Connie
The next morning, Connie busies herself. She has withdrawn fourteen thousand dollars from the bank. She keeps the stacks of cash in a plastic suitcase she bought for twenty dollars and tucks it in the corner of her room’s closet. She dropped off six thousand dollars yesterday for their shipper at the pier, and they have confirmed their departure at midnight.
An hour later, she walks to the grocery store to pick up some food and bottles of water for the trip. It’s a quiet morning; there are only four cars in the lot. Her heart is pounding so hard now that she feels sick. This evening, she and Sam will be off. She’ll tell her daughter about her childhood in the countryside and how she grew vegetables in the spring. She’ll tell her about being unwanted by her father and leaving home. She’ll tell Sam about her own father. About working at the factory. About how all she wanted was to protect Sam. She’ll tell Sam everything she should have told her from the beginning, all that she has kept hidden from her for so many years. Sam will probably frown at first, but her demeanor will soften as her mother softens. At the end, maybe she will break down and share a little of her own secrets, finally reveal what Connie has been suspecting. That she needs help. Connie makes a silent promise to herself that she will not judge her daughter for what she might have done. She’ll listen and accept what has already happened. At the end of it all, they’ll find their way back to each other. Everything is going to be okay. There’s no time to lose.
And then they will be out on the ocean. And then they will be free.
Connie smiles at the thought of it. She is still smiling when she rounds the corner of the store and steps from the curb into the shadows.
A man has emerged from one of the parked cars. A gold pin gleams on his collar.
Sam coming with her. The two of them sailing away, landing on theshores of her motherland, finding a house in the countryside, starting a new life. In another world, maybe. In another time, perhaps.
But not in this world. Not in this time. Connie meets the man’s eyes and knows everything is impossible.
They will never find their way back to each other.
They are not going to be okay.
They will never be free.
[…] Therefore, alchemy is sometimes seen as a glimpse into alternate worlds: what if this were that instead, what if we took this path instead of that one. Each path is both equal and opposite, a multiverse of choices where one’s dream is another’s nightmare, one’s blessing is another’s curse.
The Quantum Mechanics of Alchemyby Hypatia, 2003
