Double Helix

by Nancy Werlin

  But—we do have Dr. Wyatt’s data. I stole one of the backup CDs before the police arrived in the subbasement, and simply walked out, cradling a thoroughly freaked-out Foo-foo, with the CD hidden securely beneath her bottom.

  We have the data, then, and I will learn how to read it and I will learn what it means. Chromosome by chromosome, gene by gene, I will learn who and what we are. But no matter what I learn, no matter what the gene map says, I don’t believe it predetermines who we—who anyone—can be. I don’t believe it.

  I have only to look at my father, after all. We don’t know the exact nature of our genetic relationship, my father and I—or even if there is one. We don’t know the extent of Wyatt’s tinkering with me. But that most profoundly does not matter. Jonathan Samuels is my father. I am his son.

  We chose.

  I fight my way through the snow and the wind and then I am home.

  Certainly, I write alone, but on the other hand, I have good company the whole way, and this is where I get to tell those companions how grateful I am for their presence in my life and in my work.

  For their careful reading and critique of the entire first draft, my warmest thanks go to Melissa Wyatt, A. M. Jenkins, Anita Riggio, Pat Lowery Collins, and Ellen Wittlinger.

  Toni Buzzeo, Jennifer Jacobson, and Franny Billingsley taught me to have faith in reading aloud again. I am in particular grateful to them for encouraging me to read the last chapter of Double Helix. “This is a structural mess, and I don’t have a clue how to make it work,” I said, when I finished reading, and Toni replied, “Don’t worry, I do.” Toni’s, Jennifer’s, and Franny’s discussion of and then emailed notes on that last chapter were invaluable to me.

  I am grateful to Don and Charlene Schuman of Cod Cove Farm Bed & Breakfast in Edgecomb, Maine, where I officially both began and finished this book. Don and Charley create an atmosphere that I can only describe as magical. I am grateful also to my fellow writing retreaters at Cod Cove Farm (the aforementioned Toni, Jennifer, and Franny, along with Deborah Wiles, Jacqueline Briggs-Martin, Jane Kurtz, Joanne Stan-bridge, and Dian Curtis Regan). I’m not sure I would have had the courage to begin this book at all—I’d been stalling for months—if I hadn’t been able to do it in their company.

  I feel great relief as well as gratitude in thanking Dr. Curtis Deutsch, of the Shriver Center at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, for reading my final draft with an eye toward scientific accuracy. I was pretty much on tenterhooks until I heard from him.

  With each book, it gets harder and harder to find adequate words for my gratitude to my longtime editor, Lauri Hornik at Dial Books for Young Readers. She remains my most important creative and business partner, from initial idea through final draft.

  Finally, I would never even have attempted this book were it not for Conrad O’Donnell, who discussed the current state of genetic research and its implications with me, who chose and hauled in dozens of books for me to read, and who never tired of talking about the story as it unfolded. I share Conrad’s unshakeable belief in the equality of all human life.

  Thank you all.