The Explanation for Everything (4 page)

“That's my way?”

“Yes,” Melissa said. “That is your way, because that is the way of Darwin, which says that we are no more important, no more intentional, than the dust on your desk. We might as well be like your caged mice for all the agency we have in the grand scheme of things.”

“All right,” Andy said, neither aggravated nor impatient.

“But here's your other option. A world in which life has purpose,” Melissa said. “God put us here for a reason, and that reason is out in the world for us to discover. There's a reason we can see stars in the sky. There's a reason we can dig into the crust of the earth and find out what came before us. There's a reason we were given the kinds of brains that would further your . . . scientific inquiry. There's a reason for life. There's a design behind it.”

Andy did not look at the clock. “I see what you're saying, Melissa, but that's not a binary I'm comfortable with.”

“Your world is the world of coincidence, of meaninglessness. You choose the world that would have us as specks of dust, as mice in a cage. Is that the kind of world you want to live in, Professor Waite?”

Andy took a breath.

“Professor?”

He hated these rushes of memory, these forces that sucked him in like dark matter at the least convenient times, shattering him. But there he was, out of the shabby lab in the basement of Scientific Hall and instead in Miami, the apartment in Miami, four lushly carpeted and heavily air-conditioned rooms. It was night, and Lou, hugely pregnant with Belle, was lying down next to Rachel in her big-girl bed. Reading
Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever.
Giggling together. Louisa's belly rising up and down.

Specks of dust, dust to dust. Andy blinked his eyes, hard. He came back to where he was.

“Professor?” Melissa tried again. “Is that what you want?”

“It's not,” Andy said. “But I've realized over the years that what I want doesn't really matter either way.”

“But that's not true,” Melissa said. “You get to decide what you want and you get to decide what really matters.”

The chill from the air-conditioning had made the hair on his arms stand up. For a moment, he lost his head. “Melissa, if you can come up with a reading list I approve of, I'll do your independent study.”

“I can do that,” she said, cheerfully. “That's no problem.”

“But you should know I'm going to include some scientists I believe in. Henry Rosenblum, you heard of him?”

“You want me to read Henry Rosenblum?”

“Lots of him,” Andy said. “Dawkins too. Those are my conditions.”

Why he was bothering with conditions at all he wasn't entirely sure, but if he was going to jump through hoops for her, then he would make her do the same for him.

Melissa sighed. “Do you think there's anyone else in the bio department who will take my project on?”

“I'd be shocked,” Andy said. “In fact, I'd be shocked if there was anyone else in the department who would ever let you finish a sentence about intelligent design.” She fingered her cross. “So are you willing?”

“I guess I have no choice,” Melissa said.

“Not if you're serious about this study.”

“Okay,” Melissa said. She hoisted her backpack over her shoulders and galumphed out of his basement laboratory. Andy watched her go, listened to her heavy footsteps. She didn't even have the courtesy to say thanks.

He returned to his drunken mice, dreaming their placid, inebriated dreams. He reached in and scratched one on the nose; like a bum, or one of his daughters, it seemed to snort before it rolled over. Poor mice. They were the only animals whose alcoholism he was able to forgive—he knew the genetics behind it, after all—and he often found himself envying them their single-minded devotion to drinking, and their peace.

E
VE
RY YEAR,
A
NDY
took his girls out for ice cream on the first day of the semester, because the first day of the semester usually coincided with the last day of the season at Curley's, the custard stand at the end of Deborah Boulevard. The girls had been planning their ice cream orders all week, and refined them as they cut across the park to Curley's.

“I'm having a caramel – peanut butter sundae with M&M's,” said Belle, who was eight and prone to overkill. “Or maybe banana fudge with M&M's. Dad, if I get banana fudge will you get caramel?”

“What you're getting is type 2 diabetes,” said ten-year-old Rachel. She tossed her long hair. “I'm getting a frozen banana. You should too, Tubs.”

“Don't call your sister Tubs,” Andy said, even though Tubs had been Belle's nickname until just this past year.

“Whatever. Eat a banana. I'm getting a sundae.” In unison, the three hopped over a marshy puddle at the edge of Memorial Park.

A small crowd had gathered under Curley's flashing neon sign, gravely licking their cones. Andy recognized most of the faces: kids from his girls' classes, Joe who ran the pizza place down the block, and his neighbor, Sheila Humphreys, who was probably his closest friend in this town, even though they rarely spent more than an hour or two together at a time. Sheila was a single mother whose son was in Belle's class, and who invited him over for dinner sometimes, or who joined them for pizza at Joe's. Sometimes he changed her oil for her; sometimes she watched his girls on the weekends.

