The Scattering

4

WHEN MY DAD FINALLY OPENS his eyes, he tries again to smile. It’s no more convincing than it was before.

“That went well,” he says quietly, then motions to the dozen pancakes now stacked on the plate in front of him. “Please tell me you’re hungry.”

Without waiting for me to answer, he picks up the plate, walks to the garbage can, and presses the trash open with his foot. He reconsiders, though, letting the lid slam shut. Instead, he pulls out some plastic wrap and sets to covering each pancake, then stashing them in small groups inside the freezer. It’s amazing how fast this seems to buoy him. He may have no idea how to fix things with Gideon, but we now have enough pancakes to survive a nuclear winter.

“So this guy from Cornell who thinks being an Outlier is a sickness …” I begin, and then stop. Open-ended is more likely to get an honest answer.

My dad looks me right in the eye. I can feel him willing me to know that he is telling the truth.

“Dr. Cornelia is just looking to inject himself into something that he thinks will get him attention from the press.”

“What press?”

Despite all of us bracing for an onslaught of reporters and television cameras after what happened at the camp, the only real coverage was a thumbnail of an article in the Boston Globe, mostly about Cassie’s violent death at the hands of a cult. (The police had also officially deemed Cassie’s death a homicide, not that there was anyone around to prosecute anyway.) The article mentioned my dad’s research only vis-à-vis its connection to Quentin, who was described only as a “cult leader,” associated with The Collective, which—it turned out—was a national organization with various beliefs and branches, most of which did not appreciate being called a cult. They made that pretty clear in the online comments on the article. No one seemed to care about the Outliers or HEP, maybe because there had been no official, peer-reviewed study on the topic yet, maybe because science wasn’t as sexy as the word “cult.”

The only actual interest in my dad’s research came from one blogger—EndOfDays.com—who identified himself only as a “centrist” member of The Collective and who laid the blame for the deaths at the camp squarely at my dad’s feet. EndOfDays had decided that the Collective members were innocent victims caught in the deadly crossfire of scientific recklessness. My dad didn’t want us reading the blog. And so I hadn’t. Gideon, of course, couldn’t get enough.

“IT IS ONLY the maniacally egotistical who believe that they should insert themselves between man and the will of God,” Gideon was reading from his laptop at the dining room table. “It is an abomination to interfere with this sacred covenant.”

“What the hell is that?” Rachel asked. She was in the kitchen with my dad, helping with the dinner dishes. Since what happened at the camp, she’d been glued to us even tighter. It was aggravating, no matter how genuine her intentions (and I still wasn’t convinced). “Actually, forget I asked. I don’t care what it is—stop reading it.”

Rachel often used that overly familiar way with us like she was a member of our loud, no-holds-barred family and she was allowed to shout because it was all out of love anyway. Except we were not loud, and whenever she used that tone, it set my teeth on edge. As annoyed as I was at Gideon for torturing my dad by reading that blog, I was even more annoyed at Rachel for talking to him that way. I had a hard time imagining she ever could have been my mom’s friend.

Rachel and my mom had met in the third grade in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and somehow had managed to stay best friends for years, through different high schools, separate colleges, and then different graduate programs. When they finally got their first jobs, they had been thrilled to land in Boston together. Rachel was my mom’s maid of honor, and there were countless pictures of Rachel holding Gideon and me as babies.

Then, suddenly, Rachel was gone. Out of our life. Once, when my mom had been trying to comfort me about the distance between Cassie and me, she had said that she and Rachel had grown apart, too. But their separation had been so sudden and complete. I could tell even then—long before I knew that I was an Outlier—that my mom was leaving out important details. When Rachel reappeared after my mom’s funeral I had thought about asking my dad what had really happened between them, but he’d been so overwhelmed and sad that it had felt stupid and wrong to care. And there was a tiny part of me that had felt comforted being around someone who had even once upon a time been so close to my mom.

“It’s Dad’s stalker,” Gideon said of the passage, obviously enjoying Rachel’s reaction. “EndOfDays. He’s in The Collective, and he blames Dad for basically everything.”

