An Elegant Theory

by Noah Milligan

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  Once we exited, Sara struggled to sit on the curb between two parallel-parked cars. I tried to help her down, but she slapped my hand out of the way. The bus petered off into the distance, dark fumes puffing out of its exhaust pipe. Through the window, I could see both Baldy and Ponytail staring at us before again taking their seats, I hoped embarrassed for having had gotten beaten up by a pregnant woman.

  “You can’t deny that we’re unhappy, Coulter,” Sara said. “This job thing. I don’t know. I want a job, that’s true, but it’s not all about the job. I feel like I’ve lost myself. I don’t feel like I have an identity anymore.”

  “And this is my fault?” I asked.

  “Partly,” she said. “And partly mine.”

  “But mostly it’s me.”

  “Don’t turn this into something it’s not. This is about me, not you.”

  “Don’t insult my intelligence,” I said. “Don’t give me that teenage breakup bullshit. It’s not you; it’s me. How can it not be about me?” I asked. “You are abandoning me. I’m the one you are leaving.”

  “Oh, I see,” she said. “Here comes the Mommy issues. She left you. I am leaving you. So now we’re the same. Is that it? Me and your mother, the two bitches who abandoned you when you needed them the most.”

  She rolled her eyes at me, and I felt like I was going to explode. I’d never been so angry with her before. Of course, there were times when I’d get annoyed with her, when she placed her dirty plate next to the couch, for instance, refusing to clean it until her television show was over, some stupid reality show about quasi-celebrities only famous for making a sex tape, or her inability to see anything through to the end, cooking classes she abandoned after the first night, a novel left unread, the nursery she’d promised to paint. She was always delaying her responsibilities, rarely—if ever—seeing a long-term project through to completion. I’d always found her lazy in that regard, and it ate away at me. But this was wholly different. This was blinding, headache inducing rage. I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. I wanted to inflict physical pain.

  But I didn’t.

  I took ten deep breaths.

  I calmed myself.

  “When will you be leaving?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she said. “Soon.”

  “Soon?”

  “I’ll still go tonight to the baby shower if that’s what you’re asking,” she said. “Keep up appearances and all that.”

  “Tomorrow then.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Tomorrow.”

  In 1935, in response to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, Erwin Schrodinger postulated a thought experiment. A cat is locked up in a steel chamber, along with a tiny bit of radioactive substance. There’s an equal chance that an atom could decay and an equal chance that it would remain stable. If one of the atoms decays, the cat dies, but if it doesn’t, then the cat still lives. If the cat isn’t visible to an observer, the mathematical formula representing the experiment would express this by having in it the living and dead cat mixed or smeared out in equal parts.

  He, of course, formulated this thought experiment derisively, calling this view of the universe ridiculous. A cat cannot be both alive and dead. It was intuitively absurd. Although I see his point, I can’t help but side with the mathematics. The math says, until an observer views the body of the cat, the viewer himself interacting with the environment on a subatomic level, the cat is for all intents and purposes both alive and dead. It is the observation which causes the probability wave to collapse and reality to manifest. Or, in other words, without a body, there is no crime.

  The Brinkmans’ house was a quaint brownstone not far from campus. It was full of dark wood and warm tones and aged copper. Mrs. Brinkman had placed mirrors in almost every room to give the illusion the place was larger than it actually was. For the baby shower, tables laden with hors d’oeuvres were set up in the dining room. They served white wine, and Dr. Brinkman promised me a private glass of port later in the evening. A toast to the soon-to-be father, he said. Might even light up a cigar if the wife allows it.

  Sara was overdressed for the occasion. We’d fought about it before we left. She’d tried on everything in her closet, dresses and necklaces and pantsuits, stuff that didn’t even fit anymore. I tried to tell her that we weren’t going to see people who cared about style and garments, but she wouldn’t have it.

  “It’s a cocktail party,” she said.

  “It’s a baby shower. Not a cocktail party.”

  “Why is it at 6:00 then? Why is there going to be booze there? Why are they serving salmon?”

  “They just want to do something nice for us. That’s all. You can wear jeans. Sweatpants even. You don’t have to wear that black dress.”

  “I think she looks beautiful,” my mother chimed in. We didn’t even know she was at the door.

  “Mom, please.”

  “Can we have some privacy?” Sara asked.

  “I’m just trying to help.”

  “You’re always just trying to help. Funny since you never accomplish that,” Sara said.

  “Please,” I said. “I don’t want to fight.”

  “I thought you might want a feminine opinion on the matter,” my mother said.

  “I don’t want your opinion. In fact, I don’t even want you in this house,” Sara said.

  “Can we please just talk about this later?” I asked.

  “No,” Sara said as she patted her hair into place. “It’s fine. I’m leaving tomorrow anyways.”

  My mother retreated, and Sara stormed out of the apartment.

