Ghosts of Harvard

by Francesca Serritella

  Cady dropped her chin and closed her eyes but opened them again when she felt her mother’s hand close over hers. She squeezed back. Now she understood that we must love people who we cannot control, in fact, we are lucky to love and be loved by people we cannot control. If we could control the person, love wouldn’t be a gift. This was the uncertainty of life, and of death. It was what made life beautiful and terrifying at once. It was the state of grace.

  The three of them sat together, connected by a chain of hands, hearts, and memories. It wasn’t the family Cady had grown up with; hers was, and would always be, a family of four. They would never be whole without Eric. But only these people, her family, knew the shape of what was missing. And they would fill the space as best they could, together.

  66

  Five Years Later

  Cady ran barefoot over the cool grass with Eliot House behind her, the silk sheen of her dress flashing in the moonlight as her legs pumped beneath it. In one hand, she held the strappy heels she had worn to the Senior Soirée, and in her other she held a bath towel, and she nearly tripped for laughing. She was running alongside the friends she’d lived with in Eliot since her sophomore year; her suite mates, Imani, Olivia, and Emma, and “the boys,” Jonathan, Ayush, and Max, minus Tommy, who was assisting them on secret business. They halted at the sidewalk curb to let a car pass before scampering across Memorial Drive to the banks of the Charles River.

  Cady had taken the rest of her first year off after everything that had happened, and she’d started over four years ago as a new freshman in the Class of 2024. Mikaela Prokop’s arrest and plea deal had garnered some publicity on and off campus, but mostly in the year Cady was home, and by the time she returned to campus, Prokop’s federal prison sentence was old news. Cady’s close friends knew about her past, but she wasn’t labeled as The Girl Who Busted That Spy Professor as she’d feared, nor was she The Girl Whose Brother Killed Himself, certainly not to the people around her now. Asked to describe Cady, they’d tell you she was a Psych concentrator, a soprano soloist in the Veritones a cappella group, a proud resident of Eliot House, an unlikely flip-cup champion, and at the moment, a little drunk. By this time tomorrow, Cady would be a Harvard graduate.

  But not before respects were paid to one final campus tradition.

  Cady was having too much fun to mind the twigs and pebbles, even barefoot. She kept up with the pack as they gamboled down the banks of the river, trying to avoid drawing attention to themselves and keep quiet but failing joyfully. They couldn’t stop laughing and loudly shushing each other, then laughing harder, until they reached the steps of the Weeks Footbridge.

  Imani turned to face the group. “Okay guys, we’re doing this, no chickening out.” She stepped around the side of one of the two obelisks that bordered the base of the bridge. “Let’s leave our towels here, so they’ll be in reach when we need them.”

  “What time is it?” Olivia asked.

  Ayush touched his Apple watch, which lit up in the dark. “Yikes, it’s eleven fifty-three, we gotta get in formation.”

  Jonathan put a hand on his shoulder. “’Yush, you’re gonna want to take that thing off.”

  “Oh, good call.” He began to unbuckle it. “Tommy just texted, he’s all set up on the boathouse dock.”

  “Cool, he’ll let us know when it’s midnight.” Jonathan tossed his towel onto the grass, adding, “Assuming the stuff his cousin sent him actually works.”

  “The package said made in China, what could go wrong?” Max said, prompting a swat from Olivia.

  “You’re sure he’s not sad he’s missing this?” Emma asked.

  “Believe me, I tried, but heights aren’t his thing. He was happy to head up the Celebrations Committee.”

  Max laughed. “I thought we were calling it the Police Diversion Committee?”

  “It’s both.” Jonathan grinned, his smile dazzling even in the dark. He met Cady’s eye.

  “C’mon, let’s go!” Cady darted up the stone steps two by two. Although the arch of the footbridge was gentle, it was longer and higher than Cady remembered; she felt a frisson of excitement and nerves when she reached its apex. But when she turned to see her friends running up to meet her, her heart swelled.

