Was it mist, or was it rain? The wet, foggy air clung like a velvety film to Sid’s cheeks as she and Eliot strolled down the road toward the lighthouse. His hand was warm, its skin softer than she would have expected. She squeezed his fingers slightly, he squeezed hers back. To their left, beyond the grassy field of the old Fort Madison and down the shallow cliff, the waters of Otter Rock shoal slammed against the shore.
“What were you like as a little boy?” she asked. He was the child who took trumpet lessons and whose mother hadn’t been around to be bothered by the noise. Where had she gone? What had that done to him?
“I was a pesky kid. One of my first memories is my grandmother’s house in Scotland, the casement windows and stone walls, the candy dish she kept on the table in the living room, the waters of the Firth of Lorn not far away. I hid from Grandma when she announced it was bedtime. Once, I picked almost all her green tomatoes and, shortly after that, I painted her white picket gate with mud. I lived there from the time Mother left until I was five and my father could take me to live with him in South Africa.”
His words were gentle, his voice dreamy. This was a side of Eliot she hadn’t known.
“Sometimes, I played with matchbox cars under conference room tables while my diplomat dad attended late-night meetings in Pretoria. I remember falling asleep beneath Dad’s jacket on banquette benches in smoky restaurants, lulled by the din of mumbly conversation. Then we moved to Washington D.C. Then Amsterdam. Then San Francisco. It felt as if we were chasing something. And we never caught it.”
“Where’d she go? Your mom?” She spoke in a whisper, didn’t want to disturb the quiet of his story.
He picked up a stone from the middle of the road and sent it skittering into the weeds. He looked at the place it landed and then looked at her. “When I asked my grandmother, she told me not to think about it. My dad was more expansive. He said Mother just disappeared, and they didn’t know why or where she landed.” In his still voice, she heard the desolate plea of that poor, lonely little boy with no mother.
“What was she like?” She tried to imagine a female Eliot, an older, maternal version of him, and drew a blank.
“I understand she was a poet and a beautiful woman. Dad said she had wild eyes, and her hair was toasty brown, like mine. Whenever Dad spoke of her, he said she was very unhappy about leaving a great lad like me. Said she loved me very much, but the furies inside her head pulled her away from us.”
They walked slowly. The lighthouse was ahead, beyond a clump of trees.
“I often wondered about her furies. I thought they were because of me, that something I had done had wounded her deeply and sent her away. Finally, the weekend after I graduated from high school, I demanded that my father tell me why she left. He told me demons spoke to her, and she couldn’t ignore them. He said, ‘They told her to go far, far away to places where Druids dance on falling raindrops, where wizards ride on lightning bolts.’ Her doctors told Dad she had schizophrenia.”
Schizophrenia. She had cared for such patients, those who believed that unreal things were real and were afraid of strange sounds that no one else could hear. She squeezed Eliot’s hand again, trying to magically sooth the fallout that his mother’s hallucinations, those insistent voices from the other world, must have had on him. She knew it was fairytale thinking on her part, but she wanted to convey a measure of peace to him.
“I didn’t remember her face, but when I was little, I could still hear her singing. Sometimes, it sounded like a silver bell. Sometimes like a haunting violin. At least, I thought I heard her singing. Maybe it was just the wind in the bushes.”
She nestled against his arm, wanted him to know she, unlike his mother, was there. She remained silent, didn’t want to shatter the reverence of the moment.
They continued toward the lighthouse. From a distance, it looked like a white papier-mâché cone with a shining obsidian jewel on top. When they walked the path to the back of the keeper’s house, they passed a sign that warned of unstable ground and sat on a bench beside a patch of dried chrysanthemums in the sloping yard.
“How about your childhood?” Eliot asked. He slipped his arm around her shoulders. She leaned closer against him.
Where should she start? With her parents moving from Belgium to Oregon before she was born? With her happy memories: playing in the sandbox in the backyard, swinging in the playground, dressing her doll Margeaux in pretty clothes? With the dark, lonely days that overshadowed the pleasant ones? There wasn’t an easy place to begin.
She started talking about her father, explained that he was a kind, fun-loving man who took her ice skating in the winter and swimming in the summer. She told him about her little sister’s death. And about her melancholy mother who spent days at a time in bed.
She stood up and led Eliot back to the road. She spoke of science club trips when she was in high school, of hearing Dr. Bausch tell of the mysteries of bacteria. She told him about her father’s death and kept talking until they reached the city wharf back in Castine.
That night, they lay together in bed under one of the dormers at the Pentagoet Inn. Eliot stroked her hair and asked, “Should we talk about your research project?”
“No.” She stared at the ceiling. “Not yet.”
Muted words of the song “Twelfth of Never” from the house next door wafted past their window with the breeze. She turned toward him and kissed the warm, tender spot on his neck. The next noon, they ate lunch at the restaurant on the city dock. The lobster rolls were gooey but good, while the chilly draft off the water nipped at her cheeks and smelled like outdated fish. She tied her scarf tighter under her chin.
