Once Again Read online

  Once Again

  A Novel

  CATHERINE WALLACE HOPE

  For Peter, Tim, Neill, and George

  Acknowledgments

  My gratitude runs deep and wide. I’d like to start by expressing special admiration for Carlo Rovelli, from whose beautiful book The Order of Time I gleaned as much as I could about loop quantum gravity.

  To the amazing Sandra Bond for her long hours of hard work, for her advice, her patience, and her persistence. To the fine people at Crooked Lane/Alcove who made it possible for this story to see the light of day—Ashley Di Dio, Jenny Chen, Madeline Rathle, Melissa Rechter, and Matt Martz—and to Jill Pellarin for such precision and expertise, and to Chelsey Emmelhainz for her keen editorial eye and sound counsel.

  To the members of Salon Denver and to Kimberly McClintock and Phyllis Barber, thanks for listening to the earliest drafts. To my friends and colleagues at Lighthouse Writers Workshop, I’m immensely grateful for everything you’ve taught me, all you’ve shared, for your love and camaraderie, with special thanks to William Haywood Henderson, Mike Henry, and Andrea Dupree. To the writers who take my workshops, thank you for your trust and for bringing your creativity to the world. To Tiffany Quay Tyson and Emily Sinclair for the days of SBD and to Shannon Skaife, Shari Caudron, Jay Kenney, and Greg Jalbert of The Supper Club. I’d also like to recognize Joy Roulier Sawyer for her kindness of spirit and Erika Krouse for not doing the fainting lesson in my honor. I also thank Karen Palmer, Alexandre Philippe, Amanda Rea, and Jenny Itell.

  I send out into the deepest echoes of time my gratitude for having known Chris Ransick, for poetry and for song, for bourbon and wabi sabi, and for Grand Lake.

  To my family, I thank you for your boundless love, for giving me endless courage, and for enduring my writing schedule. To Peter, for your help in the beginning; to Tim, for your inspiration; to Neill, for your encouragement; and to George, for your advice at the ending and for all and everything.

  Demeter, the harvest goddess, and Zeus, the sky god, had a daughter, Persephone—a girl as delicate as the flowers she loved to pick. One day, tempted by wondrous narcissus blooms, she wandered away on her own. Suddenly, the earth opened beneath her, and Hades, the king of the underworld, lunged upward out of the ground in his chariot driven by four immortal black horses. He seized her against her will and dragged her down into the abyss and made her his queen.

  Demeter knew nothing of what had happened. Her grief at the loss of her child was so deep that she allowed no crops to grow, and the world starved. She neither ate nor drank, but traveled over land and sea, searching for the truth. When at last she learned of the abduction, she approached the gates of hell and demanded her daughter’s return. But before he conceded, Hades sat on a funeral couch with his three-headed hellhound at his feet. He drew his bride close and tricked her into eating a few seeds of pomegranate to make their bond indissoluble so he could keep her, at least for a portion of each year, in his dark realm. And so it was that she could never escape the land of the dead during the season of winter’s bitter sleep.

  —Drawn from the Homeric Hymns, anonymous

  PART I

  The Ring

  Chapter One

  9:20 AM

  Sunday, June 20, 2021 | The 500th day | 371 Nysa Vale Road, Boulder, Colorado

  Erin Fullarton sat at the island in her kitchen, alone. Wearing the T-shirt and sweatpants from the day before, or maybe the day before that, she shivered slightly, even though the room felt warm. She cradled a cup in her hands, but the remnants of her coffee were cold. Once there was a ghost, she thought. This was the game she and her daughter used to play, telling each other little stories they made up together, five words a turn.

  Erin closed her eyes and let herself see Korrie’s face, those round, lucent gray eyes, the way she used to gaze to the side as she searched for words. In the beginning, when Korrie was three and just beginning to figure out the game, she ended every story with her main character—a fairy, a hamster, a fish—successfully going potty, which she found hilarious. She had that little-girl laugh that tumbled across the room as loud as a chord on a harmonica. By the time she was six, shortly before her death, the stories had become more sophisticated, with missions to rescue captured sisters and find lost undersea homelands.