  Five years ago, Cady could never have imagined she’d be in this place, feeling this way. It had taken a lot of hard work to get here. She had gone to therapy three times a week during that gap year at home, and she maintained the progress seeing a psychiatrist once a week in Boston whom she absolutely loved, Sharon. The first year in therapy, she spent a lot of time trying to work through what she had experienced with the ghosts or auditory hallucinations. Her first psychiatrist raised the possibility that it was some variation of folie à deux, a shared psychotic disorder in which an otherwise healthy person comes to share the symptoms and delusions of a person with a psychotic disorder with whom he or she shares a close relationship, essentially a self-induced psychosis. Cady found that an interesting and plausible notion, although she was honest with Sharon that she didn’t believe it. The issue was moot, as Cady never heard the voices again, as she knew she wouldn’t.

  Anyway, Sharon didn’t dwell on that. She steered Cady away from trying to guess what might be “wrong” with her, in the past or the future, and kept her on the path of what was constructive, healthy, and true. With Sharon’s help, Cady was learning to express her emotions instead of letting them twist inside her, and her occasional bouts of anxiety and depression grew more infrequent and manageable. And yes, she was still talking through her grief over Eric. Sharon convinced her that closure wasn’t a realistic goal, only acceptance. As Cady now understood, her brother’s death was an event, but his loss was an ongoing process. She was deeply grateful to Professor Bernstein for suggesting Sharon all those years ago, and for his guidance on her thesis this year; he’d become an invaluable mentor and friend.

  Cady wouldn’t have guessed it five years ago, but she had many friends looking out for her these days.

  Ayush clapped his hands to get the group’s attention. “Everyone’s got a buddy, so don’t swim to shore until you know their head is up and they’re okay.”

  “Thanks, Dad!” Max teased.

  Ayush snorted. “And remember, we’re an odd number, so, when in doubt, leave Max.”

  Cady slipped the thin strap of her sheath dress off one shoulder and shot a pointed glance to the group. “We had a deal, right?”

  “Yeah.” Jonathan grinned, pulling his dress shirt over his head.

  All seven of them stripped down to their underwear, leaving their formal dresses and suits in a glamorous heap. Then they set about climbing onto the bridge’s concrete balustrade, which was shoulder high and about a foot wide. Max gave Emma and Olivia a boost and held their hands as they rose to a standing position. Imani waved him off and pushed herself up onto the balustrade effortlessly. Meanwhile, Cady had found it easy enough to climb up the chess-pawn-shaped balusters, but she was momentarily frozen in her crouching position on the top.

  “You freaking out, C-dawg?” Max reached for her from the ground.

  “No no no, don’t touch me,” she said quickly, before laughing at herself. “Sorry, I just need to take my time.” It was silly to be afraid of falling, considering her intent. But she hadn’t anticipated how windy it would be on top of the bridge, and she gripped the concrete balustrade so tight that white half-moons shone in her fingernails. A gust of wind blew her hair into her face, but she didn’t dare lift her hand to move it aside.

  She didn’t want to fall, she wanted to jump.

  “Here.” Jonathan had stood up easily but now he crouched down to her level. “Use me for balance.”

  Cady looked at him through her windswept hair. After a moment of screwing up her courage, she placed one hand on his curved back, then the other on his shoulder, and commanded her legs to straighten, slowly rising to a standing position.
A glance downward at the black, lapping water still triggered a jolt of fear, but not enough to deter her. She had promised herself she’d go through with it, and she would.

  “I hope it’s midnight soon. I’m losing my nerve,” Emma said, echoing Cady’s own thoughts.

  “Don’t worry, I got you,” Imani said from her right.

  It was actually better once she was standing tall. Sandwiched between Imani and Jonathan and all the rest, facing their beloved Eliot House across the river, Cady’s jelly legs felt stronger, her balance solid. The spring air swept over her bare shoulders and sent a chill down her spine. She was still a bit scared, but giddy, too—it helped that they were all in their underwear. She looked down the line at these friends who had become her family while her real one was healing itself. They had seen her through the normal college drama, the heartaches and the all-nighters, but most importantly, they hadn’t flinched when she’d dared to share the heavy stuff. She couldn’t believe she had almost missed the chance to meet them.

