Infinite(88)

We’d argued in the living room that night. She’d lost an earring as she tore at her hair in guilt over the affair. There, on the floor near the fireplace, I saw the glittering diamond stud where it had fallen.

I’d packed carelessly for our trip, letting a pile of winter sweaters tumble from the upper shelf in our closet. I’d kicked them angrily across the floor. All the sweaters were still there, exactly where I’d left them. Obviously, in the time since then, I hadn’t bothered to pick them up.

Karly had been playing Ellie Goulding songs before I got home late that night. She’d stopped the music in midsong when she saw me. I remembered what she’d been listening to, a song called “Figure 8.” I started the music again, and the same song took up right where she’d paused the disc.

There was no way around the truth.

This was my apartment. This was my world. No other Dylan Moran lived here, just me.

I went to the kitchen to pour myself a drink. When the lowball glass was full, I stared at the ice rattling around in the vodka like diamonds and then drained it all out into the sink. I did the same with the rest of the bottle. We had an unopened bottle of Absolut in one of the cabinets, and I got rid of that one the same way. I kept going until all the alcohol we had in the apartment was gone.

Dylan Moran no longer drank.

While I was in the kitchen, I heard the front doorbell. I had no idea who would be coming to see me, but I went through the apartment and pulled open the door. Detective Harvey Bushing stood on my front step. He was as emaciated as he’d been in the other worlds, and his eyes had the same wily intelligence. In my own life, I didn’t remember him at all.

Even so, he knew me.

“Mr. Moran? Detective Harvey Bushing. We met a couple of weeks ago. You called 911 after finding the body of a young woman near the riverbank.”

“What can I do for you, Detective?” I replied, although two weeks ago was inside the fog that I couldn’t remember. I had no memory of finding a body or calling 911.

“Well, I wanted to give you the news personally that we’ve arrested the man who murdered Betsy Kern. It was an ex-boyfriend of hers who’d been stalking her for some time. He confessed.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“I just wanted to apologize to you. I was a little harsh when I first interviewed you in the park. The fact is, it’s not uncommon for the person who reports a crime like this to be the actual perpetrator.”

“You were just doing your job, Detective.”

“I appreciate your understanding. Anyway, the case is closed. I figured you’d want to know that.”

“Thank you, Detective.”

“Good night, Mr. Moran.”

“Good night.”

I watched the detective retreat down the sidewalk in the darkness. He got into his gray sedan and drove away. On the other side of the street, I could see the trees of River Park, where so much had happened to me in those other worlds. In the horizon sky, over the river, I saw a distant flash of lightning, followed by an extended roll of thunder that made the ground shake. A storm was coming in from the west.

I closed the door.

Inside, I sat down in a chair by the fireplace, feeling utterly empty. I bent down and picked up Karly’s diamond earring and rolled it between my fingertips.

Oddly, it was Detective Bushing’s visit that finally convinced me of where I was. I felt as if one last little mystery had been solved. I’d stumbled upon Betsy Kern’s body during my missing weeks, and that experience had worked its way into my explorations.

It was over now. The Many Worlds were behind me.

This was reality, just as Eve Brier had said.

As that thought struck me, I realized what it meant. I’d never see Karly again. She was really gone. No matter what I’d learned about myself, I was too late to change the past. Once you lose someone, you’ve lost them forever.

I sat in the chair, cupped my hands over my face, and spent the rest of the night crying for my wife.





CHAPTER 35

In the morning, the rain came.

There was nothing for me to do but start living again, so I drove through the storm to the LaSalle Plaza downtown. Black clouds hung over the city and refused to move. A deluge poured across my windshield, making it almost impossible to see where I was going. The streets became lakes under my tires, and streams ran along the curbs and sidewalks, carrying Chicago debris.

I got to the office before anyone else, as I usually did. There was no dawn outside, just darkness. My desk was neat, the way I always left it, and I saw new contracts with my signature on them, reminder notes taped to my monitor, catering orders I’d placed in the past week, and phone messages with customer names for callbacks. I’d been working here for days, even if I remembered none of it. Yesterday, in Eve’s office, appeared to be the only day of work I’d missed.

There were a million things to do, which made it a typical morning. This was my job; this was my life. I tried to get on with it, but as the early hours slipped by, I found I couldn’t concentrate on any of the details. I picked up the phone and put it down. I turned on the computer and switched it off. The responsibilities that had kept me up nights and forced me to stay late so many times now felt insignificant.

Something had changed for me. Everything had changed. I had to face the fact that I was not the same Dylan Moran who had worked here for years. The Many Worlds had killed him. He was gone, and he was never coming back. I needed to become someone new, but I still had no idea how to do that.