On the Fourth of July, at the Canterbury Hills neighborhood pond, Caroline sat on top of a picnic table, her father parked on the seat below her, watching fireworks shooting up from across the muddy water. Vic, looking young and trim in shorts and T-shirt, stood a few feet away, arms folded on his chest. Otis had wanted to stay home and watch the Space Shuttle Discovery launching toward the International Space Station, but Caroline had insisted he come out and get some fresh air. He’d walked down to the pond with them but disappeared into the crowd as soon as they got there. Ava and Suzi had better reasons for missing the festivities. Ava’s nervous system couldn’t tolerate fireworks, and Suzi’s knee was giving her trouble.
Kids danced around with sparklers, and the smoke from stink bombs hung like a ceiling overhead. The smoke didn’t rise in this humidity. Caroline wore jeans and tennis shoes, because of the mosquitoes and fire ants, but wished she’d worn a sundress and put up with the bites. She despised July Fourth and all the forced gaiety around it, gaiety that required one to endure the heat, eat bad food, and subject oneself to fiery things that banged and popped and had been known to “take out an eye” or “blow off a finger.” She felt guilty about hating Independence Day, so she usually went overboard in the opposite direction—baking cupcakes with red, white, and blue icing; organizing a cookout; buying tons of sparklers and snakes; forcing gaiety on everyone else. This year she hadn’t bothered with any of it.
Vic had come along only because she’d asked him to, but Caroline was glad he was here. She hadn’t had a minute alone with him, and there was something she had to tell him. The other night at her Asperger’s RDI group—Relationship Development Intervention—which always met at Caroline’s friend Billie’s house, a new mom had shown up, a woman who had the kind of straight blond-highlighted pageboy that three quarters of the women in northeastern Tallahassee sported, even though maintaining such a hairstyle in the raging humidity took buckets of time and money and products. This woman quickly let it be known that she didn’t want to waste time discussing RDI, or what she called piddle-ass therapy. She wanted to talk about how the mercury in vaccination shots had ruined their children. “I’m involved in a lawsuit right now against drug companies,” she’d said. “That’s where we ought to be directing our energies! We need to be exposing these people. They’ve ruined thousands of kids with those vaccines. My daughter’s life is ruined! My beautiful daughter is ruined!”
What a thing to say about your daughter, Caroline thought, but then realized she’d thought similar things but had never said them aloud. Sometimes, in her darker moments, she wondered if the reason she spent so much time trying to fix Ava was because she couldn’t fully love Ava the way she was.
The women in the RDI group had tried to comfort the angry woman and counter her arguments, saying they doubted that the shots were the only cause, if they were a cause at all, and that they’d chosen to put their energy toward doing something to help their children now; but the woman didn’t want to hear any of it. There was something about the way the woman went on and on, about her entirely understandable and justifiable but out-of-place anger, that stayed with Caroline and eventually drove her to do some detective work. And she’d unearthed something amazing, which was what she needed to tell Vic about.
Above the Canterbury Hills pond, a huge orange and blue blossom burst in the sky amid cheers and hoots of appreciation. Caroline gave up waiting for Vic to sit down with her, slid off the metal picnic table, and went over to stand beside him. “Listen to this,” she began.
She told him how she’d gone snooping through her father’s bedroom and had found a folder in an envelope in one of her father’s dresser drawers. The folder was labeled Prenatal Study—Memphis University Medical School. When she opened it, she discovered medical records and typed narratives with her father’s name signed at the bottom.
On the papers were names of hundreds of pregnant women who’d been given, in the early fifties, prenatal cocktails containing radioisotopes at the Memphis University Medical School. It was part of a government nutrition study.
She’d known that her dad was involved in some experiments in the fifties, experiments he didn’t like to discuss, but she’d had no idea what they were really about. In the folder was correspondence between Wilson Spriggs and someone at the Atomic Energy Commission regarding their radioisotope distribution program, which Dr. Spriggs was taking advantage of. The cocktails given to the pregnant women were made with radioactive iron that came from the Oak Ridge, Tennessee, uranium pile.
From what Caroline could figure out, a random sample of pregnant women visiting the prenatal clinic would have a blood sample drawn on their first visit, radioactive iron administered on the second visit, and finally another blood sample taken on the third visit to determine how much of the iron had been absorbed. The women were told only that they were getting vitamins that would be healthy for them and the baby. No consent forms were signed.
As she finished talking, a spidery, spangly star with tails whiz-banged overhead. “My favorite color!” yelled a nearby kid.
“Sweet Jesus,” Vic said. “Your father poisoned all those people.”
