Color returned to Ed’s face, and he found again the smile that tears had earlier washed away.
“Just wait,” he said.
“For what?”
“You’ll see!”
Muttering to himself, he fumbled through the compartments of his coat, like the White Rabbit searching for a pocket watch.
“Another book?” she asked. “You carry the Library of Ed with you?”
“No, no. What would a book prove?” He produced a folded piece of paper, opened it, smoothed it flat. “This is from his Facebook page.” He slid the photograph across the table.
“Whose Facebook page?”
The answer was in the photo, and it stunned her speechless.
Here was her Jeffy, older than he had been on the day he died, smiling that goofy smile of his.
The hope that abruptly flooded into Michelle was so powerful that it filled her until her breast ached with the pressure of it, until she could not draw a breath, as if she might drown in hope.
With Jeffy was a lovely girl who looked eleven, a girl who had been four the day that she’d been run down by an Escalade and killed with her father. Spared from death, blessed with life, this Amity had changed so much, so very much, but there could be no doubt who she was.
“I found them,” Ed Casper Harkenbach said.
Michelle couldn’t look up from the photo, for fear that when she lowered her eyes to it again, Jeffy and Amity would be gone, the paper blank.
If this image was not Photoshopped, then they had died, yes, but not in all the worlds where they lived.
The word miracle was inadequate.
“If this isn’t true, don’t do this to me, Ed.”
“In that world,” he said, “you aren’t in their lives, haven’t been for years. He still loves you very much and misses you. And the girl—she’s a wonderful girl, a treasure—she yearns for you. We can do this, Michelle. We can do this. I guarantee you. I have prepared the way.” He picked up the key to everything and came around the table. “Shall I give you a demonstration?”
“What demonstration?”
r /> “You’re not ready to meet them. But a small trip to prove what I’ve said . . . ?”
He pulled her chair back, and with some trepidation, she rose to her feet. He escorted her to the door to the hallway but didn’t pass through it.
“Take my arm,” he said. “Hold tight.”
The screen of his device brightened with pale-gray light.
As she watched him tap a button marked Select and then work with a keypad when one appeared, her doubt returned. She felt foolish for participating in what would certainly result in an assurance that, gee, what a surprise, it always worked before.
“Here we go,” he said.
The kitchen vanished.
They were afloat in a realm without shape or dimension. Blinding light washed over them, dazzled through them, light so intense and strange that they might have been standing for judgment in the brightness of God.
Then they were in the kitchen again, but it was dark. When Ed flipped the light switch, Michelle saw a familiar room yet one with numerous small differences, the absence of her personal things.
“This is Jeffrey’s house on Earth one point ten, a world where he never married, where Amity was never born. He lives alone here, a bachelor. Currently he’s on the road for two weeks, checking swap meets and antique barns, looking for his radios, Bakelite jewelry, period posters.”
As Ed led her through the bungalow, Michelle’s legs felt weak. Her breath repeatedly caught in her throat at one sight or another. The place was stocked with all the things that her lost husband had loved to collect and restore and share with his customers. Because the rooms were so imprinted with Jeffy’s passions, they were warm, cozy, welcoming—yet ineffably sad. She didn’t believe she imagined the air of loneliness that faded the charm of the bright, stylized Art Deco objects and images. Jeffy was outgoing. He thrived on companionship. He had not been born to live alone.