“Is there anything I can do to help?” I pulled the refrigerator door open and found the plate I’d prepared for him.
He straightened. “Actually … yes. If you have time.”
“In abundance.”
“Do you think you could calculate the size of the meteorite?” His voice broke a little as he asked, and he had to pause to stare at the table.
Normally, a question like this would have gone to his colleagues at Langley. I pretended to busy myself with the plate to give him time to recover. We both tended to break at odd moments, and the tears were exhausting. Sometimes the best course was to pretend it wasn’t happening.
Nathaniel pressed his lips together in a dry grimace that tried to masquerade as a smile, and cleared his throat. “I figure if I know that, I can show that there’s no possible way the Russians could have moved it.”
I put the plate in front of him and kissed the back of his neck. “Yes. I’m presuming you can get me government charts.”
“Just tell me what you need.”
It’s funny. I’d been helping Myrtle with refugees all week, but since they kept coming, and each group was in worse shape than the last, it had felt like nothing had changed—like I made no difference in the world. I kept wondering why I had survived. Why me? Why not someone more useful?
I know. I know that’s not logical or reasonable, and clearly I was helping people, but … but the jobs I was doing could have belonged to anyone. I was an interchangeable cog.
Calculations? This pure abstraction of numbers belonged to me. This, I could do.
SEVEN
CIVIL DEFENSE TO USE “HAM” RADIOS
PHILADELPHIA, PA, March 17, 1952—To coordinate relief efforts after the Meteor strike, civil defense agencies are using various types of emergency communications equipment to transmit messages in the disaster area. In addition to the customary telephone, officials are employing portable radio transmitting sets, “walkie-talkies,” Army field telephone equipment, and amateur “ham” radio sets. These will be carried in cars manned by volunteer operators who will set up a secondary means of communication.
I worked on Nathaniel’s calculations in the evenings. It helped to have the solace of numbers to retreat to after helping with the refugees during the day. Today I had served soup to a group of Girl Scouts and their scout masters. They had been on a camping trip when the Meteor hit, and by sheer luck had been spelunking in the Crystal Caves. They’d felt the earthquake and thought it was disaster enough. Then they’d come up and everything was just gone.
So, numbers. Numbers were a solace. There was logic and order in the calculations. I could take disparate events and wring sense from them.
The other place where I found order amid the chaos was in the kitchen. It had taken a week before Myrtle would trust me in the kitchen, and another couple of days before I convinced her to let me make dinner. Now we took turns.
Was the kitchen kosher? Not even a little. Ask me if I cared. I opened the drawer next to the sink and rummaged through it until I found the measuring cups. Tonight I was making chicken potpie.
The filling simmered on the stove, scenting the air with the savory aroma of butter and thyme. In some ways, making pastry was like mathematics. Everything needed to be in proportion in order for the mass to come together.
I walked over to the refrigerator, glancing into the living room. Myrtle sat on the couch with her feet up on Eugene’s lap. He was rubbing them while she sipped from a glass of wine.
“… nothing you can do?”
“I’m sorry, baby. I’ve tried.” He grimaced and bent his head as he rubbed a thumb into the ball of her foot. “But I can’t go where they don’t send me.”
“It’s just … plane after plane of white folks. Where are our people? Who’s rescuing them?”
How had I not noticed that? I stopped with a hand on the refrigerator and ran through the refugees in my head, willing myself to see one spot of color amid the masses.
“You know what would happen, even if the brass were to send us to our peoples’ neighborhoods. Say we pick them up, and then what? Our people would be put in different camps.”
She sighed. “I know … I know. I’ll bring it up in church. See if we can get a relief effort going ourselves.”
Measuring cup still in my hand, I walked over to the kitchen door. “Excuse me.”
Myrtle looked around, and as she did, it was like a mask had slipped over her features. She smiled. “Do you need help finding something?”
“Oh—no. I just … I couldn’t help overhearing. Do you—do you want Nathaniel to talk to someone?”
Eugene and Myrtle exchanged a glance that I couldn’t begin to understand, and then he shook his head. “Thank you, ma’am. I think we’ve got this.”
After dinner, I retreated to the Lindholms’ study. I had strewn papers all over the desk as I tried to pull the data points together into the order I needed. Opening the drawer, I pulled out the little notepad we were using as a log book and jotted down the time so I could pay them back for the long-distance call. Then I picked up the receiver and dialed my brother’s work number.
“United States Weather Bureau, Hershel Wexler speaking.”
“Hey, it’s Elma. Got a minute for a weather question?”
“That is the literal definition of my job. What’s up?” Paper rustled on the other end of the line. “Planning a picnic?”
“Heh. No.” I pulled the equations I’d been working on closer. “I’m helping Nathaniel figure out how big the meteorite was, and composition and … The Chesapeake was steaming for three days. I could sort it out on my own, but … I thought there might be an existing equation for figuring out what temperature it would take to make a body of water that big steam.”
“Interesting … Give me a sec.” Beyond him, I could hear the Teletype bringing in reports from weather stations around the world. “You’ve got the depth and volume of water, I assume?”
“Average depth twenty-one feet. Eighteen trillion gallons.”
“Okay. So … during March, the Chesapeake Bay is around forty-four degrees. So we’d need a temperature change of 199.4…” A drawer opened, and the timbre of his voice changed. I could picture him with the phone pressed between cheek and shoulder, brows creased as he worked the slide rule. His crutches would be leaning against the edge of his desk. His glasses would be down at the tip of his nose to help him focus better, and he’d have the corner of his lower lip tucked between his teeth, humming between muttered phrases. “… divided by water’s molar mass … and that gives me 1.54E20 J of energy … hm-hmmm … Adding the two energies together … hmmm … 1.84E20 J of energy. You’d need … It would need to be approximately 518 degrees.”
“Thanks.” I swallowed at the number and tried not to betray how much it frightened me. “You could’ve just given me the formula.”
“What? And admit that my kid sister is better at math than I am?” He snorted. “Please. I have an ego.”
I could now plug the temperature into an equation that took the approximate angle of entry into account, and that should tell me generally what sort of composition we were looking at, based on what would heat to 518 degrees during passage through the air. It wouldn’t be precise, but it would be good enough for Nathaniel’s purposes.
“You said you were figuring out what the Meteor was?” The timbre changed again as he brought the receiver closer to his mouth.
“Yeah. Based on the size of the crater—eighteen miles—and the initial water displacement, I have a pretty good estimate of the meteor ite’s size.” I started noodling with the numbers that he’d given me. “At some point, they’ll get divers down to find out its actual composition, but every one is focused on the refugee and recovery efforts…” And that made me think of Eugene and Myrtle.