  Now, Erin took Korrie’s turn and filled in the words for her “… who lived in the woods.” Erin put her cup down on the white countertop of the island. “Stop it,” she muttered. “Stop turning it into a story for her.” But she couldn’t make herself stop. It had been nearly a year and a half since Korrie died—five hundred days—and still, all Erin could do was think of her. She couldn’t start new things. She couldn’t make lists. She couldn’t reach out to other people. She couldn’t find her way back to the normal world. Because, she thought, this is what becomes of the mother of a murdered child.

  She would never have guessed there would come a time in her marriage when she could no longer talk to Zac about Korrie. But it was true; she just couldn’t. And she couldn’t stand by and witness his struggle. He still tried so hard to be a good father to Korrie, even now. He posted remembrances. He donated picture books to the library in her name. He tended her grave.

  It was too painful for Erin to be around him all the time. Despite everything, he seemed to be still alive inside. Stricken, but living. Able to work, able to function in a basic, practical sense. She couldn’t bear to see him day in and day out, wearing his sorrow like a wool sweater, forcing himself to carry on with the meaningless trivialities of day-to-day life, trying to be the husband she needed. She didn’t welcome his attempts to console her, and she wouldn’t listen to anything he had to say. So he’d agreed to live away from her for a while. For the last few months, he’d been staying at his brother’s house. Dan and his fiancée, Maggie, lived nearby in Nederland, and they, too, were hovering in a holding pattern. Because how could anyone continue with their plans now?

  But Erin would try her hardest to make a plan for this day. The therapist who ran her Grief Group suggested a time line on which she could mark her progress. “Make it round numbers if you want,” Dr. Tanner had said. “As neutral as simple addition, so there’s no emotional charge. Just days adding up to a milestone.”

  Five hundred. My God.

  “Imagine them adding up to a turning point in the future,” he’d said. But how? That was the question. How could there be a turning point when all the days that gathered on the floor at her feet were so much like the ones before?

  She took her phone from the pocket of her sweatpants and checked to see if it was still too early or if it was time to call Zac yet. 9:20. June 20, 2021. A symbol for clear skies, and a current temperature of seventy-eight degrees. She decided to wait until 9:30 to call, stick to the schedule. Zac had been checking on her several times a day, until she’d asked him to stop. It had made her feel like his patient, so they’d agreed on a schedule. In the mornings, she called him at the designated time, and they said their designated things, and that was it for the day. This was the last pattern left in her life: coffee, call Zac, creep through the hours until the dark comes back, sleep until the dark splits open and the light crashes in.

  To fill the sliver of time, she got up, took her pen and notebook from the counter, and sat again at the island. As she flipped open the notebook, light fell across her engagement ring. It had slipped to the knuckle of her third finger. She’d lost weight, and the ring was too loose now. Zac had already dropped off her wedding band at the jeweler’s to be sized, but she wouldn’t let him leave her engagement ring with a stranger. She slid it back into place and tipped her hand in the light so the sharp little diamond would scatter flecks of spectra across the granite.

  When they were stil
l back at Berkeley, Zac had had the ring made and then kept it hidden from her. One night, he asked if she would like to go out for dinner, telling her he had fulfilled a major step toward his astrophysics dissertation and he wanted to celebrate. At the time, she wondered if he would remember it was also the anniversary of the day they’d moved in together.

  Zac kept their destination a surprise, refusing to tell her anything even as he parked at the curb, gave his keys to an attendant, and led her to the entrance of a building marked only by a number. To the right of the doorway, an intercom shone blue at eye level. Zac pushed the button. When a voice responded, he said, “Fullarton, party of two.” He smiled, guilty and happy, like someone caught wrapping a present.

  “What is going on?” Erin said, relishing the fun of his ruse.

  “Nothing special.” He laughed out loud then, sounding so pleased with himself.

