An Elegant Theory

by Noah Milligan

  Coulter breathed. He tried to forget that his hosts had been gone for nearly an hour. He tried to enjoy the game. He tried to forget the stale smell of beer and relish that wafted over him and focus on the white ball zooming across the diamond, the smack of the leather as it collided with Dustin Pedroia’s glove, the metal spikes digging into the moist infield. He’d never realized how scientific a game baseball was. Hitting a pitch was an awesome mathematical calculation. The scoreboard showed the previous pitch had blazed by at a whopping ninety-eight miles-per-hour. That only allowed the hitter a fraction of a second, somewhere along the lines of 300-500 milliseconds to calculate, unconsciously, the directional vectors, spin, angle, and velocity and then unload his swing so that a small cylindrical bat, roughly 2 5/8 inches in diameter, would collide with said baseball. It was miraculous, really, a testament to the boggling powers of human capability.

  Big Papi, David Ortiz, a name even Coulter knew, stood at the plate, swinging his hips in rhythm in order to establish his timing. His entire body was in motion, a harbinger of kinetic energy. The pitcher released the ball. It looped almost vertically from his fingertips to Ortiz’s waistline on the inside corner of the plate. Ortiz swung and connected, and as the ball rocketed through the air toward the right-center-field gap, Coulter pictured calculations spurring from the baseball itself, continually changing in mid-flight, a sort-of mindless sensory hallucination.

  “Jesus!” he exclaimed, “Did you see that!?” And his wife, seemingly bored and uncomfortable in the small, plastic seats, said, “Yep, sure did,” without the slightest trace of enthusiasm.

  He tried blinking his eyes, but the numbers and equations still floated there, tracing the ball wherever it went. He rubbed his eyes, shook his head, and the formulas blurred to the point he convinced himself that they had just been a figment of his imagination, but then gridlines reappeared, diagrams, and graphed predictions of how the ball would fly along certain vectors. Coulter began to get worried. Was this healthy? Was he going crazy? First Dr. Brinkman not making any noise, not even the slight sound of his breath, and now this? He hadn’t been sleeping much lately. The baby was getting closer, only a few weeks away now, his dissertation was going nowhere, the math just felt right, but he could not, for the life of him, find the evidence, the proof, that little smoking gun he could point to and say Here! I’ve done it! I have proven the ultimate theory of everything!

  Adrian Gonzalez came up to the plate, the big, left-handed power-hitter for the Red Sox. He dug his spikes into the dirt and readied for the pitch, his body spring-loaded to deliver as much mass and velocity he could muster. The pitch came, and the same grids and measurements emerged from thin-air. Coulter leaned forward in his seat studying them as Gonzalez swung and connected, and the ball rocketed foul down the first baseline, right for Coulter and Sara. The people around them squirmed, some bracing for impact, others readied their gloves, some simply ducked, but Coulter stood mesmerized and watched the ball travel a nearly level path from home plate to just behind the dugout where they sat until the ball struck his wife’s pregnant belly.

  BACK AT HOME, SARA AND I ARGUED. “ARGUED” actually isn’t the right word—it seems to denote some sort of debate, two opposing sides on equal footing. We, on the other hand, fought. We were not trying to persuade the other of the merits of our position. No, what we wanted was to induce shame and guilt and pain. When we fought, Sara’s anger escalated quickly and the tenor of her voice would become sharp and she often threw things: TV remotes and books and knick knacks given to us by her mother, bits of plastic shattering when it struck wall or tile. I would poke holes in her argument, try to make her feel more stupid than me, confuse her until she became so frustrated that she relented, spent the rest of the night flipping through bad sitcoms and not saying another word. She always said I never fought fairly. I maintained that we’d never established ground rules in the first place.

  “What the hell do you mean she’s staying with us?” Sara asked. We were in our bedroom, the door shut. We were both aware, however, that our conversation was audible in the living room where my mother was sitting, her unpacked bag at her feet. “You didn’t think it appropriate to ask me if your mother—who abandoned you as a child—could live with us?”

