This piece (like a lot of my work), was written
while I worked at
--------------------------------------------------
Reciprocal
Measure
by
F.
Alexander Brejcha
©2006
"...and what about Dr. Desmond's white count and
hemoglobin?" Doctor Bryce asked my surgical intern, winking at me because
he knew me well enough to suspect that I had checked it already.
Sanderson didn't notice, and she squinted at my chart a moment before
looking up at him with a satisfied nod:
"Her values are normal at seven thousand and thirteen." Then she slid the heavy folder back to Dave
so he could countersign it. Print-outs
from well over a week of critical lab tests and exams, as well as doctors' and
nurses' notes, strained the blue binder on my wheeled bedside table to the
bursting point and he closed it with a dramatic thud after scribbling a
stereotypically incomprehensible signature next to his last orders.
Then he bent down to give me a very unprofessional -- and very welcome
-- kiss on the cheek. His brown eyes
smiled warmly along with his mouth as he squeezed my hand.
"I'll
stop by around dinner-time, Selena.
After I finish surgery and rounds.
And I promise to bring you something utterly sinful for dessert that
dietary would never provide you with so soon after surgery."
"Something chocolate," I prompted hopefully.
"One of the main food groups.
You got it." He grinned and
ignored Sanderson's frown. "Relax,
she's doing fine! Keeping up our
patients' spirits is part of the job.
And my definite pleasure," he reassured me.
Sanderson shook her head as Bryce breezed out with a wave. Then she sighed and turned to me with a
practiced 'woman-to-woman' smile that wavered a bit in embarrassment since she
was an intern and even though I was her patient at the moment, I was a fourth
year resident and technically her senior.
"I see you have him well trained," she observed.
"Well, even if we rarely see each other since I'm in medicine,
I've known him for over a year." I
glanced down at my I.V.-laden arm and surgical dressings and chuckled. "And considering he sliced me open to replace
my heart, he's seen me at my worst. And
I'm still no prize! If that doesn't deter
him, I think I owe him some consideration.
But give me the full report... what I haven't figured out already."
"Well, he was right.
You're doing fine, and we'll move you to step-down tomorrow. The transplant went well of course, but as we
had discussed, we have to keep a careful eye on you since rejection is always a
potential problem, even with the Zenapax trial your dad pushed through to
supplement the regular anti-rejection protocol.
Of course, it helps that the heart we obtained was a perfect match ‑‑"
"Obtained from where?" I asked feeling suddenly uneasy as I
saw the way her eyes skipped away from me.
"It was from an overseas donor," she answered quickly
abruptly glancing at her watch.
"Oh, it's getting late. I have
to finish my rounds. I'll see you this
afternoon."
Then she fled. It was the only
way I could characterize her hurried departure as she left me alone in the
monitor-filled intensive care room. I
looked around helplessly, angry about being tied down like this. On the other hand, I was lucky to be alive.
Cold and flu-like symptoms weeks earlier had escalated rapidly to
major shortness of breath, chest and shoulder pain, and I had not liked the
friction rub sounds I had heard when applying my stethoscope to myself. Developing fevers and other problems had
finally landed me in the hospital as a patient, where T-waves on my EKG and
other test results had confirmed my worried self-diagnosis of a viral
myocarditis.
Treatments had not helped and my worsening condition had finally led
to the only decision possible: I needed
a heart transplant.
Given that I was the rarest blood type of A/B Negative and a difficult
tissue match -- and considering the size of the waiting list for heart donors
-- I had been amazed by the fact that a compatible organ had been found in a
matter of days. Even considering who my
father was, I had resigned myself to death.
There should not have been any chance of finding a compatible heart in
time.
Having a father who was the
C.E.O. of the hospital system had led to perks not usually given to the average
patient, but at first I had been secretly -- and perversely -- pleased to see
him helpless to do anything for me, given how he was always the "man in
charge".
All my life he had been frustrating me by always pushing, directing,
and helping me whether I wanted it or not.
