If, like a god, we could see every photon’s arc and each neutrino’s wobble, we would see past and future laid out in a single mathematical design: infinite, determined, perfect.
We will never achieve such knowledge. We only ever see the pattern dimly and in flashes. Yet we can practice and cultivate understanding the intimate necessary connection of all things to each other. Light comes to us from millions of miles away, through the emptiness of space, and we can see it. Its heat warms our skin. Pleasure arises in feeling ourselves attuned and connected to such sublime power. The only practical question remaining is whether we, existing as we are, will be that light.
— Roy Scrantonxviii
1
FEELING REFRESHED from his nap in the copse of trees overlooking the valley, Stefan strolled northward along the river toward our village. Ever louder, claps of late afternoon thunder signaled the storm was nigh. Rain would be welcome. He quickened his pace. Instead of compiling a mental list of chores before nightfall, his mind drifted back to Kate Nickleby: the sweetness and sting of their friendship, the gift of her life, her prophesy. He had long ago memorized her final message to him, an email he had recited hundreds of times.
Did she understand she was about to die? How could unrequited love possibly redeem the life taken from her and the one I’ve been granted, in which there have been two loves. You, Kate, yes, of course. And Katherine. Grant me Katherine, I beg of you. To lie down in that grass.
And then, as he neared the village, he recalled the way Kate had concluded her book: that hope, however faint its prospect, could not be stifled. Oh. That she might meet him in Rumi’s field! Or here, these many decades later, in this emerald valley, where we cautiously embrace that future genius.