The Test

by Patricia Gussin

  “Take out ‘Amazing Grace.’” Rory mustered as much vehemence as she could. “Carla hated that song. Have Monica sing “Ave Maria,” as she did at Dad’s funeral. Carla had commented how beautiful it sounded in the cathedral.”

  “Sure,” Meredith said. “Okay.”

  “‘Gentle Shepherd, Psalm twenty-three’ is okay,” Rory went on. But, ‘Like a Child Rests’? I’ve never heard of, and I’ll bet Carla hadn’t either. Get rid of it and add ‘Panis Angelicus’—in Latin.” Rory spelled out the Latin hymn. “Ashley, any ideas?”

  She shook her head.

  Then Rory asked about pallbearers and Meredith ticked them off. Only two were acceptable to Rory. Carl Schiller and Matt Cleveland. The others were political cronies of Frank’s. Rory figured that since she didn’t know them, neither would have Carla.

  “We need men who really cared for Carla when she was alive.”

  Ashley said, “Peter Mendoza and Sara Waring’s husband. They were devoted to Carla.”

  “Ah, that’s a nice thought,” said Meredith, “but since Frank has already asked the others—”

  “That leaves two more,” Rory interrupted. “Patrick Nelson—she was looking forward to meeting him. And what about Bunky? Wouldn’t Carla want him to—”

  “Uh . . . Frank had a call from the New York Police. He’s dead.”

  “What?” Ashley gasped.

  “You’re kidding?” For a moment Rory thought Meredith made this up as an excuse to avoid an undesirable pallbearer.

  “They found his body in an alley, outside a crack house by the East River. You can imagine the public relations nightmare if this gets out.”

  While Ashley gasped, Rory said, “Then substitute Leo Tally from Longboat Key. Carla didn’t know him, but she would have liked him. He was so wonderful to me.”

  Rory fell back, exhausted. It had been a long time, if ever, since she’d made any request of Frank. Meredith was stubborn and strong willed, but Rory felt she’d agree. Out of respect or pity, she didn’t know which. “So will you get Frank to go along with these changes?”

  “Yes,” Meredith finally said. “And thank you, Rory. You’re right, of course. I’ll talk to Frank and the cardinal now. And that priest who oversees every detail of the cardinal’s ceremonies,” Meredith chuckled. “This Latin liturgical stuff is out of my league.” The compassion in Meredith’s voice was unmistakable, and Rory vowed to defend Meredith the next time anyone called her a bitch. “And Ashley, you’ll do just fine.”

  After the call, Rory said, “I want to show you the poem I wrote. All you have to do is read it.”

  Ashley seemed nervous, checking her watch frequently.

  “Rory, there’s something else. Let me come right out and say it: a bone marrow transplant. Our compatibility match turned out good, not perfect since we have different fathers, but good enough.”

  “Well if this round of chemo works okay, I won’t need it. Right?”

  “Well, maybe, right,” Ashley replied with that grave expression Rory knew so well. “But your cytogenic tests came back. The results were—were not favorable.”

  “Meaning?” Ashley’s a doctor. Rory needed to hear her point of view. Suddenly, Carla and the eulogy were forgotten.

  “Meaning that treatment will be difficult.”

  “Tell me, Ashley. Chan tried to explain, but I’m not sure I understand what it means, ‘not favorable.’”

  “Acute myelogenous leukemia is classified into subtypes. It has to do with your chromosomes. It’s called cytogenic analysis and it’s used to—”

  “Go on,” Rory said, steeling herself with a few gulps of air.

  “Has to do with prognosis. There are favorable profiles and unfavorable.”

  “And mine is unfavorable. I still don’t know what that means, but I know it isn’t good.”

  “It’s likely you will need a bone marrow transplant, and I’m the best bet for an HLA tissue match, meaning there’s a better chance for compatibility. Even if Conrad—”

  “What about Conrad? Is he making your decisions?”

  “No.” Ashley looked away. “You know what, Rory? I’ve never been in love. I never knew what it felt like. I feel afraid when I’m not with him.”

  “Afraid?” Rory asked.

