Love Lost

Love Lost

“Hey Carter, could you help set the table for dinner?” I called.

“Ugh,” my son groaned as he heaved himself off of the couch and padded over to the kitchen. “I have to do everything around here,” he mumbled as Verona and I continued cooking dinner.

“You poor thing,” Verona said. “We really don’t appreciate enough the way you set the forks out.”

“You don’t!” Carter agreed. “God, I make them so orderly and straight.” He took a moment to revel in the perfection of his place setting.

“Alright, now move. You’re in the way,” I said, squeezing past him to get the knife from the drawer and began chopping the ginger for the stir fry. I fiddled with the awkward knob of root, unable to find a good position to solidly rest it. “I still think we should just use ground ginger. So much easier to deal with.”

Verona scoffed. “It doesn’t taste nearly as good.”

I rolled my eyes, doubting she would be able to tell the difference if I were to swap them out, but paused when I heard the next song come on from the speaker on the counter. “Ooh, I love this one,” I said. I wiped my hands on the towel and grabbed my phone to turn the volume up. “You remember where we first heard this one?”

“Oh yeah, it was at Rebecca’s for that awkward dinner party,” she said, laughing. “She invited her new boyfriend. He was awful. What was his name, again?”

“I don’t even remember. But what I do remember was that horrible wet slopping sound from him chewing with his mouth open. I’ll never look at carbonara the same way again.”

“Stop, stop,” she said, laughing. “I’m already crying from chopping these onions.” She put the knife down and wiped the moisture from her eyes with the back of her wrist.

“At least one good thing came from that night,” I said, grabbing the spoon from where it rested on the edge of the pan. “He had killer taste in music.”

I held the spoon up like a microphone and began singing along to the music. I put it in front of Verona’s face so she could sing along at the parts with the female vocals. She swayed to the beat as she sang along, and I danced around the tiny kitchen at the instrumental.

After finishing setting the utensils out, Carter turned around in the middle of us belting out the chorus, pausing to admire the scene of his parents trying to dance in such a confined space before continuing on to get the napkins. “So embarrassing,” he said, shaking his head with a smile.

“Hey now,” I said, sliding the chopped ginger into the pan along with the garlic. The room filled with the tantalizing smell of the aromatics as they sizzled in the oil. “You should be grateful you have us as parents instead of Mr. Mouth Sounds.”

“I might prefer hearing his mouth sounds to your singing,” he joked.

“He’d be the perfect match for your mom and her snoring,” I said, gently prodding her in the ribs with my elbow as I stirred the vegetables in the pan. She returned with a less gentle prod.

“Perfect match, huh?” Carter said as he hopped up onto the counter to sit. “That’s a loaded term, nowadays.”

“What, you’re talking about that new Tangent thing?” Verona asked.

Tangent was a service a new startup was offering. They developed an algorithm that they claimed could parse through all the data collected on a person online. Online purchases, social media, spending habits—apparently it sifts through someone’s entire digital presence and can find them their soulmate, anywhere in the world.

At least, so they claim.

“Yeah,” Carter said. “Have you guys considered using it?”

Verona wrapped her arm around my waist. “Of course not. I already have a husband.”

“You aren’t tempted at all?”

“It’s just an algorithm. It’s not like it can really find your soulmate.”

I looked down at her. “Well, aside from God himself coming down and pairing you with someone, isn’t that the closest we can get?”

“At the end of the day, it’s no better than online dating.”

“Tangent has been available for almost a month now, and there hasn’t been a single case of a person saying the algorithm didn’t find them their soulmate,” I replied, considering the words as I said them. Tens of thousands of people had used the program. Tens of thousands of satisfied customers.

I hadn’t given it much thought, before.

Verona pulled away, giving me a funny look. “You actually believe in soulmates?”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “Obviously. Don’t you?”

“Why is that obvious?”

“There is someone out there that would make you objectively the happiest if you were to find them. Statistically, out of the billions of people out there, you’ll never find them, but that person is out there.”

