“I asked him for this time alone with you.”
His heart palpitated, and he was suddenly aware of cool perspiration trickling down his sides. “He would never allow that.”
“Well, he did. I’ve got something for you,” she said coyly.
“You’ve already given me plenty.” He narrowed his eyes. “The symptoms will start any day now.”
“Actually,” she said, enunciating each syllable, “Rollie kept you sedated to give your body time to recover before . . .” Her voice trailed off as she made the sign of the cross, then she kissed that trite pendant of hers. Several times throughout the years following his grandfather’s death, when he’d impulsively thought to call Ulrich to share his latest successful patient surgery or achievement of Milo’s, he’d fantasized about choking Cora with that necklace.
“Kristian.”
“What?” he grunted.
“It’s already been nine days.”
Stunned, he shook his head, then blinked as he finished processing her words. Feverishly working through the implications, he felt his forehead. Still cool. Early signs, such as a headache, abdominal cramps, or muscle aches, would be masked by the morphine drip. Also, the incubation period for Ebola could be as long as twenty-one days. But the Spanish flu and RVF took only two to seven days to incubate.
“Rollie ran the tests, I assume.”
“Yes.” Cora’s voice had sounded like they were underwater. “Rollie, Lily, and Finn are all fine—physically, I mean. Finn and Lily are helping with Hannah and Milo, who’re both in shock.”
Finn must have told his wife and Sylvia everything. His version of it. Imagining their reactions, Kristian felt an urge to vomit. Even if he weren’t currently in isolation, Hannah would refuse to see—or forgive—him. Likely, Sylvia was equally angry, and disappointed in him. This is Finn’s fault, he thought. The plan would have worked if it hadn’t been for his brash, halfwit half brother. Regardless, he would have to be the one to make things right, even if it meant accepting full blame. Because it was his family’s well-being at stake. “I need to get home.”
“Kristian, you’re . . . positive for the three without vaccines.”
“What?” He inhaled deeply but only felt more light-headed. The morphine, messing with his mind, must be blocking the initial symptoms, he concluded. Or, alternatively, along with her pathogens, she’d transmitted her active, unique antibodies. Overcome by the possibility, Kristian rose onto his elbows. “Holy shit.” But that approach failed with Otto’s mice and Ulrich’s human test subjects, he reminded himself.
His chest heaving, Kristian projected the outcome for each scenario: either he’d be dead within a week or his survival would signify a major breakthrough.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said, patting his shoulder.
Repulsed by her touch and needing space to think, he knocked her away.
Stumbling, she regained her balance, then clutched her necklace. “Oh, right. You don’t know.”
“Know what?” he asked, glaring at the dried blood stains spotting the ratty sweatshirt he’d thrown to her after Rollie had sawed through the plastic cords. His blood, all over her. Her blood, coursing through him. How has she not cleaned herself up yet? he wondered. He wanted off this rock, now.
“Kristian, the fact that you’re symptom-free shows that, as I always hoped and prayed, you’re just like me.”
“I’m nothing like you,” he said vehemently. “Go to hell.” He wished there was an afterlife, with a special barbed-wire cage there just for her, far more miserable and cramped than this island. And beside it, an operating table.
“It’s a lot to take in, I know,” she said in a soothing, condescending tone.
“What are you talking about?”
Her attention shifted to a pair of metal carts against the yellow-tiled wall. One contained medical instruments. The other held a case of water, a small package wrapped in newsprint, and what appeared to be a misshapen chocolate cake.
“There’s something more you need to know,” she said, wheeling the cart with the amateurish cake closer to him.
“I’m done with this conversation. Whatever it is, Rollie can tell me.”
“No. This has to come from me,” she said, examining the palm of her right hand. “There’s no easy way to say it, so I just will.” She looked him straight in the eyes, the same way she had seconds before she’d killed his grandfather—the man who’d so patiently supported him through everything from overcoming his early childhood speech impediment to studying for his board exams. He yearned to lunge from the bed, grab an instrument from the tray, and stab her.
Curiosity, however, held him back; he returned her stare.
“Ulrich, his research spanned far more than”—her voice quivered—“virology. One of his goals was to create immortality for the Gettler lineage,” she said, watching for his reaction.
He kept a straight face to deny her the pleasure of knowing she had his attention.
“You’re, um, the result of that experiment, using him and me,” she concluded, her lips closing in a smile.
“What?!” Kristian roared.
Blinking hard, he tried to make sense of his surroundings and what she’d just said: Ulrich, not Rollie, was his father. And she was his mother.
“Shit!” Why hadn’t Rollie—his half brother—told him?
“You were born in this very room.”
Serenely smiling, Cora gazed at an empty spot near his gurney, and a tear ran down her scarred cheek.
It couldn’t be true. It simply couldn’t.
They both, however, did have the O-positive blood type. He pictured the Punnett square that proved the inheritance feasible. But they also shared this trait with 38 percent of the world’s population. Why would he have suspected it was anything more than coincidental? “If I have your immunities, which only work here, how have I been able to live in Manhattan my entire life? Surely you infected me with your germs during the birth.”
