A Theory of Relativity
Theory[i–xii] 6/5/01 11:56 AM Page ii ALSO BY JACQUELYN MITCHARD
The Deep End of the Ocean
The Rest of Us
The Most Wanted
Theory[i–xii] 6/5/01 11:56 AM Page iii A THEORY OF
relativity
Jacquelyn Mitchard
Theory[i–xii] 6/5/01 11:56 AM Page iv This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the author s imagination or are used ficti-tiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
A THEORY OF RELATIVITY. Copyright ' 2001 by Jacquelyn Mitchard. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable license to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of PerfectBound“.
PerfectBound “and the PerfectBound“ logo are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers
AdobeAcrobat E-Book Reader edition v 1. May 2001
ISBN 0-06-001066-5
Print edition first published in 2001 HarperCollins Publishers 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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For Christopher and for Maria Christopher
And for Moochie
Theory[i–xii] 6/5/01 11:56 AM Page vi Theory[i–xii] 6/5/01 11:56 AM Page vii Mere gratitude is all I have to give to those whose knowledge and generosity made possible the telling of this story.
For sharing his understanding of science and students, I thank Greg Boyer. For their understanding of legal and psychological issues of child custody, I am grateful to Marlene Porter, Richard Auerbach, Greg Lyons, Elizabeth VanderWerf, and Cindy Jensen. Brenda O’Donnell and Adrian Lund of the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety offered facts, as did Greg Siborski, Marilyn Chohaney, M.D., and Michael Brownstein of the National Institutes of Health. Artists Lora Donahue and Annette Turow lent expertise on their medium and its teaching. For painstaking legal research, I thank Clarice Dewey. For her research assistance, editing advice, and enduring friendship, I owe a great debt to Patricia Kelly.
Daniel Moeser is a wise and devoted judge and a kind friend. Franny Van Nevel, to whom I tell each story I write, gave me more of the bones of this tale than she will ever realize. My beloved brother, Bobby, his pal John, and my longtime friend, fellow writer Brian Hewitt, taught me golf enough for a gimme. For insights into the natural world of central Wisconsin, I thank Andy Johnston and my son Robert Allegretti.
My friends Anne D. LeClaire and Barbara Grossman were readers of exem-plary wisdom. During a harrowing passage, my agent of eighteen years and friend forever, Jane Gelfman, was my confidante and compass. Jennifer Her-shey edited this book with light and firm hands; Cathy Hemming published it with verve and idealism. The cover designer, Roberto De Vicq De Cumptich, gave this story its magnificent face.
To my daily friends and family, especially my endlessly resourceful assistant, Pamela English, my right hand, Jill DeYoung, and the Nora of my life, Karen Smith, my constant love and loyalty. To my daughters, Maria, Francie, and Jocelyn, and my sons, Rob, Daniel, and Martin—thanks for sparing and forgiving me. To Joyce M. and Joyce S., Laurie, Karen T., Sam, Peg, Emily, Hillary, Sandy Mitchard, Stacey, Jane H., Patty, Artie, Larry, Pam, Mikey, Anna, Alyssa, Bryan, and the rest of my posse, three cheers and a hug. Special thanks to my godson and the namesake of Gordon McKenna.
And for special grace, I thank Rosie, Bob, and Scott.
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How swiftly the strained honey
of afternoon light
flows into darkness
and the closed bud shrugs off
its special mystery
in order to break into blossom
as if what exists, exists
so that it can be lost
and become precious.
— L I S E L M U E L L E R , “In Passing”
The chief merit of the name “relativity” is in reminding us that a scientist is
unavoidably a participant in the system he is studying. . . . In short, would
the laws of nature be the same for everyone, regardless of his place and
motion?
— N I G E L C A L D E R ,
Einstein’s Universe
“My goodness. My gracious!” they shouted. “MY WORD!”
It’s something brand new!
IT’S AN ELEPHANT-BIRD!!
—
D R . S E U S S ,
Horton Hatches the Egg
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THEORY TOC 6/7/01 12:04 PM Page 1
CONTENTS
EPIGRAPH
THEORY TOC 6/7/01 12:04 PM Page 2
THEORY TOC 6/7/01 12:04 PM Page 3
About the Author
PerfectBound e-Books
CREDITS
FRONT COVER
THEORY TOC 6/7/01 12:04 PM Page 4
THEORY TOC 6/7/01 12:04 PM Page 5
A THEORY OF relativity
THEORY TOC 6/7/01 12:04 PM Page 6
Theory[001-112] 6/5/01 11:58 AM Page 1
They died instantly.
Or close enough.
