In the next room, the floor is made wholly of puzzle pieces composing a gigantic photograph of an eye. A single piece is missing, right over the place where the pupil would have been. Two men dressed in silk pajama pants wander in with bowls of oatmeal and sit down to eat. Each has a long beard trailing down his chest. They stare at Charles as he walks by.
Charles’s throat closes up. He’s sure that Mrs. Hollingberry has just tightened her grip. He counts silently in his head. He has decided that he will rip away from Mrs. Hollingberry and escape back through the garden. He should have listened to his parents, such a foolish mistake.
“Julie?” Mrs. Hollingberry says. Charles must have closed his eyes at some point. He opens them to discover a young girl standing before him, her face surrounded by dark ringlets. “Julie, there’s somebody I’d like you to meet.”
Charles looks at Julie. Julie looks at Charles. Neither one can look away.
“CHARLES?” SKYSCRAPERS RISE AROUND US LIKE SENTRIES as we approach downtown. We pass by a school yard, a swarm of kids in orange and yellow jerseys running back and forth down the basketball court. Women sit outside coffee shops, eating croissants, drinking tea, laughing as though everything is fine.
“Charles?”
“Mm-hmm?”
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“About what?”
Iris catches the look in my eyes. “Oh, it’s not about anything important …”
“What?”
“Well, it’s actually about the leotard you gave Ava. She’s so in love with it, that turquoise color. It’s exactly like the one she used to have. I was wondering where you bought it. You know how it is with kids—the more she loves it, the more likely it is that it’ll get lost.”
“I don’t know.”
“Charles—”
“I’m not sure where I got it.”
Iris gives a maternal smile. “You know, there’s no right or wrong answer.”
I pause. “From Jess’s bedroom.”
“Pardon?”
“I got it from Jess’s bedroom. It’s never been worn. I found it folded on top of the dresser. It made me think of Ava.”
“Oh.” Silence. Iris feigns an unexpected fascination with the road in front of her. She stares straight ahead, lifting her right hand to brush her hair behind her ear.
“I’m sorry, maybe that’s weird. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.” I turn toward Iris. There is a strength to her figure in profile, her jaw set, her nose sharp and defined, a line or two running across her forehead, a beauty that has gone through tragedy, that has led a difficult life but that has persisted through it anyway. “Look, Iris, I know we may have had this conversation. It’s just that, I was wondering—well, do you know what I did with all the photographs in my house?”
I expect Iris’s expression to soften, but instead, in a voice just neutral enough to be cold, she says, “I don’t know, Charles. They were gone by the time we met you, by the time Rory …” She trails off. Her eyes are somewhere else, perhaps lurking through memories with Rory at her side, only for him to disappear when she flashes back to reality. She stomps her foot on the brake to avoid running a red light.
“That’s it,” I say.
“What?”
“That’s the building. You can drop me off here. Thanks, and don’t worry about picking me up. I can walk home.” Before Iris can respond, I’m out of the car, dashing across the street, clutching my briefcase against my chest. There it is. 1247 Shelby Ave., as bland and beige as they come. Professional. Sterile. I take a step forward and stand in the entryway for several moments, mesmerized as I watch the mirrored glass doors slide open and closed. I unclasp the briefcase for the first time. It’s empty inside except for a pair of tortoiseshell glasses. I reach in, take out the glasses and adjust them on my nose. Everything is slightly clearer than before.
I look at my reflection in the sliding doors. My head is mostly healed now. The only sign of any possible accident is a slight bruise on the back of my neck. I wonder if I’ll recognize anybody or anything, how they’ll react to me. I should’ve called. I should’ve called ahead, but I can’t think of walking away now. I have to do it. I have to show up.
A deep breath. I enter the building. The soles of my shoes squeak against the gray-blue linoleum. A woman in a business suit sits in the lobby, reading the Washington Post and drinking a coffee. She glances up vaguely as I walk by and then returns to her article, swinging her foot in time with the smooth jazz music that echoes from hidden speakers. I check the building directory, then press the button outside of the elevator. Of all the companies named, the only one that seems like a potential is Genutech, listed on the fifth floor.
