A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle [15]
“For all the most unimportant reasons,” Calvin said. “There hasn’t been anybody, anybody in the world I could talk to. Sure, I can function on the same level as everybody else, I can hold myself down, but it isn’t me.”
Meg took a batch of forks from the drawer and turned them over and over, looking at them. “I’m all confused again.”
“Oh, so ’m I,” Calvin said gaily. “But now at least I know we’re going somewhere.”
Meg was pleased and a little surprised when the twins were excited at having Calvin for supper. They knew more about his athletic record and were far more impressed by it than she. Calvin ate five bowls of stew, three saucers of Jello, and a dozen cookies, and then Charles Wallace insisted that Calvin take him up to bed and read to him. The twins, who had finished their homework, were allowed to watch half an hour ofTV. Meg helped her mother with the dishes and then sat at the table and struggled with her homework. But she could not concentrate.
“Mother, are you upset?” she asked suddenly.
Mrs. Murry looked up from a copy of an English scientific magazine through which she was leafing. For a moment she did not speak. Then, “Yes.”
“Why?”
Again Mrs. Murry paused. She held her hands out and looked at them. They were long and strong and beautiful. She touched with the fingers of her right hand the broad gold band on the third finger of her left hand. “I’m still quite a young woman, you know,” she said finally, “though I realize that that’s difficult for you children to conceive. And I’m still very much in love with your father. I miss him quite dreadfully.”
“And you think all this has something to do with Father?”
“I think it must have.”
“But what?”
“That I don’t know. But it seems the only explanation.”
“Do you think things always have an explanation?”
“Yes. I believe that they do. But I think that with our human limitations we’re not always able to understand the explanations. But you see, Meg, just because we don’t understand doesn’t mean that the explanation doesn’t exist.”
“I like to understand things,” Meg said.
“We all do. But it isn’t always possible.”
“Charles Wallace understands more than the rest of us, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I suppose because he’s—well, because he’s different, Meg.”
“Different how?”
“I’m not quite sure. You know yourself he’s not like anybody else.”
“No. And I wouldn’t want him to be,” Meg said defensively.
“Wanting doesn’t have anything to do with it. Charles Wallace is what he is. Different. New.”
“New?”
“Yes. That’s what your father and I feel.”
Meg twisted her pencil so hard that it broke. She laughed. “I’m sorry. I’m really not being destructive. I’m just trying to get things straight.”
“I know.”
“But Charles Wallace doesn’t look different from anybody else.”
“No, Meg, but people are more than just the way they look. Charles Wallace’s difference isn’t physical. It’s in essence.”
Meg sighed heavily, took off her glasses and twirled them, put them back on again. “Well, I know Charles Wallace is different, and I know he’s something more. I guess I’ll just have to accept it without understanding it.”
Mrs. Murry smiled at her. “Maybe that’s really the point I was trying to put across.”
“Yah,” Meg said dubiously.
Her mother smiled again. “Maybe that’s why our visitor last night didn’t surprise me. Maybe that’s why I’m able to have a—a willing suspension of disbelief. Because of Charles Wallace.”
“Are you like Charles?” Meg asked.
“I? Heavens no. I’m blessed with more brains and opportunities than many people, but there’s nothing about me that breaks out of the ordinary mold.”
“Your looks do,” Meg said.
Mrs. Murry laughed. “You just haven’t had enough basis for comparison, Meg. I’m very ordinary, really.”
Calvin O’Keefe, coming in then, said, “Ha ha.”
“Charles all settled?” Mrs. Murry asked.
“Yes.”
“What did you read to him?”
“Genesis. His choice. By the way, what kind of an experiment were you working on this afternoon, Mrs. Murry?”
“Oh, something my husband and I were cooking up together. I don’t