In Universes

by Emet North

I got in the car, started driving, though I didn’t know where I was going. It was four in the morning, a day later, when I got to my aunt’s house in Montana. I didn’t knock on her door; I didn’t want to scare her. Instead I called and asked if I could visit. “Of course,” she said, “you’re always welcome here, Raffi, you know that.” “Great,” I said, “then could you open the door?” A few minutes later, she did. She was wearing a red silk dressing gown, which reminded me there was a lot I didn’t know about her. Her eyes traveled the length of me and maybe she was thinking the same thing. “A shower,” she said, “and then we’ll talk.” When I got out of the shower, she’d left clean pajamas in the sink and there were two mugs of tea on the table in the kitchen, steam spiraling upward. Even inside it was freezing. The pajama bottoms were too short, so I sat with my feet tucked under me. My aunt didn’t ask any questions, just waited. She was good at that.

When I hated myself the most, I told myself that this life was only a single data point. That to know if I was a good or bad person, I would need to take the integral of all my parallel selves.