The secretary tapped lightly on the school counselor’s door, then turned the handle and opened it a crack.

“Mr. Harrington? A parent would like to speak with you if you have a moment.”

The room was small, carpeted, and various fuzzy animals, propped here and there, created an artificial friendliness.

“Bob Harrington,” he said, standing quickly and extending a meaty hand out in greeting. His eyes were shiny, almost as if he were a teenage boy caught in the midst of something forbidden.

“I’m Laura Bailey.”

She slipped four lifeless fingers into his hand.

“My son Barnabas is a sophomore. I’m not sure if you know him or not. I should have called ahead for an appointment, but it’s all happened so fast.”

She paused, unsure how to describe the detonation of a family.

Once, no doubt, she had been lovely, but today the remnant of that loveliness, lay masked behind a disintegrating facade. The bright blue eyes had faded; her skin seemed too early wrinkled; her lips, unglazed, were an empty purse string drawn tight. Her hair hung limp like tattered lace curtains framing windows in a long neglected home.

“No problem,” Harrington said. “Please sit down.”

He gestured toward a burgundy office chair beside his desk.

“I don’t know your son, but I’ve got his file right here. Sophomore you say?”

He bent at the waist and slid open a metal drawer, expertly fingering through a jungle of manila folders before extracting one.

“Bailey, Barnabas. Here it is,” he said.

He beamed as if he’d just found his golf ball imbedded in a soggy fairway. He eased himself into his chair and faced her.

“Why don’t we begin with you telling me what’s going on with your son. Usually when parents come in there are some issues.”

He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands comfortably in his sizeable lap.

She looked down at the desktop and brushed a strand of hair away from her face.

“I don’t know exactly where to begin. Barn has always been such a good student, and a wonderful boy, but things are really falling apart.”

She opened her purse, fumbled to find a tissue, tears welling in her eyes.

Harrington, familiar with the needs of emotion, quickly slid a box of tissues toward her across the desk.

Grateful, she smiled, took one and held it up to her nose.

“Sorry,” she said. “I never in a million years thought I would be needing to talk to a counselor about one of my children.”

Gentle now, Harrington asked, “Barnabas has brothers and sisters?”

“No brothers.”

She looked up and her face brightened, eager to discuss more positive events.

“He has an older sister who graduated three years ago. She’s a junior at Washington State over in Pullman now. Molly sailed through school with good grades. She never gave us any problems.”

“I remember Molly Bailey,” Harrington said. “Wasn’t she an athlete?”

“She ran track and played on the volleyball team. She also sang in the choir.”

“What about Barnabas? I’m almost positive you didn’t come in to talk about Molly.”

He smiled, fingered the manila folder, but didn’t open it.

“Is it his grades or what?”

“It’s everything,” she replied.

She made a ball of the tissue and clenched it in her fist.

“He refuses to do homework for one thing. He’s stopped doing all his chores. He’s defiant. He’s just not the same kid he was three months ago.”

“Drugs?” Harrington’s tone turned a statement into a question.

She answered too fast.

“No. Not drugs. I’m sure of that.”

Harrington became a diplomat.

“Sometimes parents get fooled. Teenagers are experts at hiding it.”

He paused, gave her a moment.

“Especially the smart ones. It can go undetected for a long time.”

Seeing the need he nudged the tissue box closer to her arm.

“A moment ago when we were talking about your daughter, you said, ‘She never gave us any problems.’ From that I’m assuming you’re married. How does your husband fit into this picture?”

His hands returned to his lap.

The crying began in earnest now and for a long moment she couldn’t speak.

“We’re separated. I’ve filed for divorce. He’s moved to Bellevue and has a live-in girl friend.”

The counselor leaned forward. His fingertips momentarily brushed her arm.

“I’m sorry,” he said. His words were soft, almost inaudible. He leaned back in his chair, took a deep breath, and waited.

Finally he said, “It could be that Barnabas is reacting to his parents’ split. Many kids do. A divorce can generate grief, anger—lots of unexpressed emotion.”

She moved the tissue away from her nose, blinked her eyes. “He still sees his dad on weekends. They were very tight, and I’ve tried to encourage Barn to stay close to his father.”

The tears couldn’t be held back now, and he gave her all the time she needed. He turned away and opened the manila folder on his desk. He fingered slowly through several pages, then faced her with the folder on his lap.

