[ WP ] Traveling through parallel universes , you 've seen countless different outcomes , but have yet to see _______ live past the age of 2 . You finally reach a universe where you understand why ...

Cody was two and a half when he died. We knew, of course, that he was sick. We'd taken him to treatments and smoothed back his hair while he vomited into the plastic bins. We'd seen the test results and talked to every doctor, but Michael and I knew better than to expect much. He'd been born with it, and two and a half years was quite a time to survive it. 
 
 We held him as he died. He might not have even known, but his hand was wrapped in mine. His small, small hand that I should have seen grow big and strong. I felt it tight and then looser, looser, looser, until it fell limp. 
 
 There are many things I do n't believe in. I do n't believe in God, I do n't believe in magic. I do n't believe that everything happens for a reason. But I do believe in science. I did then, too. And I had heard about the theory of parallel universes in college. 
 
 So I researched. I quit my job and went back to school. I got a PhD - not that it did me much. I watched my marriage fall apart because of my obsession. I watched my husband drag me into therapy session after therapy session and saw the uncertain looks shared between skeptics and I felt his absence next to me in bed. Through all of this, I just could n't let go of Cody. 
 
 And then I found it. It's said in science one never knows when the next big breakthrough is ten minutes away. That was how it was. One moment I was standing in my lab close to tears. 
 
 The next, I was watching myself cry at a table in a café. Michael, my ex husband, sat with his hand over mine. They were silent tears, streaming down my face in white hot streams. I wondered if any of the passers by could see Alternate Me crying, or if they cared, or if they did n't notice. 
 
 I hid my face behind a menu and listened to me... to Susan... and her husband talk. 
 
 `` We can try again,'' this Michael's voice was kind. 
 
 `` No,'' Susan said. `` I do n't want to try again.'' 
 
 `` Suzy --'' 
 
 `` No. You know what they tell you in there? To push. To push and push and push and it's *so* painful and it's *so* horrible because you're tearing your body to shreds but it's okay because after it's done you get a *baby*. You get a little tiny *baby* and you take it home and its yours and you get to love it and name it and raise it. But ours... ours...'' 
 
 `` Died,'' Michael's voice cracked. `` I know. I know. But we can try again.'' 
 
 `` I ca n't,'' Susan's voice was high pitched. `` I ca n't feel this pain again.'' 
 
 *He died here too, * I thought. At that moment I wanted nothing more than to run to the alternate Susan and wrap my arms around her. But there was no time for it. I had to find him. I had to see him. I had to watch him grow up. 
 
 But every time he died. Each world I went to saw him dead before his third birthday. I listened to myself - a shadow of myself, a parallel of myself - sob and cry and scream and stoically take the death of her child. I watched Michaels and Susans divorce and mend and try again and have healthy, beautiful babies. I saw myself in twenty years, in thirty, in forty. 
 
 I only saw Cody once more. He was twenty. He had his father's hair. He had my nose. He was a beautiful boy, and he was mine. 
 
 He studied physics. He was recruited by the Department of Energy. He worked in a lab and made the deadliest weapon of all. Something that would destroy everyone - the innocent, the guilty, the women and the children and the religious and the godless. 
 
 He knew what he was making. He knew what he was doing. I watched him as a lab assistant who looked, `` just like my late mother, it's amazing.'' 
 
 On the day he completed it, I hugged him. I told him I loved him. 
 
 I understood why he had died in every other universe. 
 
 I understood what I had to do to make it right. 
 
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