by Kira Peikoff
He felt her smile transcend their phone lines, from wherever she was. “Then I would love to enjoy the present with you as well,” she said. “Let’s do it. Besides, I bake a mean chocolate cake. That ought to win them over.”
Trent laughed ruefully. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
A man’s voice grumbled in the background, but Trent couldn’t make out his words.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“I told you last night,” she said. “I’m at church.”
“You—you are?”
“So I can’t talk. Thanks for the invite, though. I’m looking forward to it.”
* * *
Trent pulled the phone from his ear and realized he had stopped in his tracks in the middle of the street. He crushed an empty soda can with his heel. The aluminum crunch of its destruction was so satisfying that he kicked it hard. For two blocks, he kicked it, until he reached the stairs leading down to the subway and the can was mangled tin.
One final call stood before him and the train.
Dopp answered after a single ring.
“She’s coming,” Trent said. “And she’s definitely lying.”
EIGHT
Arianna and Megan pulled up to Sam’s Union Square West apartment in a cab, as the alternative fifteen-minute walk was too grueling an option for her. “He needs to remember how appreciated he is,” Arianna said as they got out in front of an aquamarine glass skyscraper.
On the twenty-eighth floor, in the corner, solitary as its resident, stood a door with chipped black paint.
Arianna knocked. No answer.
She slapped her palm against the door.
“Who’s there?” snapped a faraway voice.
“It’s me,” she called. She heard footsteps draw nearer as his voice got louder.
“I don’t know any me’s,” Sam said, swinging open the door. His chin looked freshly shaved and his silver hair damp. He was clad in sweatpants and a T-shirt that hung loosely over his shoulders. At the sight of Arianna, his habitual scowl flipped into its opposite. “What are you doing here?”
Megan stepped out from behind Arianna and waved. His eyes narrowed slightly, as if she were an illogical sight.
“We’re just dropping by to say hello,” Arianna said. “Can we come in? Sorry we forgot to bring a peace offering.”
“I’m not drinking for now.” He turned around and receded into his apartment, apparently intending them to follow. Megan shot Arianna a look of curiosity.
“He doesn’t trust himself with liquor when he gets stressed,” Arianna whispered. “He’s got a past.”
They followed him through a narrow hallway that opened into a living room perched in the sky, bound by a sheet of curved glass. There were no lights on, and yet the room glowed with the light of nearby buildings, like a moon collecting the radiance of a hundred suns. The most brilliant was the Empire State Building straight ahead; alit in red, white, and blue, it was enough to make even the most jaded citizen feel patriotic. Glancing at it, Arianna wished she could feel the full force of that gale of pride in being an American, but her patriotism had shriveled like the myelin around her nerve cells, and for the same reason.
“Your view is stunning,” Megan remarked.
“Distracts from the clutter.” He sat in a well-worn chair next to a table littered with yellow legal pads and textbooks. Chinese takeout boxes lay steaming on various scraps of paper. Bits of rice and sauce were splattered on his notes like haphazard punctuation marks.
“Are we interrupting your dinner?” Arianna asked. “We can go—”
He shook his head, wiping up the fallen pieces of food. “Sit.”
She and Megan sat on a two-seater couch facing the 270-degree view. It gave them the convenience of not staring at one another during the silence that followed.
“Stiff tongues, eh?” Arianna said. “I can prescribe something for that, you know. It’s not a condition you have to live with.”
Megan laughed a little. At her feet, a raggedy gray towel lay in a heap. “What’s that for?”
“Oh, nothing,” Sam said, getting up to grab it. “Just getting cleaned up before going back.”
Arianna frowned. “You’re going back tonight? Don’t tell me you’ve started sleeping there?”
“So what. I got a cot at Kmart. There’s a sink and toilet.” He flashed her a challenging look.
She knew better than to argue. “So any improvement since Sunday?”
He cleared his throat. “We’re getting low on embryos. I wish we could use yours again,” he said to Megan. “Those were as robust as they come.”
She grinned. “I’m glad. But Arianna says I can’t donate again.”
Arianna shook her head. “No, your ovaries need a rest. They were sensitive to the hormones.”
Sam hadn’t answered her question. She wondered if he had purposely ignored her. Of course, she decided. It was easier than confronting her with the grim reality. She looked at the patches of light scattered up and down the neighboring skyscrapers. Of all the people inside those rooms, how many like her were thinking of death?
“When are you bringing a new batch?” Sam demanded.
“On Friday,” she said. “Don’t worry, I’ve got donors lined up for at least the next five weeks.”
“So interest is still good?” Megan asked.
“Better than usual. I got back in touch with some of the girls from the CPR club, Sam.”
“Oh yeah?”
The CPR club, or the Coalition to Protect Researchers, was a group of about fifty angry Columbia students who united to protest the DEP’s formation. Arianna, then a sophomore, had taken on a leading role in recruiting members. Most had been Sam’s students.
“You might even remember some of them, Sam.”
He shrugged, his expression hard. “I wasn’t paying attention to much back then except one thing.”
“By the way,” Arianna said quickly, “did I tell you I’m going to Long Island on Saturday for dinner with Trent’s family?”
