Page 33

A Good Dream

The only light in Marsh’s bedroom is from her nightstand lamp as she gently lifts the covers and snuggles in next to Ren. He’s already taken his Chrysalis pill and is lost amid some dream, a faint smile on his lips.

He looks so peaceful, Marsh thinks as she watches him.

SharpTruth356: It’s now or never, Marsh

[Automatic security filters have deleted this account]

Marsh blinks away the posts. SharpTruth is right, but even though this is the smartest move, she really doesn’t want to do this. It feels more wrong than the end-of-episode choices, somehow. Maybe because she’ll be the one manipulating something this time, rather than the Bubble.

But this is for the best. She’s doing this because she cares about Ren. How many times has she left an incredible path because something wasn’t quite right for him? Or Harper, for that matter? Hell, even for Dylan, before he completely disappeared? She’s not just in this for herself. She’s trying to make everything in the Bubble right not just for her, but for everyone she cares about.

Ren mumbles in his sleep, and Marsh gently brushes a lock of his hair off his forehead.

What would he say, if she admitted to him what she admitted to Dylan in the midseason special? She can’t help but wonder again. Would he panic the same way Dylan did when he found out he’s part of All This and More ? Or would he help her make the rest of the choices, to work toward the same perfect future together?

What a dream that would be.

“Ren,” she whispers. “Ren, can you hear me?”

Ren doesn’t move, but he sighs lightly in response.

Marsh hesitates, and takes a deep breath.

“Ren, you shouldn’t write this article about Chrysalis,” she says at last. “You don’t want to write this article. You want to write something else instead. In fact, you should forget all about the article—like you were never writing it in the first place. Like it never existed.”

She breaks off there and waits, her lips pursed tensely.

Ren doesn’t really react, but then again, he’s asleep. She’s not sure what kind of sign he could give her right now anyway.

“Well, I guess we wait and see now,” Marsh muses softly. After another long moment, she scoots down on her side of the bed and nestles into her pillow. She looks at Ren one last time, and then rolls over to turn out her light.

Just as she does so, Ren sits up in bed.

Marsh rolls back. “Ren?” she asks.

As soon as she does, she spots that familiar glazed look in his eyes, that telltale slackness in his jaw.

Ren’s about to sleepwalk again.

Marsh scrambles out of bed and follows as he shuffles out of the bedroom, slowly down the stairs, and into the living room.

Notamackerel: Is this it? Is it happening already?

N3vrGiv3Up: SHHH! Don’t wake him!

Everyone in the comments is tittering excitedly, trying to guess what weird thing Ren will do tonight. Some are warning Marsh not to wake him up like she did last time, that it can be startling for the person sleepwalking, flooding her with so many helpful tips that she’s worried she’s going to trip and tumble down the stairs into him, rendering the advice useless.

Together, the two of them move around the main level, Ren leading, Marsh following, until he ends up wandering into the kitchen—where all of his research on Chrysalis is still spread out across the table.

Marsh hangs back, holding her breath.

Ren stares at the table for a long time. He picks one page up and stares at it, his eyes unfocused, more like he’s looking through it than at it. Then, slowly, he folds it in half, and tears it.

And then he tears those pieces again.

And again.

He keeps going until he’s made confetti out of the page. The fragments flutter to the floor like falling snow.

For the next ten minutes, Marsh watches in open-mouthed amazement as Ren works his way through every single sheet of paper in his research this way, and the kitchen looks like someone left the window open during a blizzard.

Part of her is relieved, but another part is a little horrified. All that painstaking work Ren did, gone in an instant.

And he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.

Finally, Ren finishes shredding the last page. His hands drop limply to his sides, and he stares without seeing at the destruction.

He looks so lost, she thinks.

His eyes slowly grow even more glazed, as if he’s slipping even deeper into slumber, and his feet turn and shuffle him out of the kitchen with a mind of their own.

Marsh peeks after him to make sure he’s heading back up to the bedroom, and then returns to the mess.

She stares for a whole minute longer, with dreadful wonder.

Then she yanks a garbage bag out from under the sink, and begins shoveling every last speck of shredded paper into it as fast as she can.

In the morning, Marsh is up first, wired with energy even though she didn’t sleep a wink the whole night. Every time her eyelids grew heavy, Ren would sigh or roll over, and she’d snap to attention again, ready for him to have another strange dream or take a second sleepwalking stroll. By the time dawn finally broke, she was already downstairs.

