Part 34 (2/2)
”It's what he wants,” she insisted.
”I know. But my mother wants him near her.”
”He should be in Boulder, looking at the mountains.”
”They think Boulder killed him.”
June looked as if she had been slapped. ”Boulder saved him. He told me, so many times.”
”I know what killed him.”
The service was small; Caleb had not stayed in touch with anyone here, and so Fred and Julie's friends had made up the majority of the guests. They stayed in Issaquah for three days, during which June fielded repet.i.tive questions about Caleb's recent life. Fred and Julie eventually believed her when she explained that Caleb had been happy. If you could have seen him, she told them. But that had been the wrong thing to say.
And then, exhausted and with Nicholas showing symptoms of a cold, they flew back home.
The following morning, with no job to go to, Shane sat on the white couch. He was supposed to be watching the babies play on the rug, but his thoughts were far away. He had told June that he knew what killed Caleb. And it was true. It had been him.
By dangling a drug for Lily like bait, compelling him across mountains and heat, he had forced him to run himself to death.
And for what? Over time, Mack's healing might have begun working on Lily. Once she was old enough to raise her own kinetic energy levels, her body might have corrected itself. And she would have been raised in the Happy Trails Running Club.
She would have begun eating and running like them as soon as she was able. The people in that house might be exhausted, brainwashed into a cult of personality around Mack, might never be senior partners in a law firm, but they never worried about layoffs or what was in their food or what their houses were worth. They knew extreme physical pain, but they were taught to beat it. They were fulfilled and secure. They bathed in a boundless energy, enjoyed a connection to this world that Shane could barely conceive. Was this really something to take a child away from?
And if his drug worked? Then Lily would grow into some version of an American girl. She would not be taught to overcome suffering, but to indulge it. She would ignore the s.h.i.+mmering gra.s.s on her way to school, focused instead on what a cla.s.smate had posted online. She would exchange the power of kinetic energy for the stasis of car seats and couches. Walking along a street she would stare down at her phone, not ahead at the sky.
Had he helped her, or hurt her, by bringing her here, and taking away a man who loved her? What was the truth of that?
He heard Lily's wheezing from the floor, watched the stretching and reaching of her upper body for every breath. The idea of sitting on the vials in the refrigerator was beginning to derange him.
It took some ha.s.sle with the Greenbrae Medical a.s.sociates nurse to get Wenceslas to the phone. He was with a patient, his nurse explained. Finally he got on, sounding concerned. After some prodding, he agreed to stop by on his way home. Shane hung up, but did not move. The day pa.s.sed slowly. There were some e-mails from Brad Whitmore recommending a labor attorney, but he did not act on them.
Shane ordered a dinner that he thought June might eat, vegetarian rolls, brown rice, tofu. He had been wrong; she would not touch any of it except the rice. At seven, the buzzer rang, and he opened the door to Wenceslas Chin.
”Hey, guys.” Wenceslas's voice was a blend of lightheartedness and concern. ”What's going on?”
He stood stout in his black suit and round gla.s.ses, a folded umbrella between his palms. Janelle handed him a peppery s.h.i.+raz and led him to the white sofa. As Shane told him everything, his face grew pale.
”He ran here from Yosemite?”
”Two hundred miles.”
Janelle added, ”Somehow he kept Lily safe the whole time.”
”Who's Lily?”
”He had,” Shane explained softly, ”a baby with him.”
Shane led him to the kitchen, where June was feeding the children. Nicholas sat in his high chair, Lily in the spare. Wenceslas looked at the strawberry blonde girl as she happily held a plastic cup.
”That wheeze, that's what you mean?”
Shane nodded.
Janelle spoke. ”At the hospital they made us see an eye doctor. And they x-rayed her whole body.”
”They were looking for abuse. In many abused babies, retinal hematomas are present. When they're shaken, or hit, damage is sustained behind the eye. The x-rays are to look for previous fractures.”
”They didn't find anything.”
”Why would they?” June asked her, shocked.
Wenceslas gestured to Shane, and they stepped out of the room. ”Tell me about this drug.”
Shane answered his science questions as best as he could. He tried to recall its precise enzymes, described the thrill of being allowed to look through the microscope at raw genetic matter, the building blocks of all. Wenceslas listened to him with a professional impa.s.sivity, but a clearly growing excitement soon revealed itself.
”You did what?” he asked several times.
When Shane was done, Wenceslas stared at him for a full minute.
”So it's in your refrigerator now?”
”Want to see it?”
Shane went back to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, and returned with one of the small vials. Wenceslas held it up to the lamp, as if attempting to divine its calibrations. He shut his eyes for a moment. Then he looked seriously at Shane.
”I can't let you give this to this baby.”
Shane froze. ”Sorry?”
”If you're really planning to administer this, I have to call Social Services.”
”Oh, Wen. Don't.”
”I don't have any idea what's in here.”
”It's been tested. I told you. It might not work, but it won't hurt her. It's safe.”
”They say Tylenol is safe, and it kills babies all the time.”
Shane panicked. ”Let me call Doctor Acharn. Let me just get him on the phone with you. I told him you're coming. He knew you'd have concerns. He can answer your questions. Okay?”
He had his phone in his hand a second later.
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