“Wow,” he said. “Barnabas had straight A’s in junior high school. He plays in the orchestra. He’s on the golf team. His teachers have written nothing but positive comments. Are we talking about the same kid?”

“That’s him. At least it used to be. He wants to be a nuclear physicist when he grows up. He’s been saying that since sixth grade.”

“How are his grades this quarter?”

“I have no idea. He refuses to discuss school with me. I’m getting, ‘None of your business, mom.’ He goes in his room when he gets home and usually stays there until we eat dinner. The last couple of weeks, he’s stopped eating with me. He just takes his plate back to his room and eats there.”

A most difficult question was posed.

“Does Barnabas know why you and your husband have split up?”

She straightened up in her chair, looked surprised. “I suppose he does. I guess so.”

“What did you tell Barnabas?”

“Just that his dad and I don’t love each other anymore. Barnabas could see and hear our constant disagreements.”

Harrington leaned toward her.

“Kids need to hear the truth. Why are you getting divorced?”

The question struck like a hammer.

Her wet eyes came alive, raged.

“Please forgive my language but it’s because he's fucking a Starbucks barista half his age. No, I didn’t tell Barnabas his dad prefers some young babe to his mother. I couldn’t stand it anymore, that’s all.”

Tears cascaded unchecked down her cheeks and quenched her anger.

“Marriage and family are supposed to be permanent.”

She sobbed openly, make-up sliding away from her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I’ve taken up too much of your time.”

She rose on uncertain legs.

He stood up beside her, sure of himself.

“You and Barnabas have been cruelly wounded and desperately need some professional guidance,” he said. “What has happened to your family is catastrophic, but it can be helped. Let me give you the names and numbers of some excellent family counselors. I want you to call one right away and make an appointment. Meanwhile, I’m going to talk to Barnabas’ teachers this afternoon and then tomorrow I’ll call him in here for a little chat. He’s too good of a kid for us to allow him to self-destruct like this. We’ve got a lot of work to do. It’s not your fault, mom. He’s lucky to have you.”

Harrington’s words were sincere, familiar, but not scripted.
* * *
The next morning Barnabas grimaced at the abrasive clatter of his alarm clock. It had been a few minutes after midnight when he finally shut down his computer and crawled into bed, once again neglecting his teeth. Now, eyes sealed against reality, he waited, a scattering of autumn leaves before the wind.

“Barn?”

His mother’s gentle voice barely penetrated the thin bedroom door. Tentatively, she nudged it open with her fingertips and stepped inside.

“Honey, it’s almost quarter past seven.”

Her eyes surveyed the haphazard pile of clothes on the floor next to the bed, the stack of neatly folded laundry she had placed on his dresser three days before, and a collection of dirty dishes leaning crazily against the computer.

“I’m leaving now. Don’t forget to let Gibraltar out. Please eat something.”

She rested her hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, but you haven’t earned your allowance this week.”

She paused, hoping for some indication of life.

“None of your chores were done and I haven’t seen you spend a minute on
school work.”

She sighed audibly.

“Barn, please don’t go back to sleep. The school recording called again. It said you failed to attend one or more classes yesterday.”

She glanced anxiously at her watch.

“Remember, your dad is picking you up at school this afternoon. I hope you have a nice weekend together. I’ll see you late Sunday. Barn?”

She waited. Nothing.

“There’s a sandwich, a banana, and some cookies on the counter for your lunch. Study hard, honey. Bye.”

She let her hand linger on her son’s bony shoulder a moment longer, then abruptly, turned and exited the dim room.

Barnabas was so far behind in his first period class, Honors Algebra, it really didn’t matter if he showed up or not. He had stopped attending his second period English class a week ago after a scolding from his teacher. He was sound asleep before she backed her aging Civic out of the garage.

At 10:34, exactly one minute before third period took up, Barnabas, unfed, hair still damp, sagged onto the remaining unoccupied chair stationed around his assigned table. The classroom was comfortably warm against the early November chill, but he remained bundled in a long, khaki colored overcoat. Unlike his peers, Barnabas did not encumber himself with a backpack or other familiar student trappings.

His tablemates spoke in hushed tones.

“Newton owned 40 Bibles,” a girl with a bright smile said. She glanced down at her notes for verification.

“Can you believe it?”

