She looked at my stomach, under the hospital blanket.
“Afterward, everyone left. Except one man in a brown suit. He came up to the stage and said, ‘My wife’s mother died of this. And her sister. I sell life insurance. I know what the numbers say about my wife. How much do you need?’”
She smiled.
“I thought he was joking. Then he wrote me a check for five thousand dollars on the spot. He said there would be more. And there was. Every few months, for fourteen years.”
“Two hundred and twelve thousand dollars,” Thomas said quietly.
“Two hundred and twelve thousand, four hundred dollars,” Evelyn said. “I know the exact number. I put it on a plaque in the lab. It’s still there.”
She opened her silver briefcase.
Inside were files. Old ones. Tabbed in different colors.
“He didn’t just give money,” she said. “He gave time. He drove to Cambridge four times a year. He sat in our meetings. He helped me write grant applications. He was brilliant at it. He’d read our data and say, ‘Evelyn, you’re explaining this like a scientist. Explain it like an insurance man. Tell them what it costs not to do this.’”
