TIMOTHY MET HIS wife, Deborah, in 2009, when he was in his mid-thirties—rather late by Midwest standards. Like Harry and Amanda, most Hoosiers married immediately after graduation. Many were due to unplanned pregnancies, but most married because it’s what was socially conventional. Midwesterners were the type to usually do what’s expected of them.

Timothy, however, hadn’t dated much in college. He went out with Amanda’s friend Sophia a couple of times, but she ended it because she didn’t think he was serious about his career. (Timothy was twenty and, like most collegiate twenty-year-olds, undecided regarding his future. The thought of having a career was as foreign to him as the prospect of being debt-free.)

Sophia had entered college with a four-year plan involving graduation and marrying a boy whose two-step career path involved getting an MBA in finance, then becoming an investment banker. When she saw Timothy’s multiple video game systems, the Cape Canaveral movie posters, and the science fiction paperbacks on the bookshelf, she offered her critique, which included the phrase, “…never be able to take care of someone with my needs,” and left, leaving Timothy confused. When he was in middle school, he’d been told by his lunch tablemates the only reason a woman visits a man’s apartment is for sex. When Sophia left, Timothy realized there might be other reasons for girls to come over to a guy’s apartment, reasons his childhood classmates might not have known about.

By the time Timothy met Deborah, all his friends were enjoying being parents of precocious tweens. His friends would post pictures on social media of happy family vacations at water parks or ski resorts. Viewing their fulfilled lives, a profound loneliness would fall upon Timothy, as though a level boss who excelled at spellcasting was weakening his charisma, and he would have to go into town and buy the proper potion to counter the spell. This would mean going on several side quests first and earning enough coins, the proper potion to defeat a level boss being pretty pricey. When faced with the anguish of adulthood, Timothy applied ancient tactics to combat his melancholy; he pulled the blinds in his apartment, microwaved some pizza rolls, poured himself a giant cup of neXt-Level, and played video games until he passed out. Then Deborah Jennings walked into his office.

Deborah had been a college track star, specializing in the high jump. She had always aimed to overachieve. She graduated high school a year early, attended Notre Dame on academic and athletic scholarships, worked for the school’s athletic department after graduation, and when she discovered the school was mismanaging its money, published an exposé on the inefficiency of collegiate administrations. Her book earned her speaking engagements and consulting fees, taking her to universities across the country, advising them on how to streamline their procedures and budgets. In 2009, Indiana University Bloomington contracted Deborah as a consultant to help the school save money by identifying and eliminating wasteful inefficiencies.

Timothy’s office was in an older building, the Karl Malden Building for the Advancement of Biology and Chemistry and Center for Fedora Research and Innovation. His office was technically too small to be called an office; it was more of a cubicle with a door. His desk fit snuggly against three of the walls. The desktop doubled as a bookcase. Timothy had surrounded his ancient Commodore 64 with stacks of books and papers. His computer took ten minutes to boot up when turned on. He was able to grade 40 percent of his papers while he waited for the computer to load. A phone sat at his feet under the desk. For budgetary reasons, Timothy had to plug his computer—which relied on a free internet trial disk given to freshman during orientation for internet connection—into the phone jack to connect to the internet. He was able to grade the rest of the papers between internet bufferings.

On the day he met Deborah Jennings, she had been touring the campus, led by Geoff Richter, the assistant to the dean. The Karl Malden Building was her last stop.

“As you can see,” Geoff said, his voice slithering toward Timothy’s office, “this is one of our older buildings. It currently houses the offices for our nontenured faculty and our groundskeeping crew, and it warehouses boxes of fedoras from when the school received a massive grant from the hat wear industry.”

“The offices seem dilapidated.”

The hallway carpet was stained from coffee spills left by researchers attempting to escape during the Great Fedora Breakout of ’72. (Activists had emancipated the fedoras being studied and released them into the building. Three interns were killed when the fedoras attained sentience and suffocated the students. By the time Timothy’s office was in the building, the sentient fedoras had been burned, the others boxed up, and all fedora research halted. But the school hadn’t learned from its history. In late 2009, they reopened their research, having received a grant to study the long-term effects of fedora-wearing fathers forcing their infant sons to wear matching hats.)

Curious as to the source of the songful voice, Timothy stuck his head into the hall, then quickly jerked it back. His heart raced, and he began to sweat. Walking toward him was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. She was tall, skinny but muscular, with flowing brown hair. She wore a gray pantsuit and black blouse, passing the confined offices with self-assurance. Timothy thought she might be Lieutenant Megan Strata come to life.

“And who’s this?” she asked, sticking her head into Timothy’s office.