First he had sent me to the right prep school, and to a top pre-med
program followed by an easy admission to a top medical school. A good internship and residency program had
been a natural after that. But it had
been aggravating because as much as I knew I had advanced on my own merit, he
had always been there behind the scenes to ease my way -- starting after my
mother had died the day before my twelfth birthday. Killed in a traffic accident during a snow
storm.
It had made my life a living hell because I had always been forced to
work twice as hard as everyone else to prove to my peers that I was capable on
my own -- not just because my father was helping me.
And then I had thought that my all-powerful father was finally as
helpless as any other man with a sick offspring.
But I should have known better, because somehow he had tracked down a
compatible heart in record time.
Fighting waves of dizziness and nausea, I levered myself up to try to
reach the rolling table with my chart so teasingly nearby. Even if everything in there was on the
hospital computer system, the anachronistic paper counterparts refused to die
-- which was fortunate since even though I had a password, I would never have
been able to get to the terminal in the corner.
But finally I managed to snag an edge of the table to pull it closer,
until a momentary spasm of coughing shook me and I had to lie back gasping for
several minutes.
The breathing tube had been removed the morning after surgery -- four
days earlier -- but I still had vague
memories of its cold and choking presence in my throat. For a seeming eternity I just lay there,
every sound in the room seemingly amplified:
the regular and mechanical susurration of the I.V. machine; the
protesting warning beeps of the monitors tracking my heightened pulse and
pressure as I strained myself; and the constant low conversation from the
nursing desk out in the pod -- punctuated by a low laugh from one of the nurses
as someone strayed from the subject of their normal concern. All sounds I had become so accustomed to that
I didn't even hear them anymore -- except for times like this when I was unable
to think of anything else but my status as a patient.
I was so sick of it!
Then the choking sensation passed and I used the bed control to
elevate the head of my bed a bit more so I could reach the chart itself and
slide it into my lap and flip it open.
Wincing from the effort of moving the heavy folder, I leafed through it
scanning for notes about the heart, until I found the familiar crisp and clean
hand-writing of Dr. Harold Desmond -- my father ‑‑ that
directed all inquiries regarding the donor to his office.
A sick twisting stirred in my stomach.
Where had he gotten my new heart?
"Are you all right?"
My nurse-de-jour, Ellen, poked her head in the open door, alerted by the
remote monitors at the unit desk.
Scanning my room monitors alertly, she finally nodded as she saw my EKG
resume a more normal sinus rhythm again as I relaxed. An automatic look of annoyance crossed her
face when she saw the open chart in my lap, but remembering that I was not only
a doctor but one of the senior house staff, she withdrew after a reassuring:
"Just buzz if you need anything".
Feeling a brief moment of normalcy, I kept flipping through the chart
as if it was one of my own patients', and I felt better and better. Everything pointed to a textbook
recovery. In fact, if I had not been who
I was, I would already have been transferred to a stepdown room to free the ICU
bed for someone who needed it more. But
for once, I had to admit, I was happy about the preferential treatment.
But the haunting question kept echoing in my mind: where had my heart come from?
*
* *
¶
Ten days later I was sitting in a wheelchair impatiently waiting for
the escort to wheel me downstairs.
Because of my excellent recovery, I should have been discharged days earlier,
but thanks to my father I had been given more time -- and I was more than ready
to leave. I had had enough of the
hospital and I wanted to go home. Only
Dave Bryce's solicitous attention had made it tolerable.
For my final dinner at the hospital he had even arranged to take off
work and have a catered meal brought in from
But it had been just what I needed.
I had felt nearly normal for the first time in weeks as I had been
able to get properly cleaned up and get my hair done by an outside company who
took care of inpatients, and I had even applied some make-up for the first time
since my admission. Just his wide-eyed
reaction when he had seen me would have made my day, but then the dinner had
arrived and he had chased everyone out and shut the door of the private room I
had been moved to. With the lights
turned down and the door closed, we had been left to enjoy a truly wonderful
and private meal, complete with a linen table cloth, china, and crystal wine
glasses -- and a smuggled-in candle placed near an open window to fool the
smoke detectors.
He had been a soul of propriety all through our delightful meal; only
the promising heat of his kiss as he had said good night hinting of what might
follow in the future.
