Charmed Particles by Chrissy Kolaya

orders of magnitude.” At this the other men let out hearty, guffawing laughs.
    Meena played with the table tent announcing I NTERNATIONAL F OLK D ANCING C LUB—NEWCOMERS ALWAYS WELCOME! and every so often, a triangle of geese cut across the windowed wall of the atrium.
    Sarala had dressed Meena in a pink sundress with bows on the shoulders and tiny pink sandals, her hair cut in a short bob, bangs struck out across her forehead just above her large brown eyes. A few of the aproned and baseball-capped cafeteria ladies came over to the table to admire her, bringing Meena a small cup of ice cream and a dish of raisins from the salad bar. They smiled at Sarala. “So nice to have a child in the building,” one of them said.
    Sarala could hear a scientist at a nearby table explaining to his lunch companion, “I told them, once they’ve got things sorted out they ought to be looking for an interaction that looks like—” and here she caught sight of Abhijat coming toward them from across the atrium, a broad smile on his face.
    â€œWell, it won’t be long before we’re obsolete,” the man at the other table continued. “Before there’s a bigger, faster collider to be built. Let’s just hope we’re able to build it here. I wouldn’t like to think what will happen once we’re no longer operating at the highest energy levels.”
    â€œNow where did you get those treats, young miss?” Abhijat asked as he sat down beside Meena, tickling her under her chin. Meena smiled up at him and pointed happily at the cafeteria ladies who waved at her from behind the serving counters.
    Sarala went through the cafeteria line, filling a tray for all three of them, while Abhijat sat with Meena, who tapped away at the calculator he had brought down from his office for her to play with. He cut up her chicken nuggets so they would cool and helped Meena sip milk through a straw in the small carton. Every few moments one of his colleagues came over to coo at Meena, “Such a good girl for her daddy.” At one of the nearby tables, a grandfatherly scientist made faces at her, then hid his face behind his hands.
    After lunch Meena waved to her father as the elevator doors closed, lifting him up to the top of Anderson Tower where, Sarala thought, he might, were he to look out of his office window, be able to watch their slow progress home. She wondered how often he took his eyes from the equations on his wall to look out over the prairie toward the city.
    Back outside, she retraced her steps, pushing the stroller before her, walking along the paths in reverse, Meena chattering away, asking, “Mommy, what does almost mean?” “What does before mean?” then slipping slowly into sleep.

    At home, Sarala lifted Meena’s slack, sleep-heavy body from the stroller and carried her up the stairs, loosening her sandals and letting them drop in the hallway. She laid Meena down in her small twin bed, pulling her favorite blanket up over her sundress and stopping for a moment to admire her child, her plump lips open slightly in sleep, her round cheeks, the soft spray of eyelashes that fluttered against her skin.
    Downstairs in the family room, Sarala set up the ironing board and plugged in the iron, pulling Abhijat’s dress shirts one by one from the laundry basket. The house was silent, the neighborhood silent. She had never imagined such quiet. Had never thought it possible. She had always imagined a life like the one she’d grown up with, aunts and uncles and grandparents all living together under one lively, boisterous roof.
    She turned the television on and knelt before it, clicking up and down the channels—a game show, a painting class on the public television station, a midday newscast—but finding nothing that interested her, she turned it off.
    The house was still with Meena asleep, the iron letting out a gurgle of steam as Sarala turned