Bewilderment

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IN THE DARK OF OUR SNUG TENT, ten inches from my face, Alyssa whispered, Why does it matter so much?

We’d hiked for eight hours until my feet bled. We’d swum together in the wild cascades. My exhaustion was so complete that I had struggled to light the camping stove and cook our dinner. I can’t remember what we ate. I only remember how she asked for more.

I wanted to collapse facedown on my inflatable pillow and die for a week. She wanted to keep me up all night and talk philosophy. Does it make any difference at all if it happened anywhere else? It happened here. That’s everything, right?

I was brain-dead. I could barely get my subjects to agree with my verbs. “Once is an accident. Twice is inevitable.”

She pressed my chest and said, I like this marriage business. She sounded surprised, as if that discovery settled all matters.

“Find any trace of it anywhere, and we’ll know that the universe wants life.”

She laughed so hard. Oh, the universe wants life, mister. She rolled over on top of me, compact but planetary. And it wants it now.

For a minute, we were everything. Then we weren’t. I must have fallen asleep afterward, because I woke again to an otherworldly sound. In the dark, someone was singing. I thought at first it was her. Three fluid, looping notes: the briefest melody trying out endless new keys. I looked at Aly. Her eyes in the darkness were wide, as if the wistful, three-note tune were Beethoven. She grabbed my arm in mock-panic.

Honey! They’ve landed. They’re here!

She knew the name of the singer. But I failed to ask her, and now I’ll never know. She listened, until the bird went silent. The wake filled at once with the hum of other creatures, a mesh spreading in all directions through the six different kinds of forest surrounding us. She held still in simple ecstasy, the one our son would for a moment learn.

This is the life, she said. If I could keep this with me forever…

Such a small difference, between forever and once.