Lauren Grodstein - The Explanation for Everything

“No, really, why do you think that is?” she asked. “Has she just not recovered from your father’s death?”

Andy shrugged. In the years since he’d lost his father, he’d never considered his mother remarrying. They were so much a set, his parents—yin and yang, salt and pepper—that for either of them to make a life with someone else would have felt nonsensical. And as soon as he died, she’d seemed to cut off the part of herself that might share a life with someone else. She’d sold the house in Shaker Heights, moved to a condo in Akron. Sold his father’s car, donated his clothes. “I think she lost the taste for marriage to anyone else,” he said. “A lot of widows do.”

“But not widowers?”

“Widowers remarry,” Andy said. “At least that’s what I’m told.”

“Would you? If I died?”

“Jesus.”

“I’d want you to,” she said. She leaned back across the bed, totally naked, smelling like vegetable oil and chicken. “If I die, I want you to remarry. She has to be uglier than me, of course, not as smart or funny or blah blah blah.”

He was still holding her arm. “A pale imitation.” He sucked on her finger.

“The palest. But still. You shouldn’t be alone, Andy. It’s not good for a person.”

“I can’t believe you actually want to talk about this.”

“Seriously, Andy.”

Was this a conversation they had really had? In bed, on their first night as a married couple? Or was this a conversation he wanted to remember, especially as the undergraduates were spilling out of their classes and tumbling across the quad, toward the cafeteria or the few shabby eating places on Main Street in Reed Township? He was sitting here by the faculty parking lot, shivering in the cold, because he did not want to see Melissa. He had not seen her or talked to her since the baptism, and almost certainly she’d come looking for him in his office.

He wanted to think about Louisa, reimagine the things she might have told him.

“Andy! Is that you? I thought that was you. I was looking for you at your office but you weren’t there.”

Found, but it was only Linda Schoenmeyer, puffy and out of breath as she walked across campus in the wind. She was wearing one of her huge shawls, and the tassels at the ends fluttered. Her face was pink. “Rosemary said I might be able to find you here. Do you mind if I sit? Tuna, is that what you’re eating? Looks good.”

Andy gestured for her to take the seat next to him, but she sat down opposite him and crossed her hands on the table. Linda wore rings on every finger: moonstones, topazes.

“Is something the matter?” Had he forgiven her for her brutality at Marty’s party? He probably had. She couldn’t help her behavior any more than he could help his own.

“One of your students—you know Lionel Shell, correct?”

“A bit,” Andy said. “I think he’s a fan of mine.”

“I should say,” Linda said. “Somehow he’s managed to finagle getting credit two times for your course.”

“Yes, well—” Andy hedged. How annoying the way Linda always made him feel he’d done something wrong. “He wrote two entirely different term papers, we had two different reading lists—”

“No, that’s fine. It’s just he’s in my ornithology class this semester and I was wondering if he seemed, I don’t know, all right to you. Mentally.”

“I don’t—I mean he’s never been the most normal kid, I guess. He’s eccentric.”

“He’s incredibly depressed, Andy. Or at least that’s what I think is going on. I caught him crying outside my classroom twice, and when he bothers to come at all, he just sits there looking like his best friend died. It’s disturbing. Sometimes he starts to shake. And then sometimes he takes these frantic notes—at least I thought they were notes, but when I asked to see what he was writing he refused to show me.”

“He shakes?” Andy said.

“Shakes,” Linda said. She shook her head, cast her eyes toward the picnic table so Andy could see the sparkly blue she wore on her lids. “I called him in for a conference, just to see what was going on. He said you were the only person on campus he felt like he could talk to.”

“Me?”

“He also said a few things about existentialism I didn’t really get.” Linda blew out through her mouth. “I’m just wondering if you wanted to talk to the kid, maybe, or if I should get student services involved or what.”

“His twin sister’s an existentialist,” Andy said. “That’s what he told me.”

“I see.”

“He’s very upset about Camus.”

“Camus,” Linda said. She allowed herself a small smile, then thought the better of it. “Well, I don’t know much about that,” she said. “Or anything else as far as philosophy goes, but if this student’s going to blow then I think it’s our responsibility to get him the help he needs. And since he said you were his close adviser—”

“Hardly,” Andy said. “The kid doesn’t even like me, as far as I know. He took my class twice just so he could fight with me about God.”

“I’m just telling you what he told me, Andy. I asked him if there was anyone he thought he could talk to, and he said you were the only person who might understand.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll get in touch with him.”

“You sure?” Linda said. “I could put in a call to student services.” She pulled her shawl around her shoulders, waited for Andy’s nod. “By the way,” here her voice turned coy, “it was very nice to meet your lady friend. I have to say I was surprised. Not at all what I expected. But you’ve been alone long enough.”

A shot of cold stabbed at Andy’s gut. Linda found out about Melissa?

“How long have you two been together, anyway?”

Andy found himself searching for how to phrase it, how to explain himself, not that Linda seemed the least bit mad—only amused. Why was she amused? Wasn’t it actionable behavior to become sexually involved with an undergraduate? And here he’d done it so stupidly, so casually, letting her become part of his life.

“Oh, don’t tell me it’s over already,” Linda said, trying to gauge Andy’s muttering. “That’s really too bad. We all liked her so much.”

Sheila. She meant Sheila.

“Well,” Andy said. “We’re just—” He waited for his tongue to recover his words. “It’s still a casual thing.”

“I see,” Linda said. “Well, like I said, a very nice lady.” She stood, heavily, hands on her knees. “Anyway, do me a favor and get in touch with Lionel Shell. I don’t want any of our students offing themselves on my watch.” And then she lumbered back toward campus, into the wind, her shawl blowing behind her like a sail.

DUTIFULLY, ANDY SENT off the e-mail to Lionel before he returned home for the evening: Just checking in, wanted to see how you were—which sounded much too chummy for his ears but he wasn’t sure how else to phrase his concern. Then he got back in time for Rachel’s Caesar salad and homework.

“You know, for a scientist you really don’t know much about geology,” said Belle, who had moved on from volcanoes to a map of the striations of New Jersey bedrock. Her drawings were spread out in front of them on the kitchen table. Behind them, sitting on the counter, Rachel was using his laptop to type away in Google Chat, talking to someone he didn’t know about something his eyes weren’t good enough to catch.

“I haven’t studied geology since college, Belle,” he said, gently tugging on one of her braids for insubordination.

“Yeah, but you don’t even know how to spell aeolian. I mean, come on.” She shook her head at him, left for the siren call of the TV.

“Rachel, what are you writing?”