Resonance

by A. J. Scudiere

  “Of course.” The hand patted her on the arm while her mother visibly disengaged from the conversation.

  “Mom! Listen to me.” She took a deep breath and let it all fall out. “When Jillian would go into a coma, she would be awake somewhere else. With Jordan, her lab partner. And she said a little girl hacked her way into the CDC phone lines convincing the staff that she was a Doctor Sorenson.”

  Her mother blinked, still not comprehending, still not wanting to. But Becky pushed, her mother was made of sterner stuff than this. “She talked to Jillian. Mom, it was Melanie. Jillian and Jordan drove out to the house and picked up the notebooks I left behind. They saw Aaron and Melanie.”

  “When?” Finally she had her mother’s attention. Rapt green eyes, so like her own, fixated on her daughter.

  “Three days ago.”

  “But they were already-”

  “There. Mom, they’re not here. But they aren’t dead.”

  She felt the cold seep in as she watched her mother’s spine stiffen and shield her from belief. The disconnect was more powerful now, now that she had less siblings to fall back on. Her mother turned away. “That’s just silly.”

  This time it was her hand that grabbed at her mother’s arm. But she wasn’t gentle. She didn’t follow the dictates of society. And she didn’t care. “It’s not silly, it’s true. Jillian described Aaron and the house to a T. She said Melanie decided to go to the biology magnet even if it meant riding the short bus. How would she have known?”

  Her mother’s face took on the worried look of the convinced.

  “It’s true Mom. They’re just somewhere else.”

  “Then why aren’t they here? Why did God split up a good family?” A glaze of tears threatened at her mother’s eyes, and suddenly with that acceptance Becky knew what to do. Even though she didn’t know she’d been deciding.

  “God split up a lot of good families, Mom. I don’t know why. But we’re together and they’re together. Aaron moved home to be with her.” She sighed. “And I’m moving home, too, Mom.”

  “Rebecca!”

  Arms were thrown around her with a joy that took her off balance. It made the other mourners stop and stare. But only for a moment. Things were odd these days and funerals were a dime a dozen. Black was getting a lot of wear, and a happy outburst at a funeral wasn’t something to be too surprised about.

  “I may not move into the house. But I’ll be close.”

  Her mother’s smile curved up, holding all the wishes a parent could have for a child.

  “I’ll see if I can get grants from the CDC to study the species here. Or maybe go back to the University. See if Warden is still there or not.” Her mouth pulled up in a resigned grin.

  If he was, she’d handle him. She had more clout now, maybe even some recognition.

  She hugged each member of her family, then each member of Jillian’s. She told them the same thing: that Jillian was in a better place. But she didn’t elaborate. They looked like they wouldn’t want to hear it. Like they all had sticks up their asses. Then she sent up a little prayer asking forgiveness for her thought. And followed it with a second prayer that the sticks be removed, before turning to catch the car that was heading back into Oak Ridge.

  Three scientists shared the midsized sedan with her. In the same tasteful gold that all the CDC cars had been. She declined a front seat and spent the short trip to the center of town staring out the window at the landscape she knew so well - the patches of brown along the hillsides, the organic shapes of the Appalachian mountains rising up against the backdrop of too-blue sky.

  And sure enough, even though no visible clouds rolled in, the color changed quickly and surely to grey during the short drive. When they exited the car they were treated to the first flakes of the first snow of the season.

  With closed eyes, Becky stood at the edge of the high school field, and smelled the air she knew so well, felt the prickle of cold as it invaded her senses, and knew that she couldn’t go back to Atlanta. Not for longer than it would take to pack her things.

  She belonged here.

  It was five o’clock, before her father managed to come get her. He simply hugged her and they were silent for most of the winding road home. But when they got there the front door opened to greet her with heat and laughter.

  She went to put her things in Melanie’s room, believing that Mel was here, even if she couldn’t be seen. That by being in this house she was as close to her brother and sister as she could be. She took in a deep breath of the smells of little girl and clean ruffled curtains before heading out to have the spaghetti dinner they had held for her.

  Jillian turned, or tried to turn, but something stopped her. She tried again, this time attempting to open her eyes as well. Neither worked. As she rolled forward, pins and needles shot up her right arm, as it reacted to being freed from her body weight. Her left shoulder hit something cold and metal. And, as grateful as she was that she could move, she jerked back, eliciting a grunt from the wall behind her.

  Jordan!

  “Jordan?” Her voice was mumbly, and right then she knew. She lacked the deep dry creak of waking from coma - she was here, where she had planned, hoped, to be.

  “Jilly?” She smiled at the still asleep voice, and for a moment she could believe they were in a Florida hotel, checking out a little girl with a spider bite. But her IV tugged at the tape on her arm and her electrode snap stickers itched. And Jordan’s voice became clearer. “Jilly!”

  He shuffled his position and she shuffled hers to where she could smile at him. And he deserved a smile, damned if his hair wasn’t sticking straight up and out.

  He smiled again. “None of the alarms went off. And I set them pretty high. They’d have woken us both if you started slipping.” Relief radiated from him in tangible waves. He didn’t make any motions of resisting the urge to hug her, and before she knew it she was engulfed and squeezed, but she didn’t mind.

