Sometimes I play something back. Is that okay?

Sure.

Your father. He never expressed remorse? Or anything like it?

No. A lot of the scientists did. They had second thoughts. My father said that they should have thought of that sooner. They should have had first thoughts.

Would it have made any difference?

No. That was his point. Nothing would have made any difference. There was a movement early on to let the scientists have a say in whether the bomb would be deployed but my father thought they were just naive. He said that the bomb belonged to the people who had paid for it and that certainly wasnt the scientists. They paid for us, he said. We were cheap too. He told them to stop their whining.

Both of your parents died of cancer.

Yes. I dont think the work at Y-12 was particularly hazardous—although my grandmother was convinced that it killed my mother. My father’s work in the South Pacific on the other hand was probably close to suicidal. Of course radiation wasnt understood all that well at the time. I suppose some people will find a moral there.

I take it you would not. You said that your father died in a cabin above Lake Tahoe.

No, I said he lived there. It was very beautiful. There was a point of rocks where you could walk out and see the lake maybe twenty miles away below you. But that’s not where he died. He died in Juarez Mexico.

He died in Mexico.

Yes.

What was he doing in Mexico?

He went there for cancer treatment.

To Juarez Mexico?

Yes. There was an extract made from apricot pits called Laetrile that was being used in clinics in third world countries. I think they called it vitamin B₁₇. A lot of desperate people showed up at these places. Including not a few celebrities.

Your father went to Mexico to be treated for cancer by quack doctors.

Yes.

That doesnt seem odd to you?

Of course it does. But he’d exhausted all other avenues. I dont think he was particularly hopeful about it. I think he thought about it in probabilistic terms and he couldnt find a way to calculate it down to zero. So he went. If there was a fault in his reasoning it was that he was too well informed to actually put much faith in the curative powers of apricots. And the only chance for it to work would have been if he could.

As in the placebo effect.

As in.

He died in Mexico.

Yes.

Where is he buried?

Somewhere in Mexico. He’d asked my brother to go with him but he wouldnt. He went by himself and he died by himself and he’s buried somewhere in Mexico but we dont know where.

Are you all right?

I’m all right. Give me a minute.

Okay?

I’m okay.

Why wouldnt your brother go with him?

Because he thought it made my father look foolish.

Did you think that he should have gone?