This Multiverse

            It’s been two years since Peter’s son Jacob announced at his college graduation that he was going to move to Chile. “Why?” his mother asked.

“There’s a lot more of the world to see.” A month later Peter’s mother moved out of the house telling Peter to expect divorce papers.

“Why?” he asked.

“There’s a lot more of the world to see.”

It’s been a year since Peter saw Jacob’s fifth grade teacher, Ms. Milton (he still thinks of her as Ms. Milton although he calls her Polly to her face) poking squashes in the grocery and asked her if she maybe wanted to have dinner with him. She’s been coming over two or three times a week, and today as Peter lies naked in bed next to her listening to someone in the living room, she rolls over and places a hand on his chest. “What is that?”

He’s afraid at first but then says, “It’s Jacob.” No one shuffles their feet just like him. He is handling things in the refrigerator, taking out each one and putting it back with a click when he decides he doesn’t want it, and Peter doesn’t know anyone else who does that.

“Did you know he was coming?”

“I haven’t talked to him in two years. I get a postcard, but he never gives us a way to message him. I’ve sent emails that bounce back.”

“Does he know about me?”

“I don’t think he knows Candi left me.”

He listens to Jacob move from the kitchen to the living room, flipping on the light switch. He imagines him going to fireplace, looking over the mantel at the big discoloured rectangle where the family portrait used to hang. The family photos on the mantle are gone of course as well. Candi was the Catholic, so all the crucifixes are down leaving bright shadows of themselves on the wall, and Peter hasn’t gotten up the energy to repaint.

“Shouldn’t you go out and tell him?” His eyes flit over to the window, and Ms. Milton laughs a little bitterly.

“What?”

“I am not going out the window.”

He hadn’t realized that’s what he wanted, but he does of course. “You won’t have to. Just go back to sleep and leave when he goes to bed.” He thinks that in some other more perfect universe, Jacob never went away, never lost contact. Of course, if that is the more perfect universe, Candi wouldn’t have left him, and he wouldn’t have found this new relationship, imperfect and fun.

“This is a new side to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Cowardice.”

“Just lie back for a while, all right? Let me think about what I’m going to do.”

Ms. Milton gets up, puts on her bra and blouse, then her skirt. She puts her panties and stockings in her purse.

He says, “You can’t go out there now.”

“No? Watch me.”

She goes to the bedroom door. “Please, I’m begging you. Not yet. I don’t want to lose him too.”

Her hand lingers on the door a moment. Then she shakes her head and walks through. He hears his son say hello. He hears Ms. Milton reply and start an awkward conversation.

He wonders if his other self in that other universe is having any fun. He wonders what he does on the weekend and if Candi ever smiles back at him. He wonders if this is the end of something and if maybe Ms. Milton were right. He wonders what it means to be Peter. He wonders if happiness exists anywhere across the multiverse.

by John Brantingham

John Brantingham is the first poet laureate of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, and my work has been featured in hundreds of magazines and in The Best Small Fictions 2016. He has eight books of poetry and fiction including The Green of Sunset from Moon Tide Press, and he teaches at Mt. San Antonio College.