced back and

noticed him watching her, probably waiting to see if she would grab the handle of the

door across the hall and then let go of it.

This time, she left the door handle to their son’s bedroom untouched.

If she ever did bring herself to open that door, the room would look the same as it

had last spring—a bit cluttered, a couple of dirty T-shirts on the floor, a backpack full of

twelfth grade textbooks leaning against the chair, an unplugged laptop open on the desk,

its battery long since dead. The room would not contain spiral notebooks and sweatshirts

bearing the logo of the university that Keenan had chosen to attend.

When she reached the kitchen, Sonny was right on her heels, still frowning at his

cellphone screen. The microwave clock read 1:18.

“There, you see,” she said. “Proof that it was all a dream.”

“All it proves is that we really are stuck in a time loop. We always have to reset

the microwave when it’s daylight savings time, remember?” He dropped into a kitchen

chair and placed his head on the nest of his folded arms. “I’ve been up all night. I could

use a cup of coffee.”

“We don’t have any coffee,” she said. “D’you want some tea?”

He shook his head, his face still buried. In a muffled voice, he said, “Let’s go to

that diner that—”

She waited, wondering how he would finish the sentence: that we used to go to?

that Keenan had loved, when he was little? that we haven’t been to since—I don’t know

when?

Then she figured he’d fallen back asleep and waited for a snore that never came.

She stared out the window at the starless black sky. Eventually, in a choked-up voice, she

said, “OK, sure.”

For the first time in over six months, her husband was suggesting that they go out

to eat. An all-night diner would be the perfect place to find out whether the rest of the

world believed it to be Sunday morning or a continuation of Saturday night. At least they

wouldn’t be alone. There would be other people around, either speculating on what

might’ve caused this phenomenon, or yawning at the culmination of a long night out.

Dawn dressed quickly before Sonny had a chance to change his mind. “I’ll drive,”

she told him. “You’ve been up all night.”

When she started up the engine, the clock on the dashboard was synchronized to

the microwave and cellphones. This timepiece, like the microwave, was one that needed

to be manually advanced in the spring and set back in the autumn. Sonny’s theory that

they were stuck in some sort of time warp was becoming more and more conceivable.

They set off for the diner at 1:49. In ten minutes, she expected they would witness

another anomaly—Dawn for the second time, Sonny for the eighth.

She turned on the radio. The sun’s failure to rise, the clocks’ failure to advance should’ve dominated the airwaves. Instead, she flipped through two songs and three commercials until she landed on an all-news station, which was currently devoted to a political discussion.

“Why do you do that?” he said.

“I thought there’d be some word of what’s going on around here.”

“I mean, why do you touch his doorknob but never turn it?”

“I don’t always touch it, and I don’t never turn it. I turned it once—in the

beginning.” She cleared her throat. “There’re some textbooks that probably need to be

returned to the high school. And some dirty laundry on the floor—”

“I can take care of that, if you’ll let me.”

Dawn returned her attention to the radio. “I can’t believe this news isn’t breaking

on every station.” She stopped spinning the dial once she’d landed on a song that had

been popular when she and Sonny first met.

He shook his head. “Every time I suggest a way forward, you change the subject.”

Her first instinct was to go on the defensive again, to start yet another sentence

with I don’t...

Then she thought of asking him if he remembered this song, but that would only

prove his point that she tended to change the subject when they talked about the future. It

was so much easier to talk about the past—at least, it used to be.

Instead, she turned up the radio and sang along.

“Look out!” he shouted.

Dawn slammed on the brake. “They. Didn’t. Have their headlights on,” she said,

pressing one hand against her chest.

“I know. It wasn’t your fault.” He shouted something indecipherable out the

closed car window, but the other driver had moved on.

Cars were parked along the curb outside the church, like any other Sunday

morning. Apparently, the absence of daylight had not stopped parishioners from

attending services.

1:56.

Dawn could see the sign ahead, high above the silver dome of the diner, red and

turquoise letters illuminated in the night sky. She advanced carefully past another driver

who had neglected to turn on his headlights, and pulled onto the parking lot.

1:58.

There were at least a dozen cars on the lot, and several patrons behind well-lit

windows, conversing as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Dawn pulled into a space, and

wordlessly, they waited.

1:59.

“I can empty that whole room,” he said. “We can talk about moving again.”

“Move where?”

“Wherever we want. We can do our jobs pretty much anywhere.”

Why did he insist on having this discussion now, while they were watching for

the clock to change?

1:00.

“There, you see,” he said.

“I told you I believed you.”

Through the diner windows, people continued to talk and laugh, oblivious to what had just happened.

Sonny opened the passenger-side door. “I’m thinking French toast,” he said.

“Covered in powdered sugar. And bacon. Maybe some fruit.”

Climbing out of the car, Dawn tried to remember if this was the diner where she’d

once been served a bowl of oatmeal with generous helpings of butter and brown sugar on

the side. She was pretty sure it was. Sonny grabbed her hand as she was about to step out

in front of an SUV with its headlights and taillights out.

