Lessons in Chemistry(53)

“To your left.”

“Speaking of trial runs,” he said, adding more soap. “It’s time.”

“Time?”

“Time to row. It’s been a year already.”

She laughed. “That’s funny.”

He turned to look at her, his hands dripping water on the floor. “What’s funny?”

Now it was Elizabeth’s turn to look confused.

“We have an opening. Two seat. It would work for us to have you back as soon as possible. Next week at the latest.”

“What? No. I’m—”

“Tired? Busy? Probably going to argue you don’t have time.”

“Because I don’t.”

“Who does? Being an adult is overrated, don’t you think?” he said. “Just as you solve one problem, ten more pull up.”

“Up!” Madeline shouted.

“The only decent thing I learned in the marines was the value of making my bed every morning. But a chilly splash of water in the face off starboard, just before dawn? It fixes things.”



* * *



—

Elizabeth took a sip of coffee as Mason prattled on. She was well aware that she needed fixing. She’d reached a new stage in her grief: from mourning the man she’d fallen in love with, to mourning the father she knew he would have been. She tried hard not to imagine how high Calvin would have tossed Mad in the air, how easily he would have plopped her on his shoulders. Neither of them had wanted children, and Elizabeth still fervently believed that no woman should be forced to have a baby. Yet here she was, a single mother, the lead scientist on what had to be the most unscientific experiment of all time: the raising of another human being. Every day she found parenthood like taking a test for which she had not studied. The questions were daunting and there wasn’t nearly enough multiple choice. Occasionally she woke up damp with sweat, having imagined a knock at the door and some sort of authority figure with an empty baby-sized basket saying, “We’ve just reviewed your last parental performance report and there’s really no nice way to put this. You’re fired.”



* * *



—

“I’ve tried to get my wife to row for years,” Dr. Mason was saying. “I think she’d love it. But she always says no and I have to assume it’s partly because there aren’t any other women down at the boathouse. I’m not crazy, Miss Zott. Women row. You row. There are women’s rowing teams.”

“Where?”

“Oslo.”

“Norway?”

“This one,” he said, pointing to Mad. “She’s definitely going to row port. See how she naturally shifts her weight to the right?”

They both looked to Madeline, who was staring at her fingers as if surprised to find they weren’t all the same length. Last night, when Elizabeth was reading aloud from Treasure Island, she’d felt Mad staring up at her, her lips parted in awe. She looked back down at her daughter, awestruck in a different way. It had been such a long time since anyone had shown her that kind of faith. She felt an avalanche of love for her misinformed child.

“You’d be surprised how much you can tell about a baby at this stage,” Mason was saying. “They constantly reveal their future selves in the smallest of ways. This one; she can read a room.”

Elizabeth nodded. Last week she’d peeked in on Mad during naptime and found the child sitting up in her crib explaining something in earnest to Six-Thirty. Elizabeth had hung back, watching in wonder as the baby, wobbling back and forth like a bowling pin threatening to topple, waved her hands as she chattered a steady stream of consonants and vowels strung together haphazardly, like laundry on a line, but delivered with the kind of passion that made it clear she was an expert in this area. Six-Thirty stood next to the crib, rapt, his nose stuck between the slats, ears tracking every syllable. Mad paused in midair as if she’d just lost her train of thought, then leaned forward toward the dog and started in again. “Gagagagazozonanowoowoo,” she said as if clarifying a point. “Babbadodobabdo.”

Having a baby, Elizabeth realized, was a little like living with a visitor from a distant planet. There was a certain amount of give and take as the visitor learned your ways and you learned theirs, but gradually their ways faded and your ways stuck. Which she found regrettable. Because unlike adults, her visitor never tired of even the smallest discovery; always saw the magic in the ordinary. Last month Mad had let out a shriek from the living room, and Elizabeth ruined an hour’s worth of work in her rush to her side. “What is it, Mad?” she said, swooping in like a helicopter in a war zone. “What’s wrong?”

Mad, wide-eyed, looked back at her as she held up a spoon. Look at this! she seemed to say. It was right here! On the floor!



* * *



—

“And it’s not just exercise,” Dr. Mason was saying. “Rowing is a way of life. Am I right?” He was talking to the baby.

“Ite!” shouted Mad, banging on her tray.

“By the way, we have a new coach,” he said, turning to Elizabeth. “Very talented. I’ve told him about you.”

“Really? And did you tell him I’m a woman?”

“No!” shouted Mad.