But the Children Survived

by A. L. Jambor

  Dani opened the second drawer of the filing cabinet. She found a file marked “Baby.” She took it out and laid it on the bed. It was the file she had kept during her pregnancy.

  The file contained a business card with the address for Dr. Tomlinson’s office on it and a note from his secretary. She took the file with her and left the house. She and Jason then drove to Tomlinson's office.

  The office was located near St. Petersburg General Hospital. As they approached it, Dani remembered the first time she came there and drank the purple solution.

  “He called it Fetura. He said I should drink it all. It didn't taste bad. So, your father made that stuff, huh?” Dani was watching Jason as he navigated the parked cars in the road.

  “Yeah, he tried it on our dog Chloe when she was pregnant and when that was a success, he used it on my mother. She’d already had one miscarriage. I have a whole notebook about it.” Jason finally found a place to park and they got out of the car.

  The air smelled pretty clear. Dani avoided looking at the occupied cars as she walked to Tomlinson’s office.

  “There's another doctor's name on the sign. The files may be in storage somewhere,” Jason said to Dani.

  “When Tomlinson died, someone had to be made guardian of the records. It's worth a look inside anyway, just in case.”

  Dani walked up the stairs and opened the door. The strong scent of death greeted her. She backed away. She wanted to run, but she stopped herself.

  “I should've brought the masks,” Jason said.

  He took off his tee shirt and wrapped it around his face. He walked inside the office, sidestepped the bones sitting at the reception desk, and found the file cabinets while Dani waited on the porch. There were only two cabinets, with the oldest file dated 2009. Dani's records wouldn't be here. He left the office feeling very discouraged.

  When he got outside, he put his shirt back on. It smelled, but not too bad. He and Dani went back to the car and got inside. They sat for a few minutes trying to decide what to do next. Dani pulled out her file and opened it. Towards the back she found her medical file.

  “Oh, my God, I had requested a copy when Tomlinson died. I didn't even remember that. The name of the woman I wrote to was Maisie Gates. The address has a lot number. Could that have been a mobile home park?” She kept reading.

  “This is the whole file, Jason. This woman must have been the guardian. But that's weird. I would think they would’ve been kept somewhere more, well, you know, office-like. I wonder if she still lived there before…”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” he said.

  Jason's car had a GPS so he programmed the address and they followed the lady's voice to an older mobile home park in St. Petersburg. The first house was number one, the next two, and so forth. The road curved around until you were back out on the street. Maisie's lot number was 57.

  The park looked abandoned. There were no cars, so it was an easy ride through the park. They found lot 57 and parked the car.

  The mobile home was an older single-wide with a ramp leading up to the front door. It was across the street from the community Laundromat. Maisie's home was remarkably neat. She must have taken good care of it. There was a walker perched on the top of the ramp.

  “She may be in there,” Dani said.

  Jason turned the knob. It was unlocked. He opened the door and took a whiff. There was no smell other than the musty smell coming from the ground underneath the home.

  The door opened into the kitchen. It was clean, with a few dishes in the dish drainer. Dani walked into the next room and called to Jason. When Jason came in, he followed Dani's eyes to the corner of the room. In the corner, on an old, beat- up recliner, sat a living, breathing Maisie Gates.

  Chapter 67

  Maisie frowned at Dani and Jason.

  “Bet you didn't expect to find me,” she said. “I heard your car pulling up so I was ready for ya.” Maisie was a tiny, older African-American woman who spoke with a strong Southern drawl. “Who do you all think you are just walkin’ in my house?”

  Dani walked over to the chair next to Maisie.

  “You’re right, we didn’t expect to find you,” she said. “I apologize for just walking in.”

  Jason sat on the sofa pushed up against the opposite wall.

  “Hmm, well, make yourself to home why don’t you,” Maisie said, looking down her nose at Jason. Jason stood up. “No, no, just sit. So, why’d you all come here?”

  Dani began to ask her about Dr. Tomlinson. Maisie got a strange look in her eye. She wasn't sure she wanted to talk about Dr. Tomlinson. But she waited until Dani was finished before she spoke.

  “Why are you all so interested in Dr. Tomlinson?” she asked them. “I worked for him a long time. You do look familiar to me. Were you ever one of his patients?” She was taking a good look at Dani.

  “Yes, I was a patient about 11 years ago. That's why we came looking for you. You're the records guardian, aren't you?” Dani asked.

  “Well, I do have some records. But not too many left. When the doctor died, most of the women asked for their records. I sent out almost all I had.”

  “Do you remember how many there were?” Jason was sitting forward on the sofa.

  “Let me see. I remember thinkin' there were a lot of babies born with that purple...” She stopped herself.

  “We know about the purple solution, Maisie. You can talk about it.” Dani wanted Maisie to keep talking. Maisie pursed her lips and thought a minute.

  “Alrighty. Well, I know there were about 300 children born. I can't remember how many records I sent out. You,” she pointed to Jason, “come with me.”

  Maisie raised herself up off the recliner, grabbed her cane, and painfully made her way to the back of the home. Jason followed her into what must have been her bedroom. She took him to the closet and pointed to the top shelf.

