ONE

They were living in wartime. Gloria had no idea who was fighting or how long it had been going on, but the streets of Brea were cratered by bomb blasts, and what used to be the university was little more than massive heaps of steel, glass and concrete rubble. There was no freeway anymore, only crumbling cement pylons indicating where the raised highway had once bisected the eastern half of the city. Their house—if it could be called a house anymore—was missing a section of roof, which was now covered by blue tarp, and there was a huge hole in the outside wall of the living room, also covered by tarp. They had no electricity or running water.

She found Benjamin and their four children sitting on a stained saggy couch, Benjamin reading a Dr. Seuss book to the kids. The two older boys were long past the Dr. Seuss stage, but with no radio, TV or internet to entertain them, they were listening as raptly to If I Ran the Zoo as their younger sisters.

Gloria had gone next door for water. Somehow the Yangs’ outside faucet was still working, although the water that came out of it was rust-colored and undrinkable. They used it to flush the toilet, and drank only what they could find in sealed bottles or cans. She walked back to the bathroom, emptied the two gallon jugs she was carrying into the toilet’s tank and walked back out to the living room. “Your turn,” she told Benjamin. “We need enough for tonight and tomorrow morning.”

“As soon as we finish here, I’m on it.”

He had placed his rifle on the listing table in front of the couch, though he knew she didn’t like having the weapon so close to the children. He must have seen or heard something when he’d gone out on reconnaissance earlier, and her muscles tensed up as she thought about the last time a squad had come down their street, taking out the Lhasas before a drone had assisted the neighborhood militia in taking them out.

They switched duties. Gloria read the kids The Sleep Book while Benjamin went next door for more water. From overhead, she heard the buzzing of a drone—one of theirs, she hoped—and from somewhere not too close yet not too far, the tinny garbled sound of an official announcement broadcast through the speakers of an armored vehicle. She hoped they weren’t going to be evacuated again. This time, they might return to find their house completely destroyed.

Water needs taken care of, Benjamin gave her a high sign as he locked and barricaded the front door. “Mommy and I need to talk for a minute,” he said. “Bradley, watch Luke and your sisters.”

The boy nodded, and Benjamin led her into the bathroom, acting as though they were about to have an important conversation, but as soon as he had locked the door behind him, he pulled his pants down and sat on the closed lid of the toilet. He was already erect, and she took off her own dirty pants and panties and straddled him. A minute or two of deep quick thrusts and they were done, silently dressing before unlocking the door. They shared a smile, and that smile nearly broke her heart. Here in this impossible situation, in this hellish locale, tenderness still bloomed, and Gloria began to tear up, not for herself or even their children, but for Benjamin, who deserved a better, happier existence.

She heard the sound of far-off gunfire, followed by a disconcertingly loud explosion. On the couch, the kids were huddled together, all of them except Bradley closing their eyes and covering their ears. He had his arms around them, trying to be strong, and her heart went out to him as she and Benjamin sat reassuringly on opposite sides of the couch, like sentries protecting the young charges between them.

She tried to remember who was fighting and why, but the war had been going on for so long that she couldn’t recall.

Only that wasn’t quite true, was it? Because she actually hadn’t been here that long. Despite possessing memories of this place, she had only just arrived, and she had arrived for a purpose. She glanced over the kids’ heads at Benjamin, who appeared lost in thought. For once, somehow, her real memories were intact, if not all of them at least most of them, which meant that Gloria knew what was going on. She might not know exactly what was happening in terms of the war and this existence, but she knew the truth behind this existence, understood the real reason why she was here. While she was by no means an expert, she had a layman’s headline knowledge of string theory and the concept of a multiverse. Whether that was applicable or not, Gloria knew that this world was this world only because certain decisions had been made, certain words spoken, certain actions taken. If another decision had been made here, a substitute word spoken or an alternative action taken there, everything would be different, in small ways, or perhaps even larger ones. There were pivot points in life, in time, and given who she was and what she could do, if she was able to find one of those points and zigged instead of zagged…

She could change the narrative.

How she would do that, Gloria had no idea.

But she intended to figure it out.

****

The next morning, after a cold breakfast of stale bread and dusty-tasting bottled water, the same thing they’d had for dinner, the family went out searching for food. On Imperial Highway, women were weeping in the street. An old man was wailing for the family members he had lost. Others were wandering, as they were, trying to find basic necessities. It seemed to Gloria that she should begin looking for a way to escape this existence and change this reality. She recalled, in another place, another time, attending a celebration where she and Benjamin had been suddenly and inexplicably attacked by their friends. She needed to find something like that now, an occasion where the unexpected could occur, where she could be the one to move events in another direction.

