That Elusive Cure

by Lisa C Hinsley

  I woke up in a sweat, knowing exactly why the pod had to remain a secret. There were only three days to go until Sally could be cured. I had to hope that her damaged body survived until then.

  Knowing that I wouldn’t have the result I so desperately wanted, I went to the church anyway. The sun was still only just peeking above the horizon. I’d left Jimmy asleep in bed, and here I was hoping for the impossible.

  The hatch slid open and closed as smoothly as ever. Then the female voice, so familiar that she also visited me in my dreams, spoke.

  “Power restarting. Diagnostics initiating. Pressure in the nanoparticle chamber is 99% and functionality is restored. Nanoparticle density is 90% and not high enough for functionality. Estimated time to recharge nanoparticles is three days. Recommend recharging with MicroHealth nanoparticles. Please contact MicroHealth representative.”

  “No!” I yelled. “That’s not right, you need to be done. I need you to work!”

  Rage boiled inside of me, so hot it burnt my cheeks and seemed to almost blind me.

  I ran at the pod, the urge to rip and tear irresistible. At the last moment, some part of me saw sense and I veered away from the pod and ran at the stack of pews to my left instead. I tore at the benches. One near the top came loose and fell my way. It thudded into me and unable to keep my footing, the bench and I collapsed as one, my head bouncing off the floor as I hit. The pew knocked the wind out of me as it crashed on top of me.

  I’m not sure how long I lay on the floor. When I opened my eyes grey snow filled my vision. The back of my head throbbed – that’s what woke me up. I felt carefully and found a tender swollen lump.

  “It’s not fair, she’s dying and I can’t do anything about it.” Tears filled my eyes. “All I want to do is save her. That’s it. Just Sally. I’d give up my last session for her. I would have given up all my sessions for her.”

  The bench was stopping me from breathing properly. I pushed at it, but there seemed to be no strength in my arms and the pew hardly moved. So this was how it was going to end. With me trapped in a church, the only keys in my handbag and a pod right next to me that would have saved me in a couple of days, should I manage to crawl out from under the bench.

  Jesus stared down at me, his face passive.

  “I’m not sure I can go on without Sally. It’ll be my fault if she doesn’t make it.” Tears flowed freely. “I can’t cope, being this close to the magic and unable to use it.”

  The bone-white paint that had been used on His tunic was peeling. The blood dripping from His head had faded to a deep brown. If I got out from under this pew I’d get Him restored. I had to leave the outside of the building unimpressive. That didn’t mean I couldn’t put the inside back to the way it should be.

  I tried to push the pew off my chest again. Somehow I found the strength and shoved it far enough to the side for me to slide out from underneath. Guess my end was not going to be today. After one last check of the back of my head for blood and a quick test to make sure I wasn’t concussed, I locked up and left for the hospital.

  Sally’s skin had begun to turn jaundiced, like a new-born baby. Between the air mattress and the drips, now up to two like the elderly lady in the end bed, and the weight she’d lost since I’d seen her at her house, she appeared like a small child. How long ago was it that we ate cake and laughed? Couldn’t be that long ago. I held her hand, trying not to wake her, and settled into the visitor’s chair.

  I wondered when Wendy would show up. Maybe she’d bring the kids. My heart hurt when I thought about them. Poor kids. First their dad, and now their mother. They were going to be damaged forever.

  The doctor had told Wendy that if she made it five days the chances started to be in her favor again. Today must be the third day, only two to go. I pictured Jesus in my church, concentrated on Him and asked Him to please give Sally a chance. She deserved it. She should get put in the pod, she needed to get better.

  I must have squeezed her hand too hard while concentrating and I woke to find her head turned to the side, her blue eyes gazing at me.

  “Making deals for my life?”

  How did she know? She always did have a knack of reading my thoughts.

  No point hiding the facts. “Yup. Asked God to give you a chance.”

  "And what did your god say?”

  I shrugged. “Well nothing, not yet. We’ll see if you get past day five. Then we’ll have the answer.”

  She chuckled quietly. “Good luck with that.”

  Sally closed her eyes again, dozing while I sat next to her, watching the sun rise in the sky.

  35

  Making a Wish

  “Kath, it’s Wendy.”

  I’d been out in the garden, watering flowers and deadheading when the phone rang.

  “What’s wrong?” Did I really need to ask? Did I want to ask? The answer was no both times, and yet I asked anyway.

  “Sally isn’t well. You should probably come to the hospital.”

  “I’m coming.” Tossing my gardening gloves on the kitchen counter, I shouted into the living room where Jimmy was watching the football. “I’ve got to go to the hospital.”

  He appeared in the doorway as I changed my shoes. “Need me to come?”

  I thought about it for a moment as I laced my trainers. “No, don’t come. If it’s what I think then the room will be full enough. I imagine Wendy’s got the kids there.”

  Jesus, this sucked. Poor Peter and Lucy. I imagined them by the bedside trying to make sense of the shell that had been left behind. And their mother, once such a vibrant woman, now relying on machines to keep her alive. Everything about this was wrong.

