Genealogy: a novel

by Mae Wood

  “She wasn’t,” I said, certain that they weren’t married. “They weren’t married.”

  “I know. We did some research. Turns out he was married to a woman named Penelope.”

  My breath caught in my chest as I fit the puzzle pieces together. “Penny Powell? But she married his friend—”

  “Joseph Carlisle. I know that from the letters now.”

  “He was sent off to Europe in World War I,” I said, straining to remember what Elliott had written about Penny and Joseph.

  “I don’t have the image of the marriage license, but the index online shows Elliott marrying a Penelope Carlisle in July 1919. She died less than a year later.”

  “Wow,” I said, blown away by the revelation. “I guess Joseph died in the war and then Elliott married his friend’s widow?”

  “Yeah. That’s my guess too, so it was pretty cool to see Elliott’s future wife show up in his letters to Alice. Family secrets come to light through the wonders of the internet. Want to keep walking? Thompson’s up for it,” he said with a nod down at his dog.

  “Sure,” I said. “Mind heading down to the waterfront? I know it’s touristy, but—”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  As we walked, I peppered him with questions about his research skills. He brushed it off, claiming that he didn’t have any skills. He just had a computer, paid subscriptions to a few services, a message board where he asked serious genealogy buffs for help, and a mother who kept pestering him to find out whether Alice was Elliott’s first wife.

  “Never underestimate the power of my mother to get me to do stuff. Even at forty,” he confessed with a self-deprecating huff of laughter.

  “You’re forty?” I said before I could shut my mouth.

  “Yeah. Something wrong with being forty?” The tease was back in his voice and he sipped his drink.

  “No. Absolutely not. I mean, this sounds strange, but I hadn’t given you much thought. I’ve spent all the time thinking about Elliott, but I hadn’t thought much about you.” It wasn’t true, but it wasn’t a lie. I’d thought about Ben a lot, in this abstract sort of way. But until he’d mentioned meeting up, I hadn’t thought about him in a way that meant wondering what he looked like, what he sounded like, whether I would melt in the soft chocolate that was his eyes. The answer to that question was an unequivocal yes.

  “It’s not really fair. I don’t have much of a web presence.”

  “Okay, I’ll admit I looked you up online, but how do you work in tech and not be all over the internet?”

  His smile crinkled the corners of his eyes and he tapped the side of his nose twice. “I work in data and I’m a private person.”

  Wanting privacy made sense to me. It was amazing what I’d been able to find out about Elliott through genealogical records and that was before everyone started posting pictures of their dinners on social media. “Did you look into Alice?”

  “Some. Saw that she married. Found an image of her marriage license to your great-grandfather. Her name wasn’t Alice Keller on it, so I thought maybe they’d been married in secret. Alice Hirshhorn to Frederick something.”

  “Wertheimer,” I said. “She was Alice Lenore Hirshhorn Wertheimer and I’m Alice Lenora Waller.”

  “You’re a Lenore?”

  “Alice Lenor-a. My parents wanted to make it slightly different from Alice’s name.”

  “Still beats Wilbert.”

  “I’m not arguing that,” I said with a smile, happy to discover that being with Ben in person was as easy as emailing with him.

  “But that’s about all I learned about Alice. My mom has had me chasing down rabbit trails on our family tree since then.”

  “It’s kinda fun. It’s like your own personal mystery to solve.” I looked up and down the street, trying to imagine what it looked like a hundred years ago. “There would have been trolleys all around here,” I remarked more to myself than to Ben.

  “I still wish. It’s all buses now, except these two electric street car lines that don’t quite go where you want them to go. Did you know that the transportation is such a nightmare that some of the big employers have their own shuttle systems around the city?”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Nope. The children’s hospital has one, and there goes a Microsoft shuttle right now,” he said, pointing to a white van.

  We kept walking toward the water and fell into silence. “How long have you lived here?” I asked, knowing the answer, but looking for something to talk about.