They both turned toward Wilson, who was holding a lit sparkler someone had given him, holding it like he didn’t know what to do with it.
“You don’t have to say it that way,” she said, knowing how ridiculous it was to defend her father at this point, but she kept on. “They didn’t think they were poisoning people. They thought they were helping their country. There was a cold war on! Anyway, I doubt he actually gave the women cocktails.”
“It was his study,” Vic said.
“Yeah. I know.”
“I’m sorry,” Vic said, finally putting his arm around her and pulling her close. He smelled like beer, but it felt good to be close to him again. When had they stopped hugging, and why, when it was such a comfort? Then he added, “Try to forget about it.”
Caroline broke free of his arm.
Her father now sat with his head tilted up, gazing at the latest gold and silver explosion.
“Those people got a settlement,” Vic said. “It’s over now.”
“But it’s not over,” Caroline said. “It’s never over.” She forced herself to breathe. “I think Nance was one of those women.”
“Really?” She finally had his full attention, although she couldn’t see his expression in the dark. “Is her name on the list?”
Caroline had to admit that it wasn’t.
“Well then,” Vic said. “Have you been talking to Billie again? You two and your conspiracy theories.”
“I think she’s using a made-up name,” Caroline suggested. “I just figured it out after support group the other night. Why Nance showed up here in Tallahassee. I knew there was something too coincidental about her coming here from Memphis and her having gone to the same clinic where Dad worked. For a while I thought she was my real mom!” Caroline made this sound like a joke and hurried through it. “But now I know why she’s here. My father killed her daughter. There was a Memphis postmark on the envelope that the papers were in. And her daughter died of bone cancer. She told Suzi.”
“Sounds pretty far-fetched,” Vic said, and before Caroline could reply, added, “Hey, isn’t that Otis?” He pointed at a family sitting on a blanket a couple of yards away.
Actually, there seemed to be a family blanket and an annex blanket. On the family blanket were Buff and Paula Coffey and their little girl, Angel, all cuddled up close. The older, black-haired, black-outfitted daughter, Rusty, sat cross-legged on the annex blanket with … Otis?
“What the hell?” Caroline said. “What’s he doing with her?”
“I didn’t know they were friends.”
“He never tells us anything,” Caroline said. “He knows we wouldn’t want him hanging out with Rusty.”
“Should I go over and talk to him?”
Caroline thought about it. She imagined Otis seeing his father, his embarrassment, his defensiveness. And herself having to talk to Paula Coffey. Being invited to join them. “I’ll talk to him later,” she said.
* * *
Nance lived in a white brick house at the dead end of Reeve’s Court. Her front porch was festooned with hanging flower baskets, and there were pots of flowers all over the small front yard. There were rows of flowers along the edge of the house with no weeds in between them. It wasn’t until Caroline was standing in front of the door, waiting for Nance to answer the doorbell, that she noticed that the red salvia in the basket nearest her were made of silk. She swiveled around. All the flowers in all the baskets were silk. She peered over the porch railing and studied the flowers down below. She’d stuck plastic flowers in the ground! Then why’d she have that garden hose snaking across the yard? And the full watering can? And she’d eagerly offered to work in their yard, saying she loved yard work! As Caroline was trying to process this, Nance, who was expecting her, answered the door with Buster at her heels, and, smiling, ushered Caroline inside.
The house smelled of ham and cookies baking. Nance, wearing a patio dress and purple tennis shoes, indicated that Caroline should sit on what looked to be a brand-new beige vinyl couch. She disappeared into the kitchen and brought out a plate of homemade peanut butter cookies and glasses of tea with sprigs of fresh mint in them.
She settled in the rocking chair across from Caroline, holding her glass of tea, which she’d wrapped in a yellow cloth napkin, and explained that since she’d been scoring portfolios part-time at FTA and helping out Caroline’s family and going to Buff’s church every whipstitch, she’d been neglecting her own housekeeping.
Caroline reiterated that they all appreciated everything she was doing to help them, and that she hoped Nance wasn’t wearing herself out. And, besides, the house looked clean to Caroline. In fact, the room they were in was not only free of dirt and dust and clutter, but it was also free of personality. Every bit of furniture looked new, large, and beige, even the coffee table and the lamps. Framed photographs were lined up on a low table against the beige wall, but Caroline couldn’t get a good look at them. She told Nance that her house looked neat as a pin.
“Don’t look too close,” Nance said. She had a rather large pecan-shaped head, and she sat up straight as if she had to balance her head on her shoulders, which gave her a dignified air. “I’m trying to get things done round here today,” she told Caroline. “If I get distracted, it’s all over for me. The TV has to stay off.”
