Charmed Particles

by Chrissy Kolaya

  They made their way through the church, the tavern, the sawmill, the farm laborer’s cottage, the tiny post office and mercantile, the smokehouse, the doctor’s home office, and the brick farmhouse with its stoneware jugs and quilts, its barn full of farm tools. They looked through display cases with exhibits on local history, full of tea sets and dolls donated by elderly residents, memorabilia from businesses that had once existed in Nicolet. In one, an old photograph of a team of oxen pulling a wagonload of timber through town; in another, a city ordinance prohibiting pigs from running loose within the town limits. They made their way through the gift shop, stocked with souvenir tea sets and crockery, child-sized coonskin caps and bonnets, slates, magnets, wooden nickels, field guides to Illinois trees and wildflowers, postcards, and an old cigar store Indian whose display sign indicated that it was on “indefinite loan” to Heritage Village.

  Revolutionary War Days was always Nicolet’s biggest annual event, but this year it had drawn an even larger crowd than usual. During the festival, Heritage Village would be unveiling its newest building—a replica of the Custom House, site of the Boston Massacre. Mayor Callahan was scheduled to give a dedication speech followed by patriotic music by the Nicolet Community Band.

  Sarala led Abhijat along the paths, following the hand-painted wooden signs. “We should see Meena and Lily give their tour of the mansion,” she suggested.

  The mansion stood a bit off from the rest of the village on a small swell of land, which, against the surrounding flat prairie passed for a hill. It was a tall, two-story home of dark red brick, its imposing entrance at the top of a steep limestone stairway.

  Abhijat and Sarala joined a group making their way up the stairway to the front door, where they were met by Meena, in costume. She grinned at her parents. “Welcome to the mansion,” she said, showing the group into the house’s entrance hall. Abhijat was struck by how grown up Meena looked in her long dress, her hair pinned up.

  Meena led the group through the dark foyer into the parlor, where she began to tell them about the house and the family who had once lived there, Nicolet’s own founding family.

  Abhijat was used to being proud of his daughter, but he felt a new kind of delight descend upon him as he watched Meena, who had not only memorized an impressive number of facts for the tour, but was also, Abhijat noted, skilled at speaking to this group of strangers, at animating her recitation with a quick smile, kneeling down to listen to the question of one of the small children. Abhijat felt like he had, for a moment, caught a fleeting glimpse of the adult Meena.

  She led them through the dining room, hung with its ornate chandelier and bright wallpaper, and into the kitchen, where she explained the rigid but invisible class threshold that existed at the doorway between kitchen and dining room. Outside, she pointed out the carriage house, the stable, and the kitchen garden arranged across from the root cellar, where the family’s cook had stored potatoes, turnips, and apples through the winter. From here, she led the group back to the stairs and handed them off to Lily for her tour through the bedrooms, the upstairs parlor, and the dark upstairs hall.

  Lily did not have that same easy way with the crowd, Abhijat noted, though he took no pleasure in the realization. She recited the details of the house’s second floor as though eager to have them out of her, closing her eyes a little as she spoke, as though willing her audience out of her sight.

  In the doorway of a bedroom, one of the mothers in the group pointed to the bed warmer, which looked to Abhijat like a long-handled skillet. “You put that in your bed,” the mother explained to her children, “while you were sleeping to keep you warm.”

  “Actually…” Lily, overhearing this from across the hall, turned to face the mother. “That’s not correct. It’s not like a hot-water bottle,” she continued. “It was filled with red-hot coals. If you left it in your bed all night, you’d burn your feet off. You ran it over the sheets before bed.”

  The mother looked at Lily, halfway taken aback, halfway interested—she seemed unable to decide. “Well, thank you, young lady,” she said. Then she gathered her children and herded them down the hall toward the next room.

  Once they had seen out the last of the tour groups, Meena and Lily took seats on the limestone steps in front of the mansion to listen to the mayor’s speech and watch the ribbon-cutting ceremony, their skirts spread out over their knees, feet disappearing beneath the deep folds of the fabric. The afternoon sun was bright in contrast to the oppressive, Victorian darkness of the house.

