The Theory of Everything

by Kari Luna

  He leaned down, and I reached up and hugged his neck. “Bye, Daddy,” I said.

  “Bye, pumpkin,” he said, raising his coconut. “See you soon.”

  On the way home, we picked up rocky road ice cream and ate it before the quiche that had to be reheated. It wasn’t until years later that I realized I’d been in a bar. Once, when I asked to go back to Waikiki Wally’s because I was feeling brave and wanted to try the pu pu platter, Dad said no, that place was inappropriate for someone my age. It made me think about that word, inappropriate, since I loved the big statues, flowered necklaces and the way I’d felt lost in there. Kind of like the way I felt on the inside all the time, but at least there it came with pineapple juice.

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  I walked down the basement stairs and grass grew beneath my feet. It was Astroturf, slippery but lush, like descending into a forest. Dad had never met a surface he didn’t make better. Around him, pancakes became faces, doors became murals, and basements were turned into playgrounds that were almost too good to be true.

  Paper lanterns bobbed from the ceiling like spaceships and gave the room an aqua and tangerine glow. Lime-green streamers ran from corner to corner in between stuffed clouds made from patchwork quilts. Every inch of every surface was covered in fabric or curly ribbon, patches of carpet or tinfoil. There was even a chair covered with bubble wrap that popped when you sat in it. Everything was old because Dad said found things were the best things. “Why bring home apples and orange juice when you could show up with tricycle wheels instead?” he’d say. Mom never agreed and made him go back to the store, but that didn’t stop him from bringing home bricks instead of bagels anyway.

  The back wall was painted plaid. And in front of it, Dad built a makeshift hitching post out of two broomsticks and a rope from which a team of eggbeater horses hung. I should have been amazed by his ability to make something out of nothing, but I was used to it.

  On another wall was a bulletin board filled with sketches of inventions, numbers that didn’t make sense and blueprints for contraptions that were probably never built. Quotes by famous physicists and authors hung everywhere next to photos of places he probably never went. And there, in the middle, was a picture of me during Christmas 2000, holding my Holiday Surprise Barbie. I ripped an article next to it off the wall, tore it into tiny pieces and threw them above my head, like confetti.

  I heard the basement door creak open, and Finny’s voice floated down.

  “Sophie? You okay?” I heard footsteps.

  “Don’t come down here,” I said.

  “I just wanted to check on you,” he said. “Need anything?”

  “Just privacy,” I said. “Keep Peyton out, too.”

  “No problem,” Finny yelled down. “But if you need anything, scream. We’ll hear you.”

  The door closed, like a vacuum, and the air suddenly smelled like peppermints. I grabbed the photo off the bulletin board and one of the sketches fell off, too. It was labeled “inter-dimensional travel machine.” It looked more like a new version of a spaceship and didn’t come with any instructions, but I loved it anyway. I stuck it in my pocket and walked on a path made of old oatmeal labels and jelly beans, packing peanuts and stickpins. I passed a collection of pogo sticks and stilts, a table of rubber bands and toothbrushes and a huge sculpture made out of tennis balls and putty. It sat on a card table with a sign next to it that read ATOM SMASHER. I was dying to touch it, but it looked fragile, like it had been there awhile. There were two towers, five tiers high, made of tennis balls on toilet paper rolls and connected with Silly Putty that had hardened. I wasn’t sure what an atom smasher was, but I liked the idea of it, particles crashing into each other and forming something else. Like a horse with the body of an octopus. Or a bicycle spaceship. I had moved on to something made of marbles when I stepped on a squeaky hot dog. It let out a wheeeeee, and I kicked it to the side. That’s when I saw a box with my name on it.

  If Dad had been there, he would have insisted I wear an eye patch. “You can’t find a treasure box if you’re not properly attired,” he would say. “Even the most amateur pirates have to look the part.”

