Perfect Little World(104)
“It was nice while it lasted,” Jill admitted. “I guess now we have to do the next thing.”
“What’s that?” Dr. Grind asked her, genuinely curious.
“Start our own families,” she said, walking away.
And perhaps that would be easy for Jill and her partner, to embark on something that, for Preston, had ended in abject failure. But he could not figure out where to go from here, how to build something else.
All he could do, in the brief time that was afforded him, was hold on to what he had made and hope that, years from now, they would all remember him with something that resembled love.
chapter seventeen
the infinite family project (year seven)
Izzy reached into the box and randomly pulled out a Christmas ornament, a snowflake made of Popsicle sticks and decorated with Magic Marker. Every ornament for the Christmas tree had been made by the children of the complex, rickety and fragile crafts that could fall apart with the lightest dusting of snow. On this particular snowflake, Izzy saw Marnie’s name written in blue marker, while Marnie herself had vanished from the complex, living only a half hour away but, to Izzy and the other members of the Infinite Family, it was as if she had been teleported to another dimension, never to be seen again. She thought about putting the ornament back in the box, but she decided against it. Marnie, whether she was here or not, was still a part of the family, and if she wasn’t here to hang her own ornament, Izzy would be the one to do it.
At the long table in the dining hall, the remaining children worked with a needle and thread to string lines of popcorn; from years of practice, they had created an assembly line of sorts and, despite the holiday music echoing from the speakers, they did not look excited about the appearance of Santa Claus. They looked like factory workers trying to meet a quota. It was to be expected, as even the children now understood that this was their last Christmas in the complex, their last time as a family. Izzy hung the snowflake on the tree and felt the tiniest measure of happiness that the ornament held its shape, would last one more year.
Jeremy, Callie, and Eli had now been gone for almost six months, Harris, Ellen, and Marnie having left not long after. A few months later, Paul, Mary, and Lulu were gone.
The day that Mary left the complex, everyone now so numb to the experience of saying farewell, Mary walked over to Izzy and asked to speak with her in private. Ever since Mary had accosted Izzy in the early years of the project, they had steered clear of each other, an intricate dance so subtle that perhaps no one else in the project understood what was happening. To Izzy it felt like they were two actresses on the same TV show who hated each other, and it was up to the writers to figure out creative ways for the show to continue without their actual interaction. Izzy, before walking into a room, would instantly scan for Mary, so quickly that it no longer even caused her anxiety, and Mary, if she sensed Izzy’s presence, would slowly fade out of the scene. Izzy had often wondered how spouses stayed together, shared a house, a bedroom, even after they had fallen out of love, but she no longer thought it odd.
Izzy followed Mary down the hallway but hesitated for a second when Mary opened the door to the music room and gestured for her to go in. “What’s going on?” Izzy asked. “Come on,” Mary said, walking into the room. Izzy followed.
“We’re leaving,” Mary said.
“I know,” Izzy said. “I’m sorry.”
“I guess,” Mary said, but then stopped. She frowned and then looked up at her, as if frustrated with Izzy for putting her in this situation. “I just wanted to say that I was sorry for the way things happened between us. I hated you so much when we first got here.”
“Mary,” Izzy said, holding up her hands in supplication.
“Just . . . let me finish here. I hated you, but we had to stay together and that made me angrier. But then, time passed, and I realized that you weren’t so bad, or not as bad as I had thought. But it was hard to apologize, so I just let it keep going between us. So I’m sorry, now. I’m sorry that we didn’t get along better.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Izzy admitted.
“I’m not going to pretend that I’ll stay in touch. I will probably never see you again, and I don’t really have a problem with that. But I didn’t want to leave and have you think that I hated you. I don’t. Okay?”
“Okay,” Izzy said. Izzy wondered if they were going to hug, but then she realized that this was Mary, and there would be no affection in this room. Mary nodded to Izzy and walked out the door. And that was indeed the last time she saw Mary, or Paul, or Lulu ever again.
A few days after that, Dr. Grind and Jill Patterson, the only supervisors who remained now that Jeffrey and Kalina had left the complex to begin preparations for their own versions of the project, called a meeting. It was strange to watch only the two of them at the front of the room, and Izzy felt the stab of loss from Kalina’s departure, the one who had found her, had brought her to the attention of Dr. Grind. She could not, in good conscience, begrudge Kalina taking on a new version of the project, but it had hurt Izzy deeply that Kalina had left the family before it had come to its natural close. If even the people paid to stay in the complex couldn’t do it, Izzy felt less and less sure that anyone else would.
And then, as if reading Izzy’s mind, Dr. Grind had informed the rest of the family that Patricia Acklen had made the decision to prematurely end The Infinite Family Project. On December 31, The IFP would officially close down. Legally, she had the power to do so, Dr. Grind assured everyone, having looked over the legal documents himself. She had allowed that each family would receive a payment of $100,000 to help cover the costs of relocation and reentry into the “real world,” but there would be no further affiliation with the original families. “It’s a transition,” Dr. Grind admitted. “But we still have each other, and some time to continue our work here.”