An Elegant Theory Read online

  “I’m just saying—”

  “It could be a millionth of one percent you said, but nothing is impossible.”

  “You’re missing the point, Sara. Just because it’s possible doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.”

  “Okay fine,” she’d say. “Then stop telling me shit like that. You’re freaking me out.”

  Despite my best efforts, I knew my reassurances sounded hollow and suspect. Inside, I too felt my chest cavity swelling under the pressure, fearing I would, at best, be an inadequate father and, at worst, an absentee parent like my mother had been. Doctor visits amplified this fear, a grim reminder that the inevitable was imminent, endless poopy diapers and sleepless nights and the constant need for attention, that little child forever reaching, clawing, grabbing at you, and this trip was no different. Despite our cramped quarters—I touched shoulders with a lady who smelled of ginger and who smacked her gum—we each endeavored to maintain our personal space. We avoided eye contact. We perused gossip and pregnancy magazines that had been released years ago. We cleaned our fingernails with a ballpoint pen. I had taken a sociology course as an undergrad. In it we were taught that humans were social creatures, longing for interaction and community. I didn’t find it to be a very scientific field of study. This belief, for instance, seemed to stem from our wish to be social, or perhaps our tendency to believe that everyone likes us. Upon objective observation anyone could see that this was false—we endeavored to isolate ourselves any chance we could, lest someone realize just how petrified we actually were.

  “Am I as big as her?” Sara asked as another patient entered the waiting area. She waddled as she approached the receptionist desk, her face strained in obvious discomfort.

  “No,” I said. “Not even close.”

  “You sure?” she asked, glancing down at herself, then back up to the new arrival.

  “Positive. You really haven’t gained that much weight. You probably could gain a little more, actually.”

  “I just don’t feel sexy,” she said. “I mean, I know I’m pregnant. But my stretch marks—they look like Freddy Kreuger gutted me with those knife fingers. They’ll never go away, you know.”

  “You’ve been rubbing that cocoa butter on it, right? You’ve been stretching and eating healthy and hydrating. They should be fine.”

  “You never have understood a woman’s body. You think foreplay is like microwaving a bag of popcorn—you press one button, then wait four minutes before it’s your turn.”

  “I think you might be overreacting.”

  “I think you might just be an asshole.” She pulled out a tissue, blew her nose, then returned it to her purse. “Sorry,” she said. “You know I don’t mean it, right? It’s just these fucking hormones.”

  I didn’t answer. Sara didn’t want an answer, only an audience.

  “Oh God, I’m going to look like my mother,” she said, coiling her hands around her face. “Are you still going to want to have sex with me after this?”

  Sara was a beautiful girl—red hair the color of autumnal leaves and a complexion like powdered milk. When I touched her skin, it turned pink, like she was a fragile bird, yet her personality gave her an intimidating presence. I found this contrast startling and irresistible. Pregnant, she still seemed beautiful to me. Although I didn’t see the radiance others claimed—she appeared tired, her eyes yellowed as if she suffered from a vitamin D deficiency—this didn’t make her unsexy to me. Instead, it made her seem noble and courageous in a way, sacrificing herself for us, our family. Oddly, this sense of martyrdom turned me on, making me want to make love to her anywhere, anytime, in this very waiting room actually.

  “Can we talk about this later?” I said instead.

  “I’m just saying I’m fat, that’s all. Jesus.”

  The nurse called Sara’s name and led us to an examination room. Examination rooms always irked me. On the counter stood macabre replications of the skeletal and digestive systems. Soap and hand sanitizer were abundant, near the door, hanging above the sink, near the biohazard waste bin, as if advertising the place was a repository of disease. The paper adorning the examination table proved that they did not want you, the sick and infectious, to make contact with any of their belongings. I felt like something to be studied and poked and prodded and measured, and when I left, I always suffered an unshakeable feeling of shame.

