Relativity (42 page)

Changing one side of the equation always changed the other. Mass grew and length shortened as speed increased. Observed time between two events inside a moving body appeared greater to a stationary observer. Vector sums of forces acting on a body were equal to its mass multiplied by its acceleration.

Energy was the product of mass and the square of the speed of light—just like his new tattoo. Mark was one variable of an equation and Claire was the other. He existed in proportion to her, she to him. He wasn't absolute: he was one piece of a single entity.

“It's not true,” he said.

“But—”

Mark put his finger over her lips; the warmth of her mouth made him want to kiss her. “Claire Bear, you know me. Better than anyone. Do you really think I could have hurt our baby?”

“No,” she said. “I don't. Last night Ethan almost died. Where were you? He had three seizures, one where he stopped breathing again for almost a minute. The doctors said he might have permanent brain damage. He's been throwing up bright green vomit and he hasn't eaten anything for a day. And I saw the bruises. I saw—”

Mark interrupted. “What bruises?”

“On his neck. And ribs. Fractures. Bleeding in his eyes too.” Claire put her arms around him and pressed her face into his chest. “Mark, how did this happen? I don't understand.”

Could she feel how quickly his heart was beating? Her ribs under his ribs, rising and falling together. Mark rested his chin on the top of Claire's head, smelled her hair, and touched the tangled ends. For a second, the world stopped turning—the moon stopped orbiting the Earth, the Earth stopped orbiting the sun, the universe didn't expand. This was where he wanted to stay, where he wanted to be forever. Capture this eternity and stretch it out to infinity. But this wasn't a static universe.

“I love you,” Mark said, lifting her chin up so their eyes met. Her eyelashes were almost white; she had the most beautiful freckle under her left eye. He didn't know how to prove how much he really loved her, couldn't write a thesis to support how he felt. Words weren't enough. Mark stroked the side of Claire's face with his thumb and they kissed. Their lips, mouths, noses, and faces still fit perfectly together. Equilibrium—there was a perfect balance to their mechanics. None of that had changed. They were still interlocking pieces of one perfect whole.

Claire pulled away. Her face was wet with tears. “This is my fault. I shouldn't have left. I'll never forgive myself if Ethan dies.”

Mark didn't know what to say. If he tried to convince Claire it wasn't her fault, reassure her that she wasn't to blame, then he'd need to admit where the blame really lay.

“Everyone is saying you did this to him,” she continued. “That you shook him. The police told me they might press charges. They want me to make a statement.”

He kissed her again. “Tell them I didn't do anything wrong. It's me. Come on.”

Claire gave him a shattering look. “I want to believe you. But I don't know what happened, and something terrible clearly happened to Ethan. So maybe I don't know who you really are. Because the only logical explanation is . . .” She stopped, unable to finish the sentence, and suddenly walked away from him.

He chased after her up the footpath. “Claire!”

“I'm sorry, Mark. But I can't.”

He watched her cross the road. They stared at each other for a moment from opposite sides of the street. Traffic passed between them. This was the woman Mark thought would be his partner for life, had believed was more steadfast than a constant. She was his speed of light. He could still taste her on his lips. Those words rang in his ears—I can't—Mark wished he knew what she'd meant. Talk to him, listen, believe him? Couldn't love him? Even if he had hurt Ethan, that awful minute was the smallest fraction of Mark's entire life. What about every other minute? Why was that tiny instant more important to Claire than all the years they'd spent together?

With her blond hair saturated with summer light, Mark never forgot how Claire looked at that moment. Something about her was unreachable; they'd been contaminated. The speed of light was constant, whether they were together or apart. She didn't believe him. What Mark believed indivisible—their quantum mechanics—had been split; that nameless force that bound them together had ripped apart. Claire had altered her side of the equation.

She rushed back to the hospital entrance, knocking into a man carrying a pile of Christmas presents. Mark lingered for a few minutes, gazing at the empty space where she'd stood, before eventually walking away.

Ω

THE BABY
went to the operating theater the next morning. His condition had deteriorated—high fevers, thunderous seizures that blocked his lungs—and Ethan kept slipping in and out of consciousness. He needed surgery, to drain the blood collecting on the surface of his brain. The bleeding agitated his gray matter, it made his brain swell and shift. The problem was the pressure, a cerebral fizz. They'd give him a cranial burr hole: make an incision along his scalp, then drill an opening into the bone to release the blood.

Before surgery, Ethan wasn't allowed to feed; he was going to have a general anesthetic. That night, Claire couldn't even hold her baby in her arms—he smelled her milk and went berserk. All she wanted to do was comfort her child but her presence caused Ethan distress. Claire didn't want her baby to feel like she'd abandoned him when he needed her most. She'd carried Ethan inside her for nine months; he felt like part of her body, an extension of herself. But overnight she had to keep her distance so he couldn't pick up her lactic scent.

Anesthesiologists and surgeons checked on the baby in the morning. They took his temperature and prepped him for the operating theater. Claire watched them wheel Ethan away, his small body swathed by the blue operating gown. It went against her every instinct to allow Ethan out of her sight; she didn't trust anyone now. But she had to trust these surgeons. Her son's life was in their hands and without this procedure he might die. There was no other option.

While Ethan was in the operating theater, Claire went to the cinema. She couldn't stay in the hospital—she was sick with anxiety, pacing the halls. At the movie theater, she bought herself a large tub of popcorn but didn't eat a bite. As the lights of the projector danced over her head, Claire cried. Tears of grief, grief she'd never felt before. She cried silently, but with every fiber of her body and every sac in her lungs. Her sadness was a hellish, unstable place; she felt trapped in its center. Claire watched the screen but paid no attention to the film. The credits rolled and the lights came back on. Her popcorn had spilled on the carpet.

