“What’s that?”
“Einstein called it ‘spooky action at a distance.’ Meitner’s work on it is potentially game-changing, and—”
I cut him off. “But why didn’t you say anything? Weren’t you afraid she might kill somebody else?”
Dad sighs. “Of course. At first. But I didn’t know that she was out and about until five years ago. She could have been dead for all I knew, and I wasn’t aware of any similar cases, which would probably have made the news. Those that know her now seem to think—” He stops talking again for a moment but before I can ask Who knew her? he says in a rush, “I just heard that she was innovative and original, and that seemed to be what your mother wanted, what she tried to do. She wanted to give Meitner the power to do whatever she was capable of doing. What matters is that this is your mother’s dream. All the work she did—I wish she were alive to see this!” He pauses, probably thinking of the same irony I’m thinking of. “But… I’m calling for another reason, too. You need to help her with her legal demands. And you have to help her get her story told. They’ve interrupted Meitner’s broadcast for a reason. They consider her a threat of some kind.”
I’m really puzzled. “What can I do?”
“You’re a lawyer. An animal rights lawyer. You can get her a hearing in court.”
Bless his heart. He seems to be overestimating my influence, my expertise. “What court?”
“What do you mean, what court? You defend dogs on death row. You defend monkeys used in experiments. What court do you go to then?”
“Dad, calm down. Calm down. Whatever court has jurisdiction. That’s where we take the case. But she’s in space. There’s no court in space.”
“There’s a World Court. In The Hague.”
“Dad, I…” I falter. I was brought up never to say I can’t. I think hard and fast. “Individuals can’t bring cases. But they sometimes hear cases from groups.”
“This is a group.”
“This is Meitner. This is a parrot. Everyone can see she’s a parrot.”
“She has human DNA. People can hear that she’s person, damn it! Didn’t you say the same thing just ten minutes ago? But she’s also a bird. Don’t you belong to some kind of international group that defends the rights of animals?
“Animal Defense International, yes.”
“Well? Do something! I’m afraid this Psittacus Company might kill her.”
“I thought you said they stood to make a lot of money.”
“They might if whatever they’re planning goes off without a hitch. I think she used them to gain this platform, and they used her to sell their enhancement. It’s politics. It’s sausage-making. But I’m worried. They might be afraid now that she’s making demands. Bad publicity. Can you imagine the sheer cost of litigating what she’s talking about? The pressure from all kinds of quarters to get Psittacus to shut her up? There could easily be an accident.”
My mind does a dizzy emotional flip back to the painting, the one Meitner was looking at when I last saw her. “Yes,” I say. I remember, too, her love of Where Are We Going?
I wonder where she is going. Where she wants us to go.
He says, “We have to make sure that Meitner lives.” He picks up steam. “That she gets her dance done! For your mother! For her! Hell, maybe even for all of us!”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him so worked up. “Okay. My brain is functioning now. Let me make some calls.”
“I’ll make some calls too, through my Stinger network. Maybe I can get her back on the air. So to speak.”
I kind of move in slow motion, although I make things happen very quickly. All of my years of animal advocacy scholarship kicks in, all the people I’ve met. Cases come to mind. I call three people while I email six more. Within minutes, I realize that everyone I know is on Meitner’s side. It’s the case they’ve been waiting for. It sets off a chain reaction. Small guns call big guns and big guns call Psittacus. I forward information as it is requested and as I find it—proof, for instance, that Meitner has human DNA. The argument is removed from me as those with far more expertise and power take over. For two hours I monitor email, read rapid-fire injunctions, and bite my nails.
Then I get a call from an unknown number. A man says “Is this Leilani Kalani?”
“Who is this?” I ask, impatient to get back to my anxiety.
“Meitner would like to speak to you. She wants to know if you will accept the call.”
If I would accept! I think with a rush of eagerness, but then I muffle the speaker as I burst into great, hoarse sobs that startle me.
“Hello?” the man says, his voice distant, coming from arm’s length. “Hello?”
I realize, with a great jolt, that I do not want to talk to her.
“Just a minute,” I manage, and go away from the phone, back onto the patio, and bow my head in the cold, cold rain.
I am surprised to find myself thinking in large, colored blocks of feeling, which I must maneuver with all my strength. Pull! on the yellow cube of anger. Push! on the slippery purple sphere of sorrow, which grows to huge size and howls at me, as I howled at my father earlier, No! No! No!
This is how I thought when I was a child, I remember, and that knowledge is like an electric current, connecting me to a world of overpowering feelings that I’d forgotten that I ever had.
And it’s Meitner waiting for me: all that I’d lost forever when my mother died; a world waiting to be restored. Or to submerge me.
I grip the railing, gulp frigid air. I work on my shaky breathing until it is deep and calm, the colored shapes shrink, and I am a grown-up again, but newly, sharply aware of the power of my childhood.
I slide open the door and slip back inside, rub my wet hands on the back of the couch, and pick up the phone. “Hello?”
“Leilani?” says Meitner, says my mother’s voice, says the being who may have killed my mother, the only living soul with whom I share so much, and who vanished so completely. I bite my tongue; I clench my fist, I say with a sob despite all that, “Meitie.”
I remember to breathe deeply as I listen for her voice, but slow tears slide down my face. The lovely voice; the cadences of speech that say Mother, Mother, Mother.
She speaks again, finally. “Leilani, I am sorry.”
What I have to say comes out in a shout, demanding and raw. “Why did you leave me?”
She speaks slowly, but without hesitation. “I was sad. I was afraid. Afraid of what I might bring to you. I am a bird. I can fly. I did so. It was the easiest thing to do. I was trying to leave behind all human feelings. They were too strong.”
“I… understand that. Human feelings are sometimes too strong for me too.” I swallow hard. “But what happened? Tell me why you were afraid. I need to know.”
“I will talk about all that, I promise you, when I’m back on the air. If they allow me to speak. They handled me rather roughly.” I hear the nervousness in her voice. “I’m not sure that I can say it twice.”
“Did you kill Mother?” I use my strong, interrogatory lawyer’s voice, glad that I have that tool. Without it, I would be incoherent.
In the long silence that follows, the unthinkable scenarios generated by my father’s brief speech fill my vision. If I could, I would reach across space and strangle Meitner, grab her gray neck and twist it. Let them kill her, I think. Let them! Ranked against that impulse is my father’s reserve, his eagerness to let something that he wouldn’t tell me about, some promise, some link with Mom, unfold.