The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

“I’ll always try to do what I can for you, Callie, you know that. Although it’s more than you deserve after telling Mother about Miss Goodacre. Now, go away. I’ve got to finish this letter.”

I jumped on this change of subject with relief.

“Is it a love letter?”

“None of your business.”

“Is it to Fern Spitty?”

“Go away.”

I had extracted no promise of help from him, but he hadn’t refused me, either. I counted the conversation a wash. Now I knew that, finally, the time had come to go to Granddaddy. Lula and Harry had been mere dress rehearsals. I had been putting it off, but it was time.

I kissed Harry’s bent head and went out to the porch, where the others were assembling to watch for the first firefly. The weather was cooling. The insects were diminishing in number, and soon their season would be over, which was just as well, as the Fentress Firefly Prize ribbon was grubby and limp.

Granddaddy sat in a wicker rocker at the far end of the porch. I was glad to see that he was off some distance by himself. I took my Notebook and pencil and sat in the chair next to his. The end of his cigar glowed brighter when he inhaled, like some fat red firefly. I half expected to see the few remaining insects circling him and semaphoring their romantic intentions. (Question for the Notebook: Has a firefly ever mistaken a cigar for another of its species? A painful—possibly lethal—mistake.) We sat in silence until he said, “Calpurnia, do you intend to inflict a mortal wound on that chair?”

I looked down and realized that I had been jabbing a hole in the wicker arm with my pencil.

“I haven’t seen much of you lately,” he said.

“It’s because I’m in training to be a cook. Or a wife, I guess.”

“Ah. And we have all enjoyed the fruits of your labor.”

“You don’t have to say that,” I said unhappily.

We sat in silence, and I felt an unseen mosquito feasting on my ankles, adding to my general misery. I couldn’t see it until it had bitten me several times, and in its own gluttony, had transformed itself into a visible flying droplet of my own blood. It settled on the porch near my feet, and I stamped at it. It tried to fly, too engorged to escape. I caught it with the edge of my shoe and a tiny fountain of my blood spurted against the gray paint of the porch. I thought about this. Apparently too much of a good thing could kill you, like the old song said. Look at the smeared evidence. The mosquito was a clear success in terms of getting plenty of food, but a failure in terms of living to a good old age and expiring peacefully in her sleep, surrounded by her many keening grandchildren. So was she fit or unfit? Although it might not matter, depending on what Granddaddy had to say next. Would he commute my life sentence of domestic drudgery?

Travis spotted the first firefly and claimed the ribbon at the other end of the porch. I cleared my throat. “Grandfather. . . .” And then I faltered.

“Yes, Calpurnia?”

“Girls . . . girls can be scientists, too.” We both pretended not to hear the quiver in my voice. “Can’t they?”

He took a long puff on his cigar and then tapped the ash clean.

He said, “Have you asked your mother this? Or your father?”

“What?” I said. “No, of course not. Why would I do that?”

“Because they may have something to say about the matter. Has that occurred to you?”

“Oh,” I said bitterly, “I know what they have to say about the matter. Why do you think I never get out of the kitchen anymore? That’s why I’m asking you.”

“I see,” he said. “Do you remember when we sat by the river some months ago and talked about Copernicus and Newton?”

“I remember.” How could I ever forget?

“Did we not talk about Mrs. Curie’s element? Mrs. Maxwell’s screech owl? Miss Anning’s pterodactyl? Her ichthyosaur?”

“No.”

“Miss Kovalevsky’s equations? Miss Bird’s travels to the Sandwich Islands?”

“No.”

“Such ignorance,” he muttered, and quick tears pricked my eyes. Was I such an ignorant girl? He went on. “Please forgive my ignorance, Calpurnia. You have made me well enough acquainted with the primitive state of your public education, and I should have known you would be left in the dark about certain matters of Science. Let me tell you about these women.”

I soaked up what he told me like a living sponge. It was galvanizing information. But was there something in his voice, some hesitation, some reservation I hadn’t heard before? We were interrupted by Mother herding the children inside for bed. Lately, it seemed that all my talks with Granddaddy were interrupted. Lately, it seemed that there wasn’t any time.

By unanimous vote, my brothers and I retired the Fentress Firefly Prize at bedtime, declaring the season of 1899 officially over.

Travis’s firefly was, in fact, the only one spotted that night. Although I knew the fireflies would return in a year, it felt like the extinction of a species. How sad to be the last of your kind, flashing your signal in the dark, alone, to nothingness. But I was not alone, was I? I had learned that there were others of my kind out there.