Lessons in Chemistry

Back in 1961, when women wore shirtwaist dresses and joined garden clubs and drove legions of children around in seatbeltless cars without giving it a second thought; back before anyone knew there’d even be a sixties movement, much less one that its participants would spend the next sixty years chronicling; back when the big wars were over and the secret wars had just begun and people were starting to think fresh and believe everything was possible, the thirty-year-old mother of Madeline Zott rose before dawn every morning and felt certain of just one thing: her life was over.

But then a prominent reporter wrote an article entitled “Why We’ll Eat Whatever She Dishes Out” and, in passing, referred to her as “Luscious Lizzie,” a nickname that, because it was both apt and alliterative, stuck to her as quickly as it did the paper it was printed on. From that day forward, strangers called her Luscious, but her daughter, Madeline, called her Mom, and although she was just a child, Madeline could already see that the nickname belittled her mother’s talents. She was a chemist, not a TV cook. And Elizabeth, self-conscious in front of her only child, felt ashamed.

“Look, I know it’s not your fault, but they shouldn’t send a secretary up here to do their dirty work. Now I know this might be hard for you to understand, but I’m in the middle of something important. Please. Just tell your boss to call me.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “Our future happiness does not depend on whether or not we’re married, Calvin—at least not to me. I’m fully committed to you; marriage will not change that. As for who thinks what, it’s not just a handful of people: it’s society—particularly the society of scientific research. Everything I do will suddenly be in your name, as if you’d done it. In fact, most people will assume you’ve done it simply because you’re a man, but especially because you’re Calvin Evans. I don’t want to be another Mileva Einstein or Esther Lederberg, Calvin; I refuse. And even if we took all the proper legal steps to ensure my name won’t change, it will still change. Everyone will call me Mrs. Calvin Evans; I will become Mrs. Calvin Evans.

Rowing a pair with Elizabeth. How glorious!

“No.”

“But why?”

“Because. Women don’t row.” But as soon as she’d said it, she regretted it.

“Elizabeth Zott,” he said, surprised. “Are you actually saying women can’t row?” That sealed it.

This was the other thing he hated about Zott: she was tireless. Stiff. Didn’t know when to quit. Standard rower attributes, now that he thought about it. He hadn’t rowed in years. Was there really a women’s team in town? Obviously, she couldn’t possibly be rowing with Evans. An elite rower like Evans would never deign to get in a boat with a novice, even if they were sleeping together. Scratch that; especially if they were sleeping together. Evans probably signed her up for some beginner crew, and Zott, wanting to prove that she could hold her own—per usual—went along with it.

Now, sitting rigidly on her stool in the lab, she could hear a policeman talking about someone who’d died and someone else insisting she take his handkerchief and still another saying something about a vet, but all she could think about was that moment long ago when her toes had touched bottom, the soft, silky mud inviting her to stay. Knowing what she knew now, she could only think one thing: I should have.

Crouching, he waited for the man to leave, then relaxed his body down the length of the casket buried below. Hello, Calvin.

This is how he communicated with humans on the other side. Maybe it worked; maybe it didn’t. He used the same technique with the creature growing inside Elizabeth. Hello, Creature, he transmitted as he pressed his ear into Elizabeth’s belly. It’s me, Six-Thirty. I’m the dog.

It was the seventh time that week someone felt compelled to inform her that her life was about to change and she was sick of it. She’d lost her job, her research, bladder control, a clear view of her toes, restful sleep, normal skin, a pain-free back, not to mention all the little assorted freedoms everyone else who is not pregnant takes for granted—like being able to fit behind a steering wheel. The only thing she’d gained? Weight.

“Take a moment for yourself,” Harriet said. “Every day.” “A moment.”

“A moment where you are your own priority. Just you.

Not your baby, not your work, not your dead Mr. Evans, not your filthy house, not anything. Just you. Elizabeth Zott. Whatever you need, whatever you want, whatever you seek, reconnect with it in that moment.” She gave a sharp tug to her fake pearls. “Then recommit.”

So, sometime after it was all over, when a nurse came in with a stack of papers demanding to know something—how she felt?—she decided to tell her.

“Mad.”

“Mad?” the nurse had asked.

“Yes, mad,” Elizabeth had answered. Because she was. “Are you sure?” the nurse had asked.

“Of course I’m sure!”

And the nurse, who was tired of tending to women who were never at their best—this one had practically engraved her name on her arm during labor—wrote “Mad” on the birth certificate and stalked out.

So there it was: the baby’s legal name was Mad. Mad Zott.

“By the way,” he said, pausing, “have you ever noticed how women always say they need to run to the store? Not walk, not go, not stop by. Run. That’s what I mean. The homemaker is operating at an insane level of hyperproductivity. And even though she’s in way over her head, she still has to make dinner. It’s not sustainable, Elizabeth. She’s going to have a heart attack or a stroke, or at the very least be in a foul mood. And it’s all because she can’t procrastinate like her fourth grader or pretend to be doing something like her husband. She’s forced to be productive despite the fact that she’s in a potentially fatal time zone—the Afternoon Depression Zone.”

“It is my experience that far too many people do not appreciate the work and sacrifice that goes into being a wife, a mother, a woman. Well, I am not one of them. At the end of our thirty minutes together, we will have done something worth doing. We will have created something that will not go unnoticed. We will have made supper. And it will matter.”

“Boys, set the table,” Elizabeth commanded. “Your mother needs a moment to herself.”

“No, Mad,” Elizabeth said. “The person who wants to interview me isn’t even a science reporter; he writes for the women’s page. He’s already told me he has no interest in talking about chemistry, just dinner. Clearly, he doesn’t understand you can’t separate the two. And I suspect he also wants to ask questions about our family, even though our family is none of his business.”

“Why not?” Madeline asked. “What’s wrong with our family?”

“In contrast, Supper at Six focuses on our commonalities —our chemistries. So even though our viewers may find themselves locked into a learned societal behavior—say, the old ‘men are like this, women are like that’ type of thing— the show encourages them to think beyond that cultural simplicity. To think sensibly. Like a scientist.”

“As for Calvin’s death,” she said, “I’m one hundred percent responsible.” He paled as she went on to describe the accident and the leash and the sirens, and how because of it, she would never hold anyone back in any way, ever again. As she saw it, his death spawned a series of other failures: blindsided by Donatti’s theft, she’d given up her research; determined to help her daughter fit in, she’d enrolled her in a school where she did not; worse, she’d become the very person she least wanted to be, a performer like her father.

“Listen to me, Mad,” Elizabeth said. “Very closely. I’m still a chemist. A chemist on television.”

“No,” Mad said sadly. “You’re not.”

“You’re a scientist,” he said. “Your job is to question things—to search for answers. But sometimes—and I know this for a fact—there just aren’t any.

All eyes turned to Elizabeth, but she didn’t seem to notice; she was already fixated on the sputtering Donatti. Hands on hips, she leaned forward slightly, her eyes narrowed as if peering into a microscope. There were two beats of silence. Then she leaned back as if she’d seen enough.

“Sorry, Donatti,” she said, handing him a pen. “You’re just not smart enough.”

“Let’s say supper at six, then,” Elizabeth said, not wanting her to go. “The home lab. Everyone—you, Wilson, Mad, Sixty-Thirty, me, Harriet, Walter. You’ll need to meet Wakely and Mason at some point, too. The whole family.”

Avery Parker, her face suddenly familiar with Calvin’s smile, turned back and took Elizabeth’s hands in her own. “The whole family,” she said.