“You okay over there?”
“I think so,” she said, trying to keep the quiver from her voice. “Why don’t you finish your story? That’ll get my mind off things.” She saw Paul stiffen. “You were talking about your childhood.”
He half-grinned. “I’d rather be tailed by a mystery man than talk about that, but for you, I’ll do it.” He sighed. “Where was I? Oh, yeah. By the time I reached high school, I’d been to six different schools and was a ball of repressed emotions. The only one Dad approved of was anger so I focused all my energy there. It was how I had been conditioned. I was ready to explode.”
Paul swallowed hard. Sheila saw his jaw clench. She reached for his hand. Warm and rough, like the rest of his exterior. He gave her hand a squeeze.
“Mom bought me a punching bag and that helped a lot. Then she encouraged me to join the wrestling team. Great outlet. With all my rage, I was damn good at it. Next to going out and killing people for the government, a/k/a soldier, which is what my dad had planned for me, this was the next best way to blow off steam. I won all kinds of trophies and Dad couldn’t have been happier.”
“Were you happy?”
“I was. But I had no intention of joining any branch of the military. I planned to go to college for English and become a teacher. With all the moving around we did, I knew I might not qualify for an academic scholarship, but maybe for wrestling. I couldn’t wait till the day when I could tell Dad that I was going to college to teach a whole new generation of little sissies. That’s what he called me. I knew he’d flip out but there’d be nothing he could do. I even considered joining The Peace Corps just to piss him off.”
Sheila smiled. “I’ve heard lots of people join just for that reason. Spite.”
Paul laughed. “Well, at first it went just like I wanted. I got a full ride at Bridgewater State College right here in Mass. Not Ivy League, but they have a good teaching program. When I told Dad he went nuts. Almost broke my jaw. But it was worth it to say, ‘I’m an adult now, and I’ll do whatever I want.’ ”
She cringed. She had never been hit. Never even spanked. Couldn’t imagine it.
Bastard, she thought.
“Good for you. I don’t know if I would have turned out so well. So you did go to college then? I know you must have.”
“Well, there’s more to it but enough for now. Suffice to say, I did go, but then my life fell apart because of something stupid. And then came Rose, then Coogan. And now here I am—or rather, here we are.”
He was still holding her hand.
He’d said plenty for one day, she thought. More than she’d expected. For someone who’d lived through such abuse, he seemed almost unscathed. Smart and handsome …
“I’m glad you told me this. Now I don’t feel like the only one who got her heart dragged through the mud.”
“Most people get their hearts shredded at some point. It’s all about how they put them back together. Some never do. They just leave them in pieces.”
What a guy, Sheila though. Besides Dek, most of the sensitive guys she’d ever known were gay. This one was not only straight, but sexy. This guy was, in a very real sense, something else. Nothing she would have thought she was looking for, but exactly what she needed. He had opened some long-closed doors in her.
Paul slowed the car.
“What is it?”
“Swann is supposed to be at 160 Milk Street but that says Mailboxes and More. This can’t be right.”
“Well, pull over and we’ll ask inside. Maybe suite two-five-seven is upstairs.”
Paul parallel parked the SUV seemingly without effort. Sheila was impressed. With all her achievements, she couldn’t parallel park to save her life.
“Why don’t I talk to the clerk?”
He nodded with a tight smile.
A young girl with pink hair, too much black eye makeup, and piercings through her lips and eyebrows sat at the counter reading Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. When she saw them she stuck a black painted fingernail in her page.
“Can I help you?”
She had a sweet smile and a pretty face. Sheila never understood why so many kids felt a need to deface their natural beauty.
“Yes, we were given this address as someone’s office. Does a Lee Swann work here?”
“No, sorry.” She cocked her head.
“Do you have any offices upstairs?”
“Just a hair salon.”
“But we were given this address … suite two-five-seven.”
She laughed. “Lots of people do that—call their mailbox a suite. Makes them seem more important.”
