The Love Proof

by Madeleine Henry

  Jake had only read the first ten dense pages of Chuck’s article when he realized Tawny was standing in his office, reminding him of a meeting starting then. His five-person team assembled monthly to present new investment ideas. In the boardroom, his colleagues’ slideshows were lost on him as he mulled “the key to love is time.”

  An hour later, Jake resumed reading. Another predictor of relationship quality was a couple’s personal beliefs about love. Young people idealized romance. They believed true love was real, spectacular, and lasted forever, so they saw it in their relationships. To support this, Chuck cited research on how expectations influenced perception. As people aged, it became harder to keep a rose-tinted view of life. People lived long enough to see friends or family disappoint them, dreams falter, disease strike, or other misfortunes. It took a rare character to stay idealistic and re-create the first love experience they had back when they saw the best in people. Chuck wrote, “To find true love, you have to believe in it.”

  At last, Jake reached the section “Survey Results of 23 First-Love Reunions One Decade Later.” By then, it had been almost that long since he’d last seen her. He inhaled. Apparently, obsessive thinking about the reunion usually consumed couples as soon as the plan was made. Right after Sophie proved block theory, he had succumbed to that. Jake didn’t scroll on. Instead, he remembered Chuck’s open palm as they stood in the ballroom. Jake suddenly didn’t like the fact that the man behind this research had so quickly segued into a discussion about money. Who was this Chuck Bradley anyway? What made him the expert on love?

  * * *

  Jake never finished the article. It had been nearly twenty-five years since he started it, and he still didn’t know the outcome of the couples’ meetings. The truth was that he didn’t want those reunions to end badly. If they’d failed, he didn’t want to know about them. He needed to believe that if he met Sophie again…

  When was Liam’s show?

  May 18, 2048.

  Liam had invited Jake to art shows before. Jake had never gone, but he pored over the catalog every time. He learned something when he looked at Liam’s work. Each piece rearranged the world so completely that it woke Jake up to how much more was possible. Two years ago, Liam had painted Lily under a strange new tree: the leaves were enormous apple slices. Each cross-section was heart-shaped, red skins looping around white middles. The tree grew out of a colossal apple that sat unplanted on grassy ground. Lily leaned against the trunk. My Mom the Miracle Tree captured her beautiful nonsense.

  Janice had visited two of Liam’s shows and had apparently met his longtime girlfriend, Daya. Janice’s hallmark quality was still her reliability. At seventy-five, she was living out her retirement in a Park Avenue apartment that Jake had bought for her on the Upper East Side. She’d already booked her trip into New Haven for Liam’s graduation day.

  Jake checked his May calendar.

  * * *

  Jake waited for Lily in Gotta Robota, a grab-and-go restaurant by his office without human employees. The air-conditioning was crisp. Jake interlaced his fingers on the picnic-style table. The time of 11:55 a.m. glowed lightsaber blue on his watch.

  Last week, right after Liam had emailed his invite, Lily had forwarded Jake that same message and asked if he was going to the show. Jake didn’t respond. He and Lily were on good terms, all things considered. He just wasn’t sure yet. He doubted this was the right way to see Sophie again. She was acutely sensitive. Every detail mattered. With Liam and Lily there… This reunion would be a far cry from the fantasies he used to carry with him. Jake’s lack of response had led to a request to meet in person.

  11:57 a.m.

  Jake still didn’t know what to tell Lily. He’d woken up every day this week in a sweat. His body had never rebelled like this before. His whole life, his limbs had bowed to discipline. He’d never been seriously ill. Now, sweat soaked his gray sheets every morning, turning them black in cloudlike splotches strewn with blurry handprints. He kept dreaming he was on trial. The blurry prosecutor was charging Jake with “absence in the first degree.”

  12:00 p.m.

  Touch-screen menus lined the walls below eye level. Each person input their order on one of the screens. Then, the menu lifted like a drawbridge to reveal their meal. Most people in Gotta Robota carried their white bowls of food out the door. Those who stayed ate alone. Jake checked his wrist and gritted his teeth. It annoyed him that no one outside of finance seemed to understand the value of time—well, almost no one.

  12:05 p.m.

  12:15 p.m.

  He’d said noon, but Lily had always been on another wavelength. They’d met at a bake sale hosted by Olympus. That afternoon, the sky had been baby blue. Olympus was offering brownies on Twenty-Sixth and Park Avenue South in exchange for a donation to Empower Now. Jake was sitting next to Tawny at a folding table. Lily stopped in front of him wearing white flats scuffed gray, jean shorts unraveling at the hem, and a crop top he recognized from an H&M ad. Her whole outfit cost $15, but she reached for her phone instantly and Venmo’d their team $5. Jake found her generosity attractive. She’d only invited him to her place a few times in six months when she asked him to sit down for a conversation in her living room. She told him that she was pregnant and she’d always wanted to be a mom.

  Life had gotten so out of control.

  What was that called again?

  “Entropy is the scientific word for chaos.” Sophie’s voice was soft. Jake curled around her, his head on the natural pillow under her ribs. “In our universe, entropy is always increasing. This room, bed, us—everything gets more disordered over time.” Jake kissed her belly button. He scooched down to kiss the waistband of his boxers around her hips.