“No way,” a tall, slender boy replied. “My gramma only has three, and she’s a total religious nut. She keeps one in the car, one in the kitchen, and one next to her bed. She’s nice though.”

Barnabas frowned and slouched lower in his seat. He had grown up with these two and they considered him a friend. His fingers curled into tight, irritated fists inside his coat pockets.

“Newton is dead,” he mumbled.

Just as the tardy bell rang, the door opened and two students, a boy and a girl entered. They were each carrying a wooden pallet, the kind one normally sees stacked on warehouse loading docks. They placed one pallet on top of the other, creating a low platform.
The door opened again, and a slim adult female strode quickly to the front of the class. Dressed in some kind of medieval costume, roughly mimicking the common clothing of a scholarly man of the late 1600’s, she flashed a wide grin at her students and hopped nonchalantly upon the platform.

Barnabas, dozing like a basking barnacle at low tide, let his eyes flicker open. Earlier in the year, before his parents stopped pretending they loved each other, and his father moved out, physics had been his favorite class. The subject fascinated him, and Ms. Duffy—young, attractive, flamboyant—inflamed his curiosity, as had no other teacher.

“Today,” she ordered, “you must address me as Sir Isaac.”

It was not a request. “I expect there are questions.”

“Hannah,” Sir Isaac called out.

A thin Asian girl with long jet-black hair rose without a sound and stood beside her table.

“Sir Isaac, whom did you have in mind when you wrote, ‘If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants’?”

Sir Isaac smiled. “Where are the trees when I need them?”

She scanned the classroom.

“Gary and Sara, I need your assistance, pronto.”

The class turned and watched Gary, awkward and unusually tall, and Sara, graceful and almost as tall, stand and hurry forward.

As they approached the platform, Sir Isaac said, “One of you on each side, please.”

When they were positioned properly she said, “Form a bridge by grabbing hands and locking your fingers, palms up.” Putting one hand on each student’s shoulder, she gently put her right foot on their joined hands and pulled herself up to a standing position, towering above the two students.

“Hannah, I give you Euclid and Galileo. Yet, there were so many others I leaned on as well.”

She dropped lightly back to her feet and grasping Euclid’s and Galileo’s hands, led them in a bow. The class applauded as Gary and Sara returned to their seats.

“Since you’re still on your feet Hannah, another question please,” Sir Isaac said.

“When you were in school, what was your favorite subject, Sir Isaac?”

“Differential and integral calculus drove me to the edge of insanity, yet were my daily oxygen as well.”

The class erupted when Garth ventured a squeaky, “Me too.”

Garth, whom the kids had renamed Google because of his seemingly bottomless well of knowledge, was widely regarded as the brightest kid in the entire school.

Taylor, a school cheerleader, also got a laugh, when she stood and asked, “Sir Isaac, do you wear boxers, briefs, or bikini shorts?”

Sir Isaac giggled, but managed a straight face and said, “This is a physics class, Taylor, not a sleepover.”

Just then the door opened and Mr. Riley, the driver’s ed. teacher and school baseball coach, stuck his head in.

“Sir Isaac, are you ready?” he asked.

“Indeed we are, Mr. Riley,” replied Sir Isaac.

Mr. Riley pushed a large black wheelbarrow to the center of the stage. He and his helper, a senior player on the school team, grappled with a large blue machine, finally lifting it out of the wheelbarrow and onto the pallets. An electrical outlet was located and the device plugged in.

Sir Isaac said, “Mr. Riley could you please be so kind as to explain the purpose of this apparatus?”

Barnabas, head lolling on his chest, woke with a start. He wiped a bit of drool that had pooled at one corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

“This is a baseball pitching machine,” said Mr. Riley. “We can load up to 12 baseballs into it and fire them over the plate at any velocity we select, up to eighty-five miles per hour. Major league machines go up to about one hundred and five. For today’s demonstration we will be using these.” He reached into the wheelbarrow and held up two bright yellow tennis balls.

“First we need to take a few measurements,” said Sir Isaac. Brad and Barnabas, I need your help.”

At the sound of his name, Barnabas’ eyes popped open. Disoriented, he whispered to the girl next to him, “Did she just call on me?”

The girl ignored Barnabas and slid her chair a few inches further away.

Brad was already on his feet and sauntering toward the front.

