My Soul to Keep Part 28

The desk and rolling green chair looked old to Jessica, like furniture from the 1950s. Her sister's desk was beneath a mound of textbooks and paperwork, but there were small touches of sentimentality: In a corner, she kept a picture of Jessica's family taken when Kira was three. Alex also had a black-and-white photograph of their mother, from when Bea was Jessica's age or younger. In it, longhaired Bea was a different person.

Alex swallowed the last of a Diet c.o.ke and threw the can into her trash bin with a spinning clank. She pulled off her gloves, throwing them away also, then rubbed her eyes hard with her palms. "Lord have mercy ... I am so beat," she said.

Jessica sat across from her sister, stiff with curiosity. At first, Alex wouldn't meet her eyes. When she did, her bleary gaze was heavy with unspoken questions.

David's secrets, Jessica decided, must be in his blood.

"It's miracle blood," Jessica explained softly, unprompted.

Alex nodded so slightly that her head barely moved. "Yes," she said in a voice equally soft. "That's exactly what it is."

Jessica clasped her fingers together. "You've never seen anything like it."

"No," Alex said. "And that doesn't surprise you, I see."

"I suspected. I didn't know," she said. "What's in it?"

Alex sighed, pulling open a folder on her desk. She gazed at her notes a moment, then shook her head, overwhelmed. "If you were another hematologist, I could sit here and talk to you about it all night long. There's just so much. I don't even know.... Well, I'll start at the beginning and try to make it simple. We have a machine called a Coulter counter, which basically takes a blood sample and counts the red and white cells. The red-cell count was normal, about five million. Nothing strange there. Then I saw the white-cell count."

"White cells fight disease," Jessica said, feeling her body awakening with both dread and exhilaration.

"Right," Alex said, briefly meeting her gaze again. "I'm talking about crazy. The counter threw some figure at me that almost made me fall off the stool. An impossible number. Normally, you see fewer than ten thousand white cells-this number was in the millions, Jessica.

"I thought, well, this has to be off. Usually, when you see an elevated count-not that elevated, mind you-it's because the body is fighting off an infection. So I started to wonder what in Heaven's name this person could have. I did a blood smear to look at the sample under a microscope for myself. Of course, what I found didn't look like any d.a.m.n blood cells I've ever seen before. Normal white cells are very flat, discs almost. These looked healthy, but they're much smaller and attached in threes. Like a Mickey Mouse head, if you can picture that. So I'm pulling out my books, checking out this shape, and I still can't find them. There's no record of them. Then, I noticed something else ..."

"What?" Jessica asked, her mouth as parched as straw.

"These smears I took, these samples, don't clot. The blood is always fluid. I pulled the tube out of the refrigerator, where I was storing it, and the d.a.m.n thing was ..."

"It was warm," Jessica said. "The tube was cold at the top, but the blood was still warm."

Alex gave Jessica the another hard gaze. "Be up front with me. Where'd you get this blood? What is it?"

Jessica shook her head. "Don't ask me that, Alex. I can't tell you."

"Maybe you don't understand what we have in our hands," Alex said sternly, leaning closer to her.

Jessica remembered David in the bathtub, thras.h.i.+ng in the blood. And his vanis.h.i.+ng wound. "Oh, I think I do," she said.

"No, I think you don't. But I'm going to tell you. The big problem with sickle-cell patients is their inability to fight off infection. We have a test called a serum opsonin, which helps us measure the blood's ability to fight off bacteria. You take a patient's serum and incubate it with bacteria. It's sort of a coat to make the bacteria a magnet for white blood cells. Then you add healthy white cells from someone else. The point is to see if the healthy cells can fight the patient's bacteria. That's what I decided to do with this blood you gave me."

"You mean you mixed it up with somebody else's blood?"

"That's exactly what I mean."

Jessica nervously played with her fingers, twining them. By now, she could feel nervous perspiration beading in the s.p.a.ce between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. David had said something about a Ritual to pa.s.s the blood, hadn't he? He never said anything about what would happen if his blood happened to touch another person's.