“This,” Geoff said, “is one of our non-tens. You don’t need to worry about him.”

“Universities are a system,” Deborah said. “Everything works in tandem to serve the student, from the professors to the campus security to the administration. It’s my job to determine where those systems are bogged down, what works and what doesn’t.”

“This one obviously doesn’t work that often.”

“I’ll be the one who determines that.”

Deborah introduced herself to Timothy.

“How many hours a week do you teach?” she asked.

“Six,” Timothy said. “Two two-hour lectures, then two one-hour labs. All Intro to Chemistry.”

“Do you have a TA?”

“Just for the labs. But they just help pass out the safety glasses.”

“And you grade everything yourself.”

“Yes. But the labs don’t require much grading. Since they’re intro classes, the students spend their time making models of molecules out of straws and Styrofoam balls.”

“What about working with chemical compounds?”

“For the intro classes? You don’t want to trust some of these kids with potentially combustible chemicals. And we don’t really have the budget for it.”

“Sounds like you’re underfunded.”

“We allocate our resources to where they’re needed most,” Geoff said.

“And that would be the new scoreboard on the football stadium?” Deborah asked.

“The university invests its money in numerous areas.”

“And what do you think, Timothy? Are you underfunded?”

“As an individual or as a member of the science department?”

“You’re about to be unemployed, non-ten,” Geoff said.

Timothy’s computer froze, the spinning wheel stuck in one position. Sweat dripped down his neck into his collar.

“If this is how you treat your staff,” Deborah said, “it’s no wonder you need my services.”

(Geoff Richter had been raised to believe in the system, the righteousness of it. His father had been an insurance salesman, and his mother had been the school board president for Vanderburg County for seven consecutive terms. As a child, he’d volunteered to be hall monitor even though his elementary school didn’t have one; he even provided his own sash. When Geoff was reprimanded by his teacher for issuing an unenforceable citation to Fredrick Howard for opening his lunch box in the hall, Geoff’s mother had intervened, and the entire school had to continue to endure Geoff in his purple sash citing students for imagined infractions.)

“Well, uh, I…” Geoff had never been spoken to that way. “I’m ensuring that certain standards are maintained. Without me, this world-class university would lose all its credibility. We’d be no better than one of those correspondence schools advertised during midday game shows. Now, are you going to make a note of this overweight, lazy non-ten or not?”

“Oh, I’m definitely making some notes,” Deborah said.

“I have spent the day attempting to show you where this school spends its money effectively, and where it’s wasted,” Geoff said. “I can see now you’re not interested in the fiduciary workings of our school.”

“You know why I’m considered the top expert in collegiate budgetary waste?” Deborah asked. “It’s because I spend hours, days even, doing the things no one else is willing to do. I’ve already audited the university’s budget, weighing it against its revenue and what it receives in return for those investments. I’ve also spent hours interviewing faculty and staff—especially the faculty—prior to your guided tour. I’ve found that the way the faculty feel they’re being treated always correlates with how much they’re being compensated which correlates to how invested they are in their students. You see this faculty member—you said your name was Timothy?—as a nuisance, but he is more vital to this university than you. I’m still a few days away from presenting my findings to the university’s board, but I’ve already found one area to trim—one bloated salary to cut.”

Timothy was completely in awe of Deborah and her refusal to bend. She embodied authority. For most of his life, Timothy had hidden from the world, sequestering himself in his basement or office, fearful his darkest secret might be discovered, that he wasn’t normal. He knew from experience normal people weren’t very tolerant of differences, no matter how harmless. But Deborah had wielded her authority to defend him as though she were a mage casting a cloaking spell, protecting him from the dark wizard’s oaf. When Timothy was younger, only Harry and Keanna had protected him and encouraged him to be himself. His parents, on the other hand, had moved him across three states and demanded he suppress his proclivities.

“Timothy,” Deborah said, “how would you like to discuss all the ways this school distributes its financial resources and how those resources could be more efficiently utilized over coffee?”

“Sure,” Timothy said, his voice breathy. There was a long silence as sweat dripped from his head. He wanted to wipe it, felt his napkin bulging in his pocket, but thought if he did, it would draw attention to how nervous he was.

Finally, Deborah said, “I’m not familiar with the coffee shops in town. Where would you like to meet?”

“Um…” Timothy’s mind went blank as Deborah loomed over him, his beautiful savior.

“This morning, I passed a place just off campus. How about we meet there in an hour?”

“Uh, sure. An hour.”

“Pathetic,” Geoff said, glaring at Timothy before following Deborah down the hall.

Timothy stood in his door as they exited his hallway. When the hall door shut, he began breathing heavily, almost hyperventilating.

