Page 182 of Under Story

—

They stay like that, holding hands, until Clare falls back asleep. Before she leaves the house, Laurel pages Maisie 143.

—

Laurel drives her father’s truck to the Rosens’ house. Eli jumps into the cab, rubbing his arms and laughing.

“Are you crazy?” he asks.

Cold beats at the windows like wings. Eli wears a hoodie over his pajamas. Laurel explains her idea as she turns onto the beltline. When they reach Prospect Avenue, Gloria’s street, a blinding flash precedes rumbling.

“Was that thunder?” says Eli.

“Thundersnow,” says Laurel; she’s never seen it before. To Eli’s incredulity, she adds, “It’s a thing.”

They park and climb out of the car. Snowflakes cling to her eyelashes like tinsel. Most of the houses on Prospect are unlit, but Gloria’s windows gleam.

The person who opens the door is a man: tall but spritely, with an elfin, welcoming grin. Laurel has seen him before, but only on Facebook.

“I’m Paul,” he says. “Come in.”

—

“I hope we didn’t wake you,” Laurel says.

“Hush,” says Gloria. “We’re night owls. I’m going to make a plate of cookies.”

The living room has only been wallpapered halfway. Mismatched chairs—“Free,” says Gloria, cheerfully—face a plummy velvet couch. Music wafts from a record player; Paul shows Eli the knobs and gears. In the hearth, a boisterous fire is burning.

Gloria sets the cookie tray on a mosaic table. She goes back for a pot of coffee. Just as Laurel and Eli sit, the house plunges into darkness.

For a moment, nobody speaks. Then Gloria laughs.

“Well, shoot,” she says. “There goes the power.”

“I’ll get candles,” says Paul.

Gloria had mentioned that she was dating someone, but she hadn’t told Laurel his name. Now Laurel tries to remember what she learned of Paul from Gloria One. He was a physicist, and he loved language—he’d found the Gerard quote, fungi as “new fangled meates.” Paul Two returns with a shoebox and roots through it, matching candles to their holders. He sets a half-melted pillar on the table while Gloria watches him. Laurel has never seen her with such an obvious crush. She is sixty now, and striking. Auburn hairs mingle with white.

Paul sets tea lights on the mantel. Gloria pours the coffee into mugs.

“Now,” she says to Laurel and Eli. “It sounds like you have something to tell us.”

—

The story comes more quickly this time, now that Laurel and Eli have had practice.

“I knew it,” says Gloria. “I knew that you were hiding something.”

“By the time we met, you had already gone through so much. It seemed like your life was finally stable,” says Laurel. “I didn’t want to upend it.”

“But you wouldn’t have,” says Gloria. “We could have worked on it together.” There is wistfulness in her face, and perhaps envy, too. It is an envy that Laurel recognizes, native to scientists as well as nosy people: the desire to learn something big, to be inside a secret.

“So you believe us?” asks Eli, looking from Gloria to Paul.

“I’ll need some time to process it. But I’m a physicist,” says Paul. “I’m used to believing in things that are out of this world.”

“I suppose two universes don’t seem more unlikely than one. It’s sort of like the question of life on other planets,” Gloria says. “Maybe Earth is totally singular. But I’d be more surprised if this were all there was.”