  “I don’t know.” Ashley spoke so softly that Rory had trouble hearing. “Once we get married—”

  Rory didn’t know what to say. She felt that this relationship was all wrong, but how to get that across to Ashley who seemed mesmerized by the hypnotist?

  “He wants me to drop out of my residency next year and—”

  “What?” Rory struggled to pull herself up straighter in bed. “You’ve worked so hard. Being a doctor has always been your dream.”

  “I know. But he thinks—”

  “Too many things are happening, too fast.” It seemed crazy to be having this conversation in the middle of Carla’s funeral—her not favorable leukemia prognosis, Bunky’s death, Ashley’s love.

  “I’m just so scared of losing him.” Ashley had that faraway look. “I need him. Without Dad. With Carla dead.”

  “Don’t drop out of your residency,” Rory managed. She sank back onto the pillow, feeling her eyes almost rolling into the back of her head. “Give it some time.”

  “Aunt Ashley,” Karen’s shrill voice interrupted from downstairs. “Your car is here.”

  Ashley jumped up and kissed Rory’s cheek. “I have to go,” she said.

  “But, the poem,” Rory protested.

  Ashley held out her hand and Rory tore a handwritten sheet from a notebook. “I’ll do my best, I really will. But I have to go.”

  Something is wrong, Rory thought.

  Please God, I failed Carla, don’t let me fail Ashley, too.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Ashley huddled against her fiancé in the backseat of the limo as it made its way down the Schuylkill Expressway to the Vine Street exit. In her hand she clutched the poem that Rory had composed. A beautiful poem, touching in its simplicity. Three sisters, one now with the angels.

  “Lean on me, my love,” Welton said as the black stretch pulled up to the curb of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul. Its Palladian façade and copper dome was hosting the second Parnell funeral in 2001. For a fraction of a second, Ashley was a little girl and it was her dad, not Conrad, helping her out of the car. The memory dialed back to second grade.

  It was 1980, the year a middle eastern terrorist group planned to release a deadly virus that would infect thousands. Military intelligence had evidence that the terrorist cell had infiltrated the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases laboratory in Fort Detrick, Maryland, and stolen classified biotechnology. Enabling technology that would allow the terrorists to infect a common adenovirus with fragments of DNA, resulting in a mutant that would cause a fatal hemorrhagic fever. Something like the Ebola virus.

  Paul Parnell’s pharmaceutical company, Keystone Pharma, had the technology to create an antidote for this fatal infection—at least in theory. The technology, a kind of genetic engineering, had never been developed. But Keystone held the patent and the virology know-how.

  The chief of staff of the Armed Forces came to visit Paul at the Devon house one evening. No one knew who he was, the visit was so secretive, but years later Paul told Ashley. Immediately after the clandestine visit, Paul summarily assigned key scientists to develop the antidote without telling them why they were being taken off their other high-priority projects. His scientists worked hand in hand with the USAMRIID scientists to make the vaccine and get it approved through the FDA. Since the project took six months of total dedication, word leaked out to the financial world that Keystone Pharma’s blockbuster projects were seriously delayed. The timing of the annual shareholders meeting couldn’t have been worse. Angry stockholders rushed to the microphones to lodge complaints about the incompetency of the chairman of Keystone. The board of directors knew that national security was involv
ed, but nothing more. They were divided as to whether to fire him.

  Four weeks later, terrorists infiltrated a U.S. military base in the Philippines. They’d transported the deadly virus via an abandoned tunnel and scaled the huge tank that provided water for the troops. More than one hundred military personnel fell ill, and twenty-nine died before the mutated virus was discovered. Within hours the FDA, in emergency session, approved the Keystone vaccine for immediate shipment. The entire base was vaccinated, including individuals who already had symptoms. There were no further deaths.

  Paul Parnell became a national hero, awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor and later the Nobel Prize. Instantly, Keystone Pharma became the premier global pharmaceutical company. The stockholders now adored him. That had been a long time ago when Ashley was seven, Carla only five.

  “You look beautiful in black, my love.” Welton tucked her arm in his and she returned to the here and now.

  “It’s the only black dress I have, but it’s too short and I don’t like that it’s sleeveless.” She pulled a lacy black shawl tighter around her shoulders. Carla would have laughed at her modesty, Ashley realized, not bothering to dab the fresh tears trickling down her cheeks.

