Little Universes

by Heather Demetrios

  “Well, they got her when she was two or something. They always saw her as their child.”

  Three. Not that it’s any of their business.

  “Of course. But you know what I mean. There’s that bond. When I had Jack, it was this whole chemical thing, right? I can’t imagine my actual body responding in the same way with an adopted baby.”

  I close my eyes, try to imagine it: Mom holding me as a baby. Is that why she and Nah are closer? It wouldn’t be Mom’s fault—she can’t fight her biology. I was never good at twisting my body into weird shapes on the yoga mat, like Nah. And I’m better at math, but she has Dad’s genes, so I don’t know what happened there. I used to think those were our only differences. Genetics. But maybe it was always something more. Deeper. Primal. What about me didn’t turn on that primalness in the woman whose body I grew in?

  I don’t like this train of thought.

  Water, splashing. Paper towels being scrunched up. “Still, they loved both those girls something fierce.”

  I know what they said was ignorant, about bonding, of course I do. There has never been any distinction between Hannah and I. Sometimes I think about the lost years—those three years when she had them and I didn’t. I wonder who I’d be if I really had Mom’s and Dad’s genes. If I had Dad’s genes, would I be even better at science? Brilliant. Not just good. Because maybe there were drugs when my mom was pregnant, not just after. Maybe brain cells were taken from me, right in the beginning.

  I remember feeling jealous when I realized that Mom and Hannah have the same feet and that she curls her toes when she’s talking, just like Dad does. I wanted Mom and Nah’s Greek-ness, to have come from a line of women who make fantastic avgolemono. Mom says I come from that line, but I don’t, not in the way that I want to. I want to know who my ancestors are. The blood ones. Maybe they came on the Mayflower, too, like Dad’s. Or were Irish indentured servants. Or Russian princesses on the run. Or maybe Vikings. My blond hair and blue eyes—very Viking.

  Even though I don’t fit in the way Hannah does, I never once doubted my parents’ love for me. The love they gave was equal and constant, deep and wide. One Valentine’s Day, Dad wrote on a Post-it, I love you girls from here … and then we had to go find the other Post-it, which was all the way on the backyard fence and it said, to here. There was a box of chocolates for each of us and little teddy bears holding hearts at that end.

  That love—from him and for him—is what makes me throw open the stall door and walk slowly to the sink. I take a long time washing my hands. Long enough for the women to see me and know that I heard. Long enough for them to feel mortified.

  I don’t say a word. I just grab some towels, dry my hands, and leave.

  There are people everywhere and I avoid eye contact so they won’t talk to me and I push out the doors, looking for Nah. I find her and Micah on a bench near the reflection pools in front of the library. Her legs are over his lap, her body turned into him, head lying against his chest. He’s running his fingers through her hair, and he holds her like he’ll never let her go.

  I want to fall apart like her, but I can’t. I’m not built that way, and even if I were, I’d have no one to catch me when I fall. Maybe that’s why that woman thinks I’m not hurting as much—Nah is so obviously shattered.

  But, I want to say to them all, is there anything lonelier than an astronaut in space whose parents are dead?

  In Japan, they select astronauts by putting them in an enclosed space with other candidates for ten days. There are cameras everywhere, documenting every move they make, all their interactions. The testers make them fold a thousand paper cranes to see who works best under pressure. Traditionally, in Japan, the cranes are given to sick people. They’re meant to bring long life and health. The trick is that, if you want to be an astronaut in Japan, your thousandth crane needs to look as perfect as your first one. Otherwise, sayonara.

  Calm under pressure. That’s maybe the number one trait of being an astronaut, other than not having motion sickness or a fear of heights.

  People might think I don’t miss my parents because I’m not sobbing every other second. But I do miss them. Terribly.

  I’m just practicing.

  can a person return to sender?