“I don’t want to take up your time,” Caroline said, like a salesperson. “I just wanted to pay you a visit, since you’re helping out at our house so much.”
Nance didn’t respond to this illogical statement. “Well,” she said, “there’s somebody out there who doesn’t appreciate me. Has it in for me, seems like. Keeps calling here and hanging up. Lets it ring twice, and then hangs up before caller ID clicks on. They know exactly what they’re doing.”
“Why would someone do that?”
Nance snorted. “Heck if I know.” She told Caroline she’d been hearing strange sounds on the roof at night, like somebody was walking around up there. It drove Buster wild, she said. “Here’s the scariest thing,” she said, lowering her voice. “The other evening, round eight, I saw someone wearing a Richard Nixon mask peering in the kitchen window at me. I ran outside, but the person had run off. It was a grown person! Couldn’t tell whether it was male or female.”
“You should call the police,” Caroline said. Maybe Nance was closer to totally losing her marbles than she’d thought. “You want me to call them for you?”
“Oh, no, no,” Nance said. “They’ll just think I’m a crazy old lady. Maybe Vic could come down here and spend the night sometime. He could catch them, I bet.”
“Maybe.” Vic would never agree to that.
Nance dabbed at her lips with her napkin and set down her glass and uneaten cookie on the doily-covered table beside her. Buster, lying beside her, stared intently at the cookie, as if waiting for it to leap up and dance.
Caroline resumed eating her crumbly cookie and sipping tea and asked Nance about working at FTA.
“It’s a hoot,” Nance said. “Just a hoot. I’m loving every minute of it. Except for that loud woman who helps Vic. Buff Coffey’s sister.”
“Gigi?” Caroline said.
“Flirty little filly,” Nance said. “ ’Tween you and me, she’s terrible at her job. But Vic covers for her.” Nance gave her a creepy little smile, cut her eyes toward her and then away.
“Sounds like Gigi,” Caroline said, feigning lightheartedness. At one point, back when Vic was in graduate school, she’d suspected Vic and Gigi of being attracted to each other—they always ended up side by side at parties—but Vic had always denied it. Gigi had always gotten plastered at those parties, but that was back when lots of people drank too much, she and Vic included.
“Now.” Nance’s voice changed and became confiding and caring, “Suzi told me that Otis and Ava have—Is it ass burger? What’s that?”
Caroline went into her Asperger’s spiel and after a while, as Nance’s expression grew more quizzical and then doubtful, Caroline’s mind started wandering back to the fake flowers in the yard. Did she actually pretend to water them and think she was fooling the neighbors?
Nance said, “Well, I can’t tell there’s a thing wrong with Otis and Ava. They’re just as smart as can be. And cute. They seem perfectly normal.”
Caroline took a deep breath. In the old days she would argue with people who said things like this, but it felt awful, really, to be put in the position of trying to convince someone that there was, really, something wrong with her children and that she and the doctors and therapists weren’t just making shit up. So she didn’t put herself in this position anymore. She looked at her watch and said she had to get to the grocery store.
“I’ll be by to get Suzi for church in the morning,” Nance said. “And there’s a dinner at church tomorrow night and a special program on mission trips. One’s to Mexico! At the end of the summer. Would you mind if Suzi went on a mission trip with the church?”
After the Dunkin’ Donuts incident—even though Nance had proved to be reliable since then—there was no way Caroline would let Suzi go on any kind of trip with Nance. “Her knee won’t be healed enough,” Caroline said.
Nance sighed and raised her hand to her neck in a dramatic gesture. “She’s such a precious girl, your Suzi. You’re so lucky to have her. You have no idea how lucky you are.”
“You know, dear,” Nance said. “If you don’t mind my saying so. You spend too much time fussing over Ava, and she’s going to be fine.”
“What I need is for people to stop telling me I’m a bad mother.”
“Oh, dear, I’m sorry,” Nance said. “I didn’t mean that! I meant to compliment you. I know it must be hard, taking care of that bunch. If you and Vic ever want to get away together for a long weekend, just let me know. I’d be glad to step in and help out.”
Although Caroline would never let Nance look after her home and kids, she did, for a few seconds, entertain the idea of herself and Vic going off on their own somewhere. He used to be such a good traveling companion. But she’d never talk him into taking a trip with her now. He was always working. Besides, it would be like going away with an old boyfriend she hadn’t seen in twenty years. Too much awkward catching up. Together, they wouldn’t be able to forget about their life at home the way she could if she were by herself. She thanked Nance for the offer, and then found herself telling Nance about getting Ava into Rhodes and moving up with her to Memphis.
