move to make sure I didn’t fall apart.
I was angry at life. My mom had died of breast cancer after guaranteeing me that she’d fight through it. I’d believed her, and I needed her to fight through it. But her decline was fast. Within six months of her diagnosis, she was gone, and I was left with the trifecta of anger, numbness, and loneliness. She had tried to prepare me. She’d told me over and over again that she loved me, and that her love would be there even after she died.
It wasn’t.
Everything was hollow and empty and dead. I walked through the halls of my high school and the rooms of my house with no awareness of where I was. I hardly noticed Aunt Jeannie. She didn’t try to overcompensate for the tragedy by acting overly cheery like some people did, and somewhere in the back of my numb state, I appreciated that.
Some nights, before I turned off the lights to go to sleep, she’d knock on my door, come into my room, and ask me how I was doing. I’d always said the same thing.
Okay.
She didn’t follow up with more questions or with any other kinds of talk. She would stand there for few seconds, both of us quiet, and then she’d close the door and head to her bedroom. Those moments of silence were the only respite from my loneliness.
I owed her.
*
“Van Doran doesn’t have any living relatives,” Eddie said.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“So our visitor was pretending to be related to Van Doran.” Which meant he did know as much about this little corner of history as I did, and, if I was being honest with myself, probably more. After all, he’d connected the confession to Mr. Gregory Van Doran, and I hadn’t.
Eddie looked me in the eye as if he had something to tell me but was reluctant to say it. After a very long three seconds or so, he said, “Let’s check out Van Doran’s disappearance.” But I knew this wasn’t what he’d really wanted to tell me. He was withholding information.
Three minutes later, Eddie was reading from his computer screen, summing up a New York Times article about Van Doran’s disappearance, dated April 23, 1955. “Mrs. Eva Van Doran, his wife, reported him missing on April twenty-second—three days after Einstein died. She told the police that she was expecting him to return from a trip the night before. The police checked the local hospitals and came up empty. It also says that the police didn’t find any evidence that he was the victim of a crime.”
“What about the trip? Where did he go?”
“It doesn’t say.”
Eddie found a second article, dated May fifteenth, and this one was much more detailed. It seemed that the disappearance of a Columbia professor had garnered some interest. Eddie and I both started reading the article. Apparently, Mrs. Van Doran had pressed the police to do more. She’d said that her husband wouldn’t just run off. He was responsible and met all his obligations. But the police said they had no leads.
Then Eddie and I must’ve hit the same paragraph at the same time, because I looked at him just before he said, “A connection.” According to a Columbia faculty member, Van Doran had been spending a lot of time in Maryland, working on a project.
“Maryland. Clavin,” I said.
“But what does that mean?”
Eddie scrolled further down the page and I saw something that made my heart skip a beat: a photo of the missing Gregory Van Doran accompanied the article.
He looked exactly like the man who’d just visited Clavin.
I leaned back, waiting for Eddie’s reaction. But he stayed hunched over the computer screen. No reaction?
“Look at Van Doran—that visitor has to be related him,” I said.
“He must’ve had relatives.”
“Maybe I was wrong,” Eddie said. But he said it without conviction, and didn’t even glance at me. What was going on with him?
He continued his search and found a couple more articles from a few weeks later. They just repeated the same information while hyping up the
I was angry at life. My mom had died of breast cancer after guaranteeing me that she’d fight through it. I’d believed her, and I needed her to fight through it. But her decline was fast. Within six months of her diagnosis, she was gone, and I was left with the trifecta of anger, numbness, and loneliness. She had tried to prepare me. She’d told me over and over again that she loved me, and that her love would be there even after she died.
It wasn’t.
Everything was hollow and empty and dead. I walked through the halls of my high school and the rooms of my house with no awareness of where I was. I hardly noticed Aunt Jeannie. She didn’t try to overcompensate for the tragedy by acting overly cheery like some people did, and somewhere in the back of my numb state, I appreciated that.
Some nights, before I turned off the lights to go to sleep, she’d knock on my door, come into my room, and ask me how I was doing. I’d always said the same thing.
Okay.
She didn’t follow up with more questions or with any other kinds of talk. She would stand there for few seconds, both of us quiet, and then she’d close the door and head to her bedroom. Those moments of silence were the only respite from my loneliness.
I owed her.
*
“Van Doran doesn’t have any living relatives,” Eddie said.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“So our visitor was pretending to be related to Van Doran.” Which meant he did know as much about this little corner of history as I did, and, if I was being honest with myself, probably more. After all, he’d connected the confession to Mr. Gregory Van Doran, and I hadn’t.
Eddie looked me in the eye as if he had something to tell me but was reluctant to say it. After a very long three seconds or so, he said, “Let’s check out Van Doran’s disappearance.” But I knew this wasn’t what he’d really wanted to tell me. He was withholding information.
Three minutes later, Eddie was reading from his computer screen, summing up a New York Times article about Van Doran’s disappearance, dated April 23, 1955. “Mrs. Eva Van Doran, his wife, reported him missing on April twenty-second—three days after Einstein died. She told the police that she was expecting him to return from a trip the night before. The police checked the local hospitals and came up empty. It also says that the police didn’t find any evidence that he was the victim of a crime.”
“What about the trip? Where did he go?”
“It doesn’t say.”
Eddie found a second article, dated May fifteenth, and this one was much more detailed. It seemed that the disappearance of a Columbia professor had garnered some interest. Eddie and I both started reading the article. Apparently, Mrs. Van Doran had pressed the police to do more. She’d said that her husband wouldn’t just run off. He was responsible and met all his obligations. But the police said they had no leads.
Then Eddie and I must’ve hit the same paragraph at the same time, because I looked at him just before he said, “A connection.” According to a Columbia faculty member, Van Doran had been spending a lot of time in Maryland, working on a project.
“Maryland. Clavin,” I said.
“But what does that mean?”
Eddie scrolled further down the page and I saw something that made my heart skip a beat: a photo of the missing Gregory Van Doran accompanied the article.
He looked exactly like the man who’d just visited Clavin.
I leaned back, waiting for Eddie’s reaction. But he stayed hunched over the computer screen. No reaction?
“Look at Van Doran—that visitor has to be related him,” I said.
“He must’ve had relatives.”
“Maybe I was wrong,” Eddie said. But he said it without conviction, and didn’t even glance at me. What was going on with him?
He continued his search and found a couple more articles from a few weeks later. They just repeated the same information while hyping up the
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