“Yeah,” Paul said in a low voice. “Weird. Why am I not surprised?”
When they were back on the sidewalk, he said, “I can’t believe it. If this was legitimate, why would he give the lawyer a mail drop as an address?”
“I don’t know. I’ll check the Internet later and see what I can find on Mister Lee T. Swann. And I will find something.”
He managed a smile and kissed her cheek. “Promise?
She touched the spot, imprinting the memory warmth of his lips on her cheek. She was starting to fall for this guy. And that was not such a bad thing.
“Promise.”
“And now how about a sub at Capone’s?
Sheila was about to say yes when she saw a silver Honda turn at the next corner. She could have sworn the driver was watching them as he passed out of sight.
The same car that had followed them? No way to be sure, but her stomach turned.
“I … I’m not hungry.”
BILL
Henry brought in cucumber sandwiches for Abra and a ham and Swiss on rye with a pickle for Bill.
“Drink, sir?”
Bill looked at Abra’s pictures and was struck by one of Robbie and April taken at Christmas last year. They’d grown so much since then, and he’d barely been around to see them. Before long their childhoods would be gone. Elise was right—too much time spent at Tethys. Lately, he felt suffocated. Too many loose ends that he was expected to tie together. Too many fires to put out.
Damn it, he’d given everything, everything to Proteus and to this hospital, but didn’t know how much longer he could keep it up. Right now there was too much at stake, too much that could fall apart; he couldn’t let his guard down for a minute.
But when would it stop? When would he ever be able to relax?
“Drink, sir?” Henry touched his shoulder.
Bill was dying for a dose of Jack but needed to go back to work after lunch. He opted for Henry’s special iced tea. He then turned to his sister.
“So they’re off track then?” Abra said, holding the tiny sandwich in her tiny twisted hand.
“Yes. Sheila found KB-twenty-six on her own. At first I panicked, thinking it would be a disaster, but it’s perfect. If I keep pointing her to it, what can she possibly find? Kaplan can’t tell her anything—it would be self immolation. He may be burned out, but he won’t push himself over the edge.”
“He’s had a difficult time since the failure of his company.”
Good old Abra, Bill thought. Always feeling sorry for people. Even the wrong ones.
“Whatever, Kaplan is a dead end. He can’t tell them about where his company’s assets went because he doesn’t know. Kaplan Biologicals is dead and gone without a trace.”
“You’re sure?”
“Very sure. I took care of it myself.”
Abra looked at him doubtfully. “It’s easy enough to find who bought the assets. It’s public record. If Sheila gets close, Billy, I want to be the one to tell her.”
He usually let her pull the older sister routine, but not this time.
Bill didn’t mention that Sheila reran the DNA, or that he’d switched the sample. He shielded Abra whenever possible.
Sometimes he felt like a traitor to his sister, working so closely with Mama in Switzerland, keeping Abra on a need-to-know basis. But he had no choice. He was the one Mama trusted to kee
p it all together, at any cost. Not Abra.
“It’s all taken care of. She won’t find out a thing.”
He had this under control. Why couldn’t Abra accept that? Paul and Sheila would run in circles and get tired. And despite Tanesha’s threats, she wouldn’t be a factor. He hated bloodshed but Tanesha was the last piece and then their lives could go back to normal.
“Well, I trust you, Billy.” Abra smiled at him and wheeled herself over to the couch. “What would I do without you?”
She patted his hand and he felt his heart swell.
He did do good work. And Sheila and Rosko would reach a dead end and give up. They’d have no other options.
But he’d keep an eye on them to make sure.
He looked back at the family picture over the mantle. Work could wait. His kids couldn’t.
•
“Daddy!” April yelled as he walked into the playroom.
She had morning kindergarten and had been home a couple hours. Her dark hair was braided and her blues shone with delighted surprise. She didn’t often see her Daddy at this time of day. She and Nanny Maureen were playing a letter game.
