Page 100 of Love and the Laws of Motion
“I think I need to figure out how to play hardball.”
Chapter Forty
For all the time Livie had spent at school with Janet, she’d never been to her house.She hadn’t even known where she’d lived.How had she worked so closely with someone and been this disconnected personally?It was no different than Michiko.She’d spent two years alongside Michiko, but hadn’t exchanged more than a couple of words with her until this year.It turned out Michiko was great.Brilliant, funny, and definitely a person you wanted in your corner.
Janet lived in a pretty two-story house in Ditmas Park.The neighborhood was a suburban oasis in the middle of Brooklyn, with quiet, tree-lined streets and large, well-tended Victorian houses.The Finch house was white, with a wide front porch and leaded glass windows.
Yesterday, after her terrible meeting with Langley and Michiko’s subsequent revelations, she’d texted Andy Finch, telling him she really needed to speak to his mother.His response had been to invite her over the next day.And now here she was, about to see Janet and tell her everything that was happening in the department.Maybe she wasn’t yet well enough to come back and fight the battle herself, but hopefully she could tell Livie what to do, give her some insight into how to handle it.
Andy opened the door, smiling, but tired.
“Hi, Livie, come on in.Dad had to be at a thesis defense today.He’s sorry to miss you.”
“Oh, that’s okay.What about you?Don’t you have work?”
“I’ve taken a leave of absence to help with Mom.”
A tremor of unease trickled down her spine.Janet still needed that much help?
Janet’s house was a typical academic’s house, overstuffed bookshelves everywhere, mostly classics and literature, which Livie assumed belonged to her husband.Janet had always generated clutter, so it didn’t surprise Livie that her house was the same explosion of stuff as her office.But there was something different about this clutter.It wasn’t the product of a brilliant mind racing far ahead of any human’s ability to keep up.This felt like lives in chaos.
Papers were stacked high on the dining room table, sharing space with empty takeout containers.Unopened mail littered the table inside the front door.Random pieces of medical equipment—plastic bags of tubing and syringes, sharps containers, pill bottles—were scattered over numerous surfaces.Andy and his father were barely hanging on.
“Thanks for coming, Livie.I know Mom will be happy to see you.It’s this way.”
She followed Andy up the stairs and down the hall to a bedroom.
He stopped at the closed door and turned back.“Livie, you should know, she’s not herself.”
“I’m sure.It was a serious heart attack.”
“I just don’t want you to be shocked.After the stroke, there were deficits.”
Deficits?“What kind of deficits?Will she get better?”
“It’s hard to say.With the brain, there’s never any predicting.”
Brain deficits.Dr.Janet Finch.The most brilliant woman Livie had ever met.Before she’d fully grasped the implications of that, Andy opened the door and ushered her inside.“Hi, Mom.Look who’s come to see you.It’s Livie.”
A hospital bed dominated the room, along with a forest of medical equipment crowding the edges.In the middle of the massive bed, propped up, was Janet.She’d always been small, but now she was a shadow of her former self.Her face was all cheekbones and hollow eyes, and her hands, withered and gnarled, rested on the blanket.Her body barely made a lump under the covers.Her hair had been salt and pepper the last time Livie had seen her, more brown than gray.It was almost all gray now, thin and wispy.
A flare of her old panic resurfaced, Livie’s terror of hospitals, of people lying helplessly in beds.That dread of looking death in the face.But she couldn’t give in to it this time.Nick wasn’t going to come hold her hand and help her through it.She had to do it on her own.
Tentatively, she took a step closer to the bed.Janet looked decades older.How long would it take for her to come back from this?Couldshe?
“Hi, Janet,” she said.
Andy pointed to a chair placed near the head of the bed, so she sat.Janet’s eyes tracked her across the room, like she was trying to place her.That wasn’t immediately alarming.Janet had always operated on another plane.She was easily distracted and hard to bring back to earth.
Suddenly, her expression brightened.This is it, Livie thought.She’s back.But then she opened her mouth and no words came out.Instead, it was sound, garbled, half-formed.It might have been her name, but it was impossible to tell.Livie’s blood ran cold.
“She’s still having a hard time with speech,” Andy said.That was putting it very, very mildly.She couldn’t speak at all.Andy patted his mother’s hand.“Yes, Mom, Livie came to visit.You’re glad to see her, right?”
She was still trying to talk and failing, her mouth opening and closing helplessly, a string of gurgling and moans the only sound she was able to produce.Her hands were twitching on the blanket.It was horrible to watch.Livie started talking, to end the terrible tension.“Don’t worry about the research.I’m keeping up with everything until you get back.Everything is fine.”
That was a total lie, she realized now.It hit her like a physical blow.Everything everyone had been trying to warn her about was true.Janet was never coming back.Her research would remain forever unfinished.
Janet raised a hand and gestured at Andy.Her fingers were cramped up sideways into claws.Something like a word came out of her mouth, but Livie couldn’t understand it.Andy did, though.He grasped his mother’s hand and squeezed.
