Chapter 13 Sparks
Sparks
Laurel carries a bottle downstairs. The stairs creak beneath her, and a cry sounds on cue. She tests the formula with a finger, to make sure it isn’t too hot, and enters the mundane paradise of Silas’s room.
It is weightless, perfect June. Light from a sun-catcher spangles the wall. Laurel can smell the honeysuckle and the dogwood in the yard. She turns off the sound machine, a hand-me-down from Beth. Silas lies on his back, but at the sound of her voice, he lifts his head.
Over the years, Laurel daydreamed about what she would do with Silas, if they found him.
She wanted to take him to the playground near their house and to the public library.
She pictured them at the Madison Children’s Museum, with its Wildernest and Rooftop Ramble; she imagined reading to him, and feeding him, and giving him his first bath.
In real life, though, all she wants to do is stare. No amount of looking sates her.
Years ago, Laurel and Eli said that Silas One changed daily.
Here, the phrase is not hyperbole. At eight weeks, Silas Two can laugh and hold a toy.
He follows Laurel’s movements with interest. Once, he pushed himself into a sitting position, though he tipped over right afterward.
Laurel assumes this has to do with his age: an eight-year-old’s brain—even one that has just been composed—is much more robust than an infant’s.
Last week, she walked to a coffee shop while Eli watched Silas.
By the time she returned, he had learned to roll over.
—
Two months earlier, in Cedar, Laurel lay in bed, stunned. Then she got up.
“I should go check on him,” she said.
“We can see him on the monitor,” said Eli.
“I know,” said Laurel. “But—”
She wobbled when she stood. The shades were open, the sky dark. She had no idea what time it was.
Laurel knew that Eli was watching as she walked to the bathroom, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn around. She didn’t know what she would see in his face, nor what she wanted to. She didn’t know what he would find in hers.
She sat on the toilet and wiped herself.
The porcelain was cold under her thighs.
After Silas died, she had chosen to get an IUD, and she wondered if it was still working.
Laurel tried to calculate how long ago the insertion had been, but it was so confusing to count years forward and backward that she soon gave up.
She opened the bathroom door. Eli had put on his boxers.
“You all right?” he asked.
She noticed how handsome he was. But that thought was fleeting. In its place came the same numb bewilderment.
“Mm,” she said, pulling on her pajamas.
Laurel climbed into the bunk across from Silas. She woke throughout the night. Every time, she knelt by Silas’s bed, frantic until she heard him breathe. When he fussed, she went downstairs to mix and warm the formula.
Eli appeared on the landing. “Can I help?”
The microwave droned.
“I’ve got it,” said Laurel.
“I can do the next one.”
“There is no next one, remember?” Silas’s stomach was large enough that he needed only one nighttime feeding.
“Oh,” said Eli. “Right.”
His eyes loomed out of the darkness. So did hers. The microwave beeped loudly.
“Well,” he said, “let me know if you need me.”
Laurel cooed as she came back into the bedroom. Silas sucked the plastic nipple instinctively. Afterward, she slept until dawn. When she opened her eyes, a bird sang outside, and Silas was gone.
Laurel made a high-pitched, animal sound. She flew down the stairs. Eli sat in the living room. Next to him, on the couch, lay Silas. To prevent him from falling off, Eli had made a barricade: two baking sheets and a pool noodle.
“I was trying to let you sleep,” he whispered.
Dressing Silas required both of them: Laurel held his upper body, and Eli eased his kicking legs through pants. He had his first tantrum as they put him in his wheelchair.
“At least his lungs are clear,” Eli muttered, Silas screaming into his ear.
But he slept during the drive. Afraid to wake him, they passed the trip in silence—until Eli turned off the beltline.
“Laurel,” he said, “we’re going to have to talk about what happened eventually.”
“Eventually sounds good,” she said, but Eli didn’t smile.
“If you regret it,” he said, looking ahead, “just tell me.”
“Is that how you feel?”
Eli pulled up to a red light. “I’m not the one who’s avoiding the subject.”
“The thing is…” Laurel began, and stopped.
Eli looked at her expectantly.
“The thing is—” she repeated, but then Silas shrieked, which was just as well, for she had begun the sentence without knowing how to end it.
