What he wanted, he’d told her, was to be useful. To his family, to his community, even to the larger world—and in that context, what use was a brilliant eye for grasping the structure and meaning of the natural world, or for being able to intuit almost instantly, from a few inches of fossilized bone, what creature it might have belonged to, and how that creature might have lived? What good was solitary work? She hadn’t mentioned his hesitations in her letter to Benjamin Hardiman, speaking instead about Charlie’s unusual intuitions. She’d noted his rare lack of defensiveness and his ability to accept criticism easily, which made it possible for him to learn almost anything. What she’d wanted to say, but (wisely, she thought now) kept to herself, was: He reminds me of you. Not present-day Benjamin; they hadn’t seen each other for years. But Benjamin as he’d been during the biology course they’d taken one summer more than forty years ago, on an island off the New Bedford coast.

Their friendship rested almost entirely on those long days of collecting and dissecting, the hours of lectures and the passionate discussions afterwards. Most of her closest friends were, like Daphne, those who’d warmed their backs against the same giant rock, watched the same teachers drawing coelenterates on the board. Although some of her companions had gone on to be famous scientists, leading this university or that museum, while others, like Benjamin, had settled into smaller departments, most had stayed in touch and tried to help each other.

And Benjamin had responded kindly to her letter, welcoming Charlie as a prospect for his program at the university. How puzzling that since then he’d ignored Charlie’s replies. After Charlie’s second letter too had gone unanswered, she’d secretly written again. He’d answered promptly.

I’m not sure what to tell you: when I contacted a friend in Doylestown to see about placing Charles on an expedition this summer, he simply didn’t answer me. Edward and I have been out of touch recently but I felt perfectly comfortable asking him to help your protégé. You and I haven’t seen each other in far longer, but even if I had to refuse you something, I would never do it this way. I remind myself that two years ago he lost his only son in the war; of course this has changed him—but still. Let me see what I can arrange elsewhere.