“Jack’s room is down here, honey.”
Simmi seemed as if she was going to argue, and I thought of what Amy had said. If Jack had told her about seeing Charlie in my office, it would explain Simmi’s eagerness—not only to play upstairs, but to be in our house at all. Today she was wearing navy-blue joggers with a sparkly tuxedo stripe, red Converse high-tops, and a T-shirt that read J’aime Paris. She’d stopped midway up the stairs, her feet on two different steps, looking down at her father and me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But it’s a mess up there—you’d better stay downstairs.” Simmi descended reluctantly, and followed Jack into his room. I offered Terrence coffee.
“I just had one.”
He seemed as if he’d had several. He stood in the open entrance to our small living room, hands in his pockets, bouncing slightly on his toes. His clothes, from the thin blue surf sweatshirt—the style self-consciously retro, the logo in Japanese—to his gray suede sneakers, seemed to come from another time, when he had had the leisure to pay attention to them.
“You decided to stay for the school year,” I said.
“The semester, at least.”
“That’s good.”
“We were actually just at an open house, on Trowbridge. That’s why we came over here this morning.”
I tried not to look too surprised. Addie hadn’t mentioned anything about Terrence and Simmi moving out.
“You’re not staying in Brookline?”
“No.”
I waited, but no other information was forthcoming. I thought I should use this opening to bring up what Jack may or may not have said to his daughter.
“I think Jack may have been a little confused about the memorial. Because he didn’t really know Charlie. She was here once when he was four, but that was the last time. I’m not sure he remembers.” When I’m nervous, I tend to circle around a subject. “He recognized the photo on the invitation, though.”
Terrence nodded, but he looked distracted. “What’s up with the people downstairs?”
“What?”
“In the apartment—are they friends of yours?”
“No—I mean, not from before. I like them well enough. They’ve lived there since I bought this place.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Why?”
“I was just thinking about the apartment.”
I looked at Terrence. “You mean…for you and Simmi?”
“But it sounds like they’re dug in, so—”
Addie had said she hoped I would be involved, and I couldn’t help wondering if this was her idea. Charlie used to say that it had been a mistake for her to choose Harvard, that she should’ve gone farther from home, where her mother would be less able to meddle in her life. At the time I’d thought that was a little unfair to Addie—who clearly did everything she did for Charlie out of love—but I had to admit that sending Terrence and Simmi to ask about the apartment qualified as meddling. At the same time it flattered me that Terrence would entertain the idea. Did he really think we should live in the same house?
I waited for him to explain, but instead he went to the window, looked out at the street in an appraising way.
“Addie…,” he began.
I waited, but he didn’t continue. “I ran into her, actually.”
“Where was that?” Terrence turned from the window to look at me, but there was nothing accusatory about his tone or his expression. It was true that he looked very tired, but the stubble that extended down his sideburns to his beard, and shadowed his upper lip, gave him a rougher, more grown-up kind of beauty than he’d had in the photos Charlie used to post of him—with his stylish hair and washboard stomach, looking like an advertisement for his brother’s store. Now he was handsome in a way that was more approachable; I thought later that might have been what made me speak without thinking:
“She said she was seeing her lawyer downtown.”
I knew it was a mistake as soon as I’d said it.
Terrence expelled air through his teeth. “And I could’ve told her what he was going to say for nothing. It’s technically still illegal, yeah, but it’s on the fucking ballot. California’s going to go for aid-in-dying next month, just like Washington and Oregon.”
I offered Terrence a chair—he had perched on the window ledge—but he shook his head impatiently. In contrast to the last time he’d been in my house, when he was measured and a bit aloof, he now seemed eager to talk, albeit in a manic way. I’d seen my students in the same state, usually from lack of sleep.
“If she thinks her daughter wouldn’t have chosen it on her own, then maybe she didn’t know her as well as she thought she did.”
“She thinks you were—influencing Charlie?”
“I was the one who kept her from doing it, for months!” Terrence glanced toward the hallway that led to Jack’s room, then lowered his voice: “It’s against everything—I mean, that’s not how I was raised—okay? My mom’s full-on Irish-Catholic. But you know Charlie. Not even God’s going to get in her way.”
“Yeah.”
“And that’s the funny thing, right? Because that’s her mom all over. They’re exactly alike. Addie’s all about the plans she made and the people she hired, but she’s not going to sit there and talk about pain. And if you don’t see it—if you don’t actually sit there with her, you know, the eightieth time she tells Simmi that no, she can’t come watch gymnastics, or Daddy better have lunch with you, because Mama has to stay in bed, again—well then it’s hard to totally get what’s happening.”
“I never saw her like that.”
“Well, it sucks.”
“I can imagine.”
Terrence was nodding madly. “Even you can imagine. Anyone with the empathy of a squirrel—”
I felt a little offended, but Terrence seemed barely to register my presence. “Not Addie, though. She’s like, ‘Oh my god, my daughter’s death didn’t go according to plan. It must be because of this trash she married.’ ”
“But why would you—”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, exactly. What possible motivation do I have? It actually would have been good for Simmi, I think, having her grandparents there when it happened. But I was just following orders, and Charlie said her parents wouldn’t have let her do it the way she wanted. And she was right about that.”
