by D. J. Palmer
“I’ve been unfair,” he said, his voice raspy from drink. “I’ve judged you, harshly at times, over Meghan, for thinking that you’re the reason she can’t get well.”
This was not exactly breaking news. Carl had made his position clear. If Becky just backed off, pushed Meghan a bit harder, did not hover and worry so much, stopped trying all sorts of new treatments and doctors, their daughter would eventually get well.
At first, he’d been a champion runner, going stride for stride with Becky as they chased down answers. But as the pace and length of this particular race endured, Carl’s stamina faded and eventually gave out. Now he’s apologizing? Why? He had good reason to doubt her—Becky had plenty of experience faking an illness. Her mother was an expert at it, using deception to get her disability benefits. Cora’s face flashed in Becky’s mind, but faded as she focused on Carl.
“I’ve left you alone in this fight, and that’s not fair. So for the past few weeks, I’ve been online myself, doing a lot of research, looking for solutions, and I think I may have found one.”
“How?” Becky found it difficult to believe Carl had discovered a rock she’d yet to turn over.
“We’ve seen a dozen doctors at least, but all of them have focused on their specialty,” Carl said. “So if they don’t see her issues fitting into their respective boxes, they can’t see the problem properly. I just focused on the symptoms.”
Becky almost laughed. She had been living with Meghan’s health crisis for years. Did Carl think she hadn’t already plugged their daughter’s symptoms into Google, hadn’t scoured WebMD, didn’t have a warrior army of virtual friends doing the same elsewhere on her behalf?
“You don’t think I’ve done that?” she asked, trying not to sound too annoyed.
“Well, I didn’t get anywhere. If anything, it made me appreciate what you’re going through. The internet is pretty overwhelming.
“So, I reached out to a doctor friend of mine whose home I renovated. He thinks outside his specialty, and wondered if it could be mitochondrial disease.”
Becky squinted, as if that would squeeze out a bit of recognition. For all her scouring and searching, Carl had managed to dig up a disease that was entirely new to her.
“It’s more commonly called ‘mito,’ and it’s very difficult to diagnose because it affects each person differently.”
“What is it?” Becky asked.
Turning back to her computer, Becky googled the disease, and quickly found the answer to her question.
Mitochondrial diseases represented failures of the mitochondria, which are found in every cell and create the energy needed to support organ function. When there is a mitochondrial deficiency, there’s less energy in the cell, which causes cells to function incorrectly, even die.
Becky had learned enough medicine to infer what a system meltdown like that could mean for Meghan. It would cause a host of symptoms, depending on how much energy was being depleted from the cells. With so many bodily systems potentially affected, it was easy to see how so many specialists had failed to connect the dots.
“I’ve found a doctor who specializes in this disease that might be able to help us,” Carl said. “He works at White Memorial in Boston.”
Becky was elated.
They had a new doctor to try.
CHAPTER 7
ZACH
The sunshine was bright. Overhead, the cloudless sky was a special hue of cobalt. The air held no humidity. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the trees in the verdant park where Dr. Zachary Fisher sat on a bench with his son, William, at his side.
William scraped the final remnants of his chocolate ice cream from a cup into his mouth. Zach could see big changes in his only child. With each passing day, he was becoming more capable, more independent, and that much closer to moving on with his life.
Zach slid his arm around the back of the bench, but soon enough it was around his boy’s shoulders. William slid over, not too old to snuggle up against his father, still working at that ice cream.
“How’s the knee?”
William extended and retracted his leg with ease. A few hours ago, that would not have been so easy. Baseballs don’t hurt dirt, but they sure can do a number on a kneecap. There were plenty of tears at first, but after an inning on the bench, William was back on the field playing the game he loved. And Zach loved him—his boy, his son, the person who shaped his life and gave it meaning.
Zach had never spent much time with his dad, who owned a hardware store that only partially covered the bills. To manage the income gap, Zach’s father moonlighted as a home inspector, leaving little time for family but plenty of angst as he incessantly pinched pennies. Early in life, Zach had vowed to pick a career that paid well and afforded him plenty of time with his future family.
