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They talk, of course, after.
Small words, exchanged in Evelyn's still-sharp English or Joy's faltering Mandarin. Words that won't risk shattering the beautiful and delicate understanding they now share. Words expressing thanks for a ride to the park where Joy is meeting Becky for a picnic with some of their friends, or confirming that Joy called the window repair company that morning with the measurements for the replacement pane, or announcing that the noodles are ready. Waymond fills the continuing silences between them, his voice warm and melodious, taking delight in the simple pleasures of life—quiet evenings, the aromas of good food, his family.
It's a welcome start, almost enough to make sticking to the laundromat universe worth it. Joy does her best not to cheat, even when she's stuck in rush-hour SoCal traffic and wants desperately to be literally anywhere else. (Or to rearrange everyone's matter so that she's the only one on the freeway, but she's made a promise to herself not to pull Jobu Tupaki shit like that anymore. Joy has spent her angry youth rending atoms from atoms, destroying because it is the only way she can make sense of her many existences, and if she's going to seek meaning beyond the bagel, she'll have to give up that habit.) But sometimes Evelyn's words still come out too harsh, and even though she can see the regret in her mother's eyes a moment later, Joy still excuses herself to the bathroom and jumps elsewhere for a bit. She knows it's her mother's way of trying to connect, but it hurts nonetheless. Joy doesn't know how to find a place where she won't be continually dodging her mother's rough edges, where she won't always be tiptoeing around the volatile sleeping dragon of Evelyn's own pain. She's not sure if such a place even exists.
The answer comes unexpectedly, as so many things do. Gong Gong goes home to China, but before he leaves, he presses into Evelyn's hand a slim gold chain on which dangles a smooth jade pendant in a delicate purple color; he then nods gruffly to Joy, a hint of a smile flickering about his mouth, before he wheels himself towards airport security. Joy watches her mother as Evelyn runs her finger over the pendant, her breath slightly audible with wonder and grief, before she closes her hand resolutely around the pendant and marches out of the airport to where Waymond is waiting with the car. Joy follows in her wake, knowing better than to ask.
When Joy sees Evelyn standing by the window after dinner, though, rubbing the pendant between her fingers and looking something akin to lost, she walks to her mother and stands behind her, afraid to offer direct comfort in a moment of vulnerability when the odds of Evelyn lashing out again are so high. Evelyn's eyes meet Joy's in the window pane's reflection, and she turns to Joy, her eyes filled with a mix of emotions, unable to put into words what she wants to say. Instead, she looks down at the pendant again, and Joy's gaze follows. And perhaps it's just that Joy's mind is on the jade's milky lavender hue, but all of a sudden, the two of them are back on the edge of that ravine, no sounds audible except the slight rustle of wind over the cliff's edge.
Hi, says Joy.
Oh, for fuck's sake, grumbles Evelyn the rock. I thought the plan was that we weren't going to 'verse-jump around like this?
I thought maybe you needed a moment in private, Joy explains, hurt by her mother's sharpness.
You're here, Evelyn points out.
Yeah. Joy can't cry as a rock, but if she could, she'd find herself holding back tears right about now. I'll—I'll go now.
No, says Evelyn quickly. No, that's not what I meant. I... please, stay here with me. It would make me feel a lot better.
To prove she means it, Evelyn turns her rock self around, google eyes peering at Joy. And, seeing this, Joy—who knows it's been a rough day for her mother, saying goodbye to her father for possibly the last time—dares to trust that Evelyn means what she says. She stays, and she slowly turns herself around so that her own google eyes are staring back at her mother.
They sit there for a long moment, two beings in the beautiful void, as Joy slowly rationalizes her way out of a very animal fight-or-flight state and settles into the comfort of just being a rock.
I thought we fell off that cliff and shattered at the bottom of the ravine, says Evelyn finally.
So, time doesn't really follow a linear path in this universe? Maybe because rocks don't really perceive time? If Joy weren't a rock, she would shrug. I've gone over the edge of that cliff countless times in the past, but whenever I return to this universe, I'm always back here at the top. Sort of a 'Groundhog Day' effect.
'Groundhog Day'? asks Evelyn suspiciously. Is this like Raccacoonie?
Yeah, no, sighs Joy. She's only vaguely sure what Raccacoonie is, based on a few weird things her mom's said in passing, but she's pretty sure it's totally different from Groundhog Day.
The two rocks stare at each other, google-eyed.
It's a beautiful pendant, Joy says finally. Was it being a brat to you?
What?
