She kisses me.
For a long time.
I say, “I have to tell you something.”
“What?”
“In that first Chicago I woke up in—the one where I found you at this art installation about the multiverse—”
“What?” She smiles. “Did you fuck me?”
“Yeah.”
The smile dies.
She just stares at me for a moment, and there’s almost no emotion in her voice when she asks, “Why?”
“I didn’t know where I was or what was happening to me. Everyone thought I was crazy. I was starting to think so too. Then I found you—the only familiar thing in a world that was completely wrong. I wanted so badly for that Daniela to be you, but she wasn’t. She couldn’t be. Just like the other Jason isn’t me.”
“So you were just fucking your way across the multiverse then?”
“That was the only time, and I didn’t realize where I was when it happened. I didn’t know if I was losing my mind or what.”
“And how was she? How was I?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t—”
“I told you.”
“Fair enough. It was just the way you described this other Jason coming home that first night. It was like being with you before I knew I loved you. Like experiencing that incredible connection all over again for the first time. What are you thinking right now?”
“I’m figuring out how mad I should be at you.”
“Why should you be mad at all?”
“Oh, is that your argument? It isn’t cheating if it’s another version of me?”
“I mean, it’s original at least.”
This makes her laugh.
That it makes her laugh says everything about why I love her.
“What was she like?” Daniela asks.
“She was you without me. Without Charlie. She was sort of dating Ryan Holder.”
“Shut up. And I was this successful artist?”
“You were.”
“Did you like my installation?”
“It was brilliant. You were brilliant. Do you want to hear about it?”
“I’d love to.”
I tell her about the Plexiglas labyrinth, what it felt like to walk through it. The startling imagery. The spectacular design.
It makes her eyes light up.
And it makes her sad.
“Do you think I was happy?” she asks.
“What do you mean?”
“With everything I’d given up to be this woman.”
“I don’t know. I was with this woman for forty-eight hours. I think, like you, like me, like everyone, she had regrets. I think sometimes she woke up in the night wondering if the path she took was the right one. Afraid it wasn’t. Wondering what a life with me might have been like.”
“I wonder those things sometimes.”
“I’ve seen so many versions of you. With me. Without me. Artist. Teacher. Graphic designer. But it’s all, in the end, just life. We see it macro, like one big story, but when you’re in it, it’s all just day-to-day, right? And isn’t that what you have to make your peace with?”
Out in the middle of the lake, a fish jumps, its splash sending perfect, concentric ripples across the glasslike water.
I say, “Last night, you asked me how we fix this.”
“Any bright ideas?”
My first instinct is to protect her from the knowledge of what I’m contemplating, but our marriage isn’t built on keeping secrets. We talk about everything. The hardest things. It’s embedded in our identity as a couple.
And so I tell her what I proposed to the chat room last night and watch the expression on her face move through flashes of anger, horror, shock, and fear.
She says finally, “You want to raffle me off? Like a fucking fruit basket?”
“Daniela—”
“I don’t need you doing something heroic.”
“No matter what happens, you’re going to have me back.”
“But some other version of you. That’s what you’re saying, right? And what if he’s like this asshole who ruined our lives? What if he isn’t good like you?”
I look away from her, out across the lake, and blink through the tears.
She asks, “Why would you sacrifice yourself so someone else can be with me?”
“We all have to sacrifice ourselves, Daniela. That’s the only way it works out for you and Charlie. Please. Just let me make your lives in Chicago safe again.”
—
When we walk back inside, Charlie is at the stovetop flipping pancakes.
“Smells great,” I say.
He asks, “Will you make your fruit thing?”
“Sure.”
It takes me a moment to locate the cutting board and a knife.
I stand next to my son, peeling the apples and dicing them and adding the pieces to a saucepan filled with simmering maple syrup.
Through the windows, the sun climbs higher and the forest fills with light.
We eat together and talk comfortably, and there are moments where it feels almost normal, where the fact that this is likely the last breakfast I’ll ever share with them isn’t at the forefront of my mind.
—
In the early afternoon, we head to town on foot, walking down the middle of the faded country road, the pavement dry in the sun, snow-packed in the shadows.
We buy clothes at a thrift shop and then go to a matinee in a little downtown cinema showing a movie that came out six months ago.
It’s a stupid romantic comedy.
It’s just what we need.
We stay through the credits, until the lights come up, and as we step out of the theater, the sky is already growing dark.
At the edge of town, we take a shot with the only restaurant that’s open—the Ice River Roadhouse.
We sit at the bar.
Daniela orders a glass of pinot noir. I order a beer for me, a Coke for Charlie.
The place is crowded, the only thing going on on a weeknight in Ice River, Wisconsin.
We order food.
I drink a second beer, and then a third.
Before long, Daniela and I are buzzed and the noise of the roadhouse growing.
She puts her hand on my leg.
Her eyes are glassy from the wine, and it feels so good to be close to her again. I’m trying not to think about how every little thing that happens is my last experience of it, but the knowledge weighs so heavy.
The roadhouse keeps filling up.
It’s wonderfully noisy.
A band begins to set up on a small stage in the back.
I’m drunk.
Not belligerent or sloppy.
Just perfectly lit up.
If I think about anything other than the moment, I tear up, so I don’t think about anything other than the moment.
The band is a country-and-western four-piece, and soon Daniela and I are slow-dancing in a mass of people on a tiny dance floor.
Her body is pressed against mine, my hand cupping the small of her back, and between the steel guitar and the way she’s looking at me, I want nothing more than to take her back to our creaky bed with the loose headboard and knock all the picture frames off the walls.
—
Daniela and I are laughing, and I’m not even sure why.
Charlie says, “You guys are wasted.”
It might be an overstatement, but not by much.