Reverend Carl does his usual double-handed press of the air in front of him, as if he’s deflating an air mattress. Or squashing some weaker object. “Now, everyone listen up. What we’re doing is a little unconventional, a little radical even, but I’m sure Dr. Jean McClellan is the right person for the job. As many of you know, her work on the reversal of”—he checks his notes to get the technical wording right—“fluent aphasia, also known as Wernicke’s aphasia, was groundbreaking. Of course, that work has been on temporary hold until we get things sorted out, but I want to say—”

I switch the TV off. I don’t give a shit what Reverend Carl wants to say. I never will. “I won’t do it,” I tell Patrick. “So call Reverend Carl before you leave for work.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

I look at my wrist, clear of its electrical burn, clear of its silver-toned collar. “Tell him I said no.”

“Jean. Please. You know what will happen if you don’t agree.”

Maybe it’s the way he says this. Maybe it’s the look in his eyes, that tired, beaten-down-like-a-disobedient-puppy look. Maybe it’s the sour smell of milk and coffee on his breath when he speaks. It might be a combination of all three, but at this moment, in the house where we conceived four children, I realize I don’t love him anymore.

I wonder if I ever did.

Chapter Eighteen

EIGHTEEN

This time, Reverend Carl comes to the house alone. His suit is the same expensive coal gray wool of yesterday, but double-breasted instead of single. I count the buttons on it: three on the right, three on the left, four on each sleeve. The sleeve buttons are the kind that overlap by a few millimeters, kissing buttons as my father called them when he had his haberdashery, the sign of a bespoke suit. Also, they’re real, working buttons, and Reverend Carl leaves each of the bottom ones undone. He wants the world to see what exquisite taste he has, I suppose.

Lorenzo never showed off like this.

Over coffee one afternoon—I think it was two winters ago while we were plowing through another roadblock on the Wernicke project—I accidentally brushed his jacket sleeve with my pen, leaving a small, but ugly, mark on the gray material.

“Leave it,” he said.

“Be right back.”

I kept a bottle of hair spray in my office in those days. By “those days,” I mean the days after Lorenzo and I started working together. I hadn’t bothered before, usually content to let the dark curls that I inherited from my mother have their own unruly way. But that afternoon, I had a canister of Paul Mitchell Freeze and Shine lurking in a drawer along with a nail file, a pick, and an emergency makeup kit. Just in case Lin called any surprise project meetings.