But all too soon the door had been opened again, and the evidence of
our meal was removed to leave me getting ready for bed to the accompaniment of
beepers and hallway chatter -- a rude reminder of just where I was.
And I could no longer escape the other reason I wanted to get
away. The heaviness I felt in my chest
was not solely a clinical symptom, but rather a reaction to what I had been
able to find out about the origins of my heart.
Dave had been in the operating room, but on approaching the intern,
Sanderson had glanced around and then told me that her sister worked at my
father's office and had heard about my father secretely bringing in a heart for
me. Dave didn't even know.
Then I had called my father's personal assistant, and after some
pressuring, he had told me whose heart I now carried: that of a Chinese political prisoner who had
been executed for "sedition and actions against the state" -- which
might have meant hacking an unrestricted Internet account for all I knew.
As my father had multiple business dealings with
But I was sick over more than having been given the heart of a
political prisoner executed under an unjust legal system; I was increasingly
wondering about the coincidence of one of the executed prisoners having
perfectly fit my exact needs at such a propitious time. I wanted to find out more.
"Hey, Precious!" A
sudden deep bass greeting startled me as I heard the voice of one of the few
people from whom I tolerated the intimacy:
Robert -- my father's chauffeur.
Close to sixty, he had been at the wheel for my father since I had been
a little girl. His formerly red hair had
long since turned silver, but his body was still trim and his reactions were as
sharp as the day he had taken the job, and he kept postponing his retirement
with a cavalier "when I can't do it anymore". I was always happy to see him, even if I
didn't know for sure why he kept a menial job when I knew for a fact that he
was an astute market speculator with an accumulated stock portfolio worth well
into seven digits. My suspicion was that
he was more than just a chauffeur to my father.
But as he reached me, I forgot all that when he bent to gather me up
-- a bit more gingerly than usual -- in his typical encompassing hug that
always did more to reassure me than anything.
I twisted to kiss his smooth cheek and get a whiff of his trademark
"Relax Rob, I'm fine. But
I missed you!"
"And me you, Precious."
He released me carefully.
"Let's get you out of here.
Your condo is just going to have to stay empty a while longer, because
your daddy had one of the guest rooms on the first floor of the house made up
for you so you won't have to climb any stairs for a while..." He stopped and cocked his head to study my
face. "What's wrong?" He knew me better than my father. "That's not just a 'I'm hurting after
surgery look'."
"In the car." I
shivered. Suddenly the sterile rooms and
hallways of the hospital gave me the creeps.
¶
In the car a few minutes later I leaned back and took a deep breath of
the leather scent of the upholstery cradling me in sinful comfort. Finally I felt free! I glanced over at Robert sitting behind the
wheel and I smiled at his rueful look.
"You never did like to sit in the back," he teased.
"Uh uh. I feel guilty
enough about getting picked up in a Mercedes stretch limo. At least riding here I get to be close to
you. I would need an intercom to talk to
you if I sat back there."
Robert grinned and pointed wordlessly to a small microphone and
speaker on the dash. Then he turned
serious.
"All right. Spill it. What's wrong?"
I explained and saw his face darken into a glower and his jaw tighten.
"Have you talked to your father about it?" I shook my head and he sighed. "Do it, Precious. And remember that he loves you. He may have an awkward way of showing it, but
you wouldn't believe how proud of you he is.
He would do anything for you ‑‑"
"-- that's what I'm afraid of!"
That was a conversation-stopper, and the rest of the ride was passed
in awkward silence as we threaded our way through traffic on the
*
* *
¶
The tall man waiting at the top of the stairs could have stepped right
out of a GQ magazine advertisement.
Artificially tanned, clean-shaven and impeccably groomed, he stood six
foot one (even if I knew there were lifts in his shoes) and he wore his
perfectly coiffed silver hair as a crown; and his Rolex watch, custom-tailored
suit and hand-made shoes as his crown jewels and robes. He was "corporate president" and
"stinking-rich middle age male perfection" personified.
Unfortunately, he was about as emotionally accessible as the symbols
he resembled.