“Your soulmate is whomever you end up with. Life led you to that person, circumstances aligned, and you can make each other happy.”

I added the sauce to the pan, which responded with sizzling and a plume of steam. I slowly stirred it around, folding the vegetables in with the rest of the liquid to incorporate it. “You can make each other happy, sure,” I said slowly, “but can you make each other the happiest possible? Probably not. I mean, how many people do you really meet in your lifetime? Five hundred? What are the odds that that person is the absolute best match for you?”

“Are you saying I’m not your soulmate?” Verona asked. Her voice had an affected quality to it—sadness mixed with warning.

I hesitated too long before answering. A look of hurt crossed her face before I could respond. “It doesn’t mean we can’t be happy together,” I said. “I love you more than anything.” I reached over to pull her back into a side hug, but she shrugged my hand away.

“I’m honored you settled for me,” she muttered.

I sighed. I meant it when I said I loved her. I had never pursued the idea of a soulmate since it was such an unrealistic goal to strive for in finding a partner. It was settling only in the most abstract terms.

I was still piecing my thoughts together when Carter broke the silence. “Bad time to ask for my birthday gift?”

“You want to find your soulmate?” Verona asked, tone arching. “Absolutely not.”

“It is expensive,” I said.

“That’s not why,” Verona said. “That’s the least of my concerns. He’s too young.”

“I’m not that young,” Carter argued. “I’m seventeen. And besides, why should I wait to meet the love of my life?”

“It is strange to hear you talking like that,” I admitted.

“And people change,” Verona said. “No one is the same person they were at seventeen. Tangent can only use what it already has on you.”

“But I can grow alongside my best match right now,” Carter said. “If we do drift apart, then at least we had some period of happiness together.”

“Also, I think they do try to account for future changes and development in personality,” I said.

Verona immediately shot me a look. “You’re on his side?”

I shrugged. “I don’t see the harm. He isn’t committing to anything. Plus, theoretically you could use the algorithm again down the line if you really think your true match would have changed.”

Verona looked like she was at a loss for words.

“We can think about it,” she said at last as I portioned out the stir fry to each of our plates.

Carter seemed to accept that as a victory as he sat there grinning ear to ear.

~/~/~

It took about a week for Tangent to match Carter to his soulmate. As soon as he received the email, he bounded into the living room, calling for us. All he was given was a name and address.

Samara Lotfi. On the coast of Morocco.

After some sleuthing online, he was able to find her on social media, and after some brief explanation, they quickly began talking. For the weeks that followed, he would be glued to his phone as they chatted, or he could be seen taking photos for her. They learned about each other’s lives, which Carter relayed to us, beginning most conversations with, “Samara was just telling me about…”

His general demeanor seemed greatly improved, and even though Verona was initially very skeptical about the idea, even she seemed to come around on it after seeing the effect that she had on him.

“I still think it’s weird that we got our son a girlfriend for his birthday,” she said one night as we got ready for bed.

I laughed, hugging her from behind as she put her various creams on her face. As I brushed my nose against her neck, eliciting some small giggles from the tickling, she smelled like cucumbers and seaweed. I crinkled my nose at the scent, but I knew she liked it. “Not just a girlfriend,” I said. “A soulmate.”

“Meanwhile, I guess you’re just stuck with me.”

“The absolute horror,” I replied. I leaned my forehead into hers, but she bowed her head away.

“Ah ah ah, not yet. Cream’s still drying.”

I sighed, shambling over to bed and collapsing in the sheets, thinking of Carter and Samsara. They were quickly ramping up their engagement with each other, video calling, playing games together, watching movies, and really any activity they could find to do virtually. Even now, I could hear Carter’s voice resounding through the walls. He was laughing, but I couldn’t make out the words.