April showed him a white card with “qu” on it.
“Nanny’s teaching me about q today. Can’t use q without u. Ever. Queen, quiet, quality.” She took a little bow.
He clapped. “That’s wonderful, April. Thanks, Maureen.”
The shy, blond, British girl offered a crooked-tooth smile. She never talked much to him but the kids adored her. April said she was a chatterbox when the grown ups weren’t around.
“Daddy really missed you kids today so I thought we’d pick up Robbie from school and go see a movie.”
“Yay!”
“Go get your coat.”
April ran to get her shoes and jacket while Bill told Nanny Maureen to relay their whereabouts to Elise when she got home from her exercise class.
He buckled his daughter into her booster seat then drove to Robbie’s school. Bill felt buoyant. He couldn’t wait to see Robbie’s surprise. Seeing his father shouldn’t be such a monumental thing, but Bill had been too absent a parent.
He went into the principal’s office and told them his son had a doctor’s appointment. Minutes later Robbie came down.
“Dad, what are you doing here? Is Mom okay?”
“You’ve got a doctor’s appointment, Robbie,” April said, giving him an obvious wink.
“No I don’t.”
“Robbieeeee.” She pulled his arm and kept winking her eye.
They got outside and she said, “Daddy’s taking us to the movies for a surprise because he misses us.”
“Really?”
Bill smiled. “Yup. Just us. No reason except that I wanted to see you guys. I even skipped an important meeting. You up for a movie? Tons of candy and overly buttered popcorn? Those big blue slushes?”
April jumped up and down and Robbie grinned, his equivalent of extreme excitement.
“You rock, Dad.”
Bill hugged him and kissed the top of his head. “You rock.”
He opened the car door and ushered them in.
“I have no idea what’s playing or when but if there’s nothing for a while we’ll get ice cream and play some video games at the theater. Sound good?”
They gave him high fives and started chanting, “Daddy rocks, Daddy rocks!”
As he drove by Tethys, unavoidable to get to the highway, he hesitated. If it weren’t for this place, and its fruits, April wouldn’t be the energetic kid she was now. Despite his complaints about the pressure, he loved that he had been able to cure his daughter, could cure others. Maybe he was obsessed with work but anyone who did what he did would be. Saving a life was the greatest thing anyone could do. If Sheila didn’t stop sniffing around, if she got too close to the truth, well …
Didn’t matter what he’d told Abra. No way in hell was he letting all this fall apart because one woman wouldn’t leave well enough alone.
Bill looked in the mirror, gave his son a wave and released the brake pedal he hadn’t realized he’d pressed.
He told himself to forget Tethys. Today was all about his kids.
ABRA
Billy seemed so sure these little bumps in the process were nearly over that Abra decided not to spend any more time worrying about them. He was competent to take care of matters. When he’d left, Abra logged into her computer to see what the Tethys Foundation could help with today.
She read through her email requests. So many people suffering. She wished she could help everyone, but how much could only one person do? She was already spending Tethys’s profits to help as many people as she could.
Next to giving people babies, this was her most fulfilling mission.
She had an appointment in a few minutes with a desperate woman. Abra didn’t know what she wanted or why it couldn’t be handled over the phone, but she’d insisted. Abra was achy today and didn’t want to venture out so she told the woman to come here and she’d see what she could do.
In the meantime she replied to a missionary about a severely deformed child he’d found in the jungles of Zambia. The girl needed extensive plastic surgery to correct a hideously deformed face.
She typed an email: Bring her to the Floating Hospital in Boston and tell them to send me the bill. If you need help with transport, we’ll take care of her.
Abra also approved funds for an MRI machine at a strapped hospital in Bolivia, and some electric wheelchairs for Belize City. She copied her accountant on all.
