“Of course not!”
“If not, then, technically, you have no grounds to fire me.”
Donatti looked confused. What? “Of course, I do,” he stumbled. “Of course, I do! You’re the woman! You’re the one who got knocked up!”
“That’s generally how it works. But you do realize that a pregnancy requires a man’s sperm.”
“Miss Zott, I’m warning you. Watch your language.”
“You’re saying that if an unmarried man makes an unmarried woman pregnant, there is no consequence for him. His life goes on. Business as usual.”
“This is not our fault,” Frask interrupted. “You were trying to trap Evans into marriage. It’s obvious.”
“What I know,” she said, pushing a stray hair away from her forehead, “is that Calvin and I did not want to have children. I also know that we took every precaution to ensure that outcome. This pregnancy is a failure of contraception, not morality. It’s also none of your business.”
“You’ve made it our business!” Donatti suddenly shouted. “And in case you weren’t aware, there is a surefire way not to get pregnant and it starts with an ‘A’！ We have rules, Miss Zott! Rules!”
“Not on this you don’t,” Elizabeth said calmly. “I’ve read the employee manual front to back.”
“It’s an unwritten rule!”
“And thus not legally binding.”
Donatti glowered at her. “Evans would be very, very ashamed of you.”
“No,” Elizabeth said simply, her voice empty but calm. “He would not.”
The room fell silent. It was the way she kept disagreeing—without embarrassment, without melodrama—as if she would have the last say, as if she knew she’d win in the end. This is exactly the kind of attitude her coworkers had complained of. And the way she implied that hers and Calvin’s relationship was at some higher level—as if it had been crafted from nondissolvable material that survived everything, even his death. Annoying.
As Elizabeth waited for them to come to their senses, she laid her hands flat on the table. Losing a loved one has a way of revealing a too-simple truth: that time, as people often claimed but never heeded, really was precious. She had work to do; it was all she had left. And yet here she sat with self-appointed guardians of moral conduct, smug judges who lacked judgment, one of whom seemed unclear on the process of conception and one who went along because she, like so many other women, assumed that downgrading someone of her own sex would somehow lift her in the estimation of her male superiors. Worse, these illogical conversations were all taking place in a building devoted to science.
“Are we done here?” she said, rising.
Donatti blanched. That was it. Zott needed to go right now and take her bastard baby, cutting-edge research, and death-defying romantic relationship with her. As for her rich investor, they’d deal with him later.
“Sign it,” he demanded, as Frask tossed Elizabeth a pen. “We want you out of the building no later than noon. Salary ends Friday. You’re not allowed to speak to anyone regarding the reasons for your dismissal.”
“Health benefits also end Friday,” Frask chirped, tapping her nail against her ever-present clipboard. “Tick tock.”
“I hope this might teach you to start being accountable for your outrageous behavior,” Donatti added as he held out his hand for the signed termination notice. “And stop blaming others. Like Evans,” he continued, “after he forced us to fund you. After he stood in front of Hastings management and threatened to leave if we didn’t.”
Elizabeth looked as if she’d been slapped. “Calvin did what?”
“You know very well,” Donatti said, opening the door.
“Out by noon,” Frask repeated as she tucked her clipboard under her arm.
“References could be a problem,” he added, stepping out into the hall.
“Coattails,” Frask whispered.
Chapter 14
Grief
The thing Six-Thirty hated most about going to the cemetery was the way it took him past the place where Calvin had died. He’d once heard someone say it was important to be reminded of one’s failures, but he didn’t know why. Failures, by their very nature, had a way of being unforgettable.
As he neared the cemetery, he kept an eye out for the enemy groundskeeper. Seeing no one, he pressed himself under the back gate and scooted through the rows, nabbing a clutch of fresh daffodils from one tombstone before laying it here: