Life at the Speed of Us

by Heather Sappenfield

  “You haven’t hung out with Shelley in years,” he said carefully.

  I snorted. “We just met on the path. I’m not good enough for perfect Shelley Millhouse.”

  I spotted her, still standing there, watching our car ascend. I looked at Dad—Mr. Practical. Mr. Safety—and felt like such a schmuck again. I tugged on his arm. He was still holding the clipboard, so he set it on the bench. My hand was warm in his. In his grip, I could feel him struggling against his need to demand an answer for why I was late. I squeezed his hand and looked down. In the gondola’s murky light, my fair skin seemed to glow in his grip. I looked closer: my hand actually did emit a faint amber glow.

  Dad eyed our hands. He scanned up at the gondola car’s ceiling, around the windows, and back down at my hand. Searching, no doubt, for what might be making it glow.

  “It’s my skin!” I let go of his hand and held out my own, which gently illuminated the dark around it. I looked at my reflection in the glass, and my glowing face gaped back.

  Silence was off the agenda now. I had to tell him. “I hugged Mom today.”

  He turned on the bench to look at me fully, his expression a stew of horror, pain, worry, and regret. He touched my cheek in wonder. “Sovern?”

  “You’ve heard of quantum physics, yes?”

  He frowned. “A little.”

  “Well, I’m living proof. I visited Mom in another universe today. I’ve visited her four times, but today we touched. And now … ” I held up my hand, turned it.

  Dad stiffened. “Sovern, listen to me. Your mother is dead—”

  “No!” I said. He sounded just like Handler. “She lives! In multiple universes. In future ones, three of the times. Once when I was little.”

  “Universes?”

  “Uh-huh. I’m not sure what they are really, or what you’d call them. I just know that the Soverns there aren’t quite me, so they’re not my future, or my past. The little-me, she didn’t have dyslexia. The future ones, well, they had their acts together.”

  Dad ran his hand back over his crew cut. “Unzip your parka,” he said.

  I unzipped it and folded down the collar so he could see the skin at my neck.

  He sucked in air. “What have you done to yourself?”

  “It started when I crashed into that spruce on Shangri-La. I don’t understand why, but that porcupine has something to do with it.” Súmáí arrived in my mind, and I nudged him aside. One thing at a time. “Somehow, my accident opened a gateway. Sort of like the remote for our TV.”

  Dad just sat there, so I went on.

  “If I touch the right kind of tree, a spruce with a certain shape—a porcupine has to be in it—I can see into a different universe. If I take my hand from the spruce, I’m back in my own reality.”

  “A spruce.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That’s why you asked about the tree on Pride?”

  “Uh-huh. I think these spruce might exist in multiple universes at once. Maybe all trees do, and the spruce are just gateways. Maybe everything—animals, rocks, plants—exists in multiple universes. Everything but us.”

  Dad sat straight, totally alert. I guessed it was partly from me speaking so many words. “Humans, you mean?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He squinted at the points of light from houses on the opposing mountainside. “How did she look?”

  “Ah, Dad—she was Mom. She was so Mom. Her hug was so Mom.”

  He winced but stayed quiet. When we neared the Emerald West lodge, he said, “Let’s ride around again.”

  Tourists did it all the time. We entered the lifthouse’s harsh lights, and I looked at my hand. No glow in here. Dad plucked a spruce needle from my hair, and then slouched back against the car’s glass wall and waved to the liftie when he peeked in. Nobody downloaded into our car, thank God, and we rounded the bullwheel. We whooshed out, the car rocking fore and aft as we descended back toward Crystal Village.

  Dad said, “Sov, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help you.”

  “Help?” He didn’t believe me. I glared at him across the murk, lit by my body’s glow. “Dad, look at me!” I gestured at myself.

  “Sovern—”

  “I’m not making this up!”

  “Sov—”

  “It’s real!”

