June, this year #3
Frank and Ange Mason are alive and well in the kitchen as I tread upstairs from the basement, surprising them with my unexpected arrival.
Bonnie comes over for dinner, and it turns out we share a house in Lake Forest, which Bonnie has decorated gorgeously.
We also work together, as co-founders of a wildly successful TikTok and Twitch lifestyle and home decor brand that has over a million followers.
Ben is doing well in the theater, but is married to somebody called Camila, who I see on Instagram is chestnut-haired, gorgeous, tall, possibly Brazilian, and I instantly hate her.
And what’s weird is, the Masons and Bonnie are being especially kind to me tonight, constantly asking me how I’m doing and if I’m feeling okay.
It turns out I’m being stalked by an obsessive fan of our Twitch stream, on which I have presented many episodes of our home decor show, and we’ve had to call the cops several times and get a restraining order.
Further probing reveals that he now knows where Bonnie and I live, and he was trying to get into my bedroom window last night, and we had to call 911 again.
Nope.
This is theoretically a pretty good version of my life, with the Masons and Bonnie so close to me, and a fun job to do, but it’s a hard pass on being Stalker-Victim Millie. Plus I’ve no idea what I could do to help her.
And the Camila thing is really bugging me.
“Home isn’t a place, it’s a feeling,” the Masons’ poster in the basement still reads. But this world doesn’t feel right.
Next.
* * *
I stand on the deck of the abandoned Lake Bluff house in the next universe, researching my life.
It seems now I’m a novelist, a successful one this time — apparently living in Rome, of all places.
Another city I’ve always wanted to visit, and another place I’m just too exhausted to attempt right now.
I speak zero Italian, and I have no idea where in the city I live.
My emails would probably tell me, if only I could read Italian.
From social media, I seem to live alone and have no partner, and I’m not friends with Bonnie or Ben anymore, although I used to be.
A hunt around in my emails digs up the last message Bonnie ever sent me, a few years ago, telling me she can never forgive me for using her parent’s deadly car accident as inspiration for my bestselling family saga.
Novelist Millie in Rome sounds in some ways like an appealing version of the multiverse, but I can live without it, and I can’t live without Bonnie.
I don’t even make it out of the driveway this time.
* * *
This one, something bad is happening, and I have no idea what the hell is going on.
The house is occupied by somebody, but not the Masons or Bonnie, and it’s empty right now. I pause in the foyer to check myself in the mirror. I have a massive, tender black eye, and a split bottom lip. My hair is shoulder length and uncombed.
I walk out of the house and exit the gate, nervous of what I’m going to find. There’s no phone in any of my ripped jeans pockets, just some keys.
And, in my back pocket, a switchblade knife. Like, a real switchblade with the super-quick blade-release mechanism.
What the hell would I need that for?
I’m trying cars up and down the street with my keys, when a dark-haired guy with a mustache comes into view at the far end of the avenue.
“You fuckin’ bitch!” he screams at me, and comes thundering down the pavement.
Holy shit.
I’ve got a decent head start on him, and take off running, back to the house. I fling myself over the gate, drop down onto the gravel drive, and I’m halfway down the side lawn by the time the guy is able to haul himself over the gate.
I waste no time, pulling the basement door to me with a hard whoosh.
In an instant, I’m gone from that world too, leaving the scary guy fifteen feet and a universe behind me.
I really hope Switchblade Millie is super tough and can handle that asshole.
Fuck.
* * *
It was bound to happen, at some point in my lives.
I’m a mother.
To a gorgeous, dimple-cheeked nugget of a baby girl, who looks from Instagram to be no more than five or six months.
Angie.
That’s the baby’s name, apparently. Same as Bonnie and Ben’s late mom.
No sign of the father, whoever he is, being in the picture.
No sign of me still being friends with Bonnie or Ben in this life — no pictures of us together, or messages from either of them. Only my daughter’s name is a clue that I once knew the Masons.
No sign of Frank and Angela being alive this time, or the house being occupied.
According to my email research, as I lean against the kitchen counter in the empty house, this world’s Millie is on an extended maternity leave, for six months, from an admin job at a logistics company.
Unpaid after the first six weeks, the company-issued emails tell me.
But it looks like my dad is helping with funds for a while, and I’ve emailed him photos of the baby.
A strange lack of correspondence with Mom, given I’ve just produced a granddaughter, so maybe something bad has happened there. Maybe she’s dead, again.
I seriously contemplate resetting immediately, but a deep tug in my core compels me to go and meet the baby. At least spend some time with her.
I mean, how could I not?
This is my daughter.
In an aging white Ford Focus, I find my way “home” from Lake Bluff to a small first-floor apartment in a four-story building in Oak Park, a semi-urban western Chicago neighborhood.
My phone, in a battered red case, is buzzing constantly as I drive, but I ignore it.
Parking outside the apartment block, I use the largest key to get into the building, and see unit 1A immediately to my left.
I push my way through a heavy front door with the smaller key, and step into a small, open-concept apartment.
A dark-haired, middle-aged woman is in the messy living space, holding and jiggling the baby, who is screaming with remarkable fury over the woman’s shoulder.
The woman thrusts Angie at me, clearly furious herself, and I’m forced to drop my purse and grab the child.
“You said you wouldn’t be long.” Her voice is icy. “I fed her an hour ago, but she probably needs changing again, and she has terrible gas. Shit, you’ve been over three hours, Millie. What was so urgent that you couldn’t call me back? I had to get Andre to cook for his brothers.”