“What?” Rachel asked as she handed my dad another rinsed plate for the dishwasher, then dried her hands on a towel. “What is Gideon talking about, Ben? What stalker?”

“A guy with too much time on his hands. To be honest, I don’t think he knows what he wants. He’s angry, that’s all. No one reads it anyway.”

“You mean, except the 3,523 people who commented,” Gideon said. “But who’s counting?”

“Ben?!” Rachel shouted. “Have you talked to the police? That doesn’t sound like something you should ignore.”

“They did look into it. The guy lives in Florida somewhere,” my dad said, waving a hand. As though Florida was the same thing as Mars. “Anyway, Agent Klute is not concerned.”

“The same Agent Klute that ran Wylie down?” Rachel asked, eyes wide. “No offense, Ben, but I think you better wake up a little here. You need to protect yourselves.”

I watched my dad’s nostrils flare. “Don’t you think I know that?” He was angry but hurt, too. He turned and dumped his glass of water into the sink. “Thank you for coming by and bringing dinner, Rachel. But I’m tired,” he said. “I think it’s time for you to go.”

“I’m sorry, Ben. I didn’t mean to—I’m just, I’m trying to help.” Rachel smiled at him apologetically as she crossed the room. Her mouth was stiff, and I could feel how badly she wanted to cry. “I promise next time I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

“YES, WYLIE, THINGS have been quiet in the press so far,” my dad goes on. “But if I can convince the NIH to fund a full-scale study of the Outliers and get peer-reviewed publication that will change, and quickly. There’s already some Senator Russo, from Arizona. He’s on the Intelligence Subcommittee and he’s insisting on a meeting. Somehow he got wind of my funding application. My guess is he’s worried about protecting some secret research the military has been doing.”

“Secret research?” Fear surely shows on my face.

My dad grimaces, then holds up his hands. “I just mean, in the way everything the military does is secret. They’ve been looking into how to use emotional perception in combat for decades,” he says. “They haven’t succeeded, but I’m sure they’re not thrilled about competition, or about not being able to control the flow of information.”

My dad’s phone pings then with a text. I feel worry jolt through him as he looks down at the screen.

“What is it?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”

“No, no, nothing—it’s not about the research,” he says.

He hands me his phone. I look down at the text: Accident file for Hope Lang will be available for review at 9 a.m. today. Sincerely, Detective Oshiro.

I have to read the message three times before I fully understand its meaning, like it’s coming out of nowhere, even though I am the one who has called Detective Oshiro pretty much every day since I got back from Maine, asking to see my mom’s accident file. I feel surprisingly foolish, too, now that I have gotten what I wanted. It’s because of what Quentin said—that my mom’s death wasn’t an accident—that I got so obsessed. It’s not as if anything else that Quentin claimed up at the camp turned out to be true, but knowing that hasn’t loosened my grip. Even my dad admitted that he had considered the possibility that my mom’s death hadn’t been an accident, though he backpedaled hard as soon as he could tell I was fixating.

“I am only going to say this once, Wylie.” My dad’s voice is quiet and firm. “And I am saying this as your father, but also as a psychologist and because I don’t want to see you hurt any more than you already have been. Looking in your mom’s accident file could be extremely traumatic for you. Extremely. There might be photographs or details that are far more upsetting than you can possibly anticipate.”

It is true that I have thought a lot more about getting my hands on the file than about what it would be like to actually look in it. It seemed so unlikely I ever would. Detective Oshiro had said that he needed clearance, higher-up approval, permission. Case closed or not, they didn’t ordinarily have the families of victims coming by to rifle through their files.

Jasper. I want to talk to him about this. Maybe I need to, the way the thought of him just popped into my head. He has listened to me go on and on about my mom’s accident ever since we got back from the camp. He gets how much I have wanted to look in that file. But he will also understand how not sure I feel about finally getting what I want. Jasper’s single best quality, I have learned, is his ability not to judge. But it’s not as if I can have that conversation in front of my dad.

“If I can’t handle it,” I say. Because I can’t show doubt, not to my dad. “I’ll stop.”

My dad’s shoulders sag. “Okay,” he says quietly as he turns around, head hanging low as he starts to clean up the dishes.