“The antibodies in my breast milk. While you lived here with me, I was nursing you,” she said, her eyes closed. “You loved hunting for spiders, digging in the dirt, watching the ships from my spy holes on the morgue roof.”
Groaning, Kristian tried to block out her words, yet he couldn’t ignore a nagging sensation that they were factual. Once, he’d asked why there were no baby pictures of him, much less an album. Rollie had shrugged off the question with a vague line about Petra not having been good at that sort of thing. Yet in Finn’s baby book, some of the entries had been penned in Rollie’s neat, tight script.
“You are not my mother,” he said, “and you never will be, you vile piece of filth.”
As if he’d just punched her, Cora staggered backward.
“I’m done here.” He swung his legs off the gurney and reached for the IV needle.
“You can’t go yet,” she said, rushing to block his path. “You’re still recovering, and I need to teach you how to move within the tree canopy so you don’t leave germs at ground level. If an outsider were to catch something, the CDC would swoop in. They’d build a base right here to study us. Put us in glass cages.”
“Us? There is no us,” he said with a growl.
Hannah and Milo. And the baby. If what Cora was saying were true, it wouldn’t matter if Hannah forgave him; he could never be with them again. He wouldn’t be at her side in the delivery room, or even ever hold the baby. “No!” he wailed. “My family!”
As if she too felt his pain, Cora covered her mouth with her hand.
“Milo can’t grow up without a dad,” Kristian said, horrified by the possibility. “He needs me, just like Ulrich needed Otto. I swore to Ulrich that I would always put family first, that I would never neglect my children. And I’ve only just begun Milo’s training.”
“This isn’t at all like what happened with Ulr
ich,” she said, her voice cracking. “Milo will be surrounded by love, and he’ll be able to visit you in a containment suit.”
“That’s not good enough,” he snapped. “And the . . .” He stopped himself from revealing Hannah’s pregnancy.
“You’re right; it’s not. I know how you feel. It was hard for me to accept this life at first, too.”
“You can’t possibly understand. You were nothing before you came here. You had nothing.”
“That’s not true. I lost my family as well. But now I have you back. Please,” she said, rubbing her palm, “give me a chance. It’s your birthday. Every year, since Ulrich took you from me, I . . .” She glanced at the cart.
Kristian eyed the lump of chocolate. Of all the days to wake up to this nightmare.
Hannah was a wonderful baker. He should be at home right now, celebrating with her and Milo. Milo. A quarter of his genes had come from Cora. Same with the baby in vitro. Conceivably both—or one—could possess the superimmunity trait as well. But it could take years for Kristian to design a safe, effective method for evaluating them. Meanwhile, Milo would come of age without his father’s daily guidance, and the baby would experience all her firsts without him. While he was stuck here, with her.
Vaguely, he recalled the lung tissue extraction that had led to this disaster. If all that Cora had claimed were true, he would no longer need her specimens to continue his research. The means of preventing another coronavirus outbreak—or a pandemic caused by a different novel pathogen—now resided within him. But what did that matter if he couldn’t be with his family? Any time spent on attempting to harvest and replicate his antibodies would be time not devoted to finding a way to eliminate the three viruses now colonizing within him because of her.
He glared at her. “You call that a cake?”
“I worked very hard on it,” she said proudly, seemingly unaware of his disdain. She set the wrapped box beside him.
“I want nothing to do with you.”
“During my labor,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard him, “Ulrich and I were so scared we’d lost you. He had to do an emergency C-section. But your first cries; they were so sweet. You were so sweet. You loved cuddling against me.” Putting her hand to her heart, she breathed in deeply. “There’s a lullaby your dad and I used to sing to you. Ulrich learned it from his mother. It goes like this,” she said and began singing, her voice hoarse and off-key, “Weißt du wieviel Sternlein stehen an dem blauen Himmelszelt?”
He had many fond memories of his grandfather—his father—singing that lullaby to him in his crystal-clear baritone. Kristian, in turn, had sung it to Milo.
His son, whom he now couldn’t see without PPE between them. Kristian blinked back the sting of tears.
Cora nodded toward the package. “Open it. Please?”
He lifted the box to hurl it against the wall but found himself sliding his index finger beneath the edge of the newsprint. He’d never been one to stifle his curiosity; why start now?
As the paper fell away from the case, he recognized the embossed symbol of his favorite watch brand. The rich scent of the patent leather box cut through the mustiness of the operating room. This can’t have come from her, he thought with a sideways glance.
Cora had stepped back, seemingly afraid he might strike her. Despite the gloom that had engulfed her, he could still make out hope in the upturned corners of her lips and the darting of her eyes.
He could crush her spirit now, so easily. With a simple flick of his wrist, the box would fly.
But he had to know how she’d gotten this. Slowly, he opened the lid, and a gift receipt fluttered to his chest.
He snatched it and inhaled sharply upon seeing the store’s name. “Where’d you get this?”
Shyly, Cora smiled. “Sylvia. She wanted me to be the one to give it to you.”
The room seesawed and Kristian fought to restore his sense of equilibrium.
Instantly, he’d understood the message that had accompanied his mother’s gesture. Everything Sylvia did was with intention and from the heart. She’d anticipated his rejection of Cora, rightly so, and planned accordingly.