Gloria felt a tug on her hand, and glanced over to see Jenny looking up at her. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Luke shook his head. “You were supposed to go at home before we left,” he told his sister.

“But I like the bathroom at the store better! It still works like it’s s’posed to!”

They had not intended to go into Albertson’s. The grocery store had long since been looted of everything, but Jenny was right: the last time they’d gone in, the restroom had still had running water. It might be a good idea for all of them to go to the bathroom, Gloria reasoned. It would save her and Benjamin from having to carry jugs over to the Yangs’ faucet, which, realistically, could go out at any time, leaving them high and dry.

The minute they walked into the darkened supermarket, Gloria could feel that something was off. They seemed to be the only ones in the building, for one thing, which was odd because it was not only a perfect place for squatters but it did have a working bathroom, which should have generated a huge line. They were all alone, though, and the air felt strangely heavy, almost liquid as they moved forward.

She glanced over at Benjamin to see if he felt it, too. Gloria could tell from his expression that he did, and she was about to tell everyone that they needed to leave, when Jenny let go of her hand, broke away, and ran down the first aisle toward the restrooms at the far end.

“Jenny!” she called, but her voice did not travel far through the thick air, and she hurried after her daughter, exhorting the others behind her, “Come on!”

It was much darker back here than it was toward the front of the store where the windows were, and she was surprised her daughter was brave enough to run through the gloom by herself.

She followed Jenny into the bathroom, which fortunately had an opaque skylight that allowed them to see inside the enclosed space. Jenny was already in the closest of the two stalls, and Gloria was ready to yell at her and give her a lecture for running off, when she was suddenly hit by the acrid stench of the bathroom air. The sink faucet was running, she saw, and bug poison flowed from the tap, its harsh chemical odor nearly overwhelming in the confined area.

Gloria opened the bathroom door and told Benjamin, “Hold it there,” while she told Jenny, “Get out of here, now!”

“I’m almost done!”

“Now! And don’t flush! Can’t you smell that poison?”

At the word “poison,” Jenny screamed and dashed out of the stall, pulling up her pants.

Gloria hustled her out of the restroom, and Benjamin closed the door behind them. “Jesus,” Gloria breathed.

From the other side of the building, somewhere beyond the farthest aisle, came a high-pitched keening. It was not constant but ebbed and flowed. The six of them stood there, looking at each other. Gloria had no idea what could possibly be making that sound, and she didn’t want to find out. All she wanted to do was get her family safely back outside, and, as they did in all hazardous situations, they moved without speaking swiftly and in single file up the aisle toward the exit, Gloria in the front, Benjamin in the rear, the kids safely in-between.

It occurred to her as they emerged into daylight that whatever was going on in that supermarket was aimed at Benjamin, was trying to take him out. It also occurred to her that this was one of those pivot points, that if she went in there and confronted whatever was making that terrifying noise, she might be able to shift things.

But she wasn’t going back in there. She would have other, less dangerous opportunities to do what she needed to do, and there was no reason for her to put herself in harm’s way.

A contingent of uniformed soldiers was marching down the center of Imperial Highway behind two armored vehicles. Everyone on the street moved aside to let them pass, many of them cheering. Gloria did not recognize the uniforms, but she knew that the soldiers were on their side in the war.

Whichever side that was.

Her family watched the parade from the Albertson’s parking lot before walking out to the sidewalk. The fact that she knew almost nothing about this war seemed strange. Ordinarily, she would be fully immersed in her life. It would be previous lives, real life, that she would have forgotten. The details of this existence would be a part of her, as though she’d dwelt in this realm since birth. The fact that the usual norms had been upended set off alarm bells within her, and made Gloria realize that she might not have all the knowledge she needed.

She knew enough, however, to pick up a battered battery from the ground when she saw it, aware that batteries were used as currency in those few places that still accepted such tokens rather than bartering for goods. With this Double-A, they’d be able to get a couple of apples, carrots or potatoes, fresh fruit or vegetables that the kids’ growing bodies desperately needed.

“Hide it,” Benjamin said quickly, blocking her from the view of people passing by on the street.

She put the battery in her pocket.

“Let’s go,” he urged.