Hopefully now that he’s forgotten about the article, Ren will forget about the sleeping pills, too, she prays.

“Whoa,” Harper says as she comes into the kitchen.

Marsh turns around, coffeepot still in hand, to see her daughter staring at the suddenly bare kitchen table.

“Where’s the mess?” she asks. “What happened?”

“Shh,” Marsh replies quickly. “He’s putting the article aside for now. Politics at the office or something,” she lies. “But I don’t know how sensitive he is about it yet, so let’s not say anything unless he does. Okay?”

Harper nods. She looks back at the pristine wooden surface again. “It’s just so weird, to see it look like a table again, instead of a dumping ground. I almost got used to all those papers heaped there. It looks... sad now.”

“I know,” Marsh says. “Maybe let’s keep sitting on the stools at the kitchen island for now, too.”

Harper smiles and hops onto one of the high seats with a wink.

A few minutes later, Ren comes downstairs, looking as rested and re freshed as usual. He wishes both of them good morning, and then pads over to the coffeepot. Marsh and Harper exchange a silent look. Harper’s eyebrows seem to say, He really isn’t going to mention it, is he?

In response, Marsh’s own warn Harper to keep mum.

Because it’s not that Ren’s avoiding the subject of the Chrysalis article; she wishes she could tell her daughter. It’s that he might not remember he was ever working on it at all.

“So, I was thinking we could go to that new outdoor film festival this weekend,” Ren says after a sip of coffee. “How does that strike you two?”

“Sure,” Harper says. “Sounds fun.”

“What about you?” Ren asks Marsh.

She smiles. “It does sound like fun,” she says.

Yes, it does.

Marsh feels as if she’s holding her breath for four straight days—but they make it to the end of the week without Ren remembering that he was working on the article. And at the firm, Chrysalis has paid its retainer fee, but no further meetings are scheduled. The happy family explores the Hong Kong International Film Festival on Saturday, where Marsh adjusts the weather so it’s pleasantly cool enough that no one sweats, and then goes out to dinner at one of Marsh’s favorite dim sum restaurants, where she curates the menu so all the specials are available. On Sunday, the day Ren was originally supposed to submit the final draft to his editor, he entertains himself by cooking a complicated French duck recipe for dinner, and Marsh invites Victor, Adrian, and Jo to join them.

“Hi!” Victor says as the elevator doors open into her penthouse. “Thanks for having us!”

As Marsh scoops Jo into a hug, Pickle comes crashing straight into the knees of a woman with them who Marsh doesn’t recognize, but who greets Marsh with an easy, familiar smile, and also seems to know Pickle very well.

“You’re my favorite, too!” she cries, bending to pet him.

“Everyone loves Bex,” Jo says, and puts an arm around Bex’s waist once she stands up again.

TopFan01: Wait... that’s the woman Jo took home from the fancy Phoenix bar, in the first half of the season!

Moms4Marsh: Did that actually happen in this path? I can’t keep track!

LittleXoài: C? ?y ?? p!

SagwaGold: Go, Jo!!!

It’s definitely the woman from the bar, Marsh decides with a casual blink to free her vision.

“I’m so glad you could make it,” she says to them both. She knows she’s grinning too wide—but she’s so excited to see Jo’s new partner, and can’t wait to gossip over all the details of their romance the way that she and Jo gossiped over Marsh’s budding relationship with Ren, just before the show started.

“I am, too,” Jo replies. Beside her, Adrian rubs his hands together like a greedy kid as they all laugh. “We all know how legendary Ren’s duck is!”

“I aim to please,” Ren replies, with a proud bow. “The recipe takes hours, but it’s worth it.”

“Hey, we also worked hard. We went all the way down the street to buy this bottle of champagne,” Bex teases. “Two hundred whole meters!”

“Let’s get that on some ice,” Ren replies, and sweeps his arm to welcome them into the apartment. “Come with me! You can get a sneak peek of the duck before anyone else gets to taste it.”

Everyone protests jokingly and crams themselves down the hall after him, Pickle barking excitedly along, like an adorable scene from a family sitcom.

The evening is wonderful. Everything Marsh has ever wanted. They all toast their new lives at her massive, meticulously decorated dining table, and the glaze on the duck practically sparkles as she cuts into it. Victor and Adrian are fawning over their new boss, Ren is beaming with love, Jo and Bex are making jokes, and Harper hangs on every word as Jo tells her about how her mother was when she was just a wee little Marsh, only a bit older than Harper is now herself.

