Bewilderment

by Richard Powers

  Half a syllable came up out of his throat, lost between sob and laugh. Great. He patted blindly at my upper arm. Then we’d both be toast.

  “You’re not toast, Robbie. Get a tissue and wipe.”

  His half-formed features smeared under his pressing hands. The squall had blown over, leaving him clear, small, but still winded.

  So what did they mean, Jayden’s parents?

  What kind of people knew their son was torturing mine with something they themselves had said, and didn’t alert me when I called them? Scared and scrambling, like everyone.

  I’m nine, Dad. I can handle it.

  I was forty-five, and couldn’t. “Robbie? There were witnesses. Everyone agrees. Something ran in front of her car.”

  What do you mean? Like a person?

  “An animal.” He frowned, baffled, like some cartoon boy. “You remember it was dark and icy?”

  He nodded at a tiny model he was making of that evening, a foot in front of his eyes. January twelfth. Nine p.m.

  “It ran in front of her car. She must have jerked the wheel. The car skidded, and that’s how she crossed the center line.”

  He kept his eyes on his tiny simulation. Then he asked a question I should have been ready for. Such an obvious thing. What kind of animal?

  I panicked. “Nobody knows for sure.”

  Maybe a marten, or something really rare? Maybe it was a wolverine.

  “I don’t know, buddy. Nobody does.”

  Calculations ran through his head. The oncoming car. The nearby pedestrians. The two of us, waiting for her to come home. I lasted ten seconds. The shame of owning up couldn’t be worse than the nausea I felt.

  “Robbie? They think it might have been an opossum. It was an opossum.”

  But you said . . .

  I needed him to say: The opossum is North America’s only marsupial, Dad. Things Aly taught him: how hard winters were on opossums, how frostbite punished their hairless ears and tails. But he scowled in silence at the thought of the most despised large animal on Earth.

  He swung his head toward me, stunned. You lied to me, Dad. You said nobody knew what it was.

  “Robbie. It was only for a minute.” But no: it was forever, really.

  He tilted his head and shook, as if clearing his ears. His voice was flat and low. Everybody lies. I couldn’t tell if he was forgiving me or condemning all humanity.

  It was way past bedtime. But there we were, the two of us on his bed, the last of the crew of a generational spacecraft that had come to the end of its possibilities long before reaching its new home.

  So she chose not to hit it, even though . . . ?

  “She didn’t choose anything. There wasn’t time. It was a reflex.”

  He thought for a while. At last he seemed appeased, although some part of him was still mapping the changing coastline between reflex and choice.

  So Jayden’s parents are full of crap? Mom wasn’t trying to hurt herself?

  I felt no need to reprimand the language. “Sometimes, the less people know about something, the more they want to talk about it.”

  He got his notebook and scribbled in it, holding it away from me. He snapped it shut and squirreled it away in the nightstand drawer. Something brightened in him. Maybe he was happy that he might be friends with his friend again, tomorrow.

  I stood and kissed him on the forehead. He let me, preoccupied with his hands, remembering how they’d deceived him.

  How about this one, Dad? What does this mean?

  He held one cupped hand upward on the stalk of his arm and twisted it back and forth. A tiny planet, spinning on its axis.

  “Tell me.”

  It means the world is turning and I’m good with everything.

  We traded the signal, and he nodded. I told him I was glad he was who he was. I twisted my own hand in the air again by way of saying good night. Then I turned out the light and left him to fall asleep in the comfort of my larger lie. I’ve always been especially good at lying by omission. And I lied wildly to him that night, by failing to tell him about the car’s other passenger, his unborn little sister.

  HE WOKE UP SUNDAY in high excitement. Before dawn, he was climbing all over me, shaking me awake. Great idea, Dad. Listen to this.

  I was still half-asleep, and I cranked at him. “Robbie, for God’s sake! It’s six in the morning!”

  He stormed off and barricaded himself in his lair. It took forty minutes and the promise of blueberry pancakes to coax him out.

  I waited until he was sluggish with carbs. “So let’s hear this great idea.”

  He weighed the quid pro quos of forgiving me. His chin jutted out. I’m only telling you because I need your help.

