Dark Matter

Chapter 5 is a long, action-filled chapter that switches back to Jason’s first-person present tense narration.

It is morning at Mercy Hospital, and a new doctor discusses the brain scan results with Jason. She tells him the results were normal, but they found ketamine and an unidentified psychoactive drug in his toxicology screen. She asks him his personal details again and tells him that they could not find anyone with his wife’s name in the city, nor could they find evidence that he teaches at Lakemont College. She did, however, find information about him. She reads from a Wikipedia page about Jason that he doesn’t know exists.

In 2004, two years after Jason graduated from the University of Chicago with his PhD, he won the Pavia Prize and was honored in Science magazine. He guest lectured at Harvard, Princeton, and UC Berkeley. In 2005, he became the chief science officer at Velocity Laboratories, a jet propulsion research center. Eight months ago, his brother filed a missing-persons report; Jason has not been seen publicly for over a year. The doctor says she has called the police to transfer Jason to a psychiatric hospital. Jason objects, but she says that she’s placed him on a 72-hour hold. When she leaves, Jason takes the elevator down to the lobby and leaves the hospital.

Outside, it’s cold and raining. He hasn’t been followed. He heads to the nearby Days Inn, but when he arrives, he sees it has been turned into a fancy apartment building. The whole neighborhood has been gentrified with trendy bars, coffee shops, and restaurants. He walks further and finds a surprisingly outdated 1940s-style hotel. He gets a room and uses the phone book he finds in the desk to call his wife. As a scientist, Jason knows he has to break down the larger problem of what happened to him into smaller, manageable pieces. The first piece is to find Daniela. He uses her maiden name, Vargas, and finds a number that takes him to her voicemail. Before he leaves, he ties a thread from the curtain around his ring finger to remind him that his life and marriage are real.

Jason gets a slice of pizza, then goes to Daniela’s address in Bucktown. She is not there, but her apartment building’s bulletin board has a flyer for her gallery exhibit, which is taking place that night. After waiting outside the gallery for 45 minutes, he is granted entrance to her installation called “Entanglement.” It is a labyrinth, in which each person chooses their own path. Lights and images flash around Jason, and he feels a profound sense of loss. When he exits the labyrinth, he sees Daniela in a gorgeous black dress, thanking the crowd. She is as vivacious as she was when they met 15 years ago. He approaches, and she recognizes him. Jason asks about Charlie, but Daniela does not know who that is. She tells Jason she hasn’t seen him in over a year, and that a conversation they had back then inspired her to make the labyrinth.

Ryan approaches and puts his arm around Daniela: They are together. He congratulates Jason on the Pavia Prize, and Jason notes that Ryan is not the swaggering, arrogant man he met at the bar. Ryan now teaches molecular neuroscience at the University of Chicago. In a whisper, Ryan asks Jason how the compound he made worked out. Jason hesitates, and Ryan accuses Jason of using him: “I just feel like I did a lot of work for you and Velocity in the dark. You and I go way back, and I get that you’re in a different place in your career, but I don’t know… I think you got what you wanted from me and…” (89). They switch to talking about Ryan and Daniela: They have been dating for a little while. Jason is envious.

The three of them go back to Daniela’s apartment. They smoke weed, and Jason admits that he does not remember the conversation he had with Daniela that inspired her art piece. She says he came to her apartment one night, saying he was working on a secret project: “Then you told me that our existence was all about choices and that you had blown some of them, but none so badly as with me” (92). He said an emotional goodbye, and Daniela has not seen him since. She then asks Jason who Charlie is, and Jason tells her Charlie is their son.

This news startles Daniela and Ryan, and they ask Jason what is going on. He gives them the hypothetical scenario of everything that he has experienced and tells them of their lives as he knows it: He is a middling physics professor married to Daniela, who gave up her art career for her family, and Ryan, in fact, is the award-winning scientist. Daniela is upset; Ryan gets angry and leaves.

Later, Daniela makes Jason some tea and asks if he needs to go to the hospital. He says that they wanted to put him in the psychiatric ward, but he escaped. She asks him to tell her about Charlie. He gives her all the details until she starts to cry. She tells Jason that he broke up with her 15 years ago because she was pregnant and he couldn’t commit to being a father: His career came first. He tells her that’s not how it happened and gives her the story as he knows it. She tells him he is not well, but she lets him spend the night in the guest room.

The next morning, Jason has a fever. Daniela takes care of him. When he feels better, she asks about their life together—if they are happy. He says yes, they bond over both having given up their careers: “There have been rough patches, like with any marriage, but we have a son, a home, a family. You’re my best friend” (100).

The evening is calm. Daniela makes a traditional Spanish stew for dinner, and just as she is about to tell Jason, he interjects that it is a recipe handed down from her mother. They only dated for two and a half months, so Daniela is stunned that he knows this. He says that in his world, they’ve known each other for 15 years and he knows almost everything about her. After dinner, he thanks her for taking him in. He wants to kiss her, but he doesn’t.

That night, Daniela comes into his bedroom, and they make love. Jason says he needs to get to his computer to find out what he’s been working on. A loud knock on the door startles them. A man in the hallway calls Daniela’s phone, and she assures him she is home alone. The man breaks through the door and shoots Daniela in the head with a silenced pistol. She slumps on the couch, dead. He ties Jason up and puts duct tape over his mouth. While Jason struggles, the man talks on his cell phone in a calm, high-pitched voice. He gives directions to someone who is coming to pick up Jason, then he answers another call, saying “Hey baby…” (107). He tells the caller something came up and promises to take her to breakfast in the morning.

This short chapter switches to third-person present tense, following Daniela’s inner monologue.

Daniela is at a Cubs game with Jason and Charlie. It’s a beautiful fall day. Surprisingly, Charlie is happy to be there with his parents and isn’t checking his phone. Daniela feels like things are perfect—different, in a good way.

That evening, she and Jason have dinner downtown. They are at a fancy restaurant, and it’s like they’re on a date. She tells Jason it feels like he is trying to sleep with her. He says he is. She means that they’re an old married couple, and he doesn’t need to win her over. He tells her that since he came back two nights ago after almost getting hit by the cab, things have changed: “I don’t know if it was my life flashing before my eyes or what, but when I came home, everything felt different. More real” (111). Jason tells her about dark matter, the theoretical substance that holds the universe together. Some string theorists think it is evidence of a multiverse, where different versions of people’s lives play out based on different choice trajectories. She asks him if he thinks there is a different version of their lives in which he is a famous scientist, and she is a famous artist. He says that even if there is, he would rather be right there with her.