  “She’s not living with us,” I said. “She’s just staying for a little while.”

  “How long exactly is a little while?”

  “I don’t know. Until the baby is born maybe.”

  “No. No. Absolutely not. That woman will not be around our baby.” Sara waved her arms like a football referee calling a no-catch after a bobbled ball.

  “She’s my mother. Will you please let me handle this?” It was the first time I’d called her “mother” since I’d been a child, and the words felt wrong in my mouth, like soured milk.

  “That’s pretty loose terminology there with ‘mother,’ don’t you think?”

  “I’m not getting into a semantic argument with you. She gave birth to me. I share her DNA. Yes, she is my mother.”

  “That’s like saying an organ donor is a recipient’s first cousin.”

  “With the exception the organ donor didn’t carry the recipient around in her womb for nine months.”

  “And they didn’t abandon them when the recipient needed them the most, now did they?”

  “You really know nothing about it.”

  “That’s because you never share anything with me, Coulter! I know really nothing about you before we started dating! It’s like you popped into existence when I finally said that I would go out with you.”

  “That’s just irrational. Everybody has a past.”

  “Then what is yours? Can you tell me that?”

  “You’re avoiding the central argument here.”

  “I’m not! The point is that she’ll do the same thing to our son as she did to you. He’ll get to know her and love her and depend on her, and then she’ll disappear again.”

  I couldn’t rule out that possibility. She very well could spend years getting to know our son, attending birthday parties and playing G. I. Joe and concocting little inside jokes, secrets only they knew and never would tell, and then, without warning, she could vanish, leaving our son bewildered like I’d been, with an aching void of what once was there, what he thought to be someone who loved him. We would probably lie to him at first, Sara and I, much like my father had to me. Grandma went on vacation, we’d say. She’s travelling Europe, seeing the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Mona Lisa and drinking sweet wine. He’ll buy it. He’ll still make her Christmas presents and send her emails and pray for her before falling asleep. But the lies will turn less convincing as more time passes. We’ll try to contact her, but her phone will have been disconnected—no one would have been paying the bill. To at least introduce some closure, we’ll lie some more and say she’d died. We already had a funeral, we’ll say when he asks. We just thought it would be better if you didn’t attend. You’ll understand when you get older.

  “I’m worried about you,” Sara continued. “You haven’t been the same lately. You’re out all hours of the night. You don’t come home. Even when I needed you, when I was in trouble and in the hospital, you—”

  “I’m working. I am doing that for us. You know that!”

  Interrupting her made her angrier. She twisted strands of hair around her finger and pulled them out by the roots, a nervous habit she’d had for as long as I’d known her. When particularly stressed, a bald spot would grow around her right temple. She’d try to hide it by wearing wool hats or styling her hair differently, but she couldn’t keep her guard up all the time—eventually I’d find out, and I’d point it out as inconspicuously as possible, like it was no big deal, and she’d say that everything was fine, just fine.

  “There’s been a change in you, Coulter. And don’t say you haven’t noticed. Ever since the semester started you’ve been distant and argumentative and defensive.”

  “Maybe I’m just tired of you telling me h
ow it’s going to be.”

  “See. Right there. You don’t see that?”

  “All I know is that you’re wrong. Can you admit that? For once in your life can you admit that you don’t know everything?”

  “Me? Out of the two of us, you’re saying I’m the know-it-all? Mr. I-am-God’s-greatest-gift-to-the-world-of-science? I can’t talk to you right now. I can’t.”

  Sara grimaced and grabbed her stomach and buckled over. I instinctually went to her, not knowing how to help, but before I could reach her, she raised a hand to stop me.

  “Is it where you got hit?” I asked.

  “What?” she asked through clenched teeth.

  “Where you were hit. At the game.”

  “What game?” She stood, breathing through her mouth. Her face was flushed, and sweat formed in beads around her hairline.

