Station Eleven

by Emily St. John Mandel

He stared at his crown and ran through a secret list of everything that was good. The pink magnolias in the backyard of the house in Los Angeles. Outdoor concerts, the way the sound rises up into the sky. Tyler in the bathtub at two, laughing in a cloud of bubble bath. Elizabeth in the pool at night, at the beginning before they’d ever had even a single fight, the way she dove in almost silently, the double moons on the surface breaking into shards. Dancing with Clark when they were both eighteen, their fake IDs in their pockets, Clark flickering in the strobe lights. Miranda’s eyes, the way she looked at him when she was twenty-five and still loved him. His third wife, Lydia, doing yoga on the back patio in the mornings. The croissants at the café across the street from his hotel. Tanya sipping wine, her smile. Riding in his father’s snowplow when he was nine, the time Arthur told a joke and his father and his little brother couldn’t stop laughing, the sheer joy he’d felt at that moment. Tyler.