Double Helix (5 page)

I felt a pang of guilt. To call my speech dull was to understate the case. It was a masterpiece of banality; I'd modeled it on a half-dozen of the dullest graduation speeches that I'd been able to find on the Internet. It had actually been pure cynical fun to write. And, of course, I was also making certain that if anybody did happen to talk about speeches afterward, it would be Viv's they praised. Until this moment, I hadn't thought much about how my father might feel as he listened to one unmemorable cliché after another.

“Uh,” I said. “No. I'm not nervous.”

“Really?”

“No. Viv Fadiman—the valedictorian, I just mentioned her—she's making the long speech. Mine is just a few minutes. No big deal.”

“To me it is,” said my father quietly. He looked me right in the face, and I realized then that this was what he'd been trying to say. That he—that despite all the anger between us lately—

And suddenly I felt like an experimental rat in a lab cage, with sharp objects jabbing at me from all sides. It was the emotional analogue to the way I'd felt yesterday, poked and prodded, tissue- and blood-sampled, lung-capacity and heart-rate measured, for nearly three hours in the medical exam that all new Wyatt Transgenics employees apparently had to undergo.

“Bye,” I said abruptly. “See you later.”

“See you later,” said my father.

I ran, even though I wasn't eager to face Viv's expectations, either. But the day lay before me, and it had to be lived through. At least, I thought, I fully understood the situation. The afternoon would be like kayaking through white water. Terrible things might happen, sure, but you had studied the river's hazards, you trusted your instincts and your equipment, and you had survived tricky situations before.

In fact, as it actually said in my boring speech:
Be not troubled: for all things must pass
. Matthew, 24:6.

That was what I was thinking right up to the moment I stood behind the podium to deliver the speech. That was when I glanced casually out into the audience toward the eighth row of spectators, where I had seen my father sitting earlier—and found him standing. Standing, and staring, with incredulous fury pulsing off him—a fury that I could feel all the way from where I was.

I followed his eyes—

—to Dr. Quincy Wyatt, who was at that very moment using his cane to ease himself into an empty seat near the end of the second row.

Dr. Wyatt was oblivious to my father. But he seemed to feel my gaze. He looked right at me, caught my eye, and waved cheerfully. And I felt—rather than saw—my father witness this.

I hadn't told my father exactly where I was going to be working in my new job; so far, I'd avoided it as determinedly as I had avoided telling Viv too much about my parents. But I had told him enough. Lab assistant, I had said. And now, the omission spoke its own tale. I could see my father's comprehension . . . and his anger.

At some point after that—it probably wasn't any longer than twenty or thirty seconds—I became aware that people were waiting, were restive. I looked down at the printed pages of my speech. I opened my mouth and began reading. When I was done, I looked out at the audience for a few seconds, at my father, at Dr. Wyatt.

Then I sat down again, and Viv was squeezing my hand and whispering: “It was fine, Eli, really. You were just a little more nervous at the beginning than you'd expected.”

I managed to squeeze her hand back and to clap loudly as she was called to the podium herself.

Be not troubled: for all things must pass
.

Later on, much later, it occurred to me to check the context of that quote from Matthew. And then I had to laugh—if bitterly—because it didn't mean what I'd thought it did. Not for a second had it belonged in an ordinary graduation speech about good times past and ahead. Nor was it comforting.

See that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows
.

This is what I saw when I finished my speech and looked out at the audience: my father, leaving. He stood up and edged his way out of his row. Then—walking so rapidly up the aisle that it was just short of a run—he left. My father walked out, while Dr. Wyatt stayed, clapping mildly and politely with everyone else.

You'd have thought I'd be relieved—there was now no possibility of having to introduce my father and Viv. But I wasn't relieved. I felt weirdly chilled.

AFTER OUR CLASS had flung their caps into the air—except for me; I fitted mine carefully above Viv's brow instead and, laughing, she was the one to hurl it aloft—the ceremony was officially over. Viv and I descended from the platform into the swarm of our fellow graduates' families and friends. Viv was immediately engulfed by her mother's embrace, while Bill, her mother's shy boyfriend, simultaneously wielded his video camera and hid behind it.

Mrs. Fadiman was sniffling. “My
baby
. You were so mature, so beautiful! And that thing you said, about facing life with kindness and courage, you can't possibly know that already, sweetheart, yet it was so true. Heads all around us were bobbing away in agreement, did you see? Oh, Vivian Elizabeth! You made me so proud, I thought I would die.”

I hung back. I knew that shortly Mrs. Fadiman would be all over me, too. And also that she, like Viv, would soon be craning her neck, looking for my parents. Wanting to congratulate, to crow, to share. Wanting all the normal things.

I had kept an eye out during Viv's speech and afterward, just in case my father came back. He had not. But Dr. Wyatt's eyes stayed fixed on me throughout. Viv spoke forcefully and well, but he did not even once glance her way; I could feel his gaze on me even when I myself was watching Viv. When the caps sailed through the air, I looked at him directly again and saw him nod at me; saw him smile approvingly. Then, as everyone else applauded and yelled and whistled, he, like my father, got up from his chair in the audience and strode away.

Leaving me . . . groping.

Okay. There was some history between my parents and Dr. Wyatt, some joint past. That I already knew. There was the letter's mention of Dr. Wyatt: He had somehow facilitated my father's test for Huntington's. And now my father had looked at Dr. Wyatt half an hour ago and become angry—angry enough to walk out on his son's graduation as soon as his son had finished speaking. Why?

I remembered the single time my mother had with sanity mentioned Quincy Wyatt's name to me, years ago, when I had studied his work at school. The little scene had come back to me with extraordinary vividness when I had read the letter.
We used to know him,
my mother had said, at dinner.
Before you were born, when we were graduate students
.

