But the Children Survived

by A. L. Jambor

  “Maybe we could blow the FDA whistle on him. If he ‘d put the stuff through trials, we would have heard about it.”

  “He and some doctor are selling it as a supplement. No FDA required.” Simon sat looking at Jacob. Simon was a hard read. He never gave anything away. Jacob hated that about him.

  “Where is he right now?”

  “Tampa,” Simon answered.

  “Keep digging and see what else you can find.”

  Simon flew to Tampa and followed Russo around for a few days, reporting his comings and goings. He told Jacob about the doctor Russo was doing business with, some guy named Tomlinson, and how it seemed they’d had a falling out.

  Simon had hired a woman to make an appointment with the doctor. He told her to try to find out how many women he’d treated with the purple potion. She found out Tomlinson had treated over 300 women. She also found out that the treatment cost $10,000 and that the doctor called the purple potion Fetura.

  Simon used his detective buddy again to check into Russo's bank accounts and credit cards. The guy found out Russo was going to be staying at a resort in Orlando in a few days.

  When Jacob did the math, he was beside himself with rage. That little nobody had hauled in over $300,000 of Jacob's money. Simon asked Jacob if he wanted Russo taken care of.

  Jacob understood what Simon was asking, but he needed more time to think. He’d never ordered a hit on anyone. He couldn't take it lightly. As he sat at his desk, he took out a little notebook he wrote in to clear his head. Sometimes he drew in it, sometimes he would jot down ideas for new drugs, etc.

  He opened it to a blank page and wrote the date of the first day Russo would be in Orlando. Under it he wrote, “Orlando. Send Simon.” He knew what he was writing. Seeing it in black and white made him feel both powerful and nauseated. Simon was right though. Russo could ruin Matthew Wilmer's reputation and by doing so ruin Jacob's, too. He was too old to rebuild it. His brother James had done this. Jacob could see that now.

  James had always been a thorn in his side. There was no reason for him to be born. Jacob should have been enough. Jacob hated James more now than when he was alive. He balled up his fists and banged the table repeatedly. His body shook violently from his desire to physically murder James with his bare hands. But James was dead. He had even taken that away from Jacob.

  Jacob forced himself to breathe. He had to calm down. So, James had tried to get Jacob by giving Russo the plants. Well, Jacob would have the last laugh.

  He picked up the phone and called Simon. He told him to go through Russo's house and get any plants that might be there. He also told him to look for any scientific research associated with the Dono di Russo. He didn't want Russo's family to keep the formula for Fetura. Simon said he would call when he’d taken care of things.

  Simon booked a room in the Russos' resort. He followed them for a day. He sat behind them when they ate at a restaurant and overheard their plans for the next day. They were going to the water park.

  The next day, Simon watched Antonio and his son come down the water slides. He waited for Russo to go to a bathroom, or some other location where he would be alone. After a while, he saw Russo's wife send him to the lockers.

  As Russo was opening a locker, Simon came up behind him with a knife in his hand. He grabbed Russo and thrust the knife straight up through his ribs and into his heart. Then he let Russo go and walked on as though nothing had happened.

  He had checked out of his room before going to the water park, so Simon drove straight to St. Petersburg. He broke into the Russo house and searched for the plants and the formula. He found neither. He caught a plane from Tampa to New Jersey after calling Jacob with the report.

  Jacob hung up the phone and sat motionless behind his desk. He was responsible for the death of another human being and he didn't know quite how to handle it. He’d never been in a war, or had to defend himself. But even though he hated doing it, it gave him an instant feeling of relief. Russo would never hurt Wilmer and March.

  Chapter 74

  Emily Wilmer's mother had been a resident of the Blaine Residence in upstate New York for many years. She had been mentally ill for most of her adult life and had died while still a patient at Blaine's.

  Emily had begun to show signs of the same mental illness when Andrew was a young boy. Andrew was the only one who could calm her down or keep her focused. As he grew older and made a life for himself, Emily had many bad days.