  As she and Conrad entered the imposing cathedral, Welton pointed out Frank and Meredith across the vestibule. “Stay right by my side,” he murmured.

  Naturally, Meredith looked elegant in a black dress and a black lace veil draping down from her hat. Why hadn’t she thought to wear a veil? Ashley thought as Frank turned from his entourage to greet them.

  “I’ve got to hand it to you,” Welton said immediately as he and Frank shook hands. “Your finesse worked. ‘These tragedies can happen in young women on extremely low-calorie diets. Electrolyte imbalance, erratic heart rhythm.’ Pure bullshit, but politically acceptable.” Conrad didn’t look angry or embarrassed to be talking to Frank like that. But Ashley cringed. She knew that Conrad didn’t like Frank, but he’d never been rude to him.

  “Carla did have old heart tissue damage.” Ashley felt she should come to Frank’s defense. “Anorexia in models is not uncommon.”

  “And HIV positive. Now that was quite a shock.”

  Yes, Ashley thought, but should it have been? HIV is part of that lifestyle.

  Frank glared at Welton, who raised his hands. “My lips are sealed,” he stage-whispered. “Now if you will excuse us, Ashley has to concentrate on her poem.”

  Two strong men. The term alpha male lingered in Ashley’s head as Frank went back to join his cronies.

  “I think Carla planned to tell me about the HIV, but now I’ll never know.” Ashley fingered the paper she held tightly in one hand, willing herself not to stutter when she was at the lectern. Carla would be so embarrassed. When they were kids, Carla used to tease Ashley about her speech impediment. But she stopped when they’d grown older, and Ashley had never held a grudge.

  Ashley and her fiancé made their way slowly through endless bouquets of flowers toward the casket. Flowers of all types, but mostly white—maybe lilies, maybe orchids, Ashley wasn’t sure, but she did thank God that someone, probably Rory, had remembered that Carla was crazy for flowers.

  Ashley had seen many dead bodies, but nothing could have prepared her for the sight of her little sister, looking so peaceful and innocent, lying in the satin-lined box as if she’d decided to crawl in for a nap. Meredith had chosen well, an ivory silk suit. No blouse, but a single strand of ivory-colored pearls that had belonged to their mother. Carla’s hair was styled the way she’d worn it as a teenager, parted on one side with a casual sweep across her forehead. But her beautiful violet eyes were closed forever.

  Ashley felt her knees buckle as she reached the kneeling bench. She fell to the bench, silently repeating the Hail Mary over and over. Finally, Conrad on her right and Cardinal Sean, who’d appeared on her left, helped her down the aisle to the front of the cathedral. When they each held out a monogrammed handkerchief, she took them both.

  “Ashley, I’m so sorry,” her uncle whispered. He kept speaking in a low tone, but she had zoned out.

  “She’ll be okay,” Welton said, pulling her close. “I’m sure you must get back for the service.”

  With a flush of shame, Ashley realized that she needed to pull herself together. She had to help the family get through this horrible day.

  “Cardinal Sean, I’m sorry.” She choked back tears. “I just wish that I’d been there for her.”

  “We all wish that we had,” he said, sounding so human.

  Then she realized that her uncle had never even met Conrad. She hadn’t told him about their engagement. Did he know that they were living together? Naturally, he wouldn’t approve.

  “Cardinal Sean, this is Dr. Conrad Welton,” she said. How foolish to be making such trivial polite talk as if it were a party, not a funeral. She and Carla would never giggle together again. Never share secrets. Never have kids who’d be cousins.

  “Dr. Welton.” As Cardinal Sean reached for Conrad’s hand, a priest in a long black cassock tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to his watch.

  “You have to go, I’ll take care of your niece, sir,” Conrad said, the intended handshake foregone.

  “Thank you, my son,” said Cardinal Sean as he followed his priest escort. As the cardinal headed toward the sacristy, Ashley thought of the trip the family made to Rome when he was installed as a cardinal by the pope. Quite an extravaganza. Carla had been her irreverent self, but for months afterwards, Ashley had wanted to be a nun.