He had a date! (The last time he’d felt this excited, he’d unlocked secret vehicles in Grand Theft Auto III. A date, however, was significantly more momentous than finding souped-up cars he could use to commit felonies in a video game.)

He had a date?

With this realization came the awareness that he hadn’t been on a date since college, didn’t know how to act around women, and that he was actually afraid of them. (When Timothy saw girls on campus, their belly shirts snug on their scholarly torsos, he walked faster, pretending to ignore them, although secretly, he was picturing their exposed midriffs painted blue or green.) But his most important realization was the tangy smell floating around his office.

Timothy smelled his armpits. They reeked of the shame of a late bloomer. He ran to the bathroom and splashed water on his face. Then he took his shirt off and held the armpits under the running water. He pumped foam soap into his hands. He scrubbed his armpits and the shirt, then rinsed the froth. Timothy sniffed the shirt again, and when he was convinced it was clean, he held it under the hand dryer, continually pressing the button to keep the hot air blowing. After a half hour, his shirt was still damp. He buttoned his partially wet shirt with the large wet spots under his arms. He slipped on his jacket, hiding the moist pits, and walked to the coffee shop, wondering what he was going to talk to Deborah about.

He had a date.

At a coffee house on East Kirkwood Avenue, Timothy and Deborah talked about everything except administrational efficiency. They talked about their childhoods; growing up in the late eighties, early nineties; Bill Clinton and George W. Bush; their favorite movies; their favorite foods; their childhood pets. Timothy had been playing his way through Cape Canaveral: Renegade Brigade and realized he didn’t think of playing it once while with Deborah. Coffee turned into dinner, dinner into drinks. They went back to Deborah’s hotel, where they made gentle and awkward love for about a minute and a half, after which Timothy apologized repeatedly for finishing early. (Later, after several dates, he admitted this was his first time sleeping with a woman. Deborah pretended to be surprised.) Deborah, an efficiency expert, appreciated Timothy’s sexual brevity, but rolled him onto his back and mounted him for seventeen minutes and twenty-three seconds, wondering why she had to do everything herself.

For the rest of the week, they spent their evenings together, Timothy sweating nervously into his dinner, falling in love with the woman who made him feel safe, even if it was a safety dependent on secrets—a secret his parents had conditioned him to protect. And on Deborah’s final night in town, sitting across from her, Timothy lifted a slice of Hawaiian pizza and swore to himself that he’d keep certain aspects of his life private, knowing Deborah would never be able to understand.

When Deborah’s time in Bloomington was up, she returned to Chicago. Timothy cried as he hugged her goodbye, not wanting her to leave. To his delight, she called that night to say she’d arrived safely, and over the next few months, they devoted their evenings to captivating phone conversations, his heart aching for her. Then one day Deborah called to say she’d decided she could run her consulting business from anywhere and was moving to Bloomington. Timothy was overjoyed. Unable to contain his feelings any longer, he blurted those three magic words and melted when Deborah said she was in love with him too. When she arrived in Bloomington, her Lexus laden with necessities, Timothy proposed. Holding his bride’s hand at the altar as he stared into her eyes, Timothy believed they would grow old together, start a family, be in love forever. But ten years later, their lives barely resembled that promise.

They were in their late thirties when they decided to try to have children. They’d read every pamphlet and blog available, knew the odds were getting worse with each passing year. Timothy and Deborah saw neonatal specialists, went to an acupuncturist, tried everything short of taking a trip to a clinic in Mexico and having his blood injected into her veins. After seven months of regular appointments, charting ovulation, and mechanical copulation, they finally conceived. They were elated. Upon seeing the pea-sized heart beating on the ultrasound, Timothy cried, overwhelmed by love. At night, he would lie in bed wiping his tears because he knew he would give everything he had to his child, everything for the rest of his life. It scared and consoled him. He finally understood the fear his parents had felt, why they’d been so severe. He was their son, and they were terrified for him. When Timothy found out he was having a son, he took the sonogram pictures to work, forcing his colleagues to share in his joy. To celebrate, Harry took him out to dinner. The bill was more than Harry had in his account, and Timothy ended up paying.

Deborah endured morning sickness and enhanced senses. Everything smelled. When walking down College Avenue on a Saturday, she could smell where intoxicated students had urinated on trash cans while stumbling back to their dorms after the bars closed. Timothy supported her through all of it, driving her to doctor appointments and prenatal yoga, rubbing her feet, doing everything a soon-to-be father was supposed to do. What he loved most was watching the baby kick. It would push against the inside of Deborah’s belly, and he’d try to tickle his son’s foot before it disappeared. Timothy imagined their baby giggling inside the womb, and Deborah would indulge him, saying she felt the baby hiccup.

