Lauren Grodstein - The Explanation for Everything

“I just don’t even know if we ever properly defined intelligent design,” Andy said.

“It’s all here,” she said. “In my paper. I defined my terms, of course I did.” The space between her eyes wrinkled. “I don’t understand what the problem is, Andy. We talked through all this stuff. Remember? We talked about images of God, and about the way God has a design for each of us, and we talked about vindictiveness and justice—”

That old decrepit testament.

“We talked about the way God is watching over each of us.”

“Right, but in terms of the design of human beings—I just don’t remember doing any adequate research into that with you. I don’t remember doing any interrogation. If we had—if we had I don’t think I’d be able to sign off on this paper, Melissa.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry. But nothing we talked about convinced me that God, or an Intelligent Designer, specifically planned out the biological function of each living thing.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said. She sat back in her chair. “Where is this coming from? Are you mad because I bought your daughters those clothes?”

“What proof did you use? What scientific proof?”

“Are you mad about something else?”

“No, Melissa—I’m just trying to do my job. I didn’t do a very good job by you, I’m afraid, and I’m trying to make it up to you now. I can’t let you turn in this paper without ever directly interrogating you on the science behind it.”

“The eye, remember?” Her cheeks were turning flushed. “We talked about the animal eye? About the way that the eye is so complex that there is no way it could have spontaneously appeared, because light-sensitive cells wouldn’t evolve into the rods and cones necessary to the function of the eye, remember?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” asked Andy, who had no recollection of this conversation.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, in your paper—did you explain why this wouldn’t happen? Why light cells wouldn’t evolve into rods and cones?”

“Of course I did! Because they’re too complicated. I quoted all those books you read. Those books you said you loved.”

“Melissa, don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying—I just—” But she was crying; she wiped an eye with one of her soft wide arms. “I just don’t understand why you’re being like this all of the sudden. We went on this spiritual journey together this year and you’re acting like it didn’t happen.”

The blue of my grandfather’s eyes .

Melissa’s eyes flooded again, and again she wiped at them dumbly with her arm. Andy wasn’t sure how he had let this happen, how he had taken everything this undergraduate had to give and left her like this. How he had failed her. How grief never went away, only changed. Yet it always felt so much like fear.

“What about nothing?” Melissa sniffled.

“Nothing?”

“The paradox of nothing,” she said. “That’s another one of my major points, that physicists all agree that there is no such thing as nothing, but if there’s no nothing, then where did we come from? We must have come from something. And that something is the higher power. Right? Back before the big bang, there was something. And something was God.”

Andy thought of his mice, the mice that were supposed to be turned into drunks. He could not finish the grant based on what was supposed to happen; he could finish his grant based only on what really did happen. And what really did happen was that some of his mice were drinking and some of them weren’t and he still had no idea why. There was no disputing it; he didn’t know. He needed proof. That’s what science was. Asking questions and figuring out the answers based on measurable facts.

“Where’s your proof, Melissa?”

“Jesus, Andy, where’s yours?”

“Melissa,” he said, quietly, “it’s your paper.”

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then opened them. “Does this mean I’m not going to get credit?”

“Look, of course I’ll give you credit. You did write something for me.”

“Yeah, but clearly it’s not a paper you’re going to accept. And I don’t want you to give me credit out of mercy.” She took a breath. “I mean I want you to do it because you believe in my project. I want to convince you. That’s what I’m here to do. That’s what I came to Exton Reed for. I’m convinced of it. I know it. I came here to show you the light.”

“Me?”

“Lionel Shell challenged me, and I did it, I proved it. I got you. For a moment you believed in God.”

Lionel Shell challenged her. “You took me on as a dare?”

“It wasn’t a dare, exactly—”

“You took me on because—”

“Because I wanted to save your soul!” she said. “Because I knew you were a single dad and you had this miserable look on your face and Lionel told me that whenever he saw you, you looked like you’d just seen a ghost! And we agreed that it would be the right thing to do—the Christian thing to do—to try to get you to see the light of God’s truth. And you saw it! Don’t pretend you didn’t!”

“Melissa—” Without thinking, he reached for her hand.

“Don’t touch me!”

The air in his office was still. She looked glumly out the window. Outside, the sun was finally shining down on the campus, the former Exton Ladies’ Institute of Reed Township gussied up in the sunshine. A few hardy groundskeepers were tending to the lilac beds that sprouted near the Student Union, and the manurish funk of mulch wafted up to Andy’s office.

“I just don’t understand how you could have baptized Belle if you don’t believe.”

“I’ve been searching for something for a long time, Melissa. I was hoping God was it.”

She sniffled again.

“But I don’t believe that God created biological life on earth. I wanted to—or at least I wanted to hand God responsibility for that, for a lot of things—but I don’t think I can. It still doesn’t make sense to me.”

“I don’t understand you,” Melissa said.

Andy couldn’t figure out what else to say.

“You took advantage of me,” she said.

“You were trying to take advantage of me.”

“No,” she said. “No. I was trying to help you. Maybe even to save you. And then you took advantage of my innocence.”

“Is that really the way you see it?”

“You’re such a disappointment.”

“I’m sorry, Melissa.”

They sat like that for a few more minutes, on the chairs in his ratty office, and Andy found his eyes drawn to the seagulls circling outside his window—they were so close to the ocean—and thinking about his mice downstairs, and how there were still so many things left to figure out. Which was his job as a scientist. Which was why, a million years ago, he had gone to the pond with his mother and collected paramecia. Why he had started to learn the world.

“Andy? You there?” Rosemary opened his door, saw he was with Melissa (busted again with Melissa!), made an apologetic murmur. Maybe he would pick some lilacs for Rosemary. She certainly worked hard enough, and he wasn’t sure he ever really thanked her for everything, her discretion. “Some mail came in for you, I thought I’d drop it off.”

She handed him a letter, a cancelled stamp in its corner.

“You can open that,” Melissa said. “I’ll go.”

“No, stay,” he said. It was his duty to finish this conversation. He would not let Melissa go before doing well by her, although he had no idea how to do well by her. Probably the right thing to do would have been to send her away the first time they’d met.

“I want to withdraw my study,” she said. “I don’t know if that’s possible or not, but I’d like to try.”