  He shook his head like he hadn’t heard me. “It’s a good sign that you were with Shelley, but—”

  “That’s a good sign?” Why did the whole world think Shelley Millhouse was perfect? Except, just now, she’d kept silent for me, despite—

  I suddenly knew how I could prove to Dad this was real. “I can take you to Mom!”

  Dad focused on those points of light on the opposing mountain like they were a destination he’d never attain. He was quiet so long I said, “Dad?”

  “At least you’re talking.” He shook his head. “Okay, Sov. Take me to her.” From his tone, I could tell he was humoring me.

  Bookmark:

  The Copenhagen Interpretation

  Niels Bohr

  A quantum particle exists in all of its possible states at once. Only when observed is a quantum particle forced into one probability: the state that we observe. Since it may be forced into a different observable state each time, this explains why a quantum

  particle seems to behave erratically.

  22

  Dad stowed his clipboard with the lifties at the base, and we headed out of the gondola and through Crystal Village. I shivered, still not warm. Deep-down weariness made the world syrupy. Going back into the cold night like this and leading Dad to the spruce might be the dumbest thing I’d ever done, which was saying a ton.

  “Could I hold your arm?” I said.

  “Sure.”

  Dad glanced at me about every ten steps.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  When we reached the recreation path’s spruce, I thought I could make out a porcupine-sized lump. Car lights on the interstate and frontage road a quarter mile away softened the darkness and showed him as a tense, resigned shadow. His doubt formed a cloud around us.

  “Okay.” I wriggled my arm out of its sling.

  “Sov!”

  “I’ll put it back when we’re done.” My arm swished through my parka’s sleeve, the brace tight against fabric, and I took Dad’s calloused hand. “Whatever you do, don’t let go.”

  I looked away from his pity and heard Crystal Creek’s frozen gurgle. I glanced at the stars, said a silent prayer, and pressed my palm to bark.

  Green grass shoots. Daylight

  making me blink. A skiff of cloud.

  Dad’s grip on my hand tightened. His head swiveled around, and then he looked at me with wide eyes. “How—?”

  Steps approached on the path, from the direction of school. I recognized their cadence and squeezed Dad’s hand just as Mom appeared. She was dressed in the same skirt and blouse, but a ball of tissues bulged in her hand. The way she rounded the curve, staring at the spruce, I knew this was the Mom from earlier today. No doubt she was returning from the meeting with Handler and me. Had I brought us back to her—to this universe—by thinking of her? I realized that each time I’d seen her, the vision linked up with whatever I’d been thinking about when I touched the tree.

  Now she halted and her hand came to her throat. “Briggs?”

  “Taylor,” Dad whispered.

  “Briggs!” Mom rushed to him.

  I squeezed Dad’s hand to remind him not to let go. They hugged, and Dad’s breath caught as a wave shimmered through me. Spruce needles drizzled down. Mom rested her head against his chest, her mouth open in a sob. There, so close, was that crescent scar.

  Dad pressed his cheek to her hair. He breathed hard and strands of blond pulled into his lips.

  “You’re alive!” Mom said.


  Dad weaved his cast hand’s fingertips through her hair and pressed them against the back of her neck. Mom gasped, then smiled. Her hand rose to the back of his neck, lower down, near the base’s bump. Their most intimate gesture, which always made me look away. Dad leaned down, Mom reached up, and they kissed. This time, I couldn’t look away. I might need to remember this moment forever.

  As I watched, I realized Dad’s suffering was ten times mine. Love like theirs happened rarely, and, even here across universes, was a force beyond reckoning. Dad + Mom = me. Me = their love. If their love was erased, what became of me?

  The shimmering increased to sparks that robbed my breath. The spruce vibrated, so I pressed my palm harder against it. Mom stepped back, and her hand against Dad’s chest still held tissues. Soggy tissues. She smiled at me, and I tried to smile back, but I was suddenly so tired and I felt consciousness slipping away.

  “Sov?” she said.