“You guys still coming over tomorrow night?” Sheila asked, in lieu of hello. She popped the last of a cone into her mouth. She had a spot of something greenish on her chin.

“Sure,” Andy said, even though it took him a moment to remember what she was talking about. Oh, sure—a few weeks ago she had invited him over for a “celebration,” which was both kind and perplexing. What were they celebrating? “Oh, you know,” Sheila had said. “The start of a new semester. New school years for the kids. Jeez, Andy, can't a woman just celebrate every so often?”

Andy had acquiesced, even though the idea made him antsy; he worried that after dinner was over he'd owe her something, more energy or kindness.

“Dad! C'mon, Dad, it's our turn to order,” said Belle, pulling on his sleeve.

“How was your first day of school?” Sheila asked.

“It was . . . adequate. The mice behaved.”

“Did they miss you while you were gone?”

“I think one of them might have had a seizure.”

“Ah,” Sheila chuckled. “That's how you know it's love.”

“I'm sorry?”

“When someone has a seizure,” Sheila said. “That's how you know he really loves you.”

She laughed, so Andy did too, even though he wasn't entirely sure he understood the joke. “So what should I bring tomorrow?”

“Bring? Bring yourselves,” Sheila said. “Your girls. I'm making seafood stew. Will everyone eat that?”

“Dad!”

“Sounds great,” Andy said, even though he had no idea whether his girls would eat seafood stew. “We'll be there.”

“It's been so long since I've had a real dinner party!” Sheila said. Her son, Jeremy, was working intently on his chocolate soft-serve, forming concentric circles in its surface with his spoon. “I'm excited.”

“So are we.”

“Oh my God, Dad, you're holding up the line!”

“I'll let you go,” Sheila said. “I'll see you tomorrow.” And then she put a hand on Jeremy's back and led him toward the boulevard, away from Curley's. The boy was still staring into his ice cream. And Andy felt an odd sense of wanting to start that conversation over again, even though he had no idea what he'd say differently. He paid for the girls' ice cream and banana, and then stood where Sheila had just been standing over a few dribblings of green, looking out into the darkness where she'd disappeared.

THREE

He wrote his letters at five thirty in the morning, a habit generated from fury. Five thirty in the morning was an angry time to be awake, always dark, always punishing; Andy would always rather be doing something else. What would a normal man do at this spiteful hour? Sleep, he supposed, but if sleep were impossible then maybe the normal man would jog or read or make a big pot of coffee or have sex with his wife. In Andy's old life he might have done any of these things. Instead, he was up at five thirty on a perfectly good Friday, a day when he could have slept until seven.

He made coffee, turned on the radio, turned off the radio, listened to the blackbirds sing outside.

A letter a day. Andy told himself he could stop whenever he wanted to—it was just that so far he had never wanted to stop.

Dear Mr McGee:

The semester started yesterday and with it came the usual dread: I wasn't prepared, my students wouldn't like me, I wouldn't like my students. I've been teaching for twelve years and much about the job has become worse, but sometimes I wonder if it's the students who are worse or if it's me. Not that the students of twelve years ago were demonstrably more intelligent than today's but there's a kind of focus, I think, that's gone missing. Twelve years ago a student couldn't download porn during class time. (In my current students' defense, however, twelve years ago their counterparts still had a future to prepare for. Now they move back to their parents' houses with their heads held high.)

Anyway, as both you and I have learned, McGee, time insists on marching on, so regardless of how I would prefer to spend the next several months I will spend the bulk of them on campus, droning at students who will try to tune in and eventually tune out, shifting piles of paper, counting the stink bugs that have gathered in my office since we went to Ohio this past August. The tech took decent care of the mice while I was away, but still I'm going to have to start doing scans again this week if I want to get my grant in on time.

(Incidentally, McGee, I know I mentioned this to you in a previous letter, but it bears repeating that my drunks have a detectably lower level of neuropeptide Y in their brains, which has, I believe, increased their tendency toward alcoholism. Perhaps this neuropeptide factor will be manipulated medically one day to some pharma's great profit. Unfortunately that day will be too late for you, McGee, and of course too late for me.)

The girls are still asleep, thank goodness—lately Belle's been having nightmares and insisting I sleep next to her, or, worse, climbing into Rachel's bed and then both of them are groggy and annoyed the next day. As I've mentioned to you many times, it's not easy being a single father, but the task seems infinitely harder when the girls are sniping at each other over issues of purloined sweatshirts and ugly hairdos, which is what they do when they're overtired. Belle seems unable tell me what her nightmares are about. She is usually very articulate and so naturally this has me worried, as do the nightmares.

But they remain asleep for the moment, and I can hear the crickets going outside. It still stuns me that this is where I live and that Lou has never seen this house.