So, precious stones can kinda be jerks sometimes, Joy the rock explains. Jade less so than others, although it's gotten a little egomaniacal after centuries of attention in China. Amethyst is all weird and New Age, which is mostly just annoying? Quartz is the worst, though—it insists it's really special and goes on about it forever, but I think that's just because it knows deep down it's pretty much glorified glass. If you ever go to a natural history museum, avoid the precious-stones exhibits at all costs, is all I'm saying.
Evelyn's rock face continues to stare at Joy.
I just thought I'd ask, Joy finishes. You can talk back to them, if they get too sassy, even in the laundromat universe. It takes a little practice, but believe me, I've done it.
It was my mother's, says Evelyn abruptly. The pendant. It was her mother's before that. I didn't think I'd ever see it again, when I left. I... I never would have expected my father to bring it here, to give to me after all these years.
Joy doesn't say anything initially. Gong Gong isn't the easiest man to read, especially in the laundromat universe, where he seems more inclined to silently judge than to offer his thoughts in any language. Alpha-Joy actually always got on quite well with Alpha-Gong Gong and Alpha-Po Po alike, but neither of them had ever been the most emotionally direct people, even in a universe where she'd grown up interacting with them daily. It would be easy to insist that of course Gong Gong would have left Po Po's precious pendant to Evelyn, their only child. It would have been the polite and completely dishonest thing to do, and it probably would have snagged the fragile fabric of trust that mother and daughter had woven together over these past few weeks, rent an ugly tear in it that only the most careful and time-intensive mending could repair.
Would you leave it to me? Joy asks finally. Even knowing what you know?
A few weeks ago, she would have meant Becky, would have meant dropping out of college, would have meant not becoming a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer, would have meant even the tattoo that was easily hidden and really shouldn't have offended anyone. Now, the question is even more fraught. Joy knows that Evelyn loves her, but Evelyn also now knows that Joy—Jobu Tupaki—has killed her in extremely cold blood, over and over and over, across a multiverse of ruthlessness and anger. And love is not the same thing as forgiveness, for Gong Gong, or for Evelyn, or for anyone else.
Of course, Evelyn replies without hesitation. You're my daughter.
And that's that. Joy exhales a tense breath (metaphorically, of course, because rocks don't have lungs) and googles her eyes gratefully at Evelyn, for lack of anything else to do.
It'd look really good on you. You should start wearing it. We can send Gong Gong a thank-you note and a photo of you wearing it, he'd probably like that!
Evelyn makes a neutral rock noise, which Joy interprets to mean that she approves.
Hey, Evelyn asks after a minute. If the jade does start talking to me in the laundromat universe, what do I tell it? What do I say to make it stop being rude, without sounding rude myself?
Tell it to shut up? Joy laughs. It'll listen if it wants to, and if it doesn't, well, I don't think it'll get offended. No offense intended at all to Po Po's memory, but the pendant itself is dumb as a rock. Literally.
It's another few days before Evelyn taps on Joy's shoulder.
"We need to talk," she mutters in Joy's ear.
Evelyn puts a finger to the purple jade pendant that she's barely removed from around her neck since receiving it. (The pre-multiverse Laundromat Evelyn only ever wore her green jade pendant for very special occasions, and Joy is strangely touched that her mother is bucking her usual rules to keep Gong Gong close, is allowing herself to take unhindered advantage of the little gestures of beauty that even her worst self has garnered.) Joy takes the hint immediately, and in an instant, she and Evelyn are back at the top of the ravine. Joy almost isn't surprised to be back here so soon, not since Evelyn has begun shooting strange, furrow-browed looks at Joy when she thinks Joy isn't watching. She assumes it's something about the pendant, being an asshole, as pendants are wont to be.
You said something the other day, when we were here, begins Evelyn without preamble. Why have you gone over the cliff so many times, Joy?
Joy doesn't answer, because Evelyn already knows. The unbearable loneliness of being the only person to see everything, everywhere, all at once. The isolation of being rejected over and over by her mother, in every possible universe, for never being good enough. The realization that, even if she found wonderful people like Becky to love her in one universe or another, part of her would always be missing because of the severed connection between herself and Evelyn in every universe, some emotional umbilical cord that had stopped providing sustenance before Joy was ready to breathe on her own. Her life has changed so much over these past few weeks, since the incident at the IRS, but the memories of Jobu Tupaki's demons begin to seep back into her present reality, a cold, torus-like inkblot bleeding slowly into her mind.
It was easier, she explains after a moment, to shatter here where nobody was around to miss me.
The wind howls around them, uncaring. Joy, as a rock, should not-care right back, but from the memories of her other selves, she shudders as intensely as if the chill were raising goosebumps along her rocky surface.
I'm here, says Evelyn, and even as a rock, her voice is at once defensive and sheepish and filled with self-reproach.
You're here now, Joy agrees.
Yes, says Evelyn fiercely. And even when I'm not, I care. I... I'm sorry I ever made you think otherwise.