  “Aw, guys,” Olivia moaned. “We should have gotten someone else to take photos.”

  “We won’t forget this,” Cady said. Five years ago, she had been prepared to white-knuckle it through her undergrad years at Harvard, and yet here she stood with a lump in her throat, finding it hard to say goodbye.

  Jonathan pointed. “Look!”

  Fireworks shot off from the banks, small and sputtering at first, but then Tommy got them going at a good height. With a crack and a hiss, gold starbursts erupted in the inky sky and rained down over the shimmering surface of the water. Cady and her friends cheered and a few cars honked as the flashes of red and gold dazzled them.

  When the last sparkly trails faded into the darkness, Max cried, “Okay, on three!”

  Emma squealed. “I need more time than three!”

  “Fine, ten! Ten, nine, eight …”

  As her friends counted down in happy unison, Cady wished she could slow down time to savor this moment. She closed her eyes and heard the voices of her best friends. She breathed deeply, taking in the scent of the river and this campus in all its bitterness and beauty, saying goodbye to a place she never thought would feel so like home.

  But home didn’t mean a perfect place with only good memories, it meant a place where you grew up.

  Cady raised her chin, pulled her arms slightly away from her sides for balance, and wiggled her fingers in the air, reaching for them. Then she felt Imani’s warm hand close around hers and Jonathan’s calloused one on her left. She opened her eyes with a smile, blinking away the wetness at her lashes. Poised, knees bent, Cady joined her friends in counting down the final seconds:

  “Three, two, one—”

  Epilogue

  The splash was small when Cady dived into Lake Wallenpaupack. The water washed over her, warm and accepting, enveloping her with the immediacy of emotion. She swept her arms to her sides and swam underwater for a few moments, reluctant to leave its embrace. When she had to, she burst through the surface to the sunlight, filling her lungs with the air that was cool and fresh.

  It was July 30, Eric’s birthday. He would have been twenty-six years old.

  Her family had decided to celebrate Eric’s birthday with a weekend at the lake. Two years prior, her parents bought a second home there, and they had ramps installed so they could share it with Aunt Laura and Uncle Pete. Cady’s parents had gone through their own counseling, individually and as a couple, and after spending a year apart, they decided to give their marriage a second shot. Buying this house was as much a reward for their hard work as it was a test, but one they had passed. It was a challenge to reclaim the location from their past life with Eric, but so far, they found the connection was a comfort in their new life without him. In fact, the house wasn’t far from where they’d scattered his ashes, but it felt good to be close to him.

  They had a full house this weekend, including Pete, Laura, Gram, even Grampa and Vivi. After some hard-fought apologies, things were better between Cady’s mother and Vivi, although Grampa took his daughter’s suggestion that he and his wife stay at a nearby lodge—for their comfort, of course. Tonight, after a dinner of Eric’s favorite foods, barbecued ribs and pineapple on the grill, followed by some tearful singing over strawberry shortcake, Cady told her parents she was going to bike out to the old dock. Her father offered to drive her and keep her company, but her mother asked him to stay behind and help with cleanup. Her mother was much better at reading her these days.

  Cady floated on her back, looking up at the great dome of the sky curving around her. The afternoon heat had burned off all but the thinnest haze over the water, and the sinking sun washed the sky with gold. Cady spotted the moon in the lavender corner of the sky, hovering over one of the silhouetted hilltops, waiting for its turn. She imagined the stars that would soon join her, some hundreds or thousands of light-years away, twinkling at her from across time, benevolent and eternal.

  She flipped over and treaded water. Shaking the droplets from her ears, she listened to an insect chorus of crickets and grasshoppers, a bass line of hidden frogs, and the lapping of the water keeping time. Silence at the lake had a texture, and it was soft. Looking down, she could almost see clear down to the silt bottom of the lake, where the underwater weeds laid their slender footholds. Nearby, a miniature school of glinting minnows feinted left, then right, in perfect unity. It struck Cady as a remarkable example of familial intuition, a bond so strong that they were connected without direct communication. Or, in Cady’s case, without bodily presence. Cady thought about how Eric made up such a small part of this vast lake, and yet to her, he stretched all the way to the horizon. He was in the layered sine curves of the hills and the rapid frequency of waves upon the water’s surface. His dimension was imperceptible and infinite.

