Then he said:
“Because your grandmother did not create the original mathematical framework.”
“What?”
“Your mother did.”
I actually laughed.
“No.”
“Before you were born, Evelyn was a graduate student in applied mathematics.”
I stared at him.
My mother?
The woman who called my work “computer things”?
“That’s impossible.”
“It isn’t.”
“What happened?”
Nathaniel sat opposite me.
“Your mother was brilliant.”
The word felt foreign beside her name.
“She worked with Opal informally.
Evelyn developed a nonlinear predictive method.
Opal saw industrial applications and helped turn it into an engineering system.”
“Then why isn’t Mom’s name on the patent?”
“Because she refused.”
“Why?”
“You.”
I frowned.
“Me?”
“Your mother became pregnant unexpectedly.”
I waited.
“Your father told her she could either pursue an academic career or raise a family properly.”
My stomach tightened.
“She chose Dad.”
“Yes.”
“But why erase herself?”
“Robert convinced her the research was unfinished and commercially worthless.
