Page 91 of Under Story

Mist hangs in the air. They look at each other as through a beaded curtain.

“Laurel,” Eli says. He is looking at her in a new way, or perhaps an old way, and Laurel feels oddly afraid.

Does he notice? In the next moment, Eli’s expression becomes neutral. He suggests that they help Clare and Walter pack the remains of the potluck. Later, they drive home as though nothing unusual happened.

In bed, Laurel wonders why she felt scared. Did she read Eli correctly? It felt like the old charge was there—but no, that wasn’t right. It was a new charge, animated by the events of the past two years. She thought he might have kissed her.

And if he had, what would she have done? She examines the source of her resistance. The divorce was brutal, and it happened for a reason. There was the agony of the choice, then that of the aftermath. They divided their belongings, sold their rings, said goodbye to each other’s families. Yes, they’re single now, but there would still be a betrayal: they would be unfaithful not to other partners but to their own decision.

Anyway, Laurel thinks, rolling over, she was probably wrong. If he had continued, he might have said anything at all.

11

The Overtaker

Their third autumn in the antiuniverse is the most beautiful yet. The trees change early—coral and crimson and dark purple leaves sprout straight from their stems—and there are no late winter storms, so the colors remain for months. The days grow warmer, longer. Laurel goes to the pumpkin patch wearing a jean jacket. Even the end of the season is glorious: lilac asters bloom, and beech leaves toss like gold coins in the wind.

The academic year will end just before Labor Day. While Laurel administers a final exam, her cell phone pings with a flash flood warning. Afterward, she swings her messenger bag over one shoulder and hurries to the bicycle rack. A graduate student in her sixties stops to thank Laurel for her guidance that semester. She isn’t the first aspiring mycologist to express admiration. In the past, Laurel didn’t feel deserving: the students were thinking of Laurel Two, not her. This time, everything the student describes occurred after Laurel’s arrival: the care Laurel showed during office hours, her insight on the woman’s thesis. Walking her bike to the curb, Laurel thanks the woman with equal sincerity.

The sky darkens as she turns onto University Avenue. The student’s thesis earned her a postdoc at the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute in Utrecht—the same institute where Tess One had been hired. When Laurel perused the website of the antiuniverse institute, she found a picture of Teresa Torrez Two. She had a shaggy bob with short bangs, and her eyebrow ring was on the right side instead of the left.

Tess One had wanted to improve the detection of volatile signals in the field. Tess Two, Laurel learned, had done it. In Utrecht, she’d created a device called an odor ratio biosensor. The ORBs were transparent balls made of bioplastic; empty, they looked like bubbles. Air entered through a narrow opening, and a sensor assessed volatile molecules. Signals were entered in a database and matched to the likeliest organism. Laurel emailed Tess Two to say how much she admired her work.

Thunder sounds as if from a sky-wide drum. Laurel pedals quickly, buoyed by her conversation with the student. Teaching helps to distract her at this time of year. Whenever August approaches—and with it the day that Silas died—Laurel and Eli become tense. They’ve had no way to answer the question that plagues them most: whether Silas, like Helen, will be born on the day he died. There is also the matter of where. Would they find him on the beach in Michigan, or would he appear in the cemetery?

Laurel is convinced that Silas will be in Michigan. Eli isn’t. To cover their bases, he thinks one of them should stay in Wisconsin while the other goes to Cedar. Laurel believes they should stay together. They lost him while apart: Laurel at the cave, Eli walking away, Silas in the water. Shouldn’t they make sure that the reverse is true this time? Lately, they’ve been arguing, which has agitated both of them. They can’t unravel now.

Laurel hangs her bike in the garage and enters through the back door.

“Did you get caught?” Eli asks, from his office.

She wrings her hair out in the kitchen sink. “I’ve basically showered.”

Upstairs, Laurel strips off her wet clothes and hangs them on a towel bar to dry. She changes into leggings and a sweatshirt; the legging pocket doubles as an iPhone charger, but the sweatshirts of the future are comfortingly unchanged.

Before she goes downstairs, she removes a waterlogged Band-Aid. The paper cut underneath is only hours old, but the cut has already knitted together. In another day, even the pink line will disappear. The arc of the antiuniverse moves toward healing as well as youth: even colds pass more quickly. Laurel is thirty-four years old, two years younger than she was when she left for Antarctica. She has no proof, but she can feel it. When she stretches, her knees don’t pop, and the silver hairs at her part are now blond.

Laurel, Kwame, and Samir are finalizing an article, and she promised to look at their edits before the weekend begins on Sunday. She reads at her desk as the sky darkens further. When she stands to turn on a lamp, Laurel notices a streak of motion outside. Someone is walking briskly up the block. She can only see a long coat’s swaying hem: the person’s face is obscured by a black umbrella.

The doorbell rings.

“Are we expecting anyone?” calls Eli.

“No,” says Laurel, jogging downstairs.

She opens the door to streaming water. A familiar face peers calmly through the din.

“Hello, Laurel,” says the overtaker. “May I come in?”

—

What does one serve to an overtaker? Laurel offers every option: coffee, tea, water, wine. Kenji Nakamura requests tea.

She puts the kettle on as Eli emerges from his office. His curls are haphazard, a pencil tucked behind one ear. When Laurel introduces the overtaker, he removes the pencil and smooths his hair. Mr. Nakamura hangs his coat on a stand in the entryway. They sit in the living room, the overtaker on a chair, Laurel and Eli on the couch.

“I knew the rain would be torrential when it came,” the overtaker says. “But your house is so close to the cemetery. I couldn’t bring myself to drive.”

Laurel can’t think of what to say to this. Of all the subjects she’s longed to discuss with an overtaker, weather ranks at the bottom.