  Jacob had taken her to Palm Beach to hide her from her constantly inquiring friends. He’d bought a home on the beach, and it seemed to help Emily. But there was one aspect of her illness that Jacob had a hard time dealing with.

  Emily was a hoarder. Her illness took the form of hoarding one particular item - twelve-inch fashion dolls. At first she bought collector dolls that were issued once or twice a year. As her passion for them grew, so did her collection. In 2003, her son introduced her to the Internet, and she was able to order them online and have them delivered to her house.

  Jacob had been unaware of his wife's fascination with the dolls until they began staying at Palm Beach for months at a time. Emily had to replicate her collection for Palm Beach.

  In New Jersey, Jacob hadn’t entered Emily's bedroom since 2001. He had no idea what it looked like now. When he accidentally opened the door of her Palm Beach bedroom looking for her, he was taken aback by what he saw.

  From the floor to the ceiling, still in boxes, were stacks of dolls. The only empty spot in the room was the path from the bed to the bathroom and to bedroom door. Jacob was afraid to confront her for fear of making her sick. She’d been doing so well at Palm Beach. He decided to just ignore her room as long as the dolls stayed in there. Emily seemed to need her secret, and Jacob needed her to be sane.

  When they came back to New Jersey, he peeked into her bedroom and it looked just like the one in Palm Beach. He asked Ethel to come to his study again, and this time he asked her about the dolls.

  He asked if she’d known about them and she said yes. He asked her how long her bedroom had been that way, and Ethel looked down at the floor.

  “It's okay, Ethel. You're not in trouble.”

  “I know, sir, I just don't know how to tell you.” Ethel looked up at Jacob. “I guess she started putting them in the bedroom when the basement got full.”

  Jacob's eyebrows rose. “The basement?”

  “Yes, sir. She filled it up and had to put them somewhere else.”

  Jacob rose from his chair and walked to the kitchen with Ethel following close behind. As Jacob descended the steps into the basement, he couldn't believe the sight he beheld. From one end of his 4000-square-foot basement to the other were fashion dolls, lined up on stands, with wild big curls on their heads. In one corner, stacked to the ceiling, was a pile of dolls with hideous frizzed hair.

  “When they don't come out good, she throws them over there.” Ethel pointed to the pile. “And over there is where she does the perms.”

  She pointed to a small part of the basement where there was a comfortable chair with a small table. Ethel led Jacob over to the small opening. She showed him the little rollers Emily used to wrap the dolls' hair. She showed him the wrapping papers and styling gel. She then showed him the hot plate she boiled the water on.

  “My God, it's a miracle she didn't burn the house down. How long has she been doing this?” Jacob was still in a state of shock.

  “Since Andrew was little. She does it when she gets upset or sad. She sits here rolling up the hair, and she looks so happy. Sometimes I have to go out for the gel and papers. She runs out quick.”

  “Where is Mrs. Wilmer?” Jacob asked.

  “She's at a charity auction today. She was good this morning. But sir, she’s having fewer and fewer good days.” Ethel was very concerned about Emily's mental state. “There was another delivery today, sir. There's no room in her bedroom. Where should we put them?"

  “Have John take the boxes to the garage. We'll have
to decide what to do with them later.” Jacob looked at Ethel. She had a look of deep sympathy in her eyes. “Thank you for…helping Mrs. Wilmer, Ethel. I'm sure you understand that this…this news must never leave this house.”

  “It never has before, sir. I love Mrs. Wilmer and I would never hurt her. But if you take the boxes out it'll...she'll get bad,” Ethel said.

  Where had he been all the years Ethel had protected Emily?

  “Where does she get all these dolls?”

  “She orders them on the Internet,” Ethel replied.

  “How does she know about the Internet?”

  “Andrew showed her. He thought it would cheer her up to look at stuff on there. She took to it real fast.” Ethel was smiling at the thought of Emily on the Internet.

