An Elegant Theory

by Noah Milligan

  As they got closer, it began to rain. Droplets collected on the windows and streaked sideways from the wind. The sunrays shone at a weird angle. The storm was west of them, and the sun beat down from the east. Being caught in the middle of sunlight and storm added to Coulter’s illusion. Everything seemed so surreal: the way his father held the steering wheel loosely as they careened down curvy and potholed roads, how Dianne was able to perform multiple tasks at once, navigating the GPS and refreshing the Doppler radar and contacting NOAA for any updates.

  His father pointed out the window. “There,” he said, and that was all. It was a funnel cloud, looming low and spinning. The sky burned a mixture of green Coulter had never seen before: algae and seaweed and mint. Dianne snapped pictures on a digital camera, and his father circled toward the southwest of the funnel. Rain fell harder, and the funnel became harder to see. Lightning flashed, the winds howled, and stalks of corn bent near the root like worshippers on their knees.

  “You’ve got to get closer,” Dianne said. “It’s rain-wrapped.”

  She called into the station, giving coordinates, speed, and direction. Hail battered the truck. It sounded like gunshots. It scared Coulter. He tried to not let it, but it did. They were getting too close.

  “Closer,” Dianne said. She leaned forward and placed her palms on the dash. “Get us closer!”

  The Bronco veered in the wind. His father turned against it, accelerating, but the strong wind kept pushing them sideways, the wheels grazing the Indian grass on the side of the road. Coulter was afraid they would lose control and careen into the pasture. They’d be injured, and there would be nothing he could do. The tornado would touch down and shift direction and come right for them. He’d be helpless. They all would be.

  The funnel snaked its way out of the storm, the cone reaching for the earth, the earth somehow reaching up to the cloud. The dirt and the wind met in the middle, and the base grew in size and in strength.

  “It’s on the ground,” Dianne said into the CB. “Repeat. We got one. F3. Maybe an F2. Heading north-northeast at about thirty-five miles per hour.”

  “Get the camera!” Coulter’s father yelled. “Get it. Get It. GET IT!” Coulter’s father grasped Dianne’s knee. It was the first time Coulter had ever seen his father touch another woman besides his mother. Well, he’d hugged Grandma before, but that didn’t count. This was different. This was something intimate, like a shared, lucid dream.

  Coulter had to cover his ears as hail pounded the car, and his father slammed on the brakes. The tornado twisted in front of them, a giant snake spinning up into the sky above. Coulter leaned his head against the window, palms glued to the glass, and tilted his head up to see where tornado and cloud met. It was like peering into the destructive nature of God. It was transcendent. It was the most glorious thing Coulter had ever witnessed.

  The tornado loomed not but a hundred yards from them; it then turned and headed north. As it receded, the rains quieted and so did the hail. Dianne opened the door and stepped outside. Before she walked toward the tornado, though, she turned back.

  “You coming?” she asked Coulter.

  He nodded.

  “Here, take this,” she said as she handed him her camera. “And take my picture, too, will ya?”

  When Coulter snapped it, he’d never felt so close to anyone before.

  “HELLO? HEY!” SARA WAVED HER HANDS IN front of my face, snapped her fingers. “Woohoo, Earth to Coulter! Anyone there?” she asked.

  “Yes, sorry. What?”

  “I’ve been asking you which brand of diapers we should register for for like five minutes, but you’ve just been conked out. You feeling all right?”

  I felt fine—head clear, vision crisp, body energetic—but I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten to the store. We’d talked that morning about registering for the baby shower, and then I had a few hours of free time to grade tests and work at the lab. Afterwards, I went back home to our apartment in the Dot, and then that was it. Leaving home and the bus ride had been a blur. The half-mile walk from the nearest stop to the store had been lost. I couldn’t remember entering Babies R Us or standing here in the diaper aisle, holding a scanner in my hand like a checkout clerk. When I tried to find snapshots of these memories, there was nothing, like I’d blacked out. This had been happening more and more lately. My mind would be wandering—I’d be thinking about my research or the coming baby or I’d be planning my afternoon at the lab—and then I’d start daydreaming about winning the Nobel or storm-chasing with my dad. By the time I came to, I’d look up at the clock and notice six hours had passed.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I think so.”

  “Good, great, grand! Diapers then. Which ones?” She held out two packages. Both pictured pudgy babies, smiling up at some anonymous figure behind the camera. They both promoted their relative absorbency, the softness of their fabric, the less regularity of diaper rash, claiming that they were “mother approved.” They were even priced identically, $24.99 for a package of thirty-five.

  “I don’t really see the difference in them.”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t just say it’s my choice. I need you to make some decisions. I picked out the nursery color, I picked out the bassinet, I picked out the baby monitor, I picked out—”

  “You’re right. I know. I’m sorry. I’m just distracted right now, that’s all.”

  “I don’t want to hear about your big research paper.”

  “Dissertation.”

  “Whatever. It’s your professor who is throwing this party, so you need to make some decisions.”

  “I know.”

  “Fine. Then do it. Which diapers?”

