The Last Equation of Isaac Severy(79)

“Tom,” Gregory said, stepping forward. “Tom Severy.” His voice had come out of his throat without hesitation—confident, even—as if it were about to launch into a sales pitch.

Tom turned and looked at him. Nothing. No recognition. He pulled his sunglasses from his red face and squinted in Gregory’s direction.

Gregory approached rapidly, causing Tom to take a step back toward the tracks. Then two steps. Once Tom figured out who was addressing him, once complete confusion had overtaken him, it would be easy. But Gregory needed to make sure Tom knew who he was. This was important.

“Who—?” mumbled Tom. His voice came out in a whimper. The most pathetic sound Gregory had heard from a man. Frail. Fearful. A voice that said, “Don’t hurt me.”

“Do you know me?” Gregory demanded.

He stepped closer to Tom to let him get a good look at his face. Tom could barely manage a flicker of eye contact, and Gregory wondered how he had ever considered this person a threat to him. To anyone.

“No, I don’t—” That awful whimper again. Then Tom knew. A veil of awareness fell over his eyes.

“Do I look familiar, Tom? It’s Gregory. You remember Gregory and Hazel Dine. Look at me, Tom.”

Tom backed away a couple of steps, ever closer to the tracks. The train was on its way now. They could both hear it.

“Look at me!” Gregory shouted.

Tom tried to speak, but his vocal cords failed him.

For a second, Gregory thought the man was going to collapse right there on the platform, fall to his knees and split his nose open on the concrete. The look on his face was one of such subjugation, a plea for mercy, understanding. It was an expression Gregory had always searched for on the faces of child abusers but had rarely, if ever, found. Yet it was the expression Tom Severy was wearing now, without artifice. A face of complete and wretched openness, a look that said, “I am a pitiful human being. I know that.”

Gregory was surprised by the dissipation of his own anger, but the train was coming now. He had no time for second thoughts. You know how to do this. Don’t stop now.

But as he took a hesitant step toward Tom, Gregory heard a sound behind him that was out of place: the distinct snick of a shutter. He turned to find a man about fifteen feet away, pulling a camera from his face. Just as he recognized his cousin Alex, he heard someone call from farther down the platform.

“Eggs?”

Gregory’s immediate response to seeing Hazel standing there, besides complete surprise, was bewildered amusement. It was almost funny.

Hazel was no longer looking at him. She was studying the man who stood behind him. “Is that . . .?”

Gregory turned again to face Tom, who by now held a look of strange clarity. Tom looked back and forth between the siblings. The two of them standing there must have felt like the ambush of his nightmares. He held his head in one hand, the way he did just before a migraine hit. He had already crossed far beyond the yellow line, and was standing at the edge of the platform. The train appeared. He turned to face the void and stepped beyond it. Hazel cried out.

And where four people had stood, there now stood three.





–?26?–


The Room


Philip awoke in a familiar room. He couldn’t figure out why it was familiar, only that he had been there before. The green curtains were drawn, leaving only a small bedside lamp to light the space. He could hardly move. Heavy bedcovers pinned him down. But wait, he was alive. This meant the equation wasn’t perfect—there were errors in his father’s math. The world wasn’t all gears and mechanics and systems. Uncertainty had won!

Perhaps his father had known this all along, had known that however well his equation worked, one couldn’t entirely escape a certain degree of uncertainty. Is this why he had been hesitant to show Philip the equation? Had he been afraid that his son would find the flaw in his perfect system? Philip would probably never know, but this answer would have to comfort him for now.

How long had he been asleep? He was glad to see a glass of water on the nightstand. With some effort, he propped himself up and reached for it. That’s when he heard rustling nearby.

“Feeling better, I hope,” said a man with a Slavic accent. “Your migraines are getting worse, then?”

A light went on at a corner desk. There sat Kuchek, of all people, pencil in hand, poised above a notebook. He wore an expression that said he would allow Philip only a cursory moment of his attention.

“Andrei?”

“I hope the bedding is comfortable. I’m not very good with that kind of thing.”

“Wait. You found me?”

“Someone found you,” he said. “You were lucky.”

Philip reached for his head.

“You did overdo it,” Kuchek continued. “You must be more careful.”

Remembering the pills, Philip’s hand went to his abdomen. “Did they pump my stomach?”

His colleague’s attention had already wandered back to the notations in front of him.

“Was I taken to the hospital?” Philip pressed.

Kuchek held up a finger, frowned, and scribbled something.

Philip glanced around. “I need to call my wife.”

Kuchek’s pencil kept moving.

“Now is not the time for your mirror symmetry, Andrei. I need to call my family.”