Cristin Bishara: Relativity

“You figured it out!” I slap my hand on my knee. “Eureka!”

Linda bites her lower lip, looks out the window. There’s something familiar about that gesture. Ah, yes. That’s what Mom does when she’s worried. Dad rubs his temples, Mom bites her lower lip.

Linda takes a moment to regroup. Then, with startling enthusiasm, she tries, “I must know where you got that grape shampoo. It’s so much nicer than the brand I’ve been using. It’s wonderful. Do you know where I could buy some?”

“Not offhand.”

Linda strums her fingers on the arm of her chair. “We can’t trace the manufacturer. We’d like to know who carries that product so we can get some geographic clues as to where you were.”

I shrug. “I can’t help.” It’s the same sequence every session: she asks her rehearsed questions, I get annoyed and cop an attitude, she gets huffy. Repeat, repeat. I wonder how much she charges per hour.

“And what about that book of codes?” she asks. “Where did you get that?”

“At a used bookstore,” I say. “Back in California.” This is what I say whenever Ó Direáin’s journal comes up. “When do I get my stuff back from the police, anyway?”

“When they decide to stop the investigation,” she says.

I fold my arms across my chest and glower.

“I understand that you’re angry,” she says. “The way your father uprooted your life. You must miss California. What was it like?”

“Can we just skip the psychobabble?”

Linda straightens her posture and glares at me. “Fine. Then tell me about the photo. The one of you and your father, and the boy, and the woman who looks like an age-progressed version of your mother.”

“You can do anything on a computer. Photoshop is amazing.”

“Why would you want to create a family photo like that?”

“For fun?”

She smiles. “It’s not complicated. It’s a fantasy you’re trying to actualize. You want an ideal family, something you’ve never had.”

“I’m fine with the family I have,” I say emphatically. “Right here, right now.”

At least I’m working on being fine with it. I have to admit, autumn in northeastern Ohio is spectacular. I’ve added fall leaves to my list of jaw droppers conjured up by Mother Nature. Man, what George and his sketchbook could do with all those colors. And Willow took me to an apple orchard a few days ago. For the first time I tasted real, fresh, apple cider. I can’t get it out of my mind.

She goes on. “Tell me more about your magic tree. You believe the tree was mystical somehow.”

“I never said that.”

“You did,” she insists.

“I was confused when the search party found me. I was in medical distress. You can’t take what I said seriously.”

“So you don’t think it was a magic tree?”

“Magic? No,” I say. “But in the end it doesn’t matter what I think.”

“Why not?”

“Because theories are just that—theories. And because it’s gone now. Burned to a crisp.” I picture the tree, what’s left of it: a sizzled, dead mass of skyward blackened fingers.

“You sound disappointed about the tree.”

“I think that everyone’s a little disappointed.” I reach into the glass dish and find a piece of chocolate labeled DARK.

“In what way?”

“You were hoping for a Satanic kidnapping. Something juicy.” I peel the foil wrapper off the chocolate, roll it into a ball between my fingers. A tiny bit of aluminum, a decent conductor of electricity. I look at the wall outlets, the ceiling fan, the computer on Linda’s desk. Electricity flows all around us. Strands of Linda’s hair jut at angles along the edge of her hat. Static electricity. Outside, in the atmosphere, the electromagnetic force. The ionosphere is pulsing with it. So much is powered by the invisible.

“Hoping for a Satanic kidnapping?” Linda almost lets an excited smile turn her lips. “Why would you say that? Is that what happened?”

“Did you know that electric eels can produce a five-hundred-volt blast?”

Linda smiles with a look of barely controlled patience. “How interesting. A science fact. Are you studying eels at Ennis High this week?”

“No.” I shake my head, close my eyes, savor the melting chocolate in my mouth. Chocolate is made of atoms. Atoms are made of electrons, neutrons, and protons. Protons and neutrons are made of quarks. Quarks are made of vibrating loops of string. Vibrating and warping the fabric of space, producing black holes, tunnels, and shortcuts from universe to universe.

But of course, string theory is just that. A theory. An idea, a hypothesis, a big fat maybe.

“What did you say about strings?” Linda leans in.

“Oh, was I talking out loud? I didn’t realize.”

Linda nods. “Of course you didn’t.” She scribbles something on her legal pad.

The clock ticks, and ticks, and ticks.

“If you’re not in the mood to share,” Linda finally says, “I’ll see you Wednesday.”

I stand up too abruptly and lose my footing. Linda lunges forward to help, and I get my cane underneath me just in time.

“Are you steady?” she asks.

“I’m fine. I did ten minutes on the treadmill today,” I say. “Did I mention that already?”

“Yes,” she says. “You did.”

Locker doors slam shut, and within seconds the hallway clears. I can’t remember the room number—again. Is art class in 106 or 109? I stare helplessly up and down the hall at the closed classroom doors. I heave my new backpack off and search through folders, looking for my class schedule. It’s not post-traumatic amnesia. It’s my seventh day of school, and I don’t have everything memorized yet. Ennis High has this crazy rotating schedule, and an army of substitute teachers. It’s a little disorienting.

“Over here,” Kandy growls impatiently. She’s behind me, a wave of perfume. “Hurry up before the bell rings.”

Ever since I came back home through the tree, Kandy has been civil. Not friendly, but at least I don’t feel like she’s ready to disembowel me with scissors. Yesterday, after I’d showered and was heading to my room in my towel, I caught her staring at my bare, skeletal leg with a look of pity, or maybe disgust, or guilt.

The bell rings as I sit down and hook my cane onto the back of my chair. Mrs. Gambier flutters in, a commotion of file folders, wrinkled clothes, and a stained mug, which I sincerely hope is for cleaning paint brushes and not for drinking. She can’t find room on her desk for everything, so she dumps the folders onto her chair. Papers spill onto the floor.

“Give me a moment!” She’s breathless, as usual.

I sneak a glance at my phone. Contraband. But Principal Mather and Mr. Burton made an exception for me for the time being, so my caseworker can keep tabs on me. Or in case the police need to reach me with questions or information regarding my kidnappers. Here at school people don’t even bother whispering wild theories behind my back. I can hear them in the halls: She disappeared, was tortured for information with electrocution. Mafia, I’m telling you.

Yeah, that’s the running theory. The mob is after us.

No new text messages. I’m due for one from George; he’s been sending at least two a day. Faithfully. And I’ve been responding. Happily. While I was in the hospital, Dad called to tell him I got struck by lightning, but I haven’t said a thing about the tree or Ó Direáin or quantum physics, because I still don’t know how to explain.

I stick with safe stuff: hygiene-impaired lab partners, football pep rallies, and did-you-know science trivia. A cockroach can live a week without its head. I tell him that the themed cafeteria lunches aren’t so bad after all. One of the lunch ladies is Greek, so every once in a while we get a feta and spinach dream wrapped in phyllo dough. George’s replies are super-quick, which makes me love him all the more. He tells me about what’s going on on his end: the East Bay Café is changing ownership and they’re taking the couches out. Aliens abducted coffee shakes & put pinot noir in their stead. I’m not fooled. He’s bombing chemistry and wishes I were there to help him. Back in 1789 chem class had to memorize 33 elements. Instead of 118. Screw progress!!!