“What do I do if there are changes?”
He seemed to want to ask a favor, scientist to scientist. “I’d ask you to keep bringing him in for evaluation if I could. But I can’t, until this investigation is over.”
“Clear,” I said. Although nothing was.
ROBIN WAS PHILOSOPHICAL, WALKING HOME. It’s still the experiment, right? Whatever happens, we’ll learn something interesting.
I wasn’t sure if he was consoling me or educating me in the scientific method. I couldn’t concentrate. I was thinking of all the legitimate scientific research that might be shut down between now and Election Day, on no better grounds than political caprice. We were, as Marty said, in uncharted waters.
“It’s temporary. They’re just on hold for a while.”
Do they think the training is dangerous or something?
The maples were too orange. My mail notification sounded. I could smell winter on the air, two thousand miles and three days away. Robbie tugged at my sleeve.
This isn’t because of Washington, is it?
“Oh, no, Robbie. Of course not.”
He twitched at the tone in my voice. My mail bell dinged again. Robbie stopped in place on the sidewalk and said the strangest thing. Dad? If you went to sea or to war . . . if something happened to you? If you had to die? I would just hold still and think of how your hands move when you walk, and then you’d still be here.
After dinner, he asked me to quiz him with flash cards of state flowers. Before bed, he entertained me with tales from a planet where a day lasted only an hour, but an hour lasted longer than a year. And years had different lengths. Time sped up and slowed down, depending on your latitude. Some old people were younger than young people. Things that happened long ago were sometimes closer than yesterday. Everything was so confusing that people gave up on keeping time and made do with Now. It was a good world. I’m glad he made that one.
He shocked me by kissing me good night, on the mouth, the way he always insisted on when he was six. Trust me, Dad. I’m a hundred percent good. We can keep the training going by ourselves. You and me.
THAT FIRST TUESDAY IN NOVEMBER, online conspiracy theories, compromised ballots, and bands of armed poll protesters undermined the integrity of the vote in six different battleground states. The country slid into three days of chaos. On Saturday, the President declared the entire election invalid. He ordered a repeat, claiming it would require at least three more months to secure and implement. Half the electorate revolted against the plan. The other half was gung-ho for a retry. Where suspicion was total and facts were settled with the like button, there was no other way forward but to do over.
I wondered how I might explain the crisis to an anthropologist from Promixa Centauri. In this place, with such a species, trapped in such technologies, even a simple head count grew impossible. Only pure bewilderment kept us from civil war.
I FOUND HIM IN THE BACKYARD on a too-warm, late autumn day, drawing into a notebook as if his colored pencil were a scalpel. He jerked when my shadow fell across the grass in front of him, and he rushed the notebook shut. His stealth surprised me. He switched to his math problems worksheets—two-digit multiplication—and slipped the incriminating notebook under his folded legs as if it might disappear back into the grass and soil.
The last thing I wanted was to ransack his private thoughts again. But given the situation, it felt wise to have a look. I waited three days, until Robbie took an afternoon bike ride down to the railroad tracks to look for migrating monarchs on the last milkweeds. Then I combed through his bookcase and his bedroom’s prime hiding spots until I found the book. In between his field notes was a two-page splash of lines and colors. The painting looked like a child’s Kandinsky. It had that rush of modernist excitement shared by a generation of artists about to go up in flames. Underneath, he’d written, in a small, shaky hand: Remember what she feels like! You can remember!!!
ON MONDAY MORNING I had to go into his bedroom to rouse him for breakfast. I’d made his favorite tofu scramble, but when I tried to tickle him awake, he shouted at me. His own volume startled him. Dad! I’m sorry. I’m really tired. I didn’t sleep so good.
“Was it too warm in here?”
He closed his eyes, watching some remnant animation on the inside of his lids. There weren’t any more birds. That’s what happened. In my dream.
He rallied and got up. We had breakfast and enjoyed a reasonable day, although his homework, as always now, took longer than before. We played bocce in the park and he won. Coming home, we saw an eagle take a mourning dove, and though Robbie flinched at the sight of the tearing beak, he still drew it from memory when we got back to the house.