Eliot took a swallow of his beer. “While I was in Boston, I met with Jim Henry again.”
She remembered. He was the head of microbiology at Minnesota. Eliot’s earlier meeting with that man was the reason he had missed her presentation in Amsterdam. Seemed like a long time ago. The thought of it used to make her skin crawl. No longer. Now it was merely a disappointing fact.
“The job is still open there, and he really wants me to come. The offer is terrific. Lots of lab space, a sizable start-up package. What do you think? Should I take it?”
Why was he asking her? Did he need her approval to accept the job at Minnesota? Obviously not. Was he suggesting she might have a part in his future work after he left the Evans lab? That wasn’t her plan. She had worked with him long enough to know that continuing would be a bad idea. She tried to read his mind. His face was impassive. “It’s your decision, Eliot. You definitely are ready for a faculty position, and the one in Minnesota sounds like a good fit for you.”
“I think so, too. I value your opinion about these things. You’re a smart and sensible woman.”
She took another bite of her lobster roll. Was he saying that he admired her rationality and level-headed judgment? Or that he was fond of her personally and admired her in a caring, kindhearted way? Those were two different things, and she wanted both. She hoped she wasn’t a fool for that.
“You asked last night if I was ready to talk about my research. I’m more ready now.” She laid the roll on her plate and took a drink of water. “Obviously, the BPF project—at least my part in it—is over. I simply can’t make any meaningful progress without additional strains. And the GHA won’t share the ones they’ve acquired.”
He looked down at his plate and then back up at her. “I’m afraid you’re right about that. I wish it weren’t true, but it is. As I said, you’re a sensible woman.”
“I can publish the work I … rather we … have done, and it will easily fulfill the research requirement for my fellowship. After that …” She poked her fork into the pile of lobster on her plate. “… I just don’t know. By the time I’ve finalized the experiments and written up the papers and finished the clinical part of the program, my fellowship will be over and I, too, will be looking for a job.”
The thought of abandoning the BPF project opened a wide, bottomless chasm beneath her. She couldn’t imagine mornings, afternoons, and evenings without BPF as her guide. After all those hours, all the work, all the angst—to just walk away? It was unthinkable. Yet that was what she had to do. The explanation for the deadly nature of the BPF strain was still a terribly compelling question. Maybe someone somewhere would figure it out. She couldn’t without more strains. There were other, equally interesting scientific questions out there. She just needed to find them.
“You could continue to pursue your endotoxin idea.” Eliot’s eyes were intense as they stared into her face. “The GHA won’t be smart enough to think of that as a possible virulence factor.”
“Maybe. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“I really hope you continue to do research, Sidonie. You’re a natural, with your innate curiosity, your intelligence, your logical approach to problems, your willingness to work hard, your … ah … persistence.”
“Were you about to say ‘stubbornness?’” She chuckled. She knew she was single-minded. She had trouble letting go of important things. Was that bad?
He laughed. “Well, call it what you like, persistence has kept you firmly on track.”
The last morning of their visit in Castine, the sun blanketed their breakfast table in shimmering golden beams, and a gull landed on the porch railing outside the window. The bird twisted his head from side to side and then stared at them through the glass. He squawked twice and flew off toward the sea.
The innkeeper refilled their coffee cups and set a ramekin of cheese soufflé in front of each of them. They would have to leave shortly after breakfast to get to the Boston airport in time for their flight back to Michigan. She looked around the room at the soothing colors, at the period furnishings that oozed comfort. Out the window, the ripples on the water glistened in the sun. Before this trip, she had never eaten breakfast while overlooking the ocean. The rhythm of the waves had a calming appeal.
“Eliot,” she said, “why did you ask me to join you here?” Hopefully his answer would settle some of her uncertainties about him. Did she want to alter her future plans to fit his? She didn’t think so. If that was what he wanted, did it matter to her? She wasn’t sure.
He tilted his head at the question and didn’t answer right away. “Well, you were so very devastated after that last session at the conference. Karla Geiger’s presentation was a terrible kick in the gut. I thought returning immediately to the lab wouldn’t be good for you. Are you glad you came?”
“Yes. Very much.”
“And,” he continued, “I’ve been to Castine before. It’s one of my favorite places to relax, and I wanted company. Your company.” He took a bite of his omelet and stared out the window for a moment. “Why did you agree to come?”
She liked the question, had to think about the answer. It was complicated. How much should she share with him? Particularly when she didn’t understand it all herself. She folded her napkin into a small square and then unfolded it. “You’re right that Karla’s talk was devastating. It dashed my research dreams to smithereens in fifteen short minutes.” She sipped at her coffee. “In my soul, I knew what the GHA was doing and how it would impact our project. I just didn’t want to believe it was true. Now, of course, I know it’s true. I’ll deal with that, but not right now.” She sipped at her coffee again. “I guess I was looking for an escape, and fleeing it all with you seemed the right thing to do.”
“An escape?”
“Yes, Eliot. Running away with you was absolutely right.”