  “Understood.”

  I’m going to paint every endangered species in America. Then I’ll sell them at the farmers’ market next spring. We can raise money and give it to one of Mom’s groups.

  I knew he’d never be able to paint more than a fraction of them. But I also knew a great idea when I heard one. We cleaned up breakfast and headed to the Pinney branch of the public library.

  My son loved the library. He loved putting books on hold online and having them waiting, bundled up with his name, when he came for them. He loved the benevolence that the stacks held out, their map of the known world. He loved the all-you-can-eat buffet of borrowing. He loved the lending histories stamped into the front of each book, the record of strangers who checked them out before him. The library was the best dungeon crawl imaginable: free loot for the finding, combined with the joy of leveling up.

  Usually he followed the same route through the trove: graphic novels, sword and sorcery, puzzles and brain teasers, fiction. That day, he wanted art lessons. The shelves were a total candy shop. Wow. How come you never told me about these? We found a book on how to draw plants and one on how to draw simple animals. From there we went to Nature, where we zeroed in on endangered species. Soon he was trying to choose from among a pile of books that came up almost to his waist.

  I’m over my limit, Dad. He could make thrilled sound over­-whelmed.

  “You take your limit, and I’ll take mine.”

  He sat on the floor of the aisle, narrowing down the choices. Opening one of the bigger volumes, he groaned.

  “Tell me.”

  He read, robotic. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service lists more than two thousand North American species as being either threatened or endangered.

  “That’s okay, buddy. Small steps. One drawing at a time.”

  He toppled the tower of books and sank his head in his hands.

  “Robbie. Hey.” I almost said, Grow up. But that was the last thing I would have wished on him. “What would your mom do?”

  That made him sit up again.

  “Let’s check these out and get some supplies.”

  The clerk at the Art Co-op fell in love with him. She was an art student herself, recently graduated. She took Robin around the shop. He was in heaven. They looked at pastels and colored pencils and little tubes of bright acrylic.

  “What do you want to make?” Robin told her his plan. “That’s so beautiful. You are so awesome.” She didn’t believe the project would outlast the day.

  Robbie loved the watercolor brush pens. The clerk was impressed with what he could do with one, even on his first go.

  “This one would make a nice starter set. Forty-eight colors. That’s probably everything you’d need.”

  Why is that other one so much more expensive?

  “That one’s for pros.”

  He grabbed the starter set, hiding his eyes from me. I overruled and upgraded him. As investments went, it felt like a steal. We also got micro-pen fine liners, a pad of cheap drawing paper for practice, and some sheets of the good stuff for the finished works. The clerk wished him luck, and he hugged her on the way out. Robin did not hug strangers.

  He painted all afternoon. My hot-tempered, ungovernable son knelt for hours on the slats of a wooden foldi
ng chair, copying examples from the art books with his face up close to the paper. Sometimes he snorted in frustration, like the cartoon bull from one of his favorite childhood picture books. He crumpled up botched efforts, but with more artistic flair than violence. Once he tossed a watercolor pencil against the wall, then shouted at himself for doing so.

  I tempted him to take a break. Ping-pong or a walk around the block. He refused to be derailed.

  Which creature should I start with, Dad?

  Creature was his mother’s favorite word. She used it for everything, even my extremophiles. I told Robin that no one ever lost an audience with charismatic megafauna.

  No. I should do the most endangered one. The one that needs the most help.

  “Pace yourself, Robbie. The first farmers’ market is months away.”

  The amphibians are in trouble. I’m going to start with an amphibian.

  After much agonizing, he settled on Lithobates sevosus, the dusky gopher frog. It was a strange, secretive animal that spread its webbed fingers in front of its face to shield its eyes from threats. It puffed up when frightened and oozed a bitter milk from the glands on its back. Wetlands development had reduced it to three small ponds in Mississippi.

  He studied his drawing, doubtful. Do you think people will like it?

  His creature was byzantine in both shape and pigment. Where my own eyes had seen only gray-black lumps in the frog’s photo, Robin saw wild swirls that required half of his glorious rainbow tool chest. The difference between the drab original and his surreal copy didn’t trouble Robin. Nor did it bother, in the least, the ghost of my wife.

