We saw Adrian Vale again two weeks later, at dinner, in a restaurant he had chosen because the tables stood far enough apart that nobody had to overhear anybody. My mother disliked it at once.
"It's too quiet."
"I can arrange for it to be louder," said Vale.
"Please don't."
There were no speeches and no lawyers. He ordered water, my mother ordered tea, and I ordered coffee, and she looked at me. "It's eight at night."
"I have work."
"You always have work."
"So do you."
"I'm older. That doesn't make you right, but it makes me tired."
Vale smiled. "Do you two ever stop?"
"No," my mother said.
"Good," he said, and seemed to mean it.
The food was excellent. My mother ate slowly, and I ate too fast, and she noticed. "You haven't eaten all day."
"I had breakfast."
"That isn't what I said."
"I had lunch."
"What did you eat?"
I thought. "Coffee."
She turned to Vale. "You see?" He laughed, and I pointed at him. "Don't join her."
"I wouldn't dream of it."
For almost an hour the conversation stayed away from the laboratory. He asked about us. Where I grew up, how my mother had managed to raise a child while studying. She tried to change the subject, and he noticed, and he let her. I told him anyway. The hospital, the biscuits, the terrible tea, the refrigerator, the school. He listened as if each story were something he intended to keep.
"Did you always know you would be a scientist?"
I glanced at my mother. "No."
"He wanted to be a footballer," she said.
"That lasted six months."
"He couldn't kick the ball."
"I could."
"Backward."
"Once."
"Twice."
Vale laughed. I shook my head. "You see what I live with."
My mother took a sip of tea. "You chose this."
"I was a child."
"You chose badly."
The evening was easy. That is the word I keep coming back to. Nothing afterward was easy again.
Outside he walked us to the car. He shook my hand, then my mother's. "Thank you."
"For dinner?" she said.
"For your time."
"We're still saying no."
"I know." He smiled. "I enjoyed meeting you both very much."
We watched him go. My mother stood without moving until his taillights had vanished.
"He is very good."
"At what?"
"Being liked."
I opened the car door. "Maybe he's just a nice man."
She looked at me. "Maybe."
We drove home without mentioning the money. We went three days that way.
Then the laboratory freezer failed. It was not the first problem, only the one that made the others impossible to ignore. We stood in the corridor at six in the morning while the engineer explained what needed replacing, and my mother listened, and I read the estimate.
"That's ridiculous."
The engineer shrugged. "That's the part."
"The whole unit costs less."
"Not with installation."
I rubbed my face. My mother said, "We'll manage."
"How?"
"We always do."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
The engineer left. I stayed in the corridor. She touched my shoulder. "Go home."
"I have work."
"Go home. I'll handle this."
"I'll handle it."
She looked at me for a moment. "I know," she said.
Those two words have stayed with me. I know. Not I trust you, not I believe you. At the time I heard confidence. I hear something else now.