Henry Franks (19 page)

thirty four

The funeral was larger than he'd expected. Police officers coming to pay their respects, a sizable contingent of journalists following behind local politicians, and numerous strangers coming together as a community after the storm. Relatives of other victims attended; most left without saying a word but some approached, resting a hand on the casket or offering Henry a tentative hug.

He stood with Justine and her parents as William Franks was laid to rest. Bandages still covered Justine's arms, but her fingers were soft and warm and never far away.

As the casket sank into the welcoming earth, Henry looked around, shading his eyes from the sun. September's heat burned down, erasing the memories of the storm despite the broken trees and the blue tarps covering homes that had lost roofs. In the distance, a lone woman leaned against a grave until long after the other mourners had left.

They found her sitting in the freshly turned dirt, facing the space where a tombstone would be someday. The sun was low in the west and his elongated shadow fell across her as Justine's fingers slipped out of his hand.

A twig or two was caught in her hair, the dirty brown strands hanging limply against her shoulders as she rocked back and forth on the ground.

“Mom?” he said, the word soft and quiet in the stillness of the empty cemetery.

Her rocking stopped and her head jerked up. The scar around her neck caught the fading sunlight as she turned to look at him. A smile spread across her face and her eyes, almost a match of his own, glistened, but try as he might, he couldn't remember anything more than what the photos in his scrapbook told him.

“Henry,” she said, the word broken and harsh.

Next to him, Justine wrapped her fingers around his arm and gently pushed him forward. He stumbled with the first step, then ran to close the distance. Christine's arms, wrapped protectively around him, held him in a fierce hug as she whispered his name into his hair.

His mother lifted her head to look at him as the sun set behind them. She rested dirty fingers on either side of his face and smiled. Releasing him, she reached an arm out to Justine and pulled her closer, placing Henry's hand into Justine's with another smile.

“Henry,” his mother said.

Through his tears, he watched as the moon lit her face. She touched the dirt and looked back at Henry. “I'm sorry,” she said, mouthing the words since few sounds would come through her damaged vocal cords.

From behind the fall of his hair, he studied her face, the pale skin and its necklace of scars.

“Remember me,” his mother whispered before dropping to the ground.

“Mom!” Henry said, but she was beyond hearing him. He pulled her up to rest against his shoulder and brushed his hands through her tangled hair. Blood dripped from his nose to land in the dirt of the grave as his mother died in his arms.

In his bedroom, he flipped through the scrapbook without speaking; one picture of his mother, smiling as she looked at him, kept his attention.

“I'm sorry,” Justine said.

“Not your fault.”

“You always say that.” She took his hand. A single photograph, of Henry caught between his parents. On the monitor, another picture, of Henry gaunt and losing his battle with cancer.

“When will you leave?” she asked.

“For Birmingham?”

She nodded but didn't speak.

“Someone from Children's Services stopped by. Not really sure what's going to happen. Besides, what would I say? What would I do? I don't remember anyone.”

“You have friends there,” Justine said.

“I have you, here.” He looked at her and ran his finger down her cheek. A tiny scar was all the evidence remaining on her face of the storm. “I'd rather stay.”

“Henry.”

“Justine,” he said before kissing her, wrapping his arms around her and holding tight. He broke the kiss and looked down at her, so close he could feel her breath warm on his skin. “I'm dying.”

She tried to push him away but he wouldn't let her go.

“Again,” he said, soft and gentle.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Why?” she asked.

“The pills. Look.” He pointed his chin at the desk. A plastic tray rested next to his laptop; over half the compartments were empty.

“Get more,” she said.

“I can't. My father made them. He mixed them himself.”

“Henry.”

“I tore his room apart, trying to find notes, but there was nothing. He must have gotten rid of everything with those old photographs. I'm sorry.”

“Stop saying that.” She squeezed her eyes shut, clutching her fists into his shirt, burying her head into his shoulder.

He could feel her tears soaking through the fabric. She sobbed against him and he rubbed her back, pulling her still closer.

“When?” she said.

He shrugged against her. “Soon? I don't know. Eventually, my body will reject the transplants. I think that's what happened to my mother.”

“You're still you, Henry,” Justine said.

“Am I?” he asked, running a hand through his hair so that it was no longer covering his eyes. “Which part of me is me?”

She kissed him, once, short and fierce. “Did you feel that?”

Henry nodded.

Justine ran her fingers across his face. “Feel that?” she said, so quietly the words were little more than a breath in his ear.

“Yes.”

“Don't give up,” she said. “Don't you dare. There are doctors; they'll help you.”

“What can I tell them?” he asked. “‘My father put my head on someone else's body'? Even I don't believe that and it happened to me.”

“Tell them anything,” she said. “Tell them nothing or everything or something in between. Just try. Please, for me, try.”

