“What’s the big deal with ten seconds?” Brian continues. “Well, there should be zero difference. That’s the big deal. All neutrons are identical and their behavior shouldn’t change depending on where they are.”
Thane Bernard is not on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or Snapchat. I can’t use a missing person’s website because he’s not technically missing. There are zero T. Bernards in the French white pages, but in today’s world of cellphones that means nothing. There is a Thane Bernard in academia, but he is on staff at USC and his field is ballet.
“There are two explanations,” Brian says. “Either neutrons are breaking down into something other than protons—although there’s no proof of this—or they somehow cross over into a mirror world and become mirror neutrons for ten seconds before flipping back. If that’s the case, maybe another world—even a multiverse—exists.”
I start typing Thane’s name into an international search engine for finding people. There is a fifty-dollar fee. I type in my credit card number.
“Before you go thinking that your physics professor needs a straitjacket, I offer this: we know—we have known since the 1970s—that dark matter in the universe outweighs visible matter by a ratio of six to one. But no one has ever been able to find it. There’s a world, literally, in which dark matter is hidden away. If that’s the case, the mirror world those neutrons are disappearing to briefly is huge. Huger than our own.”
Suddenly Brian’s phone dings. He looks down at it and frowns. “I think our credit card just got stolen,” he says. “I got a fraud alert from something called LocateTheLost.com.”
I fold down the clamshell hinge of my laptop. “Actually, that was me.”
“Who are you looking for?”
“I’m looking onbehalfof someone who’s looking for someone. It’s one of my clients.”
“Your client is missing?”
“No. She wants to write a letter to someone she lost touch with years ago.”
“Like a secret love child?” For all of Brian’s braininess, he has a melodramatic streak. It’s why he insists on seeing Marvel Universe movies the day they come out, and why he conveniently manages to be in the room every time I’m watchingThe Bachelor.
“No,” I tell him. “It’s a man she used to love. She also wants me to deliver it to him.”
“Wait, what?” he says. “Is this Win? The one with ovarian cancer?”
I nod.
“You can’t do that,” he says.
In all the years I have been a death doula, I can count on one hand the number of times Brian has questioned my judgment. The biggest argument we had sprang from a client who wanted me to look into assisted suicide for her. I just didn’t feel right about it, and referred her to another death doula who does. Brian, however, was angry that I hadn’t tried to talk her out of it. She had a son who was a sophomore in high school, and Brian felt that it was irresponsible to not try to stop her.
“She’s the one who’s married to the driving instructor?” Brian clarifies, and I realize that all the time I’ve thought he was tuning out, he has actually been listening carefully.
“Felix. Yes.”
“And he’s okay with this?”
“He doesn’t know,” I admit. “He won’t find out.”
“Do you really believe that? What if the missing guy writes back?”
“There won’t be a return address.”
Brian shakes his head. “It’s still better to know than to be blindsided. What if, when Felix is putting away Win’s clothes and her books and whatever after she’s gone, he finds a note from this guy, or a ticket to a show he’s never seen, or a photograph of his wife looking happier than she ever looked with him?”
I think about the canvas in the locked room and say nothing.
“The guy is already dying by degrees. You’re going to kill him twice.”
“That’s not fair. Felix isn’t my client, Win is.” I gesture to his notes. “How do you know that in another universe, she isn’t living happily with this other man?”
“How do you know that sheis?”
“I don’t really understand why, out of the blue, you’ve suddenly decided you’re an expert in my field,” I say coolly.
“Because you’re being a hypocrite.”