Since Sylvia’s Lyme diagnosis, every stroke of his pen, every pipette filled and dispersed, every microscope slide he’d prepared had been in her honor. How could he accept Cora, his father’s assassin, as his mother? He didn’t know if he were capable of that, even for Sylvia.
“Do you want help putting it on?” Cora asked, her raspy tone scratching his nerves.
No, he did not want help.
“Get out of my sight, you . . .” Kristian bit his tongue to hold back that habitual, final word: mutt. Given that 50 percent of his genes had apparently come from her, what did that make him? And his children?
Her grandchildren.
Picturing his mother in her wheelchair at their window, staring across the East River toward North Brother Island, he slowly raised his arm so that Cora could affix the watch.
As she removed it from the box, Kristian noticed an inscription on its chrome back. He grabbed the watch from her to read it. Du bist mein Ein und Alles.
You are my everything. A tingling sensation prickled his eyes. While he had no distinct memories associated with that phrase, it felt strangely familiar.
“I used to tell you that every day, when you lived here.”
He brushed his cheek to erase a tear. Intuitively, he knew she wasn’t lying. “Where did Sylvia learn that?”
“I told her, when I was begging her to help me get you back.”
Kristian thought of Milo, whom he already missed. And the baby who’d be born without him there. He couldn’t fathom this heartache worsening with more time away from his children, and Hannah.
For over thirty years, Cora had been enduring this same intense longing for her child. For him.
He looked at her anew. She was biting her lip, visibly nervous. Her eyelids were fluttering; Kristian realized he’d inherited his long lashes from her.
For Sylvia, just like everything else he did on this island, maybe he should try to accept Cora.
But, he thought, squeezing the watch in his grasp, she killed my father. Right before my eyes.
Until he discovered a way to eradicate the pathogens from his system—and he would succeed in that endeavor—North Brother Island belonged to him.
Don’t miss the unforgettable sequel to The Vines.
Coming soon!
Author’s Note
Like far too many COVID-19 patients, I’ve spent dozens of nights hospitalized. While in the ICU on oxygen therapy, repeatedly, I feared that my lungs would fail me before daybreak. I know the terror of struggling for air. But not because of the virus; in my case, it was an acute form of leukemia that caused pooling of blood in my lungs. My feelings heightened by my past trauma, I have deep empathy for those who’ve experienced severe and/or chronic complications from COVID-19 and for those who’ve lost loved ones.
I hope and pray that through the tireless efforts of the health care heroes and essential workers, as well as the breathtaking medical innovations being achieved, we will soon emerge from this crisis. Then, we can collectively begin the healing process, which won’t be easy for many. Despite the passage of nearly a decade since my diagnosis, I still grapple with fear and anxiety.
The first symptom of my cancer was the death of our baby at twenty weeks gestation. For the over forty days I was inpatient, I lay awake each night, weeping over our loss and for our eighteen-month-old, whom I was forbidden to see because her germs could kill me. Frequently, I needed IV pain medication, which barely dented the emotional anguish. Daily, I received blood transfusions. Throughout, I experienced 105-degree fevers, dangerously high blood pressure, hemorrhaging of the eye, a full-body hive outbreak, migraines, vomiting, and severe bone pain. During this period, I spent a total of two hours with my toddler.
Before I returned home, she’d stopped asking for me.
For the three years of treatment that followed my diagnosis, my writing focused on my cancer blog, highlighting the themes of disease, fear of death, isolation, loss of a child, infertility. But also survival, courage, healing, and hope. Through that therapeutic writing process, Cora—and her foil, Lily—were born. Before these two strong female characters, however, came the setting:
In 2014, during a descent to LaGuardia Airport, my husband elbowed me in the side and directed my attention to a spit of land in the East River. “You should write a book about that island.” Returning the elbow jab as I leaned across him, I gasped at the decaying buildings, visible in winter with the trees barren. Once we landed, I immediately consulted Google and was hooked.
So often people make that comment: “You should write a book about [x].” Typically, writers just smile and nod in response. But a novel set on such a fascinating, abandoned, forbidden place within plain sight of millions of New Yorkers was too tantalizing a concept to dismiss simply because I hadn’t thought of it myself.
Diving into research, I learned that North Brother’s past is rife with misery. The haunting online images of Riverside Hospital provided gut-wrenching context to the grisly historical essays.
I decided that a novel set there should incorporate Riverside’s 125+ year evolution, its actual inhabitants, and the details captured by online photographs and Christopher Payne’s stunning coffee table book, North Brother Island: The Last Unknown Place in New York City, for which I attended a standing-room-only book signing. After meticulously cataloguing every map, image, and historical detail available, including the report from research led by University of Pennsylvania preservationist Randall Mason, I took a deep breath and began structuring an epic tale that I believed I’d earned the right to tell.
To incorporate the island’s full modern history, I knew I’d have to get creative. At the time, I was still very raw and traumatized by my cancer ordeal and terrified that I was going to die. The notion of a character blessed with immortality and superior immunities appealed to me. Through telling Cora’s story, I could also tell North Brother’s.
The Vines Page 38