When Winnie found Scott, he was standing next to Hawthorn again, talking to a group of professors. Winnie didn’t dare approach. She felt sick. She didn’t trust herself to act normal. Finally, Scott glanced over at her and she must have looked awful, because he immediately excused himself and came over.
“Winnie, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Could we go?” she asked. “I’m sorry.”
He nodded. “I’ll go say goodbye to our host, make some excuse—meet me by the door?”
Winnie was so glad Scott was Scott. He didn’t immediately press her for details.
She went and got the butler to bring their coats. Once they were outside, away from the light and chatter, away from Hawthorn, away, thank god, from Schrödinger, Winnie felt like she could breathe.
She and Scott walked down the street in silence. After about a block, he stopped, looked at her, and began, “Winnie—”
She cut him off with a shake of her head. Winnie knew he wanted her to tell him what was wrong, but she wasn’t ready.
Even so, there was one thing she’d found out from Schrödinger that she could share.
“I learned what Hawthorn is working on,” she said, pleased that she sounded almost normal. “Project Nightingale is trying to build a device that can transport people between alternate realities.”
Scott considered a moment, then nodded. “There’s always been gossip about Hawthorn’s interest in multiverse theory, so that makes sense.”
“You’re not as surprised as I expected. What does it have to do with building a bomb? I don’t see the military application.”
“Don’t you? An interdimensional travel machine would be the ultimate bunker. If the government has one group of scientists working to make an atomic bomb—a weapon with the potential to devastate this planet—wouldn’t they want a second group working on the escape hatch?”
It made sense, but a terrible kind of sense. She didn’t want to believe it.
Winnie frowned. “I doubt any machine Hawthorn makes could transport many people.”
“Most lifeboats don’t,” Scott said. “I doubt Hawthorn cares about any of that, though. He probably just wants to see if it can be done.”
Scott seemed to think this interest of Hawthorn’s was just happenstance, but he didn’t know that there were people who knew alternate realities were fact, not theory. People like her. Were there others?
Was Hawthorn one of them?
Was that why he seemed to study her with extra care when she’d seen that splinter? Was he able to recognize that something was happening behind her eyes, though no one else could?
The prospect made her feel obscenely exposed. Like she’d been cut open, pink organs pulled out for Hawthorn to play with.
If he did know . . . what would he do?
Winnie gave herself a sharp mental slap. She couldn’t give in to panic now. There was still more to tell Scott.
“I also heard a rumor—” Winnie began, then stopped. She swallowed nervously—she didn’t think this would be easy for Scott to hear. “One of your classmates insinuated that James wasn’t just Hawthorn’s assistant, but the subject of his experiments somehow.”
Maybe it was James who saw splinters, she thought suddenly. That could explain why she felt such a kinship with him in the splinter she’d seen.
Scott clenched his teeth and nodded. “He never told me that himself—not outright. But I think it’s true.” He gave her a gentle look. “I know it must be shocking,” he said. “It’s a terrible thing, but not all scientists share the same ethics. Some aren’t above experimenting on humans.”
Winnie felt a wave of shame on Father’s behalf—and some shame herself. After all, she let him.
But why would James allow his professor to experiment on him? How could you do that, unless it was for someone you—
And then Winnie suddenly understood the mocking gesture that student had made.
“Is James homosexual?”
“Does that matter?” Scott asked sharply. He shoved his glasses up his nose and jutted out his chin, as if daring her to voice some disgust. “Do you think that means I shouldn’t be his friend? Or that I shouldn’t try to find him? Or do you think the same thing as everyone else in the department—that with a ‘character flaw’ like that, it makes perfect sense that he would drop out midsemester, tell no one, and just disappear?”
“No! Scott, of course not!”
Winnie’s only experience with homosexuality was as an accusation giggling girls lobbed in the locker room when somebody didn’t keep their eyes down while changing. She knew she was supposed to find it unnatural and repulsive, but she certainly hadn’t chosen the way she felt about Scott, and she assumed there wasn’t much choosing for anyone else either. Why condemn people for something out of their control?
Besides, how hypocritical would Winnie be if she judged someone for being different?
“I’m sorry,” Scott said. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. It’s just—people can be awful. I should have known you wouldn’t be.”
“It’s all right—I understand. And normally I wouldn’t think it was any of my business, but it seems pertinent.”
“Why?”
“Because it makes him vulnerable.”
Winnie thought about Schrödinger. And she thought about her mother.
Was James taken less seriously than the other students, like her mother had been—and forced to compromise himself as a result, like her mother had? Was that why he agreed to be Hawthorn’s subject? Or was there something more still?
“Do you think he and Hawthorn were having an affair?” she asked.
Scott looked surprised for a moment, considered, then shook his head. “No, I really don’t think so. Hawthorn has always treated him almost paternally. Why do you ask?” Scott frowned. “Winnie,” he asked softly, “what happened in there to upset you?”
This conversation had been a welcome distraction from her earlier one with Schrödinger, but now that all came rushing back. Mama had slept with Schrödinger—and he was Winnie’s real father. She had to tell Father that she knew, didn’t she? But how?
“I—” Winnie began, but immediately faltered. “I had a—an upsetting conversation—with Erwin Schrödinger,” she finished limply.
Then she burst into tears.
