Maybe in Another Life (33 page)

That’s
usually the end of his story, but he keeps talking.

“I was reading a book about the cosmos recently,” he says, and then he looks around and goes, “Hold on, trust me, this relates.”

The crowd laughs again.

“And I was reading about different theories about the universe. I was really taken with this one theory that states that everything that is possible happens. That means that when you flip a quarter, it doesn’t come down heads
or
tails. It comes up heads
and
tails. Every time you flip a coin and it comes up heads, you are merely in the universe where the coin came up heads. There is another version of you out there, created the second the quarter flipped, who saw it come up tails. This is happening every second of every day. The world is splitting further and further into an infinite number of parallel universes where everything that could happen
is
happening. This is completely plausible, by the way. It’s a legitimate interpretation of quantum mechanics. It’s entirely possible that every time we make a decision, there is a version of us out there somewhere who made a different choice. An infinite number of versions of ourselves are living out the consequences of every single possibility in our lives. What I’m getting at here is that I know there may be universes out there where I made different choices that led me somewhere else, led me to
someone
else.”

He looks at Gabby. “And my heart breaks for every single version of me that didn’t end up with you.”

I’m embarrassed to say that I start crying. Gabby catches my eye, and I can see she’s teary, too. Everyone is staring in rapt attention. Jesse is done speaking, but no one can turn away. I know that I should do something, but I’m not sure what to do.

“Way to make the rest of us look bad!” a guy shouts from the back of the room.

The crowd laughs and disperses. I turn and look behind me, trying to find the man who spoke, but I don’t see him. Instead, I see Dr. Yates. I turn to Ethan.

“Dr. Yates is back there,” I say. “I’m going to go say hi. I’ll be back in a second.”

He nods and walks over to the desserts. “I’ll get you some cheesecake,” he says. “Unless I see a cinnamon roll.”

I head over to Dr. Yates.

“Hannah,” he says. “Quite a party.”

I laugh. “So it is.”

“Listen, I want to introduce you to someone.” He gestures to the man standing next to him. The man has a large tattoo on his forearm. I can’t quite make out what it is. I think it’s some sort of cursive script. “This is Henry. I’m trying to persuade him to leave Angeles Presbyterian and come work with us.”

“Well, it’s a great place to work,” I say.

“And Henry is one of the best nurses I’ve ever worked with,” Dr. Yates says.

“Quite a recommendation!” I say to Henry.

“Well, I paid good money for him to say that,” he says.

I laugh.

“Would you two excuse me?” Dr. Yates says. “I want to say hello to Gabby.”

He walks off, and I am left with Henry, unsure what to say.

“Did you see the dessert bar?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says. “I was gonna grab something, but honestly, I like breakfast sweets much better. Cheese danishes, for instance. Or cinnamon rolls.”

“I am obsessed with cinnamon rolls,” I say.

“Rightfully so,” he says. “They are delicious. I’d take a cinnamon roll over a brownie any day.”

I laugh. “It is like you are stealing the words right out of my mouth.”

He laughs, too. “Are you from around here?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I am. You?”

He shakes his head. “No, I moved out from Texas about eight years ago.”

“Oh, whereabouts in Texas?” I ask.

“Just outside of Austin.”

I smile. “I lived in Austin for a little while,” I say. “Great area.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Hot as hell, though.”

“Yes,” I say. “Amen to that.”

“So are you a nurse, too?” he asks me.

“Trying to be,” I say. “I’m about to leave the practice to go to school full-time. I’m eager to be done with school and start working.”

“I remember when I officially became an RN.” He laughs to himself. “Seems like ages ago.”

“Well, I’m a little bit behind,” I say.

“Oh, no,” he says. “That’s not what I meant at all. I just meant I feel like eons have passed since I started.”

“Did you always want to work in health care?” I ask him. Since we’re on the subject, no sense in wasting the opportunity to find out more about him and see if he’s right for the office.

He nods. “Yeah, more or less. My sister died when I was young.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say.

He waves me off. “Not necessary, but thank you. I just remember being in the hospital as a kid and seeing how much the nurses were doing to take care of her, to make her comfortable,
to make all of us comfortable, and, I don’t know, I guess I just always wanted to do that.” Aaaaaand there’s no way I would ever say no to this guy, with a story like that.