Megan smiled strangely at her. “You told me earlier.”
“Who is that kid, anyways?” Sam scowled. “Is he the one who phones you?”
“Yes. He’s this sweet writer I met at a book signing.” She paused. “I know the timing is terrible, but we hit it off really well.”
“He doesn’t know?” Sam’s tone was snide: Tell me you didn’t tell him.
“Not about you.”
“About you?”
“I had to.” She pursed her lips. “But we’re going to enjoy the present together.”
Sam grunted and turned to Megan. “Have you met him?”
“Not yet. I want to.”
“I don’t know,” Sam said, wrinkling his overgrown eyebrows. “Men these days are swine. In my day, there were gentlemen, but not anymore—the feminists won’t allow it.”
Arianna raised her eyebrows. “My God, it’s uncanny, Sam. You really are just like my father.”
“What?” He seemed taken aback.
“In a good way,” she reassured. “He was the best man I knew.” She smiled. “And the most politically incorrect.”
“You’re not planning to tell that kid, right?”
“He’s no kid.”
“Well?”
“I wasn’t.”
“You weren’t? Or you aren’t?”
Arianna swallowed, wondering if she knew the answer herself.
“Who’s she?” Megan interjected, pointing at a picture frame on the wall above Sam’s head. Arianna glanced at it: a brunette was smiling playfully, as if sharing an inside joke with the photographer.
Sam did not turn his head. His voice came out strained. “That’s my wife, Charlotte.”
“She’s beautiful.”
“She’s dead.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Megan murmured.
Sam stayed still, but Arianna could see an ominously bulging vein at his temple.
“You didn’t tell her?” h
e said.
Arianna felt helpless knowing what was about to unfold, as it did every so often, but empathy kept her from trying to prevent it. He needed, maybe more than anything, a sensitive listener—someone to shoulder the burden of the pain if only for a few minutes.
“No, Sam, I don’t discuss your personal life.”
“Well,” he said brusquely to Megan, “let me fill you in.”
He rose and began to pace, barely looking at them. “Charlotte had diabetes since she was a girl, the worst affliction that could happen to a high-spirited kid like her. The day I met her in high school, it was after she had passed out in the hall from eating candy. I was the one who took her to the nurse. She thought she was invincible. But she still had to give herself five shots a day and check her blood sugar nonstop. Her arms were like leather from being pricked all the time. But that girl was the best sport there ever was. She saw it as a small price to pay to live.
“It was Charlotte who inspired me to go into biochemistry. My family used to say how nice it was that I wanted to research for her, but they had me all wrong. It was the most selfish career I could have chosen, to the extent that my happiness depended on her well-being.
“After I finished graduate school, we married. We moved to a small apartment near Columbia, where I taught and researched. She would have terrible mood swings out of nowhere, and she started getting tired and depressed. I worked like a fiend, but I wasn’t even coming close. Then the genetic breakthroughs in 1998 finally gave us the map to the answer: human embryonic stem cells.
“I joined a group at the school that was doing all kinds of innovative techniques like gene splicing and targeting and regenerative organ growth.… We were doing so goddamned well, we never could have dreamed that religious politics would kill it all. It was sixteen years ago in February, the day when science died, when the DEP came into being. I didn’t take those bastards seriously, I just couldn’t. In less than a year, I was in jail. But how the hell could they have expected me to obey their stupid laws? Would you expect a starving man not to eat the filet mignon on his plate because it came from a fucking cow?”
“Sam—,” Arianna cut in. His face scared her; it was the color of a heart attack.
He looked straight at her, breathing hard. “The DEP might as well have killed her.”
“Sam—”
“Not only did they wipe out her chance for a cure, but the year I spent in jail, she just got sicker and sicker, and I couldn’t take care of her. Do you know what it’s like to sit in darkness while your wife’s body rots alive, to know you had the chance to save her, but no, you’re stuck in a wretched cell next to real killers, and you’re alone with your mind. No one can save you from the torment, the guilt, the rage, not the alcohol or the drugs or the sick fantasy that deludes half the men who get out of prison alive—that goddamned farce known as God. There’s nothing and no one to help you.”
He went on, shaking: “When I got out, I was already destroyed, but watching her die … No wonder I became a fucking alcoholic!” He kicked the side of his chair and then stumbled away, limping.
“Sam,” Arianna said, softer this time. She got up and walked over to him, expecting him to lash out. But he allowed her to touch his arm, and then to gently pull him back toward his chair.
He sat down forlorn, but when they locked eyes, he grabbed her hand. “For you,” he said, “it’s not too late.”
She squeezed his hand with both of her own, overcome with a hope so fierce, it sucked her breath away.
“As long as we all keep pushing,” he said. “I should go back right now.…”
Her heart filled with tender warmth, and she kneeled down to his level. “Your mind is exhausted, Sam; your soul is worse than that. Sleep here tonight and start fresh tomorrow.”
He looked down.
She lowered her voice. “There was nothing you could have done about any of it.”