“Never mind, Sleeping Barnabas,” said Sir Isaac, frowning. “Please wait outside in the hall for me until after class.”

“Thanks, bitch,” Barnabas hissed toward his tablemate.

The other students, embarrassed for one of their own, watched silently as Barnabas stood up and yawned.

“Whatever,” he mumbled.

Before the door closed behind Barnabas, Sir Isaac said, “Lia, please come forward to help Brad.”

A few minutes later, after certain vertical measurements had been taken, and colored chalk lines drawn on the blackboard, Lia and Brad launched tennis balls at various speeds down the aisle between the tables. Previously dusted with baby powder, the balls slammed into the blackboard leaving feathery circular splashes. Numbers were punched into laptops and technical questions were raised.Observations were discussed, simple conclusions drawn, and gradually, Sir Isaac Newton’s genius and the nature of gravity were revealed.

In the dimly lit locker lined hallway just outside the physics classroom, Barnabas, eyes closed, leaned sullenly against the wall.

A briskly striding teacher stopped.

“Are you okay, Barnabas?” he asked.

Barnabas’s eyes flickered open. “Couldn’t be better,” he said.

A pair of young lovebirds strolled leisurely by holding hands. They ignored their classmate. Like one-eyed jacks, they saw only each other.

The classroom door opened and Ms. Duffy, high school physics teacher, stepped out. Arms folded across her chest, she confronted her student.

“What’s up with you, Barnabas?” she asked quietly.

“Not much,” he said, eyes fixed on the wall just above his teacher’s head.

“Look at me,” she ordered. “I don’t know what’s bothering you, but I do know you’re not the same kid who loved physics and math a couple of months ago.”

She took a step nearer, stretched her neck up toward him.

“You’re way too capable to pull this shit.” The word seemed distasteful to her, but she used it anyway, the way someone might who just realizes the tool she’s been using is too small for the job.

She waited for a reaction. She came closer and went up on her tiptoes, so she could clearly see vacant eyes and catch a whiff of stale breath.

She said, “Once you start down this path, there’s no stopping, Barnabas. You’re at the cross-roads with me.”

“Big effing deal,” he said, swallowing the ugly guts of the word. “Save the sermon, Duffy.”

Momentarily stunned by the unexpectedly brutal words, Ms. Duffy’s clear brown eyes filled.

“Will do, young man,” she said softly. “Will do.”

She turned toward the door, stopped abruptly.

“Oh,” she said, digging one hand into the pocket of her lab coat. She held out a small piece of crumpled paper.

“You’re supposed to go see Mr. Harrington, your counselor, right after lunch. Don’t go to your fourth period class.”

She handed the slip to Barnabas.

Five minutes later, disregarding the nearly three hours of school remaining, Barnabas ducked out a side door and walked slowly toward the nearest metro bus stop. His usual supplier had just laughed in his face.

“No money, no business, man. Show me twenty an we be talking.”

A few minutes later a nearly empty city bus bullied up to the curb. The door sneezed open and waited patiently for the truant to play his next card.

Barnabas flashed his student pass, and without a word hiked to the back of the bus as the driver deftly maneuvered back into traffic. The forward motion of the bus threw Barnabas into the seat with a predictable amount of force.

The bus waddled north uphill through the nebulous community of Maple Leaf, past the Roosevelt reservoir at 75th, and eventually crossed Lake City Way. The Seattle Metro driver, carefully following traffic conventions, accelerated the bus smoothly from light to light, bid pleasant farewells to departing passengers and monitored the few remaining riders in his wide rear-view mirror.

Nearing the terminus of the route, the bus was empty now, except for Barnabas, the driver, and a pair of gray haired women sitting mid-coach. The bus crested the hill above Lake City and gathered momentum as it barreled down toward the Jackson Park Golf Course.
About halfway down the long hill, Barnabas stood up and stumbled awkwardly toward the front. In his mirror the driver noted the long dirty coat, the scrawny hand snaking out for each of the grab poles as Barnabas lurched toward him down the long aisle.

Out of the corner of his right eye, too late, the driver caught a flash of reflected light off metal, and then felt a dull poke just below his ear.

“Pull over and give me your wallet.”

It was an adolescent voice, not deep or threatening by itself. Barnabas pressed his useless cell phone, devoid of minutes, against the man’s skin.

The driver, following instincts almost as old as the natural laws binding the galaxies together, stomped the brakes.

