Page 24 of The Botanist's Assistant
She hitsSendand takes a few calming breaths beforeopening a second email from the dean. This one announces to the entire campus that, per Professor Deaver’s request, hisbody will be cremated and no funeral services held. The note goes on to remind faculty and staff that a grief counselor is available if needed and that an endowment has been set up in Dr. Deaver’s name if anyone wishes to contribute.
Margaret frowns. Dr. Jonathan M. Deaver may have had many wonderful attributes, but humility wasn’t one of them. Having worked with him for a decade, she is almost certain Dr. Deaver would have wanted fanfare, not quiet contemplation, to mark his death.
He would have wanted people to talk about his contributions to science, about his brilliant and yet quirky mind, about his quick rise to fame. He would have wanted soaring music, a grand hall, a procession to the gravesite. This would be followed by a big reception with bottles of good wine, pillars of seafood and carved meats, and photos of Dr. Deaver at work set on easels around the room.
What would have made him skip this final tribute?
Margaret is pondering this when Calvin arrives with another hacking cough. He really should see a doctor.
“Are you feeling better?” she asks.
“I got some sleep if that’s what you’re asking, but I don’t know if I can take another day at the dog park. All that barking and snapping. I think I’m getting PTSD.”
Should she tell him that the most recentDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disordersrequires some traumatic event as a trigger for PTSD and that a snapping toy poodle might not qualify? Or is it the more polite thing to lethim go on with his mistaken diagnosis so as not to make him feel worse?
She asks, instead, if he’s seen the dean’s email about Dr. Deaver’s memorial.
Calvin slides his messenger bag under his workspace. “Yeah, I saw it.”
“Doesn’t it strike you as strange that Dr. Deaver wouldn’t want some kind of memorial?”
Calvin shrugs. “I heard it was the wife’s decision, not his. Listen, I’m going to grab a cup of coffee and a muffin from the café. Want anything?”
“I brought my own coffee, thank you.”
Margaret knows the story of Veronica Ann Deaver, even though she’s only met her a few times. Armed with a PhD in chemistry, Veronica Ann had hitched her wagon to the star of her husband’s career, believing he would land at Harvard, MIT or Stanford, where, as is often the custom, she would also be awarded a position. Instead, he’d chosen Roosevelt, which, he claimed, didn’t silo departments and thus promoted collaborative knowledge and inquiry and allowed space for creative thought. Roosevelt, however, was too cash-strapped to offer Dr. Deaver’s wife a faculty position, and thus she had turned to other pursuits: charity work, cooking and, oddly for a chemist, fashion design.
While Dr. Deaver had remained mostly mum about his marriage, Margaret knew it wasn’t the happiest of unions. Once, she’d come into his office to find him doing theNew York Timescrossword puzzle while Veronica Ann’s tinny shout came out of a cell phone on his desk.
“You always promise but you never do what you say. Youleft me sitting there with the Cunninghams and a cassouletthat I’d spent two days cooking and not a word. You may have fooled everybody else but not me. I know who you are.”
Dr. Deaver had mouthed, “Sorry,” and Margaret had fled the room.
Margaret thinks of the yelling and shouting of her own family, of the way it all ended. What had prompted this lack of a last tribute?
It takes Margaret twenty-two minutes, but there it is: a divorce filing by one Jonathan Matthew Deaver against Veronica Ann Deaver, dated ten days before his death.
Why hadn’t he mentioned it?
Margaret scrolls through the petition. Dr. Deaver is claiming his Land Rover, two original paintings by a semi-famous artist, plus a summer home near Lake Tahoe and interest in a successful biofungicide company he helped form seven years ago, in addition to any future companies or earnings resulting from his work. Meanwhile, he will split the proceeds of the sale of their main house plus pay $4,000 a month in alimony, which to a woman of Veronica Ann’s tastes and Dr. Deaver’s earnings is a pittance, and also let her have her 2022 BMW, a sculpture estimated to be worth $150,000 and her fashion line, which Margaret knows has never made a profit.
Irreconcilable differences is the stated reason for the divorce, but Margaret is struck by the unevenness of Dr. Deaver’s offer to his wife. He had always been a man of fairness and a supporter of justice. This, however, indicates neither.
Margaret shuts down the computer as Calvin returns from his coffee-and-muffin run. What happened between Dr.Deaver and his wife? Was the lack of a funeral VeronicaAnn Deaver’s attempt to wound her husband the way he wounded her?
Before she can answer herself, Zhang walks through the lab door.
“Dudes,” he says, “I have some amazing news.”
16
Sweet Somethings
No sandwich is tossed onthe bench. No ratty backpack shoved under his workstation. Instead, Zhang proceeds to tell them this is his last day at the lab.
“I haven’t said anything, but I’ve been working on a project that’s going to change my life.” Zhang’s lazy slouch is gone, his voice full of excitement. Margaret has never seen him like this.
“I had to keep it quiet because my mother would have killed me, but I’m starting a company that will produce boutique, high-end cannabinoid chocolates, and, yesterday, my brother agreed to fund it,” he says. “No more cheap gummies or stale cookies. Only the finest ingredients. Only the highest-grade cannabis. I’ll have my own organic farm. We’ll be the Rolls-Royce of edibles.”