  Some of their classmates from the regular classes wandered the grounds carrying large turkey legs or American flags. A pack of teenage boys passed the house and looked up at Lily and Meena. “Hey, old-time lady,” one of them yelled. “You’re hot.”

  Lily rolled her eyes. “Have you gotten your acceptance letter yet?” she asked Meena. Lily had been on a high since Thursday, when her acceptance letter from the Academy arrived. “I’m sure it’s on its way,” she continued before allowing Meena to respond. “Mr. Delacroix all but guaranteed you’d be accepted. I’ve been thinking about whether we should request to be roommates. On the one hand, we know we get along. But on the other hand, we might meet more people—”

  Meena stopped her, turning to face her friend. “Look, Lily,” she began. “I haven’t wanted to tell you this.” She still didn’t, she thought to herself. Meena took a deep breath. “I didn’t apply,” she said, finally.

  “What?” Lily asked, her brow wrinkled, eyebrows drawn together over the bridge of her nose.

  “I didn’t apply to the Academy.”

  “But why not?” Lily asked, incredulous. “It’s a tremendous opportunity.”

  “I know it is,” Meena said.

  “So you’ve been lying to me about this?” Lily asked. “For months now?”

  “Not lying,” Meena corrected her. “I never said I was going to

  apply.”

  “You never said you weren’t,” Lily argued. “I thought we were both—” Lily thought for a moment, looking out over the paths that divided the grass into neat geometrical shapes. She shook her head. “I just…” She was unable to find her words. “I just… I can’t believe you’re going to throw away an opportunity like this. Do you realize how isolated you’ll be?” she asked. “The most interesting person to talk to for the next three years—until college, Meena—will be Tom Hebert. Have you thought about that?”

  Meena looked down at her skirt, draped over the steps of the great house. There was a long, fraught silence.

  “I thought we were going together,” Lily said. “Now it’s just me? Just I’m going?” Her voice was small and uncertain.

  Meena looked up at Lily, who was now plucking at a loose thread along the hem of her skirt. As she watched her, Meena began, slowly, to realize that this smart and confident friend of hers was afraid. Afraid of doing this alone. Meena took her friend’s hand in hers.

  “Lily. You’re going to be fine there on your own. Better than fine. You’re going to be amazing.”

  Lily sat in silence for a moment, considering this.

  “Without you, though?”

  “You don’t need me,” Meena said.

  Mayor Callahan stood at the microphone on the bandstand. Behind him, the Nicolet Community Band sat quietly in their seats, shiny brass instruments catching the gleam of the sun.

  “While this community has, over the last year, found itself in conflict and disagreement over an issue of modern science,” he began, “we are pleased to come together here today as friends and neighbors to unveil Heritage Village’s most recent addition and to honor our country’s forefathers, who, like I said, fought for an ideal they believed in.”

  The Custom House stood ready for its unveiling, a red ribbon across the front door. A reproduction of the Liberty Bell had been erected on its lawn.

  In front of the entrance to the new building, Mayor Callahan and Mrs. Schuster, the director of Heritage Village, posed for photographers from the H
erald-Gleaner with a pair of shiny, oversized scissors. When they had gotten the shot they needed, Mayor Callahan cut the wide red ribbon and stepped aside to welcome the citizens of Nicolet inside, the community band striking up a wobbly, uncertain version of “America the Beautiful.”

  Outside, beyond the wrought-iron gates of Heritage Village, the traffic hummed along Homestead Road, the growl of a plane’s engine cut through the warm spring air, and the visitors tried hard to ignore the specter of the Research Tower rising up in the distance.

  CHAPTER 25

  Manifest Destiny

  FOR ABHIJAT, THERE HAD BEEN A SLOW UNDERSTANDING AND A gradual acceptance that this was where his career would come, gracefully and respectably, if not as memorably as he had hoped, to an end. And he had surprised himself by responding to this acceptance with relief.