  “But where is the computer?” Jacob couldn't understand how all this had been going on right under his nose.

  “It's next to her bed, on the other side where you couldn't see. It's a laptop computer.” Ethel was so tickled by Jacob's confusion that she had to keep herself from laughing out loud.

  “Where is Andrew?” Jacob asked.

  “He hasn't come home yet.”

  “When he does, send him in to see me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They reached the top of the steps and Jacob went to his study and sat behind his desk. He was completely flummoxed. For the first time in his life, he didn't know what to do.

  Chapter 75

  When Andrew came home, Jacob called him into the study. He told him to shut down the Internet in his house. He next told Andrew that he’d been trying to come up with some way of dealing with Emily's declining mental state. He told Andrew about the dolls and Andrew said he already knew.

  He told Jacob that he’d been watching his mother curl the dolls' hair since he was a little boy. Jacob was floored that his son had never confided in him. Andrew said Jacob would've just gotten mad, and it did make his mother happy. Jacob asked Andrew what he thought they should do with his mother.

  “You can't send her to Blaine's. She would go ballistic. We need somewhere safe.” Andrew had been reading about biospheres on the Internet. He told his father that they could build something like that on the empty piece of property they had in Palm Harbor, Florida.

  Jacob had forgotten about that property. He’d bought it on a whim, thinking it might be worth something one day. It was a huge piece of land surrounded by woods. It would be the perfect place to hide a facility like that. Andrew could computerize the place. Then Jacob said, “Why not make it a real biosphere and have a farm and animals?” They would tell Emily they were going down there to avoid a nuclear holocaust.

  “She'd never agree to leave her family up here,” Andrew said. Emily had a large extended family in New Jersey and New York. Jacob despised them all, but she enjoyed her family, and the thought of leaving them in a nuclear wasteland would guarantee her never going underground.

  “We could build little houses, one for each of her useless relatives. We could invite them down to visit. We would need a dining hall of some sort. We could also have a library and a wing for scientific research. This could really be interesting, Andrew. It would work.”

  Andrew felt good that he had been able to please Jacob. It didn't happen very often.

  Jacob hired Martin Prevost to design the biosphere. When the biosphere construction was completed, Andrew moved into it with a handful of electricians and plumbers. He set up the computers to run the satellite dish and all the locks and entrances in the facility.

  When Christie Cramer arrived, Andrew remembered her from the New Jersey laboratories. He’d had a little crush on her, but she only had eyes for her fertilizer. When she was transferred to Florida, Andrew had thought of following her, but his mother's condition forbade it. Now, he might have a chance to get to know her.

  Andrew set up the virtual room for his mother. He also set up her bedroom with the wall to wall dolls she’d requested he take with him in his car when he drove to Florida. She asked him to make sure he put them in her room.

  The walls were full when he still had one large box to empty. He decided to leave it until she came down. He stored the box in the basement. The basement was huge and he had no idea what his father planned to put in there.

  When the furniture arrived, Andrew set it up just like it was at home.

  Jacob didn't tell Andrew everything he planned to do with the biosphere. The truth was, Jacob had been told he had cancer. He had started treating himself with the purple potion, and had divided what he had between Florida and New Jersey.

  Jacob had Simon bring the spores down and supervise the installation of the wall safe to store them. Jacob had forgotten he stored his little notebook in the safe, a notebook full of ideas and doodles. When Simon packed the tubes up for transport, he threw the notebook in the box as well.

  Jacob also had Simon supervise the installation of the supermarket-sized freezers in the basement and had them filled with food. He asked Simon not to tell Andrew. He didn't want Andrew to know that he planned to seal them all in the biosphere until he or Emily died.

  Jacob knew Andrew would object to being held prisoner, but it was the only way Emily would be able to cope with her incarceration. Jacob believed that one day, Andrew would see the logic behind Jacob's actions and forgive him, maybe even thank him.