A neighbor told me she spied a black bear rooting through her garbage the other day, which made me think I better start buying tighter lids for our garbage cans, maybe even one of those steel cages. This was another thing I never had to worry about in Florida. But it's almost autumn again, and that's when the animals get hungry. What would I do if I saw a bear, McGee? Would I have the guts to shoot?

(McGee, rest easy: I don't even own a gun).

Another way I can measure how time passes—seven years already—is that Rachel has started looking so much like Lou did in her twenties. Her hair is getting a little darker, like Lou's was, and sometimes she makes these faces—when she's confused, she narrows her eyes just like her mother did. I've been looking at pictures, just to see. I have some pictures where Rachel could be Lou's little sister. It's creepy, or perhaps it's just genetics.

Anyway, right now I need some coffee, and then I suppose I should start prepping next week's classes. I have dry cleaning to pick up. And your parole hearing is this January. I haven't booked my tickets, but my mother has agreed to come watch the girls while I'm away, which is a start.

In the meantime, I remain,

Your faithful correspondent,

Andy Waite

Later that afternoon, Sheila's. On the way home from work he bought three sunflowers at a farm stand, gave them to Belle to hand to Sheila. “These are lovely!” she said, standing at the doorway to welcome them. “Thank you, Belle.”

“It was my father's idea,” Belle said, then followed Rachel who followed Jeremy to the rec room, where the PlayStation was.

“Thank you, Andy,” Sheila said, giving him what he recognized as her flirtiest smile. She led him into the kitchen, where the late afternoon sun lasered through the windows, yet Andy's fingers—his whole body—felt cold.

“Hey, could you do me a favor?” she asked, reaching across the stained linoleum countertop for a paper bag. She held it out to him as though it contained a child's lunch or shoes to go in for repair. “They've got to be boiled alive.”

“What has to be boiled alive?”

She held the bag open for a moment so Andy could peek inside: two lobsters, alive and kicking, furious about their predicament.

“It's silly, but it's hard for me,” she said, wiping her hands on her stained canvas apron. “I was hoping you could.”

Andy took a half step backward, listening to the scrabble-scrabble-scrabble of the bagged lobsters, and to the sound, in the distant living room, of his daughters playing something violent on her son's PlayStation. Sheila pushed her heat-frizzled bangs off her face. Again, her flirty smile.

Here it was, he thought. Obligation. “Ah,” he said. “Well.”

Sheila's house was beautiful, the nicest one on the block, a Victorian whose upkeep she couldn't quite manage. An overgrown lawn, a loose board in the front porch, that sort of thing. But her kitchen, despite the disarray, was haphazardly inviting, potted herbs on the windowsill by the sink, a worn-out block of knives. In general, Andy liked being there. When she invited his family for dinner he was usually at least halfway grateful. But now, with the heat, and the scrabbling lobsters—and he was almost certain his daughters were playing a game where they mowed each other down with machine gun—he felt dizzy and uncharacteristically out of words.

“It just takes a second,” she said, forcing the bag into his hands. “Come on, Andy, pour 'em in the water. I still have to finish the stew.”

Well. The thing had to be done—there was no way around it, and regardless of his objections (the heat, the sweat, the moral question, his older daughter shooting his younger's avatar in the head) it would be unmanly for him to refuse. The lobsters would go into the boiling water and scrabble for perhaps thirty seconds more, and then the scrabbling would turn into a faint scratching at the merciless stainless steel sides of the pot. And then, after another minute or so, the noise would disappear. Life, such as it was, would be extinguished.

Sheila would remove the lobsters from the stockpot with tongs, perhaps holding them up for a moment to let the water bead off them, to admire how rosy they'd turned when boiled. Then she'd decapitate and deshell them to the benefit of the seafood stew she was making him and his daughters to celebrate the beginning of the new school year.

“Go on then,” Sheila said. “They might break through the bag if you don't get them in there soon.”

What was his problem? “Right,” he said. “Okay.” He dumped the desperate beasts into the stockpot, and merciless Sheila clapped her hands. He looked out her window, at the overgrown maples with the menacing roots.

The scrabbling inside the pot grew manic.

“Stew is a great way to stretch lobster meat,” Sheila said, turning her attention to a bowl full of potatoes. “It's still an indulgence, of course, but buying two is a whole lot cheaper than buying four.”

She blew a stream of air upward into her frizzy bangs. She was not just a murderer; she was a parsimonious murderer.

But oh, how could he be churlish about this celebration? She didn't have to do anything for him at all, much less buy him lobsters, much less carefully prepare them for ungrateful him and his ungrateful daughters. As they sat at the table together, Sheila's dark wooden table, under the cracked plaster ceiling of her dining room, Andy watched both his girls gaze longingly at Jeremy's chicken nuggets. The stew in their bowls was milky. Potatoes and translucent pieces of fish bobbed around the surface.

