When You and I Collide

by Kate Norris

  “Stop!” Winnie said, arms fluttering up in a half-hearted attempt to block her ears. It was already bad enough. She couldn’t bear to hear an inventory of Schrödinger’s debauchery. What would that say about her mother—or about her?

  Scott gently placed his hand on her forearm. Suddenly, she was tired of all that lay unspoken between them, of understandings that might or might not be one-sided. Winnie didn’t want there to be any secrets between her and Scott—any distance between them at all. She resolved to tell him about the splinters too, sometime when there wasn’t so much else they needed to talk about.

  For now, Winnie took a deep breath. “Schrödinger told me he’s my father.”

  Scott just stared at her. “What? No. He can’t—”

  Winnie stopped him with a look.

  “It’s true, Scott. I’m certain. It’s awful, and it’s true.”

  “Oh, Winnie, I just—I don’t know what to say. I knew Schrödinger was Professor Schulde’s mentor at the University of Zurich, and I knew Professor Schulde hated him, but I could never have guessed the reason.”

  “It wasn’t an affair,” she said quickly, through her tears. “It was before Mama and Father were married, I mean.”

  She didn’t want Scott to think her mother was like that, that she would cheat on her husband—but maybe that was what her mother was like. What did Winnie know? Before tonight, if someone had asked her to describe her mother, Winnie might have said she was smart, and certainly that she was pretty, but all she really had were a child’s impressions of Mama as warmth and safety and all that was good and right. Her memories of that time were there but blurred, like a watercolor. Flat. Mama wasn’t really a whole person to her after all these years, but an idea—an idea that was now in flux. She didn’t really know her mother. And since Mama was dead, she never could.

  Winnie sniffled indelicately and wiped her nose on her wrist because there was nowhere else to wipe it. She was surprised to find she wasn’t mortified after breaking down in front of Scott like she thought she’d be. In fact, she felt a bit lighter.

  “I’m sorry I made you leave early,” she said.

  “My god, don’t give it another thought! And you managed to confirm what Nightingale is all about—that’s huge.”

  She wished that were all she’d found out.

  “But, Winnie,” Scott continued, “right now I’m more concerned about you. Are you okay? That’s just—it’s such a shock. I can’t even imagine.”

  She paused a moment, then nodded, even though she didn’t feel remotely okay. At least she wasn’t in danger—real, physical danger—like James seemed to be.

  She didn’t know anything about Hawthorn’s experiments, but how awful it must be for him! Winnie, at least, had the consolation of knowing that Father would never allow her to be seriously hurt by their experiments. She wasn’t just a subject to him. She was his—

  That was how he thought of her, wasn’t it—as a daughter, even though they didn’t share blood? Winnie suddenly wondered if she would still have a home if she said no the next time Father demanded she join him for an experiment.

  Was there any cage more effective than family? No lock needed. No chains either. It was a cage she carried inside her and feared she always would. She couldn’t ever say no to Father now.

  “Can we just go home?”

  She had never been more tired.

  “Of course,” Scott said. “Are you going to tell your father what you found out?”

  Winnie nodded.

  “But not tonight.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The house was dark when Winnie returned home. Brunhilde would have left the foyer light on for her. Father must have forgotten she was out and turned it off.

  She made her way up the center staircase. A sliver of light under the library door was the only sign of life. Father was still awake, of course. Wrapped up in his work, she supposed.

  Winnie heard a creak of movement behind his shut door and froze—like an intruder. The door opened and Father emerged.

  “Oh,” he said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “You startled me. I didn’t realize you were still out.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Was it good?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “The film.”

  “Oh. Yes. Quite. A musical.”

  “Ah, that’s nice.”

  He paused a moment, and the two stood there in the shadowy hall, looking at each other.

  When he looked at her, what did he see?

  In the laboratory, they had their fixed roles. There was comfort in that. Outside the lab? They each seemed on the precipice of calling out “Line!” to the prompter offstage. Tell me, please, what I’m supposed to say to this person? This person I share everything with—and nothing.

  “I think I’m going to make myself a snack,” Father said, smiling uncertainly. “Have you eaten? Would you like anything?”

  “No,” Winnie said. “Thank you.”

  It broke her heart, how careful his kindness was.

  She’d seen family be casual with each other. The families of other students at school events. Families in movies. Father never felt more like a stranger than when he was kind. So solicitous, like a gentleman at a bus stop. No, no—after you.

  He did try to be good to her. But all the effort of it showed.

  And Winnie understood now how awful a work it must have been, being a father to her.

  Imagine, loving a girl so much you jump at the chance to save her from unwed motherhood.

  Imagine, she dies.

  Imagine, being left to raise that child alone.

  But he had never told Winnie the truth of her parentage, not even in some moment of drunken frustration. At first that had seemed like a betrayal—him keeping the truth secret from her.

  Was it actually a kindness?

  When Winnie was a little girl, Mama usually tucked her in, but sometimes he would come in too. Tousle her hair. Present his stubbled cheek for a kiss.

  How right the world had seemed in those moments. The three of them, together.