“Dad,” I begin, though I don’t even know what it is I want to say. “If you don’t want me to go …” I can’t even get myself to fully make the offer though. I’m too afraid he might take me up on it.

Instead, he turns to look at me. He crosses his arms and presses his mouth tight. All I feel now is love, his love for me—so pure and simple and complete. And for the first time ever—being able to feel that so clearly—I am grateful for being an Outlier.

“Well, you shouldn’t go down there on an empty stomach,” he says, motioning to my plate. “Eat something and I’ll drive you.” He looks at his watch. “It’s not long until nine.”

I look up at the little clock over the stove: 8:34 a.m. I’ll try to call Jasper on the way, see if I can come earlier if I finish up with the file before ten. It’s not the same as talking to him now, but it’s something. The station isn’t far from his house. If I can’t reach him, I’ll go to his house at ten a.m. like we agreed.

And maybe after we’re done gluing his loose pieces back into place, we can spend a little time on mine.

“Can we just go, um, now?” I ask.

My dad nods slowly.

“Yes,” he says finally and with some effort. “We can go now.”

5

THE POLICE STATION IN THE center of downtown Newton is a tidy redbrick and white stone cube on a block next to several other municipal buildings and a bunch of trees. I’ve never had a reason to be inside. Even after the camp, they drove us straight home, then the agents arrived. But looking at the building from the outside now, it looks a lot like a brick version of the Seneca police station—if the Seneca police station had taken up the entire building.

But once we’re inside, any similarities disappear. The Newton station is much larger and more modern, not to mention busier than the one in Seneca. It’s actually way busier than I would have imagined. With the low crime rate in Newton, I can’t imagine why so many people are at the police station.

There are a dozen desks lined up in a large room behind a railing to the left. At a tall desk in front sits a tired-looking uniformed officer doing intake. He has thinning gray hair and rumpled eyes and he is dismissively sorting people into a second set of lines: complaints to be filed, summonses to be paid. It all seems seriously bureaucratic and super boring.

My dad and I take our places at the back of the line, and I listen as people register their complaints. One man’s apartment was broken into, a woman’s car was vandalized. And on and on. It’s 9:05 a.m. by the time we are next in line. I called Jasper twice on our way to the police station and he didn’t answer. And now, not only do I want to talk to him, but I’ve also got a bad feeling about him not answering.

“Yes. Hello!?!” It takes me a minute to realize that the officer behind the tall desk is finally talking to us.

“Wylie?” My dad puts a concerned hand on my arm. He’s taken my hesitation as a sign. “You don’t need to do this.”

“Yeah. I do,” I say, meeting my dad’s stare as firmly as I can.

Reluctantly, he nods and we step forward. “We’re here to see Detective Oshiro,” my dad says. “We have an appointment.”

“Wait over there.” The old guy points toward the railing in front of the desks without looking up at us, then picks up the phone.

We aren’t waiting long when I see Detective Oshiro heading our way. I’ve only met him once, and I’d forgotten how tall and imposing he is. Broad shoulders, crisply pressed shirt, and fashionable tie. Good-looking and young. Not too young, but younger than my dad. And way younger than the rumpled old detective I had in mind before he turned up on our steps the day after the accident.

That day, Detective Oshiro was calm and kind and exceedingly competent. Firm, too, in laying out the facts of my mom’s accident. That it was an accident. He never wavered on that—there was nothing to lead investigators to suspect otherwise. It was simply the way the car had impacted the railing in the area of the gas tank that had caused it to burst into flames. There was no evidence of foul play.

“There is something you should know, Wylie,” my dad says suddenly. His voice is rushed and tight, like this is his very last chance to make something right. “They think your mom had been drinking the night of the accident. She was upset and I take responsibility for that,” he says. “Anyway, it doesn’t change anything. I just didn’t want you to be surprised if you saw some mention of it in the file.”

“Drinking?” He actually feels relieved confessing this. Me? I’m furious. “What the hell are you talking about?”