  Jacob hired Christie Cramer and Gerald Todd because he knew they were in a vulnerable state and would most likely agree to his offer of research in the biosphere. He supplied them with everything they needed to make it look official.

  He also employed a doctor recommended by a colleague. The doctor had been involved in a Medicare scandal and lost his license. He would be grateful for any employment, and Jacob needed a physician in case his cancer took a turn for the worst and he needed pain medication. He would have his New Jersey physician call his prescriptions down ahead of time and have Simon pick them up at the pharmacy.

  Jacob then asked Simon to move into the biosphere and pose as a plumber supervising a young guy named Pat Luca, who’d been brought over from Tampa to live and work in the facility. Jacob told him he wanted Simon to be his eyes and ears until he could move in himself.

  Calvin was a mechanic in Atlanta when Jacob Wilmer hired him. It was to be a temporary job, and Calvin needed the money. He had a friend working at the Tampa facility who recommended him to Jacob. He was to keep the trucks in tip top shape and help Christie with the field.

  The last person he brought in was Jasper, an electrician from his Cranberry facility. Jasper supervised the installation of the wiring of the facility and the satellite dish that Jacob had acquired through a “friend” in Washington, D.C.

  When he and Emily actually entered the biosphere, they would take any of their staff who wanted to go. They could also hire servants from the area. Ethel and John were getting older, so they agreed to accompany them to Florida and a warmer climate.

  Simon reported that everything was in place. Jacob had given notice to the board to elect a new CEO as he was stepping down for reasons of health.

  The week before Jacob and Emily were due to arrive, Andrew heard the alarm and ran to investigate what had set it off, only to find the hatchway leading out had been sealed shut. He had programmed the automatic shutdown in case of a nuclear disaster or poisonous attack as per his father's instructions. He thought the guy was getting a little nutty in his old age, but did it anyway. He was just as shocked as everyone else when the damned thing worked.

  Epilogue

  Andrew looked at himself in the mirror. The tuxedo was a little big, but it would do nicely. Christie had picked it up when she took the girls to find their dresses. It was black with satin lapels and a black tie. Andrew thought he looked pretty sharp.

  He left Jason’s bedroom and walked down the stairs to the first floor. The kitchen was empty. Most of the guests were out on the beach, waiting for the wedding to begin.

  Andrew walked out onto the deck. He could see Pat and Geor
ge, but didn’t see his best man. Pat saw him and waved, and Andrew walked over to join them.

  “Anybody seen Jason?” he asked.

  “I think he’s with Jenny,” George replied. “You’ve picked a splendid day for a wedding, Andrew.”

  “Yeah, it couldn’t be any nicer,” Pat said.

  “So, when are you leaving?” Andrew was looking at Pat’s boat, anchored to the dock next door to Jason’s house.

  “Tomorrow morning. Jay says I can stay here tonight,” Pat said.

  “Well, I hope you find a woman, Pat.” Andrew smiled.

  “There have to be live women in Puerto Rico,” Pat said. “I mean the stuff can’t go over salt water, right?”

  “That’s what they tell us,” George said. “I’m thinking of taking a trip to Martha’s Vineyard myself. It’s been years since I’ve been there. I have friends there, you know.” George looked out at the ocean. “At least I have hope that they’re still with us.”

  “I’ll miss you guys,” Andrew said. The three had been through a lot together.

  “Well, I haven’t decided definitely yet, Andrew. And I would come back,” George said.

  “What about you, Pat? You gonna bring your bride up here to meet us?” Andrew asked.

  “Of course I would. You guys are my family now.”

  Mindy and Maria Elena ran past the men. They were dressed in their bridesmaid’s dresses and looked like little princesses. Mindy wore a pastel pink sleeveless satin dress with a full skirt that almost reached her ankles. Maria Elena’s dress was lavender with puffy sleeves and ruffles that went around and around her skirt. Baby Girl and Ricky were chasing them and barking.

  “Hey, slow down,” Andrew yelled. “Christie wants you to stay clean until the ceremony.”