Lessons in Chemistry(31)

Since he’d left the boys home, the only other person, besides the bishop, to whom he’d ever admitted his father grudge, was—of all people— a pen pal. He’d never met the man but they’d managed to establish a strong friendship. Maybe because, like confession, they both found it easier to talk to someone they couldn’t see. But when the subject of fathers came up—this was after a year of steady no-holds-barred correspondence—everything changed. Calvin had let it drop that he hoped his father was dead, and his pen pal, apparently shocked, reacted in a way Calvin hadn’t expected. He stopped writing back.

Calvin assumed he’d crossed a line—the man was religious and he was not; maybe hoping your father was dead wasn’t something one admitted in ecclesiastical circles. But whatever the reason, their tête-à-tête was over. He felt depressed for months.

That’s why he’d decided not to mention the fact of his undead father to Elizabeth. He deeply worried that she’d either react like his ex-friend had and drop him, or suddenly wake up to what the bishop had once described as his fatal flaw: an innate unlovability. Calvin Evans, ugly both inside and out. She had turned down his marriage proposal.

Anyway, if he told her now, she might question why he hadn’t told her before. And that was dangerous because she might ask herself what else had he left out?

No, some things were better left unsaid. Besides, she’d kept her work troubles to herself, hadn’t she? Having a few secrets in a close relationship was normal.

He pulled on his old track pants, then rummaged in their shared sock drawer, his mood lifting as he caught a whiff of her perfume. He’d never been one for self-improvement—never even gotten through Dale Carnegie’s book about making friends and influencing people because ten pages in he realized he didn’t care what anyone else thought. But that was before Elizabeth—before he realized that making her happy made him happy. Which, he thought, as he grabbed his tennis shoes, had to be the very definition of love. To actually want to change for someone else.

As he bent down to tie his laces, his chest filled with something new. Was it gratitude? He, the early orphaned, never-before-loved, unattractive Calvin Evans, had, by hook or by crook, found this woman, this dog, this research, this row, this run, Jack. It was all so much more than he’d ever expected, so much more than he ever deserved.

He looked at his watch: 5:18 a.m. Elizabeth was sitting on a stool, her centrifuges on full spin. He whistled for Six-Thirty to come meet him at the front door. It was a little over five miles to work, and running together, they could be there in forty-two minutes. But as he opened the door, Six-Thirty hesitated. It was dark and drizzly.

“Come on, boy,” Calvin said. “What’s wrong?”

Then he remembered. He turned back, grabbed the leash, bent down, and clipped it to Six-Thirty’s collar. Securely connected to the dog for the very first time, Calvin turned and locked the door behind him.

He was dead thirty-seven minutes later.





Chapter 11



Budget Cuts

“Come on, boy,” Calvin said to Six-Thirty, “let’s pick it up.” Six-Thirty moved to his place five paces in front of Calvin, then glanced back every so often as if to make sure Calvin was still there. As they turned right, they passed a newsstand. “CITY BUDGETS HIT ROCK BOTTOM,” screamed a headline, “POLICE AND FIRE SERVICES AT RISK.”

Calvin put pressure on the leash, directing Six-Thirty to turn left into an older neighborhood filled with big houses and oceanic lawns. “Someday we’ll live here,” Calvin assured him as they jogged along. “Maybe after I win the Nobel,” which Six-Thirty knew he would win because Elizabeth said he would.

As they took another turn, Calvin almost slipped on moss before regaining his stride. “Close one,” he huffed as they neared the police station. Six-Thirty looked ahead at the squad cars lined up like soldiers awaiting inspection.



* * *



—

But the cars hadn’t been inspected. This was because the police department had suffered yet another budget cut—their third in four years. All three cuts had fallen under the Do More with Less! initiative, the slogan dreamed up by some middle manager in the city’s PR department. What it actually meant this time was that their jobs were on the line. Salaries had already been docked. Raises were extinct. Layoffs were next.

So the officers did whatever they could to keep the layoffs at bay; they took the latest Do More with Less! initiative and stuck it where it belonged: out in the parking lot with the patrol cars. Let the black-and-whites bear the budget-cut brunt this time. No more tune-ups, oil changes, brake relining, retreads, lightbulb changes, nothing.



* * *



—

Six-Thirty didn’t like the police parking lot, especially the way the police backed out in such a sloppy hurry. He didn’t even like the friendly policemen who sometimes waved to them as he and Calvin jogged by, their slow trudge in sharp contrast to Calvin’s vigor. They seemed depressed in Six-Thirty’s opinion, shackled by low pay, bored by routine, unchallenged by the endless minor emergencies that never called upon the lifesaving training they’d learned at the police academy.

As he and Calvin approached, Six-Thirty sniffed the air. It was still dark. The sun would rise in about ten more—