Their budding relationship reminded me of when I first met Verona. We had both gone to an annual convention where people in finance could set up booths to advertise their firms and network with others or recruit their services. As a new employee, still relegated to menial data entry and other equally soul-rending exercises, I was tasked with manning the booth all day. After a dozen repetitive interactions of regurgitating my script and feigning enthusiasm, Verona approached, looking nearly as exhausted as I was. I automatically launched into my rehearsed lines when she interrupted me, reminding me that she had already visited my booth earlier in the day. She said it with a smile that, despite the mounting lethargy of the day, sent a jolt through my heart. After some banter about the woes of enduring the entry level positions of the business, she asked if I wanted to get drinks at the hotel after we got off—strictly business, of course. I said of course, I still hadn’t gotten my fill of business since waking up at 7:00 that morning.

We kept closely in touch after we each headed home. I’d find my mind wandering, anxious whenever she took particularly long to respond to me and overanalyzing her messages when she did. Every point of contact had me feeling a little more buoyant, heart fluttering at any little sign of her interest. When business caused our paths to converge once again, it felt like we picked up right where we left off the first time we had met.

I looked at Verona as she stood over the sink. She was wearing an oversized t-shirt from a 5K she ran for charity, a tattered pair of drawstring cotton sleep shorts she refused to replace despite my urging, and her face was still glistening from the creams she had applied. Those days of optimism felt so long ago now, as those images in my mind confronted the simple scene of domesticity before me. For all the happy moments we had had, I wondered if it could have been better. Each perfect moment could be paired with an occasion when we disagreed, or fought, or cried, and now I was faced with the stagnancy of comfort.

It was a clashing of idealism versus reality, but with Tangent, now reality was different. There was another option beyond dreaming of the impossible, and I couldn’t help but wonder.

It wasn’t long before Carter and Samara were desperate to see each other in person, and eventually Samara managed to convince her parents to let her fly over to see Carter. I didn’t dare tell Verona, but I was eagerly looking forward to seeing one of Tangent’s matches firsthand. All three of us went to pick her up from the airport. She emerged from the gate and quickly spotted Carter, rushing over. I recognized her from the pictures he had shown us. She had dark skin, her black hair tied into a braid over left shoulder. She was wearing a beige hoodie, torn black jeans, and white sneakers—a simple outfit, but I could recognize the style from Carter’s own wardrobe. As she pranced toward us, I idly wondered how much they had shared with each other versus how much the algorithm had found that they already had in common. She slung her canvas backpack off her shoulder and immediately wrapped Carter into a tight hug. They were already so intimately comfortable with each other that, for a moment, I forgot that this was their first time meeting.

The car ride back home, they couldn’t stop chattering, laughter constantly emanating from the back seat. Verona and I kept exchanging glances, smiling at his evident joy. It was interesting to see her personality in contrast to Carter’s—the similarities, but also the differences, and the ways in which their unique diversities complemented one another, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I considered if there were ways in which Verona and I did the same, but though I could come up with dozens of reasons why I loved her, I struggled to think of ways in which we augmented each other in the same way as Carter and Samara, shoring up one another’s weaknesses. I could only remember the friction our differences had caused.

It’s the sort of minor thing I would normally overlook, dismissing my concerns as an unrealistic standard, but seeing them laughing in the back seat struck a chord. Was better possible?

They talked the whole way home, and quickly retreated to their room, so it wasn’t until dinner that Verona and I could properly get to know Samara ourselves.

Carter had scooted his chair closer to Samara’s side of the table, their elbows almost touching as they cut into the lasagna. She wore wire-framed glasses that fogged up every time she bent over to take a bite.

“Have you been to the US before?” I asked as I grated some extra parmesan onto my plate. I was the sort of person who, when the waiter came around at a restaurant to offer some cheese for the pasta, would wait until the waiter stopped rather than interrupt them myself.

She nodded. “I actually went to a boarding school in California for a few years.”

“Wow, was that after the earthquake?” Verona asked.

“Before, thankfully,” she said. “I heard the school is still doing okay, though.”

“So you must be pretty used to warm weather, huh?” I said. “Not the best time of year to visit this far north.”

