Chapter 40
“She’s living my perfect life.” Tears of both happiness and sadness fell down her cold cheeks in hot tracks.
“No,” said Margo kindly. “She’s living her life. And it’s far from perfect; she’s endured heartaches and hardships that have never been a part of your timeline. You of all people ought to know that one snapshot into a person’s world does not a whole story make.”
Casey sniffed. “I know you’re right.” Another sob escaped. “But why couldn’t I have had this life?”
“Because you have your life! Perfection is a myth that humans use to torment themselves. But in its way, the life you have is the perfect one for you. You wouldn’t fit in any other Casey’s reality but your own.
You are shaped by the millions of experiences and decisions you’ve made in your timeline, no matter how great or infinitesimally small.
The Other Caseys may look and sound like you, but none of them are you. ”
Casey wiped her cheeks with the cuffs of her work jumper. “There’s a chance, though, isn’t there, that if I get rid of the meme, I could get a life like this one?”
“There is always a chance,” said Margo evasively.
“But if you had to put a number on it?” Casey pressed.
Margo tipped her head from side to side and seemed to count on her fingers while muttering under her breath.
After another moment of debate with herself, she dropped her hands and said, “Allowing that there is a Casey for every single decision that you’ve ever made in your life, including that time you cheated on your spelling test in year two, I would say that there is approximately a one-in-eighty-million chance of you winding up with a life similar to this but not exactly.
An exact match would take you into hundreds-of-billions territory, though truthfully, I’m not sure such a thing exists.
And even if it does, there is no telling what will happen in your future; you and Ajay could have a fairy-tale wedding followed by the divorce from hell.
The glimpses are like your meme, one moment trapped in time.
Perhaps the more pertinent question to ask yourself is: Who, of the people in your life now, are you willing to risk being without? ”
Other Casey, and the rest of the Others in her life, moved back into the warmth of the café, still chatting animatedly and congratulating Other Casey on her good fortune.
Casey stood in the quiet courtyard, turning the possibilities over in her mind, weighing the pros and the cons.
If she erased the meme her life might be different in a hundred billion ways, according to Margo.
Different. But not better. And what constituted better anyway?
Wealth? Success? Neither were a guarantee of happiness and success was entirely subjective.
She thought of Other Casey’s life in the Seychelles, heard Ellory asking, “Who’s Aunty Casey?
” Casey’s life might be inconsiderable compared to many, but she was rich in people, and losing any one of them was unthinkable.
She turned to Margo. “I’ve changed my mind.
I don’t want the meme erased,” she said, her heart beating loud in her ears.
Margo regarded her levelly. “Well, there’s a turnaround. Let’s sit, shall we?” She motioned at the recently vacated chairs, and they sat down opposite one another.
“It’s what you’ve wanted anyway, isn’t it?” Casey asked. “I’ve always had the impression that you didn’t want me to erase the meme.”
The snow was coming down in big fluffy tufts, but strangely she wasn’t cold anymore, and when she looked around her, she saw why.
They were no longer in the courtyard. Instead they were inside a snow globe.
The snow fluttered down within, and outside was night sky and stars forever.
“Are we in space?” she asked, no longer even that surprised after the month she’d had.
“Something like that,” Margo replied cryptically.
“And in answer to your previous question, ideally, I wanted you to keep the meme and learn to love the life that you have. I only offered the deal because I desperately needed a break, and if you’d banished me from the store, I may just have gone nuclear on my next client. ”
“The dog groomer.”
“Not just any dog groomer—a dog groomer with a trust fund of which the interest alone is greater than the yearly earnings of every resident of Weaverston put together.”
“Blimey.”
“Precisely. Making you that offer wasn’t my finest or my most ethical moment. But I made it, and I must stand by it, just as you will have to stand by whatever decision you make with regards to it.”
“I’ve appreciated having the choice,” Casey said.
“Personal autonomy is the least any person deserves,” Margo concurred.
“And, just to be clear, by keeping the meme and leaving everything just as it is, I’ll get to keep my memories of you when you’re gone?”
Margo smiled. “You will. Unless of course you’d rather not, in which case there are things that I can do…”
“No.” Casey stopped her before she went on. “I don’t ever want to forget you. You are on my list of people I wouldn’t want to be without.”
Margo smiled again. “I’m glad. I know I can be a lot.”
“Oh, you are A LOT!” said Casey, laughing. “But I wouldn’t have you any other way.”
