Conundrum (16 page)

“I think it’s time to call it a night. Raff needs his rest and
.
 
.
 
.
” Her
sentence
trailed off, but it was easy for me to finish her thought.
“
Biting off each other’s heads
off
is a bit counterproductive to Raff’s need for peace and quiet
.
”
But she was right.

I watched Neal put on his coat and grunted. Lately, he’d been parroting our mother more and more, like he was her spokesman. Maybe living in her house and listening to her complaints was brainwashing him. She had a knack for persuasion. Somehow every argument always got twisted to her point of view in the end.

Over the years we kids learned to nod our heads to bring her tirades to an end, something Jeremy just didn’t understand. It wasn’t that he was confrontational; something within him, some ethical principle, forb
a
d
e
him from tolerating her passive-aggressive attempts at stirring guilt and manipulating him into doing her bidding. Just as he couldn’t abide Neal’s constant complaining—whining, Jeremy called it. Jeremy chalked up Neal’s wishy-washy life to the lack of a male role model in his upbringing. He was a momma’s boy, Jeremy claimed, and couldn’t even change a washer in a faucet.
Useless
, he often said about both my brothers
,
i
nept and useless
.
A
lthough he always treated them kindly and with respect, keeping his opinions confined behind the closed doors of our home. He didn’t understand why Raff and Neal didn’t stand up to
Ruth
and tell her to go take a hike when the occasion merited it. But Jeremy’d had a father who taught him to be handy, to tackle challenges with confidence and inventiveness. Jeremy was the consummate problem solver. No matter what needed fixing, he’d figure something out, no matter how long it took. I frowned, wondering if he’d take the same tack when it came to our floundering marriage.

I sighed as I grabbed my sweater and gave Raff and Kendra hugs. I mumbled some apology to Raff
,
but he brushed it off. Neal had already rushed out the door without a word. I made sure his car was gone before I walked outside, not wanting to go head to head with him at this late hour, hear him lecture me in my mother’s tone. By my New York clock, it was well past midnight.

As I closed the door behind me, the strains of Bach seeped out from the window
,
and T. S. Eliot revisited me
.
“
I have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons. I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. I know the voices dying with a dying fall beneath the music from a fa
r
ther room. So how should I presume?
”

I knew just how.
First thing in the morning, I would try to find Ed Hutchinson, my father’s former boss. Perhaps he still lived in Los Angeles, still worked at Penwell. If Information didn’t have his number, maybe I could pay an investigator to find him. Whatever it took.

I thought about my father’s mathematical slant on life. Was it that easy to reduce all problems into three possible answers—and, or, or not? Did it matter
what answer I arrived at
? What if, after I found out everything I could, there was no way to tell if my answers were all correct or if only one explanation held the truth? What if nothing I discovered could be proven true? Even if my father could arise from the dead at this moment and tell me what really happened to him, would it make a difference? Could anything he’d have to say undo the damage twenty-five years had wrought?
Extricate Raff from his depression?

Eliot’s poem rallied back at me as I stood at the curb listening to the crickets whirring under the bright streetlamps’ light.
“
Would it have been worthwhile, to have bitten off the matter with a smile, to have squeezed the universe into a ball to roll it toward some overwhelming question, to say
‘
I am Lazarus, come from the dead, come back to tell you all.
’
If one, settling a pillow by her head should say,
‘
that is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.
’
”

Chapter
10

Ed Hutchinson had lung cancer. In between his incessant hacking and short gasps for breath, he managed to tell me he didn’t have long to live. Smoked three packs a day since he was twenty—Camels, no filters. When I called Penwell Corporation in Los Angeles, they told me he had taken early retirement, but the last division he had run was at their Mountain View branch, near San Jose. That put him only a two hours’ drive away, at most. I told him who I was
—
Nathan Sitteroff’s daughter
—
and it took a moment to register.

“Ah, Nathan, a good man, great mind.”
H
is attempt at sounding cheerful set off another bout of coughing. The sound came from some deep, raw place in his chest and made me cringe to hear it. He sucked in air greedily. “One of my best boys. But you
—
what did you say your name was
, honey
?”

“Lisa.”

“Lisa, right. The last time I saw you, why, you must have been three or four. And you have a brother, right?”

“Two. Rafferty is four years older and Neal is three years younger.”

“Well,
how about
that? All grown up, you kids. How old are you now, honey?” More coughing. I pulled the phone away from my ear till the noise lessened.

“I’ll be thirty this year.”

He made a clucking sound with his tongue. “So fast. You kids grow up too fast. Where did the time go? So,” he said in short gasps, “how’s your lovely mother?”

“Fine. We live in Marin, not that far away.”

“Your mother’s living here too?” I sensed the hard strain in his words, which made me think I should end th
e
conversation soon. The small talk seemed to debilitate him. But even through the cheerful tone, something about Ed Hutchinson’s voice irritated me. Something obsequious and phony.

“Well,” he said with some finality, “be sure to give her my regards. Such a shame, what she went through. But she was a tough one. Raised you kids right, I imagine. She ever remarry?”

“No.”

The line went quiet. Had Hutchinson keeled over? I waited a minute, then spoke. “Mr. Hutchinson, I was hoping you could tell me more about my father. About the work he did.”