Suddenly, Alex stood up. "Come out to the lab. I want to show you this part."

There were specimens lined up across a counter in a far corner, near an aluminum double sink, each marked with numbers. The specimens reached from one end of the counter to the other, a dozen in all. Alex walked with Jessica to the far left end, where a slide-sized smear of blood was marked "l/8."

"What I did," Alex said, "was to dilute my patient's blood. That's a normal part of the test. I started at about an eighth of the blood's strength. And I added the blood you gave me at full strength. I call your blood the Supercells.

"The bacteria was gone before I could even slide it under the microscope to take a look. I thought I'd made a mistake, so I did it again. Same thing. Not a trace of the bacteria in the patient's sample. Just Supercells. So I decided to start improvising; I diluted the Supercells to one-eighth of their strength too. Then one-sixteenth. Pow. Same thing. Bacteria's gone."

Jessica surveyed the line of blood samples, her heart thudding as she followed the sequence of numbers: l/32, l/64, 1 /128, l/256, l/512. The numbers grew higher, scrawled in red pencil.

"You understand what I'm getting at?" Alex asked her.

"I think so ..."

"No matter how minuscule the dilution, the Supercells are having a picnic on the bacteria. Just eating it. They're somehow invigorating the patient's serum, and I mean on instant contact. I spent two nights monitoring these samples, testing and retesting. At really small dilutions, it takes much longer to have an effect. Eventually, there's none at all."

"When does it stop working?" Jessica asked, inching down the counter to try to see to the end. Then, she did: 1/4096. So diluted there was hardly any of David's blood at all.

"And this is the effect on someone else's blood? Not just by itself?" she asked, bewildered.

"Jessica, that's what I'm trying to tell you. I mean, I can't even think about what kinds of effects those undiluted Supercells would have when circulating inside a patient. Not a trace of harmful bacteria in the body, that's for sure. No viruses. The immune system would be beyond imagination. And this-the way this blood affects an outside sample-I can't even express the full meaning of this. The Supercells take over. They heal. They take what's weak and make it strong. It's just what you said. Miracle blood. That's exactly what it is."

At the end, her voice was shaking. Alex was speaking in a hush, like an awestruck child. Silently, she waved Jessica back into the tiny adjoining office and closed the door behind them. For a long time, the sisters didn't speak. The fluorescent bulbs buzzed above them, the only sound in the room.

David's blood could heal by itself? Did that mean if Alex gave a sickle-cell patient a transfusion of David's blood, it would wipe out the malady entirely? Would the same be true for other blood disease, like leukemia? My Lord. Or AIDS, even?

Alex, she guessed, was having the same thoughts. Alex was slumped low in her chair, as though all her strength was gone, staring at Jessica. Waiting.

"It's artificial, isn't it?" Alex asked finally. "I've read about work with artificial blood. What is it, some kind of DNA manipulation? Cloning cells?"

Quickly, Jessica shook her head. She stared at the floor.

Alex sighed. "I'm sure you know that if you weren't my sister," she said, "I would have been on the phone by now to every researcher I could think of to find out what this is. I would be flying in a team to prepare a study that would set hematology on its tail, from the AMA Journal to the New England Journal of Medicine. I would be on CNN and the Today show. Make no mistake. You understand where I'm going?"

"Alex ..."

"I'm not talking about fame, if that's what you think. And this has nothing to do with journalistic ethics or whatever you were talking about when you gave me this sample. We're way beyond that. I'm a researcher. It's my life.

"And do you know what hurts me? There are a lot of folks out there who think researchers have discovered all of the cures for these diseases we have, from AIDS to sickle-cell to you-name-it, but we're just sitting on top of it because it isn't politically expedient or financially viable enough, or bulls.h.i.+t like that. I hear that all the time. Especially from us, because of that Tuskegee experiment with syphilis-a bunch of white doctors letting the brothers suffer on even though they had a cure. Let them die, one by one, just to see how syphilis f.u.c.ks up a human being.