Funds … she had all she needed to pursue Proteus, and plenty left over. All because she listened to that young broker, Ernest Tinsdale, who’d urged her on a winter day back in eighty-six to buy Microsoft. As that stock soared and split again and again, she made Ernest her financial advisor. For the last twenty years she’d listened to him and his advice had been flawless.
She’d made great strides in balancing the thalidomide scales. Improved so many lives. Surely that helped atone for the sins of her parents. She had long since forgiven them, and wondered now if, in the idealism of her youth, she’d treated them too harshly.
Images of the thalidomide babies flashed through her head … no, she had not treated them too harshly at all.
She rolled away from her desk and wheeled herself to the family room. Exactly on time, the doorbell rang. She pressed a button on her remote and the double doors swung inward.
A young woman in her early twenties, with lifeless brown hair, battle-fatigued eyes, and a ragged coat, walked in with a little boy. Even before the child took off his Scooby Doo ski hat and exposed his bald head, Abra knew. The pale face, and the wide, haunted eyes were testament to what he’d gone through, and why they had come.
Leukemia.
Tethys used to treat children, used to cure Leukemia, but no more.
This meeting could lead only to heartache, but she saw no way out of it now. They walked over to Abra and the child stared at her.
“Stop it, Ben. “ The mother nudged him, then looked at Abra. “I’m sorry. We didn’t know you were …”
“In a wheelchair? We all have our troubles. Please sit.”
The mother and son huddled on the huge couch. Ben, fascinated by all the cages, kept trying to get up. The woman restrained him, grabbed his hand.
“Go ahead,” Abra said. “Look at all the creatures while I talk to your mother. They can’t get out or hurt you.”
He smiled and ran to the terraria.
It must be like a zoo to him, Abra thought, glad for the distraction. She knew what his mother would ask and dreaded the answer she’d have to give.
“I’m Emma Smallwood. That’s Ben.”
“Abra. I’m Abra. How can I help you?”
Tears filled the woman’s eyes. “He’s dying,” she said softly.
Emma pulled a strand of hair with her hand and brushed it on her lips. A nervous habit. Abra had seen so much death. It was never easy. And losing children … nothing worse.
<
br /> “Leukemia?”
Abra gripped her wheelchair as the boy ran his hands along the glass of the cages, filled with wonder at her lizards and spiders.
“They say there’s nothing anyone can do. But I heard about your program, your success with hopeless cases. I was hoping we could try it.”
Little Ben was suffering. Wasn’t that the point of Proteus, to end this kind of pain? Prevent anyone from going through what she had?
Abra began to shake her head.
“No!” The woman twisted her hair frantically. “Please don’t say no. I don’t have any money and my doctor said my insurance is tapped out, but I’ll do anything. Please. I could work here, be your housekeeper. Anything. Please.”
The strand of hair poised by her lips, waiting for an answer.
“It’s not that. We’d give it to you if it would help but we can’t use it on children. Only adults.”
Abra hated that restriction but it was the caveat of Proteus. Never used on children during the trials. But weren’t they the ones they most wanted to help?
“Why not? I don’t care about side effects. It doesn’t matter. I just don’t want to lose my boy.” Tears rolled down her cheeks.
Abra glanced over at the boy, smiling as he gingerly touched the glass. He was intrigued by her tortoise and thankfully not paying attention to their conversation.
“We can’t. It won’t work on children.” The lie made her grip her chair. “I’m sorry. It just wouldn’t be effective.”
It pained Abra to look into the woman’s eyes and sentence her son to death. VG723 could cure Ben, give him a long, healthy life, create a bloodline of healthy people. But she couldn’t say that.
Giving it to children would lead inevitably to questions … unanswerable questions that would lead to investigations. And then Proteus would be finished.
No, this child would have to die.
“I’m sorry. We cannot help you. But why don’t you take him to Disney World? We’ll pay for it.”
“Disney World! Goddamn Disney World? That’s it?” The woman stood, tugging incessantly at her hair, brushing it against her cheek. “What good will that do?”
The Proteus Cure Page 19
