A Ghost for a Clue

by C L R Draeco

  Cancer? No! A hole opened up beneath me sending me straight into hell. “What do you mean by easily treatable? It’s not serious, then? She’s out of the woods?”

  “I think we discovered it in time, but—”

  “But what?” I asked. “She’s a strong girl. She can fight this.”

  Tromino glowered at me. “And you think I believe otherwise?”

  “Because you said ‘but!’” I got to my feet, the tension too much to bear.

  “But?” Tromino also rose from his seat. “I say ‘but’ and you think I’ve given up on my sister? How many foolish conclusions do you come up with in a day?”

  “Foolish is when a doctor gives up even before the patient does.”

  Tromino moved a step closer. “You’ve got some nerve to say that. You’re the genius who completely ignored her symptoms.”

  “Boys!” Triana’s tone was sedate but potent enough to dilute the tension in the air.

  Fighting would be much easier than having to deal with how I felt, but I opted to turn away from the battle. So did he.

  “What’s the prognosis?” Triana asked.

  Tromino stared at his mother before giving a reply, as though weighing his answer if it was something she could take. “With the hemorrhage and ischemia, she’s in poor clinical condition. And there’s biochemical evidence of hyperthyroidism caused by the carcinoma which could explain the rapid decline. Though we’d rather wait until her condition improves, we’ve scheduled surgery for Wednesday. But . . .” He glanced at me.

  But? I narrowed my eyes.

  “But they see only a 3 percent chance of success.”

  52

  Based On Statistics

  Torula lay sleeping in her hospital bed, her test results ready to point at the next step to take. I tried to wrap my head around that 3 percent chance. What did it mean, really? I’d heard of people with no chances of surviving at all who still made it. Christ. There’d been patients declared dead before they got up and walked again. So 3 percent still meant she had a chance, didn’t it?

  I sat with arms crossed and stared at the doctor seated on the couch. The man tasked with saving Torula’s life. He looked bronzed and pale at the same time—an olive-skinned man who never got any sun. Black-haired yet almost bald.

  We kept our voices hushed as we talked.

  “That’s it?” I asked. “That’s how doctors calculate the chances of a patient surviving a treatment? Based on statistics?”

  He nodded, his eyes sparkling with intelligence from beneath thick brows.

  “You must have some elementary particle of life in your equations,” I said. “Something like photons, electrons, gravitons?”

  “You’re asking if life has a counterpart to those?” His eyes narrowed as he pursed his lips.

  I cracked my knuckles in the silence that followed.

  “No, I don’t believe it does. But then, I’m not the doctor of biology in the room. She is.” He glanced at Torula and was about to say something more when the door swung open, and Triana entered the room.

  “Oh, thank you so much for waiting, Germs.” She touched her cheek against his then walked over to Torula and gently roused her. “Sweetheart? The neurosurgeon’s here to explain the procedure. Are you up for it?”

  Torula opened her eyes by a slit. I came to stand at the foot of her bed and smiled to reassure her. Encourage her. I don’t know, maybe to let her know I was worried like hell but knew everything would be all right.

  “Tor,” Triana said, “this is Dr. Najafi. He’s the best man alive to perform this operation.”

  Torula slowly turned her head to meet her designated savior.

  “Hello, Torula,” Najafi said.

  “Did my mom just call you Germs?”

  “Yes, unfortunately, she did.” He chuckled. “My real name’s Jeremiah.”

  “I’ve called him Germs since pre-med,” Triana said. “He was so afraid the nickname would stick, he’d never get any patients.”

  Torula sighed as though she were bored. “Will I end up a vegetable? Scale of one to ten. Ten meaning I’m a turnip.”

  Najafi was silent for a moment. “There have been very few case reports of papillary carcinoma of the thyroid associated with Moyamoya making this difficult to predict.”

  “Try.”

  He smiled, his bedside manner unwavering in the face of a patient angry at her disease. “The overall prognosis depends on how rapidly vascular blockage occurs, and in this case, it’s happening too fast. Revascularization is most successful when performed under non-emergent conditions.” He paused. “Ideally, we should wait, but a seizure or a major stroke could put you in a coma at any time.”