With the stores all looted, it was in the park that vendors sold their wares from carts and wagons. An armed guard stood at the fenced entrance to the park, making sure that all who entered had the means to pay, and when Gloria showed the stoic man her dented battery, he let her family pass.

In any other place at any other time, the offerings available would have been rejected even for zoo animals, but to their desperate eyes, the wrinkled vegetables and soggy fruit looked like manna from heaven. She was able to buy a brown banana, a soft zucchini and three potatoes with her battery, and Benjamin put them in his shoulder bag with his knife for the trip home.

They went to bed that night with stomachs that were fuller and happier than they had been in a long time.

****

They were awakened in the morning by a knock at the door.

Benjamin instantly grabbed his rifle. The Yangs and their other neighbors knew to identify themselves as friends by knocking twice, slowly, then pausing before knocking three times in rapid succession. This was just a random series of raps on the door, indicating a stranger.

“Let me handle it,” Benjamin said.

Gloria moved in front of him. “Let me handle it.” She didn’t want him to be killed before she figured out a way to save him, and with the children huddling in their rooms and Benjamin right behind her, she peeked through the peephole to see who was out there.

It was her sister Mila.

Her first impulse was to open the door and immediately let Mila in, but she stopped herself. Whatever was trying to keep Benjamin from returning to life always took the form of people close to her: her mother, her father, her children. It was the same here. This wasn’t her sister, she realized. In fact, she had never had a sister. She recognized the person in front of her as a woman who’d been killed by her husband and whose brother had wanted Gloria to bring her back to life.

Why had that woman’s appearance been chosen to represent her sister?

“It’s Mila!” Benjamin said, peering through the peephole and putting his gun aside. Before Gloria could stop him, he had opened the door and let her in.

Gloria tensed, but nothing out of the ordinary happened. Mila gave her a hug, kissed Benjamin on the cheek and remarked on how the children, who had come out of hiding upon hearing her voice, had grown so big that she barely recognized them. It was a regular family reunion, and Gloria even recalled their last meeting and the tearful goodbye, though she was acutely aware that those events had not happened to her.

Who had they happened to, though? What happened before she arrived and after she left? Was there another Gloria?

Or did this entire universe spring into being when she arrived and collapse when she left?

She had no answers for any of these questions, and wasn’t even sure it mattered. She was here for only one reason: to protect her husband and bring him back into what she now thought of as the real world.

Unless it wasn’t.

She didn’t even want to start down that path.

“I was on my way to see Mom, and I thought I’d stop by in case I can’t get across The Gap,” Mila said.

Gloria nodded as though she understood, but no part of what her sister said made any sense to her. Amidst the shattered landscape and personal privations of wartime, Mila’s breezy nonchalance seemed jarringly out of place, and the gaps in her own knowledge meant that Gloria had no idea what “The Gap” was or what would happen if it could not be crossed.

“When’s the last time you saw Mom?” Mila asked.

Benjamin answered for her. “She came over for Jenny’s birthday last month.”

Mila bent down. “Oh, was it your birthday?”

Jenny nodded.

“How old are you now?”

“Ten thousand.”

“That’s a good age.”

Gloria felt uneasy. There was no attempt on her sister’s part to elicit a correct answer, and no one laughed at what Jenny had said or made any effort to correct her.

“I have late birthday presents for all of you,” Mila promised. “They’re in my car. I’ll show you once I get unpacked.” She straightened, addressing Gloria and Benjamin again. “How did Mom look?”

“Not good,” Benjamin answered for them.

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

Gloria looked outside. Mila did have a car, although how she was able to drive it over the cratered, rubble-strewn streets, Gloria had no idea. Leaving the kids inside, she and Benjamin walked out in their underwear, helping Mila unpack for what her sister insisted was merely a one-day stay.

“Have you guys had breakfast yet?” Mila looked at them in their pajamas and underclothes. “I assume not. Get dressed and I’ll have something ready.”

“We don’t—” have anything except potato water, Gloria was about to say, but her sister cut her off. “I brought bagels and oranges.”

The children cheered, jumping up and down excitedly, and even Benjamin had a huge grin on his face. This was like a wish come true, and everyone hurried back down the hallway to change.

Gloria made sure she was out first, slipping on a worn T-shirt and pulling dirty jeans over her torn panties before heading into the kitchen.

“My legs have gotten so hairy,” Mila said as she walked in, and Gloria gasped as her sister hiked up her pants.

Mila had an animal’s legs.