My father had interrupted. He had taken her out of the room to talk. His voice had been low, but I have sharp ears.
I don't want to hear his name, Ava, and I don't want Eli hearing it, either. It's dangerous. Bad enough he lives so near; bad enough Eli is studying him at school
.

My mother had been impatient.
Oh, Jonathan. You make too much of it.

And you promised we would never speak of it, or him, once it was over
.

My mother had sighed, but said,
Okay. Fine. It doesn't really matter, I suppose
.

Whatever had happened long ago . . . my father was angry about it. But my mother hadn't been. And Dr. Wyatt wasn't.

Nice woman
.

I felt my shoulders move uncomfortably as, finally, the obvious explanation occurred to me. Had my mother once had an affair with Dr. Wyatt?

For a few seconds I couldn't draw breath. You think you're sophisticated. Mature. But some things . . .

“Eli!” Mrs. Fadiman abandoned Viv and moved to embrace me. It was a huge relief to be distracted. Also, there was no way not to like Viv's mother, no way not to respond to the outpouring of approval she always directed toward me.

Impulsively, I picked Mrs. Fadiman right up off her feet—she was even shorter than Viv—and whirled her around in a circle. She laughed the twin of Viv's giggle, and I laughed back down at her and whirled her again.

On my side, the laughter was partly manic. I knew my ugly explanation had to be right. Whether I liked it or not didn't matter. It had to be dealt with, if I was going to work at Wyatt Transgenics.

I could confront my father and ask. I could even quit the job at Wyatt Transgenics, if he really wanted me to. I didn't want to do that, though. I wanted the job. But how could I take it if doing so really would cause my father pain?

But maybe it wasn't true.

“Stop! Enough! You'll make me dizzy!” Mrs. Fadiman was still laughing. Carefully, I set her back on the ground. She reached up and patted my cheek, said, “Young man, you need to shave,” and then, looking around, added, inevitably, “By the way, where are your parents? Viv said they'd be here today.”

My mouth opened automatically to speak, but nothing came out at first. “Um,” I managed finally. “My parents . . . my father was here, but . . .”

“He had to leave early, after Eli spoke,” Viv inserted quietly.

She was standing two feet away. My eyes met hers—one moment of complete clarity and understanding—and then she looked away. She added doggedly: “There was—um, a family emergency. A cousin, isn't that right, Eli? A cousin who was in a car accident this morning, and Mrs. Samuels is with her at the hospital, and Mr. Samuels went to join her.”

Too much, Viv,
I thought.

“Oh, my!” exclaimed Mrs. Fadiman. “How terrible!”

I managed to nod. By force of will I tried to make Viv look at me again. If she would just look at me.

Mrs. Fadiman said something else. I wasn't sure what it was. I spoke randomly. “She's going to be okay, my cousin. It's just that she needed, um . . .”

“Emotional support,” Viv said.

“Of course,” said Mrs. Fadiman. “But what a shame, to miss any part of your graduation. Bill will have the video, of course, and we can make copies, but it's not the same.”

Viv had a smile pasted on her face. I felt the cloud of lies above our heads and knew that she felt it, too.

I knew then that this could not go on. Not if I wanted to keep her. But if I told her—well. I'd lose her, eventually, anyway. Either way. The truth was approaching like a train bearing down on a track to which I'd been tied.

All at once. Out of nowhere.

I caught Viv's eye again. I tried to tell her, silently, that my games were over. That soon, when we were alone . . .

It seemed she understood me. Her brow smoothed out. She tried to smile.

I tried to think of what I might say.

Because listen, Viv. This—you and me—isn't forever. When you fall in love and mate for life, when you have children, it won't be with me. I won't let it be. I know better than to hurt you that way
.

I looked at Viv as I thought these things. She had never been more beautiful to me. And I realized that I knew exactly how she would react if she did know . . . and that I couldn't allow it.

I know better than to hurt you that way
.

“Hello, hello!” came a booming voice. “There you are, Eli ! ”

And then suddenly, in front of us, his arms full of flowers, was Dr. Quincy Wyatt. “Hail the graduates!” he said, and pushed the flowers into the arms of an astonished Viv. “First rate,” he said, turning to Viv's mother. “Just a first-rate valedictory speech from your daughter. Happy to meet you. Happy to meet any friends of Eli's.”

He beamed upon us all. “May I take everyone out to an early dinner? To celebrate?”

BUT I ENDED UP having dinner alone with Dr. Wyatt, while the Fadiman contingent—with visible regret once they realized that the stranger with the flowers was the famous Dr. Quincy Wyatt, my new employer—kept to previously made plans. He took me to a small French bistro north of Harvard Square called Chez Henri. It was early, just after five o'clock, and we were the only diners in the restaurant. That felt strange to me, but it didn't seem to matter to Dr. Wyatt. He ushered me expansively into the dining room, employed his cane to point out to the maitre d' the table he wanted, and then spent sixty concentrated, silent seconds with the wine list while I watched.

I tried to assimilate the fact that I was there at all. Dr. Wyatt couldn't be this interested in every new laboratory assistant that Wyatt Transgenics hired. It was—it had to be—my mother he was interested in. His old lover?

What if he asked me about her? And yet . . . earlier, at my job interview, he'd seemed somehow to know about her current condition. There had been sympathy in his face.

Was he sorry for me? Was that what all of this was about? Just general pity because he knew about my mother's illness?

He'd mentioned
both
my parents, back at the interview. I wondered: Why hadn't he asked me where my father was today ? Had he seen my father leave? Or maybe he'd assumed my father was with my mother at the nursing home?