“Till death do us part,” Libby said softly, her voice catching. She swallowed hard.
“We’re not through fighting this cancer thing,” he said urgently. “We’ll beat it, Libby. We’ll beat it.”
“Umm.” Patting his hand, she moved it off her shoulder. She stood and walked over to the kitchen counter, where she opened a cupboard. “Why don’t you take a shower, and I’ll make a quick dinner before you have to go teach class.” Libby looked over her shoulder at him, forcing a small smile.
He stared at her a minute, his face sagging. “Libby, let me help,” he said quietly.
Libby turned away, busying herself at the cupboard; she couldn’t stand the guilt she carried at being the cause of his sorrow. “No, it’s all right. Go on now.”
He was quiet a moment. “Okay, then,” he said in a monotone as he moved away.
* * * *
Libby steeled herself as she sat down in front of the viewer the next day. She stroked the viewer casing a few times before she could move her hand to the switch. Finally, she flipped it on.
As Roger had warned, she encountered worlds too much like her own. Whenever she heard any mention of cancer or chanced upon a reflection of her other self and saw the turban, she twisted the tuner.
When she encountered one self who was sobbing frantically, Libby stopped, unable to move on. While Libby had cried from time to time by herself to release some of the tension of her situation, she never went into histrionics like this. Libby touched the viewer screen, longing to comfort her alternate self, and received a small shock from static electricity. She jerked her hand back.
The other woman’s sobs were dying when Roger’s voice called out, “Libby?” from the viewer.
The alternate Libby grabbed a napkin, dabbing at her face, as her Roger walked into the kitchen.
Libby thought he looked just like her own husband—big build, thin, graying hair, down-turned mouth. She hadn’t seen Roger smile for too long.
“I rang the bell, but no one answered,” the other Roger said. He laid a key on the table. “So I let myself in. I’m sorry. You should take this.”
The other Libby nodded, looking down at the table. “I’ve packed the rest of your things. The boxes are in the bedroom. Take anything else you want.”
“Thanks.” He walked to the hallway. She watched him.
As if he sensed her stare, he stopped and turned. “Can I do anything for you, Libby?” he asked gently.
The other Libby looked away. “No, thanks,” she said in a falsely cheerful voice. “I don’t need anything.”
“No, I don’t suppose you do,” Roger said in a flat voice. “You never did.”
He left the room, and the other Libby covered her face with her thin hands.
“Don’t cry,” Libby murmured, although she knew the other couldn’t hear her. “It’s better for him this way.”
Libby had already told her Roger that she wouldn’t blame him if he left. After all, he had tested fertile. She was the one who had pushed for the ovary hyperstimulation treatment after years of conventional fertility methods had failed, permitting the doctors to pump her full of chemical soup—one super-ovulation treatment after another, believing that she could conceive if only she tried hard enough. Three years and tens of thousands of dollars later, Libby finally admitted that it wasn’t meant to be, even if the doctors couldn’t find a definite reason why she couldn’t conceive.
Then, a year ago, she learned she had developed ovarian cancer. They quickly racked up more debt. Roger took a second job to make up for her loss of income, and the apartment slid into disrepair once she started chemo. She couldn’t do her part anymore, leaving Roger to bear the weight of their lives.
Who could possibly want to live like that? She wouldn’t blame Roger if he did leave. She wished she could transfer some of her strength to this other Libby, so she could let her husband go without anguish, for his own good.
But she couldn’t do a thing for this alternate self. Libby picked up the viewer and took it into the living room. She fiddled with the tuner and flipped the dial. After several minutes of static, she finally picked up another world. She saw a 13- or 14-year-old boy with slick black hair and olive skin, arguing vehemently with her alternate self.
“I’m your mother,” the other Libby said in a tight voice, “and I’m saying that you can’t go now. You’ve got homework.”
“You’re not my real mother,” the boy growled. He launched into an argument about why he needed to go to the mall.
Libby put her hand over her heart, which beat faster. Shortly after she’d discontinued the fertility treatments, Libby and Roger had looked at adopting an older child through a public agency. They were already in their early 40s by that point and Libby knew they’d have difficulty adopting an infant. And they couldn’t afford a private adoption. But after much thought, Libby had put aside her need for a child, deciding that they couldn’t give a child a proper home now that they were so far in debt from the fertility treatments. Once she was diagnosed with cancer, she’d been grateful for that decision.
But this boy was beautiful, even through the anger flushing his face, even with his neck muscles cording as he yelled. Her son. He whirled around and stomped out of the living room. Libby took a deep breath, then another.
The other Libby sat down on her couch, smoothing the backs of her hands, an old comfort motion. Libby noticed how bony the other woman’s hands were. She didn’t need to see anything more to know that this self had cancer, too. She turned off the viewer, knuckling her eyes to hold back the tears for that teenage boy, soon to be motherless.
* * * *
A few days after her next chemo treatment, when she finally had regained enough energy to get out of bed for more than a couple minutes at a time, Libby drove to the cemetery.
As she’d done several times already, she made her way to her family’s small grassy plot. Her mother and father were both buried there, as was her infant brother. Next to the baby’s headstone was Libby’s stone—a nondescript tongue of gray granite that she had bought the month before. She knelt beside it, tracing her fingers over the chiseled letters of her name.
After a few minutes, Libby took the viewer from her voluminous shoulder bag and set it on her lap. She had wondered whether she’d be able to pick up her alternate self on another Earth if that other Libby were dead. Perverse, but once that idea lodged in her head, Libby couldn’t shake it. The idea had a certain finality—not like her current state, half dread and half deflated hope—and represented the dead end the viewer had turned out to be, the dead end her life was.
She flicked on the viewer and immediately a picture formed: a number of viewers, each nested within another, getting smaller.
“What?” she muttered. It reminded her of two mirrors reflecting each other ad infinitum.
“Oh, my God,” the viewer said. “You’re watching me!”
Libby realized that one of her alternate selves had a viewer, too and that they were looking through each other’s eyes. “You’ve got chocolate in my peanut butter,” she replied, mildly surprised at the quip even as she spoke it.
Her other self gave a shaky laugh. “No, you’ve got peanut butter on my chocolate.”
Libby smiled slightly. They’d established that the commercials were the same on their two Earths, if nothing else.
“Did you lose him, too?” the other woman said.
Libby drew a sharp breath. “Roger?” Had the other Libby’s husband left her?
“Michael,” the woman said in a strained voice.
“No.” Had her alternate self married someone else?
The other woman gave a choked sob, blinking rapidly. Libby turned off her viewer, feeling drained. She couldn’t cry anymore. She just couldn’t.
* * * *
Libby went home that evening, vowing not to use the viewer again; she didn’t think she could stand to experience any more of the pain these other Libbys were going through. But as she lay sleepless on her bed next to Roger, her conscience pricked her. At the graveyard she’d connected with a Libby to whom she could actually talk because they both had viewers. Perhaps she could help this other Libby to feel better. And perhaps this other version of herself hadn’t developed cancer, something that could help the lawsuit, that could help Roger….
The next morning, sitting on her grave, Libby flicked on the viewer. As before, she immediately saw a line of viewers shrinking in size, each nestled within another.
“There you are!” the other woman said. “I couldn’t find the right you at the house. The others had all lost him, too.”