Lessons in Chemistry(124)

“And,” Avery said, “the bishop informed Wilson that Calvin was…” She hesitated.

“Was what?” Elizabeth urged. “What?”

The older woman’s face sagged. “Dead.”

Elizabeth sat back, floored. The home needed money, the bishop saw an opportunity, there was a memorial fund. Facts came pouring out of the woman in a dull, lifeless rush.

“Have you ever lost a family member?” Avery suddenly asked in a flat voice.

“My brother.”

“Illness?”

“Suicide.”

“Oh god,” she said. “So you know what it is to feel responsible for someone’s death.”

Elizabeth tensed. The words fit snugly, like laces knotted twice. “But you didn’t kill Calvin,” she said with a heavy heart.

“No,” Parker said in a voice sick with remorse. “I did something much worse. I buried him.”



* * *



—

From the north side of the room, a timer beeped, and Elizabeth, trembling, went to shut it off. She turned to take in the woman standing at the chalkboard. She leaned to the right. Six-Thirty got up and went to Avery. He pressed his head against her thigh. I know what it’s like to fail a loved one.

“My parents had long funded unwed mothers homes and orphanages,” Avery continued, fiddling with the eraser. “They thought this made them good people. And yet thanks to their blind allegiance to the Catholic Church, they managed to make an orphan out of my son.” She paused. “I funded my son’s memorial before he was dead, Miss Zott,” she said, her breath shallow. “I buried him twice.”

Elizabeth felt a sudden wave of nausea.

“After Wilson returned from the boys home,” Avery continued, “I sank into a deep depression. I’d never had the chance to see my own son, never held him, never heard his voice. Worse, I had to live with the knowledge that he’d suffered. He’d lost me, then his parents, then he ended up in that garbage dump of a boys home. Each of these losses signed, sealed, and delivered in the name of the church.” She stopped abruptly, her face reddening. “YOU DON’T BELIEVE IN GOD FOR SCIENTIFIC REASONS, MISS ZOTT?” she suddenly exploded. “WELL, I DON’T BELIEVE IN GOD FOR PERSONAL REASONS.”

Elizabeth tried to speak but nothing came out.

“The only decision I was able to make,” Avery Parker said, trying to bring her voice back under control, “was to ensure that all the memorial funds went toward a science education. Biology. Chemistry. Physics. Exercise, too. Calvin’s father—his biological father, I mean—was an athlete. A rower. That’s why the boys at All Saints learned to row. It was a gesture. In his honor.”

Elizabeth saw Calvin. They were in the pair, his face lit by the early morning sun. He was smiling, one hand on the oar, the other reaching for her. “That’s how he got to Cambridge,” she said as the vision slowly faded away. “On a rowing scholarship.”

Avery dropped the eraser. “I had no idea.”



* * *



—

Details slowly continued to fall into place, but something still nagged at Elizabeth.

“But…but how did you finally find out that Calvin—”

“Chemistry Today,” Parker said, slipping onto the stool next to Elizabeth’s. “The one with Calvin on the cover. I still remember that day—Wilson came rushing into my office waving it in the air. ‘You won’t believe this,’ he said. I picked up the phone right then and called the bishop. Naturally he insisted it was only a coincidence—‘Evans,’ he said. ‘It’s a very common name.’ I knew he was lying and I intended to sue—until Wilson convinced me the publicity would not only be ruinous for the foundation but embarrassing for Calvin.” She leaned back and took a deep breath before continuing. “I cut off funding immediately. Then I wrote to Calvin—several times. I explained things as best I could, asked to meet him, told him that I wanted to fund his research. I can only imagine what he thought,” she said, depressed. “Some lady writing to him out of the blue claiming to be his mother. Or maybe I do because I never heard from him.”

Elizabeth started. The Sad Mother letters bloomed again before her eyes, the signature at the bottom of each, radiating a sudden cruel clarity. Avery Parker.

“But surely if you’d arranged a meeting. Flown to California—”

Avery’s face turned ashen. “Look. It’s one thing to pursue a child with vigor. But once that child reaches adulthood, it changes. I decided to move slowly. Give him time to accept the possibility of me, research my foundation, realize I had no reason to delude him. I knew it might take years. I forced myself to be patient. But obviously,” she said, “given what happened—” She fixed her gaze on a stack of notebooks. “I was—too patient.”

“Oh dear god,” Elizabeth said, sinking her head in her hands.

“Still,” Parker continued in a monotone, “I followed his career. I thought maybe there’d be a chance, some way to help him. But as it turned out, he didn’t need my help. You did.”

“But how did you know Calvin and I were even…”

“Together?” A wistful smile pulled at the corners of her mouth. “It was all anyone could talk about,” Parker said. “From the moment Wilson set foot in Hastings, all he heard were veiled references to Calvin Evans and his scandalous affair. It’s one of the reasons why, when Wilson told Donatti he was there to fund abiogenesis, Donatti did his very best to try to steer him elsewhere. The last thing he wanted was for Calvin or anyone associated with Calvin to succeed. And then there was the fact that you were female. Donatti rightly assumed that most donors would not fund a woman.”