  “What do you mean what game? The baseball game. Red Sox? When we went with Dr. Brinkman. The foul ball?”

  “What are you talking about? We’ve never been to a baseball game with Dr. Brinkman.”

  I paused, trying to think back. We had gone to a baseball game, hadn’t we? Or was it just a false memory, a daydream I’d confused as reality? The details had been so real. I could taste the salt from the peanuts I’d eaten. I could feel the chair’s metal arms digging into my side. I could hear organ music blaring over speakers much younger than rickety Fenway Park. I could feel my heart rate quicken and my endorphins flow when I’d realized Dr. Brinkman had turned mute. The light from the rafters brightened and my pupils dilated as calculations materialized out of nowhere. Dreams have this surrealistic quality. The world seems fluid. Emotions are dulled. Time has no meaning. But these, whatever they were, were different. They seemed as real as the red-bricked steeple of Old North Church we’d just left, its white pews and colonnades and clear windows letting in dismal, gray light. I could smell the dirty laundry in our bedroom the same way I could smell the moist dirt of the infield at Fenway. I could still tell the difference between reality and fantasy. I could. I now knew that standing there with Sara arguing was real and that daydream about Fenway Park had not been, that it had been an invention of my subconscious. Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d feel the same exact way in a daydream as I did then, convincing myself in that world that this, looking at my frightened wife, arguing about my mother staying with us, was indeed the fantasy and that, that horrifying place where everything seemed as it did here but with qualities impossible in nature, was in fact reality.

  Maybe she was right. Maybe I was changing. Maybe I did need help.

  “Will you please go see someone? A doctor. A therapist. A psychic. I don’t care.” Sara said. “You’re really starting to scare me.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not. You’re not fine. You are the exact opposite of fine.”

  “I got confused. I dreamt about a game last night. I’m tired. I haven’t been sleeping well.”

  “All the more reason to get some help. Maybe they could prescribe something to help you sleep. Perhaps they can give you some perspective.”

  “This will help me, Sara,” I said, pointing toward the living room where Natalie sat. “My mother staying. Getting to know her. Can’t you see that? Maybe that’s what’s missing—closure. Knowing why she left and what she did and why she came back now. Maybe that is what I need. Not some pill.”

  Sara turned toward the door as if she could see through it, Natalie sitting on the couch, listening to us argue. It was like Sara was measuring Natalie up, deciding whether or not she could win this fight.

  “Okay,” she said, her expression softening, not out of sympathy or understanding, but out of defeat. She knew she’d lost. “She can stay.”

  Despite winning, I wasn’t relieved. I was scared. I was scared I was starting to lose touch with reality. The more I thought about that night at Fenway, the less it seemed like a dream. There were no physical manifestations, of course. I didn’t have a souvenir, an overpriced baseball bought at the gift shop or a plastic helmet that served as an ice cream bowl. I hadn’t bought a t-shirt or found a crumpled ticket stub tucked away in my pocket. I didn’t suffer a hangover from drinking too many flat beers. I didn’t have heartburn after eating a polish dog soaked in mustard and sauerkraut. Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The lights and the crowd and the smack of a bat connecting with a fastball, the clouds of dust as Carlos Beltran slid into second base. It was just as real to me as Natalie returning, Sara’s swollen belly, my failing dissertation and the impending embarrassment of being kicked out of the program. With that understanding, the fact that I had a hard time convincing myself it hadn’t happened despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I knew Sara to be right—I did need to speak with someone.

  Getting an appointment, however, was more difficult than I’d anticipated. The school offered counseling programs free of charge, but attached with using those services came this stigma. It was supposed to be confidential, but people talked. Staff talked. Janitors talked. The counselors. Soon, faculty, your dissertation committee, the other PhD candidates, they’d look at you with suspicion, doubtful you could cut the rigors of theoretical physics. Though academic, cutting edge scholarship was by its very nature cutthroat. Published articles were difficult to come by, breakthroughs even scarcer, and grant dollars on the endangered species list. Any sign of weakness could derail a career before it even started with rumors spread about mental instability, depression, hallucinations even. You’d be labeled a charlatan before you’d even had the chance to prove yourself.

