I watched the detective retreat down the sidewalk in the darkness. He got into his gray sedan and drove away. On the other side of the street, I could see the trees of River Park, where so much had happened to me in those other worlds. In the horizon sky, over the river, I saw a distant flash of lightning, followed by an extended roll of thunder that made the ground shake. A storm was coming in from the west.

I closed the door.

Inside, I sat down in a chair by the fireplace, feeling utterly empty. I bent down and picked up Karly’s diamond earring and rolled it between my fingertips.

Oddly, it was Detective Bushing’s visit that finally convinced me of where I was. I felt as if one last little mystery had been solved. I’d stumbled upon Betsy Kern’s body during my missing weeks, and that experience had worked its way into my explorations.

It was over now. The Many Worlds were behind me.

This was reality, just as Eve Brier had said.

As that thought struck me, I realized what it meant. I’d never see Karly again. She was really gone. No matter what I’d learned about myself, I was too late to change the past. Once you lose someone, you’ve lost them forever.

I sat in the chair, cupped my hands over my face, and spent the rest of the night crying for my wife.

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 35

In the morning, the rain came.

There was nothing for me to do but start living again, so I drove through the storm to the LaSalle Plaza downtown. Black clouds hung over the city and refused to move. A deluge poured across my windshield, making it almost impossible to see where I was going. The streets became lakes under my tires, and streams ran along the curbs and sidewalks, carrying Chicago debris.

I got to the office before anyone else, as I usually did. There was no dawn outside, just darkness. My desk was neat, the way I always left it, and I saw new contracts with my signature on them, reminder notes taped to my monitor, catering orders I’d placed in the past week, and phone messages with customer names for callbacks. I’d been working here for days, even if I remembered none of it. Yesterday, in Eve’s office, appeared to be the only day of work I’d missed.

There were a million things to do, which made it a typical morning. This was my job; this was my life. I tried to get on with it, but as the early hours slipped by, I found I couldn’t concentrate on any of the details. I picked up the phone and put it down. I turned on the computer and switched it off. The responsibilities that had kept me up nights and forced me to stay late so many times now felt insignificant.