“True,” she said with a laugh, “though I’ve gotten a bit more used to it recently since I’ve been living with my grandparents in Spain. A bit colder, there.”

“Oh? Why have you been staying there, if you don’t mind my asking?” Verona asked.

Samara shook her head. “It’s fine. My parents split up a couple weeks ago, actually.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Verona said softly.

“My mom used Tangent without my dad knowing. I think she was inspired after hearing me talk about Carter. He found a notification from her match on her phone, and they had a huge argument.” She stared off lost in thought for a moment, her glasses still fogging slightly in shifting waves from the steam.

I was stunned. I felt sympathy for her having to deal with split parents, but I couldn’t help but connect her story to my thoughts about Verona, questioning whether things could be better. Were they happier, now?

Carter rubbed her shoulder comfortingly. “Shitty situation all around,” he said.

“Language,” Verona admonished. Carter huffed in response.

“I’ve read a lot of articles about how many divorces Tangent has caused,” I said. “It’s crazy how much of an effect it’s had.”

“All for a silly algorithm, as though it’s really worth ruining a standing relationship over.”

“I mean,” I started, “I’ve seen other reports, too, about how happy people are with their matches. It basically has a perfect success rate, aside from the odd cases where people are matched who don’t speak the same language, but even that may work out in the end.”

“Is it worth it when it leaves people like Samara in its wake?” Carter said. He had stopped rubbing her shoulder and threaded it through her elbow. They sat interlinked, her leaning on him slightly.

I shook my head. “No, of course. I am sorry for what happened, Samara. As Carter said, that’s a shitty situation.”

Verona shot me a look, and I returned with a wry smile. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Carter smiling too.

“I’ve been staying in touch with my mom,” Samara said. “She does seem pretty happy with her new boyfriend. She’s been really apologetic about the whole thing, at least.”

“And your dad?”

“I don’t think he’s used Tangent yet. He’s kind of soured on the idea, considering.”

“That’s too bad,” I said. “Maybe he could find his soulmate too.”

“Seriously?” Verona said. “This thing is tearing families apart, and all you can focus on is people finding their soulmates.” She said “soulmates” with a different tone, as though she were trying to imitate me.

“You know how I feel about the concept,” I said. “It’s made a lot of people very happy.”

“Yes, Tristan, and where does that leave me?” she spat. “Your ‘statistically improbable to be your soulmate’ wife?”

“My wife of nineteen years whom I love dearly.”

“You’ve seemed kind of distant recently. Things will be going fine, and then Carter will mention Samara, and you’ll kind of retreat into your own head.”

I looked over at them at the other side of the table, hating that they were here to listen to this conversation. “I’m just happy for them, is all,” I said, gesturing vaguely at the pair.

“Kind of jealous, maybe?” she said bitterly.

“I didn’t say that.”

I noticed her hand was tightly clenched as it lay in her lap, knuckles white. “You aren’t even denying it?”

“I—” I started. I was torn between meeting her accusatory stare and avoiding the intensity of the eye contact. “Aren’t you? Don’t you wish we could have what they have?”

“When my husband is lost in his own head thinking of some imaginary perfect girl? Yeah, you could say I wish things were better.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I groaned. “I still love you, Ronnie, I just…” My heart was pounding, and I was painfully aware of Carter and Samara watching us. “Maybe we should talk about this later?”

Verona shook her head. When she finally spoke, her voice cracked, “You know my soulmate reached out to me last week?”

My body thrummed with a sudden jolt of emotion, my heart skipping a beat as I tried to digest that.

“What?” Carter interjected. “You didn’t mention it?”

I looked at Verona. “That’s… good?” I tried.

Verona sputtered a humorless laugh as a tear ran down her cheek. “I didn’t tell you because some small part of me knew that you would tell me to go to him—to leave you. I couldn’t face the fact that my husband might care about me so little.”

