“So can randomness,” I say. “After the fact.”
“That’s retroactive math.”
“History is retroactive math,” I say.
For some reason, we both look at the window, which is right beside my bed. It would be more accurate to say that the bed is right by the window, because I rented the house specifically so I could place my bed beside that window and look out at the starry desert sky. In the equation of my love for this house, the bedroom window is x.
The sound of the party is far away. I’m alone in my room with M, and my sister is outside keeping everyone happy. I take M’s hand and lead her to the bed. “Let’s look at the stars,” I say, and we lie down side by side and look at them. All that math, glittering and shimmering back at us.
“I’m jealous of O’Brien,” M says. “I want to feel the belief he felt.”
“Me, too,” I say.
“Was he really the O’Brien we knew, or someone else?”
“I guess he must be both,” I say.
I know from the pulse in M’s hand that her heart beats seventy-five times in the first minute we lie there, eighty-five in the second minute, and the third minute, the one we’re in now, promises a hundred beats or more. M’s body is accelerating, and mine is doing the same. My heartbeat swishes in my ears like someone wildly mopping my eardrums. I count both our heartbeats and wait for them to coincide. They seem to, for a moment, but mine always gets ahead—a statistical likelihood, given that I’m male. In the stillness, I realize that M is counting, too.
The vaginal sensor is allowable after all. Maybe that was x.
Or maybe the stars were x, in which case you could argue that the window was x for the second time. Madeleine says that for her, seeing me with Alison was x. For me, “Peekaboo” will always be x.
Not that it matters; it’s all just retroactive math. The random walk of a drunk is of geometric interest, but it can’t predict where he’ll stagger next.
* * *
At our wedding, officiated by State Senator Miles Hollander, we release five hundred biodegradable balloons into the sky, where they float among the hot-air balloons already hovering there. My parents and sister cry from happiness, but because weeping is more or less continuous, and because theirs occurs on and off over many happy hours, the tears are impossible to count.
BREAK
The Mystery of Our Mother
1
Long ago, she told us, when we were just a hope in her heart or not even that, because she never wanted children （or thought she didn’t）， a higher power touched our mother’s head and said: Stop what you’re doing! Two little girls are waiting to be born, and you need to have them right away, because the world is desperate for their brightness. So she stopped studying anthropology, which she really did love and maybe would study again someday, when you’re all grown up and don’t need me anymore.
We’ll always need you!
I’ll always need you two, that’s for sure. I’ll try not to drive you crazy with my mommy needs.
Tell the end.
Well, I stopped going to anthropology school and I married your daddy and we brought you into the world. And here you are! It all worked out perfectly.
Where is Daddy?
You’ll see him next week. He’s taking you to ballet.
Last time he never came.
I’ll be here. Just in case.
He can’t make a bun.
That’s not important, honey.
Before ballet…？