  “Taylor!” Dad’s voice was a coyote howl.

  Snow mashing my cheek. Stars blinking

  through the spruce’s branches.

  Dad’s warmth collapsing across my legs.

  Our clasped hands let go.

  I woke on my feet, a strong arm around my waist.

  “Dad?”

  “Sov.” Dad’s voice was not next to me.

  “Shelley?” I said and blinked. I blinked till I recognized Súmáí, straining to keep Dad and me on our feet.

  “I think I can help now.” Dad appeared on my right, his face and neck emitting a faint glow. Around my waist, his arm overlapped Súmáí’s.

  They propelled me forward, my Converse skidding along the frosty recreation path. After a bit, I started moving my feet with them and got my weight over my legs again. I wanted so badly to take in Súmáí—he was real and I was not insane—but I was drunk with fatigue. We crossed the bridge and ascended Ruby Street in a hazy déjà vu. The gondola came into view, and Súmáí stopped.

  Dad looked at him and then at me. “Sov, do you think you can walk?”

  I let go of their arms and stood on my own. I managed three wobbly steps. “If I hold your arm.”

  Dad stepped forward and held out his arm. Súmáí stayed back. Dad turned, puzzled, and I realized he thought Súmáí was just a liftie who’d happened upon us.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Súmáí nodded to Dad.

  I could see Dad weighing things, knew he wished this liftie would say nothing about finding us, but he couldn’t even ask because it would look bad. Poor Dad: wish granted.

  I held up my hand to wave. Súmáí held up his hand, and despite everything, our gaze turned familiar. Dad saw this, and then locked onto Súmáí’s hat. I turned and clutched Dad’s arm, and we promenaded toward the gondola. I had to force every step away from Súmáí. I willed myself not to look back. Dad and I entered a car and collapsed on its bench. At the last instant, a liftie stuck in his head.

  “Your clipboard, Briggs.”

  I could tell it took all of Dad’s energy to sit up and take it. Across the top sheet, vandalism was scrawled in his left-handed writing.

  “Thanks,” he managed.

  The doors closed. Despite my grogginess, I felt torn in two, half of me wanting to pry those doors open and sprint to Súmáí, the other half wanting to be with Dad. He slouched back and dropped the clipboard onto the bench. After a minute, he drew his phone from his jacket’s pocket and dialed.

  “Wash. You at the cabin? Good. We need a ride home from the gondola. Pronto.”

  As we rose past Gage’s house, I looked for him through his bedroom window, but he wasn’t there. Today’s Mom had asked about him.

  I pictured her and Dad’s kiss and saw the soggy tissues in her hand. I felt Súmáí’s arm around my waist and saw Dad recognize his hat. The gondola car bounced over pulleys at the top of a tower. Everything seemed to swirl on the same breath. My world reeled, and, for the third time that day, I lost consciousness.

  Bookmark:

  Wave Function

  When plotted on a graph, all the possible

  states of an object take the form of a

  wave. This is called wave function.

  23

  The sun striped across me, and crows squawked a ruckus out the cabin’s bedroom window. I rubbed sleep from my face and held up my hands. No glow. Yet if I looked closely, I fancied the sunlight passed through them like watery milk.

  Sitting up, weary to the bone, I hovered my hand over the down comforter. Its shadow seemed half as dark as it used to be. I took a chest-filling sip of air. I couldn’t remember riding with Wash on the snowmobile. Nothing after passing out in the gondola car.

  A mug clunked against the table, and one of its chairs creaked with weight. The alarm clock on the nightstand read 9:30 am. No school for me today, that was for sure. And it was Tuesday, Dad’s day off. Had it really only been a week since my accident? An odd symmetry seemed to surround that. Last night, showing Dad the truth had seemed brilliant. I remembered his howl as Mom had been yanked from his arms. Because of me, he’d lost her a second time. I’d hurt him again. I’d been an idiot.

