Maybe this feels like home.
“Levi?”
He looks at me, calm. Hopeful. So patient, my love.
“Levi, I—”
The door opens with a sudden noise. “How are you feeling today, Bee?” My doctor steps in with a nurse in tow.
Levi’s eyes linger on me for one more second. Or five. But then he stands. “I was just about to head out.”
I watch his small smile as he waves goodbye. I watch the way his hair curls on his nape as he steps out. I watch the door close behind him, and when the doctor starts asking me questions about my useless parasympathetic nervous system, it’s all I can do not to glare at her.
•••
TWO DAYS.
Two days, I’m in the damn hospital. Then the doctor discharges me with a squinty, distrustful, “There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with you.” Rocío picks me up with our rental (“In ancient Egypt, female corpses were kept at home until they decomposed to avoid necrophilia at the embalmer’s. Did you know that?” “Now I do.”), and is just as squinty and distrustful when I ask her to drop me off at the Discovery Building—and to please leave the car in the parking lot.
There’s no police tape inside. In fact, I meet several non-BLINK engineers in the hallways. I smile politely, shrug off their curious, intrigued looks, and head for my office. There’s a Do Not Enter sign on the wall. I ignore it.
I walk out six hours later, not quite gracefully. I’m carrying a large box and I can’t see my feet, so I trip a lot. (Who am I kidding? I always trip a lot.) In the car, I tinker with my phone, searching for a good song, and find none I care to listen to.
It’s dark already, past sundown. For some unfathomable reason, the silent lights of the Houston skyline make me think of Paris at the turn of the twentieth century. The Belle Époque, they called it. While Dr. Curie holed up in her shed-slash-lab, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec chugged absinthe at the Moulin Rouge. Edgar Degas creeped on ballet dancers and bathing ladies. Marcel Proust bent over his desk, writing books I’ll never get around to reading. Auguste Rodin sculpted thinking men and grew impressive beards. The Lumière brothers laid the foundation for masterpieces such as Citizen Kane, The Empire Strikes Back, the American Pie franchise.
I wonder if Marie ever went out at night. Every once in a while. I wonder if Pierre ever pried a beaker full of uranium ore out of her hand and dragged her to Montmartre for a walk or a show. I wonder if they had fun, in the few years they had together.
Yes. I’m sure they did. I’m sure they had a blast. And I’m sure, like I’ve never been sure before, that she never regretted anything. That she treasured every second.
The solar lights are on in Levi’s yard, just bright enough for me to see the hummingbird mint, purple and yellow and red. I smile and lift the large, light box from the passenger seat, stopping to coo at it. I know about the spare key hidden under a pot of rosemary, but I ring the doorbell anyway. While I wait, I try to spy into the air holes I carved on the top. Can’t see much.
“Bee?”
I look up. Breathless. Not scared. I’m not scared anymore.
“Hi. I... Hi.” He’s so handsome. Stupidly, unjustly handsome. I want to look at his stupidly, unjustly handsome face for... for as long as I possibly can. Could be a minute. Hopefully, it’ll be seventy years.
“Are you okay?”
I take a deep breath. Schrödinger’s here, too; staring up quizzically at me and my cargo. “Hi.”
“Hi. Are you...?” Levi reaches for me. Abruptly stops himself. “Hey.”
“I was wondering...” I lift up the box. Hold it out to him. Clear my throat. “I was wondering... do you think poor Schrödinger would hate us if we adopted another cat?”
Levi blinks at me, confused. “What do you—?”
Inside the box, Félicette explodes in a long, plaintive meow. Her pink nose peeks out from one of the air holes, her paw from another. I let out a wet, bubbly, happy laugh. Turns out I’m crying again.
Through the tears, I see understanding on Levi’s face. Then pure, overwhelming, knee-shaking joy in his eyes. But it’s only a moment. By the time he reaches over to take the box from my hands, he is grounded. Solid. Profoundly, quietly happy.
“I think,” he says slowly, carefully, his voice a little thick, “that we won’t know until we try.”
EPILOGUE
HERE’S MY FAVORITE piece of trivia in the whole world: Dr. Marie Sklodowska-Curie and Dr. Bee Königswasser-Ward showed up to their wedding ceremonies wearing their lab gowns.
Well. Clothes. Gowns aren’t really a thing anymore. Unless you’re walking the red carpet at the Met Gala or... well, getting married, I guess. Which I was. But. I was wearing a Target dress—yup, the Target dress—which I sometimes wear at work. And I work in a NASA lab, which technically makes it “lab clothes.” I guess I’m a pragmatic gal, too.