  “Things with you get better, though.”

  “I know.” She rubbed his head. “It’s not saying things get better or worse, just messier. Our clothes will fall apart. We’ll get old. The things we own will break. Entropy.”

  “Jake!” Lily smiled.

  12:21 p.m.

  He stood.

  Lily spread her tanned arms. Her sundress looked like an elongated T-shirt. The hem at her knees danced with every step. Her brown flip-flops reminded him that there wasn’t a dress code at Howards & Levine, the law office where she worked defending tenants facing eviction. She hugged Jake and pressed two hands—no rings—onto his back.

  “Hi, Lily.”

  Jake gestured for her to sit. When she did, her legs crossed easily and her white smile spread wide. He remembered there was no misery to Lily. Her feelings could get hurt, and she could get emotional about Liam, but she had no deep-rooted suffering. She had a drifting, happy quality that had never meshed with his own sense of purpose. She slept in. She forgot to pay some of her bills. She forgot to take her birth control every day—Jake should have paid more attention to that confession. Jake had a soft spot for young hearts, but Lily’s mind was young, too. He figured it was part of why they’d never quite clicked.

  “How are you?” Lily asked.

  “Great, how are you?”

  His standard reply was monotone.

  Silence answered. Meanwhile, he wondered if he and Sophie started talking to each other again, would they ever stop? If he went to the art show—

  “Jake?” Lily asked.

  “Great, how are you?” he asked.

  Lily nodded.

  “It really is good to see you,” she said. “I know how busy you are, so the fact that you’re here… It’s really nice to be on the same side.” Jake imagined sitting next to Sophie in the dining hall. “You know, on the same parenting team? For Liam.”

  “What?”

  “The same team. For Liam.”

  “Right.”

  “I didn’t want Liam’s invite to get lost. I know you have so much to do.” She clasped her hands as if she were praying. “I’m here to ask in person if you can come to his show and graduation? It’s so important to Liam you’re there. It means so much to him.”

 
; Jake fanned himself with the crew neck of his tee.

  “Jake?” she prompted.

  “Hm?”

  “Liam’s graduation. His—”

  Four years ago, Carl parked on a street full of teens milling in dark gowns and caps, yellow tassels orbiting happy faces. Jake watched through tinted windows as families hugged their Trinity graduates. He didn’t recognize anyone on his way to Liam and Lily. At last, in the middle of the crowd, the three of them stood in a triangle.

  Jake patted Liam on the shoulder.

  “Congratulations,” Jake said. The word felt oddly long to him. Did anyone else actually say it out loud? All five syllables? He assumed Lily had given Liam the bouquet in his arms. Families around them squeezed together for photos.

  “Thanks, Jake,” Liam said.

  Lily kissed Liam’s cheek. He laughed, blushed. Jake felt as if he were intruding. They chatted for a few strained minutes. Jake asked, “So, you feel good?” and “You’re all done, then?” among other simple, leading questions. He didn’t want to ask about the diploma ceremony that had just ended and draw attention to the fact that he’d missed it. Liam was matriculating at Yale in the fall, but Jake didn’t want to talk about that, either. Liam’s choice to attend the same schools he had only made his neglect feel even more egregious. But Jake couldn’t get past the fact that Liam’s existence trivialized his feelings for the only other person who’d ever understood him. How could he have a family with anyone but her?

  “How about a picture?” Lily suggested.

  She waved the two of them together. Jake hinged his arm around Liam and gave his shoulder a friendly shake. Jake just couldn’t act natural around the boy. What was normal, though? How were you supposed to treat your child raised by a woman you barely knew? What were the standards of behavior for that? Jake had never wanted another broken family. He’d been as sure of that as if the instructions were carved on his bones. But he found it hard to devote himself to a family he’d never intended to have.

  “Smile, Jake,” Lily said.

  “Jake?” Lily insisted.

  He returned from his flashback.

  “His graduation? His show?”

  “Right. Sorry. I’ll try to go.”

  “It’s next week. Will you or won’t you?”

  He rubbed his eyes.

  “What I don’t think you understand is how much you hurt Liam by not showing up.”

  Her composure was melting. He’d seen that face before. Last year, after Jake missed Liam’s show, Lily showed up in his lobby crying. He’d invited her up to Olympus. In his office for the first time, with the door shut, she pointed out that he didn’t have a single photo of any friend or family member in there. He’d hung one from decades ago with Lionel. Otherwise, the only pictures in his office were of the Messier 15, one of the densest clusters of stars ever discovered, as seen from the Hubble Telescope.

  “What else is that important?”

  He glanced around Gotta Robota. His heart rate rose to 100 on his Roxster.

  “Jake?” Her voice cracked.

  “Okay, fine.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’ll go to the graduation.”

  “And the art show.”

  Jake fanned himself with his shirt again.

  “The art show is more important. Liam is so gifted. He was telling me about the main piece of the show and the ideas behind it. It’s about you, Jake, his relationship with you…” Jake made his hand into a visor over his eyes. Her pain was excruciating. He couldn’t hurt her anymore. “He has a rare heart. You haven’t even been back to Yale since you graduated—”

  “Sorry,” Jake said.

