Little Universes

by Heather Demetrios

I press my ear to the door. It is silent.

  “Come on, Nah,” I say. “How can you say no to brownies? They’re your favorite!”

  I know what would get her to open this door. All I have to do is tell her the truth about Micah.

  I have never missed my mom as much as I do right now.

  “Nah, please. Talk to me.”

  There’s a thud, then shuffling, the lock clicks, and the door opens. My sister stands before me, a wraith.

  I try my best to smile. “Hi. Did you hear anything I—”

  “I’m tired, Mae. Okay? I just want to be alone.”

  Micah is cheating on you.

  “Oh—okay.” I slide my foot past the doorway, in case she tries to shut me out again. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, though.”

  “I do.”

  Hannah. Our rose. She needs Mom’s soft voice—grow, grow, grow. But if you’re anyone other than Mom and you say grow, she’ll wither, just to defy you. Stubborn blood, that’s what Yia-yia used to say. Karalis blood. Can’t push her. You do, she’ll go the opposite way.

  I need a Hannah whisperer.

  “What if … I just hang out with you instead? We don’t have to talk. Or go anywhere. I can do my homework—”

  “We have to get used to it, Mae.”

  “Used to what?”

  “Being apart. You’re leaving at the end of June. Plebe Summer. Annapolis. Then the military. Five years, right? That’s what you give in exchange for school?”

  “Yes.” I overcame my inertia and rescheduled the interview; it’s in two weeks. My study session with Nate tonight is to prep for it. “But I’ll visit—”

  “And then you’ll go to Florida or Houston or Russia or wherever NASA sends you. And then the moon. Or whatever.” She shrugs. “Let’s face it, Mae: Our family—it’s done.”

  I stare at her. “What?”

  My vision turns spotty, like the room has suddenly been infested with gnats.

  Our family—it’s done.

  “Besides, I’m going to LA soon. Micah and I are getting a place, you know?”

  But he’s cheating on you, I want to say. You can’t live with both of them. All three of you.

  “We still have a family, Nah. Me and you … and Aunt Nora, Uncle Tony, Nate, Gram, Papa…”

  She backs away, toward the bed. “I’m tired. I’m going to sleep now.”

  “It’s only six! Come on, brownies—”

  “I don’t want a fucking brownie, Mae.” She lies down, her back to me. “Shut the door.” She sighs. “Please.”

  I walk outside, in the dark, in the cold, my coat buttoned, holding on to the straps of my backpack, which is carrying too much. There is no moon tonight. Too many clouds covering the sky.

  I cannot see the stars.

  * * *

  Trains are good for thinking.

  On the Red Line to Harvard Square, which is where Castaways is, my brain begins working the problem of Hannah. I think it’s possible when one decreases distance to Harvard you get an increase in intelligence. Just a theory.

  And here is another theory:

  The radius of separation between my sister and me is growing, which shouldn’t be scientifically possible, if you consider Coulomb’s law.

  In physics, two charged objects of opposite charge are attracted to each other—they move toward each other, thus decreasing the distance of separation. This is why, historically—before the pills—my sister and I got along so well.

  For this equation I’m categorizing Hannah as “negative” and me as “positive.” When one considers psychic energetic fields—not sound science, but this is a thought exercise, like string theory—it would make sense to use traditionally considered notions of what positive or negative is. Sad and Addicted = Negative, whereas Relatively Well-Adjusted = Positive. (Please note that “positive” is not a value judgment in which the positive quotient is better.)

  Ergo: Hannah = (-) and Mae = (+)

  Opposites, as they say, attract.

  Not so anymore.

  I’m really beginning to wonder if Mom was right. Perhaps humans really do have a quantifiable energy field and you can actually apply the laws of physics to relationships.

  (!!!!!!!!!!!)

  I’m not suggesting that this experience actually disproves one of the most basic theories of physics, as my sister and I are not objects. However, if my mother’s belief in psychic energetic fields were ever actually proven and shown to be sound science, then the increased separation between Hannah and I would directly challenge Coulomb’s law.