“Ditto.” Margo reached a hand to Casey’s face and cupped her cheek. “You are perfectly imperfectly you, just the way the universe intended. But…” She leaned back away from Casey and crossed her legs. “Before we break our contract, I need to know you’re absolutely sure…”
“I am.”
“Because not half an hour ago you were quite determined that you wanted the meme erased. There is no room for regrets. This deal, once broken, cannot be remade.”
“I’m sure I want to keep it,” Casey said.
She would be eternally grateful that Margo had put safety measures in place so that she could break their contract—she shuddered to think what might have been had Margo simply erased the meme when she’d first asked—but right now, all she wanted was to get the loose ends of their deal tied up so that she could get back, find Ajay, and start living the life she’d chosen.
“I need more than that. Tell me why. Use your words, Casey,” Margo urged.
Casey tried to shift her swirling thoughts into some kind of order that made sense. Her certainty was mostly felt in her gut and in her intuition, which were slippery suckers to put into words.
“I suppose,” she began haltingly, “I’ve hated the meme for so long that in my mind it became this symbol for everything that’s wrong with my life, regardless of whether the wrongs occurred before or after it, like some evil presence that’s hung over me from birth.
I’m not saying the meme isn’t blameworthy. ”
“Oh, it is,” agreed Margo.
“It is.” Casey nodded. “But if I’m honest, it’s also been a handy scapegoat. I mean, why take responsibility for my life when there’s a perfectly good reason for all my problems splattered all over the internet?”
“It’s certainly easier to cast aspersions than to accept culpability,” said Margo encouragingly.
Casey’s hands curled into fists. “I still detest it with a passion. But it isn’t only about me, is it?
The meme set me on a path that put me where I needed to be for my brother.
That path led to Nigel and the job at Coopers I’d lost sight of the bigger picture.
Thanks to you and well, to recent events, my vision has cleared and I understand that I have the capacity to hold two conflicting truths at once: The meme is a destructive force and a transformative force in my life.
I don’t have to like it to understand that I can’t have one without the other.
” She closed her eyes and centered herself, and then opened them again.
“And so, I choose the life that I have. The meme, in its own way, has made my life what it is: perfectly imperfect for me. Is that a good enough answer?”
Margo dabbed at her eyes with a green handkerchief. “Good enough,” she said, and then gathering herself she added, “Let’s shake on it and make it binding.” She held out her hand and Casey made to take it but then hesitated. “Second thoughts?” she asked.
“Not at all,” Casey replied, looking at the spirit dead-on. “It’s just that when we made the deal your handshake burned like a bastard. I’m just psyching myself up.” She wiggled her fingers and took a couple of deep breaths.
“Oh, don’t worry about that, it won’t hurt. That was all just for effect before.”
“What?” Casey was aghast. “You sneaky cow, that really hurt!”
Margo grinned delightedly. “I know!” She held her hand out again, her expression turning serious. “If you’re absolutely sure, for better or worse.”
“For better or worse,” Casey echoed, and put her hand in Margo’s.
As promised, there was no searing pain this time or for that matter the lightning that had accompanied the sealing of their first bargain.
Instead, she felt only a gentle vibration passing between them and heard a soft humming of faraway voices.
“It is done,” said Margo, closing her eyes.
As Casey breathed a sigh of relief, the snow in their snow globe, which had until now been a delicately fluttering vortex all around them, changed course and began to float upward.
Intrigued, she followed its progress to the curved glass roof, but instead of banking in drifts above their heads as it had at their feet, the globe itself began to peel away into the endless dark, and with it the snowflakes, set free like feathers shaken from a pillow.
With a dreamlike slowness, the globe gently dismantled its form; glass reverting to white powdery sand one glistening granule at a time.
She wondered if she ought to be afraid as the protective walls around them slowly crumbled, but all she felt was thankful to be in this moment, to be on the inside looking out after so long living on the outside looking in.
And when the walls were gone and she was neither in nor out, she would simply be present.
She felt like she got that now, understood how to be a participant of life rather than merely a spectator.
As the snow globe disassembled, she could feel the fragmented parts of her own self coalesce as acceptance of this life that she had chosen imbued her with a sense of calm.
When there was only the two of them left sat on their wrought iron chairs, suspended in the vast inky black and the pinprick stars, Margo turned to her. “Time to go back to Coopers and Co.?” she asked.
Casey nodded her assent and said, “Yes, time to go home.”