In Another Universe, I Said Yes

The choices branch: Each “yes” in one universe becomes a “no” in another. Each “no” becomes a “yes.”

So, how did I get here, holding my infant grandchild?

Let’s say that the night I was in his arms — I was 18, he was 23 — and I didn’t have birth control, instead of “no,” I said “yes.”

Perhaps I became pregnant. And instead of saying “no” to teenage pregnancy, as I always assumed I would, I said “yes.” I had a baby when I was 19. I don’t know if I’d have finished that first year of college, but let’s say I said “yes” at least to that year, taking finals with a newborn in my lap. Afterward, however, a “no” would have been necessary: no more college — not then, perhaps not at all.

Imagine I returned home, and he met his child. Maybe this time the “yes” was both his and mine: Let’s say he said “yes” to the idea of marrying the mother of his baby. If he’d offered, I’d certainly have said “yes.” He might still have fallen for the wispy blonde he met at that first play rehearsal, but he is profoundly loyal, so, committed to me, he’d say “no” to that love.

In this other universe, perhaps he followed the same career trajectory: actor in Denver, then in Seattle, but instead of the wispy blonde, it was me who found a way to bring in a steady income to cover the thin patches between his acting jobs.

We’d have had to contend with volcanic eruptions of personality and psychic sinkholes, but imagine we found the strength, in ourselves and in each other, to say “yes” to fighting it out and through.

I like to think there’s a universe where I had those years with him: watching him be a father, learning together how to be functional adults, and becoming more fully formed human beings. I flatter myself that the outcomes would have been different, better, in terms of the marriage, the love, and the lasting.

So, all those moments of “yes” would have led me to be a mother, a wife, working to make a living but focused primarily on those other beloved human beings.

And in that universe, I wouldn’t know what I’d said “no” to. I wouldn’t know about the years on my own, never married, learning ferocious independence and self-sufficiency. I wouldn’t know about the magnificent struggle of producing a doctoral thesis, the years not raising my own children but “raising” students from adolescence to early adulthood: instilling knowledge, discipline, guidance, encouragement, and hard lessons. Engaging in scholarship. Finding the dear friends who are intellectual as well as emotional companions.

Instead, I’d hold this baby in my arms. Somewhere, so deep I might not notice, I’d feel an emptiness, a potential unfulfilled, one of the best parts of me unused, denied. But I’d hold this child of my child: I’d feel that sweetness against my heart.

In another universe. A different “no.” A different “yes.”