And here I thought he’d been trying to protect me from grief. Was this—this thing that makes no sense whatsoever—what he was trying to avoid me knowing? My mom had the occasional glass of wine and that was it.

“Wylie, I know—”

“That is not true,” I snap. But I sound like a ridiculous little kid, refusing to accept that the tooth fairy isn’t real.

“Dr. Lang, it’s nice to see you,” Detective Oshiro says before my dad can respond, but he is wounded. I can feel that much. And I am glad. My dad and Detective Oshiro shake hands and then the detective turns to shake mine. “If you want to come back through here, I’ve got you guys set up in a conference room in the back. That way you can take as much time as you need.”

Detective Oshiro has made peace with this. He didn’t want us coming down and going through the file in the first place, but now that we are here, he’s not going to be anything but professional.

I expect the other detectives in the room to stare at my dad and me as Detective Oshiro leads us toward the conference room, for some kind of hush to descend. They’re here. They’re about to find out everything. But they don’t even look up from their desks. Because they do not care. Because there is no great secret about to be revealed. At least not one that is going to turn back time and bring my mom back, not something that will make all this Outliers nonsense go away. Is that why I’m actually here? Am I putting my dad through this trauma for that, a distraction?

“I can go in myself,” I say to my dad as Detective Oshiro stops about halfway down a row of doors. I am still pissed at him for dropping this whole “drinking” bomb on me, but now I feel ashamed, too. “I feel bad I even made you come down here.”

My dad turns and smiles at me, sad but also grateful. “I’m not sure I can handle looking through anything myself, but I’ll stay in the room with you.” He reaches down and squeezes my hand. “I know that none of this has been easy on you, Wylie.” And he means all of it—the Outliers, the camp, Quentin, my mom’s accident. “I want you to know that the way you’re handling all of it—I am so proud of you.”

THE ROOM IS plain and windowless, but clean, with floor-to-ceiling glass between it and the main room where all of the detectives are seated. It is surprisingly quiet inside, like maybe it’s soundproofed. There is a small table against the wall, two chairs on one side, a single chair on the other. A rectangular cardboard box—long, about the size of three regular book boxes—sits in the center of the table. Looking at it, I feel my heart catch.

“I’ll be right outside if you need me.” Detective Oshiro points to a desk that is only a couple steps away. “Please don’t remove anything from the evidence bags, and nothing can be taken from the room. If you see anything of value in your mother’s personal effects, let me know. I’ll make sure you leave here with it today.”

“Okay, thanks,” I say, checking my watch: 9:15 a.m. “I’ll be fast.”

Detective Oshiro nods and then closes the door after he leaves. I take a deep breath as I stare down at the box. Suddenly, this feels like a mistake. And I may not know exactly where that feeling is coming from, but that doesn’t make it any less real.

“You should take your time, Wylie,” my dad says. “We’re here now, and I don’t think you’re going to get another chance.”

He’s right. As much as I want to get this over with, I need to be thorough. It’s now or never.

I keep my eyes on the box itself for a minute. It looks brand-new, the top crisp, the label clean and clear. Name: Hope Lang. Date: February 8. Description of Matter: Automobile Accident. The ordinariness is both a relief and a disappointment. A tiny part of me did hope it might say Murder somewhere. Another part of me was dreading that, too.

As I lift the long lid from the box, I turn my head away, allowing a moment for the most awful of the ghosts to escape. I rub my palms against my jeans then to dry them and suck in some air as I turn back to the open box, bracing myself to see something truly horrifying, like my mom’s charred bones. But it’s just an ordinary box divided into two sections, one with hanging file folders, the second with a stack of evidence bags.

The bag on top holds something small and black and silver, like a hardened lump of mixed clay. It isn’t until I look closer that I realize it is a car key. Or what was once a car key, melted now beyond recognition. My stomach inches up into my throat. My dad was right—this is more awful than I thought it would be. Because now all I can think about is my mom liquefied. And Cassie, too. Everything and everyone I have ever loved reduced to a puddle—and then hardened into a shapeless rock.

