by Kira Peikoff
“Hi,” he said, grinning and stepping inside.
“Sam.” The rogue dimple in her chin appeared when she said his name, and she reached out to him with both arms from the captivity of her wheelchair.
He bent down and hugged her, relishing their three seconds of physical closeness. He was acutely aware of the sweet smell of her hair, her warm cheek against his own, her deep exhale. When he pulled away and stood up, she held on to his hands. In her eyes shone unspeakable gratitude.
“Is this how religious people feel toward saints?” she asked.
He chuckled. “Are you saying you’re going to worship me?”
“Something like that. Would you like a shrine?”
“Sure, I’ll take it.”
She beamed up at him. “I can’t believe you did it. I mean, I can—but still…”
“I know.…” He trailed off, stymied by tightness in his throat.
“As soon as that idiot leaves tonight, we can go back for my skin cells.”
“Good.” He grew focused, creasing his brow. “If I can use them tonight to create a hybrid embryo, then we have to wait five days before we can take out the stem cells. That’s next Wednesday night. Then it takes thirty-six hours for the cells to properly differentiate, so that puts us at Friday morning. But we need the equipment in your clinic to do the transfer, and it will take some hours for the cells to proliferate. So we ought to aim for next Friday night, once the bastard inspector leaves for the weekend.”
“A whole week from now!”
“Yes. That’s the soonest possible.”
She squeezed his hands. “I can wait. I’ll be okay.”
He nodded.
“It’s kind of like a starving person about to sit down to a feast,” she said with a smile. “As long as you know it will happen, you can force your body to hold out.”
“Your will is a powerful thing,” Sam agreed. “And I mean your will, not just any old one.”
“Thank you!” She grinned, wriggling her shoulders as if to a beat. “I wish we could dance right now.”
“With me?” he teased. “I don’t believe it.”
“You’ll do.”
“What happened to—” Trent, he almost said, but then decided to bypass that topic. “—to me being a stiff old man?”
“No way you’re as stiff as me!”
They both laughed, and in that moment, Sam wanted nothing more than to tell her he loved her. The realization of this desire shocked him—he never planned to confess. And yet, the way she looked adoringly at him and his newfound hero’s confidence were combining in potent, unforeseen ways. She has to know, he thought with sudden certainty. I ought to tell her right now, before I lose the courage.…
It was a freedom from inhibition he had never felt, entirely unlike the predictable and transient pleasure that drew him to alcohol. This was like reaching for the highest rung in the ladder of temptation: the highest risk promised the highest return.
She was squeezing his hands again and moving her upper body to her own rhythm, pretending to share a victory dance. He laughed as he scuffed his shoe against her wheelchair in attempt to keep up the beat.
No, he did not dare to ask any more of this moment. But, he thought, she still deserves to know, and before the spinal cord transfer. No one knew for sure how risky the procedure was, even if the DNA in the cells was her own.
Was he really going to tell her?
He shivered as she pulled herself out of the chair, using his hands for leverage.
“Put my feet on yours,” she instructed, wrapping her arms around his neck.
He obeyed, feeling surreal as he hoisted her up and onto his beat-up sneakers. The weight of her body rested on his feet, and their bodies were completely aligned—knee-to-knee, waist-to-waist, face-to-face.
“What song are we dancing to?” he asked over her shoulder.
“I don’t know. But if we can just make it over to the stereo, I’ll put something on.” She nudged him backwards, laughing as they took an awkward joint step. “Hold on to me!”
“Don’t worry,” he said, clutching her tighter around the waist, trying to ignore her breasts pushed into his chest.
Life is so short, he thought. Too short to carry such secrets. Then, with a sinking feeling, he pictured the lab. In a week, they would no doubt decide to shut it down as a safety precaution. Without the ability to research, what was left for him to love, except for her?
