The Science of Breakable Things

“Now I’m sitting alone, realizing I can’t think of the experiment that will explain everything. How can I get the answer when I don’t even know the question?”

At first, Natalie grapples with the scientific method because she’s unsure how to apply it to her mother. Not having named the depression yet, Natalie asks questions like why someone would want to be in the dark all the time or would stop caring about their family. However, she knows that these questions will not yield the answers she wants, so she’s at a loss for where to start. Furthermore, she feels alone because her mom is not in a position to help her with her science homework anymore.

“He thinks the ‘situation’ is really bothering me, and it is, I guess, but it’s not like she’s really sick, even though that’s how Dad keeps referring to her. The way I see it, she just got bored with life—bored with us. I’m not going to waste my time being sad about it.”

Natalie’s father initially uses the euphemism “situation” to refer to Natalie’s mother’s depression, but this doesn’t help Natalie. Instead, this confuses her and leads her to draw flawed conclusions about her mother.

“Maybe she is doing all of those laughing, crying things on the inside, just like her beloved plants, and she only needs someone to push her out, out, out again so she can laugh and sing and wonder on the outside, with me.”

Still lacking a literal name or explanation for what’s going on with her mother, Natalie turns to the metaphor of perennial plants, which her mother used to work with as a botanist. Although she doesn’t yet understand the illness, the important thing to Natalie is that this metaphor implies there is still hope that her mother will get better. Although Natalie doesn’t realize it yet, this metaphor also implies that depression is not new and sudden but recurs in her mother’s life.