  Looking back now on that little girl—it was like looking at a stranger.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It was a relief to get back to the dull routine of school on Monday. Winnie was able to brush off Dora’s questions with a minimum of fuss or hurt feelings, and when she got home, she immersed herself in homework. The reverberations of her unsettling Friday evening still made themselves felt at her center, but she told herself that if she could just keep it all tamped down, eventually it would dissipate—it must.

  She tried her best to focus, but thoughts of Mama and Schrödinger continually intruded on her work. Did she continue to pop up in his mind as he did in hers, or had she been gone from Schrödinger’s thoughts as soon as she was gone from his sight?

  Winnie was so distracted that when she heard a crash downstairs, it took her a terrified moment to parse the sound.

  “Winifred!” she heard Father roar, “Get down here now!”

  Winnie couldn’t normally hear when Father got home from all the way up in her attic bedroom; the crash must have been him slamming the front door.

  Blankness overtook her, just like it always did during Father’s rages. The fingers of her right hand unconsciously sought the pulse in her left wrist. It felt quick. She took deep breaths.

  Father was angry. It couldn’t be a coincidence. It must be about Friday—

  “Winifred!”

  She trudged toward the staircase. He must know she’d lied about going to the party. Someone must have mentioned meeting her there. But did he know the rest? That she’d spoken to Schrödinger, found out about him and Mama? That she’d discovered the truth, and said nothing to him? If so, how could she appease him now?

  Her relatio
nship with Father was, at its best . . . less than ideal. But how she longed to have the relative peace of even a week ago. How she longed to un-meet Schrödinger, un-know what he’d told her! Now that everything was out in the open, what if Father rejected her? She was practically an adult. He could ask her to leave. Maybe it would even be a relief to him, not having to pretend to be her father anymore.

  “I want you in the lab, now!” Father shouted, and Winnie heard him stomping toward the basement. Vibration in his throat, in the air, in her ear.

  Winnie’s heart thudded hard and quick in her chest. That was not the sound of a “relieved” man. She tried again to turn her brain off, focusing on what was outside herself, not in. She was good at switching off when she really had to, and knew, in a detached sort of way, that this wasn’t a skill to be proud of. Sure, it helped her get through the hard times, and the experiments with Father, but it was sad to want to not feel. It was sad to have a life that made you want that.

  Brunhilde was in the kitchen, mixing waxy white oleomargarine with yellow dye as a substitute for rationed butter. She seemed to be straining for normalcy, but the bowl trembled in her hands.

  “There are worse fathers,” Brunhilde said suddenly.

  “I know,” Winnie answered, but she was pretty sure Brunhilde said it to comfort herself.

  “Ah, Liebling—” she began, then stopped herself with a sharp shake of her head, exhaled heavily, and said, “Go on.”

  Once Winnie was on the basement stairs, she could feel the deep bass thrum of the generator in her stomach, a counterpoint to the hummingbird flutter of her heart.

  When she entered the laboratory, Father had his back to her while he adjusted the generator. He appeared to be modifying it so that it would output a higher voltage than usual. Even from a few feet away, Winnie could smell the alcohol radiating from him. Had he really been drinking on campus? That wasn’t like him.

  Father was wearing heavy rubber gloves that protected him from fingertip to elbow, but it made Winnie nervous to watch him work anyway. He could be sloppy when he was drunk, and electricity was unforgiving.

  Scott stood next to Father, and when he glanced back over his shoulder at the sound of Winnie’s approach, his expression was bleak.

  Winnie couldn’t mask what she felt either. Facing Father alone was bad, but having Scott there would only make this worse. She didn’t want him to see this version of Father—to see this darkness at the heart of their life together.

  Winnie took a breath, hoping to calm herself, but she could feel electricity in the air, like the atmosphere before a lightning storm. It throbbed around her, setting her teeth on edge and raising the fine hairs on her arms.

  Scott approached her. He paused like he was about to say something, but just exhaled. Winnie understood. What could he possibly say?

  She didn’t think he would ever look at her the same way again.

  “You should go,” she whispered hoarsely. This was her mess.

  “There’s no way I’m leaving,” Scott said, indignant, and much too loud.

  Father turned around. “Such loyalty! Loyalty like that I can’t even get from my own daughter.”

  Angry as he was, Winnie was still so relieved to hear him call her that.

  “I’m sorry I lied about going—”

  Father cut her off with a glare. “This isn’t about Hawthorn’s vulgar parties. This is about your father.”

  That word was meant to cut her, and it did.

  He peeled off his long rubber gloves and tossed them on the lab bench. Father’s normally immaculate golden hair was pushed this way and that, like he’d been running his fingers through it, and his eyes were wild. When sober, Father prided himself on control, but drunk, he was forever on the cusp of losing it. Winnie had to be the one who restrained herself, who took what he dished out in silence. She had found out Mama was a liar—Father was a liar—and what was his response? He was angry with her.

  “Was it everything you hoped? Meeting Herr Schrödinger?”

  “Oh, certainly,” Winnie said, voice hard with sarcasm. “I always hoped to have a stranger announce he was my father at a cocktail party.”

