But he was right. We were both alone in this and on opposite sides of the field. “I feel like if I don’t keep trying, it will all fall apart,” I said in a small voice.
Jack sighed. “It fell apart a long time ago, Em. When Grant died.”
I glanced at the door and leaned closer. “Last night you said some things. I don’t know if you remember. About Grant. You said…you said they killed him.”
Jack stared at me for a long moment, conflicted, a hundred thoughts behind his eyes, as if he were struggling between what to say and what to keep to himself.
“I’m tired, Emery,” he said finally, turning away. “I’m so tired. I want to sleep now.”
“Jack…”
“Go back to your pep rallies and your boyfriend and your dances.”
I bit back tears. “That’s not fair.”
“No, I mean it,” he said, his eyes fluttering shut. “You’re better off. It’s better if you…”
But he took whatever he was going to say into sleep. I sat with him for a while, wiping my tears, and then I left.
Chapter 13
Xander
I jerked awake, having dreamt I was in a symphony hall listening to a jangling rendition of one of Chopin’s nocturnes, then realized it was coming from our rickety old piano downstairs. It was dark still; my digital clock radio on the bedside table read 4:14 a.m.
I shuffled downstairs in my sweats and T-shirt. Dad was at the piano in his pajamas, hair askew.
“Xander!” he cried, still playing. “Not bad, eh? Your old man still has it. Come play with me. Let’s duet like we used to.”
“Dad, it’s four in the morning.”
“Come. Sit.” He stopped playing to pat the bench beside him. “What shall it be? A little Mozart? Perhaps some Schubert?”
I rubbed my eyes and glanced over at his desk, strewn with papers, each covered with equations. I bent to get a closer look.
“No!” Dad tore from the piano, grabbed his papers, and bunched them protectively to his chest. “Not yet. I can’t share this with anyone. Not even my own precious son. If the information got into the wrong hands, God knows what untold horrors might be unleashed upon the planet.”
Paranoia. This is new.
My stomach twisted. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, Xander, that I’m close. So close.”
“To a unified theory?”
“Indeed, my boy. Complete and utter comprehension of the world.” Dad’s eyes were wide and alight from within. “Newton thought he had it. Einstein too, then he lost it. Then came Heisenberg with his uncertainties, who said it must remain unknowable, and then Schrödinger with his wave functions, who said it was not. But they were all missing one piece of the puzzle. Like the very paradoxical nature of particle-wave duality itself, they were all correct and yet all wrong at the same time!”
“And you think you’ve found the last piece?” I asked dubiously, yet my pulse quickened just the same. My dad was a genius, very nearly on par with the greats he just named. Was it possible…?
“It’s there, Xander,” Dad said, taking a seat at his desk and rifling through his papers. “Just outside of my reach butright there.I can feel it.”
I stepped back, uncertainty swirling in my gut that perhaps my dad was afflicted with his own kind of duality—that he was telling the truth but that unlocking such a discovery might come at the cost of his own mind.
“Okay, Dad, I’ll leave you to it.”
“Thank you, my boy. Thank you…”
In our little kitchen, I made coffee and set one mug down beside my father—already back at work, scribbling away—and took another upstairs. I still had hours to go before school. I sat at my own desk, spartan and clean, and watched the morning light creep over the surrounding greenery from my window. The queasiness in my stomach didn’t abate, and the black coffee wasn’t helping. With trepidation, I let my fingers hover over the keys of my laptop. Finally, I opened the search engine and started typing.