His choice to follow his heart and not his head into pediatrics—knowing full well the low pay and high demands on his time—had the full-circle inevitability of a Shakespearean prophecy. Zach found himself scraping by as more and more of his money went to insurance companies and taking extra shifts at the hospital to cover the bills. A few years back, Zach ran a semi-successful private practice, but he’d closed it down when it became more economical to take a full-time job at White Memorial in Boston.
Stacy’s income as a teacher was a good supplement, but college was looming, only seven years out, and the 529 plan Zach had intended to infuse with cash would buy half a semester of classes and maybe a few pizzas. Will was a fine baseball player, but the prospects of a scholarship were somewhere on the scale of slim to none.
The sun beat down on their faces, and Zach thought he should apply sunscreen, anticipating Stacy’s questions should Will return home redder than when he left. Even though Zach was the doctor in the family, it was Stacy who paid the closest attention to their son’s health. She was the one who told Zach that something was wrong with Will. It wasn’t like Zach didn’t want to hear it. He was a pediatrician, after all.
Zach saw sick kids all the time. He saw terrible diseases—cancers in children, cystic fibrosis, congenital heart disease, type 1 diabetes, and so many others. His son wasn’t sick like those kids. He had some stomach pains, which of course was normal for an already nervous kid about to start middle school.
Instead of telling his wife she was being unnecessarily anxious, Zach had another doctor look at Will, because everyone knows a parent shouldn’t treat his or her own child. A parent knows the patient too well; knows the little tricks they might employ to get out of some obligation, such as school. A parent would be the first to say an upset stomach was just a case of the nerves. Besides, Stacy would never believe Zach if he told her that nothing was wrong with William. She’d think his need to be right had blinded him to the possibility that he could be wrong.
When Will’s doctor could not find anything medically amiss, Zach figured that would be the end of it, but no. Stacy wasn’t near done. She was certain Will’s ongoing stomach pains were symptomatic of something dire. The medical websites she visited and the mommy blogs she scoured gave her plenty to worry about.
Long before that ground ball had met up with Will’s kneecap, Stacy had begun to point out subtle declines in their son’s motor skills. Perhaps she had gotten Zach thinking. Maybe that’s why he found himself reliving that play in his head, trying to decide if the Will from last year would have gotten his glove down in time to dig out that grounder. Ultimately, Zach decided Stacy was wrong to be so worried.
“What are we going to do now?” Will looked up at his dad with a sweetly earnest expression. Zach’s heart swelled. His love for his son anchored him, though lately, he could feel a tug on the line as Will began to pull away. It was subtle, all normal, minor steps toward independence. There’d be times here or there when Will would rather read alone at night. Or there was the day when Will insisted on making mac and cheese himself, and the first time he rode shotgun. Those moments were gentle reminders that Zach’s time with Will, his time as the guidin
g force in his boy’s life, would soon come to an end.
Zach wanted so desperately to maximize each opportunity that he sometimes put too much pressure on himself to come up with the perfect father–son activities. So what to do today? They could go ride go-karts, but that was a drive. Maybe they’d take a stroll through the Sculpture Park at the DeCordova Museum, but Zach anticipated the groans and complaints, and today—maybe more so because of that injured knee, or maybe because he felt the fingers of time tapping on his shoulder, or maybe because Stacy had him a bit more worried about Will’s health than he cared to admit—he wanted his boy to be completely satisfied with whatever choice they made.
“What do you want to do?” Zach asked, putting it back on Will.
Will gave it some thought while Zach studied his son. He could see traces of himself in the round shape of Will’s eyes and the fullness of his lips, but overall, Will looked far more like Stacy’s son. He was a fair-skinned boy with wispy blond hair. Zach’s complexion was much darker, almost swarthy, and his hair was dark as well, fuller and wavy and with more body than Will’s. If Zach failed to shave for a day, he’d sprout a face full of stubble. Two days and he’d turn into a Chia Pet. While Zach had a round face and dark eyes, Will was blessed with Stacy’s more fragile bone structure and a far sweeter-looking face, perfectly conjoined with his nature.