  This one, however, was more comforting than most, with pictures of babies smiling back at us, happy families cuddled up in crocheted blankets and animal hats. All of them had cute little dimples and shiny gums, caught in the act of cooing or yawning, reaching out their tiny fingers toward the camera. Though most would fawn over such pictures, exclaiming how adorable they were, to me they seemed more like propaganda—they were hiding all the rest that came with parenthood: the worry, the crying, the frustration, that agonizing tug that everything might not be okay.

  The nurse led Sara to the scale to measure her height, her weight, and then her belly. After scribbling the results down on her clipboard, the nurse strapped on a sphygmomanometer to measure Sara’s blood pressure and pumped the little bulb, her face scrunched into a pucker as she did so. I tried to discern information as she read the measuring unit, but she didn’t divulge any, remaining stone-faced like a poker player. She wrote down the results on her chart, grabbed a thermometer, and stuck it in Sara’s ear. It beeped; she again wrote down the results and said, “The doctor will be with you shortly.”

  After she left, Sara said, “A friendly one, isn’t she?”

  “She’s probably had a long day.”

  “Hasn’t everyone?”

  “Well, yes. Sure. I’m just saying you shouldn’t be so hard on her.”

  “Oh, so I’m the bad guy?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.” I kissed the top of her head. “She might not always be like this.”

  Sara sighed. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I need to be more understanding. Empathetic. Whatever.” She picked at her sweatpants, pulling off little balls of lint. All of our clothes were covered in them, remnants left behind by the communal dryers in our apartment building. “I just think I should get a pass sometimes, since I have a bowling ball growing inside of me and all.”

  I walked over to the baby pictures to take a closer look. Some of them were adorable—there was no denying that—but some were pretty ugly. Their heads seemed misshapen, squished together, insulated with excess fat. Ears seemed perched too high atop their heads or an eye looked to be lazy. I wondered if it would be different if they were my children. Would I be blind to their idiosyncrasies and their unattractive qualities? Would I ignore them? Would I delude myself that my child is absolutely perfect?

  I had no idea.

  “Do you want to take pictures like this?” I asked, pointing at the wall.

  “Yeah,” Sara said. “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. It just seems a bit pompous, don’t you think? Hey, look at me. Look at my kid. Look how awesome we are.”

  “It’s not like that at all. There’s nothing wrong with being proud of your family.”

  “It just seems like we’re showing off. I mean—having a baby is a pretty common thing.”

  “You’re missing the point.”

  “Maybe we could just send them to family. Not people we hardly know.”

  “I’m hungry,” Sara said. “Would you want to go to Steak N Shake after this?”

  Dr. Remington knocked and entered. A kind lady, she appeared overworked and weary. Purple bags held up her eyes like dams. “How’re things?” she asked. Her complexion had yellowed to the color of an infected sore. Her hair had thinned and grayed, probably the product of too much stress. All in all, she looked sickly, not a good sign for a doctor. “Good, I hope?”

  “About as well as they could be,” Sara said. “We haven’t lost our minds yet.”

  Dr. Remington forced a chuckle and snapped on some latex gloves. They were covered in a white, chalky powder, which left remnants behind on wh
atever she touched. She smiled reassuringly, prepared her stethoscope, and listened to Sara’s heartbeat. “I’m worried about your blood pressure,” she said. “It’s awfully high.”

  “Considering the circumstances,” Sara said.

  “No excuse,” Dr. Remington said. “Stress is bad for the baby. Have you noticed irregular urinations?”

  “Irregular?”

  “Darker. Discolored.”

  “Not that I’m aware of. I don’t normally study the toilet after I go, though.”

  “Any pain?”

  “While peeing?”

  “While urinating, yes.”

  “No.”

  The doctor grabbed an otoscope and examined Sara’s ears. Sara rubbed her hands together like she suffered from terrible arthritis.

  “Pain in your kidneys?” Dr. Remington asked.

  “I didn’t even know I could feel my kidneys.”

  “This isn’t a joke, Sara.”

  “I’m not joking. I’ve never noticed my kidneys before.”

  “Lower back pain then.”

  “I’m pregnant. What do you think?”

  “Have you had a hard time keeping down food or loss of appetite?”