After a second, he closed his eyes, but whether in defiance or acceptance she couldn’t tell. She decided to let him be. Something about their exchange needled her: the look on his face when they locked eyes. It was pure adoration. Arianna knew he probably thought of her as a daughter, but their dynamic was delicate. He was risking his life to save hers. His ferocious work ethic—sleeping at the lab, for God’s sake … Could it be that she was unintentionally manipulating his affection to drive him to work harder? When she cooked him meals and charmed him with unannounced visits, was a tiny part of her pushing, pushing as much as she could get away with? She had been told before that she sometimes had a coercive effect on people, though she was oblivious of it. But the thought that she could be exploiting Sam was too disturbing to contemplate. It was also preposterous, she told herself. She knew their friendship was sincere. And he wanted nothing more than to research embryos like the old days; hell, she had practically exhumed him from the liquor cabinet when they first regained contact. Giving him a private lab had been hands down the best thing she could have done for him. She searched his face as if for validation. His eyes glazed over from exhaustion.
She rose uneasily and glanced at Megan, who gave her a pleading look.
“We should go,” Arianna said to him. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Fine,” he mumbled.
Arianna smiled tentatively, and then bent down and kissed his forehead.
The gratified look in his eyes reassured her that he would, indeed, be fine alone.
“Good night,” she said. “We’ll show ourselves out.”
He nodded.
“Bye,” Megan called. “Sorry to have imposed.”
Outside the apartment, Arianna turned to Megan and held up a hand.
“I know, I know. I didn’t expect that. It’s my fault. I should have warned you not to mention his wife.”
“Yeah, thanks. But no wonder he’s so bitter.”
“Welcome to the Dark Ages,” Arianna said as they stepped into the elevator. She spoke quickly, to distract herself from that needling worry. “But I think it’s good for him to retain that anger, to feel it through and through sometimes, as long as he doesn’t go overboard. It keeps his humanity intact—imagine if he just became this jaded shell. I’ve seen so many old people retire, and then slowly lose their memory and their reason. When the mind loses purpose, it withers. Passion keeps it alive. I just wish he would just direct less rage at himself.”
The elevator doors opened, and they walked through the lobby.
“You should just be careful with him, Ar,” Megan said.
Arianna’s stomach clenched. “What do you mean?”
“The way you can be with people when you’re ambitious. I know you don’t mean any harm, but just be aware. You know how you used to be with your dad sometimes.”
Arianna didn’t have to ask. She had been famous in the family as a child for working her charm with her father to get what she wanted, and later as a teenager to get out of trouble. She used to marvel at how easy it was, without even really trying—but then she would feel guilty. The unintentional manipulation seemed almost natural, a bad habit she had to remember to rein in, like her craving for sweets. By now, she thought both had been under control for years.
“Trust me,” she replied. “I’m aware.”
“You want a lot from him,” Megan said, as if she had to be reminded. “More than you’ve ever wanted from anyone. And he seems so vulnerable.”
“I know that. But I’m not trying to push him. I swear on my dad’s grave. I would never, ever do anything to hurt him.”
Megan held up a hand as they walked into the shivery night and leaned under a nearby awning. “I believe you.”
Arianna dropped her voice to a whisper, eager to change subjects. “By the way, how is our little investment doing?”
“Great. Turns out it was pretty undervalued.”
“You’re kidding. So you could make a killing.”
“Me?” Megan smiled pointedly. “It’s only mine in name.”
“Oh, I�
��d let you keep any profits. Look how much you’ve done!”
Megan shrugged. “Buying and selling I do all the time.”
“Plus your eggs…”
“Those were my gift to you.”
Arianna chuckled. “Who would have thought, when we were kids, that one day I would be thanking you for your eggs?”
Megan smiled briefly, then turned serious. “I’ve been thinking about this new man of yours.”
“Oh?”
“Are you sure it’s the right time to get so involved?”
Arianna shrugged. “It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way about a man. Better late than never, right?”
Megan eyed her. “What are you not telling me?”
“Well, I know it sounds like a bad idea, but I wish I could tell Trent everything. It’s so hard not to!”
Megan closed her eyes. “I was afraid of that.”
“But, Meg—”
Again, she raised a hand. “Would you trust him with your life, Arianna? He could rat you out in a second—and make a quick grand. Don’t be impulsive.”
“I think he values my life more than a Vigilant Citizen Award,” Arianna replied indignantly.
“Do you even know what he thinks of this kind of research?”
Arianna shook her head. “I’ve steered clear. Part of me doesn’t want to find out.”
“If he seemed the slightest bit suspicious, I’d move and change my number if I were you. Hell, even my name.”
“Come on.”
“You want to end up like Sam’s wife?”
“No,” Arianna said vehemently. “But you don’t know Trent. He’s been so good to me, even after I told him about my MS. And it’s not just that. I remember to have fun when I’m with him.”
“Talk about an elephant in the room.”
Arianna hesitated. “I guess I should at least find out where he stands. But if he truly cares about me, how could he not support research that might save my life?”
“I don’t know,” Megan replied, feigning thoughtfulness. “Maybe you should ask the judge who threw Sam in jail. I bet he could tell you the answer.”