Chapter Thirty-One

September 2

I can’t decide if it’s impressive or just maddening how fast the movers get everything loaded into their truck. Sure, almost

everything is already in boxes, but even so. They haul out the mattresses and the beds as though they weigh nothing. Cart

out the furniture like it’s practically an afterthought. It takes me as long to pack up the rental car as it does for the

movers to pack up their whole truck. Mom helps me carry the boxes and my bags, and we wedge everything back into the hatchback

until it’s so full again that there’s only room for me in the driver’s seat.

“Stop if you get tired,” Mom says, as I close the hatchback’s trunk.

“I will.”

“And call me when you get there.”

I smile. “I will, Mom.”

The movers are closing up the truck. Mom drifts away to talk logistics with them, about where she’ll meet them, about where

they should park at the condo.

Mr. Grumpy waddles over to me, tongue lolling out of his mouth. I crouch down and hold out my hand. He runs his forehead into

it.

“Thanks for hanging out with me, old bud,” I say.

He gives me a very morose look. Or maybe that’s all the forehead wrinkles.

Eventually, the movers climb into their truck and start up the engine and pull away, rumbling off to the condo. Mom wraps me in one more hug and then tries to coax Mr. Grumpy toward the porch, away from the rental car. He looks between us. Finally, she bends down and picks him up with a groan, staggering up the driveway to the garage, where the Jeep is waiting—packed up with artwork and the birthday mugs and a few other breakable things.

I climb into the rental car and stick the key in the ignition, but for a minute, I can’t turn it. I just sit there looking

at the house. It’s just a building, and it hasn’t felt like home for a long time, and still. A twinge goes through me, at

the thought of some other family moving in. Some other family changing my mom’s outdated kitchen. Some other kid filling my

bedroom with their stuff.

It’s going to be really weird next time I visit my mom. I wonder if I’ll ever even go by this house again, or if it’ll be

easier to let it go if I don’t and just avoid the whole street.

I let my breath out, slowly, until the knot in my stomach unties itself and my shoulders lower.

There’s this theory of the universe. It says that every time we make a decision , reality splits, like a tree branching.

I turn the key. The rental car engine rumbles to life.

In this version of life, we follow one branch, the branch that leads us on from the decision we made.

I back down the driveway into the street. By the garage, Mom holds up Mr. Grumpy’s paw and waves it at me. He does not look

into it. It makes me smile.

But maybe there’s another life where we follow the other branch. The branch that leads us on as though we made the opposite

choice.

I turn the car down the street, watching my mom and Mr. Grumpy get smaller in the mirror. Watching Jeannie Young’s penguin

army fade behind me.

Maybe there are infinite realities, and some different version of us lives in each of them.

I roll down the windows, letting warm wind whistle in my ears and ruffle my hair. I breathe in, deeply—the smell of grass

and dirt and maybe something colder and crisper. Fall, just around the corner. I decide not to take Main Street and turn instead

toward the back roads.

Maybe in some other reality, I left. Maybe in some other life, you stayed.

I follow the loop of West Avenue, and Michael’s white farmhouse comes into view under the wide blue sky. The lawn chairs are empty on the porch. Michael’s pickup sits at the end of the driveway, parked behind Amanda’s old Corolla.

For the briefest moment, something tugs inside me. I think about stopping.

And then the moment is gone. I drive past the house, picking up speed. I let it fade away in the mirror and I turn around

the bend, headed for the county highway. A bubble slowly expands in my chest.

There’s a theory of the universe.

I hit the highway and the wind roars, buffeting my eardrums. The bubble in my chest feels like it’s lifting me—like I’m weightless,

flying on the wind rushing through the car. The view outside my windows turns to farmland, endless green that’s only interrupted

by a few groves of trees and the occasional silo. Above it, the sky is flat and blue and wide, scattered with wisps of white

clouds. I let my eyes wander across all of it, burning it all into my mind, to hold and come back to sometimes when New York

gets too big and busy.

Every time we make a decision , reality splits, like a tree branching.

I roll up the windows and pick up my phone, finding Olivia’s number and switching to speaker phone.

While it rings, I wonder what the universe would look like if I’d stopped at Michael’s house in that moment when I considered

it. I wonder what it would look like if I pulled over to the side of the road right now and just took a break, sitting outside

and staring at this field for an hour. I wonder what my life will look like when I unpack everything at Olivia and Joan’s

apartment. When I return the rental car. When I fall asleep to the noise of a city.

For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m moving toward possibility. Toward something I chose.

Toward so many choices still left to make.

The phone stops ringing. “Darby?”

There’s a theory of the universe...

“Hey, Olivia,” I say. “I’m coming home.”