  There were dozens of brands to choose from: Huggies, Luvs, Playskool, Nature Babycare, Pampers, Seventh Generation, and on and on and on. Then these were broken up into types: Overnites and Extra Protection and Free & Clear and Ultra Leakguards. The possible combinations increased exponentially. A statistician wouldn’t have been able to make sense of it.

  “I really don’t have a clue.”

  She tapped her foot against the linoleum. “We need to do some product testing,” she said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Product testing,” she said. “You know—see which one works the best.”

  “How’re we going to do that?”

  Sara glanced around like she was about to steal something. No employees stood nearby, stocking shelves or assisting other customers. A few other pregnant women and mothers bolted to and fro like electrons in an excited state. They picked up what they needed and moved on. None were stationary like us. I’d expected mothers to seem lethargic and weighed down, but they weren’t. They all had the telltale signs of exhaustion—purple and paunchy eyes, frizzy and unkempt hair—yet their legs moved at an incredible rate. Either they had consumed enough caffeine to run on fumes or their bodies were just conditioned to function without energy, like a zombie.

  “Keep a lookout,” Sara said.

  “Huh?”

  She motioned for me to do something, flailing her hand so it bounced on her wrist, but I had no idea what she meant. Before I could ask, though, she ripped open a Huggies package and took out a diaper.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Product testing. I told you.”

  From her purse she grabbed a bottle of water and poured it onto the floor.

  “Hey! Hey? Are you trying to kill somebody? There are pregnant women everywhere!”

  “No shit, Captain Obvious. I’m one of them.”

  “Then you should know better.”

  “Just keep a lookout, will you? And quit bitching. You sound like my dad.”

  She bent down, or tried to. Even though she’d only just reached her third trimester, Sara’s downward mobility was impeded. She grunted and inched her way to the floor, knees and hips popping. Once there, she swiped the water puddle with the diaper and studied it.

  “Not bad,” she said. “Pretty damn absor
bent, actually.” She held the diaper out toward me. “Want to see?”

  She was right; it was absorbent. Impressively so. While I was still a little worried about the repercussions should someone discover us, my interest was piqued—this was something I could relate to, an experiment of sorts.

  “Let’s try Pampers next,” I said. “Might as well get the expensive stuff when other people are paying, right?”

  “See!” Sara said. “I knew you would like this if you just gave it a chance.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said, smiling. “Just move out of the way, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

  I bent down and wiped up the rest of the water. Pampers was absorbent, too. If only I had a way to compare the volume of water in each diaper, I could make an informed decision.

  “Can I help you?” A middle-aged lady in a blue vest approached us. She had a scar around her jaw like she’d been badly burned, and her name tag said, Debbie: Assistant Manager / Serious About Service.

  “Yes, thank you,” I said. “Do you by chance have some kind of instrument, sort of like a hygrometer say, but for testing diapers instead of the air?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m trying to determine the difference in absorbency between Pampers and Huggies. An hygrometer tests humidity.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said as she eyed me.

  “It doesn’t have to be so much like a hygrometer, actually. Even a scale and a measuring cup would work. Do you have something like that handy?”

  Sara burst out laughing, hunched over, arms wrapped around her belly.

  “You’re going to have to pay for those. You know that, right?” Debbie said.

  “Yes. Of course. Yes,” I said even though the thought hadn’t occurred to me.

  “You could’ve killed somebody. Somebody could’ve slipped and gone straight into labor. What would you have done then?” She paused for us to answer, but neither Sara nor I offered one. Sara stopped laughing, straightened up like a child being scolded by a teacher. Debbie grabbed a radio from her apron and pressed the button. “We need a cleanup in aisle seven. Repeat—we need a cleanup in aisle seven.” Her voice echoed over the intercom system, mangled by static. It reminded me of storm-chasing with my father as a child, the news reports coming in over his handheld. When done, she returned her radio to her apron and then pointed at us. “You two, come with me.”

  Debbie herded us like cattle and veered us toward the cash wrap, the tattered diaper bag in hand. Sara and I walked down the aisle, the object of sideways glances and sneers. Who were these people? Who would do such a thing? I ignored them, but Sara, of course, wouldn’t stand for such public humiliation. “Run!” she yelled, and she took off, laughing again as she hobbled past Debbie the Assistant Manager. Not knowing what else to do, I followed her out of the store, past confused mothers, shielding their children from the lunatics brushing past them. I half-expected someone to tackle us, a young store clerk maybe, eager to impress his boss, or at least an announcement over the intercom about suspected shoplifters, the command to call the police, but no one tried to stop us—two packages of diapers must not have been worth the chase—and we continued to sprint away until we had made our escape down the street and around the corner and could no longer see the megastore.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  Sara was hunched over, grasping her belly, and sucked in deep breaths through pursed lips. Instead of answering, she held up a finger. “Yes,” she finally said. “Just got these sharp pains in my sides.”

  I went to her and placed my outstretched hands close to her hips, spotting her. “Do you need to go to the doctor?”

  “No, no,” she said. “I’m just out of shape.”

  “This isn’t the time to be a hero, Sara.”

  “I’m not being a hero. I’m just out of breath. That’s all.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, Coulter. Jesus.”

  “I just want to make sure.”

