An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes Read Online Free PDF

they’d paint pottery.
    Most of it had been girlie stuff like that. Stuff her mom loved and Mari wished she loved more. But occasionally they’d go to the bookstore and Mari would be allowed to select any one book she wanted to buy. Sometimes they’d drive to one of the local colleges for a poetry reading. Or maybe they’d catch an old fantasy movie playing downtown. Stuff Mari enjoyed.
    Once, they travelled to the shore even though it was an hour away, and even though it was the middle of winter. Mari was twelve. She remembers the Atlantic crashing into forever, cold beyond comprehension. And snow blanketed the beach—it glowed so that in the darkness they didn’t even need flashlights. Each step pressed a fresh footprint into that bright, bright snow. When Mari’s feet got too cold, her mom let her ride piggyback as they returned to the car.
    But it has been years since the last Ladies’ Night, all because of Mari.
    The puzzled looks people gave them. The questions they asked. All because Mari and her adoptive mother did not match everyone’s idea of mother and daughter. Their skin, their hair, their features—too different for the world to make sense of them. It had just become too much for her. So Mari had lied and told her mom she was getting too old for their weekly hangout.
    Mari glances at a clock on the wall and finds that almost an hour has passed. She sighs, even though it’s not like she has any Friday night plans.
    The main doors into the waiting room suddenly slide open. A wrinkled old man, hunched over a walker, inches across the threshold. A tuft of white hair clings to one side of his bald, liver-spotted head. The receptionist greets him by name and tells him not to worry about signing in.
    The man nods and then slowly makes his way toward the seats, approaching the row opposite of Mari. Once he arrives—Mari had serious concerns he might keel over at any given moment—he turns and carefully lowers himself into a chair as if he were trying to dock a spaceship with the International Space Station. The seat’s foam cushion sighs as he finally lands. He then closes his eyes and either falls asleep or dies.
    Mari looks back up at the television to watch the people argue. She considers asking the receptionist to unmute it, but that would be too embarrassing.
    She looks back at the man. He has not moved. Mari begins to fear that he may have actually died. But then he lets out a prolonged fart. It starts out as a low rumble, picks up momentum, and then peters out in a few gradual toots. And just as the last of the gas seems to escape, there’s one final, definitive blast. Almost like a sneeze.
    But the man still sits with his eyes closed, showing neither motion nor shame.
    Mari almost begins to laugh at the absurdity of the moment until the stench hits her. It is thick and pungent. She pulls the collar of her T-shirt over her nose.
    Just then the door leading back to the exam rooms swings open and Mari’s mom emerges. She smiles at Mari and gestures for her to wait a moment. After a brief conversation with the receptionist, she returns to Mari.
    “Can we go now?” Mari asks, voice muffled by her shirt.
    “We sure can,” her mom says, smiling at Mari. But a second later she drops the smile and wrinkles her nose. Mari notices her mother catch wind of the fart and starts to laugh. Her mom tries to keep a straight face. “But remember that we have a couple more errands to run.”
    “I hope they’re as exciting and fragrant as this one,” Mari says.
    On their way out to the parking lot, Mari glances back to see the receptionist move from behind her desk and water the plant in the corner.
    • • •
    “Your eighteenth birthday is eight months from today,” Mari’s mom says. She flips the turn signal, checks the rearview mirror, and changes lanes.
    “I am aware,” Mari says. “That’s a red light.”
    “I am aware,” her mom says, hitting the brakes. Once stopped, she examines her