  As we know, when distance increases, the forces and electric fields between the two objects decreases. More distance = less connection. Simple, right? Forces between objects (sisters) become stronger as they move together and weaker as they move apart.

  According to Coulomb’s law (see below), it should not be possible for Nah and me to be moving apart BECAUSE WE HAVE OPPOSITE CHARGES. Opposites attract! But according to the work I’ve done, THE LAW DOES NOT APPLY TO HUMAN ENERGETIC FIELDS. (If they exist, which we don’t have enough data on yet, but I’m beginning to think they do. I should not mention this fringe theory in my NASA interview.)

  BUT WAIT. It IS possible for us to have opposite charges and move apart because even though there is an attractive Coulomb force, our velocities could be moving us away from each other faster than the attractive force can bring us back together. Which means WE ARE GOING TOO FAST IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS. It’s like the wave has thrown Nah and me into separate, fast-moving currents that are moving away from each other. Well, I’m not an oceanographer and actually know nothing about currents, but YOU GET MY DRIFT. (No pun intended.)

  My math checks out.

  Coulomb’s law is F = kq1q2/r2

  Or:

  F being the force of our sisterly bond = Hannah’s negative charge as a result of being very sad multiplied by Mae’s positive charge of working the problem and eliminating things that can kill her next, divided by the radius of separation squared, which in this case is the psychic distance created as a result of grief, depression, and addiction squared …

  Clearly we should be moving closer to each other.

  I must consider the possibility that the radius between us must be so much greater than I thought. Maybe the relative distance is so vast that even though we’re opposites, the charges can’t pick up on each other.

  I could have stayed in that room with Hannah. Lay down on the bed with her, or sat at her desk to do my homework. But I didn’t.

  Turns out I can be as stubborn as her, when I want to be.

  I should not be going to Harvard Square, to a boy with a magnetic force field. She will take another pill. I know it. She wouldn’t be able to, if I were there. But:

  Our family—it’s done.

  She is a rosa sericea, a winged thorn rose. Known for their huge thorns.

  Would she have said that to me if she knew the truth about Micah?

  Maybe fourteen years of being told we are sisters isn’t enough. Maybe it does matter—blood. Maybe she feels like her family is done because the other blood members are gone, and she is the only one left.

  No.

  She’s just depressed. And scared. She thinks I’m leaving her. I am leaving her.

  Work the problem.

  I stare at the floor of the train, where people have tracked in autumn leaves. Time is going by so fast. Just a month ago, I was wearing shorts and sandals. In LA, but still. Time is running out. I will be leaving soon. And what will happen to Hannah? She won’t be better by June. That’s not possible. That’s not how addiction works. Or grief.

  This is why my sister said our family is done. She’s increasing our radius of separation on purpose, because she’s trying to say goodbye. Trying to get used to being alone. Hannah doesn’t practice being alone like I do. She’s not used to it. She hasn’t trained for it. She’s treating these months like a sim for loneliness, and she’s failing every day.

  Work the prob
lem.

  The train takes a sharp turn, and everyone’s bodies—all the people in here with their coats and scarves and hats—sway in this new direction.

  New direction.

  Me leaving is a variable. A changeable variable. I’ve been acting like it’s a theory you can’t disprove. But it’s not.

  A good astronaut is able to pivot. To work with the situation that’s happening, regardless of their expectations. If you have a flight trajectory set, but something happens to someone on your crew, you’re going to have to make changes. Even if it affects all your hard work. Even if it sacrifices the entire mission. Because the safety of the crew comes first. Always.

  So many things can die in just one month.

  18

  Mae

  ISS Location: Low-Earth Orbit

  Earth Date: 23 October

  Earth Time (EST): 19:17

  When I get off the train, I stand on Mass Ave and lean against a streetlamp, facing Harvard. A few decades ago, my dad was behind those wrought-iron gates, having no idea that someday I would be standing here, wishing him back from the bottom of an ocean across the world. Wishing I didn’t have to make the choice I think I have to make.

  A gust of wind howls down the avenue like a Hollow from Bleach, a soul turned bad from unrest. Ichigo Kurosaki would have to defeat it.

  Ben.