  “So you’re saying—there’s no time to waste, but we should wait?” she asked.

  Seconds ticked by with no one speaking, as though this was the wait we all needed.

  “So why can’t we?” I finally asked. “She was fine just yesterday. She can fight this. Move the surgery to when she’s stronger.”

  “There are no known drugs that can reverse the blockage fast enough,” Najafi said. “Even now, we risk potentially irreversible neurologic deficits.”

  “Or worse, right?” Torula said. “So if I don’t die waiting, I could die from surgery done too soon.”

  “Don’t say that,” I said.

  Triana shook her head. “Don’t even think that, dear.”

  “Seems I’ve got nothing to lose. Except . . . everything.” Her eyes seemed to go blank.

  “No.” It sounded more like a snarl than a word when it came out of my mouth as the hospital walls closed in around us. “You’re stronger than the doctors think, Spore. I know you.”

  Torula shut her eyes tight and shook her head.

  Her mother stroked her hair.

  “Army igloos stink,” Torula said. “We Donatello Picachu on trial.” She opened her eyes and looked at Najafi.

  He grabbed his penlight and shone it in her eyes.

  “What did she say?” Triana asked.

  I wished I could move closer. “This has happened before. A couple of times. No one could understand her.”

  Torula kept blinking as she stared at Najafi’s face, gesturing with a hand and smacking her lips.

  “Can you hear me, Torula?” Najafi asked.

  “New shoulder bee sting solstice around a eunuch.”

  Triana glanced worriedly at Najafi. “It’s Wernicke’s aphasia, isn’t it?”

  “While having an atypical absence seizure,” he said.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Why? What happened?” Torula looked at me, as though she were concerned for me.

  “Say something again, dear,” Triana said.

  “About what?”

  “Can you hear me now?” Najafi asked.

  “Of course.”

  Najafi checked her pupils again. “It seems you’ve just had an absence seizure.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I was just . . . talking to you.” She glanced at me as though waiting for confirmation of a reality she could no longer grasp.

  I swallowed and struggled to hide my nervousness. “You were talking, but we couldn’t understand you, Spore.”

  “Petit mal seizures can last for mere seconds,” Najafi said. “Those having them may not even be aware they’re occurring and recover quickly as though nothing had happened.”

  “You mean it could’ve happened before, and I didn’t even notice?” My mind flashed back the past several weeks and found many occasions to blame myself for not having paid better attention. What an idiot I was!

  “Oh darling.” Triana clasped her daughter’s hand. “There’s no delaying the surgery. Bram’s right, you know. You’re strong enough to fight this.”

  I nodded my encouragement.

  Torula looked at Najafi as though waiting for him to cast his vote about her chances.

  “I promise to do everything humanly possible to make sure it’s a successful procedure,” he said.<
br />
  Torula scrunched her brow and froze, her eyes suddenly fixed, seemingly blinded. “Something’s happening,” she said.

  “What are you feeling?” Najafi asked.

  “I see . . . sparkles. A sphere. A glowing sphere.”

  “Like an orb?” I asked.

  Triana moved closer. “Is it Thomas?”

  I reached into my pocket. “I’ll turn the jammer on.”

  “No,” Torula said. “It’s . . . not out there.”

  “It sounds like a migraine aura.” Najafi reclined her bed. “The byproduct of a famished brain. Don’t worry, I’ll give you something for the pain.” He tapped his wristband and dictated his orders.

  Torula gripped her mother’s hand. “Mom, help me.”

  “I promise.” Triana clasped her hand over Torula’s. “I’ll use medicine, blackmail, sorcery, and prayer to make you strong again.”

  I eased closer. “You’ll be all right. You’re going to win this.”