"I've worked with patients who would not have died if a treatment using these Supercells had been available. And the minute you put this sample in my hand, you gave me knowledge that could help save lives in ways I haven't even thought of. This is what I'm talking about. And if I have that knowledge and don't act on it, then guess what? What all the folks have been saying is true. Except, this time, they're talking about me."

A tear ran down Alex's face, which otherwise was rigid as stone.

Her chest tight, Jessica clutched her own cheeks with her fingers. Now she knew what people meant when they said their breath was stolen away. The implications of her sister's words were making her world spin again. Jessica wiped away her own tears.

Her voice was faint. "Alex, I know where the blood came from, and it doesn't matter. Even if I told you, it wouldn't change anything. It won't help anybody."

"Of course it would. Our team could meet with them to learn the process to create these Supercells and multiply them. Or we could help them broaden their research, open it up to testing on human patients. Anything would help, Jessica. If you let me know who's directing their research, I wouldn't even tell them where I got the name-"

"Oh, Lord Jesus ..." Jessica said, wringing her hands between her knees as she stared at the floor. She was shaking her head.

"Take your time."

"Alex, it's David's blood."

Alex's face didn't change, as though she hadn't heard. She stared at Jessica, not blinking.

"It's David's blood. It's from his veins. Remember when I told you how his scars heal up? He told me why. He has unusual blood. I found a sample he'd drawn, and ... I just wanted to know what was so unusual about it, I guess."

Without speaking, Alex turned in her chair to stare out the window, where their cars were parked side by side as a uniformed security guard strolled past. Slowly, Alex curled her hand into a fist that was so tight it looked painful.

"I broke my word to my husband by showing you this blood," Jessica said, "and that's on my conscience. It always will be, no matter what. But what you're talking about-the studies and the cameras and the research-he's been running from that his whole life. That's why he never told anyone, not even me. If it were me, Alex, I'd do it. I'd give up my freedom and my life and do whatever it took for doctors to poke holes in me and help people. But that's not our choice to make for him. He's made it. He wants to live his life."

"But ... how is his blood-"

"All he knows is that he never gets sick." The half-truths were the best she could do, and Jessica knew she had said too much already. Too, too much. Jesus help her.

Alex folded her hands on top of her desk and rested her cheek there, as though her bones had collapsed. Her red, weary eyes faced Jessica. There was nothing in those eyes. "Okay," Alex said tonelessly.

"Okay what?"

"Take the blood back. Get rid of it. Take it away."

It took Jessica a few seconds to absorb what Alex had said. She meant to sweep it away, pretend it never happened.

"You can live with knowing about it, Alex? And that's all?"

"I don't know," Alex said in the same dead voice. "Guess I'll find out, won't I?"

Jessica watched Alex pour what blood remained in David's test tube down the sink, and she washed it away with a powerful stream of water. She gathered her slides together and dropped them into a McDonald's bag someone had left from lunch. She gave the bag to Jessica, who tossed it into a looming, empty garbage bin in the parking lot as they walked outside.

Jessica saw her sister gazing back at the bin, shoving her hands into the pockets of her lab coat. She wondered if Alex was just in shock, the way Jessica had felt when David told her the truth. Or, maybe she was thinking about all of her empty hours of research ahead, when she would always know she'd had the answer right in her hands. Now, Alex would be a hypocrite. Jessica realized she was going to cause her sister pain that she would never fully understand.

The security guard was reading a paperback in the light of his own car parked at the curb, and Jessica was glad he was nearby. Alex waved at him, and the guard waved back.

"I guess this is why you all are leaving," Alex said in the van's window after Jessica closed her door.

"Mostly. Yes," Jessica said. "He doesn't feel safe here anymore. The tree episode was a close call for him. If he ever went to a hospital ..."

"Last I checked, there were hospitals in Senegal too." Alex's eyes glimmered.

"I know. He just needs to live somewhere we aren't known."

"I'm not going to lose you, am I? You better not go off without a trace or anything. Please don't do that."

Jessica squeezed her sister's hand. "Oh, no, Alex. Never. You'll hear from me. You always will."