  She dropped back underwater and did a couple of somersaults, popping up for breath when the bubbles tickled her nose. The sensation recalled a game she and Eric used to play called The Amazing Aquabatics Show, a name he always sang out like a real announcer. Their “aquabatics” were handstands and somersaults and sometimes dives; their audience was only each other, and sometimes their parents. Their grand finale stayed the same for years, because they never quite pulled it off. The idea was for Cady to stand straight up on Eric’s shoulders, and at the end, they’d both throw their arms out—ta-daa! They never got it exactly right, but that was beside the point. The fun was in the trying. Over and over, Eric would hold her hands as he plunged underwater, and Cady would scramble over him to get in position for lift-off. Sometimes she’d accidentally stick her foot in his face, sometimes he’d launch her into the air on purpose, but they never lost faith that one day they would do it, rise together in perfect balance and unity. Cady remembered curling her toes around his freckled shoulders, shoulders that grew broader as the years went by, straightening her shaky legs as they both rose out of the water, squeezing his fingers until finally, at the last moment, letting go.

  Cady opened her arms wide, to the lake, and to Eric.

  The last rays of sunlight sparkled on the water, like stars close enough to touch.

  Author’s Note

  The following notes on my research contain major spoilers; if you haven’t finished reading the novel, I implore you to save this for the very end.

  Although this novel is a work of fiction, significant research went into my imagining of the “ghosts of Harvard.” I wanted to come up with characters whose stories would exemplify lost potential in different ways.

  There is little a novelist can imagine that theoretical physicists have not considered seriously. It is a mind-bending field of science, with so much yet to be understood. I was particularly inspired by the work of Lisa Randall, the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science, Department of Physics, at Harvard University. I recommend her books Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions and Knocking on Heaven’s
Door to anyone interested. Randall makes the most complex topics accessible and fascinating.

  I could not think of an historical figure who better exemplifies the duality of potential and unintended consequences better than Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was a prolific letter writer, and I studied his personal correspondence during his time at Harvard in order to get a sense of his personality, passions, and voice. He was indeed a lover of poetry, especially Baudelaire, and took any chance to show off his language skills. Some of his exclamations and phrases included in the novel are taken directly from his letters to friends and family, so that his real words echo throughout the book. All of the anecdotes Robert shares with Cady are taken from Oppenheimer’s life. The excerpt from Professor Bridgman’s recommendation letter referring to his Judaism is authentic. Oppenheimer’s charm, vulnerability, and poetic spirit made him the most unlikely young man to become the “Father of the Atomic Bomb,” and I came to see him as one of American history’s most tragic figures.

  For those who are interested, you can find Oppenheimer’s collected letters in Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and Recollections, edited by Alice Kimball Smith and Charles Weiner, and also in the Oppenheimer collection at the Library of Congress. Additionally, I recommend American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.

  James “Whit” Whitaker Goodwin Jr. is a fictional person, but the hope poured into rigid airships and the tragedy of the USS Akron disaster was real. I was spending a rainy day in the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida, when I found myself fascinated by the model of a dirigible aircraft carrier that I never knew existed. It’s hard to believe these enormous, rigid airships were once considered the new hope of American military aeronautics and the future of commercial air travel. The crash of the Akron was the greatest single loss of life in aviation at that time; seventy-three lives were lost and only three passengers survived. The tragedy was a psychological blow to a nation already in the nadir of the Depression and effectively killed the faith and funding in developing dirigible aircraft carriers to defend the Pacific. I’m not a military historian, but I wonder, had the Navy stayed with the dirigible aircraft carrier program, could they have mastered the technology and averted the attack on Pearl Harbor, forever changing the course of our entry into WWII? Or perhaps the hubris of attempting to harness the wind was always doomed to fail. In this dimension, we’ll never know.