  But then his hands were everywhere, checking the pulse at her throat, then the radial pulses at each wrist, he looked into each eye separately then moved side to side to see if she was tracking him. She endured to make him feel better until he grabbed a stethoscope from the end of the bed.

  She shoved at him, snapping one of the electrodes free, “Get your damn hands off of me! That’s going to be cold as-” she didn’t get to finish. The machine had reached its count and began wailing the alarm that its patient had dropped below reasonable levels, or removed an electrode, which was not acceptable.

  Jillian slapped her hands over her ears, as Jordan scrambled to the head of the bed to disengage the wailing noise. The shrieking was loud enough that it just might have pulled her back had she started to slip away.

  The sound stopped, leaving a ringing in her head that almost masked the sound of Jordan’s heaved sigh. Just as she laid her head back down and felt some of the tension slip away, three techs ripped through the Velcro and burst into the room looking like white-coated avengers.

  “Is everything okay?” They looked everywhere for the source of the alarm, stopping only when Jordan waved a hand from behind her and told them it was all fine.

  It was then that their eyes stopped roving and settled on the two doctors sandwiched on one gurney. The taller tech with dark hair couldn’t keep his eyebrows from raising. As Jillian turned her head away she saw Jordan’s hand shooing them away, and the look on his face told them it wasn’t any of their business.

  The sigh settled deep into her lungs, making her grateful for the air even as she was frustrated. “Not again.”

  “Again?” This time it was Jordan’s eyebrows that rose.

  “Nothing.” Great. On both sides now she had been found in the arms of one of her colleagues. It seemed life always had a way of catching up with her. But she fought the frustration by doing something. She yanked wires, freeing electrodes from their snaps and flat-lining all her readings. She sat up, rubbing her head and gently lifting the stickers there, before yank
ing the ones at the corners of her chest band-aid style. She gave little yelps while Jordan watched with a smirk on his face and a hand out that she slapped each used sticker into.

  “I need a shower.”

  “I hesitate to let you go by yourself.” He shook his hand over the wastebasket, freeing the stickers and letting them fall.

  “Ahh!” She was a smart girl, she should be able to come up with a better protest than that. But before she could Jordan spoke again.

  “I was kidding. It sounds like a good idea.” He grabbed towels out of the cabinet and they bundled up, heading across the fields to the gym. She was thankful for the wave of heat that rolled over them when they opened the double doors and traipsed to opposite sides of the large wooden floor.

  Only then did she realize that she hadn’t brought a change of clothes, and she’d have to climb back into the scrubs she had slept in. Not like anyone would notice, it wasn’t like she ever wore anything different anyway.

  The hot water felt like a dream, and for a brief moment she let her eyes fall shut and stood quietly, thankful for the solitude. She hadn’t been afforded any for over a week now. Everyone had been watching her with beady little hawk eyes waiting for her to slip back under.

  After far too long she forced herself out from under the hot spray and tucked the towel around her torso noticing the red marks she had made from yanking the electrode stickers. As she padded carefully out to the locker area the door cracked just a little, no face showed, but she would have recognized Jordan’s voice anywhere. “Jillian? What the hell were you doing in there? Surgery?”

  “Enjoying the hot water.” She waved her hand at him to shoo him back, even though he couldn’t see it. “Now go wait for me.”

  She heard his chuckle as the door swung closed. She dressed and followed Jordan back out the door, where they were greeted by furls of tiny white snow attempting to warm itself in the heat of the gym. Everywhere outside the snow blew frantically. Up. Down. Sideways. It looked like Christmas morning, falling on the tiny tent town just down the hill from where they stood.

  They walked through the flurries, Jillian with a soft smile on her cold lips, and as they got closer they could see heated discussions between people in bulky jackets. Jordan approached one of the people, and whether it was a man or woman, doctor or janitor, was all obscured by thick down and fuzzy trim at the hoods. “What’s the problem?”

  “We have to move everyone out of the tents. They won’t hold the snow, and if it melts on the tops it’ll pool and leak and we’ll loose millions of dollars of equipment.”

  She and Jordan looked at each other, and she blinked. The other people disappeared at the edges of her vision, and she spoke clearly and happily, free for the first time in forever it seemed. “Let’s go home.”

  Jordan simply smiled.

  Side by side they walked back to the tent, and Jillian reveled in her footprints. Tried to track who went where from the pathways already marked by busy feet. Later, while they were packing. the phone rang. Hoping to distract herself, she waved Jordan back to gathering his things. “Jillian Brookwood, CDC Disease Lab.” Well, that hadn’t come out sounding quite right, but the person on the other end didn’t give her a chance to change it.

  “This is Dr. Greer Larson, I believe we spoke once before. I’m looking for Dr. David Carter, is he there?”

  “Oh.” She kicked herself after the word slipped out. She knew better than that - you should never act surprised. But now she had to step up and tell him. “David passed away yesterday.”

  “Yesterday?!”