Alex smiled at her in the darkness. "I feel like a fool tonight," she said.

"Why?"

"Because these past two days, staring at those slides, I was here thinking this was something to do with man. All those years of medical school, all that studying, I looked under that microscope tonight and thought I was witnessing the work of man. I should have recognized G.o.d's work right away."

Jessica nodded. G.o.d's work. That was it exactly.

"Keep G.o.d close to him," Alex said. "One day, when David is ready, he'll do the work he was born to do. You're right. It's not up to me or you to tell him when. But when that time comes, I'll be ready too."

Jessica felt wholly relieved at her sister's levelheadedness. Alex was really something else. Maybe it was right that she'd brought David's blood to her; now, she wasn't isolated. She needed her sister's friends.h.i.+p.

"It's not an accident I married him, is it?"

"No. Nothing is an accident, little sister," Alex said. "Not a thing in this world."

She leaned over into the window, and the sisters hugged for a long time.

40.

Alexis Jacobs felt at peace. Lord knew she deserved it.

The lunacy of the past two days, from her racing heart to her adrenaline rushes, had served their purpose. She didn't have to spend any more hours mulling, wondering, obsessing. Now, she realized, she could rest her muddled mind for a while. Just relax.

Amazing as it was, she'd somehow put David's blood out of her mind-at least from a clinical standpoint. She'd have plenty of time to pore over the notes she'd made to reinforce what she'd known all along, that there was hope; there were answers.

Tonight, waiting for the elevator's slow climb up to her apartment, Alex was thinking about her sister. What was she in for now? She'd been moved to see the glow in Jessica's face, the way she was embracing a real-life miracle, ready to march with it. If only it weren't about David, yet again. Miracle blood. David could have two heads and be a charter member of the Ku Klux Klan, and it wouldn't matter to Jessica. Alex didn't know why, but Jessica had always been determined to hold on to him no matter what. And Alex had always tried to do her sisterly duty, questioning her at every turn: Didn't you jump in bed with him too fast? (h.e.l.l, seemingly overnight, Jessica had gone from gus.h.i.+ng about her first date with him to gus.h.i.+ng about how great he was in the sack.) What do you mean he won't get an AIDS test? (Alex had never forgiven David for that; though now, of course, she could see why he'd refused.) Isn't twenty-one a little young to be getting married? Hadn't you planned to wait longer to start having children? Jessica, don't you think you've let yourself get too wrapped up in what he wants?

Jessica had always had an answer, an explanation, an excuse.

It was like Jessica didn't feel whole without that man. Sometimes, from the way she interrogated Alex about her love life, Alex got the feeling her sister thought being single was some kind of curse. She never seemed to believe her when she said she was just fine, that she liked living alone. How else, except through being alone for a while, could you ever discover who you really are?

But Jessica didn't get it. And now what? Was David finally going to overshadow her entire life, taking her on some quest to protect his bizarre physiological secrets?

Alex was worried about her sister. But she wouldn't think about it anymore, not tonight. Tonight, she just wanted to sleep.

Alex expected her two cats, Sula and Zoe, to trip her at the door because she was so late and hadn't fed them since morning. But when she let herself into her apartment, the cats weren't in sight. She dropped her briefcase on the black-and-white checkerboard floor and locked her deadbolt.

Her apartment, in an eight-story Art Deco building on South Miami Beach, was furnished entirely in black and white, from the black leather couches to her zebra-pattern beanbag chair. Even Sula's coloring was black and white, and Zoe was pure black. When Alex's attorney friend, Kendrick, visited her, he tried to tell her she was psychotic for decorating her apartment to match her cats.

"Sula? Zoe? Mommy's home, guys," Alex called, shaking their box of cat food in the kitchen. Still not so much as a h.e.l.lo.

It was nearly one A.M. Maybe they'd reported her to the ASPCA and moved to a new home, she mused. Fine with her. She could save some money on kitty litter and cat food.

The light was blinking on the white answering machine on her kitchen counter. She pushed the b.u.t.ton to rewind the tape and let it play while she poured food into her cats' empty dishes.