“Okay…” I can’t tell where this is going. He sighs again, puts down the sponge, and leans against the kitchen counter. I guess we’re really getting into this, then.

“Your mom and I worked on a project a few years ago that was pretty out there but ended up yielding some great results,” he explains. “We were able to gather a lot of really important new data.”

“What kind of project?” I breathe, more awake than I’ve been all day.

“You know I can’t tell you that,” he says with a sad smile. And yeah, I do know. This is something that never quite made sense to me—how could my parents expect me to want to follow in their footsteps if they can barely tell me about what they do?

“Did something go wrong?” I ask, still not understanding why they both seemed so freaked out only a few minutes ago.

“No, no, not at all. Not with the project itself, anyway.” He takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes.

“Yeah, that’s not cryptic at all, Dad.”

He huffs a laugh. “Sorry, sorry. I wish I could explain the whole thing, but the long and short of it is that there was someone else on the project who didn’t think what we were trying to do was possible. They wanted us to stop trying.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, we didn’t. That person left, we kept going, and it worked. Now they’re wanting to talk about the project, try and debunk our discoveries—”

“But I thought it was totally confidential.”

“It is,” he says, matter-of-fact. “They probably won’t end up publishing, but it’s just adding a little stress to things.”

“Why?” I ask.

“It could jeopardize funding for future projects if people think we’re exaggerating our findings,” he explains.

“But you’re not,” I say, not even a question. There’s no way my parents would ever give anything but the facts.

“No, we’re not. But sometimes people have a hard time believing things that are…” He trails off, and I see his brain working to come up with a way to explain this to me without actually telling me anything. “Well, some of our work deals with the more unusual aspects of the brain. It can be a stretch for some people to understand.”

“Like what?” My curiosity is raging now. Seriously, if they had wanted me to take a bigger interest in science growing up, they should have started with “unusual aspects of the brain.”

“Ah, I can’t tell you that.” My dad grimaces a bit, before deflecting. “At least not yet. Someday we’ll have a long conversation about the wonders of the human brain.”

He waves his hands above his head and spins around goofily. I can’t help but smile.

“Oh joy,” I laugh, rolling my eyes. “Just what I wanted.”