  I lifted the box and would have shaken it like a Christmas present, but it was heavy. So I sat on the floor around it, legs in a V with the box between them. Maybe it was old baby clothes or papers from school. Art projects and poems and things not worth saving. I opened the lid, and dust flew out, making me cough. A homemade postcard sat on top, a Warhol head floating in the middle of a galaxy. Dad must have made it, but Warhol would have liked it. Especially if the galaxy contained celebrities. “It’s better to be a head than a derriere, darling,” he’d say, and then run off to film someone sleeping. I hoped the back of the postcard would say something. It didn’t, but it was what was underneath that counted: hundreds of mixtapes. The ultimate treasure.

  “Oh, wow,” I said. “No way.”

  I checked the lid again. It still said FOR SOPHIE, so I took out the tapes and looked at them, one by one. Were they full of songs or conversations or both? Did he spend hours picking the right tracks or talking into a microphone? The tapes were titled everything from Chai Tea Catastrophe to String Theory Orchestra. If I hadn’t left my Walkman upstairs, I would have popped them in and listened until I knew him better than I knew myself. Some of the tapes looked older, like he’d bought a pack at a garage sale or taped over ones he had, but some of them were brand-new—tapes made in a time when no one was making tapes anymore. Dad, always and forever the purist.

  I grabbed a handful of cassettes and brought them to my face, drinking him in. I traced the cases with my finger, imagining what it would have been like to have been him making tapes for me. I picked one out of the bunch, hoping it was about something meaningful, something he wanted to share that he couldn’t say in person. Instead I got a tape called Gravitons and Gravy. On the inside there was a list of tracks, plus a recipe for making the best gravy in the universe.

  I read a few more, knowing I’d have time to listen to them and decode their secret messages later. At a glance, Atomic Antics was full of Adam and the Ants, which I loved, but hoped when I listened to it, it would be more about the atoms themselves. And even though Equation Store was full of songs with numbers in them, I was sure there was more to it. I kept digging around, hoping to find one that was less cryptic, which is when I saw it, stuck to the bottom. The case was cracked and dirty, but that didn’t matter, especially since the word on the cover was one I’d been thinking about for years: Love.

  My hands shook as I opened the case. It was stiff, like it was one of the first tapes he’d made. I went to remove the tape, but the entire thing flew out of my hand like a plastic bag in the wind. I chased it until I caught up with it in the corner, underneath a bunch of deflated beach balls. I picked up Love and put it in my pocket. I didn’t have my Walkman, but I wasn’t prepared to hear it. When I thought about what could be on it—a missive or a miss—I wasn’t ready to go there. Not yet. Just like I was never ready when Mom had pulled me out of bed in the middle of the night, even though she said we were doing it for love.

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  “You know I love you, don’t you?” Mom would say, tossing the covers back and helping me put my coat on over my pajamas. Most nights I kicked the blankets off in my sleep, and Mom showed up and tucked me in tighter, building a cocoon to keep me in. But then, on other nights, she took me out of bed and put me in the car.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as she drove away from our house.

  “To find your father,” she said.

  “Isn’t he in bed?”

  “No,” she said. “That’s why we’re going to find him.”

  “Why do we have to go and look for him?” I said. “He’ll come back.”

  “Because,” she said, giving me a little squeeze on my shoulders. “No one should be out alone in the middle of the night. Would you like to
be out alone in the middle of the night?”

  “I’d like it if I were alone in my bed.”

  “Smart girl,” she said. “You’ll be back there soon.”

  I sat in the backseat with my blanket and pillow. Some mornings I woke up still in the backseat, driving around the city. I felt a breeze or smelled food cooking, morning air blowing in, filling the car with the rest of the world. I liked it better when the windows were closed, when it was just the smell of my blanket and Mom’s flowery lotion. One morning I woke up and the car was parked in the driveway. Mom was in the front seat, drinking coffee. She said she didn’t want to wake me up because I was sleeping so well. Another time Dad was in the front seat, snoring. I guess she didn’t want to wake him up, either. And still other times, he was already home when we got back, a box of doughnuts in his hands and a smile on his face. “My girls!” he’d say. “I’ve been waiting for you. I brought sprinkles!”

