Page 230 - The Love Hypothesis

I have no idea if you’re good enough, but that’s not what you should be

asking yourself. What matters is whether your reason to be in academia is
good enough. That’s what he’d told her years ago in the bathroom. What
she’d been repeating to herself for years whenever she’d hit a wall. But

what if he’d been wrong all along? What if there was such a thing as good
enough? What if that was what mattered the most?

“What if it’s true? What if I really am mediocre?”
He didn’t reply for a long moment. He just stared, a hint of frustration in

his expression, a thoughtful line to his lips. And then, low and even, he said,
“When I was in my second year of grad school, my adviser told me that I

was a failure who would never amount to anything.”
“What?” Whatever she’d expected, that wasn’t it. “Why?”
“Because of an incorrect primer design. But it wasn’t the first time, nor

the last. And it wasn’t the most trivial reason he used to berate me.
Sometimes he’d publicly humiliate his grads for no reason. But that specific

time stuck with me, because I remember thinking . . .” He swallowed, and
his throat worked. “I remember being sure that he was right. That I would

never amount to anything.”
“But you . . .” Have published articles in the Lancet. Have tenure and

millions of dollars in research grants. Were keynote speaker at a major
conference. Olive wasn’t even sure what to bring up, so she settled for,
“You were a MacArthur Fellow.”

“I was.” He exhaled a laugh. “And five years before the MacArthur
grant, in the second year of my Ph.D., I spent an entire week preparing law

school applications because I was sure that I’d never become a scientist.”
“Wait—so what Holden said was true?” She couldn’t quite believe it.

“Why law school?”
He shrugged. “My parents would have loved it. And if I couldn’t be a

scientist, I didn’t care what I’d become.”
“What stopped you, then?”
He sighed. “Holden. And Tom.”

“Tom,” she repeated. Her stomach twisted, leaden.