“I had the nicest day,” mom told me when I got home. “Went to the gym around the corner, ate a light and lovely lunch, walked around the neighborhood. Very low stress.”
And I was about to stress her out. I’d been thinking about how to broach our impending visit with Parada.
“How was your day?” she asked.
“Something cool happened. Crimsy changed—sort of. We’re doing some tests and thought something like this might happen.”
“We should celebrate.”
“I’d like that,” I said. “But I really have to talk to you about something.”
She looked at me.
“You remember what happened the other night?”
“What other night?”
“You were in the park. Across the street.”
“I don’t follow.”
“I’ve been wanting to say something about it, but I kept hoping you would.”
“I would what? Jennifer, the only time I’ve been in a park here was today.”
“You don’t remember? A few nights ago, I found you in the park across the street. It’s called Parrington Lawn.”
“At night?”
“In your nightgown.”
“Oh, Jennifer. What?”
“Then this weekend, you got really turned around in Roslyn. You didn’t know where you were. You wanted to know if I was Dr. Hale’s kid.”
She looked hopelessly befuddled.
“Maybe seeing him freaked you out?”
“No. It was surprising—don’t get me wrong. The rest of this—I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Honest.”
“I’ve made an appointment for us,” I said. “Thursday.”
“What do you mean? Like with a doctor?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not your decision to make.”
“Then why haven’t you made it?”
“I don’t need to.”
“You do.”
“I’m in excellent health. And I don’t need my life under somebody else’s microscope.”
“You’re not in perfect health, mom. This isn’t the first time this has happened. David and Ron—”
“I don’t know what happened the other night, but I am not interested in seeing a doctor I’ll never see again in a strange town I’ll never visit again.”
“She’s not planning to examine you. I just asked her to talk to you.”
Mom looked out the window.
“You might have been hurt or killed the other night,” I said.
“Please. Spare me the melodrama.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll cancel the appointment.”
But not immediately. We still had a few days.
Dr. Levitt was seated when Dr. Marcum and I entered the conference room for our rundown of the week’s activities.
“Just us this morning?” he asked.
“Just us,” she said. “How was your trip to the capital?”
“Capital,” he said. “I felt positively feted.”
“Love that feeling.”
“It wasn’t all roses at my feet, however. I did have to correct a couple of introductions. I’m not African-American. And though flattering, the title ‘greatest mathematician of our time,’ rightly belongs to Sara Goode.”
“I beg to differ,” Levitt said.
“Not after you find out how unprepared I am today,” Marcum said. “I just now got a look at the images Jennifer sent.”
“Thank you for handling that, by the way,” Levitt said to me. “I’m glad you got a hold of Dr. Shonstein.”
“She emailed her notes,” I said. “She increased the nitrogen and wants me to get three or four images before we up it again. Dr. Brando emailed late last night and said that was fine.”
“Duly noted,” she said. “Speaking of Dr. Brando, he’s asked me to convey his sincerest apologies. He won’t be in for a while.”
“Everything okay?” Marcum said.
“He lost custody of his daughter.”
“Oh no,” I said.
“Dear God.”
“I don’t know if it’s permanent or just temporary,” Levitt said. “We didn’t get that far.”
“I can’t believe they’d do that,” I said. “He’s an amazing dad.”
“I know.”
“Poor chap,” Marcum said. “I can barely a remember a time when he hasn’t been in magistrate’s court over this bloody split.”
“Magistrate’s court,” with all its Dickensian connotations.
“Anything we can do?” I asked. “Does he need anything?”
“He asked to be kept in the loop as much as possible,” Levitt said. “If anything remarkable happens, I’m sure he’ll be available.”
“Such sad news,” Marcum said. “I’ll give it a few days and touch bases with him. How is our other astrobiologist? She hasn’t made good on her threat, I hope?”
“We talked over the weekend,” Levitt said. “She’s frustrated, like we all are, but she’s not resigning and I wouldn’t let her if she did.”
I broke the news about Mike and Lexi Brando to mom over croissants and espresso. She looked at me aghast.
“He’s been worried about this for a while,” I said.
“Does he at least have visitation?”
“I don’t know.”
“I so wanted to see Lexi again before I left,” she said. “I wouldn’t wish divorce on my worst enemy. Your father and I barely avoided it.”
“I remember.”
“It was awful, Jennifer. Those were some of my darkest days. But I was fortunate to have a few close friends—and my brother and his wife—who let me cry on their shoulders.”
“Ron?”
“When Ron wants to be, he can be a Rock of Gibraltar,” she said. “We drifted apart when we were younger, but our shared marital problems went a long way toward bringing us back.”
“Ron and Marjorie always seem like the perfect couple.”
“No such thing,” she said. “You and David were real troopers, too.” She reached across the table and set her hand on mine.
“So...I’ve been meaning to ask you. Why did you break up with Harold Hale?”
She looked at me and sighed. “Different directions. He wanted out of Kenosha. I wasn’t interested in following him out.”
“It was that basic?”
“Pretty much. His dad and mom split years before we met. She raised two kids alone. His sister had some kind of neuromuscular disease. His mom took care of her at home and couldn’t work much. Child support, government help, he started working at thirteen. Hal dreamed of the day he’d make enough money to support them.” She sipped her coffee. “What a small world, that you worked for him. I still can’t get over that.” She seemed lost in thought. “Hal was the first person I ever told about how mom and Lucy died. Not first boyfriend. First person.”
Our conversation gave way to soft chatter, bean grinder, milk steamer, door opening and closing, the sun through the long, streetside window.
“Did you cancel that appointment?” mom asked. “With your doctor friend?”
“Not yet. Planned to do that today.”
“Don’t,” she said.