I clumsily pushed my chair away from the table and stumbled into the living room, raking my fingers through my hair. Verona followed a moment later. She approached with her arms tightly crossed.

I could still see Carter and Samara watching from the table, and the twisted thought briefly passed through my head that I hated to be making such a bad first impression in front of my future daughter-in-law.

Samara looked terrified, and as she slowly shook her head, hands covering her mouth, her eyes began to glisten with moisture.

“Go upstairs, you two,” I croaked.

She turned and darted up the stairs, and Carter followed a moment after.

“You don’t wonder at all whether you could be happier?” I asked Verona. She only stared at me in response. I continued, “You only have one life to live. How do you know you aren’t squandering it with an inferior husband?”

“Looking more and more inferior by the second,” she seethed.

I anxiously paced around our living room as I tried to organize my thoughts—to just get her to understand. Among the other trinkets and baubles we had collected over the years, like a clock inherited from Verona’s grandmother and a pottery vase Carter had made in art class, photos of our family stared back at me from frames on our side tables and mantle.

“I wasn’t going to tell you,” she said. “I was happy to just move past it. But it seemed like if I didn’t say anything, the next thing I’d know, you would have snuck off with another woman.”

“I’d never cheat on you,” I pleaded. “I don’t know what to say here. I do still love you.”

“But you also think I should marry my soulmate.”

My mind whirled, and I was afraid to say anything else that could be misinterpreted. I thought back to that first night we met in the bar, where we had stayed talking for so long that they had to kick us out at closing time, perturbed that this is where that relationship would end up. I tried to conjure those emotions, to show her how much I cared about her despite my musings about Tangent.

“You’re so ready to throw your entire life away for some woman you’ve never even met?” Verona yelled at me. “This life we’ve built together? I loved you!”

“I still love you,” I said, meeting her gaze again. Her face was occluded by the tears welling in my own eyes, but the hurt was evident.

She stared at me for several long moments. A few times she started to say something before choking on the words.

Finally, she spoke.

“Fuck you, Tristan.”

She turned, stomping her way back upstairs. The sound of her slamming the door echoed down to me as a dull thud. I collapsed onto the floor, leaning against the foot of the couch with my head cocked back to rest on the cushion. The family photos scattered throughout the room surrounded me like an audience in an amphitheater. Our smiling faces felt accusatory as they looked down at me. The house was silent in the aftermath of our argument, save for the soft ticking of the clock on the mantle.

~/~/~

My wardrobe was limited by what I could fit into my suitcase, and since I forgot most of my toiletries, I was left smelling like the faintly astringent hotel soap and shampoo, though I figured those sorts of immediate details shouldn’t matter too much if this person really were to be my soulmate.

I had been slowly losing my mind in the hotel room as I waited for the match to come in, and the moment I got her address on that Sunday, I booked a flight to Calgary.

Bold, yes, but I had little to lose at this point.

My head was still a little groggy, both from the alcohol I had been drinking last night and the persistent daylight thanks to the time zone change. I took a few deep breaths to steady myself as I stood outside her apartment. The wall opposite her door was a large window that overlooked the city. Though the trees back home had been casting off their leaves and changing colors as the season chilled, here there seemed to be enough evergreens that the cityscape remained verdant. They had already gotten their first snowfall, dusting some of the branches with delicate powder. I took a moment to bask in the soft light that streamed in through the window, savoring its warmth. The hallway was silent enough that the only sound I heard was the blood rushing in my ears.

Before my anxiety got any worse, I strode over and rapped on her door. As I waited for a response, I felt like a high schooler again, waiting outside on a stoop for my date, and when she opened the door, my heart fluttered in a way I hadn’t felt since that very same era. I suddenly wondered how the algorithm was able to find someone the user would find physically attractive. Activity on social media? Past dating history? Porn habits?

Regardless, as I looked at her, all I could think was to appreciate that it worked.