  I threw back the covers and shambled to the bedroom door. I leaned against its jamb and watched Dad sip coffee. He set down the mug and studied his cast hand. From where I stood, I could see the fine dark hairs that covered the tops of his fingers, and the cast, grungy from use, was signed by all of ski patrol. Yet I knew he was remembering the pulse of Mom’s neck beneath his fingertips.

  I slid into the chair next to him and took that hand. His eyes seemed chapped around their rims. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He clamped his lips and shook his head.

  Silence seemed the best conversation. I listened carefully to that silence and could make out the sounds of the lifts running and overlapping conversations, each with its own purpose. So many lives. So many realities.

  “I don’t know what that was,” Dad said. “Where we were last night. But in that place, I, not your mother, was dead.”

  I remembered Mom saying You’re alive! and thought of the soggy tissues. She’d been meeting with Handler. Might it have been because the me in that universe wasn’t handling Dad’s death? That scenario played out in my mind till Dad said, “Seems the Briggs are doomed to suffer.”

  “Gage told me brigs are sailing ships. Beautiful sailing ships.”

  Dad snorted.

  I leaned down into his line of sight. “Dad. One time, I visited another universe, a different one from where we were yesterday. You and Mom and me, we were all walking down that path. It was summer, and I think I’d just graduated because Mom was talking about MIT. We were all happy, and I was going there.”

  He searched my face for truth.

  “There could be endless universes out there. Maybe even one where you and Mom never had me.”

  His gaze seemed to tilt, and he sagged back in his chair. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “What?”

  “You could explain it all, demonstrate the mathematical reality of what happened last night, prove it beyond doubt—”

  “It’s real.”

  “But it doesn’t matter! Sov—” He realized his loud voice and spoke quieter. “This is our life. This is what we’ve been dealt.”

  “But it doesn’t have to stay this way. That was another universe, yes? Maybe one aspect of time. But I also think time is curved and can be bent. If that’s true, maybe a person can go back in her own time and change things.”

  Dad gripped his cast with his other hand and squeezed it a little. After a minute, he shook his head. “I don’t know if I believe in God, but that sounds morally wrong.”

  I laughed once and spit out, “Morally?” I gathered my composure. “Listen, Mom could be alive, with us, here! I could go back to that moment in the car, keep my mouth shut, and she’d keep her
hand on the steering wheel, and—”

  “Don’t do that to yourself !” I’d never told him before that I’d killed Mom. Now, he looked furious. “Sov, you cannot blame yourself for her death. It was an accident.”

  I shook my head. “You weren’t there, Dad. I was whining about school, and she put her hand on my leg to comfort me. I’m sorry.”

  Dad grunted. “God, Sov, is this why you haven’t talked?” He shook his head. “It’s not your fault!”

  “You weren’t there!” I yelled.

  “Do you remember why you even were on the highway that day?” He was almost whispering. “You were on your way to pick me up from a meeting. I’d suggested you girls come get me, and we’d all go out for dinner afterward. Remember?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ve spent the last year feeling like I caused that crash. I checked the weather that morning. I knew the storm was coming; I should have changed our plans.” He shook his head. “It’s time to move on, Sov.”

  We sat in silence for a long time, both of us reluctant to give up guilt.

  “Last night, we were unconscious in freezing temperatures,” he finally said. “If that liftie hadn’t come along, we could have died. Whatever you’re doing, it’s dangerous. Really dangerous.”

  I wanted to spout something about Súmáí, but I realized that real as he might be, Súmáí wasn’t from my life. I might never see him again. And I hadn’t told Dad how I’d also been unconscious in the cold all alone, only to be woken by Shelley.

  “Sovern, I can’t control you—you’ve certainly proven that over the last year—but I’m begging you: please, don’t go wherever that is anymore. If I lost you too … ”

  I remembered how, during my rescue, he’d stared at Phantom Peak like it was a lifeline. Poor Dad. He was the most important person in my world. Why did I keep screwing up?