At that instant Sir Isaac Newton’s observations regarding the nature of the universe took over: An object at rest will tend to stay at rest, and an object in motion will tend to continue moving in a straight line, until acted upon by an outside force.

Barnabas’ friction—the almost bald soles of his worn out tennis shoes touching the bus floor, his carelessly light grip on the slippery metal pole, and the weight of gravity pressing him down were no match for the bus’s massive brakes and decelerating engine. He catapulted horribly toward the monstrous windshield. Barnabas’s body mass, times its velocity, did not approach the speed of light, and thus time did not slow down, but perhaps the second hand on nature’s clock, out of unbridled kindness, lingered for a micro-second, allowing an instant for a boy’s simple regrets:

Mom, I so wish I had kissed you goodbye this morning. Forgive me for stealing money from your purse. I’m sorry for my dishonesty at home and school. You and Dad taught me to be honest and respect others and I’m really ashamed of myself for breaking your trust.

Dad, It’s too late now, but I wish I had been completely honest with you. I am really angry because you left Mom. Mom loves you, Dad. You’ve hurt her so much. You broke our family into smithereens.

Ms. Duffy, you are the best teacher I’ve ever had. Please forgive my hateful words and lack of respect. I really, really loved your class.

Emily, you are so hot! I wish I had taken you to the dance last week instead of getting stoned again. I was such an idiot.

Molly, please forgive me for stealing your guitar and selling it. I wasn’t thinking straight. You were a great sister. I love you, big sis.

These sorrows and regrets, and other recollections, even some light-hearted joys from an earlier time, did travel at light speed and also were permitted in the time allotted:

Ms. Duffy held up the test paper over her head and waved it like a victory banner. “Barnabas, you had the highest score in the class! Google, for a change you were second.”

Dad almost fell out of the boat netting my steelhead. That was such a fun day. I love you, Dad.

Mom, I wrote this Mother’s Day poem for you. It’s kind of a lame poem, but I’m going to be a physicist not a poet. I love you, Mom.

Thank you, Barn. I love the poem, but I love you a lot more. You’re the best son in the state of Washington and parts of Idaho and Oregon.

Emily says she likes you, Barn. She told Jill you’re way cute. She’s dying for you to ask her out. Do it, Barn. My parents will let me take the CRV and we can double date.

Molly, I’m so proud of you for getting into Washington State. I love you, big sister.

And then the final grain of sand in the hourglass plunged into the abyss of time and space. Newton’s third law, for-every-action-there's-an-equal-and-opposite-reaction explains why when Barnabas' head slammed against the windshield, then the windshield slammed back against his head with an equal, but opposite, force. His forehead made contact first, viciously twisting and then snapping his cervical vertebrae, and severing his spinal cord.

By then, Barnabas Bailey, still three weeks shy of his sixteenth birthday, former straight A student, first chair cellist with the Cascade Youth Ensemble, four handicap golfer, much beloved son of Laura Bailey of Seattle and Thomas W. Bailey of Bellevue, younger brother of Molly Bailey of Pullman, cherished grandson of Jake and Elba Bailey of Palm Desert, and Ruth Payton of Anacortes, had taken his final desperate breath, the perfect drumming of his young heart stilled, and his unseeing eyes lay open wide with unbidden death.

His cell phone clattered harmlessly to the bottom step of the departure well. A horrified driver, covered his eyes, and gasped for breath. Two shocked women, gaped and could not speak, dumbstruck.

Ten minutes later, a burly uniformed Seattle law enforcement officer, certain he was dealing with a corpse, carefully fished in the boy’s pockets, netting only a cheap, imitation leather wallet and a balled up request for a visit to Mr. Harrington’s office.

The wallet was empty except for a plastic metro bus pass, and a high school student ID card that revealed a smiling, good-looking boy with short blond hair. On the early September morning the photo had been snapped, Barnabas Bailey’s clear blue eyes sparkled with the triumph and sheer joy of being young and alive. His confident smile flashed wide for the camera, revealing a mouth full of white teeth and braces.

Sliding the card back into the thin wallet, the cop stood up and turned away. Sirens bawled in the distance. He stared with flooded eyes for a long time at the shivering trees standing silent witness alongside the empty street.

“Good God, kid,” he murmured. “What the hell were you thinking?”