Back at the hospital, Ethan was brought into the postoperative recovery room. Claire wore a net over her hair and a sterile gown over her clothes. She washed her hands and sat beside his bed, waiting for him to wake up. They'd shaved his head. His fine baby hair—gone. White bandages covered his forehead. Relaxed muscles, shallow breathing; the baby's central nervous system was still asleep. Claire put her ear up to his mouth to listen to him breathe again. Ethan was broken, but he was still perfect.

Eventually, the baby stirred. He stretched his fingers and opened his eyes. Bewildered, he slowly climbed out of the analgesic haze. His pupils were huge, dilated from the anesthesia.

Claire's heart wouldn't allow her to accept Mark had caused this. He said he hadn't; she wished that were the truth. She didn't think he wasn't capable of it, didn't believe it. Had there been clues? A signpost, some warning? Mark had a temper, yes, but wasn't physically violent. Once, in the heat of the moment, he'd slapped her across the face but it wasn't serious or scary. They'd laughed about it the next day.

The doctors and the police just needed somebody to blame, to condemn and hold liable, to make sense of this. Even though the finger was pointed at Mark, Claire knew ultimately the responsibility fell on her. After all, she was Ethan's mother. She'd let her baby out of her sight.

But there were so many unknowns in the universe, so many unfounded beliefs. Their tiny son—product of the two of them merged together—was the only witness. This was much more than the unthinkable act of hurting an innocent child, it was a crime against the foundation of her life. There wasn't a shoulder Claire could cry on; the shoulder she'd needed was gone.

Ω

CLAIRE LEANED IN
and kissed baby Ethan's nose. His skin carried the savage smells of surgery: disinfectant, rubber gloves, the metallic tang of blood. She was reminded of the day he'd been born—his pure shock at being alive—only this time she couldn't touch him. Then, despite the baby's obvious discomfort, his body high on anesthesia, Ethan looked up at her. He seemed to recognize his mother. His face broke into a smile. The widest gummy grin. She hadn't seen Ethan smile since before all this. Claire cried again but this time she was happy.

A week later, the bandages came off Ethan's head, revealing a thick brown scab along his scalp. By the time his condition stabilized and the seizures stopped, flakes of his scab had fallen off. When he was discharged from the hospital, it was only a pink scratch. As Ethan's hair grew back, the scar stayed smooth and hairless. It grew with him. Claire fell in love with her child more and more every day. But she came to understand that time didn't actually heal wounds. This wound would always be there—constant, unchangeable—like a secret written permanently onto her son's skin.

E
THAN LOOKED
at his reflection in the hospital mirror. He studied the shape of his skull, tilted his head, combed through his hair with his fingers. Carefully through his nape, ridge, and crown. His fingertip fell on a splinter of glossy skin. The scar. There it was—finally, he'd found it—a tiny bald sliver. His lungs opened up, testing their own capacity.

For most of his life it was right there. Ethan couldn't believe he'd never seen it before. Saliva gathered at the back of his mouth as he ran a finger over the smooth hairless line. Hard evidence, a lasting wound; they'd really cut open his head.

His scar was his time machine, a concrete link to the past, recorded on his body. Proof. Ethan ran to the toilet bowl and threw up.

Alkaline green vomit clogged his throat. He gulped for air as his head hovered over the toilet. Thinking about the scar again made his body rise up in disgust. Acidity burned his tastebuds as he vomited until there was nothing left inside. He wiped the sides of his mouth with his sleeves and breathed heavily through his nose.

“Ethan, you okay?” the nurse called out.

It was time to shave him for surgery. Murmuring blades, humming with electricity, echoed through the tiled room. The nurse put the buzzing razor to his hairline. Chunks of black hair fell onto the floor as the blade swept over his scalp. Ethan looked at his reflection again. Now he was bald. He ran his hands over his head; smooth skin but his skull was lumpy. The scar glowed.

“You look like a crazy person,” Mum said, when he was back in the ward.

“Which is fitting, since you're about to have a lobotomy,” Alison joked.

“Shut up.” Ethan grinned. “Like you can talk. You've had one too.”

“Yeah,” Alison said. “But at least I made it look good. You just look kinda scary.”

Mum went with Ethan to the operative-care holding bay, where the nurse checked his wrist tag, took his temperature, and recorded his weight. Then they were taken to the anesthesia bay—like walking along a coastline, crossing bay after bay—where the doctor gave everyone a fabric cap to wear on their heads.

“You look good in that hat,” Ethan told his mum. He lay back on the bed and reached for her hand. “Mum, I'm scared.”

“Let's pretend you're time-traveling,” she said, stroking his cheek. “Only this time you're going into the future. And I'll see you there.”

“Time dilation.” He turned to the anesthesiologist. “Can my mum stay for my operation?”

The anesthesiologist smiled. “She can stay in theater until you fall asleep. You'll see her in recovery very soon.” She tapped on the drip and adjusted the tubes. “Ethan, could you please count backward from ten for me?”

He nodded. “Ten. Nine,” he said drowsily. “Eight.”

Mum squeezed his hand.

Ω

LIGHT RIPPED ETHAN
from the deep cavity of general anesthesia. The steep climb made him dizzy; icy air rushed between his ears. He woke up in the cool white sunlight of the recovery bay. Slowly, sounds unmuffled, pins and needles prickled his fingers and toes. But Ethan couldn't feel his face. His head was gone. Did the surgeons cut it off? This was a shame; he'd liked having a head. It was going to be inconvenient to live without one.

Mum sat by his bed, still wearing the white shower cap on her head. “Hi, pumpkin. Welcome back.” She stroked his cheek; her touch made his skin tingle. “Your poor head.”