IGMS Issue 49 (15 page)

But no, there's the crib, just as she expected. As an object, it's beautiful. The wood is dark, highly polished, and carved with a pattern of oak leaves. He has worked hard on this. She's smelled it on him, sawdust and hope, for months. Ever since her last promotion, when they could finally afford the application fees.

She presses her open palm to her flat stomach and tries to imagine what it might feel like to have life flutter there.

She has always dreamed of a child. A daughter, actually, with impossible hair and dirty nails. For the past three years, since she and Dante bought the house, she's imagined her daughter with his crooked smile and her long eyelashes. And even still, Paula dreams her daughter with Marcus's bright, infectious laugh.

"Paula?" Dante sounds worried and more than a little hurt.

She's forgotten to act happy.

"I'm sorry." Her hands are shaking. She lets them drop to her sides. "It's just, there's still so much we need to do if we want to go through with this."

"We don't have to." He says it like it's easy. As if he hasn't spent four months making a crib for their imagined child. "I thought this was what we wanted."

She should never have told him she wanted kids. But the Family Stability Act is new, only a year since the president signed it. She remembers the speech. So many promises. No more crime, no more divorce, no more loneliness. Just limit co-parenting licenses to resonance-bonded couples and everything would be paradise.

She looks at Dante, the wounded hope in his expression. He is so convinced that he loves her. He's never had to know the difference.

"It's beautiful," she says. "You know me. Good things scare me."

"You just need more good things, that's all."

"You're my good thing," she says. And he smiles his lopsided smile.

Her fondness for him is her fondness for cool, clear water. She likes how she can't see herself in his eyes.

He leads her over to the crib, and she dutifully makes all the right admiring noises. He has poured himself into it, this symbol of a dream. She runs her fingers over smooth wood, spots spiders carved among the leaves, blinks to keep the tears from her eyes.

"There's the application fee, the psych exam, the reference letters." He's counting the to-do list off on his fingers. "Do you think I should ask my brother for a letter?"

"Better not." She's can't help playing along. She's tried to tell him. She's explained that what they have is light and warmth and not at all like love. He still believes. He'll believe until he's given his list and she's not on it.

"You're right," he says. "And of course, I'll have to get scanned. Do you have to go again?"

She was scanned at fifteen. Her parents made the appointment as a birthday present. The technology was still new then, the idea still thrilling. Soul mates. Or resonance cohorts, as the scientists call them.

There had only been three names on the list they sent her. The scan was prohibitively expensive back then. Young, and still shy of the idea that she might have girl soul mates, Paula had only cared about the one boy listed. Marcus.

Dante had never been scanned. He'd never gotten a pony either. So many extravagant, terrible gifts he'd missed out on.

"No," she says. "Cohorts never change. That's the point."

"Well," he says, finally sounding nervous. "Will you come with me at least?"

She takes his hand, lets him help her up. "Of course," she says. She will take what minutes she can with him. Perhaps, he'll stay. Living with her should be warning enough against this idea of soul mates.

He kisses her, and he tastes like wood and summer. "I'll make the appointment today."

Dante starts to fidget the moment they enter the waiting room. His nerves come out in the restless way he scans his phone, the way he squeezes her hand, the constant bouncing of his left knee. Paula strokes his fingers, ignoring her own anxieties in an attempt to soothe him. She had forgotten how much he hated hospitals.

The nurse who leads them back is large and soft spoken. He talks about the process with the measured cadences of someone who's said the same lines many times before. Paula catches his gaze darting between them, his slight frown, and wonders if it's that easy to tell what the test will say.

"And now, if you'll just fill these out, the doctor will be right with you."

Dante sits, still jittering, with his pen and his stack of forms. "Why is there a waiver?" he asks.

"Things can happen, I guess. If you don't want to go through with it, I'll understand." She pats his arm, and reaches for her purse. Hoping.

"We have to," he says. "I can do this." He bends his head and starts scribbling his name.

The walls of the office are covered in posters about compatibility resonance, all done in bright, friendly colors. Paula can't help but read them as she waits. The illustration of two resonance fields forming a heart is particularly cloying. She skims the usual facts, a dozen or so per cohort, average age spread four years, geographic clumping and anomalies. There's even a poster on the Family Stability Act, which tells her the divorce rate among resonance matches is only 1.8 percent.

That's the argument that really sold them in Congress. No more children of broken homes. What a rallying cry.

"You okay?" Dante asks.

Paula forces herself to breathe evenly.

"I don't want you to be disappointed," she says. "It might not come out the way you expect."

He points at the poster with the heart-shaped resonance field. "Let's see, overwhelming euphoria, matched interests, and a sense of spiritual wholeness." He kisses her cheek. "We've got all the symptoms."

The doctor knocks, ending the conversation. Like the nurse, she glances between them, and Paula catches the ghost of a frown before her professional smile settles into place. They sit quietly while she scans Dante's paperwork.

"Alright then, Mr. Reyes. Looks like you're all in order. We can take you back now."

"How long will it take?" Dante asks. His grip makes Paula's fingertips tingle.

"The scan only takes about twenty minutes." The doctor is brisk and calm. "Painless, I promise. Results take about two weeks. We'll mail them to you."