He paused and looked to see whether I was following. “You know they made us get a prenup?”
“No.”
“I’d never even heard of that—didn’t know what it was. But Charlie was getting those staff writing jobs, show after show, at least before she got sick. There was no reason to think she wasn’t going all the way, you know? An EP credit, then her own show. Everybody loved her out there.”
“Addie made you get the prenup?”
Terrence smiled. “That’s what you’d think, right? But it was him—Carl. He didn’t grow up with all this stuff—the fancy house, the fancy school. He grew up more like me, not that he’d ever admit it.”
I didn’t contradict Terrence, but I’d never known Carl to conceal anything about his background. If anything, he used to play up his origins as a scholarship kid, especially if I mentioned my work-study jobs. He would tease his own daughter for being spoiled—but gently, with some pride. Addie’s family was part of a long-standing Philadelphia elite, but it was Carl’s practice, and his television work, that had paid for Harvard.
“Like they thought I’d try to steal from her.” Terrence shook his head, disgusted. Then, more quietly: “Like it wasn’t going to last.”
“Yeah.”
“Charlie said she wouldn’t sign the prenup—I was the one who finally convinced her. I didn’t want them to think I’d talked her out of it.”
“I understand.”
“So now the only thing we own in common is th
e house. She insisted on that. The rest’s in trust for Simmi—not that it’s so much. Charlie liked to spend what she earned.”
“I’m sure Carl and Addie know that.”
“Okay,” Terrence said. “But then why’s she seeing a lawyer?”
“I don’t know.”
Terrence got up and started toward Jack’s room. Then he seemed to reconsider, turned back to me. “That’s why I have to get out of there.”
“But you wouldn’t want this apartment.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“No, I mean—it’s nice. But it’s even smaller than this one. And compared to your house in Santa Monica—”
“We haven’t sold the house yet,” Terrence said shortly. “I don’t have a ton of cash. And I won’t take anything from them, beyond the tuition. It was Addie who suggested this.”
Terrence seemed to soften a little, and I thought that my guess had been right.
“She remembered that you had a tenant—it was actually the first thing that we’ve all been able to agree on. Simmi loves the idea.”
I also had a guess about why Simmi loved the idea, but I couldn’t say so. I didn’t want to suggest that my son, or our household, was psychologically or emotionally unstable, since I thought that was exactly what Terrence was trying to escape; maybe he had even considered that his in-laws’ grief was compounding his and Simmi’s own. And if I were going to keep Jack’s fantasy about the ghost to myself, it occurred to me that I should do the same with the new, scientifically oriented messages from Charlie’s phone. It was my role as a mother—and maybe even as a scientist—to help keep everyone’s feet firmly planted on the ground.
I thought of them in the apartment downstairs. I thought of the kids running up and down to visit each other, of spontaneous trips to the park or to a movie. I thought of the practical advantages, of being able to call Terrence—who seemed to be working a very flexible schedule—if I was going to be twenty minutes late for the sitter, and of being able to take care of Simmi in turn. And I thought of Charlie. For the last several years—maybe since that visit when Jack was four—I’d wondered whether she put any stock in our friendship; eerie messages aside, now both Addie’s and Terrence’s behavior gave me hope that she had.
“Their lease is up in December. I haven’t talked to them, but Andrea’s pregnant again—they might be planning to move.” I thought I had to say something about money. I was doing fine financially, but I needed the income from the apartment to keep up with the mortgage payments on the house. “I wish I didn’t need to rent it. I mean, I wish I could just offer it to you.”
Terrence looked a little offended. “I wouldn’t do that. And our house in L.A. is going to sell. We’ll want something permanent again, eventually, but it’ll be simpler. I just need an interim option, and I’d rather not explain the whole situation to someone, again. Also, it’s got to be flexible. I mean, we wouldn’t run out on you. But I’d have to be able to leave if it’s not working.”
He was standing in the framed opening between my living room and the hallway that led to Jack’s bedroom. I thought of seeing Terrence with the baby, seven years ago in Los Angeles, and it was as if time had skipped from that moment to this present one. I felt Charlie’s presence, as if we were both looking at this scene and wondering at it.
“I’ll just talk to my tenants,” I said. “See what they’re thinking.”
“But you’d be okay with it?” His tone was hopeful, if still a little guarded. He laced his fingers together and stretched them so his palms faced outward.
I thought that it wasn’t so crazy. What had he called it? An “interim option”—two people brought together by a tragedy, helping each other out.
“We’d love it,” I said. “Jack would love it.” I realized it was 10:30. “I have to take him to soccer, but I can talk to them as soon as we get back. I can probably let you know tonight.”
“Great,” Terrence said, with feeling. “That’s great.”
22.
The game went well for Jack. He scored one goal and assisted twice. When he got into the car afterward, his cheeks were flushed; his skin blushes easily, like mine. He had an orange wedged between his lips and his tongue, his teeth in the weedy flesh. I rarely allow him to sit in the front seat, but I let it go for once.
“Nice job out there.”