  “About four years. I’ve been in Silicon Valley and Phoenix off and on.”

  “And your parents?”

  “Issaquah. It’s a suburb where I grew up.”

  “You’re a native Seattleite?”

  “Yes and no. Suburbs aren’t exactly the city. Seattle is its own thing. You know about the troll? Or the gum wall? Or the mystery soda vending machine?”

  “You had me at troll. My sister lives in Austin, which claims to be weird, but I don’t think it has a troll.”

  We walked through Pike Place Market, checking out the crafts vendors, and the fish, and the cheese and veg, and the random specialty foods, but we were mainly weaving through tourists with Thompson right by Ben’s side. The dog was aloof and although I’d petted him hello when we’d met, he hadn’t paid much attention to anyone or anything other than Ben, even in the crowded market with its fish displays and butcher shops.

  “I gotta get out of here,” I said after a bit. “Too many people.”

  “Agreed,” said Ben.

  On the sidewalk, the daylight was golden. “Do you know how to get down to the waterfront?”

  His head tilted a few degrees to the right. “Want to see where his ship would have left from?”

  “Yes,” I said with a smile, thankful he understood. “I know it’s completely different. Just like the Astoria and this market—was Pike Place even around then?”

  “Let me check,” he said, pulling out his phone and tapping away on the screen. “1907, so yes.”

  “Is the art museum far?”

  “Umm—Is it bad if I say that I know it’s downtown, but I’m not quite sure?”

  “Nope. My great-grandfather had a shoe store near there and Google told me that the building was torn down, but really—I don’t want to drag you and Thompson all over the city as my hijacked personal tour guide. I’ve got my phone to get me around.”

  “Not a problem at all. It’s a Saturday, and we don’t have any plans.”

  “Well, I don’t want to keep you,” I said.

  “Not keeping me from anything. Really.”

  “Oh. Okay. I didn’t want your wife worrying about you hanging out in the city with some stranger you met online.”

  “Funny you should say that. Her running around the city with a stranger she met on the internet is why we’re divorced.”

  “Ouch,” I said, with a grimace, feeling terrible that I’d stumbled upon this particular topic. “I’m sorry.”

  “This way,” he said, pointing to a set of steps. I followed him down to a park. “It’s okay. It’s fine. It’s been a few years.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Yep,” he bit out. “At least we didn’t have kids. You have kids?”

  “No. And I’m not married.”

  “Married to your job?”

  “No. I’m an otolaryngologist. ENT is what we’re normally called. The joke is that ENT doesn’t mean ‘ear, nose and throat’ but means ‘early nights and tennis.’” I thought about holding back, but I hadn’t held things back from him yet and I didn’t feel the need to start building a wall now. There was something freeing about being with him. He was warm and open and easy to be with and I felt safe in that. “Broke up with my boyfriend a few months ago. He dumped me.”

  “I guess now it’s my turn to say I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, waving my hand in the air, batting away any trace of Scott lingering in my psyche. “He’s in Cal
ifornia. I’m in Missouri.”

  “Ah, the long distance thing. I gave that a try after college. Disaster.”

  “Well, this wasn’t his fault at all. He’s from Orange County and the plan was that we’d move there after our fellowships ended, but I didn’t get the job I wanted and that’s how I ended up in KC on this contract.”

  “Worth it?”

  “Yeah,” I said, pushing out a breath and realizing it was true. It wasn’t a decision that I regretted. “I really wanted to be at a big hospital. I specialize in ear surgeries and cochlear implants, and while I could do tubes and sinuplasties at any hospital, that’s not why I chose the specialty. I was a computer science major in college. I like geeking out on the tech of what I do. Don’t let the two x chromosomes fool you. This girl likes math.”

  “Very cool. I was a humanities major. Anthropology.”

  “How’d you go from anthropology to doing whatever computer thing it is that you do?”