In these stories, Marsh blazed through law school at the top of their class, traveled all over Europe and Asia on her summer breaks, and was responsible for setting up Jo and Bex in the first place. Instead of Marsh meeting Dylan on a camping trip, it was Jo who was starstruck by Bex near the kayaks, and Marsh who sneakily bundled up a s’mores kit and gave it to Bex as an excuse to talk to Jo after dark. It’s then that Marsh notices gold rings on Jo and Bex’s fingers as they mime sticking the sweets on a stick.

LunaMágica: Omg, the show is like Jo’s Cupid!

Moms4Marsh: This is so sweet!

Marsh tries not to burst into happy tears for her best friend. Outside the Bubble, Jo’s relentless energy for work always made it hard for her to make a relationship stick for more than a few months. She covered it up with fun flings and enjoyed her freedom, but Marsh knows she’s always wanted a long-term partner who would understand and support her career, just like Ren now does for Marsh—and now it’s finally happened.

All This and More made it happen.

As they all eat and talk, Marsh’s cheeks burn, sore from how long she’s been smiling. This is what she’s been working so hard to achieve. This kind of love and joy.

This kind of perfect.

“So, Ren,” Victor asks innocently as they pass the serving platters, “how’s work?”

Marsh and Harper both freeze and look at him.

“It’s great,” he says affably. He seems as oblivious as ever. “I’m really enjoying this new position at the Times . The hours are pretty good. For a journalist.”

Everyone laughs at that.

More champagne goes around, and as half the group retires to the living room while Harper, Ren, and Bex volunteer to get dessert ready, Marsh slowly relaxes again.

She can see SharpTruth in the corners of her vision, still begging her to locate the source of Chrysalis before the end of her season, just as Alexis did—but she ignores him. She doesn’t need to do it anymore. She’s finally solved the problem. And things are working out exactly how she wants in this path at last. She only has to make it for one more episode.

Perfect really does seem almost within her grasp.

Victor convinces everyone to play one round of charades, but partway through, Harper appears in an apron, holding a spatula like a trophy. “Dessert is ready!” she reports proudly, before scrambling back to the kitchen. “I did the frosting!”

“Well, that’s clearly going to be the best part, then!” Jo calls after her as they all stand up, the game forgotten. Everyone heads back to the table, excited to try Ren and Harper’s dessert, but when they reach the dining room, Marsh pauses, surprised.

The room is completely empty.

“Hello?” Marsh calls.

“Almost ready!” Harper calls back, and a second later, she and Bex appear with a gorgeous dark chocolate cake.

“It took both of us to get it onto the serving platter,” Bex jokes. “Ren’s cake is so beautiful, we didn’t want to mess it up!”

“Looks delicious,” Victor says.

“Where is Ren?” Marsh asks.

Harper looks around. “I don’t know,” she replies. “He said he’d clear the table while we did the frosting.”

“The restroom, perhaps?” Jo offers.

They all sit down to wait—but after a few minutes of making small talk and staring eagerly at the beautiful dessert on the table, Ren still hasn’t appeared.

“I’ll just go check on him,” Marsh says, rising.

“Tell him I’ll eat his serving if he doesn’t hurry,” Harper adds.

“Ren?” Marsh calls as she ascends the stairs. “Honey? Need anything?”

But no one answers.

Marsh pokes her head into the bedroom, but the master bathroom is empty. So is the bathroom down the hall, and the study, the guest bedroom, and even Harper’s bedroom.

Where is he?

“I... can’t find him,” Marsh admits when she returns.

“What?” Jo asks. “He’s not upstairs?”

Marsh shakes her head.

“Well, that’s weird,” Adrian says.

Harper has explored the entirety of the first level of their penthouse in the meantime. She arrives back in the dining room with an equally perplexed expression.

“He’s not downstairs, either,” she says.

Everyone looks at one another.

“Hmm.” Jo frowns. “Why would he leave without telling anyone?”

“And especially so late at night,” Bex adds. “He was practically dozing in his chair as Harper and I got the cake ready.”

Marsh turns, suddenly laser-focused on her.

“What did you say?” she asks.

That’s not good.

Very not good.

“All that cooking must have taken it out of him. He did seem very tired tonight,” Victor adds.

“You’re sure he’s not just asleep upstairs?” Jo asks.

Slowly, Marsh’s eyes drift to the back door of the penthouse. The one that leads to the service elevators, and out the resident-only exit to the streets far below.

Ren is definitely asleep, she knows.

Just not upstairs.