Joy can only imagine how much it must have taken her mother to say those words, and despite how much she's beginning to ache with the unending coldness within her, she's grateful.
You know, Evelyn adds tentatively, in one of my other universes, I'm like you. Like... you and Becky, I mean.
Oh? This shouldn't surprise Joy, given that in a few of her other universes, she identifies as rigidly straight and is married to a very straight man and has kids with him and (most surprisingly) is reasonably happy with the entire arrangement. Still, it's surprising to hear her mother admit the fact, if nothing else.
I have a wife, Evelyn continues, still treading carefully, as if afraid that Joy will laugh or gloat. We fight, like your father and I do. But we also love each other, like your father and I do. So. I understand better, now.
Even though she's a rock, Joy feels a sort of euphoria sparkle within her, like champagne bubbles that quickly disperse the spinning coldness with their ebullience, like the ceaseless rippling arpeggiations in the middle section of Debussy's Clair de lune. It's one thing for her mother to accept her, out of sheer willpower. It's another thing entirely for her mother to understand her, to realize fully that Joy's love for Becky really is no different from Evelyn's own love for Waymond. It feels more solid, somehow, like Evelyn can never again reject Joy for her sexuality, because it's now her own experience, as well (even if Joy certainly hopes there's no queerphobia in the universe where her mom is married to another woman).
Joy glances over at Evelyn, a literal blank slate other than her surprisingly expressive google eyes, Debussy still echoing through her thoughts. Joy was once supposed to play Clair de lune for a piano recital, when she was in the fifth grade; but being a Tiny Asian Musical Prodigy was one of the many ways in which she had failed utterly, and although she loves the piece, she always associates it with her mother's scowl as Joy's stage fright made her fingers falter and freeze on the keys, again and again, the audience fidgeting in second-hand embarrassment throughout. She tries to imagine her mother the rock scowling in quite the same way, but there isn't a way to make google eyes alone scowl. Maybe having these conversations here is so perfect because they not only can hide their own emotions from one another, they can hide from each other's emotions, too. Right now, however, Joy really wishes she had limbs so she could run to Evelyn and embrace her.
What's she like? she asks. Your wife.
She... If Evelyn could cough as a rock, Joy could swear she would have just done it. She's, uh, Deirdre Beaubeirdre.
Okay, says Joy, as neutrally as possible, trying desperately not to laugh because her mom is opening herself up in a very vulnerable way, and Joy has to respect that. Still. Deirdre. Weird. (Or, maybe, weirdre?) So, uh, what's that like?
We have a nice house, Evelyn continues. With lots of pictures of cats on the walls.
That tracks, Joy agrees.
She plays the piano for me, sometimes. We watch TV in the evenings. It's quiet, but comfortable.
It sounds very nice, says Joy sincerely, because that does sound exactly like the kind of cozy middle-aged lesbian lifestyle that she's always imagined she and Becky would have, someday.
Also, we both have hot dogs for fingers, Evelyn adds, absolutely stone-faced in every possible sense.
Joy has gone over the edge of the cliff in a state of despair more times than she can count. Today is the first day she can remember rolling over the edge in a state of complete hysterics, her inaudible cackles accompanying the echoing of her rocky descent. When she turns her attention back to the laundromat universe, still grinning from ear to ear, Evelyn just rolls her eyes at her, before stomping off to monitor the till with a small smile pulling at the corner of her own mouth.
Eventually, they reach the point where they're no longer going to the rock universe only for serious, painful talks.
"God, just listen to that racket," Evelyn mutters as today's excuse. Waymond is baking almond cookies and singing "Barbie Girl" in a loud and tuneless voice. They haven't gotten a new karaoke machine yet—not even Evelyn is willing to risk squandering the good will Deirdre has bestowed in making their recent tax audit work out—but Waymond is shameless about singing his favorite karaoke songs a cappella. More than once, Joy has caught her mother watching him, a small, soft, private smile on her face, as she considers the man for whom she threw away so many epic life trajectories, as she recalls why he was worth it. In the present, Evelyn shakes her head, pretending to be annoyed, but she's suppressing yet another smile as she quirks an eyebrow at Joy and taps her purple jade pendant. Joy grins at her ridiculous parents, and together, she and Evelyn shift imperceptibly to the side of the ravine.
I always forget how quiet it is here, Joy remarks. Until I come back, at least.
No silly husbands singing bad American pop songs, Evelyn agrees. (Joy decides not to inform her mother that Aqua is technically Scandinavian.) It's a good escape.