  “I’m really good at math too. I didn’t realize it until my junior year of college though. I was doing some summer work for a professor. We were compiling and analyzing data about quipus—Inca talking knots—it’s rope that looks like a mop when it’s not unfolded. All of the strands have different styles of knots at different intervals. It’s mainly an accounting system—census, crop yields, and the like, but there’s also a color code that’s still somewhat of a mystery. I ended up helping a few professors out with some research and I found I really had a knack for the data analysis side of the world.”

  “That’s the most amazing career path ever,” I said, truly impressed by how he’d stumbled upon his talent.

  “It’s pretty random, but what I do is a good fit for me. And it’s probably no more random than a school teacher becoming a vice president of an oil company.”

  The bay at our right, we strolled along the wooden pier toward the towering Ferris wheel, stopping at the very end of the pier and gazing out at the water. I looked up at the Ferris wheel, wondering what the view was like at the top.

  “We can ride it, if you want. Really commit to the whole tourist thing.”

  “Ehhh,” I said, refocusing my gaze out across the bay to the islands in the distance, blue and purple in the waning daylight.

  “Or we can snag a table and a couple of drinks and watch the sun go down.”

  “I think you read my mind.”

  “Follow me.”

  Thirty-four

  Ali

  February

  We reversed our course, weaving through the thinning crowd of tourists as the sun began to sink lower. “I looked up his ship,” Ben said. “Elliott’s. The letterhead from the ship he took on his way back to the Philippines—the Sado Maru. I found some pictures of it online.”

  “I hadn’t even thought to look up his ship.”

  “It was used for Japanese troop transport in World War II and was sunk during the war.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.” We settled in at a small table on a wooden pier, overlooking the water. “Beer or wine?”

  “In the land of plenty up here, I’d say wine for right now?”

  “No wrong answer. But do you drink beer?”

  “Oh, yeah I do. The sun goes down so early,” I said, zipping up my down jacket against the chill.

  Ben poured water into Thompson’s portable bowl. “Do you trust me?” he asked.

  “With my life? I mean, maybe?”

  A dimple appeared in his left cheek when he smiled at me. “Let’s start with beer and see how that goes.”

  “Deal. Want to split a tasting flight?”

  “Sounds great.”

  He ordered the beer, waters, and a bowl of roasted nuts from the server before turning back to our conversation. “And yeah. The long winter nights take some getting used to, but the long summer days make up for it.”

  “I’d imagine. Hey,” I said more to Thompson than to Ben, after he’d walked me through the four beers, taking a sip from each small glass before passing it to me. “Do you think he’d mind if I pet him again? I miss having a dog.”

  “Mind?” he scoffed. “Yeah, not at all. He hasn’t been able to take his eyes off you since you met.”

  I rolled my eyes at his playful exaggeration. “That’s a lie. He looks at you nonstop, like you’ve got some bacon in your pocket.”

  I wished that Thompson had paid more attention to me, but more than Thompson, I really wished that Ben hadn’t been able to take his eyes off me because I knew I hadn’t been able to keep mine off him.

  “Thompson,” Ben said, pointing his finger at the ground next to my chair. Thompson got up and sat next to me, and I ran my hand across his fur. “Release,” Ben said, and I felt Thompson settle into my pets, leaning into my hand, and coaxing me to rub him behind his ears.

  “He’s really well-trained. So chill for a lab.”

  “That he is. So why did you become a doctor?”

  “Genetics, I guess. Both my parents are doctors and my brother is. My sister is the smart one and is a physical therapist, but her kids keep her busy so she works part-time right now. What about your sister?”

  “She teaches art in a small town up near the Canadian border. She’s married and has three kids.”

  “My brother is in KC, and getting to be the cool aunt to his kids has been a big plus of being home this year.”

  “Could you stay in Kansas City?”

  “If I really wanted to I could, but there isn’t an immediate need for my specialty there. And it’s a good time in my life to explore.”

