Lessons in Chemistry(82)

He’d started to write back to Evans several times but couldn’t figure out what to say. Him. The minister. The guy currently writing a theology thesis titled “The Need for Consolation in Modern Society.” No words.

Their pen-pal relationship ended.

Just after graduation, his father died unexpectedly. He returned to Commons for the funeral and decided to stay. He found a small place by the beach, took over his father’s congregation, got out his surfboard.

He’d been there a few years when he finally learned that Evans was also in Commons. He couldn’t believe it. What were the odds? But before he could get up the nerve to reconnect with his famous friend, Evans was killed in a freak accident.

The word went out: someone was needed to officiate the scientist’s funeral. Wakely volunteered. He felt compelled to pay his respects to one of the few people he admired; to help in whatever way he could to guide Evans’s spirit to a place of peace. Plus, he was curious. Who would be there? Who would grieve the loss of this brilliant man?

The answer: a woman and a dog.



* * *



—

“In case it helps,” Madeline added, “tell them my dad was a rower.”



* * *



—

Wakely paused, remembering the extra-long casket.

He tried to reconstruct exactly what he’d said to the young woman who stood by the graveside: I’m sorry for your loss? Probably. He’d planned to speak with her after the service, but before he’d even finished the closing prayer, she’d walked away, the dog at her heels. He told himself he’d go see her, but he didn’t know her name or where she lived, and while it wouldn’t have been that difficult to find out, he didn’t pursue it. There was something about her that made him feel talking about Evans’s soul might just make matters worse.

After the service—for months after—he couldn’t get the brevity of Evans’s life out of his head. There were so few people who actually did things in the world that mattered—who made discoveries that changed things. Evans had slipped between the cracks of the unknown and explored the universe in a way that theology completely avoided. And for a very short period of time, he felt like he’d been part of it.

Still, that was then and this was now. He was a minister; he didn’t need science. What he did need were more inventive ways to tell his flock to act like decent people, to stop being so mean to one another, to behave. So, in the end, despite his doubts, he became a reverend, but he continued to think of the remarkable Evans. And now, here was this little girl claiming to be his daughter. God really did move in mysterious ways.

“Just to be clear,” he said, “we’re talking about Calvin Evans. The one who was killed in a car accident about five years ago.”

“It was a leash, but yes.”

“Ah,” he said. “But here’s the tricky part. Calvin Evans didn’t have children. In fact, he wasn’t—” He hesitated.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly. Obviously, the little girl was illegitimate on top of everything else. “And what’s that there?” he asked, pointing to a yellowed newspaper clipping sticking out from her notebook. “More of the assignment?”

“I have to bring in a family photo,” she said, retrieving a clipping still damp with dog saliva. She held it out gingerly, the way one might an irreplaceable treasure. “It’s the only one we’re all in.”

He unfolded it carefully. It was an article about Calvin Evans’s funeral, and in it was a photograph of the same woman and the dog, their backs to the camera but their devastation clear, watching as the earth swallowed the very casket he had blessed. A wave of depression swept over him.

“But, Mad, how in the world is this a family picture?”

“Well that’s my mom,” Madeline said, pointing to Elizabeth’s back, “and Six-Thirty,” she said, pointing at the dog. “And I’m inside my mom, just there,” she said, pointing at Elizabeth again, “and my dad is in the box.”

Wakely had spent the last seven years of his life consoling people, but there was something about the way this child spoke so matter-of-factly about her loss that depleted him.

“Mad, I need you to understand something,” he said, noting, with shock, that his own hands were in the photograph. “Families aren’t meant to fit on trees. Maybe because people aren’t part of the plant kingdom—we’re part of the animal kingdom.”

“Exactly,” Madeline gasped. “That’s exactly what I was trying to tell Mrs. Mudford.”

“If we were trees,” he added, worrying about how much grief this child was going to endure explaining her origins, “we might be a bit wiser. Long life and all that.”

And then he realized Calvin Evans hadn’t had a very long life and he’d just implied that it was probably because Evans hadn’t been very smart. Honestly, he was a terrible minister—the worst.

Madeline seemed to consider this answer, then leaned way across the table. “Wakely,” she said in a low voice, “I have to go watch my mom now, but I was wondering. Can you keep a secret?”

“I can,” he said, wondering what she meant by watching her mom. Was her mom sick?

She looked at him closely as if trying to determine if he was lying again, then got up from her chair and went to his side and whispered something so vigorously in his ear, his eyes grew wide in wonder. Before he could stop himself, he cupped his hand around her ear and did the same thing. Then they both leaned away from each other in surprise.