Yesterday's Gone: Season One

game?”
    “Sure! What kind of games do you have? Does this place have a Wii?”
    Jimmy laughed. “Ha, I wish! I’d love a PS3 and some Uncharted 2 right now, but I’d definitely settle for a Wii. Hell, I’d settle for a DS! I found a PSP, but the batteries went dead the first day. Least I thought it was the batteries, but all the other batteries I tried went dead too. So I figure it had to be the PSP is busted. So, no video games. But I did find a deck of Uno cards; wanna play that?”
    Luca loved Uno. “Yes, please!”  
    “Be right back.” Jimmy said.
    Jimmy returned two minutes later with the fattest deck of Uno cards Luca had ever seen.  
    “Why are there so many?” Luca asked.
    “I found four decks in the hotel. Guess Uno keeps the kids quiet. I put all the decks together and made a super deck. More fun that way.”
    Luca agreed.
    “Okay, now I haven’t played in a long time,” Jimmy said, “So you promise to go easy on me?”
    Luca laughed, “I promise.”
    Jimmy laid out two piles of seven cards as he glanced around the lobby. Will, John, and Desmond were still up front and Mary was sitting at the bar. Paola walked toward the card game.  
    “Hi,” she said to Luca. “I’m Paola.”
    “Nice to meet you,” Luca said.  
    Paola shook Luca’s hand then sat in a chair across from him, next to Jimmy.
    “Can I play?”  
    “Course you can play,” Jimmy nodded, flicking seven cards into a third pile.  
    “Why so many cards?” She pointed at the top-heavy deck.
    “It’s my Super Deck. Way more fun.”  
    Jimmy and Luca traded a smile.
    The first game lasted just three and a half minutes. Paola had two Draw Fours, three Draw Twos and a Skip. No one stood a chance.  
    “This isn’t a hand, it’s a foot!” Jimmy said, looking at his cards.
    Paola laughed. “You’re right; the Super Deck is more fun.”  
    She blew raspberries at Jimmy. He gathered the played cards, shuffled, slipped them into the Super Deck, then counted three fresh piles from the top.  
    “How are you feeling?” Jimmy asked Paola.  
    “Good,” she nodded. “A little weird.”
    “You mean beyond going missing then comatose?” Jimmy smiled, then fanned his cards in front of his face with a satisfied nod. “You start,” he said to Paola.
    She put a red 4 on top of the red 1. “I don’t remember anything that happened, even though I feel like I should. I know it was something important and it’s like the memory is at the edge of my brain but I can’t quite touch it.”
    “BAM!” Jimmy said, laying down a red Draw Two.
    Luca drew two cards and said, “You don’t remember anything? ”
    Paola dropped a green Draw Two on top of Jimmy’s red one, then stuck her tongue out and turned to Luca. “No, not really. I sort of remember waking up the other night and walking toward the kitchen. But there’s nothing else until I woke up.”
    “You were moaning like crazy in your sleep.” Jimmy drew two cards.
    Luca played a green six. “Do you remember me?”  
    The color drained from Paola’s face, then returned a moment later in a deeper flush. She nodded. “I do,” she said. “We were swinging. But you were younger.”
    Luca nodded.  
    “You helped me, didn’t you?”
    Luca nodded again. “I think so, but I don’t know how. ”
    Jimmy looked from Luca to Paola, shaking his head. “It’s like Inception in 4-D,” he said.  
    “I think that’s why everyone’s scared of me,” Luca said.
    “They’re not scared of you!” Paola said, surprised. She looked at Jimmy. “ Are they? ”
    “Well I don’t know that anyone’s gonna be Luca for Halloween, but yeah, you missed some crazy stuff. We got a real magic show from junior grandpa here.”
    Luca wished everyone would just play and stop talking about what happened.  
    “Yeah, when Boy Wonder walked in a half hour ago, he looked about the same age as the Wilson kid.”
    “You mean the one with all the freckles?”
    “I was gonna say the one whose face looks like it caught fire and someone tried to put it out with a fork, but yeah, same difference.”
    “That’s mean, Jimmy.” Paola turned to Luca, then back to Jimmy. “The Wilson kid is seven.”
    “I’m eight,” Luca said.
    Paola shook her head and played her green 3. “That’s not possible. You’re taller than I am.”
    “I’m telling you,” Jimmy said, throwing a green Skip on top of the pile, “a half hour ago he was a munchkin.”
    “Uno!” Luca said, putting the