“Mmph.”
I kissed his head before pushing the button to start the car; his hair was damp, pieces of it sticking to his forehead, and his whole body had a grassy, sour smell. “The goal was terrific, but the way you passed it to Leo was even better. You were using your head.”
“Mmph?”
“I mean, that was good thinking. I know you’re not allowed to head the ball.”
I didn’t play team sports as a child, although I ran track in high school. In college I switched to long runs along the river, with a friend or on my own, because it was easier to fit into my schedule. My parents were always proud of my academic success; what was clearly the most important thing to them had by that time become so for me. But when I chose Jack’s father, I told myself that I was looking for something different. I wanted someone with the potential to be satisfied—to be happy. And I see that in Jack, especially when he’s building something, or coming off the soccer field—the pure delight in being himself in the world.
Jack took the orange out of his mouth. “Will they be there when we get home?”
“Who?”
“Simmi and her dad.”
“Oh—no. Of course not.”
“Because Simmi said they might live downstairs.”
I’m careful not to overshare with Jack, and I thought Terrence might need some practice in this area. I could imagine how in his situation, on the other hand, it would be tempting to make Simmi his confidante. There could be nothing worse than his daughter siding with her grandparents against him.
“Günter and Andrea live there,” I told Jack. “I don’t think they’re leaving.”
“But if?”
“Would you want Terrence and Simmi to move in downstairs?”
“Yes!”
“How come?”
Jack looked at me as if I were an idiot. “Because I like them.”
I noted that he’d said “them,” rather than “her”; normally he was indifferent to adults he didn’t know. “Well, that’s good to know.”
“Except you have to tell her she’s wrong.”
“Simmi? She’s wrong about what?”
“She says”—Jack rolled his eyes in a way I’m afraid he’s learned from me—“that there’s something called a ‘say’-something. I don’t know what you say. ‘Aunts,’ I think. You build a machine, and then you say it—and then you can talk to dead people.”
“You say ‘aunts’?”
Jack looked embarrassed, as if I might attribute these ludicrous ideas to him. “I told her that’s not what real scientists do.”
I had a moment of clarity. “Are you talking about a séance?”
“Yes!”
“Oh. Um, yeah—you’re right. We don’t do that.” It was easier to keep a straight face because I was driving. Some of Jack’s worst tantrums occur when he thinks I’m making fun of him.
“I told her that.” He rolled down a knee-high sock and peeled off the Velcro to remove the shin guard. “She said you use a machine. She’s in third grade.”
“Well, actually—there were some physicists who built a machine like that.”
“Really?” He sounded distraught.
“At Berkeley in the seventies. They called it the metaphase typewriter—it didn’t work, though.”
Jack cheered up: “You have to tell her that.”
“Well, but if that idea makes her feel better, for now—then maybe it’s okay?”
“But it’s wrong. You can
only talk to people who are alive.”
“That’s what I think, too.”
“Is there a machine for talking to people who are alive?”
I did laugh then. “The phone?”
“Or the internet.”
“Right.”
“Even if they’re in China.”
“Yep.”
We pulled into our driveway just as Andrea was letting herself in, her stomach protruding from an unzipped jacket. She looked up and waved; I lifted my hand, but I felt a nagging worry. Andrea and Günter had never said anything to me about moving once they had a second child; as far as I knew, they put any extra cash they had into their films. I thought it was completely possible that they might sacrifice space and comfort for their growing family to filmic space for the Wampanoag, to whom they felt an almost religious devotion.
“Even if you don’t know where they are,” Jack said, “you can find them.”
23.
Although its name sounds absurd, Berkeley’s Fundamental Fysiks Group was composed of real scientists. After the Second World War, government funding poured into physics departments all over the country, nuclear and solid-state physics most of all. Graduate programs were suddenly oversubscribed, and there was no time to sit around dreaming up exotic or speculative ideas. The way that Einstein and his circle had made their extraordinary advances, meeting at cafés or in one another’s homes, playing music together and excitedly debating their vexing gedanken experiments, seemed more like a romantic movie than the real, historical past. Musical soirees and European coffeehouses were replaced by giant American lecture halls. The order of the day, as my colleague David Kaiser writes in his history of the Fundamental Fysiks Group, was “shut up and calculate,” Richard Feynman’s famous phrase to suggest that rigorous mathematical labor—not philosophy—was the path to understanding the quantum world.
The Fundamental Fysiks Group was a casual gathering of ten scientists who met once a week to discuss those more philosophical ideas, beginning in 1975 in Berkeley. Kaiser suggests that the FFG’s open-mindedness toward parapsychology and ghosts, combined with their minor celebrity as members of the counterculture, helped to keep quantum entanglement—the “spooky action” between distant particles that Einstein refused to countenance—on the map. It turned out that spooky action, at least, was right: pairs of subatomic particles like electrons can be “entangled” in such a way that observing one of them instantly influences the other, even after they’ve moved far apart. The observer is important because these quantum particles exist as probabilities; they don’t have a fixed position or momentum until a scientist pins one down by measuring it. By measuring one, she instantly influences the other, simply because the pair of them once interacted with each other.
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