“What is wrong with people,” she said, under her breath.

They entered to a cacophony of laughter and chatter and doo-wop. The diner had

a ’50s theme—though none of its employees had experienced that decade firsthand,

certainly not the hostess in a red swing dress who greeted them at the door. Brittni—

whose i’s were dotted with hearts—appeared to be not much older than Keenan.

He used to love coming here. When he was little, he would sing along to the

songs on the jukebox as if they evoked nostalgia for him. Other patrons would look over

and smile.

“Would you like to sit at the counter or a booth?” Brittni said.

Sonny said, “Counter,” at the same moment that Dawn said, “Booth.” Sonny

pointed to Dawn in a gesture of concession. As they followed the hostess along the black

and white checkerboard tiles, Dawn peered behind the counter. She could’ve sworn there

used to be a big analog clock back there somewhere, though she couldn’t find it now,

among the framed posters and mirrors covering the wall.

Once they’d taken their seats, the hostess held forth a silver carafe. “Coffee?” she

said.

Sonny said, “Yes, please.”

Dawn said, “What kind of tea do you have?” But once she’d smelled the aroma

drifting across the table from her husband’s cup, she said, “Actually, I’ll have a coffee

too.”

Brittni poured and set down two laminated menus. “Your server will be right with

you,” she said, then walked away.

Dawn shivered and tried to focus on the menu.

“You know what Keenan would do?” Sonny said.

When Dawn looked at him, he was grinning. Which Keenan was he referring to?

Right now, three year-old Keenan would be dancing beside the table and singing along to

“Sh-boom” with his own version of the lyrics. Thirteen year-old Keenan would be sliding

down on his vinyl-covered seat, hoping not to be noticed by any of his peers.

Sonny pressed an index finger to the menu and spun it around and around with his

other hand, adjusting the angle now and then for maximum velocity. “He would work up

a spreadsheet.”

“A spreadsheet?”

“All our options for where we can live. Pros and cons. Climate. Nearby amenities

and attractions.”

Was he trying to plan a vacation or make a life-changing decision?

“I’m trying to focus on this spreadsheet right here,” she mumbled. “I don’t see

oatmeal on this menu, but I’m pretty sure we’ve had it here before.” When she noticed

her husband had stopped spinning his menu, she forced a smile and said, “He did love his

spreadsheets. It was how he narrowed down his college options.”

“Well he got, what was it, three acceptance letters?”

“Four.”

Sonny whistled softly. “Four. Wow.”

“I think he made the right choice, in the end. He would’ve thrived there.”

Sonny nodded. His lips turned down. “They would’ve been lucky to have him.”

Someone put “Rock Around the Clock” onto the jukebox, and suddenly everyone

in the diner was moving to the beat. Dawn laughed. “Keenan loved this song.”

“He was in kindergarten, I think. Or maybe it was preschool. He’d just learned his

numbers,” Sonny said, his eyes glistening. “Always such a smart one, that boy.”

A server named Lily appeared (no hearts on her name tag) and asked if they were

ready to order. Sonny looked up at her. “I’d like French toast, bacon, and the melon cup I

see here.” He pointed to the spot on the menu, though Lily was already nodding and

writing it down. Then he looked at Dawn. “And I think you had a question about

oatmeal?”

“No, that’s OK. I’ll have a cheese omelet and English muffin, please. And the

fruit cup as well.” Dawn passed Lily a menu covered in the germs of countless patrons

who’d held it before her, and told her husband she just wanted to go wash her hands.

On her way back from the restroom, she looked behind the counter and found a

young man wearing a paper sailor’s hat on a step ladder, adjusting the hands of an analog

clock and rehanging it above a mirror bearing the Coca Cola logo. The time read 8:35.

When Dawn pulled her cellphone out of her pocket, she saw the same time on her home

screen.

The window beside Sonny and Dawn’s booth was aglow in daylight. She sat

across from her husband and they reached for one another’s hands, held each other tight

in a sunbeam at the center of their table. She tried not to care that her hands were freshly

washed and his weren’t.

“Maybe that’s a good idea,” she said, as if there’d been no pause in the

conversation. “The spreadsheet idea.” She turned to the window, watched a young couple

walking their toddler across the parking lot, swinging him each time he lifted his feet off

the asphalt. With a sigh, she said, “A spreadsheet is probably a good place to start.”

❧❧❧

Bari Lynn Hein was the winner of the 2024 Bethesda Short Story Contest, a finalist in the 2018 Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest, and a semifinalist in contests sponsored by Phoebe Journal and Cutbank. Her stories have been published in dozens of journals worldwide, among them Prime Number, The Baltimore Review, Mslexia, The Amsterdam Quarterly, Samjoko, and Bosphorus Review of Books. A novel set in Baltimore in the 1970s will soon go on submission. Learn more at barilynnhein.com.