  At first, he hadn’t known what to call it, this strange feeling of lightness, of freedom that had come over him. It was as though he had set down a heavy and unwieldy burden he’d been carrying for years.

  It did not leave him all at once—he thought often, still, of what might have been. Some days he wondered if it might still be possible, one of the great prizes. But he had begun to grow accustomed to this new sense of peace that had come over him, to understand that it was valuable.

  Fading slowly into the background was the pressure to produce, to publish, to chase, always, after the new, and it was liberating. Instead, he found that he enjoyed his quiet office, enjoyed thinking and writing about the things that had always piqued his curiosity, enjoyed his colleagues and his family.

  He had, one morning, surprised Sarala, joining her at the table where she was finishing her morning tea. “Do you know that in a few weeks we will have been married for seventeen years?” he asked.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Sarala replied, looking up at him curiously. It was not like Abhijat to remember this sort of thing.

  “We should—” Abhijat began tentatively, watching her face, attempting to decipher what it was that a husband was expected to do in this situation. “We should have—” He paused. (Yes, the look on his face said, I think this is right—proceed.) “—a cookout with friends?” His voice lifted at the end, as though attempting to protect himself by wrapping the suggestion in as much ambiguity as possible.

  Meena, sitting across the table from her father, frowned, perplexed.

  Abhijat looked at Sarala, who blinked and nodded slowly. “Sure. Yes,” she said, nodding again. “We could do that.”

  Abhijat clapped his hands together. “Then it’s settled! I will begin the planning,” he announced, gathering his things from the table and bustling out the door to begin the day.

  Abhijat had thrown himself into the idea of the cookout. He had prepared and sent invitations that read: “We invite you to join our family, the Mitals, to celebrate the seventeenth wedding anniversary of Sarala and Abhijat.” He’d invited Carol and Bob for Sarala, the Winchesters for Meena, and Dr. Cardiff for himself.

  He’d made what Sarala was fairly certain was his first-ever trip to the hardware store and had come back with the trunk of their sedan tied open, bobbing up and down as he navigated the bump at the end of the driveway as slowly as possible. He had then (for the first time ever) knocked on the front door of Carol and Bob’s house and asked Bob if he might help Abhijat unload his purchase.

  From out of the trunk came an enormous barbeque grill. Together, Bob and Abhijat rolled the grill behind the house and onto the patio, where Bob admired Abhijat’s selection. “The Performance Series. That’s a good model,” he said, nodding.

  “Do you think?” Abhijat asked, though he was certain he’d made a wise purchase, having first consulted numerous back issues of Consumer Reports at the public library before making his selection.

  The day of the barbeque was as sunny and warm as Abhijat could have hoped.

  “Your seventeenth anniversary,” Rose said. “This is certainly a novel way to celebrate such an occasion.”

  “Is it?” Abhijat asked, his head turned a little to the side as though taking this in. “We have not, in previous years, marked the occasion.”

  Sarala made her way around the patio with a tray of lemonade, handing out glasses to each of their guests.

  Lily stood near her parents.

  “So are you packed and ready to go?” Meena asked her.

  “Not yet,” Lily answered, though she seemed to be looking off somewhere behind Meena’s head as she spoke. Since Meena’s confession, their interactions had yet to return to normal, though Meena hoped they would soon.

  “And how has your campaign been going, Mrs. Winchester?” Carol asked.

  “How kind of you to ask,” Rose said, smiling and turning toward Carol and Bob. “We’re all very hopeful.”

  “I imagine this business with the collider has been quite a coup,” Bob said, hands in his pockets, rocking back a little on his heels.

  Carol gave him a look, but he was prevented from further pursuing that line of thought by Abhijat’s voice, which rang out through the small group of guests. “Please, ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention?”