  A young man in a black cotton uniform appeared and opened the door for them. The air inside smelled of something savory and of rosemary, maple, and wine.

  “Oh,” Erin said, “I know where we are!” She’d heard of the secret restaurant and the fortune it cost to experience it. She squeezed Zac’s hand. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Yeah, probably.” He pulled her into a quick hug.

  They followed the waiter through the deep, dim dining room, where scattered tables were lit like pieces of art.

  “You are unbelievable,” Erin whispered as they wended back toward the far end of the building.

  “I know.” Zac laughed again and squeezed her hand in return.

  The waiter seated them at a table beside floor-to-ceiling glass that allowed a view of the activity within the kitchen.

  “Zac,” Erin said once they were alone, “you wouldn’t believe how much I’ve wanted to come to this place. And sit at this table.”

  “I thought you’d like it,” he said, and he stroked the back of her hand.

  As the waitstaff circulated like bees, Erin turned and watched the performance of the chef and his staff. It was such an insider’s pleasure to watch the choreography. She and Zac joked about what the kitchen crew might really be saying as they twirled knives, tossed skillets, and whacked filets in half.

  The aroma coming from the table’s centerpiece changed to citrus as the waiter poured a concoction over it and then served the first course. Black truffle and parmesan in a pressed apple cone—a miniature sculpture on an enormous plate. After the waiter left them, Zac studied the dish for a second and said, “We’re going to need smaller forks.”

  A new glass of wine introduced another course, lobster in butter and ginger, followed by wagyu beef, morel, and sherry. “This is exactly how I’d do this,” Erin said. “It’s so perfect.” She could almost see her future self in a crisp chef’s jacket, creating something ephemeral but extraordinary that people would remember for their entire lives. It was an impractical choice—Berkeley’s culinary school—and it was definitely not the path her family wanted her to take, but it was what she loved. Even when she was younger and all she could cook by herself was a grilled cheese sandwich, she’d made it special by trimming it into a heart shape with a cookie cutter and accenting it with an apple-peel rose.

  Zac said, “I’m a willing victim if you ever want to try this at home.”

  “I might—you never know,” she said with a smile, “but I’d need a set of teeny tiny cookware.”

  The two of them laughed over otoro tuna with salted plum and pink cherries, squab and brie and pears—one course after another for hours while the rest of the world seemed to blur away.

  Once the pâtissier had cracked open their chocolate desserts, Erin said, “So, now, tell me what the news is for your dissertation. What step did you finish that deserves this much celebration?”

  “Well,” Zac paused. He smiled and tugged at his shirt. “I have a question for you, actually.”

  “Sure,” she said. “What?”

  “More of a statement, I guess.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, black-velvet ring box. “I’d really love it,” he said, “if we got married.”

  A warm euphoria splashed over her, and she leaned closer to him, his handsome face waiting for her answer, his eyes locked on hers. They’d already talked vaguely about engagement, officializing their happy entanglement, but now it was truly the moment, and Erin’s heart felt ticklish with joy. “I’d really love that too,” she said, and she kissed his sweet lips, tasting of melted chocolate.

  “Then this is for you,” he said. He opened the box and showed her a ring, its small, sparkling diamond set in a simple gold band. As he slid the ring onto her third finger, the moment didn’t feel like the adult event she would have imagined, but more like two youngsters plotting a trip into the wild.

  The gemstone displayed its fire, even in the sparse lighting. “Wow, Zac,” she said. “This is absolutely beautiful.” She tilted her hand in the light so Zac could see the sparkle too.

  “It’s the only one of its kind.”

  She noted the stone’s unusual shape, sharp and sitting up high off the band. “Because of the way it’s set?”

  “Because it’s a clock.” He grinned. “The dissertation thing. This is the time crystal.”

  “Are you kidding?” It was something he’d talked about since they’d first met. “I thought that was impossible,” Erin said. “Or just theoretical.”

  “It was,” he said, beaming, “until this.”