But he knew how ridiculous he would feel blurting out his feelings, let alone if he ever worked up the nerve to do so. His lack of practice expressing himself did not help. It seemed there was only one way to get the words out, and to make them sound right. In his head, a letter began.
* * *
It was not until lunch, when Trent was safely away from work and headed to a fast food place two blocks away, that he finally called Arianna back. How he passed the remainder of the morning was a mystery, even to him, but he knew better than to risk calling her when Dopp could charge into his office at any moment.
She picked up and yelped his name.
“What happened?” he asked. “Sorry, I was working and didn’t see my phone.”
“Sam did it! He made the breakthrough!”
“Oh my God! Are you serious? What does this mean?”
“In one week, we’re going to transfer new cells into my spinal cord that will hopefully save my life.” She paused, and a man said something in the background. “They will, according to Sam.” Her voice sounded euphoric, astonished.
“Oh my God. I could kiss that man. He’s a fucking genius!” Trent leaped into the air and landed two yards away, almost bumping into a passerby on the sidewalk. The man shot him an angry glance. Trent laughed as his throat constricted. “Is this real?”
“It’s real. I know. I still can’t believe it. I don’t know what to do with myself! We just broke out the champagne. You should come over and celebrate with us!”
“Tonight?” An image of Dopp’s face intruded on his joy. “I—I can’t. I wish I could.” He stopped short on the sidewalk, oblivious of the frustrated people who wove around him. Tonight, he remembered, Get the truth or face consequences.
“Why, what’s wrong?” Arianna asked. “I want to see you!”
“I would love to see you, too. I don’t want to risk it, though. I’m not feeling too well. My stomach is a little upset.…”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. But then you shouldn’t come over. My immune system…”
“I know. Tomorrow, hopefully.”
“Yes, feel better!”
“Thanks. Are you going to party later?”
She laughed. “Even better. I’m going back to the clinic tonight so Dr. Ericson can draw some skin cells to give to Sam.”
“You have to wait for the inspector to leave first?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, good luck, baby. Give Sam a giant hug from me, and I don’t care if he squirms!”
Arianna chuckled as they said good-bye.
But the queasiness in his stomach that Trent spoke of was no lie. There was no way he could get her voice on record admitting to the major revelation that Dopp wanted. And there was no way he could face her tonight with appropriately rampant elation. As deeply relieved as he was, fear gnawed at him, muddying his clarity of thought.
She needed only seven more days. Once the transfer was over, she wouldn’t need the lab or the clinic for her own personal use; the danger of catching her in action would be over. With his hands in his pockets, Trent kicked a street pole in front of him. His prudence had carried Arianna through the past several weeks, but it was not enough. How could he contain Dopp for one final week? It depended on his contingency plan, which Trent might not discover until it was implemented—until perhaps it was too late.
He cut his lunch break short, reluctantly returning to work, unable to think of food. What would he tell Dopp later? His mind swirled around the question throughout the rest of the day, unable to dev
ise an answer.
Before he left work four hours later, Dopp instructed him to go to Washington Square and plant himself in a discreet spot to watch the clinic, in case she returned that evening. He was to switch shifts with Banks, who was leaving at five o’clock.
“We can’t take any chances on missing her,” Dopp said. “Just in case she might go back for some reason, since she’s obviously sneaking around.”
“Of course.”
“Has she still not called you back from this morning?”
“No.”
“That’s not good. Remember, Trent, I’m counting on you tonight.”
* * *
At 4:45 P.M., Trent arrived at the park to greet Banks as he left—ostensibly obliging Dopp’s orders. The park was too sparse for Trent to wait discreetly on a bench, so he stood in the recessed doorway of the Catholic Center, one block west of the clinic. From there, shrouded by the arched overhang of the doorway, he could still see the clinic’s brown door open and close. Soon, Banks walked out of the clinic with a man and a woman who Trent assumed were the Ericsons, the remaining members of Arianna and Sam’s group. Trent watched the couple part ways with Banks, and as soon as they were out of earshot, he called out to the inspector.
