Do you think it’s wrong?

No. But that may be hard to prove.

And your father was on an inspection tour of Y-12 and saw your mother.

Yes. He slipped her a note.

To call him.

Yes.

Did she?

No. He came back two days later and handed her a piece of notepaper and a pencil and she looked at it a minute and then wrote down her number. And her name. It was just the number of the hall phone in the dormitory. But the next day he called her.

And.

And here I am.

Lawrence was the man who invented the cyclotron.

Yes. He used to come to Y-12 and sit down and crank up the gain on one of the calutrons and show everybody how much more it was capable of producing and then get up and leave. In about five minutes the whole thing would be on fire. My father said that when Lawrence was working on the cyclotron at Berkeley he would pull this big copper switch and it was like a Frankenstein movie. Sheets of flame would leap across the lab and then the entire campus would go dark. They referred to Oak Ridge as Dogpatch. After the Li’l Abner cartoon. Toward the end of the war the gaseous diffusion plant at K-25 was up and running and they shut down the Alpha tracks but they still ran everything from K-25 through the Beta machines.

How long did your mother do this?

Two years. A little less.

How old was she when she met your father?

Nineteen. I think. Maybe twenty.

And he was?

Early thirties. I’m not even sure exactly when he was born. He wasnt very forthcoming about his early life. He’d been married before. Bobby found out about it.

Did your mother know this?

No. He knew that she wouldnt marry him if she knew.

He had no children by his first marriage.

He had a little boy. Who died of polio when he was about four. I think about him.

You think about him?

Yes. He was my brother.

When did your parents divorce?

I went to see her. She wasnt very happy about it.

I’m sorry?

I went to see her. His first wife. She was living in California.

Was she surprised to see you?

I dont think so. She’d heard rumors about me and she figured I’d show up sooner or later.

This was after your father died.

Yes.

What did she say?

She said: Well. You turned out all right. She was pretty dishy herself.

What else?

Not much. She said what was the point. My brother’s name was Aaron.

She was Jewish.

Yes.

He had a predilection for Jewish women. Your father.

He didnt know my mother was Jewish.

Was she a physicist? His first wife.

No. She was a medical doctor. A cardiologist. But she worked in a lab. I dont know why my father divorced.

Twice.

Twice. Yes. It wasnt their idea.

The wives.