Infinity + One

“The square root of negative one is an imaginary number.”

“Is that all?”

"Any number that was once the square root of a negative number becomes an imaginary number. Square root of -4 becomes 2i, square root of -100 becomes 10i."

“Is infinity an imaginary number?”

“No.”

“Is it a real number?”

“No. It isn’t a number at all. It’s a concept of endlessness, unreachableness.

“I knew it. See? You are just a figment of my imagination.”

Finn laughed, a quiet chuckle that didn’t travel farther than my ears. “A real number is just a value that represents a quantity on a continuous line. But that doesn’t mean it shows the value of something real. Almost any number that you can think of is a real number. Whole numbers, rational numbers, irrational numbers.”

“And infinity can’t be measured.” I thought I understood.

“Yeah.” Finn grasped my fingers that played against his lips. “There is no point that marks infinity.”

“But it still exists.”

“It exists, but it isn’t real,” Finn countered, obviously enjoying the word play.

“I hate math,” I said. But I smiled and he leaned down and kissed me, forgiving me, making me love math. Very much.

“Math is beautiful,” he murmured.

“Math isn’t real,” I argued, just for the sake of arguing.

“It isn’t always tangible, but some of the best things in life aren’t tangible. Love isn’t tangible. Neither is patience. Neither is kindness or forgiveness or any one of the other virtues people talk about,” he said.

“I’ve been looking for what’s real for the last few years,” I confessed wistfully, the sound child-like, even to my own ears. “But reality is usually ugly. Beauty? That’s harder to pin down. It’s like a sunset. It’s beautiful, it makes you feel something. And that’s real. But the feeling only lasts as long as the sunset. It’s so fleeting. So it’s easy to believe it isn’t real.” I sighed, wondering if I was making any sense.

“Fame and fortune seem like that. Like they can’t be real. And then suddenly they are. You are . . . rich and famous. But you don’t feel any different. So it doesn’t feel real. So you keep looking. And before long … it becomes so easy to just give in to the ugly. Because it’s everywhere you look. So you take from it what pleasure there is to take. Because there is pleasure in it. And it’s real,” I insisted again.

“But the pleasure gets harder and harder to find, and you have to dig deeper and deeper into the crap, so deep you’re covered in it, and you get coated in the ugly.” I felt despair rising in my chest, and Finn seemed to sense it because he kissed my forehead and then my eyelids and then my lips once more, demanding that I pause, just for a moment.

“I get it, Bonnie Rae,” Finn said, holding my gaze. “You think I don’t get that? Prison is full of all that is truly ugly. I was surrounded by it for five years. I think sometimes I’ll never be able to scrub off the stench.”

“What I feel for you, Finn? It’s not like anything I’ve felt before. It’s better than real. So maybe the challenge in life is not letting what is real convince us that that is all there is.”

Finn didn’t respond, and I didn’t know if I’d gotten through to him. But I needed him to believe me, and the turbulence in my chest had me peering up at him, entreating him to hear.

“Maybe I’ll stop looking for real,” I whispered, just making out his eyes as he stared down into my face, his features softly illuminated by the hushed light of the moon that bathed the world streaming past the bus windows. “Maybe I’ll stop looking for real, now that I’ve found Infinity.”

THE BUS STOPPED in Gallup, New Mexico, about two hours into the trip, but we stayed on the bus. When the bus resumed the journey, we slept for a while, the little sleep we’d gotten over the last week, along with the soothing hum of the bus making it easy to drop off. We kept our hats pulled low over our faces, and Finn traded me seats so he could lean against the window, and I could lean against him.

When the bus made a stop in Flagstaff, Arizona, about three hours later, and halfway into the trip, we stayed in our seats again, deciding that the less attention we drew to ourselves getting on and off, the better. While we waited for the journey to continue, I dug through my bag until I found the Sharpie I’d used to sign the janitor’s one hundred dollar bill.

“Who carries a marker in their purse?” Finn shook his head.

“Tools of my trade, Clyde. I never leave home without one.”

“Please don’t start signing autographs on this bus, Bonnie Rae. We still have hours to go, and it’s broad daylight. No concerts, no signings, no entertaining the troops.” There were a handful of soldiers on the bus, which I had pointed out to Finn, telling him about my work with the USO.

“Hold your horses, Infinity,” I teased. “Give me your right hand.”

Finn did as I asked, crossing his hand over his body so I could hold it in mine. I pulled the lid off the fine-tip marker with my teeth, and very carefully, added a dot to his tattoo. There were still four dots comprising the “cage”—but instead of one man in the cage, now there were two. Two dots, that is.

Finn looked at my handiwork and then looked at me, his eyebrows raised in question.