I heard a loud intake of air. “Sorry,” he said. “Had to get some oxygen. Got a contraption I wheel around with me. Portable air. Started with emphysema. I had to get out of the smog in LA. That’s why they transferred me here. Long story.”

I doubted he could take much more talking on the phone. “Do you think I could come over, speak with you?”

“Well, sure, honey. But do it sometime before the century runs out. I’m on borrowed time, or so the doctors say.”

I thanked him and got his address. His coughing had quieted down, so I ventured one more question. “You know my father died of leukemia, right? I have a letter he wrote my uncle, saying the doctors claimed it was emotionally induced, that he willed himself to die. Did he seem
.
 
.
 
.
well, self-destructive to you? Depressed?” I didn’t know if this man would have noticed such things about my father. How close had they been?
Had
they work
ed
in the same office? Share
d
confidences? I thought about the letter, the mention of shame and terrible things my father did. Would he have confided in Ed Hutchinson? Maybe Ed could tell me who my father’s closest friends had been. Maybe I could track them down. I hoped I could get answers when I visited him.

The line went silent for a long moment.
“
T
hat could have been a factor. Why he volunteered for that experiment—”

“Wait.” A shiver raced across my neck. “What experiment?”

“
Well, m
aybe my memory is failing me, sorry. A bunch of the fellows had volunteered to go to San Diego, around the time Penwell was working on a number of top-secret government projects. This was shortly after the war, and all the aerospace companies were vying for government contracts and dealing with Russia and the Cold War threat.” The coughing resumed, the barks deeper and drier.

He gasped again and spoke in short spurts. “Thought your dad went too. Let’s see, around
fifty-nine
. Some talk of exposure to radiation. I figured that’s why he got sick after he came back.”

My mind went numb. I couldn’t get questions to form. An experiment? Something dangerous? Why had I never heard about this? I listened to Ed Hutchinson cough and knew I had to let him off the phone
—
as much as I wanted to learn more.

I would just go see him. As soon as possible.

“I’m sorry I’ve caused you such distress, talking to me for so long. Can I come over,
for
a short visit? Tomorrow morning?”

He choked out the words. “Tomorrow? Yeah, sure, honey. Anytime. I’m not going anywhere. Well, except the great beyond.” He tried to laugh
,
and that set off another bout.

After getting his address and directions, I said good-bye and hung up the receiver. I stared at the phone, as if willing it to pour out the secrets I sought. Surely, if my father had gone on some secret mission, my mother would have known about it. Wouldn’t she? If the experiment took place in San Diego, he would have been away from home for a time. It’s not like she wouldn’t have noticed his absence.

Before heading out the door to pay my mother a visit, I made a quick call to my uncle and luckily got him instead of his service.

“An experiment? Nate never mentioned anything about that,” Samuel said. “I told you he was elusive and ashamed about
something
, but
I’m guessing he had an affair.
A
s far
as I know,
though,
he worked at his office in Burbank
until he got sick.”

“If the assignment had been top-secret, maybe he was sworn not to tell,” I said.

“Well, I still think he would have told me. Especially once he knew he was dying. I’m a doctor; I think he would have wanted me to understand the cause of his disease, if he knew what it was. He would have described the experiment or how he had been exposed—something.” H
e
sounded frustrated. “We were close, Lisa. What point would there have been in keeping that a secret on his deathbed? Some sense of loyalty?”

“Maybe if he exposed the experiment, his survivor benefits would have been forfeited. Life insurance cancelled or something. Maybe the participants had been threatened somehow, sworn to secrecy. I mean, if the government really was using citizens to experiment on, putting them in danger, do you think they’d want that to leak out to the public
or
the press?”

My uncle grew quiet. He
loosed
a long breath. “I don’t know. It doesn’t sound right. I can see him doing something self-destructive, even suicidal,
if he really had been
bipolar. But I just don’t buy the idea that the United States government would go to a private corporation and look for volunteers to expose themselves to radiation.”

“And it’s not like I could look this up in a news article. Although, it’s been twenty-five years. Someone may have spilled the beans.”

“It’s possible.”

“Well, I’ll check
, although I doubt I’ll find anything
. Seems if a bunch of people all died of leukemia
—
people who worked for the same company
at the same time
—
someone would notice. Don’t you think?”

“Lisa, I don’t know. And I’m not sure by following this lead you’ll find an answer. And if you do, what then? What does it prove? That your dad, maybe because of his
supposed
death wish, jumped at the chance to end his life in glory and service to his country? Or perhaps there were other circumstances you couldn’t know about, that maybe the experiment went wrong, there’d been an accident. Or maybe depression had nothing to do with it, and he just volunteered in ignorance along with a bunch of other unsuspecting employees.”

There was the whole scenario just as my father would have laid it out: and, or, not. His mathematical logic seemed to saturate every corner of my life. Was truth
solely subjective
and not something wholly apart from human
perspective
? Would I ever feel certain about anything ever again?

I thanked my uncle and hung up. It was late morning, a Thursday. My mother was probably at her office. As much as I dreaded seeing her, this topic was not one I wished to discuss with her over the phone. I called to see if she was free for lunch
,
and she said to swing by and pick her up. She’d found a new restaurant to die for. I just had to experience it.