  I got onto the ward easily. Seems if a patient was close enough to death then visiting hour rules no longer applied. I’d given up wondering if the pod would have fixed her. With two days to go before the damn machine finished producing stupid nanoparticles, and Sally having apparently run out of time, the entire matter was moot. The whole situation fucking sucked.

  Wendy had Lucy in her arms and Peter stood next to her. As I arrived, Lucy squirmed out of her aunt’s arms and onto the bed. She snuggled up against her mother and was rewarded by a faint smile behind an oxygen mask.

  Wendy looked up as I entered the room. She moved Peter to the other side of the bed. “Why don’t you hold your mum’s hand while I talk to Auntie Kathy, okay?”

  With the two kids flanking their mother, Wendy took me to a day room.

  “It’s not looking good,” she said. Wendy looked so tired, I wondered if she’d slept. “I remember the day Dad passed. Did Sally tell you how he died?”

  I did remember, in far too much detail. But I knew what Wendy needed and shook my head.

  “I found him. He’d done it behind his shed. I was sixteen years old and had come home from a date with this boy called Ronnie. He was my first love. Ronnie from Greasby. He was tall and dark and handsome and he treated me like a princess.” She stared wistfully over my shoulder. “Ronnie had kissed me for the first time and I wanted to tell Dad. Dad and I were close, really close to the point where Mum was jealous of our relationship. Mum was in the house looking after Sally. She was just a baby at the time, not even a year old. I went out to the garden and couldn’t find him in the shed. Then I heard this strange bumping-banging sound coming from behind the shed.”

  She stopped speaking and pressed a damp tissue against her eyes.

  “He’d hanged himself from the apple tree. It was a windy night and the noise was his feet bumping against the shed. Mum had the apple tree cut down a few months afterwards. I cried more after she cut that tree down than after I found Dad. I think the tree had started to represent Dad. I’d go there after school and sit down beside the spot where he’d died and talk to him.”

  I took Wendy’s hands, squeezing them gently. Sal had told me their dad had hanged himself, but I’m not sure even she’d known that Wendy found him. All these years Sal had been angry at Wendy and her mothering when really it s
eemed what she was doing was trying to protect her little sister.

  “What’s going to happen to those children?” Wendy asked me. “She wants you to have them, you know.”

  I did know. There was a will detailing the arrangements and what little money Sal had was to be used to raise them. When Cass was little she’d been named as guardian. When Peter and then Lucy were born, I’d been named as theirs.

  “I don’t want to lose them. They’re all the family I’ve got.”

  “You think they should live with you instead?”

  “I think that we should honor her wishes.” She patted my hands.

  “Wendy, I realize there was something going on between you and Sal that I don’t really understand. But I’ve seen you with the kids. There is nothing wrong with your mothering instincts.”

  “You’re kind, Kath. You know what you’re doing and you’re young. I’m nearly sixty. Looking after the children has near enough killed me these past few weeks. What I brought you in here to say was that she wants to make sure you’ll have the children. Don’t argue with her. These are her last moments. I want them to be as happy as possible, if not for her, then for the children. They will never forget these moments, not for the rest of their lives.”

  I nodded.

  “Let’s go back in,” Wendy said.

  We walked back in to the room, hand in hand. Lucy was still snuggled up against her mother. Peter was standing by the window, staring out at the park. Dog walkers were out, and a group of four dogs were bounding around on the grass while the owners stood on the path nearby.

  “Hi Sally,” I said, going around to the far side of the bed.

  I tried to smile at Lucy, but it was so hard. The little girl squeezed her eyes closed and refused to acknowledge me.

  Stroking Sal’s hair, I tried to arrange it so it looked nice. Who wants to die with bed head? I glanced up to see Lucy had found a hair brush. She handed it over to me and I carefully tidied and smoothed her mother’s dark hair under the little girl’s watchful eye.

  The day started to draw to a close. Sometime after lunch I’d sat in a chair on one side of the bed. Wendy was in another chair on the opposite side. Peter had curled up and gone to sleep on the still empty third bed. Lucy lay next to her mother, silent tears wetting her cheeks.

  I thought Sally was asleep, and was surprised when her hand touched my arm. She pulled the mask off her face and smiled at me. “You’ll have the kids when I’m gone.”

  “Of course I will. We agreed.” I stroked her hair finding it hard to look her in the eye.

  “They should call you Mummy Kath. None of this auntie business. They need a mother.”

  I nodded. “Yes, I’ll make sure they do.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice was weak. “I don’t plan on dying tonight. You should all go home and get some rest.”

  Sal fell back into a coma-like sleep. Despite her telling us to go, we stayed until the summer sun gave way to a purple-blue twilight. A star appeared and I picked up Lucy and went to the window.

  “See that? You can make a wish on the first star that appears each night, did you know that?”

  Lucy shook her head.

  “If you see it before the other stars appear you have to say a poem to get the wish. Would you like me to teach you so you can make a wish?”

  Lucy nodded and stuck a thumb in her mouth.

  “Okay, here goes. Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.”

  Together we stared at the star.

  “Did you make a wish, Lucy?”

  The little girl nodded.

  “I did as well. Let’s hope our wishes come true.”

  In unison we looked back at Sally. Two more days. I just needed her to survive two more days.