"Selena!" My father
-- he had never been 'daddy' or even 'dad' -- called as he waited regally for
me. Heaven forbid he should run down the
stairs to greet his daughter or help her out of the car. That's what he had Robert for. But his tone was admittedly warmer and more
concerned than his usual boardroom propriety allowed.
Fortunately Robert's steadying arm added support as I climbed up
towards him, feeling like I was being granted an audience. I couldn't believe how quickly I was
tiring. Robert saw it though, and he
handed me over a bit pointedly to my father and ran back to the car to unload
the wheelchair and bring it up to me.
Sinking gratefully into the vinyl cradle, I looked up at my father,
hoping against all reasonable expectations for some visible show of real
affection or concern. But of course I
got nothing.
"I've been logging onto the hospital computer and I've been very
happy to see how well everything went," was the extent of his brisk
greeting. "Welcome home. Theresa made up a room for you, and it's
wired in case you want to catch up on your e-mail. I'm afraid I have to run. I have a meeting in
"And if there is anything at all you want or need, Theresa will
get it for you." He turned to
Robert. "I'll take the helicopter
myself. Stay here just in case."
Then he was gone and I soon heard a familiar whining roar from the
heli-pad on the back lawn. This was one
task he usually reserved for himself, even though Robert was a pilot and often
flew the chopper if my father had guests to entertain.
Robert shrugged. "Well,
Precious. I've got my beeper just in
case, but it looks like I have some time off.
Is there anything I can do for you?"
"No." I grinned as I
saw Theresa's matronly bulk materialize in the doorway. "Terry wants to do some mothering, so
go, get into your grubbies and keep working.
But you better let me have the first ride," I warned him. Robert's hobby was the loving restoration of
a 1936 Stutz Bearcat, for which he was painstakingly tracking down parts or
machining replacement ones that were precisely true to factory specs.
"Cross my heart!" He
promised as he gave me a quick hug and then disappeared to leave me wrapped up
in Theresa's softer and wider embrace.
"So I finally get you back again ‑‑"
"For a little while," I warned.
"A few hours, a few days, whatever. I'm just so glad you're here." She smiled.
"I'll take what I can get. I
missed you. The house hasn't been the
same since you left. Without you or your
mother, there's no love here ‑‑"
"Oh?" I teased, glancing towards the garage, laughing as she
blushed. "Is he ever going to make
an honest woman out of you, or are you going to," I lowered my voice
ominously and tried to keep from laughing, "keep living in sin."
Theresa just blushed harder and dramatically raised her left hand to
reveal a gorgeously set diamond gracing her finger. "I will sin no more forever... well,
maybe some, until next week. We wanted
to wait till you were feeling a bit better."
"It's about time!
Congratulations!" My turn to
do the hugging as I tried -- and failed -- to keep from crying. Theresa had been as important to me as my
mother and Robert more paternal than my father while I was growing up. Robert had been married then, but he had lost
his wife to a drunk driver in '92. It
had taken years for him to get over it, but finally he had been ready to accept
Theresa's growing feelings for him, and return them. Their constant loving presence had been the
only thing that had kept me coming back regularly to visit my father.
She grabbed the handles of my wheelchair. "But let's get you settled. I already put your bags away, and you may
want to prepare yourself. There's a
young man coming to visit you... And why
haven't you told me?" she teased as I looked up over my shoulder.
"Dave Bryce?"
"Dr. David Bryce," Theresa corrected with a determined
nod. "Such a handsome man. Just right for a pretty little thing like
you. Maybe you can open a practice
together?"
I felt my face burn as she pushed me over the threshold into the main
hall of the house. "He's a surgeon,
Theresa, and I'm in internal medicine.
Don't go marrying me off just yet.
Right now he's just my doctor..."
I saw her dubious expression and corrected myself. "All right, maybe there might be more
there. We had a wonderful dinner last
night..." I described it, blushing
again as she rolled her eyes.
"...it was quite something," I admitted. "But don't rush me. I'm not making any plans just yet."
"Well, he's not leaving without a good meal," Theresa warned
resolutely. "He'll be here at six,
and I will have dinner ready for you.
Your father is staying overnight in town," she frowned, "and
Rob and I will eat later so you two can have some time to yourselves."
