He shrugs, eating his pie. “Not that funny. I thought it, too. From time to time. I almost . . .”
“What?” I ask.
“When you came back to L.A., right before the accident, I thought maybe . . .”
I think back to that time. That was a rough period. I kept a happy face through all of it. I tried really hard to keep it together, but looking at it now, I think of how heartbreaking it all was. I think of the baby I lost, and I wonder if . . . I wonder if I had to lose that baby to get to where I am now. I wonder if I had to lose that baby to have this one.
“I think I thought maybe, too,” I say.
“Just didn’t work out that way, I guess,” he says.
“I guess not.” I see Henry coming back from the bathroom. I see him stop and talk to Carl. He loves Carl. If we could have a bronze bust of Carl in our living room, he’d do it. “Who knows?” I tell Ethan. “If Jesse’s theory is right, about the universes, maybe there’s one out there where we figured out a way to make it work.”
Ethan laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “Maybe.” He lifts his pie as if to make a toast. I lift my cheesecake to meet it. “Maybe in another life,” he says.
I smile at him and leave him by the dessert table.
I miss my husband.
He’s now standing in a circle with Gabby, Jesse, Carl, and Tina. I join them.
“I see you found the cheesecake,” Gabby says.
“The pregnant lady always finds the cheesecake,” I tell her. “You know that.”
Henry moves closer to me as he continues to talk to Carl. He puts his arm around me. He gives me a squeeze. He opens his mouth wide, and I smile at him. I feed him the cheesecake.
It’s on his face.
“I love you,” he says with his mouth full. I can barely make out the words individually. But there’s no doubt what he said. He kisses me on the forehead and grazes his hand against my belly.
One Saturday night in my late twenties, I was hit by a car, and that accident led me to marry my night nurse. If that’s not fate, I don’t know what is.
So I have to think that while I may exist in other universes, none of them are as sweet as this.