  At the time, it never occurred to me that this wasn’t normal—driving around looking for your father instead of just having him there, sleeping, making pancake faces when you woke up in the morning.

  “You know I love you, don’t you?” Mom would always say. Whether she was taking me out of bed and into the night or trying to make me feel good after Dad left, she always said it the same way, like a quiz. Like she was checking to make sure that even with the chaos in our lives, I knew the answer: Yes.

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  I added some confetti into my pocket and walked upstairs. My legs moved slowly, like sandbags. Step, step. Away from the past. Step, step, into the future. The weight of a thousand conversations in a box at the bottom of the stairs. I opened the door and the smell of tomato sauce hit me in the face. Peyton stood at the stove, stirring with a wooden spoon.

  “Perfect timing,” she said. “Dinner’s ready.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I said, my eyes glazing. “I think I have to go to bed now. Like, immediately.”

  “You’re not going to tell us about the basement?” Finny said.

  My right knee buckled.

  “Can we talk tomorrow?”

  Peyton put her arm around me, which I would have resisted if I hadn’t been so tired.

  “It’s late,” she said. “Head upstairs and take the second bedroom on the left. I’ll be up to check on you soon.”

  “Me too,” Finny said, his voice like an echo.

  Hours later, I woke up, yawned and stretched my arms over my head. The room was dark, and the blanket was scratchy, like my throat. Finny came into focus, sitting in a chair in the corner.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “One o’clock,” he said. “You’ve been asleep for a few hours.”

  “Why aren’t you in bed?”

  “I felt bad,” he said. “You went down there by yourself, and I stayed upstairs and talked to Peyton, and when you came up, you looked really upset. I just wanted to be here in case you woke up.”

  “You’re reading Dad’s book, aren’t you?” I said.

  “Of course,” he said, grinning. “Like you could keep me away from it.”

  I could tell he wanted to launch into a conversation about Dad and his amazing brain, but I wasn’t up for it. I flopped a sleeve against my face. Flannel. Like Dad used to wear. I loved that even under extreme duress, my brain knew enough to put me in comfy clothes.

  “What are you wearing?” I said, pointing to his jogging pants and sweatshirt.

  “Whatever Peyton left out for me,” he said. “Same as you. She’s washing our clothes.”

  “Why?” I said. “We only wore them one day.”

  “I think she just wanted something to do,” he said. “That or they had travel smell.”

  I laughed and sank into my pillows. “We should go to sleep. We have a big day tomorrow.”

  “A big day of what?”

  “Seeing whatever you came to New York to see,” I said. “I know you’re here to meet my dad, but this is the greatest city in the world. Don’t you want to go to the World Science Festival?”

  “That was in June,” he said. “But maybe I could go to the Museum of Natural History after we’ve done some Dad research.”

  “Perfect,” I said, even though I was developing another plan that didn’t include Finny. “But all work and no play makes Finny kind of a pain to be around. I’ll talk to Dad’s old coworkers while you hit the library. Then we’ll meet, share intel, and you can go do something cool. Deal?”

  “Deal,” he said, yawning. “You know, your dad was kind of brilliant.”

  “Is kind of brilliant,” I said. I felt shaky on the inside. “I overheard you, you know.”

  “Overheard what?”

  “On the stairs,” I said. “Before the basement.”

  “Sophie . . .”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t kick Dad out, Mom did.”

  “I was going to tell you,” he said. “I wanted to wait until you had some sleep.”

  “It’s not your job to tell me,” I said. “That job belongs to Mom.”

  Finny sat on the edge of my bed, sinking in as I felt my heart do the same. “Can I ask you a question?”

  I nodded as he moved even closer.

  “Can I give you a hug?”