“That son of a—” Scott shook his head furiously, hands clenched tight into fists. “Winnie, I’m so sorry. He has a terrible reputation. I shouldn’t have left you to fend for yourself. I really didn’t think anyone would bother you there, but I should have known better. Would you believe that once, at Princeton, he—”
“Stop!” Winnie said, arms fluttering up in a half-hearted attempt to block her ears. It was already bad enough. She couldn’t bear to hear an inventory of Schrödinger’s debauchery. What would that say about her mother—or about her?
Scott gently placed his hand on her forearm. Suddenly, she was tired of all that lay unspoken between them, of understandings that might or might not be one-sided. Winnie didn’t want there to be any secrets between her and Scott—any distance between them at all. She resolved to tell him about the splinters too, sometime when there wasn’t so much else they needed to talk about.
For now, Winnie took a deep breath. “Schrödinger told me he’s my father.”
Scott just stared at her. “What? No. He can’t—”
Winnie stopped him with a look.
“It’s true, Scott. I’m certain. It’s awful, and it’s true.”
“Oh, Winnie, I just—I don’t know what to say. I knew Schrödinger was Professor Schulde’s mentor at the University of Zurich, and I knew Professor Schulde hated him, but I could never have guessed the reason.”
“It wasn’t an affair,” she said quickly, through her tears. “It was before Mama and Father were married, I mean.”
She didn’t want Scott to think her mother was like that, that she would cheat on her husband—but maybe that was what her mother was like. What did Winnie know? Before tonight, if someone had asked her to describe her mother, Winnie might have said she was smart, and certainly that she was pretty, but all she really had were a child’s impressions of Mama as warmth and safety and all that was good and right. Her memories of that time were there but blurred, like a watercolor. Flat. Mama wasn’t really a whole person to her after all these years, but an idea—an idea that was now in flux. She didn’t really know her mother. And since Mama was dead, she never could.
Winnie sniffled indelicately and wiped her nose on her wrist because there was nowhere else to wipe it. She was surprised to find she wasn’t mortified after breaking down in front of Scott like she thought she’d be. In fact, she felt a bit lighter.
“I’m sorry I made you leave early,” she said.
“My god, don’t give it another thought! And you managed to confirm what Nightingale is all about—that’s huge.”
She wished that were all she’d found out.
“But, Winnie,” Scott continued, “right now I’m more concerned about you. Are you okay? That’s just—it’s such a shock. I can’t even imagine.”
She paused a moment, then nodded, even though she didn’t feel remotely okay. At least she wasn’t in danger—real, physical danger—like James seemed to be.
She didn’t know anything about Hawthorn’s experiments, but how awful it must be for him! Winnie, at least, had the consolation of knowing that Father would never allow her to be seriously hurt by their experiments. She wasn’t just a subject to him. She was his—
That was how he thought of her, wasn’t it—as a daughter, even though they didn’t share blood? Winnie suddenly wondered if she would still have a home if she said no the next time Father demanded she join him for an experiment.
Was there any cage more effective than family? No lock needed. No chains either. It was a cage she carried inside her and feared she always would. She couldn’t ever say no to Father now.
“Can we just go home?”
She had never been more tired.
“Of course,” Scott said. “Are you going to tell your father what you found out?”
Winnie nodded.
“But not tonight.”
The house was dark when Winnie returned home. Brunhilde would have left the foyer light on for her. Father must have forgotten she was out and turned it off.
She made her way up the center staircase. A sliver of light under the library door was the only sign of life. Father was still awake, of course. Wrapped up in his work, she supposed.
Winnie heard a creak of movement behind his shut door and froze—like an intruder. The door opened and Father emerged.
“Oh,” he said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “You startled me. I didn’t realize you were still out.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Was it good?”
“Pardon me?”
“The film.”
“Oh. Yes. Quite. A musical.”
“Ah, that’s nice.”
He paused a moment, and the two stood there in the shadowy hall, looking at each other.
When he looked at her, what did he see?
In the laboratory, they had their fixed roles. There was comfort in that. Outside the lab? They each seemed on the precipice of calling out “Line!” to the prompter offstage. Tell me, please, what I’m supposed to say to this person? This person I share everything with—and nothing.
“I think I’m going to make myself a snack,” Father said, smiling uncertainly. “Have you eaten? Would you like anything?”
“No,” Winnie said. “Thank you.”
It broke her heart, how careful his kindness was.
She’d seen family be casual with each other. The families of other students at school events. Families in movies. Father never felt more like a stranger than when he was kind. So solicitous, like a gentleman at a bus stop. No, no—after you.
He did try to be good to her. But all the effort of it showed.
And Winnie understood now how awful a work it must have been, being a father to her.
Imagine, loving a girl so much you jump at the chance to save her from unwed motherhood.
Imagine, she dies.
Imagine, being left to raise that child alone.
But he had never told Winnie the truth of her parentage, not even in some moment of drunken frustration. At first that had seemed like a betrayal—him keeping the truth secret from her.
Was it actually a kindness?
When Winnie was a little girl, Mama usually tucked her in, but sometimes he would come in too. Tousle her hair. Present his stubbled cheek for a kiss.
How right the world had seemed in those moments. The three of them, together.
Looking back now on that little girl—it was like looking at a stranger.