I have to get out of the house. I go outside, not knowing where I’m going until I get there. Fortunately, the ladder is right where Olly left it. I climb up to his roof.
The orrery’s still there and still beautiful. The tinfoil suns and moons and stars dangle and twist and reflect the sun’s rays back out into the bigger universe. I nudge one of the planets and the entire system rotates slowly. I understand why Olly made it. It’s soothing to see an entire world at once—to see the pieces and know how it all fits together.
Was it really just five months ago that I was last up here? It feels like a lifetime ago, like several lifetimes. And the girl that was here? Was that really me? Do I have anything in common with that past Maddy except a strong resemblance and a shared name?
When I was younger one of my favorite activities was imagining alternate-universe versions of myself. Sometimes I was a rosy-cheeked outdoorsy girl who ate flowers and hiked alone, uphill, for miles. Or I was a skydiving, drag-racing, adrenaline-fueled daredevil. Or a chain mail–wearing, sword-swinging dragon slayer. It was fun to imagine those things because I already knew who I was. Now I don’t know anything. I don’t know who I’m supposed to be in my new world.
I keep trying to pinpoint the moment when everything changed. The moment that set my life on this path. Was it when my dad and brother died, or was it before that? Was it when they first got into the car on the day they died? Was it when my brother was born? Or when my mom and dad met? Or when my mom was born? Maybe it was none of those. Maybe it was when the truck driver decided he wasn’t too tired to drive. Or when he decided to become a truck driver in the first place. Or when he was born.
Or any of the infinite number of moments that led to this one.
So, if I could change one moment, which one would I pick? And would I get the results I want? Would I still be Maddy? Would I have lived in this house? Would a boy named Olly have moved in next door? Would we have fallen in love?
Chaos theory says that even a small change in initial conditions can lead to wildly unpredictable results. A butterfly flaps her wings now and a hurricane forms in the future.
Still.
I think if I could just find the moment, I could take it apart piece by piece, molecule by molecule, until I got down to the atomic level, until I got to the part that was inviolate and essential. If I could take it apart and understand it then maybe I could make just exactly the right change.
I could fix my mom and make it so she was never broken.
I could understand how I came to be sitting on this roof at the beginning and at the end of everything.
FUTURE PERFECT #2
From: Madeline F. Whittier
To: [email protected]
Subject: Future Perfect #2
Sent: March 10, 7:33 PM
By the time you read this you will have forgiven me.
TAKEOFF
FORGIVENESS
I STARE OUT the window of the airplane and see miles and miles of greenery sectioned into perfect squares. Dozens of mysterious blue-green pools lie below, glowing at their edges. From so high up above it, the world seems ordered and deliberate.
But I know it’s more than that. And less. It is structured and chaotic. Beautiful and strange.
Dr. Chase was not happy with my decision to fly so soon. But anything can happen at any time. Safety is not everything. There’s more to life than being alive.
To her credit, my mom didn’t try to stop me when I told her last night. She swallowed all her fear and panic even though she still doesn’t fully believe that I’m not sick. Her doctor’s brain struggles to reconcile what she’s believed for so long against the evidence of too many other doctors, too many tests. I’m trying to put myself in her shoes, playing games not of cause and effect, but of effect and cause. I go back, and back, and back, and I always end up in the same place.
Love.
Love makes people crazy.
Loss of love makes people crazy.