“And happiness,” she says. “The pursuit of it, at least.”
“That brings me to my point.” He lifts an eyebrow. “Did Imention my lectures always run long?” She smiles gently, and he continues. “Because happiness is—”
“Don’t tell me, a journey.”
“Perhaps, for some. But I have to say I’m not that ‘woo-woo.’ Professional hazard.”
“Me neither, despite my profession.”
“Then speaking for me and not for the world of physics, I believe happiness stems directly from choice.”
Felix had said something similar, about happiness being something you can choose.
“And yet,” Jonah continues, “I’m not sure it’s about choice the way most people think.”
“And what way is that?” Ilena asks.
“That a single choice is the difference between being happy and not. That would mean in one reality you are happy and in the other you aren’t. Physics isn’t that simple and neither are we.”
“Perhaps it’d be better if we were.” It was when Ilena’s actions strayed from her belief in a right choice and a wrong choice that things began to unravel.
“I’m not convinced. I see it every day in my students who come here hoping the choice of MIT will cause everything else to fall into place. They agonize over internships and job offers and grad schools as if their life literally depends on it. Yet we all do it. We put an extraordinary amount of pressure on our choices. This profession, this apartment, this lover, this Target throw pillow, if we choose the right one, it’s all smooth sailing. That’s not logical. The lectures you love to give come with the papers you hate to grade. Hypothetically.” He smirks. “The apartment with all that light means you pay a small fortune for blackout shades. Again, hypothetically. The partner you go to bed with is the same one who flosses their teeth in front of theopen fridge door. Unfortunately, not hypothetically. That relationship didn’t last.”
Ilena’s hit with a little bit of satisfaction. “I’m not sure I’m following.”
“Not unusual. Again, just ask my students.” He grins, and she didn’t realize how much she missed it, the slow parting of his lips, like he’s building anticipation for the full reveal.
“Trade-offs, then,” she says, “that’s what you’re saying?”
His finger goes to work on that dangling button. “Sort of. But perhaps being happy is all about choosing—and this is a technical term—the crap you’re willing to deal with.”
Into her head comes a blur of mice-infested studios, overdrawn bank accounts, investor rejections, the computer glitch, doctors and waiting rooms and shots and fights and... She presses her hand to her stomach.
This Ilena and this Felix chose this. They get a baby, a family, a friendship, more than what a lot of people have. But they’re giving up something consequential and extraordinary. Though, to be fair, maybe there’s something easier about loving someone but not being in love.
She looks at this Jonah with less gray hair in a beige cardigan in a life she can’t recognize, in a life she doesn’t share. Any hint of desire is gone. She doesn’t wantthisJonah.
She thanks him, puts her number in his phone and his in hers, and says yes to staying in touch. As she leaves, she says, “I hope Bali happens.”
He crosses his fingers, and she turns, walks down the hall. Straight into the restroom where she lets in the pain of all she is giving up.
This baby, this baby, this baby, this baby that is not hers, but my god,ishers. Could be hers. She falls back against the bathroom stall, squeezing her vaginal muscles, clamping her hands aroundher balloon of a belly, pressing, pushing, begging, because if Ilena sees her, sees this child, holds this child, itwillbe hers.
But nothing comes.
Ilena strokes her belly. And straightens her spine. Knowing she will never fully forgive herself. But knowing exactly what she has to do. And then she steps out into the MIT quad alone.
44
Ilena
Harvard University
Twenty-One YearsBeforethe Outing
Ilena stepped into Harvard Yard alone. Her mom had dropped her off at the gate right on Mass. Ave. Her sister hadn’t come along for the ride. Lexington was only forty minutes away. It wasn’t like she couldn’t see them again. Besides, she knew exactly where she needed to go.
She rolled her suitcase into Straus, breathing in the smell of cleaning products and the must and mildew they didn’t quite cover. The building was named after the co-owner of Macy’s in New York and his wife, both of whom died in the sinking of theTitanic. Quite the prophecy that Harvard laid out for the class of incoming freshmen.
