On Maxwell’s Island （in Universe A）
ON MAXWELL’S ISLAND (IN UNIVERSE A)
“Welcome home, dear,” said Vivian.
“Who else is here?” asked Tess.
“We are,” came a woman’s voice from the doorway. Tess turned to see Harry and Marie, hand in hand, beaming at her.
“It’s good to have you back,” said Harry, but Marie dropped her husband’s hand and ran to her daughter, enveloping her in an embrace.
Tess felt the ice inside her melt as her mother’s arms held her for the first time in a decade.
As she luxuriated in the hug, the world—at least the world she had known for the last ten years—disappeared.
She did not hear a single voice—not a therapist, not the Vivian who had the strange visions, not the Marie who ignored her, and not the universe of people with whom she could never connect because she didn’t belong to them.
She belonged here, in the arms of her mother, with love radiating though her and warming her in a way she had forgotten was possible.
She could have stayed in that embrace forever, but she felt a tap on her shoulder and Harry said, “Any hugs left for your old man?”
Marie pulled away and Tess looked at Harry standing before her—he was slightly grayer than she remembered and had a few lines on his face, but the sparkle in his smile and the twinkle in his eyes were just as she remembered.
“Hello, Harry,” said Tess.
“I’m so proud of you,” said Harry. “You did it. You found a way back.”
“Only because of you,” said Tess, and she wrapped her father in an embrace that would stay with her for the rest of her life.
Marie made eggs and bacon, waffles and biscuits, fruit salad and toast and hashbrowns; and Tess ate as she had never eaten in that other universe.
They spoke of everything and nothing, and her parents and her aunt Vivian were wise enough, or kind enough, not to ask her about her life away from them.
There would be time for that. There would be time for everything.
That afternoon, Tess and Harry sat in front of the fire, where she had seen her father and Vivian talking late into the night during her childhood.
“I didn’t know how long this alignment would last,” said Tess.
“Twelve seconds,” said Harry. “Twelve point six seven to be precise.”
“I was hoping for something short to keep Pilgrim 3 out of the circle.”
“But she didn’t cross over,” said Harry. “I doubt she proved anything in her universe.”
“But why not?” said Tess. “I looked back, and I saw her make it to the circle when the portal was still open. She tried, but she couldn’t get through. Why not?”
“Because there is already a Pilgrim 3 in this universe,” said Harry. “Ten years ago, the portal sucked you through even though you weren’t in the circle because you were missing from that other universe. But you can’t exist in two places in the same universe.”
It was an unusually warm October in northern Wisconsin, and they stayed on the island for the next three weeks.
Tess called it her quarantine. Harry had taken a sabbatical and no one had any compelling reason to return to civilization.
At times Tess felt like the astronaut for whom time slows down, like she had been gone for decades.
At other times all the events of what she came to think of as universe B felt like nothing more than a dream.
But at all times, she felt something she had too infrequently felt in the past decade.
She felt the most powerful force in the universe. She felt love.