Lessons in Chemistry(81)

Madeline looked up at him. “A minute ago you said it would be fun to learn about my ancestors.”

“Yes,” he confessed, “but I was lying,” which made both of them laugh. From across the way, the librarian raised her head in warning.

“I’m Reverend Wakely,” he whispered, nodding an apology to the frowning librarian. “From First Presbyterian.”

“Mad Zott,” Madeline said. “Mad—like your magazine.”

“Well, Mad,” he said carefully, thinking “Mad” must be French for something. “If it’s not under Saint Vincent, try Saint Elmo. Or wait—try All Saints. That’s what they call places when they can’t decide on a single saint.”

“All Saints,” she said, flipping to the A’s. “All, All, All. Wait. Here it is. All Saints Boys Home!” But her excitement was short-lived. “But there’s no address. Just a phone number.”

“Is that a problem?”

“My mom says you only call long distance if someone dies.”

“Well, maybe I could call for you from my office. I have to call long distance all the time. I could say I was helping a member of my congregation.”

“You’d be lying again. Do you do that a lot?”

“It would be a white lie, Mad,” he said, slightly irritated. Would no one ever understand the contradictions of his job? “Or,” he said more pointedly, “you could follow Harriet’s advice and fill the tree with hodgepodge—which isn’t such a bad idea. Because quite often the past belongs only in the past.”

“Why?”

“Because the past is the only place it makes sense.”

“But my dad isn’t in the past. He’s still my dad.”

“Of course he is,” the reverend said, softening. “I just meant—in terms of me calling All Saints—that they might feel more comfortable talking with me because we’re both in religion. Like you probably feel more comfortable talking to the kids at school about school things.”

Madeline looked surprised. She’d never once felt comfortable talking to the kids at school.

“Or, I know,” he said, now wanting to extricate himself from the whole thing. “Ask your mother to call. It’s her husband; I’m sure they’d help. They might need proof of the marriage before they’d be willing to give her anything significant— a certificate, something like that—but that should be easy enough.”

Madeline froze.

“On second thought,” Madeline said, quickly writing two words on a scrap of paper, “here’s my dad’s name.” Then she added her phone number and handed it to him. “How soon can you call?”

The minister glanced down at the name.

“Calvin Evans?” he said, drawing back in surprise.



* * *



—

Back when he’d been at Harvard Divinity School, Wakely audited a chemistry course. His goal: to learn how the enemy camp explained creation so he could refute it. But after a year of chemistry, he found himself in deep water. Thanks to his newly acquired understanding of atoms, matter, elements, and molecules, he now struggled to believe God had created anything. Not heaven, not earth. Not even pizza.

As a fifth-generation minister attending one of the most prestigious divinity schools in the world, this was a huge problem. It wasn’t just the familial expectations; it was also science itself. Science insisted on something he rarely encountered in his future line of work: evidence. And in the middle of this evidence was a young man. His name was Calvin Evans.

Evans had come to Harvard to sit on a panel made up of RNA researchers, and Wakely, having nothing better to do on a Saturday night, attended. Evans, who was by far the youngest on the panel, barely said anything. There was a lot of shop talk from the others about how chemical bonds were formed, broken, then re-formed following something called an “effective collision.” Frankly, the whole thing was a little boring. Still, one of the panelists continued to drone on about how real change only ever arose through the application of kinetic energy. That’s when someone in the audience asked for an example of an ineffective collision—something that lacked energy and never changed, but still had a big effect. Evans had leaned into his microphone. “Religion,” he said. Then he got up and left.



* * *



—

The religion comment ate at him so he decided to write to Evans and say so. Much to his surprise, Evans wrote back—and then he wrote back to Evans, and then Evans wrote back to him, and so on. Even though they disagreed, it was clear they liked each other. Which is why, once they’d cleared the hurdles of religion and science, their letters turned personal. It was then they discovered that they were not only the same age but shared two things in common—an almost fanatical love for water-based sports (Calvin was a rower; he was a surfer) and an obsession for sunny weather. In addition, neither had a girlfriend. Neither enjoyed graduate school. Neither was sure what life held after graduation.

But then Wakely had ruined the whole thing by mentioning something about how he was following in his father’s footsteps. He wondered if Evans was doing the same. In response, Calvin wrote back in all caps saying that he hated his father and hoped he was dead.

Wakely was shocked. It was obvious that Evans had been badly hurt by his father and, knowing Evans, that his hatred had to be based on the most heartless thing of all. Evidence.