  “Option one yes. Option two absolutely not. I’d eat the ass end out of a rhino if I could get my hands on one.”

  “I get the feeling you aren’t taking this seriously.”

  “Just tell us what is wrong!” I yelled.

  Both the doctor and Sara blinked at me as if they needed to get a better view. I couldn’t help it, though. This line of questioning felt like an interrogation, like we were guilty of something.

  “Nothing is wrong,” Dr. Remington said. “Your baby is perfectly healthy. If Sara’s high blood pressure continues, though, she could simply suffer damage to her kidneys and the baby could be born prematurely.”

  “Simply?”

  “It’s just a possibility.”

  Sara placed her hand atop mine and patted to reassure me. “That’s it?”

  “Well,” Dr. Remington said. “There’s a remote possibility that you could develop preeclampsia.”

  “And what does that mean?” I asked.

  “It could lead to seizures. Stillbirth. The mother’s death.”

  “The mother’s death?” Sara asked.

  “Your death.” The doctor readied the ultrasound machine and then plopped neon blue gel onto Sara’s plump stomach. “But like I said, it’s a very remote possibility. Odds are you’re going to be fine. Just fine.”

  A picture appeared on the monitor. It was one of those three-dimensional images where Sara and I could make out the baby’s features. This was the first time we’d seen our baby in such high definition. I could make out the little nose and ears and fingers and its clamped eyes.

  “You still want the sex to be a surprise?” Dr. Remington asked.

  Neither Sara nor I answered. We both stared at our child as if in disbelief. This tiny little thing would forever be in our care. There was no escaping that fact. It would come. It was inevitable. The sun will rise tomorrow, I will be hungry, taxes will be due, rent has to be paid, I will grow old, I will fall ill, I will die, and it will be born, and I couldn’t help but think this is wrong, so wrong, all of it, her and me and the baby, every last bit of it.

  Coulter always thought a psychiatrist’s office would be much larger. He’d pictured chaise lounges and plush leather and burnished gold buttons embedded into chair backs, countless volumes of psychiatry journals, textbooks, and degrees adorning the walls so as to impress him. They wouldn’t. He’d attended those same universities, had earned the same degrees, the same accolades and awards and accomplishments, even had been the star pupil in the MIT physics department, thank you very much.

  To his surprise, though, the office was quaint. There were pictures of the doctor’s family, three children, two boys and one girl, all redheaded and freckled. Plain cotton curtains let in the morning sun. Everything was in its place. A briefcase fit into a slot between the desk and a bookshelf. A filing cabinet hid in the corner, a potted plant resting atop it like an aged cat. Coulter sat in one wing-backed chair, Dr. Hamlin in the other, an old, worn rug between them. Not an antique Persian but rather something you would find on sale at Wal-Mart, tucked away in the bargain bin.

  “Why do you think your son acts in this way?” Dr. Hamlin asked.

  He did look genuinely concerned; Coulter had to give him that. He was an academic type, studious and sincere. He wore a leather-elbowed coat and thick glasses. He smelled of soil and sandalwood and rubbed his facial hair with a thoughtful air. He used words like “id” and “ego” and “transference.” He made allusions to Homer and Freud and Nietzsche and only drank diet Pepsi. He made sucking sounds when he was in deep thought, and he squinted his right eye before speaking. Perhaps Coulter could trust this one. He’d known and dealt with his type before.

  “Who knows?” Coulter sighed. “I’d never—nor Sara for that matter—neither one of us has ever done anything like this. And it’s like he can’t help himself. We’ve spoken to him extensively, of course, counseled him—I mean, we are his parents for Christ’s sake—but he just won’t listen.”

  “There’s been a lot of study out there, unconfirmed I admit, but there are indications that arson could be a fascination instinctive in nature, a genetic predisposition, passed down from when we evolved from Cro Magnon. A priori and such.”

  Dr. Hamlin had the smallest hands Coulter had ever seen. They unnerved him, like he may be dealing with a child masquerading as an adult.

  “Then why aren’t his mother and I like this?”

  He shrugged. “Perhaps it skips generations.”