Joy considers that word. Escape is only possible if you're not everywhere, all at once. She supposes it means that Laundromat Evelyn is managing to find some success in her efforts to live as fully as possible in her original universe, to not be swept into the allure of the other potentialities crackling at the periphery of her awareness. And Joy is comforted to realize that, although it still takes effort, she herself is managing to live pretty intentionally in extended stretches of time in the laundromat universe, too.
It helps that she and Evelyn are learning to hang out again in the laundromat universe. Before, Joy only wanted to be fully present there for time she spent with Becky, for the few moments she stole alone in her father's warmth, without Evelyn's judgment hovering over them. Now, she and Evelyn are learning to co-exist peacefully, seated on the sofa cushion cracks while reading newspapers or books or smartphones as Waymond prepares dinner, sometimes even taking short walks around the sun-washed concrete sprawl of Simi Valley, without feeling the need to say much to each other. Evelyn no longer scolds Joy for not calling on the free family phone plan, because Joy is suddenly present in her parents' lives again, and learning to sit comfortably in silence is somehow more valuable than speech, especially after so many years of exchanging nothing but brief, harsh words on their sporadic visits. Still. Even if they're getting better at talking or not talking in their daily lives, Joy's begun to sense that Evelyn likes having the rock universe as a little space where they can be completely alone together, no one else to bother them or intrude on any private conversations, no need to explain anything to anyone.
(Joy herself likes their secret little world enough that she's recently gotten a second tattoo, on her ankle, of a rock with google eyes. Becky seems to assume it's an unfortunately poorly-rendered Miyazaki dust bunny, given how she keeps sympathetically patting Joy's ankle whenever she sees the new addition. Evelyn, meanwhile, hasn't seen the new tattoo yet, because even if Evelyn has finally welcomed Becky into the family, Joy somehow suspects that tattoos will continue to be an irrational point of contention between them.)
I think it's only a good escape because we can go back, though, Evelyn reflects after a moment. It would be a very quiet place to live in, all the time.
Yeah. Joy considers the canyon-carved expanse before her; the sun is hovering lower on the horizon, and shadows are beginning to tremble along the ridges of the mountains. Tell me about more of your universes.
What do you want to know about them? Evelyn asks. There are a lot. I can't tell you about all of them.
Well, tell me about the ones where I don't exist, Joy reasons. I'm so mad I don't exist in the one with the hot-dog fingers! That sounds hilarious!
It's very disturbing, Evelyn replies, and while that's probably true, Joy's pretty sure Evelyn said so just to make her feel better.
Still. I've seen some pretty weird shit in my universes, too.
Language, Evelyn replies reflexively.
Yeah, yeah, I fucking know, laughs Joy. Do you know Dad in all of your universes, even the ones where you don't get married?
I don't know him in the hot-dog fingers universe. I do know him in another.
Evelyn pauses, thoughtful.
It's a universe that diverges from the one where we have the laundromat, she explains. The differences begin when I listen to Gong Gong, and I don't go to the United States with your dad.
And?
And, uh, my pinkies become very strong through kung fu, and then I become a famous movie star.
What?!?!
I become like that one movie star, Evelyn continues. I star in that movie about 'Insanely Wealthy Asians'?
MOM, rock-shouts Joy, YOU BECOME MICHELLE YEOH?!?!
Yes, her, concludes Evelyn, triumphant at having gotten her point across even though she can never remember people's names correctly.
Oh my GOD, Mom! Why the fuck did you agree to focus solely on THIS universe, then?! I don't understand why you don't want to spend ALL of your time hanging out in that one!!! I'll bet you have the greatest clothes!
Because, Evelyn says, matter-of-fact, as if this should have been dead obvious. You don't exist in that one.
Joy scoots over to Evelyn and bumps her gently.
You just chipped me, Evelyn informs Joy, looking as unimpressed as it's possible for completely stationary rock to look.
Laundromat, Joy tells her.
And suddenly they're both back in the warmth of the little apartment, Waymond still singing along happily to Aqua as he pulls a tray out of the oven. According to the old analog clock on the wall, Becky will be arriving in about ten minutes for dinner, and then they're all going to the movies together (something Waymond and Becky have picked out, Evelyn and Joy couldn't care less what the film is). It's not elegant, this simple little world of theirs; no red-carpet premieres, no ballgowns and tuxedos; just laundry and taxes, around and around and around. But it's theirs to share as a family, their own quirky little universe of hopes and dreams and desires knit together with love and loyalty and trust, a reality that shifts like sand in its particulars but sits on foundations of the most unbreakable stone. As soon as Joy remembers this, that even the most deceptively simple happiness shouldn't be taken for granted, she, too, can't think of why she'd ever want to be anywhere else.
Joy turns to Evelyn and, because she has arms here, gives her mom a giant hug. And Evelyn, with a sigh, simply hugs her back.