More gently, Theo says, “If he calls you, or shows up—listen, I know you feel like Paul’s innocent, but will you please exercise some basic caution until I get there? A healthy skepticism?”
“What exactly is it you think Paul’s going to do now? If he were going to hurt me, he’s already had his chance.”
“He already hurt us all.” The way Theo says it awakens all my grief for my father, which is somehow stronger for being shared. I reach out to touch my tablet, and he touches his, too; our fingertips seem to meet through the screen. “I’m only looking out for you. Trying to take care of you. Why can’t you see that? I wish I could make you see that, just once.”
“Theo—”
He doesn’t let me finish. “All right, Meg. See you soon.”
His image goes to black, and for a while I remain there, fingertips on the screen, wondering if I’ve broken Theo’s heart.
I go through this Marguerite’s day, which fortunately is pleasant enough. Here, I attend school—but instead of one of the enormous, dull, cliquish schools I see on TV, it’s a group of about fifty kids from my age all the way down to preschool, and everything’s pretty low-key and free-form. The “big test” turns out to be French; lucky thing I just spent nearly three weeks in Russia studying Molière. As I breezily write out a paragraph on Tartuffe, I think, I’m borrowing this Marguerite’s body, but at least this time I’m paying her back for the favor.
I think about Paul. My need to know how he is, what he’s doing, why he’s here—it burns inside me, as constant as a torch. Whenever I get a moment, I check my account to see if he’s called back. But communications cloud out before lunchtime. My only responses are black screens and static.
Dinner is some chicken thing that comes wrapped in an airtight pouch, and vegetables that emerge from deep freeze with a bad case of soggy. Out here, probably, nothing is fresh except seafood; that would be fine with me, but I’m guessing the rest of my family, after a few years on the Salacia, is sick and tired of it.
But I don’t care about the crappy meal. We’re all together, me and Josie, Mom and Dad. I took that for granted in my own dimension until it was ripped away. So I’m not making that mistake again. From now on, I’m very aware that every moment I’m with my dad might be the last.
“We only got half the data packet out before the comms went down,” Mom says to Dad as she pours herself some tea. “And the forecasts are only getting worse.”
“Swaying like a hammock already,” Dad says cheerfully.
“That’s why you’re the boss here.” Josie shakes her head. “Only you are weird enough to love storms at sea.”
He smiles with genuine pride. “As to the count of weirdness, I plead guilty.”
Now that he mentions it, the floor is swaying slightly; I realize the Salacia must have been built with a certain amount of give, so that it can work with the tides and currents instead of constantly being battered by them. Normally I’d be wretched with motion sickness, but this Marguerite must have gotten her sea legs years ago.
“You’re awfully quiet tonight,” Mom says to me. “Are you sure you’re all right? You’ve been a little off all day.” The back of her hand finds my forehead, checking for fever as if I were still five years old.
“Just thinking. That’s all.” I miss my real Mom, back home. A lump rises in my throat, but I manage to keep it together. I don’t want to spoil the evening.
After we eat, Josie asks me if I want to watch the surfing competition with her. I find it hard to believe I care about surfing a whole lot more in this dimension than I do at home—which is to say, at all—but any distraction seems like a good idea. So I sit beside her on the sofa while Dad starts on the dishes, but when he starts to hum, I once again have to struggle against the urge to cry.
Josie squints at me. “Mom’s right. You’re weirder than usual today.”
“Ha ha.” I brush my hair back and try to act casual. And then I remember the T-shirt Theo wore: The Gears.
My mind is working fast, comparing the knowledge of different dimensions.
The Beatles never existed here. The Gears were a band featuring Paul McCartney and George Harrison—not John Lennon. But John Lennon is the one who wrote “In My Life” for the Beatles. I’m sure of it. That song doesn’t exist in this dimension.
So how is Dad humming it?