Another fork in the road?

We went to see Jake Gyllenhaal's new movie ("Source Code") this weekend -- and, oddly enough, this futuristic flick echoed the key question at the heart of an Anne Tyler novel that I just finished:  If  you had the chance, would you go back and take another fork in the road, knowing you would lead an entirely different life?

"Source Code" is one of those mind-bending films that is best enjoyed when you suspend belief. In other words, forget about the plausibility of the plot. Ignore the confusion over past, present and future. IMDb (Internet Movie Database) summarizes it as "An action thriller centered on a soldier who wakes up in the body of an unknown man and discovers he's part of a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train."

Yeah, right.

In any case, there comes a point where Colter Stevens (Gyllenhaal) ponders the fork-in-the-road question. With rising urgency, he asks his future love interest: "What would you do if you knew you only had one minute to live?"

In that moment, it made me think of "Back When We Were Grownups," Tyler's 15th novel (published in 2001), and its main character, Rebecca Davitch. She is a 53-year-old grandmother who became a widow six years into her marriage and suddenly was faced with the challenge of raising three stepdaughters along with her own biological daughter. Later, the brother of her late father-in-law also moves in after the death of his wife and, nearing his 100th birthday, he's probably the biggest burden of all.

Rebecca is the sun around which all the other family members orbit, taking care of everyone's needs, running the family business, constantly trying to smooth over tensions and misunderstandings, rarely stopping to think about how she came to lead the life she is living.

The novel begins: "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person."

And the first chapter ends, "How on earth did I get like this? How? How did I ever become this person who's not really me?"

As the story unfolds, Rebecca is given a second chance. Her high school boyfriend, Will, the one she expected to marry until she met and married Joe Davitch, is living nearby and is divorced. She looks him up and calls him one night. They meet at a restaurant. They eventually start seeing each other again. She invites him over to meet her extended family. He invites her to dinner to meet his teenage daughter. She's known him since childhood.

Is this the man she was meant to be with? How different would life have turned out had she chosen Will over Joe? With all four daughters grown, is there anything stopping her from belatedly taking another fork in the road?

They are intriguing questions and Lori and I talked about them over dinner -- homemade fish tacos, enjoyed in the quiet of an early evening, looking out the floor-to-ceiling window from the second floor of our condo. No, we agreed, we have no regrets about the path we chose to travel together after we met as college students in the mid-70s. Yes, we realized, we have friends and relatives who essentially gave themselves a second chance when they remarried. It's worked out for most, but not all.

Interestingly, I had a similar reaction to the movie and the book. Both were OK, but hardly stellar.   "Source Code" is pure Hollywood: lots of explosions and special effects, tense moments and a happy ending. "Back When We Were Grownups" took a while to get into, mainly because there were so many characters to keep track of, including Rebecca's daughters (nicknamed Biddy, Patch, NoNo, MinFoo), their husbands and children. Rebecca's epiphany comes late in the novel, though, and more or less makes up for any weaknesses in the storytelling.

Even if you never see the movie or the book, it's an interesting exercise to imagine the alternative life you might have led by following another fork in the road.

Photograph: thriveable.com