“It’s complicated.” About a thousand times more complicated than you could possibly guess. Still, I ought to hear this. “Yeah, go ahead. Explain.”
Paul stands there, looking lost in the way that always makes me want to shelter him. “It was an accident. Even your parents must know it was only an accident. I hate myself for it more than they ever could. Even more than you.”
His eyes don’t meet mine; instead, he’s looking down at my forearm, at the ragged red welt I noticed earlier today. The ache has sunk down to the bone. I glance down at the scar, then back up at him.
“I was upset. We both were. So I shouldn’t have been driving. You’re not wrong to blame me for that.” By now Paul is pleading. “But your dad seems to think I did it on purpose. Marguerite, I would never, ever have wanted you to get hurt.”
We were in a car accident while Paul was driving. It screwed up my hand. But why do my parents hate him? A car accident could happen to anybody. Why have I refused to even see him?
Then I remember what Paul said first. I venture, “We . . . were upset.”
“It all seems so stupid now,” he says. “I wasn’t going to come around the house anymore, and you said I should get over it. Deal with my disappointment, forgive your parents. God, I wish I had. Then you’d be fine, and we’d be happy, and you could still—”
Paul chokes on his own words, then sits down heavily, too upset to notice my confusion.
Slowly I say, “If you could do it over—without yelling this time—if we were back in that car, what would you tell me?”
He wasn’t expecting that. But he tries to work with it. “I would say that just because I disagreed with Sophia and Henry about the Firebird technology didn’t mean I felt any differently about you. When I avoided the house, I wasn’t avoiding you. Only them. I felt like the greatest work of my life had been taken away from me.”
Of course. Paul would have hated their decision to abandon the Firebird project. Once he tackles a question, he doesn’t want to rest until he has the answer.
Paul continues, “I shouldn’t have said angry things about your parents—at all, but especially not in front of you. It put you in a terrible position. And I guess it made it easier for them to hate me afterward.”
If I’d had time to calm down after this awful argument in the car, honestly, I probably would have understood. As much as I love my parents, they still drive me crazy sometimes. And I would have realized what a crushing blow this was to his research and his hopes. So I still don’t get why he’s so freaked out about the accident.
Until he says, very quietly, “Are you any better? I mean—have you been able to paint?”
It all comes together, then: Paul’s crushing guilt, my parents’ anger. The lack of any art supplies or new paintings in my room. Spaghetti falling off a fork that hurts to hold—a fork that’s still wider than most paintbrushes. My parents encouraging my new “interest in film,” because they’re afraid I’ll never be able to paint again.
This tragedy belongs to the other Marguerite, not me. When I go home, my arm will be fine—unmarked—and I can paint as much as I need. But still, I feel the pain of this Marguerite’s loss. Art is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. It’s my vocation, my passion. And dammit, I’m good! Not many teenagers get their own gallery showings. Not many have the skills that could get them into RISD, much less Ruskin. As hard as it is to make a living as a professional artist, I honestly believe I have a chance.
In this world, Marguerite’s chance has been taken away.
Maybe my hand will get better, I think. But already I know this Marguerite’s doctors don’t hold out much hope. If there were hope, Paul wouldn’t be sitting here in misery. My parents wouldn’t hate him.
And this Marguerite wouldn’t either.
I say the only thing I can think of. “It didn’t help that we were arguing when it happened. That I was already mad at you.”
He shakes his head. “No, it didn’t. But you’re not wrong to blame me. I drove the car. It was my responsibility to pull over if I was—distracted. I didn’t, and I hurt you, and I swear to you, if I could go back in time and change things—even if I had to get between you and the other car, take the hit myself—I’d do it. I would.” Paul makes a small sound, something that might have been a laugh but didn’t quite make it. “Too bad we never tackled time travel.”
“Mom and Dad shouldn’t have tried to throw you out of the department. Not for that.”
“Sophia and Henry felt guilty for not protecting you. For bringing me into your life.” Paul meets my eyes only for a moment. “No, they weren’t—reasonable. But there are worse things parents can do than loving their child so much that it made them unreasonable.”
Worse things, such as being mixed up in organized crime, and being more loyal to the mob than to your own son. His betrayal by his parents makes him willing to forgive mine for turning on him.
I remember the way my mother talked to me after I first told her Paul and I were together. She said that as much as they cared about Paul, they’d always be on my side—even if I was wrong. I guess she was telling the truth. And now, after the Home Office, I’ve seen how my parents react to grief. It twists them up. Makes them lash out.
Paul dismisses the near-ruin of his academic career with a shrug. “I’m going to ETH Zurich for my postdoc. I’ll move away as soon as I possibly can. You don’t have to worry about me anymore, or ever again. I promise you.”
“I believe you,” I say. He breathes out, like he’d been holding his breath for a very long time. Paul doesn’t ask for or expect forgiveness or redemption. He only wants me to feel safe.
What will happen to this world’s Paul? Will he find other people to love him in Zurich? Mentors who become adoptive parents, like mine, can’t come along that often.
Paul studies my face; I wonder what he sees there. Finally he says, “Is that all?”
“Not quite. Do me one favor?”
“Anything.”
I get to my feet and take the spare Firebird from around my neck. He looks at it, uncomprehending; apparently the project didn’t progress far enough in this dimension for him to recognize it on sight. So I simply say, “Hold still.”
Paul nods, and remains rigid in his chair, not even looking directly at me as I drape the chain around his neck. Once all four splinters of my Paul’s soul are reunited, he should awaken within this body.
Please let it work. Please let Conley not have lied to me. Please, please, let me have him back again.
I take a deep breath, hit the final sequence and drop the Firebird.
He jolts, grabs the arms of his chair, and opens his eyes wide. When he looks up at me, he whispers, “Marguerite?”
My Paul, at last.
We reach for each other at the same instant, and somehow I wind up in his lap, and we’re embracing each other so tightly we can scarcely breathe. Everything I’ve had to do, everything I’ve gone through—it was all worth it for this. For him.
29
WE HANG ON TO EACH OTHER SO TIGHTLY THAT NOTHING could tear us apart. Paul’s broad hands span my back as he rocks me; I kiss his mouth, his cheeks, his eyelids, his chest. Even our breaths rise and fall in the same rhythm, as if we’d merged together. As if I’d leaped not into another version of myself, but into him.