Page 41 of Counting Backwards

I’d just finished reading the trial court record from Carrie Buck’s case. After telling Andrew Hendricks that I was taking a leave of absence to represent the women of Hydeford, I thought it’d be fortifying to learn more about my own great-grandparent who’d put himself on the line with similar goals. But when I tracked down the witness testimony from the case, I discovered that my long-fabled, heroic grandpa Harry had actually done just the opposite. He’d ruthlessly and intentionally destroyed any chance she’d had.

My phone battery was running low, so I riffled through my desk drawer to find my portable charger. I pushed aside a tube of hand cream, a little troll doll my nephew gave me the year before, and a container of almonds that were probably too old to eat. Had I not been so focused on the sickening revelations of the past hour, I might have gotten nostalgic about all the ways I’d made this little space mine over the years—my framed degree certificates hanging on the wall, photos of Vance and me on my desk. But I was in toomuch of a fog. I barely managed to shove the charger in my tote, grab my travel coffee mug, and hurry toward the elevator.

When I finally reached Gram’s apartment and let myself in, I found her standing at the stove, wearing an old floral apron and stirring a saucepan full of meatballs.

“Jessa!” she said with delight in her voice. “What a nice surprise.” But then she took in the look on my face and her smile dropped.

“You told me he was a hero,” I said.

She stayed frozen for a moment. Then the meaning of my words settled on her, and she nodded almost imperceptibly. Reaching toward the knob and twisting it to turn off the burner, she said, “I suppose we’d better go sit on the couch.”

I followed her numbly to the old striped sofa in the living room, the mint and powder-blue hues that had always been so familiar suddenly seeming foreign and strange to me.

“Why?” I didn’t even know how to phrase the rest of the question even though I had so much to ask.

“I wanted to tell you,” Gram said as she reached out for my hand, but she seemed to think better of it and took hold of her own hand instead.

“I Googled him,” I said. Oh, how I wished I could unlearn what I had read on the internet about Harry Laderdale all afternoon.

“I was going to tell you after your first meeting at Hydeford. But then I realized there was no reason to ruin the beautiful image you’ve always had of my father, how much you’ve savored your impression of who he was. That day we went walking, I was planning to come clean, but then I looked at you with your cheeks pinking up in the cold, your dark curls bouncing just like Grandpa Harry’s, and I lost my nerve. I wanted you to know how important the Buck case was to your legacy without taking anything away from you.”

“Take anything away fromme?” I snapped. “Have you read the testimony? You told me he saved Carrie Buck. Are you kidding me? He put every last nail in her coffin!”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Gram said, managing to keep her composure despite my obvious outrage.

But then an air of resignation settled over her. She got a faraway look in her eye and started talking.

“Some of my earliest childhood memories are from glamorous affairs where my father was the guest of honor. My mother would put me in a party dress to match my sister, Faye. How Faye hated to have me following her around in an identical dress.” She smiled fondly at the recollection of her long-deceased sister. “Other times we’d have to stay home, and my parents would come back at the end of their evening smelling of champagne and cigarettes and success.”

I’d already heard this bit about Gram’s childhood, about her family attending wonderful parties, but it was dawning on me that I’d never been told anything about the hosts or other guests. And I’d never thought to wonder. I’d pictured Gatsbyesque events in my head—pearls and flapper dresses, cigarette smoke and champagne glasses, all being enjoyed against a backdrop of art deco furnishings. But now those images were tainted by my knowledge that Gram’s family had gained all that finery at the expense of so many other tragedies.

Her tone shifted as she began to tell a new part of the story.

“Everything was different after the war. Attitudes changed, and my father was no longer viewed as a luminary. Especially after Nuremberg, people understood. My father’s findings...” She paused and swallowed hard. “Well, his findings were credited with being a major influence behind the Third Reich’s notion of a master race.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. Even though I’d read as much earlier, hearing the words straight from Gram’s mouth was so much worse.

“The Eugenics Record Office got shut down,” she continued resolutely. “So he lost his job as director. No more requests to serve as an expert witness like in the Buck trial, no more payments for his testimony. Certainly no more parties. By the time I was a teenager, he was struggling to support us. Faye and I had been cast out by our friends at school and even by some teachers. But the worst was when Faye got sick and we couldn’t find a local doctor willing to treat her. That was when we finally moved and changed our name. The Laderdale family became the Larsons.”

She met my eyes again as she finished, and I just stared back at her, absorbing the weight of her words.

Finally, I asked, “What about the medical clinic he ran? Was that even real?”

She nodded again. “He was a scientist, not a doctor, but that didn’t prevent him from starting the center. He managed it all, but he wasn’t a clinician like I may have implied. Just the supervisor.”

“May have implied,” I said, repeating her words. How thoroughly I’d been misled. Gram opened her mouth to respond, but I interrupted her. “Did my parents know?”

“It wasn’t appropriate information to share with a twelve-year-old girl. You shouldn’t feel any sense of betrayal that they didn’t tell you.”

That wasn’t what I’d been thinking so much as wondering how my mother had dealt with the information.

“The honest truth,” Gram said as she fiddled with an apron string, “is that I whitewashed it a bit for your parents too. I wanted them to know, but I saw no reason to give them all the gory details.”

“And now what am I supposed to tell Vance?” I demanded. “I hadn’t even worked up the nerve to tell him that GrandpaHarry had changed his last name, that he’d lost a job over this case. Oh my God, this is so much worse than losing a job!” And then I thought of something even more problematic. “Gram, his podcast.”

She opened her mouth to answer, but I interrupted.

“His whole platform is about authenticity, uncovering items lost in the Holocaust, righting the wrongs of the past. But look who he married!”