  I didn’t think this sudden coldness inside me would ever go away, but the thought of him disproves that assumption.

  I start walking up Mass Ave, past J.P. Licks, where people are eating ice cream and laughing and smiling and I wonder what that is like, because I don’t remember. It’s also very cold to be eating ice cream. Maybe that’s normal here.

  Students run around with scarves wrapped up to their noses, on their way to Wednesday night study sessions or dinner, rushing past boutique windows filled with cobwebs and skeletons. That is my family now. Cobwebs and skeletons.

  Cambridge is bricks and ivy and wrought-iron gates. You don’t even feel like you’re in America anymore. If someone told me I was in England, I’d believe them. I know Nah misses the sunshine and the palm trees, but I don’t. I like the cold. I like places you have to work a little harder to survive in.

  Castaways is across from Harvard, tucked off a side street behind the Harvard Book Store and Grolier Poetry Book Shop, Mom’s favorite. I pass a guy and his dog hunched against a brick wall with a hand-lettered sign, and I drop a dollar into his hat before pushing through the metal door, which has a porthole in its center.

  The coffeehouse is large and cozy, with a small anteroom for ordering your things and then an entryway that leads into the main room, which is filled with thrift furniture and Cambridge’s weirdo hippie types mixed in with students hunched over books and laptops. The chairs and tables are mismatched, and the whole place has a nautical theme: old paintings of ships, anchors, a mermaid masthead that looms from behind the bar. It feels lived in, the hardwood floors dark and splintery.

  For a second, I just breathe in the heavy scent of coffee and let Vampire Weekend wash over me. It’s very strange, to feel, at the same time, both utterly devastated and totally relaxed. I’m not sure how that’s possible. I think I need to take more biology courses.

  “Welcome to the Sanctuary of the Holy Bean.”

  Ben’s standing behind the scarred wooden counter, watching me. I smile. He makes me smile. This is so many fantasies coming together at once: a coffeehouse in Boston filled with people who might have read the same books as me, a boy that looks like he stepped right out of Bleach, free caffeine at my fingertips …

  I’ve been on planet Earth a long time, but this is the first place that’s felt like home. Maybe it’s a sign, the kind Mom is always talking about. A sign I’m not meant to leave Boston or Hannah any time soon.

  Ben has texted several times since that night Hannah broke the bottle of bourbon. Save him from these Harvard Square douches. Rescue him from the boredom of a Monday-night closing shift. Come see the cool space-inspired latte art he’s been perfecting.

  I’ve always said no.

  I wanted to say yes.

  But his eyes are the exact shade of brown as my mother’s.

  This bothers me less tonight. I like seeing her eyes in his face. They fit together.

  “And you’re the high priest of this establishment?” I say.

  His lips turn up. “Merely a lowly altar boy.” He wipes the counter off with a towel, then throws the towel over his shoulder. “What’ll it be? Anything you want. Go crazy. It’s on me.” He grins. “Least I can do for someone who just spent the better part of their evening on the Green Line.”

  The line my aunt and uncle live off of is notoriously slow, a trolley more than a metro of any kind. Once you transfer to the Red, you’re back in the modern world. It takes an hour, sometimes more, to get to the other side of the Charles River.

  “Just coffee. Black.”

  “This isn’t just coffee,” he says. “It’s organic free-trade earth magic made by genies.”

  I laugh. He makes me smile and laugh. And that adds up to something, I know it does. I’m good at math.

  “Well, then I’ll have a magical cup of coffee.”

  “Coming right up.”

  I glance over my shoulder at the large main room behind me. “Nate here yet?”

  “He’s on his way. Got caught up in a lab.”

  I slide off my backpack, then shrug off my wool coat—a recent gift from Aunt Nora, since there is no need for an Angeleno to ever own one. She took me to a vintage store here in Cambridge, and even though it smells like an old lady’s closet, I love it.

  Ben turns around and sets the coffee down, then gives the thick striped turtleneck I got at the dollar sale in the Jet Rag parking lot in Hollywood an approving look.

  “I like your style, Mae.”

  I glance at his faded tee and fitted sweats. “Thanks. I appreciate your nod to disgruntled scholars everywhere.”