"Six?" I glanced at
my watch and then in the mirror as I was rolled into in the guest room. I got up, feeling silly about having stayed
in the chair.
"Yes, you've got plenty of time to get ready. It's only eleven," Theresa reassured me
with a knowing smile.
"Well, I've got some other stuff to take care of too." I had just spotted the computer in the
corner. My father had been true to his
word when he said my room had been wired.
Not only was it complete with a phone connection and a printer, but it
was my very own computer and desk from my condo. I recognized the adhesive stickers pasted on
in strategic places on the desk, keyboard, monitor and CPU with scribbled
mnemonic shorthand reminders to some of my software commands.
"Are you okay?"
Theresa suddenly looked concerned and I forced myself to smile, not
wanting to go through everything again.
"I'm fine. Just
distracted. I have to catch up on my
e-mail and do some quick research on something." I squeezed her arm. "Really.
I'm fine. And the quicker I get
this done, the quicker I can get ready for one of your home-cooked meals!"
"What they'll let me prepare!" she huffed. "Those dietary guidelines they sent home
with you to follow for a while are horrendous!
I'm not allowed to ‑‑"
I laughed. "I have faith
in you. You'll manage something
delectable even with the restrictions."
"Hmph! Well, I'll
try. And I'll bring you some lunch in a
while." With a last hug she was on
her way, muttering about impossible limitations on her cooking.
As soon as she was gone, I settled down at the computer and booted up
with a sense of relief. I had to give my
father credit. He had known I would be
much more comfortable with my own familiar computer -- I didn't want to think
about how he had gotten it out from my locked, security company-protected
condo. Compared to getting my new heart,
it had to have been child's play. But
with some help from some online sources, maybe I could get a little closer to
the origins of that organ. I felt that
tightness in my chest again and considered the way I was thinking of the heart
in a third person way, as if it was still in someone else's body or in a cooler
jetting its way across an ocean and a continent.
¶
It had taken all day, and as I logged off and flexed my stiff hands I
glanced at the time and realized it was already past five. But the discomfort in my hands was nothing
compared to the near nausea I was feeling from what I had uncovered.
As I had started digging into organs from Chinese political prisoners,
the first thing I had found was the transcript of a 1997 Prime Time Live Show
on ABC. It had estimated that over
10,000 kidneys from political prisoners had been sold on the black market,
potentially yielding tens of millions of dollars to the Chinese military. I had been chilled to read how prisoners had
been prepared for organ extraction by administering anti-coagulants and muscle
relaxants -- before they were precisely executed by a gun shot to the base of
the skull. And these organs had been
openly offered for sale in a Chinese language newspaper in
It wasn't hard to accept that there was a traffic in more than kidneys.
Further exploration had led me to off-shore web sites, some cryptic
and odd, some not, that offered a variety of organs on demand. "Need a liver, a kidney -- or a
heart? We've got them!" On and on I had read mysterious and not-so-mysterious
offers, growing more ill by the moment.
That many of these offers were brazen and open was shocking enough,
but what had really surprised me was the familiar name of one of the companies
offering organs: Tangerine Orchids.
Tangerine Orchids was the name of a company my father had planned on
paper for my mother to market her exotic flower arrangements long before he had
hit the big time -- when I was still a little girl -- but then my mother had
been killed and the company stillborn.
The coincidence was too much, and I had gone on with my search of the
web to track down information on Tangerine Orchids. It had taken a while, but gradually I had
uncovered a tangled maze of holding companies that led -- finally -- to an
import/export company I knew my father owned:
one that imported a whole range of out-sourced medical supplies such as
incontinence and ostomy kits from China.
To add a touch of irony, the company provided humanitarian relief by
delivering needed supplies to be distributed to disadvantaged provinces. And further digging had uncovered that the
company owned a converted supersonic Concorde airplane. Hardly a practical plane to transport relief
goods and boxes of rubber and plastic supplies packaged to last for years.
But a plane like that would be ideal to transport sensitive organs
that had to be transplanted as quickly as possible!
