Chapter 25
Arms up in a stretch, I stand once again in the portal of possibilities. Of floating alternate years that have, I observe, dwindled notably. Only six balloons left. More air space and fewer choices remaining.
“Back again,” singsongs the angel, drifting toward me, dress billowing, eyes alight.
I spew out a breath. “Back again.”
“How was twenty-seven?”
I bristle. “Not great . . . But so great, at the same time?”
Holden and Alan. Sticky leather. Sierra.
Shallow breaths and deep truths. I think of Scripture, and how God often called people to the desert for big revelations.
What did I learn in my time there? More than I bargained for.
I’m spent, truthfully. Stuck to the gold ground in these pickleball shoes. Immobile. Or just confused.
I don’t want Hollywood. I don’t want Holden. I don’t even think I want youth anymore.
But deep down, what am I missing? My whole life. That’s all. I’m missing the whole darn thing.
I start pacing the room, panning my gaze to every corner in search of something.
But what? I want a glimpse into my life, I realize, the real one—Reid and the kids and my friends.
A crystal ball, maybe? A window? A mirror?
What’s even real anymore? I’ve been shoving away thoughts of Max and the girls because honestly it pains me too much—but what I’d give to see them right now.
To hear them cry, yes, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom!
To feel Reid’s arms wrapped around me, hands on my newlywed stomach, hands on my pregnant stomach, hands on every version of this stomach since I was twenty-one.
I’d kill to hear his voice from his pillow to mine, to ask him questions not only about his work but about his heart and his brain and what’s going on with him lately. I think of the infinite nights when we both rolled over without a word—him snoring quickly, my face no doubt lit up by my phone.
The replays constrict my chest. What if—like Quinn and Alan—we were missing each other? Not only that—what if we were missing the point? There’s always tomorrow, I’d think. But what if there wasn’t? I know now there’s no guarantee.
I miss Reid’s spirit and solidarity, my fellow soldier in life. Where the heck is he now? In this alternate version of things? What did he do without me, in his other twentysomethings?
“Can you still not tell me about my family?” I ask. “Nothing about Reid and the kids?”
“I’m afraid you’re right,” she replies. “Remember, though—the kids don’t exist anymore.”
The words slice clean through me.
“And Reid?” she continues. “Any information about him will have to be discovered by you.” She flaps a hand in the air. “Out there.”
Somewhere out there in the whole wide world. No big. I scan the balloons, looking to twenty-eight and twenty-nine. The broken heart and the Statue of Liberty, two possible rolls of the dice.
I consider them because technology will be most advanced in those years—the best chance of looking up Reid and finding him.
The brightest shimmer of likelihood I could track him down.
I’m much more confident in my sleuth skills for those years on the calendar.
Like the Olsen twins, I could solve any crime by dinnertime.
Gosh, I miss my twins.
Twenty-eight: a broken heart, though?
Do I really want to risk going there?
No, I do not.
Especially coming off that desert doozy.
Twenty-nine: New York?
My heart swells at the thought.
Do I live there? Am I visiting? Who am I with? Is everything like a rom-com?
But then I pivot, take a few steps to the left. I plant my soles under the twenty-six, beneath the glittering snowflake.
I spool the thought around in my mind, contemplating a one-year rewind, before Holden retouched the calendar and my life.
Twenty-six.
The year I became a mom.
The frosty flake the size of my open hand.
You haven’t gone backward yet.
Twenty-six.
No two snowflakes are ever the same.
My same questions bubble. Vacation? Residence? Who are my people? The unknowns tumble like laundry, and there’s only one way to find the truth in a pile of possibilities.
“Do you know where this takes me?” I point to it.
The angel’s face broadens with a smile. “I do.”
“Do you think it’s a good choice?”
“I think,” she says after a sturdy pause, two fingers triangled on her chin, “that it’s the best choice you could possibly make at this point in your journey.”
My chest lightens.
It’s more than she tends to divulge.
And so I don’t hesitate.
I take a stride toward the podium, but the angel beats me there, grabbing the needle before tenderly extending it to me.
“I’m excited for you,” she says.
“Me too,” I respond.
I think.
“Pay close attention,” she instructs. “Ask the right questions. Not only of the world—and the people there—but of yourself.”
I nod, poising my spear.
Let it snow.