“For me, it was when I was pregnant with my daughter and I had just started working in the office,” I say. “I could see how scared some of the parents were sometimes and how much they needed someone who understood what they were going through, and I just really wanted to be that person. And then, once I had my daughter, I felt that fear. I felt how much you ache at the thought of anything happening to them. I just wanted to help soothe the anxiety, you know?”

He smiles. It’s a nice smile. There’s something very calming about it. “Yeah, I hear you,” he says.

If Jesse is right and there are other universes out there, I’ve probably met Henry before in one of them. We might work together somewhere. Or we would have met in Texas years ago. Maybe in line for a cinnamon roll.

“Well, I’m sure I’ll be seeing you,” I say. “Some way or another.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Or maybe in another life.”

I laugh and excuse myself as Ethan comes and finds me. He brings me a bite-sized cheesecake.

“What do you say we leave early?” he says.

“Early?” I say. “I thought we were partying all night. Paula will sleep at our place.”

“Yeah,” he says. “But what if we left the party and went . . . to a
hotel
?”

My eyebrows go up. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

“Let’s make a baby, baby.”

I put down my glass of water and pop the cheesecake into
my mouth. I scoot over to the corner of the room, where I see Carl, Tina, Gabby, and Jesse talking.

“Carl, he seems great. Henry, I mean. You should hire him. For sure. Gabby, I love you. Happy birthday. If you’ll excuse Ethan and me, we have to go home.”

Gabby and Tina give me a hug. Ethan shakes hands with Carl and Jesse.

Ethan and I walk out the front door. It started to rain sometime during the evening. I’m chilly, and Ethan takes off his jacket and puts it around my shoulders.

“We could stay up all night, you know,” he says, teasing me. “Or we could have sex once, turn on the TV, and fall asleep peacefully.”

I laugh. “That last one sounds great,” I say.

I get into the car, and I am overwhelmed by gratitude.

If there are an infinite number of universes, I don’t know how I got so lucky as to end up in this one.

Maybe there are other lives for me out there, but I can’t imagine being as happy in any of them as I am right now, today.

I have to think that while I may exist in other universes, none is as good as this.

G
abby hates surprises, but I couldn’t persuade Carl and Tina to go about this any other way, and I wasn’t going to be the one who told her. So here we are, at her thirty-second birthday, me, Henry, and fifty of her closest friends, huddled in her parents’ living room, completely in the dark.

We hear her parents’ car pull into the driveway. I give one last warning to everyone to be quiet when I see their headlights go out.

I hear them walk up to the door.

I see the door open.

I turn on the lights, and the entire room of us yells, “Surprise!” just as we are supposed to.

Gabby’s eyes go wide. She’s genuinely terrified for a moment. And then she turns immediately into Jesse’s chest. He laughs, holding her.

“Happy birthday!” he says, and then he spins her back around to look at all of us.

The living room is full of beautiful decorations. Champagne flutes and Moët. A dessert bar. Henry and I went all over Los Angeles today to find linen tablecloths to match the décor. Henry loves Gabby. Would do anything for her.

Gabby makes her way to me first. “Are you mad?” I ask as she hugs me. “I toyed with the idea of telling you.”

She pulls away from me. You can tell from her face that she’s still startled. “No,” she says. “I’m not mad. Overwhelmed, maybe. I’m sort of shocked that between you and Jesse, no one let it slip.”

“We made a pact,” I tell her. “Not to say anything. It was really important to your parents.”

“They did all this?” she says.

I nod. “All their idea.”

“Happy birthday,” Henry says. He hands her a glass of champagne. She takes it and gives him a hug.

“And I suppose you won’t be having any?” Gabby says, looking at my belly. I’m seven months pregnant. It’s a girl. We’re naming her Isabella, after Henry’s sister. Gabby doesn’t know that we’ve talked about naming her Isabella Gabrielle, after her.

“Nope,” I say. “But I’ll be drinking with you in spirit. Have you seen the Flints?” I ask her. “They are . . .” I look around until I find them in the back, waving at her and talking to Jesse. She’s already moving toward them.

I watch her as she hugs her soon-to-be in-laws. They love her—that much is clear.