“If that’s what you want, you could stay in my house,” she said. “I’ll get rid of that little couple who’re housesitting for me. The boy, Trevor, is so ugly his mother must’ve had to borrow a baby to take to church.”
“I might take you up on that,” Caroline said, but knew she wouldn’t. She wanted a perfectly anonymous place to live in, like an apartment above a store downtown, a place with huge windows looking out over Main Street, a place completely free of clutter where she could just sit and contemplate the strangers walking past. She might even get a job in a clothing store, like Barbara’s, the one she used to manage in Iowa City, when she actually had time to care about clothes and the people who wanted her advice about what to buy. It was all a fantasy, she knew that, but if Ava got into Rhodes, she’d do her best to make it happen.
“I know you must’ve missed your mama something awful, growing up without her.”
Strange shift in subject, but Caroline nodded, deciding to go with it. “Wish I had a memory of her. Even one.” She thought about mentioning the fact that she’d suspected Nance of being her long-lost mother but decided against it. It would make her seem too pathetic. This conversation was supposed to be about Nance, not her. “I’m so sorry that your daughter died,” Caroline blurted out. She had to say what she’d come to say. “If you ever want to talk about it.”
Nance flipped her hand in a dismissive wave, as if they were discussing who’d burned the breakfast toast.
“She died of bone cancer?”
“She died of medical negligence. I’d prefer not to go into it right now.”
Bingo.
As Caroline was leaving, she walked over to the table with the photographs. She asked Nance which ones were of Helen.
“All of them,” said Nance.
There was Helen at various ages: the wide-eyed downy-headed infant wrapped in a blanket; the six-month-old wispy-haired charmer clutching a cloth block; the solid toddler in diapers and a fluffy dress; the gap-toothed, freckled, blond girl wearing a plaid dress in a school picture; the serious Brownie scout sporting a sash full of badges, hair held back with plastic barrettes sticking out from under her beanie; then, finally, the sickly looking and pale patient under an afghan on a couch. Caroline studied all the pictures, looking for signs, markers, that might have foretold her fate. But Helen looked healthy and happy and like every other little girl until, suddenly, she wasn’t. When had she started growing that tumor? When had it started hurting her? When did she realize that she was dying? There were no other people in the pictures with Helen—not her mother or her father. Just Helen. “She’s beautiful,” Caroline said, and turned to ask Nance more about her, but Nance had already stepped out onto the front porch and was holding the door open for Caroline to leave.
As Caroline stood on Nance’s front porch in the stifling humidity, she gestured toward the yard. “Pretty flowers,” she said.
Nance smiled. “Why thank you,” she said. “They’re hardly any work at all!”
Was she being ironic? Caroline had no idea. “Is Archer your real name?” Caroline asked her. “I mean, was it your name when you were married and had Helen?”
“No,” Nance said. “Why?”
Caroline hadn’t planned on asking this question, not so abruptly, so she didn’t have a reason already in mind. She just spread her hands and shrugged.
“It was Quackenbush,” Nance said. “That was my first husband’s name. Bernie Quackenbush. Now, I don’t want to be rude, hon,” Nance said, stepping back into her house, “but I’ve got work to do round here. I’ll see you in the morning!”
* * *
Back home, in the den, Caroline showed her father the folder full of documents about the radiation study. He leafed through it as if it were all news to him.
“Is this all true? You were head of this study?”
He nodded slowly, frowning. “Well, it appears I was,” he said. “But I don’t recall a thing about it.”
“That’s convenient.”
Her father didn’t respond. He shut the folder and gazed out his window into the backyard. What was he thinking about?
“Where’d this come from? Did Nance give it to you?”
“I believe she did. Yes, I believe she did.”
“Why?”
“I’ve got to get out there and do some weeding. I haven’t been out there in weeks.”
“You were just out there yesterday.”
“Was I? Didn’t do a very good job.”
“Was Nance one of the women in this study?”
“She keeps sniping at me. She’s angry at me about something.”
“I guess so.”
There wasn’t any Quackenbush listed among the eight hundred victims. So she still hadn’t given Caroline her real name. She was intent upon hiding her real purpose in being here, and Caroline didn’t feel she should expose her. Had she moved to Tallahassee just to confront Wilson? If so, she must have been mightily disappointed, because he was refusing to own up to anything. But now that she was here, what did they owe her? That was the real question. What the government had done to Nance, what her father had done, was a travesty. Caroline and her family were obligated to help Nance Quackenbush, or whatever the hell her name was, however they could.
“Is this why my mother left?” Caroline said. “Mary Conner! My mother! Did she find out about this … study?”
“Well, now, that could be,” he said, tapping his upper lip, as if the thought had just occurred to him.