  “No wheelchair, Chan,” Rory said as their chauffeur pulled to the curb at Eighteenth and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. “I’ll be okay.”

  “Sure, honey. We’ll go in the side door and sit in the front pew.”

  Chan had wanted Rory to stay home. Too much exertion; too many germs. But in the end she prevailed. Still, she was too weak to get out of the car on her own. And too thin, with sparse hair under the wide-brimmed hat.

  As soon as she was settled into the front pew, Chan went back to join the family. In a moment, Uncle Carl slipped into the polished wooden pew beside her. Rory tried not to flinch when he reached to touch her arm, the one that was covered with bruises from infiltrated IVs. But his touch was so gentle she needn’t have worried.

  “Rory, I can’t believe your kids,” he whispered. “They are so well behaved. What a credit to you and Chan.” It was warm and sunny, but Rory shivered under layers of black crepe.

  “Remember how much Carla loved flowers?” Carl commented.

  Rory nodded. Even though the family requested that in lieu of flowers, contributions be made to the Parnell Foundation in support of AIDS victims, surprisingly, a Meredith decision, the cathedral was full of blooms in muted colors. Carla would be pleased, Rory thought.

  The pallbearers she had selected had assembled, and the procession began as the organ filled the cathedral with the music she had chosen. Fresh tears came to Rory’s eyes as her children started to file into her pew. First Tyler, her youngest, adopted, still insecure after the death of his parents, still wheezing from last night’s asthmatic attack. Ricky, older than Tyler by one month, followed. Close behind were Misty and Karen, looking so much like their biological mother in midnight blue, floor-length dresses and matching hats. Her twin ruffians, Charlie and Chip, were next, as somber as Rory had ever seen them, wearing the same navy blue jackets and gray slacks that they had worn at her dad’s funeral. Chan, Becky on one arm and Emily on the other, completed her clan. As Chan took his place at the opposite end of the pew from her, he leaned forward and caught her eye. They exchanged the crooked smile that they always did when all the kids were accounted for.

  Meanwhile, the rest of the Parnell family were taking their seats. Frank, straight backed and somber, Meredith, elegant in a black sheath, Elise showcased between them. They sat in the first row directly across the aisle from Chan. Next to them were Ashley and Conrad Welton. Ashley, wrapped in a lacy black shawl, looked more vulnerable than usual a
s she clung to that strange man. Immediately in back of them, Dan sat with his reunited family. They were a ray of sunshine.

  Family seated, the procession commenced. Rory knew that she did not want all this pomp and ceremony. She made a mental addition to her list of topics she needed to talk to Chan about.

  “Grant her eternal rest, O Lord, and let perpetual life shine upon her.” Cardinal Sean’s prayer resonated through the cavernous cathedral.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SEPTEMBER 2001

  Conrad Welton was a patient man. Two months had passed, and Ashley was still fixated on Carla. With Carla’s high-risk lifestyle, the sisters hadn’t even been that close, a fact Ashley chose to ignore. She actually believed that Carla had turned her life around. Save the world. Cure AIDS. That would have endeared her to Paul Parnell and his test. Except that her druggie friend, Bunky, had been only too eager to deliver crack to Carla.

  His years playing shrink to prisoners had again paid off. A simple phone call. A face-to-face meeting with his former patient. So convenient, his chosen specialty. Conrad had never abused his skills. He used them only when necessary, and only when there was zero chance of being discovered. Soon he’d terminate his career, leave the University of Pennsylvania, and take control of the Parnell family and its inheritance.

  When he’d first researched the Parnell family assets, Welton had not realized the extent of Paul Parnell’s wealth. He’d figured that at least one billion dollars would be split among five siblings—Dan, Frank, Rory, Ashley, and Carla. That would have meant $200,000,000—plus or minus—for him and Ashley. But as the scenario played out, that estimate had escalated. Monica had appeared, but had rejected her share. Carla had died, and Rory would surely succumb to leukemia before the January test date—one way or another. Only Dan and Frank stood in the way of Ashley inheriting the whole sum. Dan could be eliminated fairly easily, but Frank, as a U.S. senator, would be more of a challenge. Nevertheless, with four months left to work out the details, Welton felt well positioned to accomplish his ultimate goal.