Then one Tuesday night, Timothy’s little boy stopped kicking. He usually kicked after dinner, but when Deborah sat down on the couch, she couldn’t feel him moving. Timothy put his hand on her belly hoping to feel tiny feet flicking, but he felt nothing. Unsure of what to do, they went to the hospital. On the drive over, Timothy tried to be positive. He kept saying the baby was just sleeping and would start kicking again in the morning. He refused to admit what he knew had happened.

At the hospital, a nurse ran an ultrasound, then said she’d be right back and rushed from the room. An ob-gyn came in and ran the ultrasound again, and in a soft voice intended to be consoling, told them she couldn’t find the heartbeat.

Thoughts tumbled through Timothy’s head. This is wrong. You made a mistake. Try again. There must be something. The machine must be broken. There has to be something there. And then: No. This is it. You know it is. And his thoughts gave way to emptiness.

Timothy held Deborah’s hand while she cried and he sat in shock, staring at the image on the ultrasound—his child inverted, floating upside down. Timothy squeezed her hand tighter as her ob-gyn told them that Deborah needed an operation to remove their child from her womb.

Timothy sat in the hospital waiting room with families who awaited the results of their loved ones’ appendectomies, tonsillectomies, or elective surgeries. The families were cheerful, hopeful despite the uncertainty. Timothy leaned over in the plastic waiting room chair, holding his hands together, his imagination spinning unchecked. What if Deborah didn’t survive the surgery? If the doctor delivered that update in the even tones of professionalism, Timothy was sure he’d collapse. His mind flashed to the conclusion of his imagined future, to sitting alone on the couch. Always alone. Timothy knew this was just his imagination getting the best of him; it had a way of doing that.

Deborah’s surgeon, Dr. Sparks, approached Timothy, but he didn’t recognize her. He sat upright, adopting perfect posture, knowing whatever the news, it couldn’t compare to what he’d already suffered. Dr. Sparks sat next to him, a white box on her lap. A green bow sealed it as though it were a delicate present. She held it between her hands but didn’t grip it with her fingers. Handing it to Timothy, Dr. Sparks said the hospital staff prepared the boxes for people who had lost children. Timothy tugged on the green ribbon, untying its knot. Inside were two cards. One was a generic greeting card signed by all the staff offering hollow condolences. Timothy wondered how many times a day they signed cards like this and if they gave them for broken legs or sliced cysts the way they did for lost children. The other card was larger and white. Timothy opened it. Inside were little baby handprints and footprints with blood merging with the spirals of ink.

Timothy put his hand over his mouth, tried to muzzle his sobbing. It wasn’t his child’s blood stamped on the page; it was Deborah’s. His child and wife were forever bonded on the page in ink and blood. With tears in his eyes, he looked away from the card. An overweight man wearing a Hoosier’s football T-shirt with the sleeves cut off stared at him. Timothy turned to the doctor, hoping she’d reach out, touch his shoulder. But Dr. Sparks, a trained professional, stared at her shoes and continued talking about Deborah’s surgery. Timothy folded the card and set it in the box. He wiped his tears and waited for a nurse to wheel Deborah from the recovery room so he could take her home.

Driving home from the hospital, Timothy continued to hold Deborah’s hand. He focused on the road, knowing he had to keep it together until they reached their house. Deborah crawled into bed, Timothy joining her, and the two of them cried and held each other until their eyes were dry and they were exhausted by their grief.

For days after, insignificant moments would remind them of their loss—a commercial or a song. A constant trigger for Timothy was a father with a young child. He would watch them play, observe the joy and love on the father’s face, and think, That should have been me.

A few days after they returned from the hospital, Timothy resumed working. That evening when he came home, Deborah was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a glass of wine. Neither Timothy nor Deborah were big drinkers, but they would occasionally have a glass of wine with dinner. When Timothy saw her drinking, he didn’t think it was odd considering what she’d been through, although it was only 4:30 in the afternoon.

What he did think was odd was Deborah having a glass of wine every afternoon that week. Then one glass became two, then three, then a bottle. Concerned, Timothy asked her about it. She told him to mind his own business.

Around this time, the latest Cape Canaveral game was released. Considering what he’d just been through, reality flattening his hopes, Timothy found the notion of withdrawing into a digital landscape alluring. As Deborah’s connection with drinking deepened, Timothy cultivated his online relationships, including his digital liaison with Lexlitha. Eventually the vows Timothy and Deborah had made to each other eroded, leaving them more like roommates than a married couple.