“I'd like to propose a toast,” Sheila said, raising her glass of iced tea. She had been in AA for five years, and was very open about her alcoholism and related troubles; perversely, this was one of the first things he had liked about her. “To Professor Waite,” she said. “On the occasion of a new semester at Exton Reed. And to you kids too. Fifth grade and third grade!”

“Ugh, don't remind me,” said Rachel, who just this past month had begun affecting an attitude of disenchantment. Was this normal preteen posturing? Or if something were really wrong, would she tell him?

“And Andy, aren't you up for tenure at the end of the year?” said Sheila, who remembered everything.

“Ugh,” he said. “Don't remind me.”

“Come on,” said Sheila. “You're a shoo-in.”

“With tenure there's no such thing as a shoo-in. Even at Exton Reed.”

“But you said your experiments were going so well!”

“Circumstances change,” he said, mildly. He didn't want his daughters to know what he worried about. “We'll have to wait and see.”

“Girls,” said mock-exasperated Sheila, “why can't your father ever be optimistic?”

“Because then we wouldn't recognize him,” Rachel said.

“It's not his fault,” said Belle, an expert in fault. “He's had a lot of bad luck.”

“But good luck too,” said Sheila.

“Good luck too,” Andy repeated, to prove he could fake cheer. “I mean, here I am with you guys! If that's not good luck, I don't know what is.” Then, to avoid their worried faces, Andy ducked his head into his underseasoned stew.

T
HE
Y LIVED FOUR
houses down from Sheila and Jeremy on twisty, underlit Stanwick Street, settled among the hunting clubs and fishing holes and cranberry bogs of Mount Deborah Township, centrally located in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The house suited him: it was small and middle-aged, with a yard too crowded with evergreens for anybody to expect him to mow. His daughters shared a room in the back, and he occupied the drafty bedroom in the front, and to the side of the house, unexpected and graceful, was a diminutive oval swimming pool. He put a pair of rocking chairs on the porch, and every November he watched the crab apples splat on the front lawn.

“Girls,” he said, as they cut across their next-door neighbor's lawn, “watch out for the pool.” They were both of an age to roll their eyes at him, but, as far as he could tell, neither did. Rachel, three steps ahead of him, cut a graceful figure in the gloaming. Belle almost tripped on a felled branch but caught herself in time.

Almost autumn but the house was stuffy. Andy opened windows, pulled the strings on the overhead fans. He was the second widower in a row to own this house; the previous one had died right there in the wood-paneled den, on the couch, in front of the Sunday morning news shows. The widower's daughter had knocked the price almost in half to get the house off her hands, and now Andy's own couch sat in the grooves on the carpet the old man had left.

Belle fell asleep on Rachel's bottom bunk; rather than take the top, Rachel squeezed in next to her and fell asleep smushed between her sister and the wall. At eleven o'clock, the Pine Barren frogs chorusing outside, Andy turned off their night-light and kissed them each on their smooth sweaty foreheads. They often slept curled together this way, and Andy wondered when they might stop, and what would stop them—puberty, he guessed. Which Rachel would be facing down any moment, if she wasn't already.

“Dad?”

“I'm here, honey.” But Rachel was only talking in her sleep. He stood at their doorway for another minute in case she said anything else, then backed away.

Andy was scheduled for nine o'clock classes this semester, which he preferred: sleepy students were docile students, and he'd get off campus early enough, most days, to make it to Rachel's soccer practices. Every year he thought about offering to help coach, but every year he remembered he didn't know anything about soccer, and could well do more harm than good. So he stood on the sidelines and watched Rachel race up and down the fields, mud splattering her shin guards. She played halfback and she was good, and even though they both knew he didn't have to watch her practice, she never told him to stay away.

What had his mother told him after Louisa died? Just an hour at a time. Just get through one hour, and then the next, and before you know it, it's a whole new day.

He sat down on the couch, fiddled with one of the cigars he kept in the box next to the DVD player. He was limiting himself to two a week, but he'd deliberately forgotten when he started counting new weeks. Did a week start on Sunday? Monday? Had he already smoked two in the past seven days?

Screw it. A rustle of leaves outside the open window as a predator swished through the night to pick off a vole or a kitten. He stood up with his cigar, his cutter, and the Zippo that Lou bought him a decade ago in Miami. He would smoke and keep an eye out for cats.

“Knock knock?”

Sheila was standing in his doorway. She had changed her shirt, was wearing a thin cotton T-shirt cut low.

“I was just going outside,” he said. “You want to smoke?”