Banks walked the one block over, shaking his head. “I wasted another whole day here. No sign of her.”
“Let’s pray I have better luck.”
Banks nodded, and then hailed the first cab that passed. Twenty minutes later, Trent did the same. Once at home, he did something he had not done for at least a decade: He drew a bath. He hoped that being submerged in hot water, mimicking relaxation, would help him think.
He lay back against the smooth ceramic tub and wriggled his toes under the running faucet. Trying to conceive of ways to outwit Dopp, he watched the water fill up to his neck. The heat made him sleepy, and he twirled his finger on the surface of the water, creating tiny whirlpools. Eventually, he turned off the faucet and closed his eyes, and in the silence of his bathroom, he could pretend to himself no longer. This time, he was entirely out of control; there was no way to get around Dopp tonight.
He visualized himself on a crashing airplane, the recurring nightmare of his childhood. When he once admitted his fears to his mother, she told him, “God is in control, even if you’re not. Whatever happens is in His hands, so don’t worry.”
The words had been adequate consolation for a ten-year-old.
But who could comfort him now?
He knew it was only a matter of hours before he received the dreaded call. At 11:07 P.M., it came. The chiming ring filled his silent apartment, quickening his heart like a crank. For a second, he thought of ignoring it. But that would only hasten his boss’s wrath.
“Hello?”
“Are you with her?” Dopp prompted without a greeting.
Trent swallowed. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t see her tonight. And she hasn’t answered any of my calls.”
“Well, well. Son of a gun. I expected more from you, Trent. You said you didn’t want to disappoint me.”
“I know, and I don’t. It’s just that I can’t get hold of her.”
Dopp’s tone was brusque. “You’re obviously incapable of doing this on your own. Whether that’s because of your incompetence or her manipulation, I don’t know.”
“I’m sorry.…”
“And she never returned to the clinic?”
“No, I waited for hours. And I tried to call.…”
“When did you leave?”
“Around ten. I know she can’t stay up later than that.” Trent also knew that Dopp could not expect him to work more overtime hours than the department could afford to compensate.
Dopp sighed irritably. “Meet me in the office tomorrow morning at ten sharp.”
Trent’s heart palpitated. He had never known Dopp to work on Saturdays, which he referred to as a “sacred family day.”
“Okay.”
“When I told you there would be consequences, it wasn’t an empty threat. This has to be a 24/7 effort from now on. Starting tomorrow, everything is going to change.”
“Oh, really?” Trent cleared his throat. “Like how?”
“You’ll find out tomorrow. I expect to have everything ready by then.”
The line clicked off. Trent dropped the phone onto the table, wishing he hadn’t picked up the call.
* * *
Late that night, Sam walked alone from the clinic through the East Village, making his way back to the lab. He strode quickly, hunched forward into the wind, with his balding head exposed and ears chilled. Tonight, he found the cold air refreshing. He passed a line of boisterous clubgoers behind a velvet rope and did not resent their carefree partying. He passed a stumbling man swigging a drink from a flask, and did not feel the urge to grab it away. Curled tight in Sam’s fingers was a glass tube containing certain crucial DNA.
The group’s private rendezvous in the clinic—an hour after Inspector Banks’s departure—had safely yielded the two things Sam needed: Arianna’s skin cells and more time with her. He marveled at the fact that they had spent almost an entire day alone together, in a joint state of ecstasy. He had even allowed himself a glass of champagne, knowing that her presence had already lifted him to the height of intoxication.
Now, alone again, he returned to the lab to carry out the procedure he had prepared for and dreamed of for months. When he unlocked the door and entered the basement, an unanticipated wave of nostalgia hit him. He surveyed his precious microscopes on the counter, his incubator and freezer, pipettes and centrifuge, and even his box of rubber gloves—all old friends who had rallied around him night and day, helping to execute his mission. Together, finally, they would finish it.