  “Or his grandparents, or my grandparents?”

  “Perhaps it lays dormant for several generations.”

  “That’s your professional opinion, then? Neanderthals made my son like this?”

  “Cro Magnon, not Neanderthal. All I’m saying is that this is not your fault.”

  “Then whose is it?”

  “Why does it have to be anyone’s fault?”

  “I’m a physicist, Doctor. I deal with cause and effect.”

  “Then you should know that some things aren’t that black and white.”

  Every single psychiatrist (six already) had been quick to assert that Isaac’s problem was not Coulter’s fault. Nor Sara’s. Not even Isaac’s for that matter. This pissed Coulter off (whose damn fault was it, then?), and, up until this point, was a good indicator that Coulter would find another psychiatrist online tomorrow, or by a recommendation from a colleague, or hell, he might as well give up and try an alternative route, religion, or acupuncture, hypnosis even, anything to keep Isaac from burning down another house or business. Anything to keep him from going to jail.

  Thank God he was only fourteen, not old enough to be tried as an adult.

  At first Isaac’s problem had arisen from a natural, and healthy, Coulter thought, fascination. Isaac would light matches, watching the flames until they burned down to his fingertips. He would conduct controlled burns in the backyard, raking the fall leaves into a large pile and setting them on fire. He would fill balloons with hydrogen gas and then burst it with the stroke of a lighter, the balloon erupting into a ball of flame. Even his bedroom reeked of sulfur; one time the stench had been so bad that one of Coulter’s elderly colleagues was afraid that he was suffering a stroke. His behavior alarmed Sara, but Coulter thought that he was just being a dutiful, curious, and an inquisitive child. He’d daydreamed of Isaac having a career in science like himself, experimenting in combustion engines, producing the next rocket that would open up exploration to Mars and beyond. He’d even gone so far as to start a matchbook collection and bought Isaac toy rockets so they could fire them off in their backyard together, Isaac smiling as he lit the fuse and raced back to stand next to his father, the man’s arm wrapped around the boy’s slim shoulders.

  But then two weeks ago, Coulter, Sara, and Isaac had gone to their
favorite restaurant, an Irish gastropub with authentic corned beef and cabbage and fiddlers. Coulter had been on his fourth or fifth Guinness, and had, for the third or fourth time, made his way back to the restroom and was relieving himself when he’d heard someone strike a cigarette lighter in the stall next to him. He’d totally forgotten that Isaac had left the booth a few minutes before him, had been so engrossed in the music and food and drink that he hadn’t remembered that his son had gone to the restroom, that his son had a fascination with fire, and all Coulter could think about was that a stranger was about to enjoy a surreptitious smoke, and he contemplated asking him if he might have a puff or two. He’d quit years before, but those several pints had reawakened that familiar, and welcome, tugging on his lung tissue. That’s when he smelled the smoke. And it was not from a cigarette.

  “Okay, sure, sometimes the cause isn’t so easy to find, I admit,” Coulter said. “But there is always a cause whether we can see it or not. Even if it’s only theoretical, there is a cause.”

  “It sounds like you have a theory. Is that why you’re here, Dr. Zahn? Do you want me to validate your theory?”

  “I don’t want validation, you asshole. I want to help my son.”

  Coulter saw the reflection of flames on the floor and ceiling. He’d drunk a lot of Guinness and was still pissing, the stream jetting out clear and diluted. There was a moment of sheer panic, that he was going to die with his dick flapping around, dribbling pee down the front of his chinos, that he nearly vomited on himself, too. To catch the puke, he covered his mouth with his hands, causing his pants to fall around his ankles, and Coulter turned to run, to escape the fire, but stumbled backward, still peeing this entire time, and landed hard on his back, pee shooting out like a fountain until his legs were soaked and Isaac fell backwards out of the stall, his arm on fire. Lying on his back, covered in his own urine, and his son on fire, Coulter couldn’t help but be surprised at his reaction. Instead of concern, or fear, or even shame, he felt an uncontrollable and unwavering rage.

  If the fire didn’t kill Isaac, Coulter would.