She looked to be around the same age as I was, in her mid-forties, but she was aging gracefully. The only real sign of wrinkles were the laugh lines by her eyes. Her brown hair was tied into a loose bun, with wavy strands falling across her head like the unfurling petals of a flower. Judging by her oversized pajama shirt and baggy flannel pants, it seemed she had been lounging around the house. She was staring up at me with big brown eyes, a smile playing at the corners of her lips.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

She was attractive. Not in the way that would turn heads on the street, but in a way that somehow checked all of the boxes of features I found attractive—even those I could never quite put into words. I couldn’t help but notice the features she shared with Verona that I had unconsciously sought out.

“Elise?” I managed. “My name is Tristan. I’m your soulmate.”

The smile immediately fell from her face.

“I was wondering if you wanted to gra—”

“Did you use that new Tangent thing?” she asked, interrupting.

“Yes, I—”

She leaned her forehead against the doorframe, eyes squeezed shut. “Damn it,” she muttered.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, bewildered.

“Well, this is a ridiculous situation,” she said, straightening, “but I’m sorry. I already have a husband.”

She turned around and called into the apartment.

I blinked, my mind whirling. “It’s alright. I was married, too.”

“Was?”

“We had a bit of a falling out,” I said. I sighed. “I suppose I wanted to see what the algorithm had to offer.”

She pursed her lips as she looked me up and down, and I couldn’t help but notice that she had retreated slightly back into the doorway. A man emerged from a room in the back of the apartment, looking confused as he made his way toward the front door.

“This man says he’s my soulmate,” she explained to her husband.

He looked as confused as I was. “I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but it seems you’re here to steal my wife,” he said with a little chuckle.

My voice caught in my throat. All I could do was shake my head.

“I’m sorry,” Elise said, “you seem like a nice guy, but you couldn’t have really expected me to drop everything for you? I don’t even know you.”

“The algorithm put us together,” I tried. “I’ve seen firsthand how effective it can be. My son was matched with his soulmate, and I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Yeah, well, he wasn’t married, was he?”

Her husband grumbled, “It’s so intrusive how much data they have on everyone. We didn’t opt in to be included in this program.”

“If everyone wasn’t included, then the algorithm couldn’t really find you your soulmate,” I said. I shook my head, trying to get back on track. “When you first heard about Tangent, you’re saying you not once wondered if things could be better?”

“I don’t know what better would look like, honestly,” she said, wrapping her arm around her husband’s waist, who was staring at me with his brow furrowed. “I’m happy with how things are. I don’t need to optimize my life like that.”

“And if you’re passing up on an opportunity you’ll regret?” I said, trying to ignore him.

“Then I’ll never know.”

My hands fell limp at my sides.

“But what I would know is the life I’m leaving behind. And I’m just not ready to do that.”

“Can we at least stay in touch? Maybe grab drinks? Get to know each other, at least?”

She shook her head, bun flopping with the motion. “I think that would only make things more difficult. For both of us.”

“Look,” I pleaded, desperate, “You only have one life to live, so why would you spend it in a mediocre relationship, when—”

“You don’t know the first thing about our relationship,” her husband interjected. “I’m sorry, I can appreciate you’re in a tough spot here, but I can’t say I’m ready to lose her either. And to be honest, I don’t know if I appreciate you trying to steal my wife right in front of me.”

“I don’t want to steal anyone,” I gasped. “You could find your soulmate too. If we all just paired off with the right person, everyone would be happier, no?”

Elise looked her husband in the eyes, and a silent communication seemed to pass between them.

“This isn’t really getting us anywhere,” she spoke at the same time he said, “You should probably leave.”

My heart was pounding in my chest, an anxious bubble of emotion churning throughout my entire body. I couldn’t put into words how desperate I was for us to at least try—how desperate I was for others to see it from my perspective: that we would all be spiraling off in our own directions living our lives imperfectly even when we were given a chance to do things right.

I unconsciously began reaching toward her before stopping myself, fiddling with my watch strap instead. “I—” I started. “You—”

“Goodbye, Tristan,” my soulmate said as she shut the door behind her.