I had kept digging after that -- grateful to an ex-classmate who had
shown me some hacking tricks I thought I had forgotten -- until I had needed
them and they started coming back. I
also still had a file on my drive with various bypass numbers leading right
into assorted interesting mainframes, along with back-door passwords he had
hacked out -- including for the FAA and various air traffic control computers.
With all that, it had not taken long to find out that Tangerine
Orchid's supersonic plane made an average of a flight a week!
I had logged off at that point and made a stumbling run for the
bathroom to throw up the delicious lunch Theresa had made me several hours
earlier, clucking and chiding me for not resting.
I didn't have to be paranoid to figure out what else my father was
importing so regularly among the "medical supplies". This was not just a "concerned father's
last-ditch effort to save his daughter", but a regular thriving business
of bringing in organs for transplant.
Unlike the operation the television show had exposed, he had done them
one better by bringing the organs home and eliminating the need for transplant
recipients to travel to China -- and he had probably expanded his business
considerably beyond kidneys. My own new
heart had probably just been one of many organs brought over for well-heeled
customers looking for replacements without going on a waiting list.
"Honey! You aren't
ready!" Theresa stood in the
doorway shaking her head. "He's here!"
"I'll be there in a minute," I promised as I sat numbly,
still tasting the sourness in my mouth from before that persisted despite
judicious gargling.
For a moment longer, I stared at the long e-mail message I had
composed until with a determined stab I finally clicked "send" and
then shut down the computer. And with a
reluctant sigh, I hit the bathroom again and brushed my teeth so briskly that I
almost thought I'd draw blood, after which I inspected myself critically. There wasn't time to shower and change
clothes, but I scrubbed my face and did a hasty fresh make-up job and brushed
out my hair before deciding that Dave had seen me look a hell of a lot worse
and it was time to face him. I wanted to
tell him about my discovery.
¶
As I entered the living room a bit nervously I found myself walking in
on an uncomfortable tableaux. Robert and
Dave were facing each other tensely, and Theresa stood in the background with a
deliciously steaming casserole dish in her hands and a confused look on her
face. Robert looked close to slugging
Dave, and Dave... I wasn't sure what I saw on his face; other than a trace of
understandable fear and some surprise.
Then all at once I remembered Theresa's admiring comment earlier when
she had told me Dave was coming to dinner:
"Such a handsome man."
How could she have known what he looked like unless he had been here
before visiting my father -- and why would Robert be so hostile if Dave's
visits had just been casual or professional ones.
I swallowed as I felt my hands clench tightly. "Dave." Everyone froze and turned to me as I
asked: "Been to Kennedy to pick up
any imports from
Theresa's confusion was unchanged as she put down the casserole dish
uncertainly, but the tightening of Robert's jaw and Dave's surprised expression
were all the confirmation I needed. I
tried not to collapse as I stepped stiffly into the room to drop into one of
the antique dining room chairs.
"How long?" I asked, closing my eyes a moment. "How long have you been working with my
father to transplant black market organs?"
I speared Dave with my eyes.
"Two years," he answered casually. "But don't make it sound so...
illicit ‑‑"
"Try illegal!" I snapped.
"And immoral!" I
thought again about the one suspicion I would never be able to prove: that my father had paid to hand-pick a
prisoner for execution based more on his blood and tissue compatibility than
his crime. It was an especially
repulsive thought, given that many of these "criminals" were hardly
guilty of capital crimes by our standards.
Dave still looked surprised over my reaction. "It saved your life, you know. All organs we bring in are from legally
convicted and executed..." He
stopped as I snorted.
"Yeah, right. Legally." I didn't know whether to slap him or make
another run for the bathroom. But I
couldn't do either.
"Do me a favor Dave, just leave." I stopped him as he started to protest. "Just leave." I looked down as I remembered our dinner in
my room at the hospital and I felt my eyes burning. I had wanted him so badly at that
moment -- and ever since -- but now the thought of him even touching me made me
sick! The swirling patterns of the brown
and red oriental dining room rug blurred as I sat there gripping the sides of
the chair with an iron grip that threatened to emboss the patterns of the
carved chair in the flesh of my palms.