  My comforting words seemed to give the opposite effect. Torula gripped her bed rail as though on a raft about to go over a waterfall, her feet scraping the sheets as she tried to edge away from her fate. Her eyes were fixed on some haze inside her mind. She was staring at her symptoms, drifting swiftly down a turbulent river, increasing in speed, and no one could do a thing to stop them. She turned to me, her hands sliding on the rails. “Bram, save me.”

  Her plea was like a blast of icy wind that engulfed me.

  She turned to Najafi. “Find another way. Delay the surgery.”

  The doctor shook his head. “We can’t. The immunologic stimulation of the thyroid—”

  “I want another way!”

  Triana leaned closer. “Darling, surgery right now is the best option we have.”

  No. I clenched my fists as Torula grimaced in pain. Not with a 3 percent chance.

  Torula threw up. A nurse charged into the room and headed straight for her IV. Through narrowed eyes, Torula looked at me and clasped her bed rail in despair. “Make sure . . .” she panted as she spoke, “. . . they find another way.”

  “I will.” I gripped her hand over the rail and held tight until her sedative took hold. “I promise.”

  53

  The Failed Talisman

  I stood in the moonlight streaming in through Torula’s hospital window. She’d been asleep for several hours now, and I kept the lights dim as I stared outside without really seeing anything. The hyperjammer felt cold between my fingers like the failed talisman that it was.

  The memory of her grasping at her bed rails, asking her mother for help, calling out to me to save her—I wanted to crush the jammer in my hands the way her words had crushed me. All our lives, she’d been the one saving me. Now, it was time I paid her back.

  She cleared her throat, and I was by her side in a heartbeat.

  “How’re you feeling?” I asked.

  “Much better. The hyperjammer must be working.”

  “This piece of crap?” I shoved the device into my pocket. “I’ve a mind to throw it out the window. Turn it on or off, it doesn’t do a thing.”

  “It’s keeping Truth safe. Is that where Mom is—with Truth?”

  “Yeah. She’ll be back soon.”

  “Has she talked to Najafi about delaying the surgery?”

  “I’m afraid she needs to be convinced first.” I swallowed knowing it was the crucial first step that lay ahead for me.

  “Then get to work on your sketchpad. I’m looking for a solution to my problem, and I need you to show her.”

  “My sketchpad?” That made no sense.

  She pulled herself up but hardly budged. “Bram, you’ve figured it out. How life gets decided on. You know there’s something that makes it all work.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I heard you talking to Najafi. I’ve had this notion that, like electricity and gravity, life is everywhere. But you think it has its own quantum, and I think you’re right. Life should be measurable in a quantized form, and when the right quantity satisfies the equation, then energy or matter comes alive—or stays alive. Rembrance holds the formula that determines when someone lives or dies.”

  I jerked back at the sound of the word. “Listen. Rembrance. It’s something I made up. Don’t turn it into a fact.”

  “It’s your mathematical theory that needs real-life proof. And you can prove it—through me.” She breathed deeper with excitement. “There’s an equation that doctors need to know about. Which shows life can be measured—not in years, but in quanta. And there’s an equation for someone to find. I’m hoping you can find it through me.”

  “No, Spore.” I couldn’t let her grasp at mere straws. “That’s not the answer you—”

  “Like you said, equations rule the world. Maybe you can find out what my real chances are. Go beyond the doctors’ data and experience and statistical analysis. Prove that 3 percent isn’t all I have. Maybe then they’ll agree to wait.”

  “Wait for what?”

  “For my chances to get better. What if they can address the carcinoma first, then let me regain my strength. What if there are drugs out there still under trial? What if I fight as hard as I can—”

  “Spore.” I shook my head. “Even if an equation proves that you’re overflowing with life—which you are—the fact remains that you’re at risk of a stroke at any time. They need to operate right away.”

  “Then they’ll kill me doing it.”

  My face contorted in anguish beyond my control. “No. You’re going to make it.”

  “I know.” She smiled. “I know all my memories will.” A tear fell from her eye. “But not my body.”

  I grasped her hand. “I promised you . . .” I took a ragged breath and willed myself to say what I wasn’t sure I should be saying. “I promised I’ll make sure the doctors find another way to save you. I think I have.”