  At the party, we stayed mostly to ourselves, eating cheese in the corner, Sara’s eyes drifting over to a chilled bottle of wine. I could tell she longed for a taste. She’d told me that right after the birth of our child she wanted nothing more than a drink. She didn’t even care what it was—tequila, beer, white wine, pure ethyl alcohol, it didn’t matter. She just wanted to get drunk. Exacerbating her desire, Sara didn’t know any of my colleagues, having only met Dr. Brinkman a few times. We never went out with any of the other PhD candidates. We didn’t double date or go get drinks at The Muddy Charles. Department parties went unattended. Banquets and award ceremonies skipped. All at the behest of Sara who felt marginalized by my peers. It was an irrational fear, I tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen, instead concocting conspiracy stories that they all talked badly about her behind her back, calling her stupid and a buffoon. I told her no one uses the word “buffoon” anymore.

  “I swear to God if you leave me alone at this party, I’ll kill you,” she said. “And this isn’t an empty threat. I’ll seriously cut your throat while you sleep.”

  “Stop. Please. Someone might hear you.”

  “Oh, so now you’re embarrassed of me?”

  Every once in a while a fellow candidate or a professor stopped by to offer their congratulations. They would say nice things about me, calling me brilliant, and how she should be so proud of me, and they’d complement her, say that she looked just radiant. Beaming, actually. A glow only a soon-to-be mother could have. Sara waved away the compliments with a flip of the wrist, and they’d ask to feel her belly, and she’d pinch my back, a sign that she was ready for this conversation to be over. We’d make some excuse. More wine. More cheese. More crackers. Have to pee. Soon, I was drunk, and running out of excuses.

  By the time we were to open gifts, everything had blurred. The events seemed to unfold in fast forward. Dr. Brinkman’s wife, Helen, had us sit in the middle of the room. It was cramped. Fifteen faculty members plus their spouses or dates plus just as many candidates all crammed in shoulder-to-shoulder. I felt beared down upon. Interrogated. Accused of something.

  After the Babies R Us incident, we never ended up registering, so we received duplicate gifts. Diapers and pacifiers and bibs and diapers and pacifiers and a stuffed duck and diapers and bottles and a pillow with a giraf
fe stitched into it. “My favorite animal when I was a kid,” the giver said. “Wonderful,” Sara said. “Thank you so much.” She set it to the side with the rest. There was just so much of it. Piles and piles of stuff. There were rattlers and noise makers and a mobile of stars that would hang above the crib. Night lights and a baby monitor and more bottles and more diapers. An endless stack. All of it made me realize how much I would miss this, Sara and me and the baby. She was going to take him away from me the next day, and I’d wind up like my mother, estranged and absent and depressed. At first I’d pine for him, my mind constantly turning to what he was doing, thinking, if he was good, ornery, or quiet like me. But then it would become easier. Days would pass before thinking of him, and then, without even realizing it, I’d forget a birthday, Christmas, his age even. I would, after awhile, not even be a father at all.

  I felt this pain so acutely that I began to concoct a plan to persuade Sara to stay with me. Since that afternoon, we hadn’t discussed the matter further, the subject dropped, like we had a fight over the correct way to bake a meatloaf, momentarily intense followed by the slow realization that it wasn’t, in the end, all that important. But now a surge of anger and fear and anxiety swept me up. I made plans to immediately drop out of the PhD program. I’d teach high school physics. We’d move back to Oklahoma, on her parents’ street if she wanted. Anything. Just as long as she wouldn’t leave me.

  Resolute in my new plan, I turned to Sara, smiled, and went to grab her hand. Before I could do so, however, she reached for the next gift, held it up to her ear, and shook it.

  After presents, we sat down to dinner. I gulped down more wine. We ate smoked salmon. Sara sat next to me and pushed her food around with a fork. The host gave a speech. Dr. Brinkman stood and had us all raise our glasses. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. His words mashed together like his tongue was swollen and scraped against his teeth. There was something about the miracle of life. Yes, he said. I used the word “miracle.” Sara pinched me under the table. Everyone smiled and nodded and Mrs. Brinkman winked at us. But none of it made any sense to me. I could see his mouth moving, but he wouldn’t stay still. He panned across my line of vision left to right, left to right. I had drunk too much.

  Dinner ended, and Dr. Brinkman grabbed my elbow. “Let’s go to my study,” he said.

  Sara scowled.

  “I’ll have him back in no time.”

  His study was a mess. Books lay open everywhere. Passages were highlighted, and illegible notes were scribbled in the margins. Loose papers strewn everywhere. A microscope leaned against the armrest of a plush lounge chair. A banker’s lamp gave the room a hushed glow.

  Dr. Brinkman opened a humidor and produced two cigars. He smelled one and smiled and handed me the other. “From Cuba,” he said. “Don’t tell anybody.” He poured two glasses of port from a bottle that seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. The glasses were bulbous and difficult to hold.

  “You’re a lucky man,” he said. “Sara is beautiful.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Please. We’ve known each other for years now, Coulter. Call me Allen.”

  He moved the microscope and sat down in his chair. He swirled the brown liquid in his glass and took a sip. I did the same. It tasted like maple and burned all the way down.

  “You’re going to make a great father,” he said. “I envy you that. I always wished I had the opportunity. It’s been one of the greatest regrets of my life.”

  “You decided not to?”

  “No. We tried. Helen and I tried for years. We tried fertility treatments. I got tested. She got tested. We tried everything. I’m not much of one for fatalism, but maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.”