Finally I heard his reluctant leather-shod steps on the tiled hallway
floor as he headed for the door, escorted by the unmistakable squeak of
Robert's sneakers. Then a warm Tea
Rose-scented embrace enveloped me.
"I'm sorry, baby," Theresa murmured. "I had no idea!"
The sound of the door freed me to look up, to see Robert approach
stiffly. After a long silence he sighed.
"Yes, I knew," he confirmed.
The question had obviously been plain on my face. "I research deaths and arrange for some
paper-work to change to make decedents appear to have been donors -- on
paper. No one ever knows, and lives are
saved every day by our work ‑‑"
"-- and do you know where those organs come from?" I
interrupted angrily, forced to bend my head way back as I got up to grab his
shirt and confront him.
"Like Dave said, they come from prisoners legally executed by
another ‑‑"
"Bullshit!" I pushed
away, unable to speak for a minute.
"Some of them are as good as murdered."
"You're over-reacting, Precious.
I'm sorry you feel this way.
Personally, I just thank God you're alive. If not for your father, you'd be dead
now ‑‑"
"And if not for my father, someone in
I moved closer to Robert and took his hand. "Rob, listen to me. Maybe you don't know it all..."
I pulled him over to sit next to Theresa, and then I explained everything
I had found out during my web-surfing afternoon, happy to see Theresa
blanching. Even Robert looked a little
uncomfortable.
He was just about to say something when the harsh ringing of the phone
slashed through the air. We all jumped,
and Theresa got up stiffly to answer, her eyes growing wide as she listened.
"It's the F.B.I.," she said, turning to me in surprise,
"and they want to talk to you."
She put the call on hold.
Suddenly I remembered the last, betraying, e-mail I had composed in
the heat of discovery and sent to the F.B.I. before I had shut off my
computer. In it I had detailed my
suspicions, along with the corroborating information I had gathered during my
research. In particular, I had listed
the scheduled Tangerine Orchid flight which was due to arrive at Kennedy soon
-- no doubt the reason for my father's overnight "business" trip.
I wasn't sure I had sent it to the right people and I had doubted that
they would get to this week's flight, but I had been sure that soon enough they
would intercept a Tangerine Orchid flight and find a nicely hidden -- and
illegal -- cargo of human organs, and the specially equipped "delivery
trucks" no doubt waiting to move the cargo on to various hospitals my
father's health care system controlled.
But I had not expected such a quick response!
And as Robert looked tensely from the blinking hold light on the phone
to me I felt ill again. I had been so
caught up in the outrage over what my father was doing, that I had totally lost
sight of what punishing him would do to my friends. And I had forgotten my suspicions that Robert
was more than a chauffeur.
But after a long tense silence, he leaned over to kiss Theresa
mechanically. "Something tells me
we're about to become unemployed."
He glanced at his watch and then shrugged resignedly. "And in my case, possibly worse. You told them, I presume?" he asked me
with a reluctant glance at the phone. I
nodded, unable to speak.
"Well," he shrugged, "I knew the ride would end
sometime. That's why I've been playing
the market."
"Rob," I managed to get out as I reached for him
uncertainly. "I didn't mean ‑‑"
"Don't!" he stopped me, drawing away. "What you did, you had to." He shook his head ruefully. "To borrow an expression from my late
mother: 'I'm 21 and vaccinated'. I knew what we were doing wasn't entirely
legal, but I owe your father everything."
He sighed. "Take the
call."
Theresa reached up to hug him.
"We'll get through this, honey." Then she let go of Robert and handed me the
phone, squeezing my hand. "We love
you, sweetie."
But looking at Robert as he pulled a small cell phone out of his
pocket and left the room, I knew I had lost him. Theresa would always love me like her own, I
had no doubt of that, but there would be no more "Precious" from
Robert.
I wanted to rush to him and have him hug me like before, but there was
a distance between us now I was afraid would never be bridged. With a hollow feeling in my stomach, I took the
phone reluctantly, conflicting feelings swirling in me. Still, as I spoke to the F.B.I. agent on the
other end, the pain in my chest that had become a constant companion eased, and
for the first time in days, I felt at peace with my new heart.
-
end -