The orange arrow glows brightly, followed by a ding. I can’t help but feel like the elevator is growing narrower as it rises. I undo the first button at the top of my shirt and try not to hyperventilate. When I exit the elevator, there’s a set of double doors immediately in front of me, bookended on either side by a large potted plant. A red light pulsates to the left of the door, and a little sign makes it clear I need a security badge. I have a hunch. I open the briefcase and run my fingers along the inside. One of my fingers catches. There’s a pocket in the lining along the back. Inside the pocket is a wallet, a cell phone, several tissues, a pack of mint gum. Before I reach for the wallet, I take out the cell phone, press several buttons at once. If this is my phone, then it has my contacts in it. I can’t get it to turn on, however. The battery and the SIM card are missing.
I then take out the wallet, thin brown leather worn at the corners. I check inside. There’s a driver’s license, several credit cards, a debit card, a few dollars, and a security badge with a barcode at the bottom. I slide out the driver’s license, holding it up to the light. The photograph must be at least ten years old. My blond hair is buzzed short, my blue eyes gleaming, and I have a crooked half smile, like I’m not sure how to pose. My full name is spelled out, Charles Alexander Lang, my permanent address listed as 153 Maple Road, Hillston, WA 98409. A new piece of information—my birthday, December 5, 1977, which would indeed make me thirty-four years old. I take out the security badge next. The expression of this man, in contrast, is stiff and mechanical, but there’s no doubt it’s me. I hold the security badge up to the red light. There’s a loud click as the doors unlock. The hallway extends forth, an infinite mirrored corridor converging on itself. Why do they need so much security? What could Genutech have to hide? I reach the next set of doors, hold my thumb up to a scanner. Nothing. I try again. Nothing. Finally I turn my thumb over so that it goes in upside down. The device purrs and shines a blue light as the doors swing open, revealing another long open space with offices branching off to the sides. I step inside and instantly notice a familiar stain across the carpet, huge and sprawling, the color somewhere between brown and dark burgundy.
January 31, 2010
Age Thirty-Two
Charles tears through the office, leaving armfuls of shredded paper in his wake. Shattered bits of glass are strewn across the carpet. Chemicals leak from the tanks along the wall; water puddles on the floor. Something translucent struggles in one of the puddles, some sort of sea life. Frayed wires sizzle in the water. A flat-screened modem lies cracked in two pieces. Charles is nothing but anger and despair. His boss, Peter, paces back and forth in the corner, gaunt in a suit jacket with his white, thinning hair and spectacles. He speaks quietly, urgently into a cell phone. The skin around his right eye is raised, red fading to black and blue. He glances furtively at Charles, who is now muttering to himself and emptying several drawers’ worth of files at his feet. Charles rips one sheet after the other, sinking down to his knees among a mountain of shredded paper.
A security guard bursts through the double doors and then slows, taking in the destruction around him. He turns his head to his shoulder, presses the button on his walkie-talkie and radios for backup. The guard approaches Charles, gently touches his shoulder. Charl
es flinches, turns to look at the guard. His glasses are chipped and smudged, his eyes clouded over.
FOR THE FIRST TIME I THINK THAT MAYBE THIS REALLY IS me. I feel more like this Charles from my memories than I ever have before.
“Charles, is that you?”
I’m standing in the same room as in the memory, a central corridor with an antiseptic feeling opening onto offices and labs, the mirrored windows lining the passageway giving a constant, uncomfortable awareness of oneself. Anything that I may have damaged has been neatly repaired, with all hints of past destruction tucked behind and beneath the flawless tables and carpets. If previously there were water tanks against the walls, they have since been moved, with only the slightest discoloration of the wallpaper giving any suggestion of their prior existence. There’s a marble countertop with coffee, tea, and pastries in one corner, a water cooler, several leather couches and a table with magazines and newspapers.
