Lessons in Chemistry
- Автор: Garmus Bonnie
- Год: 2022
- Язык: английский
- Год: Doubleday Canada
- Жанр: Современная русская и зарубежная проза
Электронная книга - «Lessons in Chemistry». Краткое содержание книги:
“Well there she is!” he beamed. “All grown up and still alive. Excellent.” He noted a pile of freshly washed diapers, grabbed one, and began to fold. “I can’t stay long, but I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d check in.” He leaned down to take a better look at Mad. “My golly, she’s a big one. I guess we can thank Evans for that. How goes the parenting?” But before Elizabeth could answer, he picked up Dr. Spock’s baby book. “Spock’s a decent source of information. He’s a rower, you know. Won a gold medal in the Olympics in 1924.”
“Dr. Mason,” Elizabeth said, surprised at how glad she was to see him as she took in the smell of ocean on his clothes. “It’s nice of you to drop by, but—”
“Don’t worry, I can’t stay long; I’m on call. I promised my wife I’d watch the kids this morning. Just wanted to see how things are going. You look tired, Miss Zott. What about help? Do you have someone?”
“My neighbor drops by.”
“Excellent. Proximity is critical. And what about you — how are you taking care of yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
“Still exercising?”
“Well, I—”
“Erging?”
“A lit—”
“Good. Where is it? The erg.” He went to the next room. “Oh my lord,” she heard him say. “Evans was a sadist.”
“Dr. Mason?” she called, drawing him back to the lab. “It’s nice to see you, but I’ve got a meeting here in thirty minutes and I have a lot to—”
“Sorry,” he said, popping back in. “I don’t usually do this — drop in on patients postdelivery. To be honest, I never see any of my patients again unless they decide to swell the ranks.”
“I’m honored,” she said. “But like I said, I’m—”
“Busy,” he finished for her. He went over to the sink and started to wash the dishes. “So,” he said, “you’ve got the baby, the erg, your freelance work, your research.” He ticked off her commitments, lifting his soapy hands as he ran his eyes around the room. “This is a decent lab by the way.”
“Thank you.”
“Did Evans—”
“No.”
“Then—”
“I built it. During my pregnancy.”
He shook his head in wonder.
“I had help,” she said, gesturing to Six-Thirty, who stood by Mad’s chair like a sentry waiting for food to drop.
“Ah, yes, there he is. Dogs are enormously helpful. My wife and I found our dog was a sort of a child trial run,” he said, examining a pan. “Brillo pad?”
“To your left.”
“Speaking of trial runs,” he said, adding more soap. “It’s time.”
“Time?”
“Time to row. It’s been a year already.”
She laughed. “That’s funny.”
He turned to look at her, his hands dripping water on the floor. “What’s funny?”
Now it was Elizabeth’s turn to look confused.
“We have an opening. Two seat. It would work for us to have you back as soon as possible. Next week at the latest.”
“What? No. I’m—”
“Tired? Busy? Probably going to argue you don’t have time.”
“Because I don’t.”
“Who does? Being an adult is overrated, don’t you think?” he said. “Just as you solve one problem, ten more pull up.”
“Up!” Madeline shouted.
“The only decent thing I learned in the marines was the value of making my bed every morning. But a chilly splash of water in the face off starboard, just before dawn? It fixes things.”
—
Elizabeth took a sip of coffee as Mason prattled on. She was well aware that she needed fixing. She’d reached a new stage in her grief: from mourning the man she’d fallen in love with, to mourning the father she knew he would have been. She tried hard not to imagine how high Calvin would have tossed Mad in the air, how easily he would have plopped her on his shoulders. Neither of them had wanted children, and Elizabeth still fervently believed that no woman should be forced to have a baby. Yet here she was, a single mother, the lead scientist on what had to be the most unscientific experiment of all time: the raising of another human being. Every day she found parenthood like taking a test for which she had not studied. The questions were daunting and there wasn’t nearly enough multiple choice. Occasionally she woke up damp with sweat, having imagined a knock at the door and some sort of authority figure with an empty baby-sized basket saying, “We’ve just reviewed your last parental performance report and there’s really no nice way to put this. You’re fired.”
—
“I’ve tried to get my wife to row for years,” Dr. Mason was saying. “I think she’d love it. But she always says no and I have to assume it’s partly because there aren’t any other women down at the boathouse. I’m not crazy, Miss Zott. Women row. You row. There are women’s rowing teams.”
“Where?”
“Oslo.”
“Norway?”
“This one,” he said, pointing to Mad. “She’s definitely going to row port. See how she naturally shifts her weight to the right?”
They both looked to Madeline, who was staring at her fingers as if surprised to find they weren’t all the same length. Last night, when Elizabeth was reading aloud from Treasure Island, she’d felt Mad staring up at her, her lips parted in awe. She looked back down at her daughter, awestruck in a different way. It had been such a long time since anyone had shown her that kind of faith. She felt an avalanche of love for her misinformed child.
“You’d be surprised how much you can tell about a baby at this stage,” Mason was saying. “They constantly reveal their future selves in the smallest of ways. This one; she can read a room.”
Elizabeth nodded. Last week she’d peeked in on Mad during naptime and found the child sitting up in her crib explaining something in earnest to Six-Thirty. Elizabeth had hung back, watching in wonder as the baby, wobbling back and forth like a bowling pin threatening to topple, waved her hands as she chattered a steady stream of consonants and vowels strung together haphazardly, like laundry on a line, but delivered with the kind of passion that made it clear she was an expert in this area. Six-Thirty stood next to the crib, rapt, his nose stuck between the slats, ears tracking every syllable. Mad paused in midair as if she’d just lost her train of thought, then leaned forward toward the dog and started in again. “Gagagagazozonanowoowoo,” she said as if clarifying a point. “Babbadodobabdo.”
Having a baby, Elizabeth realized, was a little like living with a visitor from a distant planet. There was a certain amount of give and take as the visitor learned your ways and you learned theirs, but gradually their ways faded and your ways stuck. Which she found regrettable. Because unlike adults, her visitor never tired of even the smallest discovery; always saw the magic in the ordinary. Last month Mad had let out a shriek from the living room, and Elizabeth ruined an hour’s worth of work in her rush to her side. “What is it, Mad?” she said, swooping in like a helicopter in a war zone. “What’s wrong?”
Mad, wide-eyed, looked back at her as she held up a spoon. Look at this! she seemed to say. It was right here! On the floor!
—
“And it’s not just exercise,” Dr. Mason was saying. “Rowing is a way of life. Am I right?” He was talking to the baby.
“Ite!” shouted Mad, banging on her tray.
“By the way, we have a new coach,” he said, turning to Elizabeth. “Very talented. I’ve told him about you.”
“Really? And did you tell him I’m a woman?”