I turn away from the evidence bags and toward the files, glancing over at my dad to see if he is watching me. I have a faint hope that something in his face will give me a real reason to stop. But his eyes are on his phone, reading something, an email or a text. His brow is furrowed as he begins to type. He is not going to rescue me from my own terrible idea.

I turn back to the box. I wanted to come here. I need to trust that I had a good reason. And I need to get it over with, fast. The first file contains an accident investigator’s report, notes from the interviews that Detective Oshiro conducted with my dad, Gideon, and me. I pull out the notes from my dad’s. They go on for several pages that I have no stomach to read but for this: “Husband reports Lang departed the home in a state of agitation, though husband has no reason to suspect self-harm.”

Gideon’s interview is much shorter. I can remember him sitting there on the steps that night. No tears, only stunned and silent. But in its few lines the report contains: “Son states his mother left the house at approximately nine p.m. He does not have a specific recollection of her mental state.”

I can remember they asked me something like that, too. They were so focused on my mom’s mood. Because they thought there was a chance she’d killed herself, I realize now. One car, a fatal accident. Ruling out suicide is probably standard. I don’t recall how I answered, but when I scan the notes from my interview, I discover that apparently I decided to lie: “Daughter reports that mother went out for milk. Mother was in a good mood.”

I wonder who I’d been trying to protect: My dad? My mom? Myself?

The next thing I pull out is the autopsy report. It’s a single page that shakes in my hand as I try to keep my eyes toward the top of the page, likely home of the most innocuous details. Name, height, weight. But even that is not entirely safe. There is the word “estimated” behind both my mom’s height and weight. After all, a fractured and scorched skeleton hardly reveals such details. I squint down the page until I get to the notes at the bottom, to the cause of death: Blunt-force trauma. Manner of death: Accidental. I let go of the breath I’ve been holding. At least she was already dead when her car caught on fire. It is such a pathetic relief.

The next folder looks empty until I tilt it and an envelope slides out. I peer inside with my head pulled back and catch a glimpse of photos of the blackened and mangled front of my mom’s car. I close my eyes and swallow hard, hoping that will keep me from throwing up as I jam the envelope back in the file.

“Are you okay?” my dad asks. When I look up, he is watching me.

“Are you?” I ask, deflecting. “You’ve been tapping on your phone nonstop.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” He always falls for distraction mixed with guilt. “The assistant from Senator Russo’s office emailed a minute ago. Apparently if I go right now to DC, I can meet him and someone from the NIH this afternoon.” His tone is dismissive as he shakes his head. “And this meeting is now a prerequisite before they’ll even consider my funding. And if I don’t go to this meeting I will now have to wait until September for anything to happen because the senator is off for summer recess. Feels like they’re trying to create a situation where I’m the one who can’t make it. I’m not even sure a senator is allowed to get involved in NIH funding.”

“There’s no way you can get there?” As much as I’ve been avoiding information myself, I don’t want his pride to be the reason he doesn’t find out something important.

He checks the time. “If I go right now to the airport, I guess I could be down there in time for a late afternoon meeting and then back home for bed.” He thinks doing this would be kind of absurd, though. I can feel it. Insulting to snap to it because they’ve told him to. But hesitation is also tugging at him like he is afraid of something slipping through his fingers.

“But maybe you should go?” I ask. Because that seems to be the way he feels.

“There are other ways to get the research funded, Wylie.” He frowns as he stares at the floor. Then he nods. “But I suppose I should go, yes. I’ve never been willing to play this politics game, which is probably why it’s taken me so long to get my research this far. But it’s too important now not to be willing to put up with some politics.”

And I know what he means by “now.” He means with me so directly involved.

I nod. “Then you should go.” Though I feel a deep pang of regret once I’ve said it out loud. I just wish I knew what it was exactly that I regretted.

“I don’t want to leave you here.” He motions to the box. “Doing this.”

“I’ll be fine,” I say, and while this does not feel entirely true, it also does not feel like a complete lie. It’s a reason for him to go—a good one. He should take it. It’s bad enough that I’ve put him through this whole thing with the file when I’m not even entirely sure why I’m doing it. “I’m supposed to see Jasper when I’m done anyway. I promised him I’d come by his place. I can walk from here.”