“Well done, kiddo,” Carl says to me. “I wasn’t sure you’d be able to pull it off.”

“I’m not great with keeping secrets,” I tell him. “But I figured this was an important one. So . . . ta-da!” I lift my hands up in the air, as if I’ve performed a magic trick.

Carl looks at my hands and then at Henry. “You let your wife attend parties without a wedding ring, son?”

Henry laughs. “You can get into that with her,” he says. “I don’t tell her what to do.”

“I had to take it off,” I tell Carl, defending myself. “My fingers are the size of sausages.”

Carl shakes his head, teasing me. “Not even married a year, and already she’s coming up with reasons to take off the ring. Tsk-tsk.”

“You’re right. I’m liable to run off at any minute,” I say, pointing down to my belly.

Carl laughs, and Tina fights her way through the crowd to talk to us.

“Look at you. About to be a mother and a nurse,” she says, by way of hello.

I will finish my nursing degree in a year or so, but that seems like a lifetime from now. All I can think about these days is the baby I’m about to have.

“I’m starting to get nervous about juggling it all when the baby comes,” I tell her. “I mean, I know I can do it. Plenty of women do it. I think I’m just anxious about everything changing.”

“You’re gonna be great,” Tina says, smiling at me.

“How many times do I have to ask you to come back and work for me once you’re done with school?” Carl says.

“I don’t want you to feel like you have to offer me a nursing spot,” I say. “I want to earn it on my own.”

“I’d give you the shirt off my back if you needed it,” Carl says. “But that’s not why I’m offering you a job.”

“It isn’t?”

“No. I think you’re going to be a great nurse, and I want you at my office.”

“Plus, this little baby girl is the closest thing we’ve got to a grandchild,” Tina says. “I’d like to keep you as close by as possible.”

“Everybody wants access to the kid,” Henry says.

“When you two have been married as long as we have,” Carl tells him, “and your children are grown, and you’re bored as hell, you’re gonna want access to grandkids, too. Trust me. Do you know how much television I watch? It’s shameful. I need a distraction.”

Gabby and Jesse come back and join us.

“What are we talking about?” Gabby asks.

“Grandchildren,” Tina says, looking at Gabby and Jesse with intent.

“Oh, no!” Jesse jokes. “Gabby, turn away slowly, and maybe they won’t see us.”

Gabby mimes trying to leave, but Tina pulls her and Jesse back.

“Hannah and Henry seem to have found a way to have a baby,” Tina says. “And I’m not getting any younger. It wouldn’t kill you to
try
.”

“Tina,” Jesse says, “I promise you, the minute your daughter and I are happily wed, it will be the first thing on my To Do list.”

Ethan and Ella join us. They must have just come through the door.

“Sorry we’re late,” Ella says. “I was stuck at work, and you know how it is! Happy birthday!” she says to Gabby. She hugs her and then turns to Ethan, who hugs Gabby and smiles. He shakes Henry’s hand, gives Jesse a pat on the back, and then hugs me.

“We did bring a present,” Ethan says. “To make up for it.”

It’s a box of Godiva chocolates. The moment I see them, I want to shove them all into my mouth. I figure I can take
them from Gabby later if I really want them. Or get some of my own. I know that if I say I want them, Henry will stop on the way home. He always gets me any food I want, at any time of night. He says that’s his job. He says it’s the least he can do. “You carry the baby. I’ll get the food.” His morning breath is terrible, and he’s cheap as hell, but I feel like the luckiest woman in the entire world.

The party goes on, all of us hopping from person to person, talking and sharing stories about Gabby. Just when the party seems to hit its peak, someone asks Jesse to tell the story of how he and Gabby met. Slowly but surely, everyone quiets down to listen in. Jesse stands at the base of the fireplace so he can be seen and heard by everyone. I asked him his height once. He’s five-foot-six.

“First day of geometry class. Tenth grade. I look to the front of the classroom and see the prettiest girl I’ve ever laid eyes on.” Jesse has told this story about nine thousand times, and each time starts the same. “Although Gabby would say that’s not the first thing that I should have noticed about her.” He looks over at her, and she smiles. “But you’d have to notice it about her. She was gorgeous. And, to my delight, she was also short. So I figured I had a shot.”