Lessons in Chemistry

On their way to work, Calvin and Six-Thirty jog past the police station. Because of budget cuts, the policemen have not been able to inspect and tune up their cars; a number of these cars backfire as Calvin and Six-Thirty pass them, and the noise terrifies Six-Thirty who is reminded of his bomb-sniffing training. Six-Thirty pulls on his leash to run in the opposite direction that Calvin is heading. Calvin slips on some motor oil on the ground, falls, and cracks his skull on the pavement; he is subsequently run over by a patrol car. The policemen rush to get an ambulance for Calvin, but Six-Thirty can already sense that there is no hope. Calvin dies before the ambulance arrives, and Six-Thirty goes home, “sick with sorrow” (94), to tell Elizabeth the bad news.

Elizabeth is devastated at Calvin’s death, believing it to be her fault since she is the one who insisted on the leash. His funeral is packed, attended by rowers and scientists. Elizabeth and Six-Thirty stand apart from the crowd, overcome with grief.

Elizabeth is approached by a reporter who is looking to write a story on Calvin and misconstrues everything she says in her grief to mean that she was merely an acquaintance who didn’t know Calvin very long and that Calvin was a “jerk”.

When Elizabeth turns up at work the next day, Donatti and her colleagues avoid her, unsure of what to say. She visits Calvin’s lab and is shocked to find it already scrubbed clean, his notebooks boxed away. In the crate containing his personal things, Elizabeth finds the diamond ring he had bought for her.

Frask finds Elizabeth in the lab and tells her that, despite Elizabeth and Calvin’s “unusual relationship”, Elizabeth cannot legally go through Calvin’s things; they are being held for any blood relatives or next of kin that might turn up. She further forbids Elizabeth from bringing Six-Thirty into the lab anymore, cruelly telling her that she cannot continue to use Calvin’s influence as protection any longer.

Frask shows Elizabeth the article penned by the reporter who approached Elizabeth, which implies that Calvin was a difficult person whom even his girlfriend didn’t know well. Elizabeth throws up, and Frask brings it to her attention that she may be pregnant.

Both Calvin’s death and the negative article pose a problem for Hastings: their benefactors start talking about wanting to reexamine the projects at the Institute and the respective funding. Hastings does not happen to have too many other brilliant scientists; of the remaining lot, Zott is one of the truly capable ones. However, being a woman, management is hesitant to give her any real power or opportunity. They have even lied to the investor funding the abiogenesis research, claiming that the person behind the work is a “Mr. Zott.” Following this, they had allocated the investor’s money to other projects.

Management finds out that Elizabeth is pregnant after Miss Frask spreads the news everywhere. This complicates things, as the investor could find out that “Mr. Zott” is, in fact, a woman. Despite the fact that Elizabeth is the driving force behind the group research she is a part of, Donatti fires her. As she tries to argue that he has no legal ground to fire her for being pregnant, Elizabeth discovers that Calvin had interfered and had been the only real reason she had been allowed to continue her abiogenesis research.

Six-Thirty visits Calvin’s grave and reads the gravestone. Elizabeth has been teaching him words: Calvin had told Elizabeth that dogs could learn around 50 words on average, but Six-Thirty already knew more than 100 by that point. Convinced that Six-Thirty was special and would be able to learn more, Elizabeth had begun to actively teach him and keep track of the words he knew. Six-Thirty had also begun silently communicating with the unborn child in Elizabeth’s womb, addressing it as “Creature,” and informing it of Calvin’s death.

Three months after Calvin’s death, Elizabeth breaks down the kitchen in the apartment and rebuilds a lab in its place. Her old colleagues from Hastings had been visiting her ever since she had been fired, asking for her help with their work; Elizabeth had begun to charge them for this, making a living by “doing other people’s work without any credit” (120).

Six-Thirty communicates with Calvin at the gravestone, telling him about Elizabeth’s lab, her continued attempt to teach Six-Thirty words, and the fact that she was still “erging.” Six-Thirty doesn’t think all of this is good for the “creature” and wants some way to give Elizabeth hope.