Will took his time to answer, and when he did, his request somewhat surprised Zach. “I just want to go home and hang out,” he said. “Maybe we can watch a movie or something.”
Zach smiled and ruffled his son’s hair. “Fair enough,” he said, and together they rose.
Being the conscientious child he was, the kind of kid who volunteered for community road-litter pickup, Will tossed his used ice cream cup into the trash basket, took two steps, and then doubled over in pain. Zach let out a gasp and rushed to his son’s side. Will righted himself. Fear boiled in Zach’s gut. In a blink, his son’s coloring had gone from pale to ash, almost gray. The sclera of Will’s eyes were bloodred.
“Dad, what’s wrong with me?”
Zach’s blood thrummed in his ears. He reached for his phone to call 911, but his movements felt languid, oddly constrained, as though he were pushing through molasses.
“Dad … help me…”
To Zach’s horror and utter bewilderment, Will’s skin continued to darken. Zach tried to move, to reach his son, pull him to the ground, shield him from this horror, but he was paralyzed. He did not understand why his arms were immobilized. His legs, too, felt encased in cement and could not move. The scream rising in his throat refused to come out.
Will reached for his father. The gray of his face, ever deeper, made his red eyes that much more pronounced. His son’s stone-colored fingers were fully outstretched, but he could no longer move them, could not close the short distance that separated him from Zach. It was no use. Hard as Zach strained against whatever invisible force held him in place, overpowering him, he could not move a muscle.
Bits of skin flaked off Will’s face and became a fine coating of dust that fell at his feet like gray snow. Zach searched the park for help, but no one was in sight. Were we alone this entire time? Zach could not remember. He did not even remember going from the baseball field to the park. It was as though they had just appeared there. Where did he buy that ice cream? What was happening to them?
“Goodbye, Daddy … I love you … love you…”
Will’s voice sounded like a faint whisper in his ear. Zach tried to move, tried to snap whatever spell held him hostage, but it was no use. The force that kept him paralyzed was too strong to break. Will’s gray face was now covered in strange cracks, his skin brittle like charred paper. What’s happening to him? Whatever it was—some kind of virus, more like a plague—it had overtaken his son.
“Will … Will … Will…”
Zach stretched until he felt his arm snapping, tendons and ligaments approaching the breaking point. Little by little, the cracks in Will’s face began to fade, but the horrifying gray coloring remained. To Zach, Will looked as though he were made entirely of ash, as though someone had gathered up the remnants of a firepit and molded it into the shape of his son’s beautiful face. Will’s neck, his arms and legs, were made of this mysterious substance. Under his clothes, Zach assumed his boy was nothing but ash, like gray flour.
A strong gust of wind blew from the south hard enough to cause the leaves to show their underside. No! thought Zach. I’m not ready to say goodbye! The wind blew through Zach’s hair, ruffling it like the leaves. But as the wind hit Will, it blew him apart. His head was now a billowing cloud of dust; his body an empty shirt and pants that briefly stayed suspended in the air before becoming a heap of fabric on the ground.
Finally, at last, Zach found his scream. It came out as a loud and mournful wail.
His eyes opened wide.
Zach was bathed in sweat, staring up at the ceiling. It took a moment to get oriented, and when he did, a stab of pain hit him as though someone had plunged a knife into his chest. He was at home, in his apartment on Stuart Street in Boston. Stacy was his ex-wife. Will was dead, gone five years now. He had had the nightmare again; the one his shrink had said was caused by guilt that he had not taken Stacy’s worries to heart, not acted sooner.
“I’m the gust of wind,” Zach once told his shrink as they tried to understand the dream that always began in the park and ended with Will turning into nothing. “I’m the wind that blew him away.”