Gordon, of course, knew that “instantly,” in this context, didn’t mean what it seemed to suggest: Several minutes would have passed inside the car after the impact, while the final tick and swoosh of Ray’s and Georgia’s heart-sent blood swept a pointless circuit, while muscles contracted loyally at the behest of a last volley of neurological commands. But there would have been no awareness, or only a few twilight seconds—and no memory.
Most of the others in Tall Trees, the McKenna family and their friends, didn’t know as much about the biology involved or care to.
Small town people, they were accustomed to having something to be grateful for, even death no more physically complex than a power fail-ure. It seemed to many a source of comfort. And as the months unfurled, comfort of any sort was in short supply.
Even Gordon had to admit he was relieved. Couldn’t it have been worse, much, much worse?
It could have been. This, Gordon decided, in those few breathless, shocky moments as he prepared to leave his school classroom and drive to the scene of the accident at Lost Tribe Creek, would be his mantra.
He would not yowl and quake at this abrupt conclusion to the year of living catastrophically. He would not let himself come unglued. Dread 1
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JACQUELYN MITCHARD
tapped at his gut, like an unwelcome salesman tapping insistently at the window—
Your sister is dead; your sister really is dead!
But Gordon breathed in and out, spoke to himself of focus.
He would be the one who remained analytical. Looking at the facts straight on was both his nature and his calling. He could do that best of anyone in his family. It would be the way he would protect himself and his parents.
He was, of course, frightened. All the signs. The trembling legs. The fluttering pulse. It had begun the moment he heard Sheriff Larsen’s voice.
“Gordon,” said the sheriff, “what are you doing, son?” What was he
doing
?
An old friend of his father’s calling him in the middle of a weekday, at school, though by rights he should not even have been there, the term having ended for summer break two weeks earlier, asking him what he was doing? Something was up, something bad; he could not imagine what; everything bad had already happened.
Gordon felt a burning the size of a pinprick deep in his abdomen.
“I’m cleaning, um, my classroom,” he’d answered finally, uneasily.
“Throwing out the moldy agar dishes. Reading all the love letters the kids left in the lab trays. Science teacher fun.”
“Good,” Sheriff Larsen said. “Good.” His voice had always reminded Gordon of Ronald Reagan’s. “So . . . so, you alone there?” Gordon had been alone and relishing the solitude. The days when Georgia went to the University of Minnesota for her chemotherapy were the only times the McKennas felt they had permission to do ordinary tasks—get haircuts, return library books—things that felt shameful and selfish when Georgia was home and miserable. He had almost not answered the phone. For it would surely have been his mother with another bulletin about the afternoon’s accomplishments of his year-old niece, Keefer:—She’d held her own spoon! She’d said “Moo!” Gordon loved Keefer and thought her exceedingly bright, but this was becoming like
CNN Headline News.
“What’s up?” he’d asked Dale Larsen.
And as the older man spoke—an accident, a very bad accident, no Theory[001-112] 6/5/01 11:58 AM Page 3
A Theory of Relativity
3
survivors, should he cruise by there and pick Gordon up—the level of shock built until Gordon’s chest seemed to have room to contain his heart or his lungs, but not both. This was normal, was probably a kind of hypotensive shock. Fear, he reminded himself, was, like anything else, only a thought. Hadn’t he mastered that a year ago, when they’d learned that Georgia, Gordon’s only sister, just twenty-six years old, a triumphant wife and exultant new mother, had cancer, stage four, Do-Not-Pass-Go cancer? Hadn’t he watched her suffer an endless year of days, mourned and mopped and propped and wished for her release and flogged himself for the wishing?
It was over. She had been released.
And Ray, Georgia’s husband, Gordon’s longtime friend, his sweet-souled frat buddy from Jupiter, Florida, a lumbering athlete with a physicist’s brain and the heart of a child. . . . Ray was dead, too. Gordon had to recalibrate. Ray had told Gordon more than once during the illness,
Bo, I can’t live without her
. Gordon had sensed it had been more than just a manner of speaking. So perhaps Ray had felt gratitude, too, in the last conscious instant of his life. The mind was capable of firing off dozens of impressions in fractions of seconds.
And so it had proved with his own mind. Gordon decided he would not call his mother. He would give her these few last moments of innocent play with Keefer. Nor would he call his Aunt Nora. She was as brave as a bear, but for all her homespun daffiness Gordon could never quite believe that the same twentieth century that had produced his own parents had also produced Aunt Nora. Nora had told Gordon not long ago she didn’t need to know all the whys and wherefores, that she would ask Georgia about it someday, in heaven.
But heaven, Gordon thought, as he carefully parked his car a prudent distance up on the dry shoulder of the road, had been only a concept when Nora made that statement. Now, that kingdom had come.