  Mailbox

  4302 Seaview Lane

  Venice, CA

  11

  Hannah

  We divide up all the jobs: packing, sorting, throwing away, organizing. I keep getting too blubbery as we go through things, so Mae tells me to do the paperwork. Dad’s laptop is still on his desk, so I turn it on and start with his email. My sister will probably be recruited by both NASA and the CIA, since, apparently, she can also hack into people’s emails. She figured out Dad’s password is Starman715, which is his favorite song and birthday, so I guess maybe it wasn’t that hard. I’m really going to miss calling Dad a nerd—of course an astrophysicist would love “Starman.” This is our bit:

  Dad: (says something about math or science that .000003 percent of the world could understand)

  Me: Nerd alert!

  Him: Takes one to know one.

  Me: You’re confusing me with your other daughter.

  One of the jobs Mae gave me was to create a vacation responder that lets people know that Dad’s gone, and that if they need to get in touch regarding his research or anything else, to email our family lawyer. I guess we have one of those.

  There are dozens of unopened emails, and I have no intention of reading any of them until my eye lands on a name I recognize: Rebecca Chen. Dad’s research assistant. He’d never brought her to the house to come help grade papers and eat chili, like the others, but we met her at the funeral. She kind of looked like Constance Wu, with glossy black hair and big brown eyes. They were red and puffy when we met her, but so were many of the eyes in the room that day. She was older than us, maybe late twenties. I was pretty high by the time we started chatting, but I remember Mae looking horrified because they were talking about quasars, and I said that sounded like a venereal disease.

  There are a lot of emails from Rebecca, the last one two days after the tsunami. I click on it, in case it’s important—about his research or the book. I could tell Mae and she’d know what to do.

  Call Me 8:12 AM (August 31)

  Rebecca Chen

  To Greg

  I am freaking out. Please, I know it’s got to be insane over there, but please call me. Please. I’m so scared. Are you okay? How can I help? Do you want me to check on the girls?

  I love you and I’m sorry about pressuring you, I am. Please be okay. I love you so much it hurts.

  B.

  I stare at the screen.

  “What. The. Fuck?”

  I push away from the desk and stand up so fast the chair topples over. I can hear Mae in the kitchen, talking about our parents’ wedding china with Aunt Nora and Cynthia. They bought special stuff to pack it in. Uncle Tony’s in the garage, doing man stuff while Nate pretends to do man stuff with him. Gram and Papa are on a walk. It’s just me and this computer and the heat racing through my body, so fast I can hardly breathe.

  I lean on the desk and read the email three more times before I grab the laptop and tiptoe upstairs. I lock my bedroom door and sit on my bed. My hands are shaking so hard I can hardly scroll through the emails, but there is no fucking way I’m not reading them. I start with the ones just before Dad left for Malaysia.

  Soon 10:15 PM (August 12)

  Greg Winters

  To Rebecca

  Sweetheart, I know it’s hard to wait. I know. But I need more time. The girls are still in school and I don’t want to pull the rug out from under them. And you know everything Hannah’s dealing with. I can’t risk her sobriety.

  I have to do right by Lila, too. None of this is her fault. We will be together. I promise. You have my heart. You’ve had it since the first moment I saw you.

  I love you with ever
ything in me.

  —G

  “Fuck, fuck, FUCK.”

  I grab my pillow and scream into it.

  Then I keep reading.

  Don’t Go 9:17 PM (August 17)

  Rebecca Chen

  To Greg

  Please don’t get on that plane tomorrow. Please.

  Re: Don’t Go 11:34 PM (August 17)

  Greg Winters

  To Rebecca

  I don’t like this any more than you do, sweetheart. Every time I touch her I feel like I’m cheating on you. I tried to get out of this trip, but every excuse I had wasn’t working, and I couldn’t afford for her to get suspicious. I can’t miss out on this last year with the girls at home. I know I’m asking a lot, but, please, this is what we need to do. I want Hannah and Mae to love you as much as I do, and they won’t if they think you’ve broken up our family. They’re too young to understand. And I don’t want to live apart from them, not yet. Please trust me. What’s a year more when we’ll have the rest of our lives together? I promise that by the time I get home, Lila will know that forever is off the table. That’s reserved for you. I’ll be home before you know it.