  She explained, and waited patiently while he asked why he hadn’t found his friend on any of the lists. She mentioned the waking and falling under, and heard the deep disappointment in the voice on the other end. He asked if she could give him a moment, and Jillian realized that David’s ticket out of here was the loss of a very real friend. And knowing David, one of a very small number.

  He came back on the line and started in with a deep breath. “I finally think I have an answer to that question you asked.”

  She started to say something brilliant, like huh? But he continued, “The cretaceous die-out could conceivably have all happened from an illness. In a matter of days. There isn’t anything that says the dinosaurs died over time.” There was a brief pause, and Jillian couldn’t think of anything intelligent or comforting to say. Again it was Dr. Larson who solved the problem. “I don’t know if that helps. I’m sorry if it’s too late. But I wanted to pass that on.”

  She nodded, even knowing he couldn’t see her. Then spoke in soft tones, “I’m sorry about David. He spoke highly of you.” She remembered. She hadn’t realized it at the time, but this was the only other scientist David had ever quoted or deferred to.

  They hung up and she settled the phone back in its cradle, then waited silently on Jordan. Without speaking, they left the confines of the tent and the heat, then a little further stepped beyond the edges of the tent town into an explosion of white.

  Snow clung in thick pieces to her gloves and jacket, the wind lifted her hair and sent it dancing. “Will we be able to drive in this?”

  Jordan bounced the keys in his hand. “I’m from Minnesota.”

  They found the sedate CDC gold sedan in the parking lot and tossed the bags into the trunk before sliding into the seats. Jillian slammed the door and shivered, even through her jacket the leather of the seat felt frigid.

  They warmed the engine for a few minutes. When Jordan didn’t start a conversation, Jillian waited with him, silent even when he judged the engine ready and pulled out of the parking lot. She didn’t need conversation, she was content just to watch the world float by in little clumps of white. Finally they merged onto the interstate, flurries blocking their vision even more.

  She kept her mouth closed, not wanting to interfere with his driving, and let her brain wander. Although they were headed due south, the car’s compass read ‘north’. Even so, a cold, easy peace settled over her, a calm that had everything to do with the storm she left behind, so that even the storm she was in couldn’t shake her.

  After a while the flurries subsided to a world with clear air and a thin layer of white frosting. That gave way to a simple dusting of snow. And at last they emerged onto crisp, cold ground, with no signs of the winter they had left behind.

  Not ten miles further, Jordan suddenly broke the silence. “We’re getting close to Chattanooga.”

  She looked to him, startled. And this time it was he who replied before she could form words.

  “Signal Mountain isn’t that far out of the way. Do you want to stop to see your Dad?”

  “No.” He remembered. “We never really got along. The family I talk to is all on the other side.”

  Even while driving, he turned square to check her out for a moment. “Then why are you here?”

  Her mouth quirked up in a way that she couldn’t help. “Let me rephrase that. My blood family is there. You and Landerly understand me a lot better than they ever did.”

  He smiled.

  And she laughed at him. “I think you two may even like me.”

  Again the flash of true grin, one she hadn’t seen in a long while. “That I do.”

  For a few minutes she just studied him, taking in the charming profile, the straight nose and brilliant eyes. His smile had faded, taking the boy into man. The mouth opened and his voice interrupted her thoughts. “What about David? I thought you two were getting serious.”

  “Oh no. David is . . . David. He only really cares about David.” She shrugged.

  “I thought you liked him.”

  “I do. I just accept him for what he is, and isn’t.”

  Jordan nodded, eyes still in tune with the road ahead, not looking at her face.

  Her voice was small when she spoke, realizing what needed to get said. The first words were always the hardest, and after that it would flow. “Thank you-”

  “For what?” He looked at her full on again, teal
eyes full of concern for whatever he didn’t know.

  “For taking care of me. The way Landerly says it, you busted your ass to save my life.”

  He reddened a bit, but spoke with pride. “Yeah, I did. And I’d do it again . . . you owe me big time.”

  Her laughter burst out of her, filling the edges of the car, and she wasn’t sure if she saw something when he looked at her again. After the giggles died down, she settled back, they still had several hours to go. So she started in, knowing Jordan was the only one who would understand.

  “If everything changed when the poles shifted, and some species wound up on one side of the shift but not the other, won’t they evolve differently? The whole ecological structure has altered.”

  “That makes sense.” He nodded, but didn’t give any other follow-up.

  “So, in a thousand years our descendants will have evolved differently from David and Becky’s.”

  “I don’t think Becky will have him.”

  She almost punched him in the arm, but held back.

  He spoke again, even as he swerved the car around a tire scrap in the road, “I don’t think David should ever reproduce.”

  Jillian rolled her eyes and steered the conversation back to where she wanted it. “So probably the same thing happened the last time the poles shifted. Some species went one way and some went the other.”

  She waited until Jordan nodded, acknowledging her idea. “Does that mean that there are dinosaurs somewhere?”

  It made perfect sense, but she just wasn’t sure she could wrap her brain around it.

  There’s more to the story. When Priya discovers porpoises beached in LA, she calls her best friend Becky Sorenson who tells her things are only getting worse.

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