Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

brain.
If I were tiny I would crawl in there and tell you what to do and you would think it was your own idea.
    Julia said, “It’s only for a year. If we don’t like it we’ll sell it and come back.”
    Valentina was silent.
    After a while Julia took her hand, interlaced their fingers. “We’ve got to prepare. We don’t want to be like those dumb Americans who go to Europe and only eat at McDonald’s and speak English real loud instead of the local language.”
    “But they speak English in England.”
    “You know what I mean, Mouse. We need to study.”
    “Okay.”
    “Okay.” They shifted so that they lay side by side, shoulders touching, hands clasped. Valentina thought,
Maybe in London we can have a bigger bed.
Julia stared at the terrible Home Depot light fixture on the ceiling, mentally listing all the things they would need to find out about: exchange rates, vaccinations, soccer, the Royal Family…
    Valentina lay in Julia’s bed thinking about the inside of Julia’s ear, how her own ear was the exact reverse, and if she pressed her ear against Julia’s and trapped a sound, would it oscillate back and forth endlessly, confused and forlorn?
Would I hear it backwards? What if it was a London sound, like cars driving on the wrong side of the road; then maybe I would hear it forwards and it would be backwards for Julia. Maybe in London everything will be opposite from here…I’ll do what I want; no one will be the boss of me…
Valentina listened to Julia breathing. She tried to imagine what she would do if it was just her, on her own. But she had never done anything on her own, so she struggled to formulate some kind of plan, and then gave up, exhausted.
     
    Edie lay in bed waiting for Jack to fall asleep. Usually she tried to get to sleep first, because Jack snored, but tonight her mind was racing and she knew it was pointless to even try. Finally she turned onto her side and found Jack facing her with his eyes open.
     
    “It’ll be all right,” said Jack. “They’ve been away before and it was all right.”
    “This is different.”
    “Because it’s Elspeth?”
    “Maybe,” she said. “Or, just-it’s so far away. I don’t want them there.”
    He put his arm around her waist and she burrowed into him.
I’m safe. I’m safe here.
Jack was her bomb shelter, her human shield. “Remember when they were at Cornell?” he said. “How great it was to have the house to ourselves?”
    “Yeah…” It had been a revelation: married life without children was a blast. For a while, anyway.
    “They’re twenty years old, Edie. They should have been long gone. We should have sent them to separate schools,” said Jack.
    She sighed.
You don’t understand.
“It’s too late. Elspeth’s taken it out of our hands.”
    “Maybe she’s done us a favour.”
    Edie didn’t reply. Jack said, “When you were their age you were very eager to be on your own, as I recall.”
    “That was different.”
    He waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, he said, very quietly, “Why, Edie? Why was it different?” But she pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. He said, “You could tell me.”
    She opened her eyes and smiled. “There’s nothing to tell, Jack.” She turned again, so she faced away from him. “We should try to sleep.”
    That was close,
he thought. He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved. “Okay,” Jack said. They lay together for a long time, listening to each other’s breathing, until Jack began to snore and Edie was alone with her thoughts.
     

Bleach
    T
HE INVENTION of the Internet had allowed Martin to abandon the outside world. Or rather, the Internet had enabled him to relegate that world to the role of support system for his world, the one that flourished inside his flat.
    Martin had not expected Marijke to leave him. She had acquiesced in his rituals, had aided and abetted his increasingly stringent compulsions, for almost twenty-five years. He couldn’t