I blink. There is no carpet, no stain left. Hardwood floors have replaced the carpet. The room looks like a doctor’s office, anything dangerous long since removed and locked away. I still feel shaken by the last memory. I wonder what exactly caused such distress. I wonder if it had something to do with Julie and Jess, if it had something to do with my absence as well.
Peter stands before me, holding a clipboard in one hand, a pen in the other. He’s lanky with a beakish nose and small bird eyes, his limbs too long and angular for his body, like stalks of wheat. His white shirt is pressed and starched, his thick, black-framed glasses without a smudge, his pants perfectly creased, his shoes recently shined. His eyes linger. I would expect Peter to seem more surprised, perhaps taken aback at my unexpected appearance. Instead, he takes me in with a studied expression, with the sort of calm a physician maintains for even his sickest patients, a calm that is mechanical in a way.
“It’s good to see you back, Charles,” Peter says, extending a hand, and I give it a firm shake. “Shall we get you set up?”
“Um, sure. There’s nothing else I need to do first? I wasn’t expecting, well, it’s been so long—”
“It’s up to you, Charles. Whatever you want.”
“Of course, then. Of course.” I follow Peter as he starts out at a clip down the corridor. I practically have to jog to keep up with him. His shoes against the hardwood are like a metronome to my thoughts, but my mind soon pulls away, diving and swirling. I know that I should consider myself lucky, that I should accept the status quo, but I want to know more, so badly that the questions blister like heartburn deep in my chest. Peter stops to take a key out of his pocket and before I can help it, the words spill out of me.
“Peter, what happened to me? I’ve been gone, haven’t I, about six months or so?”
“It’s all been taken care of, Charles.”
“But, you know what happened to me? Where I’ve been? Because I don’t remember. I know I shouldn’t tell you this, but I don’t remember at all.”
Peter unlocks the door. He pauses to give me a bemused half smile. “Come in. I’d be more than happy to explain.”
My office looks more like an aquarium than anything else. The white walls reflect a blue luminescence as fluorescent bulbs light up the tanks, enormous tanks of water that extend from the floor to the ceiling on three out of the four sides of the room. Each of the tanks is subdivided into sections, and in each section there’s a colony of jellyfish floating around. The bell and tendrils of the jellyfish are translucent, and inside each of the bells is a radiant red bulb held within a gelatinous tube. The only other light in the room is the glow of the computer screens. They are mounted on top of an enormous black printer and line the fourth wall. I reach my fingers up to the glass, imagining if I could touch one of the swaying jellyfish, what it would feel like. Peter flips on the rest of the overhead lights and the room feels less eerie, less supernatural.
“Turritopsis dohrnii. The immortal jellyfish,” Peter says. I realize that I already know this somehow.
“The only known case of a metazoan that’s capable of reverting completely to a sexually immature state after having reached sexual maturity. Cell transdifferentiation—the jellyfish can alter the differentiated state of a cell and transform it into a new cell,” I say. I retrieve the knowledge from some far-off niche in my brain.
“That’s right.” Peter nods. He studies me again. I feel like a lab specimen. I sit down on one of the metal benches by the tanks and wonder what it’s like to be a jellyfish, if they ever wish they were more anchored. Peter sits down across from me, his feet rooted against the floor.
“You had a brain aneurysm, Charles. The blood vessel ruptured and you nearly died. You were in and out of consciousness for about a month and then spent the next several months in the hospital for rehabilitation. The doctors said that you would continue to have some issues with your episodic memory but that it will eventually return. I apologize for not staying with you the night I drove you home. I thought that you might enjoy some privacy.” Peter puts a hand on my shoulder, in a gesture that seems more artificial than genuine.
“And the old man who’s living with me? Do you know who he is?”
Peter’s eyes twitch upward for a moment, as if he’s trying to decide what to say. “I didn’t meet him. I would imagine a relative of some sort?”