"Mail?" Paula asks.

"Government funding. If we don't keep the Post Office busy, who will?"

"Well, let's do this." Dante stands, still holding Paula's hand. "Can she come back with me?"

The doctor shakes her head. "Afraid not. The machine's pretty sensitive. A second resonance signature within fifty feet can throw off the results."

"I'll be waiting right here." Paula promises as she pulls her fingers free. He leaves her then.

Hell is a wall covered in pictures of smiling soul mates and none of them aware of what's coming. Where's the poster with the tombstone? Where are the razors, the bottles of pills, or three helpful tips on finding a good bridge to jump from? They're promising a love that never ends.

Everything ends.

When Dante dies, she won't try to follow him. She'll cry at his favorite songs or when she smells fresh cut wood. But he'll leave an ache, not the festering sore that is still her memory of Marcus. It's better that way.

Or it would be, if it weren't for the law and Dante's foolish conviction. Will she lose him too, when all his pretty dreams crumble? She's braced herself for his death but never considered mere abandonment. According to the posters, 54 percent of unmatched marriages end in divorce.

Forever, he tells her, just like the posters.

Everything ends.

A week after the appointment, Paula's mother drops by for her weekly visit. She's dressed for war: a white sunhat with a profusion of plastic birds nesting among neon silk flowers. It could be worse. When she really wants a fight, she wears a cloche.

"Paula, love," she says, kissing Paula on each cheek as she breezes in. "Get your mother some wine, won't you?"

Paula hands her a glass, already waiting, and they settle in the living room, where her mother perches uncomfortably on the third-hand sofa.

"What are we drinking?" her mother asks, in a tone of practiced disapproval.

"Same thing as last week, Mother. We like it. It's cheap."

"And what's the point of your new fancy title and all those extra hours if you don't buy decent wine?" She picks the glass back up, takes another drink, makes the same face. She'll finish it, and take a second glass. She always does. "Speaking of, what's this I hear about you skipping Kati's birthday party?"

"It's at noon. I can't take off work to sing happy birthday to a two-year-old. As it is, I'm going to have to find time in a month or two when Alexa has the next one." Paula considers her own glass but knows better than to start drinking while her mother's present. They're good enough at fighting without the help.

"Is that what this is about?" Her mother's voice softens. "Darling, if having a child is that important to you, then you take Dante and find a nice place in Canada. I'll lend you the money. But don't take it out on your sister."

The words are well meant. Paula tries to remember that.

"He got scanned last week, actually." Lightly said, through gritted teeth.

Her mother looks down. Glances out the window. Her gaze finds dozens of places that aren't Paula, and it rests on each one. She doesn't speak.

"It was his idea," Paula says.

"Of course." She sets her glass on the side table, next to a picture of Dante and Paula on their last trip to Mexico. Dante's grandmother stands between them, beaming.

"He made a crib," Paula says. "As a surprise."

Paula's mother picks up the picture, and her smile is warm. "You know I like Dante," she tells the picture. "He's been a gift. But you know what the scan's going to say."

"I know." It's not something she can force. She can't remake herself into the person he belongs with. She will never be his soul mate. It's why she chose him. "He believes it, though. He thinks he loves me."

Her mother sets the picture down, very carefully. "You know, your father and I have been married 35 years."

"Yes," Paula answers, puzzled.

"35 years. We've survived war, cancer, even children. He still brings me flowers every Sunday. He pretends to like my hats. I love your father." She tugs absently at her wedding ring, then settles it back into place. "But he's not my soul mate."

"Of course he is." Paula's seen the way her father brightens when her mother enters the room. Has heard the laugh her mother saves for him alone.

"No, darling. Love is something your father and I choose. You and Marcus, your sister and her wife, that's different. That's love as something you are." She shakes her head, her expression growing introspective. "I think we were wrong, to get you girls scanned so young. It was so new at the time, so exciting. True love. I wanted that for you."

"You didn't know how hard it'd be to lose."

"No. And we didn't know how hard it'd be to watch, either. You two, you ate each other up. There was nothing left for the rest of the world. You made no space in yourselves. Your sister's just as bad."

She remembers. Marcus had been brighter, more colorful, more real than everyone else. "That's love."

"That's addiction." Her mother takes her hand and her grip is soft and cool. "I know we almost lost you, after you lost him. But then you came alive. You made friends. You went out. You even let your mother come over for terrible wine."

It takes Paula a moment to process her mother's words. She pulls her hand away. "You're saying you're glad Marcus died?"

"Good lord, Paula! I'm saying you're not fifteen anymore. You don't need a storybook. Move to Canada. Or Mexico. You and Dante are happy. So be happy about it."

Paula stands. "I'll be at Kati's party," she promises. "But I have some work to get done, tonight."

"Darling." It's an objection, but her mother straightens her hat and walks to the door.

"Goodnight, Mother."

"Love is just a word, Paula. It means what you let it."

"Of course," she says. Her mother leaves, and Paula is left with silence.

She still has hours yet before Dante returns. She cleans the wine glasses, straightens the pillows, puts the picture back on the side table. She picks up her e-reader, and then sets it down again. All stories are love stories.