Cristin Bishara - Relativity

“You’re scaring me.” Her voice is laden with desperation. “What’s your point?”

“This is real,” I say, spreading my arms around me. “I didn’t invent this portal to parallel universes. It’s a natural phenomenon, plus Ó Direáin must have discovered a gravitational anomaly, and somehow added electricity—”

“Don’t you understand?” She keeps pace with me, following me down the path. “We’re in danger!”

“Mom, listen. Sometimes things aren’t what they appear. Isn’t that what you used to say? Things aren’t what they appear? With the naked eye you can mistake a comet for a planet.”

“Exactly! What appears to you to be a parallel universe might appear to me to be an elaborate, advanced, virtual reality game. And it might appear to someone else to be magic. Someone else might manipulate the facts to claim that aliens put this thing here!”

“That’s absurd!”

“Is it? Is it so much more absurd than what you’re saying? Maybe a crystal that was recovered from the lost city of Atlantis is powering the tree,” she goes on. “Maybe this is some sort of Dickensian fantasy, and we’re visiting the ghost of Christmas Present.”

“That’s ridiculous!” I say, but my heart is sinking because I see her point.

“You’re force-fitting your ideas. This isn’t about string theory, Ruby.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re wearing blinders,” she says. “You only see what you want to see.”

Her words dig in, all claws and teeth. She’s painfully right. I’ve picked and chosen supporting data, and thrown out the rest. It’s a scientist’s worst crime: I’ve lost my objectivity.

“Then what’s it about?” I ask. The ground rumbles, and I’m reminded of my original hunch—that there could be a source of power under the tree. I’d asked Willow about caverns, wondered about underground caves and rivers.

My mind flashes to a passage I read at the library, from one of the string theory books:

Discovering a wormhole would require a long journey through outer space in search of a black hole. Scientists agree that we currently lack the technology to traverse those gateways .

Maybe I’ve been looking in the wrong direction. Up instead of down. Left instead of right. The important thing is not to stop questioning . That’s what Einstein said. But that’s exactly what I didn’t do. I stopped questioning. I assumed I was right about string theory and worm-holes and parallel universes.

“It doesn’t matter what it is!” Mom screams, sounding like she’s been pushed to the edge.

I look around at the tombs and obelisks, the birth dates and death dates, the cherubs and Virgin Marys.

“What are you looking for, Ruby?” Mom asks. “Who are you seeking?”

“You!”

We stand silently. The rain patters. Our clothes are soaked. My leg throbs.

“Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.”

“What does that mean?” I ask. “Is that the same thing you said back at the apartment?”

She nods. “Here is my secret. It is very simple: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

“Exactly!” I say. “Dark matter, vibrating subatomic strings, invisible worlds.”

“No. You’re still missing the point.” Mom turns and walks back toward the tree. “My heart sees rightly that it’s time to go home,” she calls over her shoulder. “I’ve been searching for you all day. I’m so exhausted I can barely stand. And now I find out that you’re not even my daughter.”

“Yes I am!” I turn and rush toward her, my crutches catching on tree roots. “Look at my face! Look at me. What does your heart see?”

Her face softens into a look of pity. She bites her lower lip and slides my broken glasses off my nose. Her gaze goes from my eyebrows to my cheekbones to my lips. Finally, softly, she says, “Yes, somehow, you are.” She puts her arms around me, and we hold each other for a long time. “Ruby,” she says, pulling back to look at me once more, “we both need to get home.”

It feels like I’m disappearing, my body hollowed out. I’m evaporating into nothing. Without Mom, what’s left of me? “I don’t want to lose you all over again,” I whisper.

She hands me my glasses and reaches into her pants pocket to retrieve a piece of paper. She unfolds it and reads.

“Dear Mom,” she says. “I have gone to the ends of the earth for you.”

It’s the note I gave to George to deliver to the school secretary, so she could pass it along to Mom. I tremble as she reads the words I wrote just yesterday morning. “Yes,” I say. “I’ve gone a long way.”

She continues. “Thank you for the soft couch, the pizza and breakfast, the conversation. Thank you for being my mom for a short time. I loved you for every single minute, and I will always love you, no matter where we are, no matter what dimension we’re in, separate or together.”

I drop the crutches and double over, sobbing. “I wish …,” I say between gulping breaths. “I want … but, but like you said, there’s no such thing as perfect.” I look over my shoulder, squinting to see through the cemetery and beyond. I wonder what kinds of houses there are in this universe. I wonder who lives in them.

“That’s right,” Mom says, following my gaze. “What if something terrible has happened here? What if both your father and mother are dead?”

Lightning crackles and thunder claps. Mom picks up the crutches and takes my elbow, steering me toward the oak tree. Rain and tears stream down my cheeks.

“I know you’re right. I just …” I wipe my face and sigh. “I just want you.”

“You had a mother for four years. And you had me these past couple days. That’s all the universe could give you,” she says. “The universes.”

“It’s not fair,” I say. “It’s not enough.” I slip my hand into hers as we walk toward the tree.

“But it’s better than nothing.”

I nod, trying to reassure myself. “I’m lucky for the time I had.”

We near the tree and feel the ground beneath us roar with an engine-like voice.

“Let’s get moving,” I say, and I touch the ruthless metal doorknob.

The smell of the ocean is unmistakable. The air is humid, and though it’s too dark to see, I can sense that we’re enveloped in a dense, jungle-like world. Verdant by day, pulsating with unseen life by night.

“Did you hear a seagull?” I ask as we step out of the tree and into what feels like soft soil, sandy and loose.

“Yes,” Mom says. “And a lot of mosquitoes.” She mumbles hurry, hurry, hurry under her breath, waiting for the door to close behind us.

She offers her little key-ring flashlight, but I tell her I have a better one and fish it out of my backpack. I aim the light at the portal, half expecting it to be a palm tree in this universe, rather than an oak. But its massive trunk and gray bark remain the same, though it’s covered by a veil of fungus. The canopy of leaves make their blanket overhead.

“Maybe there was a meteor strike here, and it changed the atmosphere,” I suggest.

Mom doesn’t comment. The moment the door seals shut, she’s ready. “Get back in,” she commands. No nonsense.

She makes the mistake of grabbing the knob with her entire palm, rather than touching it with the tip of a finger. For several terrifying seconds, she’s bound to the knob, convulsing from the electrical current. Suddenly, she’s released. A jolt propels her, and she’s thrown onto her back.

“Mom!” I toss my crutches aside and drop to my knees, pressing my hand against her cheek. She’s sprawled across the ground like a wounded bird. Wings splayed. “Mom? Can you hear me? Can you move?”