  Their heads turned to regard their host, who stood in front of the sliding-glass doors. Abhijat took a note card from his back pocket and, peering down at it, realized he had forgotten his reading glasses. He patted the pockets of his trousers and shirt as though hoping to discover them hiding there, but, finding this search unfruitful, had turned toward Rose.

  “Mrs. Winchester, if I may,” he asked, indicating the glasses she wore on a chain around her neck.

  “You’re certainly welcome to try,” she said, handing the reading glasses to him, “but the prescription…” She trailed off.

  “Thank you,” Abhijat said, taking them from her. “I am most grateful.” He held them up in front of his face and again looked down at the note card in his hand. “Yes. Now, you must all please excuse me for wearing ladies’ glasses.”

  He cleared his throat and began in earnest.

  “Thank you all for being here today for our celebration. Seventeen years ago, this beautiful woman, Sarala, was joined with me in marriage. That day made me the happiest of men.”

  As he spoke, Sarala looked up at her husband, holding Rose Winchester’s glasses before his eyes as he peered at his note card.

  “I have,” he continued, “I must confess to all of you, not always been the easiest of men to be married to.” Abhijat’s small audience began to laugh, a strange mixture of discomfort at the truth of his statement and warmth at the idea that he’d been aware enough to realize it. “No. It is true,” he insisted. “This,” he gestured at Sarala, “is indeed a very patient lady.

  “As many of you know, I was gravely disappointed by the turn of the events regarding the super collider, and now the Lab itself.” He nodded along with his audience. “It was shocking indeed. I believed that the Lab getting the collider was the most important thing that could happen in my life, in my professional career. But I must tell you all that I was wrong. That, in fact, not getting the collider was the most important thing that could have happened.”

  Sarala stared at her husband, surprised, and in that moment, it was as though the rest of the party receded into the background. As though he spoke only to her.

  He continued. “And that is because it has caused me to take note, finally—after much too long, I am afraid—of all of the blessings of my life. A beautiful, talented daughter; a loving and loyal wife; and, it is to be hoped—” He held his hand out to the assembled guests stiffly, Sarala noted, as though this was a gesture he had included on the note card, along with the text. He continued, “—new friends.”

  Across the patio, Abhijat’s eyes met Sarala’s, timidly, as though uncertain of the sentiment he might find there.

  Later, after their guests had left, as they prepared for bed, Sarala asked Abhijat, “At the end of the party, when it was time to say goodbye to our guests, I couldn’t find you.”

  “Ye
s. I was done socializing,” he explained.

  “Where did you go?” she asked.

  “To my study to read,” he answered. “Are you—” He looked at her tentatively, trying to determine if he had done something wrong. “Displeased?”

  Sarala took a breath. “No,” she said. She looked at him. He was different, yes—this she had noticed gradually over the last few months, a slow realization. But still, so many things would likely always be entirely the same. She took his hand in hers.

  “Your speech,” she said, “it was lovely.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Reconstruction

  In a collider, virtually all of the combined energy of the two particles becomes available for the creation of new matter.

  —TO THE HEART OF MATTER: THE SUPERCONDUCTING SUPER COLLIDER, 1987

  THE WEEK BEFORE THE NEW SCHOOL YEAR BEGAN, ROSE AND Randolph helped Lily pack, deciding which things she’d need, which things could stay, and which things they could bring to her should she change her mind, should they need an excuse to visit. They were both full of pride at their bright daughter and thrilled for her to have such an opportunity, but all three recognized this as the end of their brief period together as a family.

  Rose watched Lily carefully folding clothes, stacking favorite books, and thought of all the times she’d watched Lily and Randolph performing this same ritual in preparation for one of Randolph’s trips. Randolph sat in Lily’s reading chair in the corner of her room, offering commentary on how she might pack more efficiently, what she might consider leaving behind.

  Rose smiled. It was bittersweet. They had, that summer, grown used to a new sort of life, the three of them all together like the most conventional of families, and now that was about to change again. She wondered what the house would feel like without Lily, just her and Randolph rattling around.