  When he was done, Robbie brought his painting to the picture window in the living room and held it up to the light for my inspection. The perspective was skewed, the surface texture clumsy, the outlining naïve, and the colors out of this world. But the thing was a masterpiece, warts and all—the portrait of a creature whose passing few humans would mourn.

  Do you think anyone will buy it? It’s for a good cause.

  “It’s great, Robbie.”

  Maybe there’s a planet out there where amphibians are as good as it gets.

  Then, after so much fierce looking, he was done with it. He stashed it in a portfolio where he kept his other drawings and went back to the art books. He hadn’t been so happy since the night we camped out under the stars.

  MONDAY MORNING, HE ROLLED OUT OF BED, got dressed, ate a bowl of hot cereal, and brushed his teeth, all as usual. But five minutes before his bus was due, he declared, No school today, Dad.

  “What are you talking about? Of course there’s school. Scoot!”

  No school for me, I mean. He waved toward the dining room table. I’d let him leave out all his art studio materials from the day before. Too much to do.

  “Don’t be silly. You can work on it this afternoon and evening. You’re going to miss the bus.”

  No bus today, Dad. Too much work.

  Too quickly, I resorted to reason. “Robbie. Look. I’m in trouble at your school already. Dr. Lipman said I’ve had you out of class too many times already this year.”

  What about the days she kicked me out?

  “I went over that with her. She threatened me with bad things if we didn’t get our act together.”

  Like what?

  “Hey. Hop on it. No kidding. We’ll talk about it tonight.”

  I’m not going, Dad.

  The one time since Aly’s death that I’d threatened him with force, he bit my wrist and broke the skin. I checked my watch. The bus was no longer a viable target. I put my hand on his shoulder. He pushed it off.

  “They have you on probation because of what happened with Jayden. We’re on their list. If there’s more trouble, Dr. Lipman . . . We can’t give them anything to fuss about right now.”

  Dad. Listen to me. I’m begging you. Mom says everything’s dying. Do you believe her?

  “Robin. Come on. Let’s go. I’ll drive you.” Even to myself, I sounded outmaneuvered.

  Because if she’s right, there’s no point in school. Everything will be dead before I get to tenth grade.

  I wondered whether this was a hill I wanted to die on.

  Do you believe her or don’t you? That’s all I’m asking.

  Did I believe her? Her facts were beyond doubt. Everything she claimed was common knowledge to scientists everywhere. But did I believe her? Had mass extinction ever once felt real?

  “You’re going to school. There’s no choice.”

  You said everything’s always a choice, Dad. For instance. You could homeschool me.

  I rubbed my eyes until I saw stars. In my head, I was talking to a dead person again. And Aly was reminding me: Listen. Sympathize. But we don’t negotiate with terrorists!

  “I believe in you, Robbie. In what you’re doing. But we can’t change school in the middle of the year. If you still feel strongly about this in the spring, we’ll find a solution.”

  That’s why they’ll all go extinct. Because everyone wants to solve it later.

  I sat down at the table, his test sketches spread in front of me. He wasn’t wrong. “Okay. Today, paint. All the creatures that are in trouble. As well as you can.”

  He must have felt my deflation, because the little victory made him darken. He looked at me, ready to beg me to change my mind. Dad? What if it doesn’t help at all?

  NO SITTER IN MY CONTACTS LIST could watch him all weekday on such short notice. Fortunately, I didn’t teach that day and could work from home. At quarter to nine, while canceling and rescheduling appointments, I got the automated text. Your child is absent without excuse. Are you aware of this (please reply Y or N)? I pressed Y, then phoned the office and told a curt, skeptical staffer that Robin had a doctor’s appointment I’d forgotten to call in.

  I applied myself to email triage, then finished the delinquent edits for the article for Stryker: dimethyl sulfide and sulfur dioxide in our models of atmospheric disequilibrium. Sulfur-based life, in place of carbon: I thought about what lunch might look like in such a place, while cooking up Robin’s favorite lentils with masses of melt-away onions and the barest hint of tomato. In the afternoon, Robin knocked on my office door with several small questions about his paintings for which any answer at all would do. He was lonely. By morning, I figured, he’d be ready to head back to school.

