“Except it’s not, is it?” Karo tips her head to the side, as if something just occurred to her. “You left Jacob because he put you second, took advantage of you, and never recognized that you wanted to pursue your own dream. But now? It seems to me like you’re giving up your dreamandLewis because he happens to be involved in an opportunity that would have come to you anyway—you said so yourself that Rosanna was impressed with your work before she ever knew you were involved with Lewis.” Karo tracks my movements as I take a big bite of myburger, and when my mouth is too full to say anything, she gives me tough love. “Lewis took advantage of you one time and from what you told me, he’s been making up for it ever since. He recognized his mistake, he admires your work and credits you for it, and he wants you to pursue your dreams—so much that he’d be willing to break up with you, just so you get to be comfortable in the job he offered you.” Karo purses her lips. “That doesn’t sound like Jacob at all. It sounds like he cares a lot about you.”
Her words make me swallow hard. “I’m not sure he still does,” I say, a horrible feeling tugging at my gut when I remember how I pushed him away. “And also, if the job depends onhim, then, well…” I shrug. “Then it’s not the dream job. I admire Rosanna for what she does and would love to work with her, but the real dream is getting a stable position, so I can work on my own research,” I explain. “All without help. I talked to someone in Australia—”
“Franzi, no. Australia? Is that what you want?”
“It’s what I have to do.”
“I’ve never understood why you’d be willing to move across the world every few years for a job that gives you so little in return.”
“It’s…”
It’s because I’ve spent so many years trying to answer these questions, I want to say,that I can’t give up now. What if nobody else will ask them? What if nobody else will answer them the way I do?
We only ever remember the big names, Albert Einstein and Rosalind Franklin and Galileo Galilei and Marie Sklodowska Curie. But thousands of scientists could’ve made a different decision in their own research, given up or investigated something else. And what if that would’ve become the missing piece in the bigger puzzle? What if them not getting answers to their little questions would’ve prevented us from landing on the moon or figuring out the structure of DNA?
The longer I talk to Karo, the more I realize that my reasons for not wanting to give up my research are more complicated than that. It’s not only about my questions, but also about sunk costs and hunger for recognition and maybe a bit too much ambition than is good for me.
“It’s science, yes I know,” Karo says. “A bit of a cult.”
I shake my head. “It’s the only way I can still make a difference.”
“Is it, though?” Karo asks me. “The only way?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
After we leave the Olympic Peninsula, Karo and I make our way north to Victoria Island, talking and joking our way back into a relationship that feels balanced. With a few exceptions, I manage to keep Lewis out of my mind. But occasionally he pushes back to the forefront of my thoughts: in a bookstore when I spot a copy of the hefty book he brought to the cabin, when we go on a hike he recommended and, worst of all, when we arrive in Vancouver, where I picture a younger version of him at every street corner. On the last morning of our two-week-long trip, before Karo and I board separate planes taking us back home, we meet Brady for brunch, but, to my relief, she avoids any mention of him, and bonds over books with Karo instead.
The Netherlands welcome me back with a gray and wet August, one with countless days of fizzy rain and a dull sky. On my first day back at the office, I type out an email to Rosanna, thanking her for our conversations and stating that I won’t be interviewing for the postdoc position. I’ve had weeks to think it over, and although working with her was—is—my dream,I have decided that it’s not worth putting myself in a position where I’d doubt my worth every second. Giving up on this dream feels less groundbreaking than I thought it would. It’s just another email. A few strokes of the keyboard, a snap of the enter key.
The clock on my project, and my job, is ticking, but over the next few weeks, I try to put my head down, get through the time I have left at work, not think about Lewis, and figure out what’s next for me. I fall into a rhythm of work, exercise, job hunting, a few hours of unwinding before a fitful night of sleep and then the cycle starts all over again.
Although I haven’t experienced any more panic attacks, the constant buzz of my thoughts prompts me to finally make a doctor’s appointment a few days after I get back, and once there, I ask for a referral to a therapist. Theoretical knowledge about fear responses and the pathways of emotion are one thing, but I need professional help to get out of my habit of pushing down unwanted feelings and distracting myself with work instead. I can’t rationalize my way through life when sometimes it just is the way it is—messy, and full of surprises, good and bad.
Karo and I talk often—not daily, like we used to. I don’t give her a rundown of my job search, the faraway labs I’m considering, but instead coach her through her own insecurities and practice interview questions with her. In the evenings, I listen to the historical romance audiobook I downloaded back on our trip, so I understand which brooding looks and stolen touches she gushes about on our calls, and the day after my first therapy appointment, I finally tell her about the panic attacks.
With the start of fall semester approaching, email traffic picks back up and clogs my inbox at a speed I can’t keep up with. I mark all department-wide emails as read without even looking at them, but in the two weeks after I’m back, three emails stand out.
One, an invitation to virtually present my research at a lab at Monash University, to which Tegan, the postdoc I met at the Sawyer’s, has added a note:It’s not quite your research, but they’re looking for a postdoc, so if you do well, they might consider you.
Two, Brady sending the first chapter of a new story she started—not fan fic, but her own, about a biomedical scientist who is forced to collaborate with a werewolf to find a cure for a rare disease. I zoom through it on my lunch break, and when I email her back, demanding more, I notice that she sent the chapter to Lewis at the same time as me. And my longing for him flares back up.
Three, an email from Rosanna Alderkamp that comes in right as I’m changing out of my bathing suit at the local pool. I hadn’t expected to hear from her anymore when she already sent a kind response right after I turned down the position. Once I’m fully dressed, I find a bench in front of the pool complex and open the email.
Hi Frances,
New developments on the postdoctoral position that will open in the lab. While still involved in the project, Lewis has stepped down from the hiring process, citing a conflict of interest. He mentioned this caused your reservations in interviewing for the position. Interviews will be handled by a colleague from the imaging department and me, and we’ll do a lab culture / compatibility check with two other postdocs from the group.
Shall I disregard your previous communication?
Talk soon, R
Rosanna sends a copy of Lewis’s grant proposal along, “at my discretion,” so I can see what the research would entail.
My first read through has me crying.
From hope or heartache, I don’t know. The research entails something wildly promising, as if Lewis had pulled the next steps I wanted to address out of my brain. Like me, he must have written this proposal last winter. It shows that he hadn’t only read my work closely, but also understood me,sawme, before we even met. The grant is a glimpse into his brilliant mind, and I race home, where I reread it obsessively, masochistically, until my eyes want to bleed.
Karo was right: Itisdifferent this time. Rather than brush over my name, like Jacob did, Lewis’s appreciation for my work is all over his grant. But not only that. Back in New York he said he only ever wanted to see me succeed, and Rosanna’s email is yet another sign of that: He listened to my concerns and is willing to sacrifice his control over the project to clear the way for me.