Some gut instinct tells me that Peter is lying, either in whole or in part, but I have no idea why. I decide not to press him. I don’t want to ruin this.
“And you’re okay with this? With me working in the lab? I’m clearly not the person I used to be,” I say.
Peter smiles. “I would have you no other way than you are. You’re brilliant, Charles, beyond brilliant. Just look around you if you’re unsure.” The minimal wall space around the computers is covered with degrees and certificates, detailing and confirming my accomplishments.
“And if you can figure out a way to make our stem cells transdifferentiate,” Peter continues, “well, there would be almost no limit to our ability to renew dead or damaged tissue and organs in humans.”
I raise my hand to one of the awards, a certificate pressed in a frame, and when my fingertips touch the cool glass, a tingling sensation spreads through my arms and legs.
February 6, 2001
Age Twenty-Three
Charles stands before a crowded auditorium. His face is still too young for his age, his cheeks too rosy, his glasses too big. He looks like a teenage boy wearing his father’s suit, without the clownishness of a child but lacking the bulkier body to fill out the shoulders and waist. His hair is shorter now, trimmed, an attempt at adulthood.
Charles should be smiling. Applause echoes through the auditorium as if millions of little girls are tap dancing. Another man with deep wrinkles and a fleshy neck stands next to Charles, shaking his hand as he gives him a framed certificate and a gold medal. The certificate is made out to Charles Lang, in recognition of his achievements in genetics and molecular biology. The man then takes a sheath of notes from his breast pocket, begins to speak. But the speech sounds garbled to Charles. He cannot focus on the man, the words. He cannot focus on anybody but Julie, Julie who he has not spoken to in four years, Julie who he imagines sitting in the front row of the audience, cheering and applauding. This moment should mean everything to Charles. He’s the youngest researcher to have ever received such an award. The award guarantees success, security, wealth, and a place in history as one of the most influential scientists of the twenty-first century.
Yet Charles can think of nothing besides Julie’s dark, flowing hair and silky skin. He feels an emotion for her that is beyond attraction, something that is caring and sweetness and longing and thirst, a desire for his chest to always be against hers and for his arms to be around her sturdy shoulders. And as the man garbles on behind him, voice booming, arms gesticulating, Charles realizes that he is in love with Julie, and that nothing else in the world can compare. After all this time, after all these years, he cannot believe he has never told her this before.
>
“CHARLES?” PETER SAYS, AND I GLANCE UP, CATCHING my reflection in Peter’s glasses. My eyes are pink around the edges, dark circles underneath. Four years? Why would I have gone so long without talking to Julie? Did we have a falling out somewhere along the way?
“Charles?”
“Mmm?”
“How does it all feel?”
“I don’t know. Exciting. Overwhelming. And what happens if I can’t replicate this cell transdifferentiation? What then?”
Peter folds his fingers together.
“Do you know when the vaccine was invented?” he asks.
“Of course.” I don’t actually know.
Peter paces around the office and then looks up. As he speaks, his voice is detached, barren, as if he’s reciting from a grocery list.
“You know, there was originally a great deal of tension regarding my takeover of the company and my active involvement in your research projects. I won’t say who in particular opposed it, but several of the scientists here thought I was completely over my head with my background in scientific history and consulting, that I should leave the research part to the ‘actual’ scientists. They thought all I was good for was the funding, nothing more.
“But none of them knew who invented the vaccine, British physician and scientist Edward Jenner. On May 14, 1796, Jenner’s patient, James Phipps, received the first smallpox inoculation, an inoculation that would go on to save millions of lives.” The name Jenner sounds familiar.
“But Jenner was only able to make such a discovery because of the scientific and historical stepping stones that came before him. He couldn’t have developed his vaccine if it weren’t for Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in the early 1700s, who demonstrated to the British that variolation, or deliberately infecting healthy individuals with small amounts of smallpox, could make these individuals immune to the disease later in life. And before Lady Montagu was ever born, the Chinese and the Indians had been practicing approximations of variolation for nearly two thousand years.”
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