  I looked back at the store, but no one appeared to have followed us. Sirens didn’t blare in the distance, the Doppler effect causing them to get louder. We were safe, it seemed. “I still have the scanner,” I said as I held it up. My hands shook from sprinting; I was the one out of shape. “Do you think they’ll put out a warrant for our arrest?”

  “Oh God, who cares? That was great!” Sara stood, coughed, and then wiped the back of her mouth with her sleeve. “I needed that,” she said. “Really bad.”

  “Maybe I should take it back,” I said. “If we apologize and just pay for the diapers—”

  “Don’t be stupid.” She wrapped her arm around mine and pulled me toward to the bus stop.

  “But we registered with them. They have our names. They have our address. They got my work number even.”

  “They’re not going to do anything. It’s like a fifty-dollar machine and a few packs of diapers. Not enough to send out the SWAT team.”

  “It’s not worth the risk, Sara.” I counted on my fingers and said, “If I get arrested, I won’t be able to pass a background check. No school will hire me. I won’t be able to get a job. We’ll be destitute. We’ll be living in the same crappy apartment, and our kid’s going to starve.”

  “Stop,” she said as she grabbed my face and pulled me toward her. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  “What we did was illegal.”

  She kissed me, wrapped her arms around my neck, and said, “Listen to me. There’s nothing to worry about. You’re not going to get arrested, and we’re not going to be destitute. One of these days, life is going to be easy. No more buses and small apartments in crappy neighborhoods and long nights at the lab. We’ll be happy.”

  She kissed me again and rubbed my earlobe between her fingers, calming me. Before we’d married, Sara had never been this affectionate, always keeping her distance while out on dates, twisting her hand away from mine whenever I tried to grasp it. I always thought her lack of intimacy was the result of us not having that much in common—she loved do-it-yourself home-repair shows and reading book blurbs and trivia quiz bowls and N’Sync, and I’d ramble on incessantly about banal scientific matters and her eyes would glaze over and she’d twirl her straw in her Dr. Pepper. It wasn’t until she got pregnant that she began to touch me in public, kiss me when others could see us, call me pet names like sweetie or honey or biscuit. She never explained the change. I liked to think it was because she could finally allow herself to be vulnerable around me, but I secretly feared it was because she finally accepted that ours was an attraction that grew out of proximity, both of us left with few options and a common dread of being alone.

  “We’ll have a big house and five kids and a tree fort out back,” I said.

  “That’s right,” she said. “You’ll have summers off, and I’ll be a day trader and go to ballet recitals and run for city council.”

  “I’ll win the Nobel and retire, and we’ll buy some land back in Oklahoma.”

  “Everything’s going to be perfect,” she said. “Trust me.”

  “Yes,” I said, unconvinced. “Perfect.”

  For as long as I can remember, I’ve found the notion of fate unpalatable, never understanding those who accept calamities because “things happen for a reason” or that they’re all “part of God’s plan,” but I suppose the belief offers a level of comfort. It allows people to shirk responsibility for their actions, to find solace in their faith that a benevolent benefactor looks out for their best interests. It’s like never growing out of childhood, always under the watchful eye of your mother.

  Instead, I’ve always looked to science for answers. Fate does not exist in physics or biology or chemistry. Evolution is the result of billions of years of chance, coincidence, and sheer trial and error. Mistakes lead to extinction, success to progeny. Chemical reactions create heat and cold and water and the conditions amicable to the birth of life. The laws of physics govern the motion of the physical bodies throughout the universe, predictive in nature
, sure, but not deterministic. There is cause and effect, but science does not presume motive or premeditation. I find comfort in that. It’s how I make sense out of an otherwise senseless world.

  Take Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, for instance, which solves the problem of particle-wave duality, the problem I’d introduced during the double-slit light experiment. Simply put, certain quantities in nature, such as position, energy, and time are, on the subatomic level, unknown except by probabilities. If we know where particle A is at, we have no idea where it’s going. If we have an idea of how fast it’s moving, we have no idea where it is. A strange conundrum that seemed to plague more than the subatomic—I often can’t understand where I’m at in life, or if I do, where I’m going, or why.

  But there is some evidence to the contrary. One interpretation bends toward a version of fatalism. When we observe a single constituent, the probability wave collapses, and the particle only inhabits a singular location in space and time. It’s as if our very observation affects the properties of these quantum elements, leaving them in their most probable location, where we happen to be looking. Since everything in the universe, including us, consists of these quantum elements, logic follows that we inhabit the most probable location. Everything that has led us there, every decision we have made, the electrical neurons and synapses that fired that brought us to work or school or prison is merely the most probable path that could’ve been taken. It’s an interpretation I’ve long rejected, but I can’t help but acknowledge its intrinsic logic. When I first stood before my dissertation committee, I couldn’t help but wonder if all the choices I’d made leading up to standing there, in front of the very people who would decide my academic fate, and theirs as well, if all these choices, the fields we had decided to pursue, the institutions at which we studied, the spouses we’d married, the name of our first born, even the innocuous acts like brushing before flossing or vice versa, added up to the successful defense of my dissertation. It was enough to make me nauseated, standing there, trying not to puke.