The cemetery groundskeeper finds Six-Thirty and tries to shoot at him, but the dog bounds out of the way, knocking the groundskeeper down. The man hurts his head and, remembering how Calvin had bled to death, Six-Thirty stanches the blood flow from the groundskeeper’s head wound and barks until people arrive. The same reporter who wrote about Calvin also arrives and writes an article about the dog who mourned his master and saved a man’s life at the same time. The groundskeeper is dismissed, and the dog ban at the cemetery is lifted.

As Elizabeth’s pregnancy begins to show, she begins to get unsolicited advice from strangers whenever she steps outside. She finally goes to see Dr. Mason, the captain of the rowing team, who is also an obstetrician.

Dr. Mason is nonjudgmental about Elizabeth’s pregnancy, examining her like he would any other patient and acknowledging how difficult the situation must be for her. He is the first person to show her any empathy or assert that not every woman necessarily wants to be a mother, and Elizabeth is touched.

Dr. Mason is surprised and impressed to hear that Elizabeth has still been “erging.” He concludes that it has been good her strength and health during pregnancy and invites Elizabeth to row with the team again in a year’s time, once she has had the baby and has recovered. He asserts that she was, indeed, a good rower, and leaves her with reassurance that she will handle childbirth and recover from it just fine.

Five weeks after the appointment with Dr. Mason, Elizabeth and Six-Thirty walk to the library to return some books. Elizabeth is confident that she is still two weeks away from delivery, but Six-Thirty has noticed that her water has already broken, and the hunger pangs she is complaining about are, in fact, pre-Iabor contractions. As they approach the library, Elizabeth doubles over in pain; 13 hours later, Madeline is born, safe and healthy.

Against the doctor’s orders, Elizabeth checks herself out of the hospital the next day and returns home to Six-Thirty who is waiting for her outside the house. As the dog greets Elizabeth and Madeline, for the first time in a long time things feel joyous, and the three of them feel like a family. The feeling is shattered when, ten minutes later, Madeline begins to wail.

Elizabeth is overwhelmed by a constantly crying newborn, the long list of repetitive tasks that never seem to end, and the consequent lack of sleep or rest. Dr. Boryweitz visits with a gift for the baby and a request for help; an exhausted Elizabeth accepts because she needs the money but falls asleep immediately after Boryweitz leaves. She dreams of Calvin and is awakened by Mrs. Harriet Sloane, her neighbor, who has arrived to check on Elizabeth and the crying baby.

Harriet soothes and changes Madeline while offering Elizabeth her condolences about Calvin. She moves to make Elizabeth a cup of coffee but is stopped short by the sight of the lab; Elizabeth makes the coffee instead, in a series of complicated steps using the lab equipment, and it is the best coffee Harriet has ever had in her life.

Harriet apologizes for not having come over earlier, as she had assumed that Elizabeth had help; she leaves her number for Elizabeth to call whenever she’d like a hand. Elizabeth confesses that she feels like a terrible mother, because she isn’t having any “blissful moments” and has wanted to give Madeline away at least twice now. Harriet assures her that it is normal to feel this way and that mothering is a tiring and overwhelming job. Before she leaves, she advises Elizabeth to take a moment for herself every day where she is the priority and nothing else, to reconnect with herself and recommit to what she truly loves.

Harriet had spied on Calvin and Elizabeth through her curtains from the very beginning of their relationship and had thought it to be “almost supernatural” in terms of how well they fit together. Harriet’s own marriage is an unhappy one, Mr. Sloane being dull, ignorant, insensitive, vulgar, and bigoted. Harriet thought him truly ugly because he was unattractive both inside and outside.

Elizabeth continues to be overwhelmed by a newborn Madeline, musing on how the baby got her name. After an exhausting delivery, Elizabeth mistook the nurse to be asking her how she felt, when the nurse was in fact asking for the baby’s name. Elizabeth responded “Mad,” and that was what went on the birth certificate.

Six-Thirty has an idea for the baby’s name and pulls out Elizabeth’s copy of Remembrance of Things which contains mention of a Madeleine; spying the book, the name “Madeline” occurs to Elizabeth, as Six-Thirty had intended. Elizabeth is unable to officially change Madeline’s name as the process requires documents like a marriage certificate, among others, and so Madeline remains “legally Mad”.

Elizabeth picks up the phone dozens of times after her first meeting with Harriet to call her; she finally manages to do so four days later, and Harriet, who has been waiting for this and watching Elizabeth through binoculars, comes right over.