All Our Wrong Todays(66)

“You admit you’re here on false pretenses,” he says.

“Yeah. I mean, I do have some questions that relate to you and your wife, but I’m not writing a book. It seemed like a good way to get you to see me on such short notice.”

“You’ve got thirty seconds before I call the police,” he says. “It’s not technically trespassing but we can sort that out at the station.”

“I’m looking for a man named Lionel Goettreider,” I say.

Jerome’s frail, wrinkled face curdles with such force that at first I think he might be having a stroke. But then he bares his teeth, gorilla-like, grimacing through dry lips.

“What do you think you know?” he says.

“I know you oversaw funding for an experiment he conducted on July 11, 1965. I know it failed and it cost you your arm. And I know Lionel Goettreider was, uh . . .”

“What?” he says.

“Close,” I say. “With your wife.”

“You piece of shit,” he says, “coming into my home and dredging all that up, spitting on my dead wife’s name, who do you think you are?”

Emma comes in, carrying a silver tray with two mugs, a coffeepot, sugar jar, and milk jug. She catches the end of Jerome’s invective and blanches.

“Is everything okay?” she says.

“Get this asshole out of here before I call the cops.”

“I’m sorry if I offended you,” I say, “but I need to find Lionel Goettreider.”

Emma’s grip on the tray gets shaky, the porcelain rattling. Seeing this, Jerome’s eyes go glassy and wet. This is a house with ghosts in the walls.

“Why do you need to find Lionel Goettreider?” Emma says.

“Because,” I say, “I think he’s my father.”





101


Okay, yes, that’s totally untrue. But Emma’s tense reaction sparked a wild guess that this lie would work where the one about the book didn’t.

“I’m calling the cops,” Jerome says.

But he doesn’t reach for the cordless phone next to his armchair. Emma puts down the tray, tugs smooth the front of her shirt, crumpling the hem in her fists.

“Does he know?” Emma says.

Jerome slumps back, looking very much like a man in his late eighties.

“He knows about the affair,” he says.

Emma nods. She pours me a coffee, offers the milk and I nod, offers the sugar and I shake my head. It’s all very proper. Jerome waves the coffee away, no longer a hawk, more like a turtle that wants back in its shell. Emma pours one for herself, drinks it black.

“I’m not trying to dig up the past,” I say. “All I want is to find Lionel Goettreider. I’ll be out of your lives forever if you can tell me where he is.”

“What do you know about their . . . relationship?” Emma says.

“Not much,” I say. “I know it was going on at the time of the accident.”

“It was a bad phase in our marriage,” Jerome says. “I was distracted. Trying to get my career to the next level. So we’d have the stability we needed to start a family. It ended between them after that goddamn machine of his imploded. You know it could’ve wiped out half the continent, right? That moron almost caused the apocalypse with his lunatic invention. Harnessing the rotation of the planet. I mean, it was nonsense. I never should’ve signed off on it in the first place. His paperwork was flawless, though. He said all the right things. Because she helped him write what she knew I’d approve.”

“What happened to the machine?” I say.

“What happened? He destroyed the lab, almost killed more than a dozen people, and cost me my arm. I had that thing disassembled and melted down, piece by piece.”

“And Lionel?” I say.

“I should’ve pressed charges,” Jerome says. “Had him locked up. But she asked me not to. We never talked about what had happened between them. It wasn’t how things were done back then. But I understood. Without either of us saying the words.”

With his remaining hand, Jerome squeezes the biceps of his amputated arm, massaging it, a nervous habit.

“She was thinking about leaving me for him,” he says. “But I saved her life that day. So, the trade was I lost my arm but my wife stayed. And I’d make that trade every day of my life, even now that she’s gone. That accident was my defining moment. Whatever came out of that machine, it was a purifying fire. It burned away all of my bitterness and stupidity. When my arm was taken, it took my mistakes with it. Three years into a marriage that wasn’t working, Ursula and I got a chance to start again. And we had a happy life together, after that. We changed the story. We had another forty-nine years together. That terrible time in our lives was forgotten.”

Jerome’s not really talking to me. He’s talking to Emma.

“Or maybe not forgotten,” he says, “but forgiven.”

Tears stream down her cheeks. His too. He massages his biceps, kneads the skin. I sip my coffee, awkward, catalyst and intruder.

“Do you know what happened to him?” I say.

“I can’t believe he had the stones to show up at Ursula’s funeral,” Jerome says. “How he even knew she died, I don’t know. Creepy son of a bitch was probably stalking her online.”