  “You eventually gave up?”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way,” he said. “We just stopped trying.” He snipped the end of his cigar and passed me the cutter. “I suppose it worked out in the end. I might not’ve accomplished what I have if I did.”

  “You think being a father would’ve held you back?”

  “No. No. Not at all. That’s not what I meant. I just think I would’ve found joy in other things. Better things maybe. Physics can’t love you back.”

  “It’s just chemical reactions in the brain,” I said. “Love. It’s akin to eating large amounts of chocolate.”

  “Don’t minimalize the perception, though, Coulter. It’s the experience of those chemical reactions that make them important. Without that conscious interpretation and the feelings that they emit, life wouldn’t be worth living. Otherwise it would all be meaningless. Including your work.”

  We lit our cigars. It tasted terrible, like wood smoke and ash.

  “How is your work coming along, Coulter? We haven’t spoken in a while about it.”

  “Good, sir.”

  “Any findings yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Have you given any more thought to changing your dissertation? There’s still time. You can still graduate on time.”

  I didn’t answer. I was too drunk to answer. He was right; my work would go nowhere. It wasn’t even work anymore. It was simply hitting the enter key over and over again. The computer would produce a new Calabi-Yau manifold, and it would be entered into the parameters, and they would fail. I would hit enter again, and again it would fail. Enter. Failure. Enter. Failure. Enter. Failure. That was what my work had boiled down to, passivity. But yet I kept showing up every day, hitting enter. It was the very definition of insanity: repeating actions but expecting different results.

  “You don’t look well, Coulter. Are you feeling okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You just haven’t been yourself lately.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Don’t worry so much. It’ll come to you. Like Archimedes and the displacement of water. You know the story, right?”

  “Yes, sir.” I knew the story—it had been canonized by science teachers from grade school to secondary. King Heron II had commissioned a goldsmith to create him a crown from gold but thought the guy had robbed him and made it with silver instead. Archimedes agonized and agonized over the problem, but he could not figure out a way to determine between silver and gold. This vexed him for weeks. He became depressed. He started talking to himself. He had thoughts of suicide. He was letting down his King. It was too much for him to bear. His wife told him to relax and drew him a bath. And then it hit him. Volume displacement. And he ran naked to the king with the good news.

  “Get more sleep. Spend time with your wife. Enjoy this time with your son. There will always be time for science. Maybe you could come back next year and finish your dissertation. Whatever you decide to do. I’ll support you.”

  The rest of the baby shower went by in snapshots. Dr. Brinkman poured another glass of port, and I dropped my cigar, burning a small hole in his carpet. We joined the others. Sara pulled a blanket over her shoulders. She glared at me and sat alone, which irritated me more than I could articulate. She wanted me to feel sorry for her, but I didn’t. She could manage by herself for a short amount of time. Dr. Cardoza scoffed derisively at someone else’s research. Mrs. Brinkman brewed me some coffee. There were more finger foods and promises to return to pick up the presents. And soon we left, having to borrow money from Dr. Brinkman for a cab as I was too drunk and Sara too pregnant to walk to the bus stop.

  The cab smelled of potpourri and patchouli, a nauseous mixture masking a more nauseous mixture of vomit and sperm. Cabs in Boston were the communal wastebasket of tourists and unruly Red Sox fans.

  “You said you wouldn’t leave me alone in there,” Sara said. “You promised.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “No, Coulter. Sorry doesn’t cut it. You’re always saying you’re sorry but things aren’t changing. They’re getting worse. You said you would cut down your hours in the lab. You haven’t. You said your mother would only be staying a few days. She hasn’t left. You said you’d make it to every doctor’s appo
intment. You haven’t been to the last three. My blood pressure still isn’t getting any better, Coulter. I have preeclampsia, but you haven’t even asked me how I am. I mean who in the hell does that? I’m pregnant. This is supposed to be about me!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Quit saying you’re sorry.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Shut up!”

  The cabbie glanced at us in the rear view mirror, though there wasn’t a hint of worry in his expression, only annoyance. He’d seen much worse than this.

  “I hate it here,” Sara continued. “I don’t have any friends. My family’s thousands of miles away. I don’t go anywhere. I don’t do anything. I get up. I eat. I stay home. I watch soap operas. I go to the market for bread. I go to the doctor. I come back. I watch more television. I drink cough syrup even though I shouldn’t, but goddamnit I just need something that will help me sleep at night. And all you can say is you’re sorry. Well, Coulter, fuck you. That’s what I think.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop fucking apologizing, Coulter. It makes you sound pathetic.”

  The ride was short, and we paid the cabbie. Our building was dark even though it wasn’t even 9:00 yet. People must’ve been out enjoying their Friday nights. Tires squealed in the distance. An engine backfired. Teenage laughter echoed against the brick and pavement. Our apartment was even quiet, my mother already having gone to sleep on the couch.

  “Things don’t have to be like this,” I said.

  “Shut up!”

  “I’ll quit school, we can go back to Oklahoma together, and we—”

  “And then you would blame me. You’d always see me as what kept you from fulfilling your dreams.”