“Youareokay,” Kieran replies. Then he sobers. “Look. I don’t have enough family for you to be disposable.”
I feel my throat swell. For so long, it was just the two of us. “I know.”
I hear Meret’s voice scrambling with his as she tries to wrestle her computer back. I have so much to tell her, but now isn’t the time. Not when Brian is standing here; not when I don’t know what the next five minutes will bring, much less the future.
For a few moments, I just stare at her on the screen, drink in the sight of her again. Her face transforms with the ghosts of emotions: fear, anger, relief. She seems to be weighing her words, and I wonder what conversation Brian had with her before I woke up; what conversations Brian had with her when I was in Egypt. I remember her email to me, asking if it was her fault that I’d left.
I wanted Wyatt to build a relationship with his daughter, but maybe he’s not the only one who needs to do that.
“Mom?” she says quietly, finally. “I missed you.”
“I missed you more.”
In the dark her eyes are stars. “Don’t die, okay?” Meret whispers.
“It’s a deal,” I answer.
She hangs up, and I hand Brian back his phone. He slips it into his pocket. I have tears in my eyes, and when I wipe them with the back of my hand, Brian brings me a tissue. “I didn’t realize…” I begin, and the words evaporate like snow under sun.
Brian looks down at his feet. “I guess it’s harder to think about what’s not in front of you,” he says quietly, and then shakes himself, as if he’s trying to recalibrate.
“Does she know the truth?” I ask.
He hesitates. “You need to rest—”
“Brian.”
“Yes,” he says. “She figured most of it out herself. I mean, you went toEgypt.That would seem pretty random, unless…” His voice trails off. “You shouldn’t be thinking about this right now.”
“Brian,” I say, “we can’t pretend it away.”
“You almost died,” he says, his voice so soft I can barely hear it.
“But I didn’t.”
“It changes everything.”
I wait for him to meet my gaze. “Does it?”
Just because I am lying in a hospital bed and he feels sorry for me doesn’t mean all the emotions he felt yesterday aren’t still roiling beneath that plastered equanimity.
He clears his throat. “Did you sleep with him?”
Of all the things I expected him to say, this wasn’t it.
“Did you?”
I swallow. “Yes.”
The pain in Brian’s eyes makes me feel like I’m going to be sick.Idid this to him;me. His silence hurts more than any of his yelling. He sinks into the chair beside the hospital bed, his elbows on his knees. “Did you fall in love with him?”
The kindest blow is the cleanest one. “I never fell out of it,” I whisper.
Brian nods, studiously avoiding my gaze. “You know, when you’re at a physics conference, physicists are always posing theoretical situations. Like, say you’re a passenger on a plane whose engines fail and you’re about to crash and die, should you take solace in the fact that there are other versions of you out there somewhere, that will live on? Or the inverse: should you feel worse knowing that there’s a version of you whose life is a disaster—a you that flunked out of school or became a criminal or got bitterly dumped and divorced. These are honestly the things quantum physicists talk about.” Finally, he looks at me. “They’re supposed to be hypothetical.”
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” I falter, and at that, Brian smiles a little.
“Well,” he says. “You’re preaching to the choir there.”