Gloria stared. Goat? Ape? Kangaroo? It was impossible to tell what type of legs were ensconced in those fashionable boots, but they were definitely not human, and she experienced an involuntary shiver as her gaze moved from those hairy sinewy shins to that soft womanly face and back again.

Mila lowered her pantlegs seconds before Jenny and Paula ran into the kitchen. They were followed immediately afterward by Bradley and Luke, all four of them excited at the prospect of having a proper breakfast. “What kind do you want?” Mila asked. “I have blueberry and cinnamon raisin.” She placed a plate of sliced bagels on the tilting table. “I’m going to squeeze us some fresh orange juice.”

“Blueberry!”

“Cinnamon!”

“Raisin and blueberry!”

“Cinnamon!”

Gloria’s mouth was watering, and she temporarily pushed aside all thoughts of her sister’s legs as she herded her children over to the table. Benjamin walked into the kitchen, reaching over their heads and grabbing the top bagel half. “Mmmm,” he said, biting into it.

Gloria allowed the kids to take what they wanted before picking up one of the leftovers. It was cold and untoasted, but when she bit into the sliced bagel, it was delicious. Blueberry.

They all sat down on the mismatched chairs and stools that ringed the breakfast table, talking excitedly. Mila, at the counter, had sliced her oranges and was juicing them. Feeling happy, Gloria turned to Benjamin.

Whose face was turning blue.

He was choking on his bagel.

Gloria screamed, knocking over her chair, causing the children to scream. Benjamin was clutching his throat, and not a sound was issuing from his wide open mouth. His airway was completely blocked. Somewhere, sometime, she’d had CPR training, and she got behind him, threw her arms around his stomach and pulled in as hard as she could. There was no change, and she jerked harder, practically punching his stomach, then immediately repositioning her arms, pointing her joined hands upward then downward as she yanked, trying to find the right angle.

“No!” she screamed.

Was she supposed to put her fingers in his mouth to try to clear the air passage, or was that only for babies and small children? Could the chewed bagel be too doughy to be dislodged in such a manner? Was she supposed to do something else?

She was about to throw him over the back of one of the smaller chairs—it seemed she recalled that being one of the options for larger people—when a high breathy whistle escaped from his open mouth, and he spit an ill-defined lump of bagel onto the floor. He pulled away from her, mouth open, looking upward at the ceiling as he alternated between coughing and loudly sucking in gigantic gulps of air. Gradually, his color returned, and his breathing approached something approximating normal.

Hands shaking, her heart pounding, Gloria hazarded a look at her sister, not surprised to find Mila exhibiting a complete lack of concern for Benjamin’s condition. A flash of anger coursed through her, and Gloria vowed that as soon as they finished eating, she was sending Mila on her merry way. Benjamin had avoided choking to death only by the purest luck, and she wasn’t about to tempt fate by allowing this woman to remain in their house. It was more than possible that this entire breakfast had been arranged in order to kill Benjamin, and Gloria was determined to cut off any chance of a reenactment.

She glanced over at her husband to make sure he was recovering from the incident—

—and he collapsed without uttering a sound as a stray shot from a hail of gunfire that had just erupted in the street, shattered the kitchen window and ripped through his chest.

The wordless cry that escaped from her lips bore no resemblance to human speech and its piercing volume did not abate as she swiftly crossed the five feet between them and instinctively pressed her palm against the gushing wound in the center of his chest. Blood flowed out between her fingers and around the sides of her hand in an unstoppable surge, and though she could feel the pumping of his heart, she could also sense it weakening, the muscles beneath her palm relaxing into death.

“Don’t…” she managed to get out, but could not follow it with another word as she choked on a sob. She had no idea what the kids were doing, or Mila, but she could not afford to take her eyes off Benjamin. Call 911, she wanted to say, but there was no 911 in this world, and at that second, she knew that he was going to die. She looked into his face, and though his eyelids were fluttering, his gaze remained focused on her. “Don’t die,” she said, and her voice was barely audible even to herself. “Don’t die…”

Through his pain, Benjamin managed to smile at her, but the smile instantly began fraying around the edges as he started to fade away. Outside, shots were still being fired. Another window shattered.

Maybe this was a pivot moment, she told herself.

She took her hands off the wound, which was no longer gushing as his heart was too weak to pump, and she lay down on the floor, holding Benjamin close, hugging his bloody body. Her lips brushed his ear. “This war is over,” Gloria whispered.