Coin-Flip

Part IV: Possibilities

She stands there on the stage in her cap and gown and shakes the dean's hand. The black satin shifts with every movement. Behind her, a line of students -- her classmates, she realizes -- wait their turn. She does not recognize them.

When the ceremony is done and they are seated once more, a student shouts a signal. As if with one mind, all the students simultaneously throw their caps in the air and catch them. She looks around at her classmates' shining faces.

Everything you could be.

Their celebration is full of joy, but there's a hint of sadness beneath it. Most of them will not see each other again. They might promise to keep in touch, but she knows how these things go. They will slowly fade from each other's lives eventually, be it in one month or two years or three decades.

She searches the crowd for Noah's face, but he is not there.

--

They step lightly together, she and this man she does not know, moving as a single person. She is wearing an elaborate white gown. A veil covers her face, blurring the man's features, but she can tell that he is smiling. She feels secure in his arms, even when he dips her low to the ground.

He leans in close and murmurs, You are everything in the world to me. Then they are whirling away again, stepping one-two-three four-five-six across the marble floor.

--

The blackboard before her is covered in cramped writing and chalkdust. She scribbles confidently, uncovering a new truth with each stroke of the chalk in her hand. The figures come to life at her fingertips, Arabic numerals and Greek letters and other symbols she cannot name, combining themselves into the elegant equations she sees in her mind's eye. Behind her, the students sit at their desks, furiously copying down the proof.

When she speaks, they look at her with wonder. She is all they want to be. In her mind, quarks and leptons jump anywhere and everywhere, an invisible world she navigates like the back of her hand.

Everything you could do.

She has worked hard for years, first in college and then in graduate school, amassing knowledge grain by grain. She understands the universe. She understands life.

--

The baby's wails are almost painful to hear, but she doesn't waver. She rocks him gently, humming under her breath.

How can anyone truly understand life without holding it like this, feeling its restless heat through the blankets, listening to the faint fluttering heartbeat under the ribcage? Life is so much more than just a vibration of strings or a convenient arrangement of atoms. Life is love, and they say that a mother's love is the strongest of all.

Her son finally goes quiet. She kisses his nose, strokes his soft hair, lets him lock his small fingers around her thumb. In that moment, she realizes that she would walk through fire for him. She whispers to oblivious ears: Mommy will keep you safe. Mommy will never leave you. Mommy loves you more than anything else in the world.

--

The graves are all the same size. Her father's, her mother's, and her brother's, all side-by-side in a row. She is the only one left. They have left a space for her.

She sets a bouquet of fresh lilies at the foot of each headstone. The engraved words seem to jump out at her, screaming the names of her parents and brother: Alyssa. Daniel. Brendan. She remembers how vibrant they each were in life -- Mom's rose-gold voice, Dad's carefree laugh, Brendan's fierce eyes. The gravestones are cold and dark, nothing like the people they are meant to represent.

Her gaze lingers on the blank patch of grass next to her brother's grave. Someday she will sleep there, reunited with the earth from which she came.

She closes her eyes, and the world swallows her whole.