  She looked into his eyes, reveled in their connection for an instant, and then shook her head. She knew his accomplishment was something quite remarkable and that the scientific community would take notice. “I need you to explain it to me, how it can be a clock.”

  “Well,” he said, “let me—well, feel free to stop me if I start droning on.”

  “I will,” she said.

  “The atoms in diamonds form a lattice. They’re like a million microscopic magnets in a pattern in the three dimensions of space, right?”

  His face took on the boyishness of fascination, and Erin loved his excitement. “Right,” she said.

  He told her about his special technique—using laser blasts to throw the electrons in the diamond’s atoms out of equilibrium. He said they would continually shift positions to try to self-correct. “But by this time,” he said, “they’ve forgotten where they started, so they fall into a state of cryptoequilibrium, endlessly oscillating, like a clock ticking forever, as they search for something that can never actually be found.”

  “Amazing.” Erin could almost grasp the idea. “And they’re doing that right now?” she said. “The electrons?”

  “Yep, with absolute precision.” Zac took her fingers in his. “In the heart of this chamber, beating for eons like a nanoscale clock.” He tilted the stone toward the light.

  “Another cool thing,” he said, “sort of an elegant side effect, is that when the electron adjacent to the flaw got excited, the two locations formed a bond that emits luminescence. You can’t actually see it with the naked eye, but now that it’s in a time crystal, the luminescence can kind of slip between layers of time like a ghost.” He let go of her hand.

  She peered keenly into the stone. “You can give this to me?”

  A waiter crowded in beside her and refilled her water glass. Her instinct was to protect the ring with her other hand.

  Once the waiter was gone, Zac said, “I can.”

  “Are you sure it doesn’t belong in the Smithsonian or somewhere?”

  “Maybe.” He widened his eyes a bit. “But after I submitted the paper, I bought the diamond from the lab. It belongs to me. And I can give it to you, now that we’re into this whole marriage idea.”

  That beautiful spring night in the secret restaurant seemed like a thousand years ago. Though Erin had not been apart from the ring in all the time since then, here she was now, without Zac.

  She drew in a breath and pulled her mind from the snare of ruminating about the past. She had to make something o
f this day. There had to be a remembrance to mark it. She and Zac should acknowledge it together, as Korrie’s parents. Maybe she could bake muffins for later. Zac could come home for a little while, and they’d split and butter the muffins the way they used to, and have hot coffee, and it would make him glad to see she’d been able to accomplish something.

  She forced herself to stand and cross to the old gas range. She turned the knob to “Bake” and set the temperature, but the oven didn’t make its usual sound of ignition. The pilot light, out again. She found a box of matches, the only one left of the ones she’d ordered the winter Korrie died, with the Christmas photo of the three of them on the front. She opened the oven, relit the pilot, and slipped the matches in her pocket, this last box of the special ones. She turned to the cupboard. Maybe today could be that turning point her therapist prescribed. She found a muffin tin, muffin cups, pulled down flour, salt, baking powder, honey, and vanilla, and from the fridge she lugged butter, cream, and eggs.

  From a shelf below, she got two bowls. A spoon. She needed a wooden spoon. And a whisk. Did she even know where the whisk was anymore? And with that, she was overwhelmed and could not face it. She turned the oven off. There had been a time when she could have put muffins together without a thought, frosted the cooled tops with buttercream like an artist with paints, but now she couldn’t handle the idea of even starting them.

  She turned toward the oncoming light of the day and peered out through the kitchen window. Beyond the glass, the arms of a blue spruce tree swept lightly north and then relaxed and fell back into place. Their two-story, two-bedroom stone cottage sat on ten wooded acres of mountain terrain above Boulder, their access road winding through a grove of tall blue spruces. It had been eighteen months since the closest of those trees was decorated as high as she and Zac and Korrie could reach, with homemade ornaments and fairy lights and winterberry chains. Now, summer sun poked through the highest branches in flickering pinpricks, and she tried to remember where those decorations had ended up. In Korrie’s room? No, not there. So where then? How could it be that she didn’t know?