An elephantine package waited on the porch: the crib that Eli had overnighted. Silas One had slept upstairs, but they put Silas Two in Eli’s office, which was more wheelchair-accessible. While Eli assembled the crib, Laurel fed Silas his next bottle.
“You should take the upstairs bedroom,” she said. “I can sleep in here.”
“A blow-up mattress won’t fit,” Eli said. “The crib takes up too much space.”
“That’s okay. I’ll take the couch.”
Eli looked at the sofa. It was a two-seater, and the arms were made of wood. She knew what he was thinking: the bed upstairs—a king—fit both of them.
“Really,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
Laurel had never been so emotionally inarticulate. Any deeper feelings were muffled by a sense of threat. It was as though she had received a mysterious gift—but, afraid of what might be in store, she could not bring herself to open it.
There was also the question of bandwidth. She swung between rapture and exhaustion. Laurel and Eli decided to trade night duty. One stayed with Silas, and the other slept upstairs. Instinctively, each of them lay on their old side of the bed.
Eli poured himself into research: his purpose was to bring Silas home.
He still hadn’t found relevant data from any other detectors, so he wrote to physicists whose doubles he’d known in their universe.
He was certain they would help, but the replies he received—if he did so at all—were brisk and apologetic.
They were running their own experiments and writing their own books.
Laurel was not as surprised by this as Eli seemed to be.
She had met plenty of scientists who subscribed to the Great Man theory of history, and though this was not the time to say so, he had not been so different.
Now he pivoted to scrutinize the other Eli’s book and notes.
It was possible, he thought, that they had different but complementary knowledge—or that portals worked differently in this universe.
The basement became his workspace. One afternoon, while Silas napped, Laurel walked downstairs to see him.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Eli said when he saw her, and she remembered the days he’d spent searching for WIMPs.
“We have plenty of time,” she said. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“Too late. I’ve had a migraine for days.”
“Eli,” said Laurel, softly.
She kneaded the back of his neck. Eli made a little groan.
Her body responded to the sound, and to the act of touching him.
Her mind remained inscrutable. Laurel felt embers of the old love, yes, but she also knew that they would have to start over again.
What they had now was not new love but some mixture of lust, relief, attachment, history, and confusion.
As she walked back upstairs, she wondered if it had been easier to feign a relationship than it would be to attempt a real one.
—
In May, Laurel returns to campus. She and Eli were granted three months of parental leave.
Laurel would gladly have taken three years.
She can’t muster her interest in teaching.
Having waited so long for Silas, it seems absurd to spend any time apart, but Eli’s work could be their ticket home.
Until they leave this universe, they have to keep their jobs.
Science Hall has the same architecture as it does in Laurel’s universe, but this one was built more recently: the locks don’t stick, and the elevators never jam.
Because most students are over sixty, all doorways accommodate wheelchairs, and presentations are accompanied by large-print captions.
One year earlier, a student group advocated for designated quiet rooms: stimulation-free spaces, they said, would be helpful for neurodivergent students as well as those with age-related limitations.
Even Laurel has taken respite in the one in Science Hall, which features neat bins of eye masks and earplugs.
Laurel’s office is on the second floor. In her world, it was Gloria’s.
Laurel feels undeserving, but she does enjoy meeting there with students.
A graduating senior gave her an art piece made of spore prints.
Laurel hung it over the desk, which began to feel like hers.
She found an armchair on Craigslist and assembled an informal lending library.
The books span a range of genres, but they all feature fungi.
Atop the bookcase, she keeps an electric kettle, a pot of sugar, mugs, and coffee.
Today Laurel has come to clear the cobwebs.
She finds an unemptied mug with a teabag inside; someone must have put it down behind the armchair, and an intriguing patch of Aspergillus has composed.
As a robotic vacuum cleans the floor, she sends her syllabi to the printer.
Almost everything in the antiuniverse is digital—Laurel’s students, who grew up with screens, are more technologically literate than she is—but she still keeps hard copies on hand.
Campus is a ghost town during summer, so Laurel is surprised to hear footsteps. Each is punctuated by the rhythm of a cane. The person who appears looks somewhere near eighty. Her hair is shorter than Laurel last saw it—the cut is almost gamine—but she would know the woman anywhere.
“Professor Salter,” the visitor begins at the same time as Laurel says, “Gloria?”