  I wanted to say no. I wanted to be the girl of steel, the one who didn’t need anyone or anything, but I knew we were past that. Finny knew my truths and hadn’t told anyone. And no matter what amount of weirdness I threw at him, he was still there.

  “I guess a hug wouldn’t kill me,” I said, sitting up off the pillows.

  And even though he wasn’t that much taller than me, Finny scooped me up like Walt, reaching around and right through to my heart. I coughed and tried to push back a sob.

  “Let it go,” he said into my hair. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  I leaned in, and the tears came. My whole body shook as I cried like I did when I was little, like when Dad left. But Finny stayed right where he was. He didn’t bundle me up and put me in the car in the middle of the night or pretend he didn’t hear me. He held on and didn’t let go. All so that I could.

  TWENTY

  Now I know how Joan of Arc felt—as the flames rose to her Roman nose and her Walkman started to melt.

  —The Smiths, “Bigmouth Strikes Again”

  “Finny says you have a boyfriend,” Peyton said, standing in the doorway.

  I opened my eyes and looked around like I did every time we moved to a new town.

  “Not exactly,” I said, realizing I was in New York. I sat up and threw a heavy quilt off me.

  “I thought Finny was your boyfriend,” she said, handing me a glass of orange juice.

  “He’s gay,” I said, sipping it, citrus washing over my tongue.

  “Oh,” she said. “He’s really cute.”

  “True,” I said. “He’s going to make some boy extremely happy one day.”

  She stood by the bed like she wanted to sit on it, but we weren’t there yet. “Did you sleep okay? That quilt can be kind of hot.”

  I held a piece of it in my hand. Maybe it was her quilt, made by someone who loved her, pieces of her childhood in one place instead of scattered, like mine. Maybe the red patch with the bright green apples was from a dress she wore on the first day of kindergarten, which she hated because she was taller than everyone else. Maybe the dress that had seen her through a horrible day had just seen me through a rough night.

  “I slept fine,” I said, leaning back into the pillows. “Is this your quilt?”

  “My grandmother made it,” she said. “It’s nice to have someone you love make you something.”

  “I’d rather have the person,” I said, thinking about the way Dad tucked me in at night if he was home, or surprised me with breakfast in the morning when he returned.
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  “So would I,” she said.

  She leaned over and patted my hand. I knew I should respond, but my body wouldn’t move. My hand stayed stiff like something out of the morgue, which made her remove hers.

  “I talked to your mom this morning,” she said. “Since you have to go back tonight, would you like to go into the city with me? I have to work for a few hours, but I can hang out with you guys after that.”

  I got out of bed and walked to the window. Gray clouds marched in like robots, defending the sky.

  “There isn’t something more important you have to do today?”

  I was planning on lying to her about my search for Dad—that wasn’t the point. The point was that she was thinking about the Statue of Liberty and Central Park while I was focused on uncovering answers. Securing sanity. Finding my father.

  “I haven’t given up on him,” she said, joining me at the window. She’d abandoned the whole turquoise motif for black pants, a black sweater and an orange wooden necklace. “But there’s nothing to do at this point but wait. You might as well enjoy the city while you’re here.”

  Adults had this insane ability to compartmentalize. I’d watched my mom do it and tried to copy her because it seemed so convenient. Emotions? On. Emotions? Off. It was the kind of thing that could come in handy, post-episode, but I never made it work. Maybe I needed more practice, but when something was going on with me, it was really going on. At least in my brain. Even if my feet kept walking, my mind was still there, fully obsessed with the problem. But maybe it would work. Just this once.

  “You’re right,” I said, turning away from the window. Lying for the greater good. “We’d love to meet up with you, but I want to take Finny to my favorite breakfast place before we hit Chinatown.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I promised your mom I’d look after you. What would she think if I let you run around New York by yourself?”

  “She wouldn’t think twice about it,” I said. “I lived here for years and took the subway to school with her and everywhere else, for that matter. I know my way around.”