  “Bring down that box.” She pointed to an old banker's box with the cane.

  Jason lifted it off the shelf and followed Maisie back to the living room. He put it on the coffee table and took off the lid. The box was about a quarter filled with files. It also contained letters and other paperwork from the doctor's office. Maisie must have stuffed whatever she could in the box along with the files.

  “There was another box, but those files got sent out and I threw the box away. I'm tryin’ to remember…,” she said. “I had to keep track of the files I sent out or the government would have been on me, for sure. Let me think. I have a drawer in my room with some papers in it. I might have put it in there.”

  “May I look?” Jason asked Maisie.

  She waved her hand to indicate he could and Jason rose from the sofa and went back to the bedroom. He opened several drawers until he found one full of papers. He took the drawer out and carried it to the living room.

  Jason placed the drawer on the coffee table next to the box. As he looked through it, Dani looked through the banker's box. She found 25 files.

  Dani asked Maisie for something to write with and Maisie pointed her cane towards the kitchen. Dani found a pen and some paper and began writing down the names and addresses of the women in the files. Jason found Maisie's handwritten list of women she’d sent files to.

  “I made that copy ‘cause I had to send the original to the government,” she said. She’d made an exact copy including names and addresses. Dani added those names to the ones on her list. When she was done, she added them up.

  “There were 312 women given Fetura,” Dani said.

  She looked at Jason. So far they’d found 280 children. If Calvin was right and his kids had been purple babies, then that would make 282. That left thirty children unaccounted for.

  “Some of the children were from Europe, Canada, and Mexico. Those children may still have families. But it looks like we have all the ones from the states with us,” Dani said.

  Jason was looking through a ledger. He found a page with Antonio’s name on it. It was a record of the deliver
ies Antonio had made to Tomlinson.

  “My father only gave Tomlinson 100 tubes of the stuff. Tomlinson told my dad he’d given it to over 300 women, and we know he did. How did he treat all those women?”

  Maisie had been listening to their conversation.

  “Who's your father?” she asked.

  “Antonio Russo. He made Fetura.”

  Maisie smiled. “Antonio Russo, bless my heart. I remember Antonio. He was such a sweetheart. He would come into the office and flirt with me. I just loved that man.”

  “You knew my father?” Jason's focus shifted to Maisie.

  “Oh, yeah. He would bring these little tubes of Fetura to the office. I would take them in for the doctor and mark ‘em in that ledger. But then he stopped comin' in and would send ‘em to us in the mail. They were powder. You had to add water to 'em.” Maisie looked like she was thinking about something. “I know the doctor was dividin’ ‘em up, making four doses out of one tube.”

  “Leaving 22 tubes unaccounted for. Where are the other tubes?” Jason said.

  For several minutes, Dani and Jason went through the files again, searching for an answer to the missing test tubes filled with Fetura. Then Dani got an idea.

  “I know this is gonna sound like a strange question Maisie,” she asked, “but how come you're alive?”

  “I don't rightly know. They evacuated the park for the hurricane and nobody came back. I had to take my walker around to find food in the other homes. I guess I just ate right.”

  “But that's not possible. Everyone died. How is it that you didn't?” Jason knew where Dani was going with her question.

  Maisie got up. She motioned for them to follow her. She took them into the kitchen and opened a cabinet. Inside was a row of ten tubes filled with a fine purple powder.

  “I took them when Michael died. I wanted to protect him.”

  Jason and Dani stared at the tubes. There were still twelve missing.

  “Some are missing,” Jason said.

  “You might as well sit down,” Maisie said. “I'll tell you the story.”

  *****

  Maisie Gates was a young widow when she went to work for Michael Tomlinson. He had just opened his own practice and Maisie was the second person he hired. He looked very young and one day Maisie suggested that he grow a beard. It would make him look older, she said. So Michael Tomlinson grew a beard.

  Michael had become a doctor despite his family's penchant for law enforcement. His father had been the sheriff for years and had expected his son to follow in his footsteps. But Michael had no heart for the law. He was a man of science and he followed his passion to become a physician, although he wasn't past using his legal ties to thwart the occasional traffic ticket.

  Maisie remembered Michael as a nice man. The women who went to him came because their doctors hadn’t been very attentive and Michael's patients would rave about his kindness and consideration.

  After three years, Michael had a thriving practice. He treated Maisie well by giving her annual raises and covering her health insurance. Her job there allowed her to buy a one-bedroom mobile home in a park not far from Michael's office. Her life was good and she loved her job.

  About two years before Michael began treating women with Fetura, he was diagnosed with colon cancer. He underwent all the traditional therapies in order to combat his cancer. He would go into remission for a while, but it always returned.

  Michael’s bills were exorbitant and he was finding it difficult to pay them and his business expenses. He was in danger of losing his house and everything he had worked so hard for. His body was fighting the great fight, but he knew he was nearing the end of his choices in treatment. As long as he could, he would continue to treat patients and deliver babies.

  Michael treated a woman named Teresa Russo. Her husband was a biologist. Teresa had cervical insufficiency and she’d come to Michael because she’d heard he’d performed miracles on women with this condition.