  We watched the sun dip down behind the islands across the bay. The sky was streaked with orange and purples, the water shimmering with silver and gold. And I kept sneaking glances at his profile. Could there be something? If I moved here? Could we be friends? Could we be more? Because I’d like that. I’d like more time with him.

  As the deep, inky purples of evening filled the sky, I picked up the tiny glass of golden ale and held it toward him, realizing that he hadn’t had much of the beer. “Want it?”

  “Nah, that’s cool. You enjoy it. Think you’ll get an offer?”

  “Yeah,” I said, finishing the glass. “I’ll be honest and not modest about it. I’m kinda expecting one. They were serious enough for someone to observe me in surgery, and with surgical position interviews, that’s a big step. But I’ve got a few more months left on my contract in KC, so no one is in a rush to make me an offer.”

  “I hope it works out, then.”

  Me too, I thought with a nod. The gulls cried overhead and boats blew their horns.

  “This afternoon has been really nice,” I said, realizing that our time together had come to a close and I needed to let him go back to his life. My secret practice date was in the books. Too bad my date didn’t know that we’d been on one of the best dates of my life. If this were a real date, I’d be staring at my phone for the next few days, begging for it to light up with his call.

  “It has. You need to get back to your family or do you have time to grab dinner? I need to eat.”

  “I can do dinner,” I said, happy that our secret practice date wasn’t ending, that we were going to get to hang out more. “Let me text my sister to let her know that I’m alive.” I took out my phone and began to text Jess.

  “Can I see that?”

  “Sure?” I offered him my phone. He held it up and I heard it make the shutter sound.

  “Sending her a picture. Proof of life. You look happy.” He tapped away at the screen.

  “Sunset, beer, ocean, Thompson…this,” I said, biting back against my instinct to say you. “Life doesn’t get much better.”

  “Sent her my phone number too. Sign of good faith in case this hostage situation gets dicey,” he said, handing me back my phone.

  A thumbs-up from Jess popped up on the screen and I shoved it back into my jacket pocket. “Worried that she won’t want me back, like in The Ransom of Red Chief?”

  “What’s that?”
>
  “It’s a story by Mark Twain or someone like that. It’s about some bad guys who kidnap a child, but the child is so awful that the parents don’t want him back and so the bad guys have to pay the parents to take the kid back.”

  “Yeah, not that at all. I was hoping that you’d develop Stockholm Syndrome.”

  I felt heat rise on my cheeks as I let out a short laugh. He was flirting with me and I liked it. Maybe my pretend practice date wasn’t all in my head. “There’s a good chance it’s headed that way. Where to for dinner?”

  “There’s a place not far from here that serves really good fish.”

  “They’re cool with Thompson?” I knew Seattle was laid back, but I also knew pets weren’t universally welcome in restaurants.

  “No worries. Everyone’s cool with Thompson,” he said. “You want to walk him some?” Ben asked after he’d settled up our beer tab.

  “Absolutely.” I took the lead from him, our fingers brushing against each other and sending sparks down my spine. I wanted to twine our fingers together, but I didn’t want to be weird. Even though he felt like someone I’d known for a long time, we’d just met in person and I didn’t want to be some desperate, clingy girl who mistook friendship for something more.

  Ben didn’t have those same worries because as soon as I got Thompson’s leash situated in my right hand, he took my left in his, leading us to dinner. And I couldn’t have wiped the smile off my face if I tried. We didn’t talk much on our way to the restaurant and I didn’t care. I was with him and he wanted to be with me. He wanted to hold my hand. And that happiness I’d found with him on the pier while watching the sun set hadn’t faded. It grew.

  “Ali,” he said, slowing down our pace as the restaurant came into view. “I didn’t move home from Arizona because of my mom. I moved home because of my mom and my marriage and because I needed to be in a city with public transportation and where I could walk to everything I needed. Thompson isn’t my pet. He’s my service dog. My diabetes isn’t well controlled sometimes and he alerts me when my blood sugar gets out of whack. He’s faster than the technology by about ten minutes. It’s pretty amazing.”