  He laughs. “Usually I make more of an effort, but I was at the meditation center before my shift—can’t sit on a cushion in skinny jeans.”

  “Meditation?”

  My world tilts just a little, which I know isn’t possible because we’re spinning, which is an entirely different—my point is: Ben Tamura throws me off balance. For just a moment, I see Dad sitting on his cushion. He’d like Ben. I really wish they could have met each other.

  “I’m not a Japanese American cliché, I promise.” He huffs out a laugh. “I don’t do karate. Or eat sushi.”

  “Manga?”

  “Okay, yeah, you got me there. You?”

  He must know he looks like Ichigo. He must. “A little.”

  He grins. “It’s actually pretty funny, messing with people’s heads. Like, I tell them I meditate and then they feel all weird because they don’t want to stereotype me as an Asian, so then I get this whole spectrum of awkward questions and I’m, like, dude, I learned how to meditate from a Mexican across the street from MIT.” He shakes his head. “When I told my parents I started meditating, they were kind of horrified. It was pretty adorable, actually. They’re Christian. As if it weren’t bad enough that I’m a scientist.”

  “What kind of Christian?” I ask.

  Gram is Catholic, but she believes in evolution—because she’s a rational human being—and she advises Nate on which celebrity men she would prefer as grandsons-in-law, because she understands that he was born the way he is and that there is nothing wrong with him. Simple biology. Science and faith, as Dad said, do not have to be mortal enemies. But sometimes they are.

  He frowns. “They protest at abortion clinics.”

  “Oh, wow.”

  “Yeah. Meditation helps with … that.” He rolls his eyes. “My ancestors were Shinto. I think I’m the only Buddhist in my family’s history on either side. Isn’t it funny? I’m third-generation, but still. My grandparents immigrate to America, and I wind up on the cushion.”

  “That must be really great, t
hough,” I say. “Knowing about your family’s history. Where you came from.” I take a sip of my coffee. “I’m adopted, so…”

  “You don’t know anything?”

  “I could take a DNA test, of course, but I don’t want my birth family to track me down. Once you take the test, that information is out there, even if you check the privacy box. Who knows if it’s actually secure? This girl I know found her birth mother that way, and I … don’t want that. Maybe I’ll do it someday, but right now, I’m not sure what the benefit of knowing my ethnic makeup would be. It wouldn’t change anything. Or mean anything. The stories and culture I grew up with, that’s what feels real to me. My mom—my mom mom—is, was, Greek American. My yia-yia and pappoús immigrated to America after World War Two on this creaky ship. Went through Ellis Island. My dad’s family came on the Mayflower, if you can believe it.”

  “Boston’s so weird.”

  “Right?”

  “So are you into Greek culture and stuff?”

  “Yes. I love it. It’s strange, though. Ever since my parents died, all of this has been—it’s been bothering me.”

  Ben leans his elbows on the counter, and, I must admit, I like this decreased radius of separation.

  “How so?” he asks.

  “I grew up being told I’m a Karalis woman, and we went to Greece and everyone treated me like I’m one of them and I can make avgolemono … I grew up with it all; it’s my family’s culture, so I think it’s mine, too, but I don’t know—is that appropriation? It’s all very … confusing. And I don’t like being confused. I wish there were some way to determine the right answer.”

  “An identity formula?”

  “Yes. EXACTLY.”

  I grip my cup. The words are spilling out of me, and I can’t stop them because there is something else about my parents being gone that has been bothering me, something I haven’t even been able to tell myself.

  “Everyone’s talking about race and culture all the time,” I say. “Owning what you are, who you are. Shouting it from the rooftops. More and more, it’s all about your heritage. But what does that mean for someone like me? I love avgolemono. And My Big Fat Greek Wedding. And, even though I don’t believe in it, I really liked all the evil eyes my yia-yia hung around the house. And I want them to be mine—my culture, a part of me. But they’re not. The problem is, if I got a DNA test and found out I was Norwegian or something, I wouldn’t be that, either. Because blood isn’t culture. I don’t have any connection to Norway at all!”