  So I called around. I called private psychiatrists throughout Boston. Most had waiting lists, were not taking on any more patients, or solidly booked for months to come. I supposed Natalie had been right; we were facing an epidemic in this country. The ones that did have openings were way out of my price range, quoting hourly rates in excess of $200. Insurance wouldn’t cover it—not that I would’ve claimed it anyway, too afraid to start a paper trail.

  Without any other options, I decided to ask Dr. Brinkman. I trusted him, and he would, I believed anyway, keep it discreet. He expressed concern when I asked, asking if I was sure I wanted to do this, but when I said yes, I was certain, he recommended Dr. White, the chair of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, and she agreed to see me right away as a favor to Dr. Brinkman.

  I met her in her office on campus, tucked away in Kendall Square. Framed degrees lined her walls like family portraits: Oxford, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, University of Chicago, PhDs in psychology and neurobiology. Artwork adorned her bookshelves, small expressionist paintings of human subjects, a certain portion of their bodies distorted, akin to some Van Gogh inspiration. One man’s right hand ballooned to impossible proportions, another woman’s head so small it seemed a speck above an otherwise normal human body, hard angles not found on any person who ever lived.

  Dr. White herself appeared out of proportion. Her head seemed too small for her body, her ears large and a bit pointy. Her arms were gangly and her legs thin, so much so it amazed me they could withhold her body weight. She seemed elfish in a way. But, despite that, she had a warm presence to her, a smile that was genuine and welcoming. As soon as I walked into her office, I felt better, relaxed, as though all the anxiety and pressure of my dissertation and the baby and my mother had drained from my body.

  She had me sit in a chair facing her. A tape recorder sat on a stool between us, but it wasn’t recording. She had no other documents out. Not records from the physics department. She didn’t have a computer of any sort. A filing cabinet wasn’t stored away in the corner. I found this to be odd. I figured she must have the best memory in the world.

  “Where do we begin?” I asked.

  “Let’s begin with why you’re here.” Her voice had a throaty, soothing quality, the way a raspy country singer can swoon a ballad.

  Under normal circumstances, I would’ve probably lied. I kept myself guarded. It was a learned tr
ait, not intrinsic, but more of a survival instinct, a type of occupational Darwinism.

  “We’re protected here, right?” I asked. “Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that.”

  “For the most part, yes.”

  “The most part?”

  “If you plan on killing someone, yourself included, I would have to report that.”

  “But beyond that?”

  “Our little secret.” She winked. I trusted this woman, although I’d only just met her. She put me at ease so that I felt I could disclose anything to her. Besides my wife, I’d never felt that way toward anyone.

  “I’ve been having these dreams lately.” She leaned forward and clicked on the tape recorder. “But I’m awake.”

  “Daydreams.”

  “Not exactly.” I explained them to her in great detail. I told her of dreams I had where I was alone, of me urinating my pants when accepting the Nobel, how I could feel the warmth flow down my inner thighs and how I could smell ammonia. I told her of chasing a tornado with my father and how that might’ve actually happened, I wasn’t sure, and that it was the first time I was ever conscious of becoming aroused. I told her of seeing my mother at a religious commune in California hugging newly-arrived members mere months after she’d abandoned me. I explained to her that they were vivid hallucinations. I would lose blocks of time, black out from reality, and wake up on the floor unable to catch my breath, how I could still taste the salt from my peanuts eaten at an imagined baseball game even though I became fully aware of my return to reality. I explained to her, with as much aplomb as I could muster, that my mother had recently returned, how fragile a state of mind she appeared to be in, and how I was now deathly afraid of winding up like her, an unfit human being, scared of everything around me. I was afraid I’d lose my mind and abandon my wife and child.