  36

  A Belligerent Scientist

  I went to the machine early Monday. With my mobile in my pocket I both wanted and didn’t want a call from Wendy. My sleep that night had been fitful. I kept dreaming of Sally lying in her hospital bed, the pain uncontrolled. The doctor spoke with Wendy and me before we left Sunday night. He was surprised she’d pulled through as many days as she had. If she got through today the chances of her surviving the overdose began to rise.

  That was why I was here, in the church, at six o’clock in the morning. For a while I didn’t touch the pod. I didn’t want it to say what I knew it would. That it wasn’t fixed and wouldn’t be until tomorrow. More than ever, Sally needed the damn pod to be working.

  I’d made a deal with God and Jesus. I’d asked them to keep Sally going, and they seemed to be keeping up with their side of the deal. I sat on the pew, miraculous machine and religious symbol filling my sight. If I ignored the dust and piles of pews, the neglect and the lack of love the church had suffered from for goodness knows how long, I could see the way the church interior would be after I was done repairing it. No more peeling paint on Jesus. The red velvet replaced where you kneeled. The altar refurbished. To be honest I couldn’t remember ever being in a church other than for births, deaths and marriages so wasn’t entirely sure what needed to be done, or even what was missing.

  Finally I got up and went to the back of the machine. I opened the hatch, waited a few seconds and then closed it.

  The machine spoke, the voice seeming louder than ever in the quiet church. “Power restarting. Diagnostics initiating. Pressure in the nanoparticle chamber is 99% and functionality is restored. Nanoparticle density is 97% and not high enough for functionality. Estimated time to recharge nanoparticles is one day. Recommend recharging with MicroHealth nanoparticles. Please contact MicroHealth representative.”

  “No. You’re wrong.”

  I opened and closed the hatch again.

  The machine repeated its diagnosis. Still one day to go.

  I opened and closed the hatch a third time.

  The voice told me the same information. 97% full of nanoparticles. One day to recharge. Stupid machine.

  I opened and slammed the hatch closed.

  The words repeated.

  “No! Tell me something different!” I shouted and opened and slammed the hatch closed.

  The same words. I had them memorized. I could say them along with the woman.

  “Be fixed!” I yelled and opened and slammed the hatch again.

  On some level, I knew I was being as stupid as Jimmy when he’d had a yank at the pipe inside the machine. I was going to break something and then I’d be back to who knows how long until the stupid functionality was restored. I backed off, coming to rest against an askew pew. Tears didn’t flood down my cheeks, even though I felt like they should be. Sally was in the hospital and her life seemed to be hanging from the proverbial thread. I could almost picture it, a golden thread wrapped around her heart and connecting her to the heavens. When would it snap? Today? Tomorrow? Or would that golden thread somehow give her years?

  I pulled my phone from my pocket and rang the ward. As ever the phone at the other end took ages before someone picked up.

  “Hello, I was wondering if someone could give me some information about Sally Jones.”

  “Yes, I can help. Who are you?”

  “I’m Kathy Wyatt… um… one of her sisters,” I said remembering what Wendy had told me. “How is she today?”

  “Just a minute, let me find her chart.”

  I hung on while the nurse searched for the information. The shifts changed around this time, so I guessed she was fresh on for the day shift.

  “Sally is still critical, but no worse through the night.”

  “Does that mean she’s beating this?” Without thinking I crossed my fingers.

  “It’s too soon to say that, sorry.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” I hung up and sat on the floor a while longer, until my bottom went numb and my stomach let out a rumble that reminded me that I needed to eat. Nine o’clock had come and gone. Jimmy would be up by now, working in his study and wondering where I was.r />
  I made my way home, and found Jimmy in the kitchen making scrambled eggs for breakfast.

  “I had a thought while you were gone,” he said as I walked in. “Maybe Newland had machines set up all over the country, and all of them are now being looked after by the current user, just like you? It would explain how you hear about spontaneous remissions. Maybe they’re all using pods?”

  “Seriously? With everything going on right now, that’s what you think about?” I accepted the cup of tea he gave me and sat at the kitchen table.

  He shrugged.

  “I hadn’t thought of that, but kind of makes sense, I suppose.”

  The phone rang and I froze. Bad news, good news? I picked up and with Jimmy keeping an unwavering eye on me said, “Hello?”

  “It’s me, Bob. Look I have a bit of an emergency. I need some more of those nanoparticles today. I can be there just after lunch and you can take me to the pod. Do all your cloak and dagger stuff and blindfold me if it makes you feel any better.”

  “Bob?” I’d all but forgotten about him. “Sorry Bob, but you can’t have any more particles.”

  “It recharges, of course I can. I need them for my research. I made a breakthrough last night, but need a fresh supply. The vial Jimmy gave me wasn’t very pure. I think that’s where I’ve been having problems. I can draw a concentrated sample using lab equipment. Don’t worry, the machine won’t be harmed.”

  “Now’s not the time, Bob. Call back in a week.”

  “I don’t have a week. You don’t understand, I’m on the cusp of figuring out the beauty. I need more to work with.”

  “No, Bob. You’re not understanding me. Not right now.”