Page 89 of Under Story

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That summer, Laurel helps Clare to find her own apartment. She and Walter lived in a modern complex, with a parking lot, a common room, and a pool for Clare’s water aerobics. Her new unit is shabbier—a garden apartment, half underground, in a brick building on the east side—but Clare can pay for it all by herself. They drive to Target for essentials. Clare cranks the music up, her gray hair blowing out the window.

The unwedding will take place at Orton Park in May. Laurel coordinates a potluck; Walter’s son, who manages a brewery, donates cider and beer. Clare and Walter devote their budget to a bluegrass quartet.

Clare chooses a Druid officiant. In the antiuniverse, monotheistic religions are less popular than earth-based traditions. Still, they exist, despite the fact that Christ and Muhammad won’t be born for thousands of years. On a walk to Picnic Point, Laurel and Eli contemplate this paradox.

“The concept could come before the person,” Laurel says. Her only hypothesis is that the universes are connected in ways she doesn’t understand, ideas routing through a collective unconscious that spreads below the mind’s awareness. “It’s like—someone is anointed, picked to embody an ideal. It could be an honor. A responsibility, too.”

“That’s clever,” Eli says. “And it could apply to other examples. In our universe, the Americas were named after an explorer, weren’t they? Amerigo Vespucci? So here…”

Laurel picks up the thread. “Maybe Vespucci will still be an explorer, but he’ll be named after the Americas.”

It’s early, the sun just rising over the lake: they still sleep at odd hours, as if beset by cosmic jet lag. If Eli’s hand were in hers, instead of in his pocket, this walk would be just like the ones they took when they were dating.

Eli is nodding. “That makes sense. Parents choose names based on stories, or attributes, that already exist.”

Laurel thinks but does not say: Silas, “man of the woods.”

—

Laurel spends the morning of Clare and Walter’s unwedding grading quizzes. She just finished teaching a particularly detailed module on dehydration-compensation reactions: in decomposition, hydrolase enzymes use water to break the bond between molecules, but here, water is released when molecules form, which sets the groundwork for electrical circuitry. She has relished the challenge of learning her old knowledge backward, but the freshmen in her lecture course nodded off all week. After multiple admonitions, Laurel gave up: it seemed crueler to rouse a seventy-year-old student than a seventeen-year-old one. The quizzes are as dismal as she expected.

She takes a run and showers, feeling her muscles soften. Wrapped in a towel, she surveys her double’s closet. Laurel chooses a floral dress and a pair of sandals. She takes time with her makeup, lining her eyes with brown pencil, patting a berry tint on her lips. After summer, her hair is lighter, and the warmth has come back to her skin.

“Wow,” says Eli when she walks downstairs. “You look nice.”

“So do you,” says Laurel. It’s true: he’s handsome in well-fitting pants and an oxford, unbuttoned at the neck.

They arrive at Orton Park as the band sets up. Walter’s son waves from the bar, and Clare’s girlfriends thread lights through the trees. Clare and Walter stand by the potluck table, hanging a banner that reads Just Divorced. The mood between them is brittle: when Walter drops the banner twice, Clare snaps and asks Eli to help. Instead, Eli pulls them aside to talk. Afterward, Clare and Walter share a hug.

The officiant arrives at dusk. Her robes are silver-green. On the chest is a jagged-line insignia, which could be a branch or a bolt of lightning. Laurel and Eli take seats in the front row, next to Walter’s son. Walter and Clare are tearful during the ring return. When the officiant pronounces them unmarried, they smile bashfully at the cheers that come from the audience.

Afterward, the atmosphere lightens. Guests cluster at the potluck tables. Clare and Walter cut the strawberry unwedding cake. As the music begins, Laurel walks to the bar. There are plenty of New Glarus six-packs, but no bottle openers. She suspects one of the seniors wandered off with them. Memory is not their strong suit: whenever Laurel assigns a paper, a handful of students forget the due date.

“Hello, Laurel,” says Walter, who is trying to pry a beer cap off with a metal fork.

“Easy there,” says Laurel. “May I?”

She flips a second bottle upside down, using the ridge of its cap to dislodge the first.

“Fancy trick,” says Walter tipsily.

Laurel curtsies. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you’ll have a few of them up your sleeve, too.”

An antiuniverse quip! It may not be her best effort, but she still makes a mental note to tell Eli. She hands the beer to Walter, who fiddles with the label; his expression has become reflective.

“If I haven’t said so, Laurel, I’ll never forget the way you welcomed me. I know I’m not your father. I have friends whose stepchildren never saw them as a parent.”

Laurel feels as surprised as she does guilty. In her universe, that is how she saw Walter: as an interloper unworthy of investment. Here, Pete Salter has not yet been born. The other Laurel has only known Walter.

“I still care for your mother,” Walter says. “And I hope to stay in your life, too.”

“You’re a good person, Walter,” Laurel says. “We’ll still be like family, okay?”

She extends a hand, and Walter shakes it, wobbly. When Walter’s son guides him to a chair, Laurel joins her mother at the cake table. They bring slices to a blanket on the grass.

When they sit, Clare says, “I think I’d like to leave the symphony.”