  She gazed at me unblinking, the glow of expectation in her eyes.

  “Do you trust me?” I asked.

  “With my life,” she whispered.

  My heart pounded. “Only if you will let me . . .” I gripped her hand in both of mine. “I can make you a willdisc—and save you.”

  54

  Past The Sixty Days

  I sat on the steps leading up to Roy’s porch and stared up at a sky ablaze with starlight. I breathed in deep, wishing I could smell the scent of stardust as I stared. And stared. And stared. Up at the cloudless night.

  Man, it’s beautiful. The unchartered ocean Torula and I could have sailed across.

  I clutched my iHub, unable to bring myself to press the dial pad. I needed more time to sit. And stare . . . and stare. At the stars. The planets. The galaxies. And all that space! There’s just so much of it.

  But what I needed was more time. To be with her. To give her strength. And try to save her soul.

  The door behind me swung open, letting out a shaft of light from Roy’s foyer.

  “Hey, bud. You okay out ’ere?”

  “Yeah. Please tell Triana I’ll be in in a minute. I just have to make a call.”

  “Sure, no prob.”

  Somehow, I managed to dial my boss’s number to ask for more time past the sixty days I’d been given. To see someone through to the end. And help with things . . . after.

  Sympathy came through from the other side of the line, and Dave graciously agreed to let me extend my leave.

  After I ended the call, I looked back up at the sky’s open invitation still blinking far above. Later tonight, I would have to send an email to Dr. Grant canceling my second appointment. I bowed my head and accepted the truth. Whatever Torula and I had decided, it was out of our hands now.

  I bundled up all thoughts of regret and sorrow over lost time and broken dreams, locked them inside a steel case somewhere inside me, and walked into Roy’s home. I mustered a polite smile and a curt nod at Triana. “Sorry to keep you waiting.” I’d brought her here to show her that there was another path her daughter was daring
enough to take, and Torula was hoping I could convince her mother to let her take it.

  Triana looked calm and comfortable, even as she sat with back straight and ankles clipped, next to Roy on the couch. Positioned across from her was a huge CCTV monitor showing her loosening the silken scarf around her neck.

  Roy’s living room, with its wooden beams, stucco walls, and arched doorways, struggled to keep its relaxing, inviting atmosphere after being invaded by an assortment of TV screens oddly scattered around the place.

  With one click on a remote control, Roy produced an orb on the monitor facing Triana. It glowed next to his feet onscreen, even though nothing was visible to the naked eye. “That’s m’dog, Boner. Now, I can’t do Morrison’s kind o’ 3D magic, so I just grabbed whatever footage I could get and slapped ’em on.” He clicked again, and the video image of a young yellow Labrador Retriever pasted itself over the orb.

  Triana blinked in mild surprise. I leaned against an archway and crossed my arms, intrigued, though a bit anxious over what I was seeing.

  “With this system, I can walk with ’im around the house, see?” Roy moved across the room, and the footage changed to a big and hefty Lab trotting next to him. As he left the range of one camera and entered another, the onscreen view automatically switched to that of the next camera. “He needs to sense me, though. If he doesn’t, he sorta . . . snoozes, you know what I’m sayin’? So I threw together a signal booster, and for as long as I’m within 50 meters o’ the iCube, he’s good.”

  Roy walked back to us and plopped down into an armchair. “Sit,” he said, and the dog abruptly changed to a much smaller Lab with a lighter coat sitting down. “I just started buildin’ the library, so it’s kinda hoppin’ around a hodge-podge o’ yellow Labs of all ages for now. But dependin’ on how the Verdabulary interprets Boner’s actions, the program grabs hold o’ the right image to act as a coat over ’is orb.”

  Triana displayed a smile that stopped just short of her eyes. “I have to say, what you’ve achieved here is remarkable as it is. But . . .” She clutched the scarf around her neck. “. . . are you saying this is also what’s in store for my daughter? A stream of home videos with bad editing?”