  We knocked off again for dinner. Robin wanted Aly’s signature eggplant casserole. He insisted on laying out the layers. Our finished result was not a success, but he ate with the appetite of someone who’d put in a full day. After dinner, I asked for an exhibition. A few paintings remained from the many that he’d destroyed in anger. He mounted the day’s work on a bare wall in the dining room using bits of reusable tape. I was forbidden to come in until he said to. There was an ivory-billed woodpecker and a red wolf and a Franklin’s bumblebee and a giant anole and a clump of desert yellowhead. Some were more skillful than others. But they all vibrated, and the colors shouted, Save us.

  That’s a bird and a mammal and an insect and a reptile and a plant. To go with yesterday’s amphibian.

  I still don’t see how a nine-year-old held still long enough to paint them. He was channeling some other maker. “Robin. They’re incredible.”

  The woodpecker and the anole might already be extinct. How much should I ask for them? I want to send in as much as I can.

  “You could ask people how much they might want to pay.” Used-car trick, put to a good cause. He took the pictures down and stashed them in his portfolio. “Careful! Don’t crumple them.”

  So many more to do, Dad.

  The next morning, after breakfast, he announced he was staying home to work some more.

  “No way. Get going, now. We had a deal.”

  When? What deal? You said you believed in me!

  In one quick escalation, he went from nine to sixteen. Blocked from doing right, he stared me down with a fury bordering on hatred. His lips pursed and he spit near my feet. Then he wheeled, ran
back down the hall to his bedroom, and slammed his door. Twenty seconds later, a skin-freezing scream turned into the thunder of toppling furniture. I pushed in his door against a mass of junk piled up behind it. He’d pulled down a five-foot-high bookshelf, and books, toys, model spacecraft, and arts-and-crafts trophies spilled across his bedroom floor. When I stepped into the room, he screamed again and swung Aly’s old ukulele into the multi-paned window, breaking both the glass and the instrument.

  He lunged at me, howling. We fought. He tried to claw my face. I took his arm and twisted way too hard. Robin screamed and dropped sobbing on the floor. I wanted to die. The back of his hand was half a crushed butterfly. Aly and I had had a pact, the only one she ever made me swear to. Theo? Whatever happens, we must never hit that child. I looked around the room, ready to throw myself at her mercy. But she was nowhere.

  ON GEMINUS, WE WERE TRAPPED on opposite sides of a terrible meridian. The planet’s sun was small, cool, and red. Geminus lay so close in that the star had captured its rotation. One side remained forever in scalding light. The other side stayed night, icy and perpetual.

  Life germinated in the strip of twilight between permanent noon and midnight. In that band between burning and frozen, winds whipped the air and currents drove the water. Creatures evolved to exploit the loops of energy, moving bits of morning to warm the blackness and bits of night to cool the endless blaze.

  Life pushed deeper into both halves of the wind-whipped landscape. Tendrils of habitability seeped down canyons and up watersheds, creeping from the temperate boundary toward the extremes. Life on Geminus split into two kingdoms, one of ice, one of fire, each adapting to half of the bipolar planet. For the boldest pilgrims, there was no turning back. Even the temperate boundary strip became fatal.

  Intelligence arose twice. Each kind solved its own impossible climate. But the minds of day failed to find the night intelligible, while night’s minds couldn’t comprehend the day. They shared only one bit of common knowledge: life could never exist “over the edge.”

  We traveled to Geminus together, my son and I. But we each arrived alone. I found myself in a wind-fed channel on the side of constant day. I searched throughout the habitable strip but couldn’t find him. The local inhabitants were no help. I’d imagined that people of endless day would be cheerful and upbeat. But their sky was filled with one single unchanging light, blocking out all signs of a universe. They lived as if there could be nothing but Here and Now and this. The thought stunted them. Their sciences and arts had stalled in infancy. They never even invented the telescope.