My mom slaps shut her book. It’s a vintage edition, made of sturdy materials, so the cover gives a crisp bark.
“I don’t understand,” she says.
Everyone in the room except Penny knows that specific tenor to my mom’s intonation means she understands with absolute clarity. And Penny catches on pretty fast.
“What do you want?” my mom says. “To go back, is that it? To a world where you’re a mess, where Penny doesn’t love you, where Greta doesn’t exist, where your father is ruined, where I’m dead? That’s what you’d prefer?”
“Who here thinks she wouldn’t even be all that worked up about the other reality if she was alive in it and not some self-annihilating retro housewife?” Greta says.
“There is no reality in which I resemble the sad concoction your brother has cooked up in his febrile imagination,” my mom says. “I don’t know what I did to inspire such an offensive caricature of essentially everything I consider worthwhile about myself as a woman, a mother, a feminist, an academic, a . . . well, everything. But clearly I have failed as a maternal role model if that’s how you think of me.”
“Rebecca, my love,” my dad says, “are you sure you’re not just mad because I’m the more successful one over there?”
“Over where?” my mom says. “In his delusion, Victor? Because it sounds to me like you’re a smothering, detached prick over there.”
“So you were listening,” he says.
“Intermittently, yes,” she says.
“At least you exist, dude,” Greta says.
“I understand,” Penny says, “that maybe it all seems like hostile character assassination to you, but how does that explain me? I mean, we’d never met before. Why would he construct this elaborate backstory for someone he’s never met?”
“You don’t know that for sure,” Greta says. “Maybe he browsed in your bookstore and developed some loony obsession with you that he embroidered into a fully fledged persona. It’s pretty convenient that every single detail about you is different because you’re literally a whole other person in this other reality, except you have the same name. Maybe he’s not just crazy. Maybe he’s also a terrible judge of character.”
“So, after everything you’ve heard tonight, you don’t believe him,” Penny says.
“I’m in favor of whatever reality I get to exist in, okay?” Greta says. “I’m pro–me existing and anti–me not existing.”
“Look,” I say, “assuming for a moment that I’m clinically . . . let’s call it nuts. I’ve lost it. The other reality is a projection of my damaged brain and those versions of Mom and Dad reflect my subconscious way to punish them or whatever. You too, Greta. I deleted you from existence because, I don’t know, I’m still mad about the time Dad let us watch The Blob and you melted all my G.I. Joes into a single monstrous creature.”
“Oh my god,” Greta says, “you never even played with those dolls anymore.”
“Not dolls,” I say. “Action figures. And that doesn’t mean I wanted you to melt them into a twisted mass that would haunt my childhood dreams.”
“I thought you didn’t remember John’s memories,” my mom says.
“No, I do,” I say. “They’re, like, simultaneous with my actual . . . with my other memories. That’s part of the problem. There are so many memories stuffed in my brain, it feels like it’s going to hemorrhage.”
“What were you saying, though?” my dad says. “About assuming for a moment?”
“Right,” I say. “Assuming I am crazy and this is a delusion, fine, but why would it involve all these people? The Sixteen Witnesses. Ursula and Jerome Francoeur. Lionel Goettreider. How could I possibly know about them?”
My dad gets up and leaves the room. I figure he’s going to the bathroom, since he hasn’t left the dining room table in about five hours.
“Jerome Francoeur was a big deal, sort of,” Greta says. “Science adviser to three American presidents. On tons of boards of directors and science-prize juries. He was the president of Stanford University. Ursula Francoeur was one of the first tenured female physics professors in North America and the first to head the Physics Department at Stanford. She published extensively, more obscure science journal stuff, but a few general public books too. I mean, in the seventies, but still . . .”
“But still what?” I say. “How would I know who they even are?”
My dad comes back in, impassive, and lays a book on the table in front of me. It’s called The Atomic Puzzle—by Ursula Francoeur, published in 1973. On the back of the weathered green fabric cover is a black-and-white photo of Ursula and Jerome and a little girl, Emma Francoeur, with their 1970s hair and 1970s clothes and 1970s smiles.
“I’ve had this book in my office since before you were born,” he says.
“I’ve never seen that book,” I say. “I don’t remember it.”
“Sweetheart,” my mom says, “you don’t know what you remember.”
Penny looks off-balance, strained. She shakes her head, but I don’t know what she’s saying no to.
“I get it,” I say. “I do. But if I’m crazy, I want to know for sure. Because this doesn’t feel like crazy.”
“We’ll get you whatever help you need,” my mom says. “Maybe it’s psychological, maybe it’s neurological or hormonal or even viral. The brain is a complex thing. The point is you need to accept help.”
“I will,” I say. “Accept help. After we find Lionel Goettreider.”
“The man who doesn’t exist,” Greta says.
“He does exist,” I say. “He might be dead, but he definitely lived.”
“It’s just a bit . . . convenient,” Greta says.
“Stop saying things are convenient,” I say. “How is any of this convenient?”
“I’m not the one hinging my entire lunatic worldview on this one mysteriously nonexistent guy,” Greta says. “Everyone else you mentioned, sure, it’s weird you know the names of all these random old scientists, but I found them online, so you could have too. But this Goettreider guy. Supposedly the world’s smartest man. The genius who changed everything. And yet there’s no trace of him. Nothing.”
“There must be something,” I say. “We can go back to where he was born. In Denmark. Find his birth certificate. He lived in San Francisco. There must be records. He had to have a passport, a driver’s license. The accident happened. Even if it was swept under the rug, there must be some evidence, somewhere. The experiment was funded with a federal grant. The US government must have, I don’t know, a receipt.”
“I’m fairly well-read about this stuff,” my dad says. “I’ve heard of Ursula Francoeur. And some of these others, the sixteen, I recognize their names. But not Lionel Goettreider. I’ve never heard of him.”
“Why don’t we get you help first?” my mom says. “Then, if you still want to, we can look for this Goettreider person.”
“If Lionel Goettreider was forty-two in 1965,” Penny says, “then he’s ninety-three years old now. There’s a slim chance he’s even alive. But, if he is, who knows how much longer he’ll be around.”
“Fine,” Greta says, “you want to go looking for someone who doesn’t exist, go ahead. But speaking on behalf of people who do exist, I think you’re wasting your time.”
“Where would you even start?” my dad says.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Penny says.
Penny flips over the book on the table to show everyone the photo of the Francoeur family. She points at Jerome Francoeur. Smiling, one arm tight around Ursula’s shoulders, protective, maybe a bit too protective. His other arm hangs at his side. The sleeve is neatly clipped just below what should be the elbow. The rest of the arm is gone. Amputated.
“Jerome Francoeur is still alive,” Penny says. “Or at least he was when Ursula died two years ago. Whatever happened back in 1965, if there’s one man in the world who should remember Lionel Goettreider, it’s Jerome Francoeur.”
I guess I’m going to San Francisco.
90