After the doctor said I had to sign the paper to schedule the surgery, with all the things that could go wrong. Paula and I began to call, December 18 the day of my surgery, the End of the World. We knew afterwards everything would be different which started me thinking.
In an alternate reality…
I died on Dec. 18, 2012 on an operating table. The doctors told my loved ones that they had done all they could.
In an alternate reality…
I am still married to my best friend and husband. We live in England where he is a research doctor making great strides in research to regenerate bones. We live in South Hampton with our three children. Last year we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary and over 30 years together. Friends came from far and wide to celebrate our love. I am preparing to send my youngest off to college in the fall and looking forward to my son’s wedding next summer. I secretly hope that some one will make me a grandmother soon.
In an alternate reality…
I allowed Alan to pay for a quick divorce. When he asked me to partner my knowledge with his funding sources into a start up bookstore that would rival Waterstone’s in 1992 I don’t hesitate. We fight over stock amounts but when I make money with the children’s books I hand sell and share with the staff as we expand, he leans into my ideas. We start samedaybooks in preparation to oppose amazon in the UK. I say we can be just as good as I nuzzle our second daughter to my breast. Six years later, I try to hold the bookstore chain and my girls together after the bobbies call to say Alan has been in an accident with a London Cab. The Cabbie and his four passengers survive and I will always wonder if Alan was in one of his distracted thinking jags, if it was the fog, or perhaps the black dog that sometimes rode with him. I eventually sell the shops to some one else and move my girls back to Boston under much protest, but I need to not be the woman with the funny accent at the school meetings and church. I need to be with my longtime friends.
In an alternate reality…
I died in a car crash in 1988 turning right on red, except maybe it was left. I never could tell the difference. I saw the whole thing happen in slow motion that mustard brown muscle car coming charging at us around the bend in the fog. I had time to throw my arm over Paula to protect her, to say I love you before turning back to watch the grille come through my door and pin me behind the wheel. Paula changed that day; she decided to take more chances to live for me in a way I might never have done. She opened her heart and mind and body. She had the children I longed for and she didn’t want. She is a great mom and very happy especially when she remembers her roommate from all those years ago that died while saying I love you.
In an alternate reality…
Even though I did follow that songwriter to Nashville, I decide to stay. I say yes to that man named Kevin with the smiling eyes and salt and pepper beard. I go back to school and rejoin Hawkins Partners as a landscape architect. I’ve been a partner for 12 years now. I still dabble in children’s books and have had three published so far. My children went to Eakin and are now at Belmont and Vanderbilt. I’m so very proud of them, bless their hearts.
In an alternate reality…
I started out for art school in NYC when I left Houlton. I didn’t look back often. I never met Paula, or Janos, or Simon. I surely didn’t follow a songwriter to Nashville. I’m a big deal in the art world. No one knows what my paintings are about anymore because I’m so damn cutting edge; sometimes even I forget the story that I sold that last exhibit with. I drink a bit too much which my mother tries not to notice, but my sisters like to point out when I decide to show up for the odd holiday. I’ve had fun though; the models and lovers have been plentiful right along with the cash.
I like it here on my island off the coast of Maine where I and my dogs can see all the stars, we can read what might be coming and decide what reality we want to wake up in today before the world ends again.