The Genius Plague

CHAPTER 5

I could always tell which of my parents had cooked any dish. My mom was an Iowa farm girl who grew up in a town of five hundred people, most of whom still lived there. She learned to cook from her mother and favored beef and potatoes and everything-in-a-pot casseroles. My father didn’t learn to cook until he was stationed in Brazil and had a more adventurous bent. The dishes he made were all Brazilian, a mix of indigenous and Portuguese flavors, which almost always featured rice and beans. There was even a Brazilian expression, arroz com feijão—rice and beans—that meant commonplace, everyday. For me, it was comfort food, and eating it felt like home.

Incredibly, the ability to cook was a skill my father still retained, although my mother always watched him carefully while he juggled hot pans over the stove. He had cooked for so many years that making familiar dishes was automatic to him, requiring no recipe or measuring cups. Somehow, those neurons had escaped the strangulating plaques and tangles so far, though I had no doubt they would eventually succumb.

When I finally came home from the hospital, my parents were there, having driven back from New York when they heard about Paul. It was, by then, one o’clock in the morning, but everyone was famished, so Dad heated up some shrimp bobó over rice and we all shoveled it down.

“So Paul’s going to be okay?” Mom said.

“Physically, I think so,” I said. “The doctor said the worst was past. Emotionally, I don’t know. He tried to call Maisie while I was there. Apparently she got the same infection he did, only she died of it.”

Mom gasped and put a hand over her mouth.

Dad looked confused. “Who’s Maisie?”

“The other survivor,” Mom said. “The young woman Paul rescued and brought safely through the wilderness.”

She said it patiently, matter-of-fact, with nothing in her voice to suggest that my father should have remembered that detail.

“Paul’s taking it pretty hard,” I said. “He says it’s not a big deal, that she didn’t really mean anything to him, but I don’t believe him. He’s having trouble coming to terms with the fact that she’s dead, and he’s still alive. Out of all the people on that riverboat, he’s the only one who made it.”

“We’ll go visit him in the morning,” Mom said. “There’s no worry, then, for Paul? That he might… ?”

She meant that he might die, too. “The doctor I talked to didn’t seem too concerned. She said we should take it seriously, make sure he took his antifungals. But I don’t think his life is in any immediate danger.”

“Well, then.” Mom slapped her hands on her knees, closing the subject. “Enough talk of death, then. Charles, we should show Neil pictures of his new niece.”

Dad looked startled. “Did you take any?”

“No. That was your job.”

“I don’t have a camera,” Dad said.

“You have an iPhone, dear. And you did take pictures; I saw you do it.”

I scooped another helping of shrimp. “Julia sent me some pictures of Ash already,” I said. “She’s a cutie.”

“Bald as a ping-pong ball,” Dad grumbled. “And what kind of name is Ash? Ash? That’s the black stuff you dig out of a fireplace. It’s no name for a child.”

“It’s a perfectly lovely name,” Mom said. “Girls named Ashley are called Ash all the time.”

“But her name isn’t Ashley,” Dad said. “Ashley wouldn’t be strange. There are thousands of good names out there; why does she have to get creative?”

“Be nice,” my mother said. “She’s your granddaughter.”

“It’s my daughter I was complaining about.”

Mom was beaming. She had a granddaughter, and Paul was safe, and Dad was actually responding appropriately, bantering with her like he used to do. I finished the last of my shrimp bobó and eyed the serving bowl, wondering if I would regret taking a third helping. I decided to risk it. “I was hoping to visit Julia this weekend,” I said. “But my car…”

“You can take mine,” Mom said.

“Are you sure? You don’t need it?”

“Your father and I can make do with one car for one weekend. Take it. Julia will be happy to see you.”

My father argued good-naturedly with me about the best route to take from Baltimore to Ithaca. It was about a five-hour trip regardless, but my dad was convinced you could shave a few minutes off if you went up Route 81 through Wilkes-Barre and Binghamton. It was the sort of argument he excelled at—meaningless and impossible to prove—and even before his Alzheimer’s, he had loved to debate a subject endlessly without worrying about reaching a resolution. The fact that he could actually remember the names of the roads made me smile. It was always surprising what things he could bring to mind and what things seemed out of reach.

I drove up to Ithaca and met my new niece. Julia’s husband was Japanese, which gave Ash an intriguing blend of genetic features. When I looked into those complex dark eyes, I had to admit that Ash was, for some reason I couldn’t explain, the perfect name for her. On my return to my parents’ home, I announced as much, leaving my dad as the only remaining malcontent.

The next day, Shaunessy Brennan called.

“How’s your brother?” she asked.

“On the road to recovery,” I said. “He has pneumonia. Some weird fungal thing he picked up in the Amazon.”

“I’m glad to hear he’s okay.”

“Thanks for helping us out. I really appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome. Look, I called to tell you that my boss, Melody Muniz, is offering you a job. The formal letter is in the mail, but I thought you’d like to know.”

My grin was wide enough to split my face. “That’s good news. That’s very, very good news. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Though I had nothing to do with it. It wasn’t my choice.”

“I appreciate the call, anyway. Thanks for thinking of me.”

“It’s just part of the job.”

Her tone was stiff, maybe even a little resentful. “You don’t like me much, do you?” I asked.

She didn’t respond for so long that I wondered if she’d hung up. Finally, she said, “It’s your type I don’t like. Young whiz kids with entitlement coming out their ears who think the rules don’t apply to them. Fine, you’re smart; I get it. But here, everybody’s smart. And the rules are there for a reason.”

“I can follow the rules,” I said. “And I’ll be good at the job. You’ll see.”

“Report to FANX III again next Monday, 9:00 sharp. Don’t be late. You’ll join a group of new hires in what we call the Tank, where people go to wait for their clearance tickets to come through.”

“The Tank?”

“It’s officially the Awaiting Clearance Pool. But informally, it’s the Tank. We verified your lapsed tickets, so, as you said, they should be able to turn yours around quickly. You won’t be there long. In the meantime, you’ll take a few orientation courses.”

“Good,” I said. “Does this mean I’ll be on the same team as you? Will we be working together?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said. “But I hope not.”

Ouch. I winced as I hung up the phone, but I couldn’t keep the grin off my face for long. The NSA! After a lifetime kept in the dark, I was finally going to be on the inside. I would know things. I would be allowed to learn all the secrets my father could never tell me. Who cared what Shaunessy Brennan thought? She’d done her worst, but she couldn’t keep me out.

After a little dance of triumph, I went to find my dad to tell him the news. I discovered him in the living room, reading from a thick book of collected short fiction. He liked short stories because he could finish them in a single sitting, unlike novels, which he tended to lose track of before he reached the end. He was crying as he read, tears running down his face unchecked.

I looked to see what story he was reading. It was “Flowers for Algernon.”

I gave his bony shoulder a squeeze and kept my news to myself.