Lessons in Chemistry(63)

“If Dad was famous, then he must have been rich, right?” Mad said, twirling her spaghetti around her fork.

“No, honey. Not all famous people are rich.”

“Why not? Did they mess up?”

She thought back to the offers. Calvin had accepted the lowest one. Who does that?

“Tommy Dixon says it’s easy to get rich. You paint rocks yellow, then say it’s gold.”

“Tommy Dixon is what we call a flimflam man,” Elizabeth said. “Someone who schemes to get what they want through illegal means.” Like Donatti, she thought, her jaw locking in place.

She thought back to another folder she’d found in Calvin’s boxes, this one full of letters from people just like Tommy Dixon—wackos, get-rich-quick investors—but also a wide assortment of fake family members, each of whom desperately wanted Calvin’s help: a half sister, a long-lost uncle, a sad mother, a cousin twice removed.

She’d skimmed the fake family letters quickly, surprised at how similar they were. Each claimed a biological connection, each provided a memory from an age he wouldn’t be able to remember, each wanted money. The only exception was Sad Mother. While she, too, claimed a biological connection, instead of asking for money, she insisted she wanted to give it. To help your research, she claimed. Sad Mother had written to Calvin at least five times, imploring him to respond. It was really rather heartless, Elizabeth thought, the way Sad Mother persisted. Even Long-Lost Uncle had called it quits after two. They told me you were dead, Sad Mother had written over and over again. Really? Then why had she, like all the others, only written to Calvin after he’d become famous? Elizabeth assumed her ploy was to hook him, then steal his research. And why did she think this? Because it had just happened to her.



* * *



—

“I don’t get it,” Mad said, shoving a mushroom to the side of her plate. “If you’re smart and you work hard, doesn’t that mean you make more money?”

“Not always. Still, I’m sure your dad could have earned more money,” Elizabeth said. “It’s just that he made a different choice. Money isn’t everything.”

Mad looked back, dubious.



* * *



—

What Elizabeth didn’t tell Mad was that she knew very well why Calvin had eagerly accepted Donatti’s ridiculous offer. But his reason was so short-sighted—so dumb—she hesitated to share it. She wanted Mad to think of her father as a rational man who made smart decisions. This proved just the opposite.

She found it in a folder labeled “Wakely,” which contained a series of letters between Calvin and a would-be theologian. The two men were pen pals; it was clear they’d never met face-to-face. But their typed exchanges were fascinating and numerous, and lucky for her, the folder included Calvin’s carbon copy replies. This was something she knew about Calvin: he made copies of everything.

Wakely, who was attending Harvard Divinity School at the same time Calvin was at Cambridge, seemed to be struggling with his faith based on science in general, and on Calvin’s research in particular. According to his letters, he’d attended a symposium where Calvin had spoken briefly and, based on that, had decided to write to him.

“Dear Mr. Evans, I wanted to get in touch with you after your brief appearance at the science symposium in Boston last week. I’d hoped to speak with you about your recent article, ‘The Spontaneous Generation of Complex Organic Molecules,’?” Wakely had written in the first letter. “Specifically, I wanted to ask: Don’t you think it’s possible to believe in both God and science?”

“Sure,” Calvin had written back. “It’s called intellectual dishonesty.”

Although Calvin’s flippancy had a tendency to annoy a lot of people, it didn’t seem to faze the young Wakely. He wrote back immediately.

“But surely you’d agree that the field of chemistry could not exist unless and until it was created by a chemist— a master chemist,” Wakely argued in his next letter. “In the same way that a painting cannot exist until it is created by an artist.”

“I deal in evidence-based truths, not conjecture,” Calvin replied just as quickly. “So no, your master chemist theory is bullshit. By the way, I notice you’re at Harvard. Are you a rower? I row for Cambridge. Full-ride rowing scholarship.”

“Not a rower,” Wakely wrote back. “Although I love the water. I’m a surfer. I grew up in Commons, California. Ever been to California? If not, you should go. Commons is beautiful. Best weather in the world. They row there, too.”



* * *



—

Elizabeth sat back on her heels. She remembered how vigorously Calvin had circled Hastings’s return address in the offer letter. Commons, California. So he’d accepted Donatti’s insulting offer, not to further his career, but to row? Thanks to a one-line weather report from a religious surfer? Best weather in the world. Really? She moved on to the next letter.



* * *



—

“Did you always want to be a minister?” Calvin asked.

“I come from a long line of ministers,” Wakely answered back. “It’s in my blood.”

“Blood doesn’t work that way,” Calvin corrected. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask: Why do you think so many people believe in texts written thousands of years ago? And why does it seem the more supernatural, unprovable, improbable, and ancient the source of these texts, the more people believe them?”