  —G

  Re: Don’t Go 2:00 AM (August 18)

  Rebecca Chen

  To Greg

  Baby, there will never be a good time to do this. I don’t want to be your secret anymore. I’ve been doing it for almost a year, lying to everyone I know.

  If you don’t tell Lila by the time you get home, then I’m done.

  B.

  I’m sorry 6:23 AM (August 19)

  Rebecca Chen

  To Greg

  That wasn’t fair, what I said. I’m sorry. I’m just tired of pretending. And there’s a reason we can’t wait—maybe we can talk about it, if you can get away. I love you. I want everything with you. It’s killing me that she gets to wake up next to you every morning.

  Tell me we’re okay.

  B.

  Re: I’m sorry 7:30 AM (August 19)

  Greg Winters

  To Rebecca

  We’re okay. I’ll be home before you know it. Gotta run—the airport shuttle’s here. I’ll call from Malaysia, okay? I love you.

  —G

  I scroll back, past this summer, reading every email. It goes on like this for almost a year. All of her emails hidden in a file marked GRADING. He’s been fucking her since I was sixteen.

  I pick up my phone to call Micah, ready to lose my ever-loving mind, when I realize: Dad’s the only father Micah’s ever really had. If I tell him this, he’ll lose that. And Mae: I can’t tell her. She and Dad were crazy close, and this would do nothing but fuck her up as much as I am right now.

  I hold Dad’s laptop and go to my door, listening. It sounds like they’re still downstairs, so I creep to Mom and Dad’s room and get Mom’s laptop. Back in my room, I search through her emails, but there’s nothing, no sign that she knew. Ignorance is bliss, right? Maybe Mom had no idea, and she died with the man she loved, end of story.

  Because if she knew, if that wave was coming and she knew …

  “I can’t do this,” I say out loud.

  There’s a long, low breath behind me. The scent of roses.

  I turn. My mother is doing a headstand.

  I slump to the ground.

  “Are you really here?”

  I’m not high—yet.

  Her hair is matted down with sweat. Or seawater. Her forearms rest on either side of her head, keeping her in balance.

  I crawl to her. “Mommy?”

  Her eyes stay focused on the mat, her long body in perfect alignment. That breath—ujjayi breath—which sounds like the sea. Like waves sliding to the shore.

  I want to touch her, but I don’t want her to fall. She exhales a wave of breath, and I try to catch it with my mouth. How can the person who made you be gone?

  I follow the line of her leg, up to her ankle, and I burst into tears: her right. The Om is on her right ankle.

  “Did you know?” I whisper. “Mom. Did you know?”

  Mom moves her left leg so that it bends at the knee, makes a four. A sort of upside-down tree pose, but with her foot sliding just behind her knee, so that her left shin rests against the back of her right thigh.

  “Tell me what to do. I can’t do this, Mom. Please.”

  Her muscles begin to strain just a little, and I remember her holding my feet as I wobbled on my hands: I can’t do this!

  And almost like she can see that memory playing through me, Mom looks at me, smiles, and lands back on her feet like a cat.

  And then she’s gone.

  I lunge toward the mat, too late. There is one strand of long black hair—but it could be mine. I don’t know. I don’t know.

  I collapse into child’s pose, and I cry for my mom like a little girl. I dig my forehead into the rubber, and I see the emails, hear them almost, and I see Mom hold a spoon of soup up to Dad’s lips for him to taste and I see Rebecca Chen at the funeral, see her puffy red eyes, and I see the wave, cresting over the beach—

  “I don’t know what to do,” I tell her, even though she’s gone.

  Do I tell Mae? Do I keep the secret forever? Can I hold this knowledge in me for the rest of my life?

