A Wrinkle in Time is a *very* busy novel. At face value, it’s a sci-fi novel about a trio of kids on a transcendent journey through time and space in order to rescue the father to two of them, while guided by three celestial beings. But woven into the short epic is the very human journey of self-acceptance and understanding the power of love our heroine Meg Murray must confront during the mission.
Meg might be one of the most relatable young teens in all of young adult literature. She’s gawky, awkward, and has a very hard time looking beyond her own flaws. She’s also really struggling to find her place in the world. Naturally, it doesn’t help that Meg is grappling with all of this while facing off against It, the evil being who attempts to capitalize on Meg’s insecurities in order to maintain control. But with the help of the three Mrs. and Calvin O’Keefe, Meg is able to fend off It and rescue her father and, later on, her brother, Charles Wallace.
From the instant they meet, Calvin and Meg have clear chemistry. Calvin is unabashed in his crush on Meg and while she’s definitely taken with him as well, her own insecurities often get in the way. Unfortunately, the novel has the audacity to end before the budding friendship — and mutual crush — is able to fully develop.
While it’s a devastating blow that we don’t get immediate closure on Meg and Calvin — whose quickly developing close friendship ends up being pivotal to Meg’s defeating It — luckily, A Wrinkle in Time is actually the first in a series of five novels centered around Meg and her family.
So what happens to Meg and Calvin, who are certainly destined to be together forever?
Thanks to the other four novels in the Time Quintet and the O’Keefe novels, we know that Calvin and Meg eventually get married towards the end of the former series. Their high school friendship and budding relationship is explored in A Wind in the Door, the sequel to A Wrinkle in Time, which finds Meg, Calvin, and school principal Mr. Jenkins traveling into one of Charles Wallace’s mitochondria to save him from a deadly disease. During the novel, Meg and Calvin discover they can communicate with each other through a form of telepathy, called kything.
While the two aren’t featured in every book in both series, we learn that Me becomes a mathematician and Calvin becomes a marine biologist with multiple doctorates — he’s in grad school at age 19 during Many Waters, the fourth book in the Time quintet. Like Meg’s parents, the two often work alongside each other, with Meg stepping in to help Calvin with pesky math. The pair eventually have seven children, with the oldest being Polyhymnia “Polly” O’Keefe, who becomes a central character in the O’Keefe novels.
So there you have it, casual A Wrinkle in Time fans, true love does exist and Meg and Calvin end up together in the end. But to find out if Mrs. Whatsit, Who, and Which attend the wedding, you’re going to need to read the books!
