Summary

Dr. Cohen asks Alicia how she is doing and she responds that she is fine. When asked more specifically what is on her mind, Alicia asks Dr. Cohen what his wife is like, and he tells her basic biographical facts (she is Italian, a good cook, and works with deaf children) and also that they were divorced for a period of three years before they remarried. Cohen does not elaborate on their separation, beyond saying that he was “an idiot,” which prompts Alicia to point out that “That’s what Oppenheimer said. At the hearings” (35). The two continue to discuss Oppenheimer, one of the chief architects of the atomic bomb (35). Alicia then shares that her father worked for Oppenheimer, presumably on the development of the bomb.

She remembers growing up in Los Alamos, where her family lived until she was eleven; she remembers...