The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady (43 page)

“I do have some vacation days coming,” Vic said quietly, as if he didn’t want to get too hopeful.

“I wish you’d take them,” Caroline told him. Then she gave him a shy smile.

There was a sudden lightness in the air, the way it feels when a storm has finally passed over. A relief, renewed purpose. Mama and Papa were friends again! They
do
like each other! Life could go on! These thoughts, Marylou knew, were flitting around their circle, joining them together in joy like the Holy Spirit did at Genesis Church. Marylou expected someone to get up and dance, would’ve done it herself if she wasn’t nearly eighty.

It didn’t last. Of course, they couldn’t let it last.

“
I’m
not going to stay with Marylou,” Ava announced from her chair where she sat like a queen, swinging her crossed leg. “
I’m
going to get an apartment. With Travis.”

Suzi guffawed and Ava shot her a black look.

“Buff’s nephew Travis?” Caroline said. “Gigi’s son?”

“He can’t help who he’s related to.”

“That’s not the point, and you know it,” Vic bellowed.

And they were off—Caroline lecturing Ava about how she was too young to take such a step, and that, anyway, she shouldn’t move in with a man, any man, before she’d really gotten to know him, Ava arguing that she was old enough to make her own decisions, and Vic chiming in occasionally, agreeing, for once, with his wife, then gradually settling back in his padded chair, his eyes fluttering like he was fixing to doze off.

After a while Suzi got up and limped off into the dining room with her cell phone, texting someone. She called over her shoulder, “I’m going to pour us some Sprite! We’re going to celebrate Granddad and Nance’s engagement! I mean Marylou and Granddad. Ava, change out of my dress!”

“Into what, fool?” Ava yelled back.

Otis drifted out onto the front porch and settled in the glider, which squeaked back and forth as he pushed it. Was he thinking about what he’d done, regretting it, or was he planning how to make his next nuclear device? Who knew? But Otis and Ava were now her grandchildren, too, and she liked feeling responsible for them.

So she just sat and listened to everything, to all the new noises in a house that had been silent for so many years, thinking,
This is my family now, certainly not a happy family, but my family, happy enough, and in time perhaps, happier
. Okay, they could be described as a pack of neurotics desperately in need of family therapy, and she, the Radioactive Lady, wasn’t a paragon of stability herself, but so what? You get what you get and you don’t care a bit. That was a little rhyme Helen used to say all the time. She’d learned it in kindergarten. Marylou had found it annoying … she did care what she got, dammit! Funny that she should remember it now, remember Helen saying it then, as if she were saying it now. You get what you get and you don’t care a bit.

“That glider really needs to be oiled,” said Wilson. He scooted closer to her.

“Yes, indeed,” Marylou said, and rested her head on his shoulder. “But for now, let’s just let it squeak.”

I was inspired to write this novel after reading Eileen Welsome’s book
The Plutonium Files
, in which she used her Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative-reporting skills to uncover the truth about secret medical experiments conducted on vulnerable, unsuspecting American citizens during the cold war. It is a great American book. The medical experiment portrayed in this novel—radioactive cocktails given to pregnant women—actually took place at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, but I moved it to a fictitious hospital in Memphis, my favorite city.

Another amazing book that grabbed me by the collar is
The Radioactive Boy Scout
by Ken Silverstein, a superbly written true story that not even Hollywood could’ve concocted. Many of the details about Otis’s breeder reactor come from this book, but as a fiction writer I also changed some things to fit my story. If I’ve gotten anything wrong about breeder reactors, the fault is entirely mine.

Hurricane Grayson, which appears in this novel, is a fictitious storm. For answering my hurricane questions, I thank Team Hurricane: Carissa Neff, Forrest Anderson, Christie Grimes, Wendi Taylor Nations, Cadence Kidwell, and especially Beauvis McCaddon.

The Lillian Smith Center for the Arts provided me with space and time to write this novel. I’m forever grateful to Florida State University for keeping body and soul together. Thanks to my colleagues and students
in our creative writing program for being the outstanding people they are. In particular I’d like to thank my assistant, Kristina Vogtner, for all her enthusiasm and smart ideas.

Many thanks also go to: Tricia Young, for being Tco. Mary Lou Sheridan, for being Mary Lou and not Marylou. Miranda Stuckey, soccer player extraordinaire, who answered all my soccer questions. My gal pals in the RDI Group—you’ve saved my life many times over. Mike Croley, who hosted and tour-guided me around Memphis a number of times. Tad Pierson of
American Dream Safari
, for taking me on tours of Memphis in his pink Cadillac. Janet Burroway and Patricia Henley, whom I can call day or night to discuss writing and anything else. Alison Destry Jester, for graciously spending way too much time hashing out the plot of this novel with me and for putting up with me for two weeks every summer. The Tarts—Joanna Harper, for offering me a lovely place to work out the final kinks in this book; Michele Messenger, for her graphic design genius; and Lauren Heath and Lisa Dowis, for keeping me laughing.

I couldn’t have pulled it together without the encouragement of my wonderful agent, Gail Hochman. At Doubleday: Cory Hunter and Nora Reichard are true treasures. My brilliant editor, Alison Callahan, performed magic on the manuscript and understood better than I what I was trying to do.

Most important, I’m grateful to my family. My mother, June Stuckey, applauds me even when she must think I’m insane. My daughters, Flannery and Phoebe, took time out of their busy lives to help me choose character names, act out scenes, and give me sage advice about the behavior of teenagers. My husband, Ned, as always, was right there with me every step of the way. I appreciate him more each and every day.