  “You want pity? Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas. That’s what you get, going to that party, speaking to that man. The nerve of him! He comes to my office, this Herr Schrödinger,” Father said, practically spitting the honorific, “with an opportunity. ‘I’ll help you secure a position working with Project Nightingale,’ he tells me. ‘The extra income will help you better care for my daughter.’ His daughter! His daughter he calls you! I kept you out of that world. I stayed out of it myself, as much as I could. And you blithely wander in!” Father grabbed Winnie by both arms and jerked her back and forth. “What were you thinking? If Hawthorn finds out about your abilities—they’ll take you from me, you stupid little—!”

  “Sir!” Scott said sharply.

  “This Nightingale Project,” Father continued. “If they find out what you can do—”

  “Sir, that’s enough!” Scott pulled Father off her.

  For a moment, the three of them just stood there. Winnie was afraid Father would turn his wrath against Scott, but he stayed rooted to the spot, heaving angrily.

  Winnie rubbed at her arms. She was certain they would purple with handprints overnight.

  “There’s no way for Hawthorn to find out,” she said, but her voice wavered.

  Based on what Hawthorn had witnessed last night, he might already suspect. And Schrödinger had implied that Mama saw splinters. If Schrödinger suspected this meant she might see them too—he could tell Hawthorn about it.

  Would he?

  Winnie had no idea.

  “Well, I’ll be damned if Hawthorn’s project progresses beyond our own. I will be the first to unlock the secrets of the multiverse.” He glared at Winnie. “Which means that you need to start working much harder.”

  Scott gave Winnie a confused look. How strange this all must sound to him! As far as Scott knew, Father’s only work was their own experiments on wave mechanics.

  “Professor Schulde, listen to yourself,” Scott said, speaking slow and level. “She’s just a girl. What exactly do you expect of her?”

  Father whipped his head toward Scott. “I could have you dismissed from the university for canoodling with my daughter.” His voice sharpened. “Stay out of it.”

  “Winnie?” Scott said softly. “Let’s go. We’ll come back when—when things have settled down.”

  He grabbed for Winnie’s hand, but she pulled it out of reach.

  “I can’t.”

  Father—he wasn’t perfect. But he was her only family. Without him, there was no one. They might not share blood, but their shared pain was just as tight a bond. Tighter.

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

  Scott took a few steps back, shaking his head, but he didn’t leave. Winnie was glad for that.

  “I’ve been thinking that what’s holding you back is a lack of motivation,” Father said, “but I’ve come up with a solution for that. We’re going to try a version of an experiment I believe you’re familiar with.” He gestured toward the corner. “Winifred, get inside the Faraday cage.”

  Winnie eyed the cage anxiously. It was for her own protection, but it still made her nervous—being trapped. She swallowed her fear and stepped into the eight-by-eight cage of heavy metal mesh. The walls of the Faraday cage were grounded, preventing any charge from accumulating on its outside surface. Father could surround Winnie with an electric field, which he theorized might act as a medium for her ability, and inside the cage, she would be perfectly safe.

  Father was always careful to protect her from harm during their special experiments, just like he safeguarded all his difficult-to-replace equipment.

  “Scott, there’s a cardboard box upstairs in the hall. Bring it d
own, please.”

  Scott retreated upstairs. After a few moments, he still hadn’t come back, and Winnie wondered if they’d finally reached his edge. She was relieved when she heard him coming down the stairs, but when he returned, his eyes were dark, and his mouth was set in a straight line. It was an expression she’d never seen him wear before.

  Scott met Winnie’s eyes through the mesh of the cage, and it was plain as day—he’d stayed for her. But he didn’t want to be there.

  “Well, bring it out,” Father said.

  Scott opened the box and lifted out a small black kitten. He cradled it to his chest and stroked its fur absentmindedly. The kitten let out a tiny mew.

  This was too much.

  She could easily guess the experiment Father had planned. It was awful. And how could she pretend it had never happened, with Scott there as witness?

  Schrödinger’s cat-in-a-box thought experiment was quite well known. Imagine a cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source in a sealed box. If a single atom of the radioactive source decayed, a monitor would register the radioactivity and the flask would be shattered, killing the cat. There was equal probability that an atom would or would not decay over the course of an hour. Within that time frame, the cat must be considered both alive and dead. It was all theoretical, of course, or at least that was what Schrödinger’s paper supposed, and what other scientists assumed.

  Winnie knew better.

  This was a representation of how splits happened. The cat really was both alive and dead, just in separate realities.

  “You’re both familiar with Schrödinger’s famous paradox, I assume?” Father asked.

  “It’s meant to be a thought experiment,” Scott said, speaking through his teeth, “not an elaborate method of exterminating house pets.”

  Winnie braced for Father to explode, but he just laughed.

  “Father, please—”

  His smile froze, and he spoke flatly. “Perhaps this wouldn’t be necessary if we’d had any measure of success—if you’d tried a little harder.” Father turned to Scott. “Put it on the workbench,” he said, pointing. “There is fine.” He looked back at Winnie. “We don’t need any elaborate setup, do we? Geiger counters, uranium, and the like? Schrödinger always was more of a showman than a scientist, and there is, as they say, more than one way to kill a cat. As for our element of chance, a coin toss should work just fine.”