  It’s almost like a dream, the way I shove the laptop under my bed and reach for the pills and swallow one of the few I’ve got left with the warm can of Diet Coke on my bedside table. I lie down and wait for the floating and the forgetting and the not-me-ness of the Vicodin. I wait for the wave to wash over me.

  In a few minutes, it won’t matter that my dad was a lying, cheating bastard.

  In a few minutes, nothing will matter.

  * * *

  I like mail with no surprises, and it seems romantic, in these last few days here, to check our little postbox one last time.

  It’s pale green, with orange California poppies painted on it. Mom did that. It sits right at the end of our walkway, peeking over the fence onto the sidewalk like some nosy old broad. Our house is your typical Venice cottage, with a rickety wooden fence and a wild garden and wind chimes and gnomes, so the postbox fits right in. Kind of magical.

  As I put my hand on it, I have a sudden urge to just rip the thing out of the ground and take our little friend with me. Carry it on the plane or check it as oversized luggage. This metal box that has always been filled with Yoga Journal and Scientific American and birthday cards from Gram and Papa with embarrassingly big checks inside.

  I half expect it to be empty, but it’s not. There’s one thing sitting in the dark. I slip my hand in and pull it out.

  I hear a wave.

  The postcard is a bit banged up. The picture on the front slightly faded, like it’d been sitting out in the sun too long.

  My knees buckle and then my ass is on the cold curb and now the wave is a roar.

  Can you hear it? Can you hear the cars and people and houses it sweeps up with it?

  My hands shake so hard that I have to put the card on my lap just to look at it properly. I stare at the beautiful cove tucked against low green hills, white sand on the beach. Crystal-clear water.

  LANGKAWI: ISLAND OF LEGENDS.

  Hills. There were so many hills around the beach. Why couldn’t they get to the hills?

  The back has a printed GREETINGS FROM MALAYSIA centered on the card, and there’s a stamp and all the mail things. They sent it two days before the wave. Just enough time for the card to get safely out.

  Dad’s handwriting—that sure hand. Cursive, of course. Always cursive. Very professorial. And a little note from Mom at the bottom in her swooping print. Blue ink, where his is black.

  Hi, ladies!

  Don’t mind us, we’re just over here in Paradise doing absolutely nothing and loving it. Wish you were here to soak up the sun with us—

  N: you and Mica
h would love it.

  M: Remind me to tell you a physics joke an Australian guy here told me.

  Love you both from here to the farthest exoplanets—

  Dad

  Hi, beautiful girls! Guess what? I overcame my fear of the deep and snorkeled! I also cut off ALL MY HAIR. A German lady at our guesthouse did it. Can’t wait to show you! Be good and don’t do anything I wouldn’t.;) xo Mom

  The door opens behind me.

  “Nah?”

  I don’t think. I just stuff the postcard down my shirt and stand, unsteady. It’s not because I don’t want to share this with her. It’s because I know that it will kill Mae, never hearing that joke Dad wanted to tell her.

  I turn to face my sister.

  “Yeah?”

  “We have to finish packing.”

  I stand. Walk. Ignore the searching look Mae gives me. Enter the almost-empty house. It echoes now, when we talk. It will be filled again, soon, with different things and people. It sold almost right away. To a nice family from Thousand Oaks. I hate them.

  The things we decided to keep are in storage or in boxes going to Boston.

  There has been a lot of stuff to deal with. Part of me doesn’t want to let go of a thing. Part of me wants to burn all of it.

  I am so angry.

  At Dad.

  At Rebecca Fucking Chen.

  At the wave.

  At Micah for not being a little more noble.

  There is one item we can’t do without: Mae and I both insist on bringing Mom’s soup pot with us. It’s my carry-on for the plane. I pack two books—The Little Prince and Mom’s copy of Acorn. Mae takes some of Dad’s physics books.

  When we’ve packed the last box, it looks like the Grinch has been in here, stealing Christmas. Empty but for hooks and nails in the wall, bits of trash on the floors. It would break Mom’s heart, I bet, to see how quickly our family can disappear.