  He stood.

  “For everything. I have a meeting now, but—I’ll be at the show.”

  * * *

  For the rest of the day, Jake imagined what he might find at “Intertwined.” He pictured every possible arrangement of him, Sophie, Lily, and Liam at the show. If the four of them did line up, in half of all cases, he’d stand next to Sophie. He imagined being just a forearm’s length away from her. She’d be nodding along to something Liam was saying, stunted by the crowd around them. Her loud mind would be invisible. Would she share her thoughts if he asked for them? Would she want to go for a walk after the show? He pictured a sunny day, and the fantasies absorbed him so completely, whenever he zoned back into the present, he’d find that he’d missed up to a minute of conversation with his analysts.

  On his way home, he recalled Dr. Bradley’s article. He’d never finished the part about first-love reunions. Now, with a definite plan to return to Yale, it was time. He searched for “Love Interrupted” online, bought the article, and read it almost to the end—

  “Boss, we have arrived,” Carl blared.

  “Carl, stop,” Jake said.

  The car was still.

  “Carl, how long have we been here?”

  “Ten minutes, boss.”

  “All right.”

  Jake stepped outside into muggy air. His damp neck licked his collar. Inside the lobby, he nodded hello to the doorman before entering his private elevator. In his apartment, lights dawned when he stepped inside. He undressed down to boxer shorts tattered to ruin. With the one piece of his outfit no one saw, Jake didn’t pretend. Luxury had never felt like him.

  He got into bed itching to finish the article. His room was beautifully quiet. Something about abrupt, unwanted noises chipped away at his soul. All car horns, ringtones, and voices were gone now. His mind could fill the empty space with thought. Jake tapped the final section title on his watch, “Survey Results of 23 First Love Reunions One Decade Later”—enlarging it over his wrist—and read straight through to the end.

  A common unknown going into the encounter was how much the other person had changed. Social media only revealed so much. Of the twenty-three former couples surveyed, 74 percent said the other person hadn’t changed at all. Their sense of the other was spot-on ten years later. Morning people remained morning people. Shy types stayed shy. The religious ones kept their faith. Personality was quite stable, something Chuck explained in granular detail.

  This didn’t mean that the ex-couples rekindled their romances. In fact, none did. Only five of the twenty-three couples agreed to meet a second time. Only one of the twenty-three met a third time. There were no fourth encounters. From the interviews that followed, Chuck found that although these people weren’t any less compatible, circumstances had changed. Since the couples separated, new children, jobs, interests, and homes had grown between them. Some were tied to cities hundreds of miles apart. No one in Chuck’s study felt like they had the chance to do it all over again.

  “It’s not saying things get better or worse, just messier. Our clothes will fall apart. We’ll get old. The things we own will break. Entropy.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Sophie tugged the locked door. Liam’s show didn’t start for another fifteen minutes. She stepped back and glimpsed her reflection—flowy pink skirt to her ankles, white tee—in the glass walls of the Yale School of Art. She’d considered buying new clothes for today but had gone with classics. She turned her chin side to side. She’d still never pierced her ears.

  She opted for a walk around the block. In Yorkside Pizza, families ate sticky pancakes, golden toast. Sophie stopped outside the window. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen so many babies. A boy in navy-blue overalls yelped in his mom’s arms. His New Balance sneakers were doll-size. He had a soft fat layer under his chin. The dad, exuberantly childish, was making faces from the next seat. The baby never stopped squirming. He looked heavy, but Sophie couldn’t be sure. She’d never held anyone that size.

  Sophie passed more children in Ashley’s Ice Cream. The slew of young people made her feel old. For the most part, she liked aging. Life got easier, emotionally. She felt like she could see more at once, that the here and now was not all there was. She passed a girl in a high chair at Blue State with big blue eyes like hers. Soph
ie still got asked every so often if she had kids. She usually just shook her head. The full truth was that she would have only had children with one man. She didn’t crave kids categorically.

  Sophie headed back to the art school. She’d been in this building before for a couple of other thesis exhibits. The only spots Sophie hadn’t been on campus were inside secret society buildings, the windowless town houses nearby. Still, Sophie knew which house belonged to which society. She’d heard enough stories to imagine the rooms and basements. Sophie knew this place. It was part of her.

  She opened the doors.

  “Professor Jones!” Liam shouted.

  He waved with Daya between the entryway and his showroom, beckoning her to follow them inside. Paintings hung in a perfect line around the room. Each canvas was set in a gleaming white frame. Liam stopped in front of the biggest piece of all: the picture from the front of the catalog. The neon bolt was as tall as he was. It glowed electric yellow and blue. Liam’s eyes darted between Sophie and the lightning as she read the wall label:

  Streamers. 2048

  Oil on canvas

  “People are interconnected by invisible forces. Although we have the freedom to think and act, we stick together, like stars on the heavenly arc, with unbreakable connections. These connections cannot be seen, but we can feel them.” —Nikola Tesla