After slipping on his lab coat, gloves, and face mask, he carried the stored tube of five egg cells from the incubator over to the counter, where there waited a sterile laminar flow hood and an electron microscope. Using the microscope to view the cells, he separated each one into its own dish. Then, he switched on a polarized light to view the chromosomes in the nucleus, and—for the trickiest part—he carefully plucked each nucleus out of each egg cell. Only five shells remained. Then he repeated the procedure with all five of Arianna’s skin cells. With these cells, however, he saved each nucleus—like a computer’s hard drive, they were the microscopic nuggets that held all her genetic information.
Moving with a robot’s precision and steadiness, Sam injected each nucleus into each empty egg cell to form five single-celled hybrids. Each step he performed tapped into distant memories; more than two decades prior, in a Columbia University lab, he had learned this innovative procedure. As he worked now, it still awed him that he could seize on a brilliant theory and then coax it into reality, into life. How many people today knew that this was even possible?
When each of the five egg cells contained Arianna’s nuclei, Sam completed the final step: he shocked each cell with an electric generator, which would stimulate each to begin dividing. Watching the tiniest of magic shows with his microscope, he saw the moment that each cell split into two. It was such a basic, simple action—the crux of all life—and yet, he thought of how astronauts must feel watching Earth from space. As a teenager, Sam had wondered about such a surreal experience, but now he grasped how they felt watching that blue orb glowing against the blackness of the universe. He understood that his own experience happened at the same fundamental juncture as theirs: whether minuscule or vast, it was where man, through the force of his mind, was able to view the horizon of nature’s power—the most spectacular beauty imaginable.
Sam looked up, profoundly satisfied. All the cells were growing. He deposited them into flasks prepared with nutrients, and then put the flasks into the incubator set at 37 degrees centigrade. Inside, a controlled amount of carbon dioxide would help the cells grow into embryos. After five days, stem cells would be ready to be extracted. There was nothing left to do but wait.
Sam pulled off his gloves and mask, and went to his
duffel bag on the floor. Inside, buried under a pile of socks, was a lined notebook. He dug it out, grabbed a pen, and sat on the edge of his cot, placing the flimsy notebook on his lap. Toward the back, past pages of his scientific scrawls, was the first blank page.
“Dear Arianna,” he wrote, in his neatest cursive. He paused. Was he really going to tell her? What about Trent—what was the point? But he thought about the adoring way she had looked at him all afternoon, the way she had tightened her arms around his neck and thrown her head back with pure elation. It seemed impossible that any other man could make her as happy as he had today. She and Trent had known each other only a few months, anyway; how attached could she be? Besides, in a week, what else would he have left in the world to treasure? If he yielded her to Trent without even trying … No. He was ready to be done losing women he loved.
He held his pen to the page again, letting a blot grow before beginning to write. “There’s something on my mind that I—” No, he thought, and ripped out the page. Another clean one was waiting behind it. “Dear Arianna,” he wrote again. “It’s taken me a long time to realize I want to tell you this, but—” Definitely not. How the hell was he supposed to say this?
He ripped out the page and started over for a third time. “Dear Arianna,” he wrote, in his own messy print. “I hope this is the last weekend of your life that you have to suffer.”
* * *
The next morning, Sam arrived at Arianna’s apartment for the group’s scheduled meeting to discuss the transfer procedure. She looked rested and happy as she welcomed him inside, moving in her wheelchair with adept grace. Dr. Ericson and Emily were already sitting at the kitchen table, helping themselves to a spread of bagels, cream cheese, and lox that Arianna had arranged.
“Wow,” Sam said. “We should have always met at your place.”
“Help yourself. I bet you haven’t eaten since we ordered lunch yesterday.”
“You know me too well.” As he sat down at the table, he felt the crunch of folded paper in his jeans pocket.
“So how are the cells?” Dr. Ericson asked.