“You couldn’t have known,” his doctor had said. “And besides, from what you’ve told me, you couldn’t have helped.”
It was true, in fact. Zach could not have saved Will. There was no cure for what Will had back then, and there wasn’t a cure now. But doctors often see themselves as all-powerful beings, like lifesaving magicians. Intellectually, Zach knew there was little to nothing he could have done to prevent Will’s death, even if he had listened to Stacy, pushed harder for a diagnosis and treatment. Emotionally, he took the blame nonetheless. In Zach’s mind, it came down to the simple fact that he was the doctor. It was his job to save lives and, in that regard, he had failed his son. For that failure alone, he would dream of ash.
Zach climbed out of bed and stretched his creaky limbs. In the years since Will’s death, Zach had gone from a house to a studio apartment. From his bedroom, he could see into the kitchen, where an automatic coffeemaker had already brewed a pot while Zach was having his heart ripped out—again.
Checking the time on his phone, Zach computed that he had two hours to shower, shave, and get to work. There’d be no breakfast today; probably no food at all. He could never eat on the days when he had the dream. Rubbing his eyes, Zach thought about his workday, something to take his mind off the pain of memory. He reviewed his schedule in his head. A new patient was coming to the office, a girl who might need his help, another chance at a small piece of redemption.
Her name was Meghan Gerard. And if the parents were right, if Zach was her best hope, then poor Meghan was indeed a very, very sick girl.
CHAPTER 8
MEGHAN
Back at the doctor’s office. Again. Lord help me. This was a new doctor, which wasn’t a shocker for me. I get new doctors the way other kids get sneakers. His name is Dr. Zach Fisher, and he was handsome in that TV dad kind of way. He seemed nice enough, but there was something about him I couldn’t quite put my finger on. He was sort of sad, and I was curious why.
I was more anxious with him than with most new doctors, and I thought I knew the reason. Dr. Fisher was someone that my dad had found, not Mom, which, in all honesty, completely blew me away. My father doesn’t try to come up with answers, because he’s already made up his mind that my sickness is all in my head, put there by ideas Mom planted like I’m a garden she’s tending. Or so I thought.
To my amazement, Dad thought I might have some rare disease. I say “rare,” but I don’t know how many people actually have it. I didn’t bother to read about it, because every t
ime I research something new, I’m told that it’s not what I have, and we have to keep looking. I get attached to my prospective diseases the way I might a boyfriend, and when they’re gone I feel a little let down in that back-to-square-one kind of way. So I’m guarded, not diving into any details, not trying to answer any questions but one: Why did my father suddenly think I might actually be sick?
“Tell me how your symptoms began,” the doctor asked.
By this point, Dr. Fisher had already taken my vitals, felt around my body, my throat, my glands—not in a creepy way; in a doctor way. I swear I could have done the job for him. I’ve had it done to me enough times that I have the moves down.
I was wearing a dumb gown—a “johnny,” some call it—which had become my sundress these days. If I took off the gown, the doctor would see my breasts that had gotten smaller and count too many exposed ribs. I could guess he was worried I don’t weigh what I should. I bet he was thinking eating disorder, but he’d be wrong. I don’t have a body image problem. I wasn’t trying to look like those magazine models with raccoon eyes and pipe-cleaner builds. I had an appetite that had decided to go on holiday for reasons yet unknown. But if the doctor needed to see me naked, I’d let him, and I wouldn’t care. That’s one benefit of getting poked and prodded by so many strangers. Your body becomes property to be passed around; you become immune to touch.
I told Dr. Fisher about the first time I felt off, which is how I’ve come to think of my condition. Not “sick,” but “off.” I told him how I never felt deathly ill, but I knew something was very wrong with me. It started at school, I said, when I got my first headache, that’s when the first switch got flipped.
“No, it wasn’t then, sweetheart,” my mother corrected me. “You had a piano lesson, remember? And you had to stop early because your head hurt too much.”