  Teresa saw Michael throughout her entire pregnancy and he never saw any evidence of cervical insufficiency. She delivered a healthy baby boy. The only remarkable thing about this baby was his color. He was a light shade of purple. His placenta had been purple too.

  Michael was incredibly curious as to how this had happened, but he was reluctant to ask. Teresa's husband seemed to change the subject whenever it came up, so Michael let it go and saw Teresa once a year for her annual visits.

  Michael’s doctors told him they’d reached the end of their options for treatment and he would do well to get his affairs in order. He was in pain most of the time, but he kept pushing himself. He wanted to leave this world with a clean slate. He had to find some way to make money and to make it fast.

  The last time Michael saw Teresa for her annual visit, he suddenly began to think about the purple placenta. He believed that Teresa had been taking something that had virtually cured her condition. He decided to talk to Antonio Russo and find out what he had done to make his wife well, for Michael believed the biologist was responsible.

  Michael would use any means possible to get Antonio to talk to him. He would even blackmail him if necessary. Michael needed money desperately. He came up with a plan to put before Antonio.

  Michael could use the drug, or whatever it was, to help women carry their pregnancies to full term. For this, he would charge them $10,000 just for the treatment. His services would still be billed to their insurance carriers.

  Michael Tomlinson sat in his office after calling Antonio Russo and wept. What he was doing was the antithesis of how he’d lived his life. All he wanted to do was pay his debts and keep his practice open a little while longer. He also thought of taking this drug himself to see if it could somehow stop the cancer. Why did it all feel so wrong?

  *****

  Michael met with Antonio and took him to the yacht club. He used all his powers of persuasion to push Antonio into giving him the drug. Michael could see the disgust on Antonio’s face. No one had ever looked at him like that. Antonio excused himself and left the table. When Antonio didn’t come back, Michael sat there thinking he should drop this fantasy and apologize to Antonio.

  When Michael left the club, he could see Antonio sitting in his car in the parking lot. Michael's guilt was overwhelming. As he approached his car, a pain shot through his body so intense that he almost fell over. His body was reminding him why he had come here. He got into his car, and then he saw Antonio approaching in his side-view mirror.

  Antonio agreed to help him. Michael continued the charade and made it sound like they were doing something noble. He said it would be like a trial to get Antonio his FDA approval. Even though Antonio had told him to stick to 100 women only, Michael figured he could change Antonio's mind once he saw how well it worked and how happy the women were with their babies. Michael was amazed at the whole “we'll sell it as a supplement” thing that had come out of his mouth.

  He drove away from the yacht club and back to his office. He took out the files of the women he knew had a history of cervical insufficiency and prepared new files for them. He kept these files in a separate cabinet with a key only he and Maisie had access to. He told Maisie to come into his office and he handed her a list.

  Michael told to her that these women would be getting a special drug that was not approved by the FDA. They would be selling it as a supplement and this information was to be held in strictest confidence.

  Maisie had no reason to doubt Michael's honesty and she readily agreed to keep anything that was said between them private. He told her that the next time any one of these women was due for an appointment, to let him know a week in advance so he could prepare the supplements for them. He then called Antonio to find out when he would be bringing in the first batch of Fetura. Everything was in place, and soon Michael Tomlinson was back in the black.

  The women were all thriving and the babies were being born. Michael would arrange for a private room at the hospital where the babies were delivered and k
ept for three days. Usually by that time the purple sheen had worn off.

  Most of the women had enough money to pay for the extra time in the hospital if their insurance companies balked. They wanted to stay there anyway until the babies were a more normal color. Michael would hire private nurses to assist in the deliveries. In this way, Michael was able to keep his practices a secret.

  Michael’s pain was growing worse as the cancer ate away at his intestines. It had spread to his other organs. One day, in desperation he took out one of the tubes of spores and mixed it with water. He drank it down as fast as he could. The effect was almost instantaneousness.

  Michael’s pain stopped and he began to feel energy coursing through his veins. He felt like a teenager again. The effect usually lasted a few weeks and Michael would have to treat again. He went to his doctors and they were amazed by his test results. His cancer was getting better.

  Michael knew he would have to continue the treatments until the cancer disappeared. He would need more tubes of Fetura than he had anticipated. He would have to find some way to convince Antonio that their original agreement of 100 women would have to be renegotiated.

  To make ends meet, Michael had been dividing the tubes into smaller portions and so far had treated over 300 women. The drug worked just as well whether they got a full dose or a fifth. But he was afraid of running out now that he had to take it, so he called Antonio and arranged a meeting.

  Antonio refused to even consider giving him more Fetura. He was concerned about his patent, and about being deported. Michael played on this fear by telling Antonio that he’d been selling the drug as FDA approved. This was a lie of course. He also told Antonio that he’d treated over 500 women, another lie. But Antonio was turning pale and Michael knew he had him.

  Michael told Antonio to send him 100 more tubes of the spores. Antonio agreed, but Michael never received the tubes. The next thing he knew, Antonio was dead and there would be no more Fetura delivered to Michael.