the smallest of her needs. Sometimes I yelled at her for no better reason than that she was asking for a simple thing like a walk, or water. Because she was interrupting something I thought was more important at that moment. But she never held it against me. She’d go away and wait quietly, and the minute I gave her the attention she had asked for, she was hopping with joy and gratitude.”
Trish nodded. “It’s been a long time since I had a dog, but I remember it.”
“Endless love. Endless forgiveness. Endless patience. Anyway, she was a lesson, and she began to get through to me about all the truly important things in being a decent human. Simple things, every one of them, but so difficult to do. Unless you’re a dog.”
“They do seem to do it naturally.”
“I have a friend who tags her e-mails with ‘WWDD: What would dogs do?’” He smiled faintly. “A little over the top, maybe, and probably offensive to some, but to some extent my dog became my touchstone, so I understand what my friend is trying to get at. Anyway, I finally had to put the dog down. I’d waited too long because I needed to hang on, but finally I realized I was hurting her to put off my own guilt at the decision I knew I had to make.”
“It’s an awful decision to have to make.”
“It is. I guess part of me hoped I’d wake up one morning and find she’d passed peacefully in her sleep, so I wouldn’t have to make a choice at all. Life doesn’t always allow us to do that.”
“No, it doesn’t.” She paused, then took another bite of pancake, waiting for whatever else he might volunteer.
“Thing was, much as I grieved for Molly, I learned another lesson from her—it hurts, but you have to remember the good times, not the very end, which was so hard.”
Despite her determination not to respond emotionally to this guy or his story, Trish felt her throat tighten. She put down her fork.
He seemed to recognize her reaction, because he said quickly, “Sorry, I’m not trying to tug your heartstrings. It’s just…you’d think having learned that with the dog, I’d be better at handling stuff. But I’m not. When the rest happened, well, I didn’t want to be around anything that reminded me of it. So here I am, on a quest for some kind of peace. Very sixties California except it’s nothing like that. I got here and saw my journey coming to an end. So I’m going to hang around until it’s over. And then I’m going home.”
She nodded. His story made sense to her, although she would have liked to know more about what had put him on the road. However, she felt it would be prying too much to just come right out and ask. As she knew herself, some things were painful to talk about, even with friends, and impossible with total strangers. And hadn’t she herself come running home to Conard County because of a past she didn’t want to face every single day?
People did things like that, rational or irrational.
He resumed eating. She followed suit, absorbing what he had told her, weighing it in her mind and deciding that on the face of it, she didn’t need to be paranoid. People had seen them together, Gage had stopped to check him out. If he meant her any harm, he was certainly on notice now that he’d be the prime suspect.
“Are you a scientist?” she asked, at once trying to learn more about him and direct the conversation to less explosive territory.
“In a way. I work in computers. Software and system design. At least I did.”
“Will you go back to that?”
He put his fork down and for an instant he looked almost eager. “You know, sometimes I think about it. I was getting into some really interesting research.”
“I didn’t think computer people did research.”
Again that half smile. “Not all of us sit in cubicles and write code. Some of us are, or were, busy looking toward the future.”
“In what ways?”
“Well, we’re approaching the possibility of quantum computers. Do you know anything about quantum physics?”
“I had a physics course both in high school and college. I wouldn’t say I’m well versed, but I have a nodding acquaintance.”
“When it comes to the quantum world, nobody really understands it, anyway. All we can do is make predictions based on large numbers. Sort of like playing the odds.”
“Oh, that makes me feel secure.”
His smile widened. “We’re both here talking, and the restaurant hasn’t vanished. So the large numbers work just fine for most purposes.”
“But in quantum computers, what happens?”
“That’s the problem we’re trying to sort through. Things get dicier, of course, at such a small scale. But then studies actually proved the so-called observer effect—have you heard of that?”
“Something about the act of observing affects the measurements?”
“At the quantum scale, yes. But it goes way beyond that. I won’t bore you with details, but a number of experiments show that conscious intent can affect the basic randomness we expect at the quantum level. One extended study of them at Princeton, in fact. The effect wasn’t huge. Just a nudge this way or that, tiny but statistically relevant. That throws a big monkey wrench into quantum computing.”
“Wow. And you were working on that?”
“Doing some research, yes. You can’t move into nanotechnologies unless you can guarantee reasonable accuracy. If a process relies on quantum randomness, you have to correct for influences that actually reduce that randomness.”
At that she felt herself smile. “Now I’m in over my head. I just know how much I depend on my computer to be accurate.”
“Exactly. So there’s a lot of work to be done. But it’s unleashed some fascinating questions.”
“And that’s why you said science should be about questions, not answers.”
“Well, partly.” His face shadowed a bit, but he continued. “We need solutions, but solutions aren’t necessarily answers, if you get my drift. And some people don’t even want to ask the questions.” He fell silent, then dipped a corner of toast in his egg, and popped it into his mouth. He appeared to have gone elsewhere in his mind, whether to his former research or some darker place she couldn’t know.
But one thing seemed to be clearer for her: there was no reason to believe this man intended her any harm whatsoever. Once again she began to feel embarrassed by the mix of emotions that had led her to go to Gage.
Even though the sheriff hadn’t thought she was out of line for being nervous about this guy sitting across from her house every night in the wee hours, she herself felt as if she had made a mountain out of a molehill.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted. “I overreacted by getting the sheriff involved.”
It took him a moment to drag himself out of the well of thought he’d fallen into. “I understand perfectly. The world being what it is, you’d be strange if you hadn’t gotten nervous about me sitting across from your house