He nodded.

“You could give them the pills—can't they analyze them or something?”

“You talk too much, you know that?” he said, brushing a kiss across her forehead.

“I'm sorry.” Justine smiled, then lifted her lips to his.

epilogue

Justine Franks, MD, FACS
St. Simons Island, Glynn County, GA
Tuesday, December 21, 2027
Patient X

Patient presents with systemic organ failure due to general transplant rejection. Past history suggests patient has developed immunity to all but toxic levels of immunosuppressants and nanotech-based anti-rejection medications. Research continues in conjunction with the Emory University Transplant Center into the effects of the Franks laser weld on the regeneration of spinal stem cells, but the prognosis for Patient X remains constant: complete failure of all transplanted systems imminent.

Prescription at this time is to continue IV Interferon therapy in overdose quantities as well as gluccocorticoids; opioids, as needed, for pain management. Patient has been entered into rotation for current drug testing trials for bio-engineered nanotech and gene therapy that has shown promise in early stage animal experimentation, but the prognosis is unchanged.

Justine pushed herself back from the desk and put her tablet to sleep. The screen flickered once and went dark. She rubbed her eyes, took a deep breath, and dropped her head back, staring at the ceiling.

“Lights,” she said. The LEDs dimmed, leaving sunlight alone to illuminate her office. Shadows from the trees outside the window crawled across the room. With a heavy breath, she stood up and stretched.

Across the hall, Justine put scrubs on over her clothes, then washed her hands and arms in the stainless steel sink before applying disinfectant and gloving up. Outside the bathroom, she stepped into self-sealing surgical booties on the hardwood floor. From windows high up the walls, sunlight filtering through the Spanish moss lit up the air.

The master bedroom door still had the deadbolt lock, but it opened at a touch of her elbow on the sensor next to the knob. Inside, the curtains had been left open, filling the room with December warmth from the Georgia sun. Justine absorbed the data from the bank of machines lining the walls with just a look.

On the bed, Patient X could barely be seen, buried beneath a mass of IV tubes snaking into each arm and leads to the electronic monitors. An implanted defibrillator was the only wireless device in the room; nothing was allowed to interfere with its activities.

As she reached the bed, his eyes opened.

“Hi,” she said, resting the back of her hand on his forehead before letting her fingers trail down his face. “Need to shave you again.”

“I thought—” He coughed, his frail body shaking in the bed. “I thought you liked the beard?”

“Mary says it itches,” she said with a smile. “Me too.”

“Makes her sneeze.” He shrugged. “Then she laughs.”

“Speaking of Mary,” Justine said, “I thought she was in here with you.”

“Just left,” he said, then coughed again. “Sorry.”

“Feeling any better today?”

“Yes,” he said, shaking his head to lessen the meaning. “Maybe?”

She leaned down, resting her face against his cheek. Her voice was soft in his ear. “I love you, Henry.”

Farther down the hospital bed, his fingers fluttered in vain, trying to rise up far enough to stroke her hair, to hold her close. With a harsh sigh of frustration, he dropped his hand back to the bed, hardly having moved it at all.

“I love you too,” he said.

When she looked at him, his eyes were closed, a single tear hanging on one of his few remaining eyelashes. A trail of blood ran from his nose to his lips, the color stark red on his pale skin.

“Your nose is bleeding,” she said, wiping his face with a tissue.

“It's the medicine.” He laughed, once, the sound weak and faint. “They give me nightmares, too.”

“Liar,” she said. “They do not.” She smiled, and then kissed him. When the kiss ended, she gave him a long look, studying his face. “Though, yes, they do sometimes give you nosebleeds still. I'm working on that.”

“Anything you're not working on?” he asked.

She pushed herself up until she was leaning over him. Her smile was gone and her warm honey eyes were determined. “I couldn't save your mother, Henry. I can save you.”

“You already did.”

She shook her head, sending a lock of hair flying out of the surgical cap.

“Yes, you did, Justine,” he said. “When you married me, when you gave birth to our daughter; you saved me.”

Her tears splashed onto his face as she kissed him. Again, his fingers fought to rise up and she stopped the kiss to reach back and pull his arms around her.

“Mary needs her father,” she said. “I need you.”

He smiled. “I'm here.”

“You're dying,” she said, wiping the tears off her face with the sleeve of her gown.

“I've died before,” he said with a hollow laugh.

Justine slid her fingers down to his until they were holding hands, the IV tubes twisted around them.

Outside the window, the sun slowly disappeared into the marshes. Long shadows of skeletal trees stretched across the bed. Stirred by the wind, a branch skated across the window. The sound, almost a hiss, was drowned out by the softness of her breathing in his ear as she lay down next to him.

“Henry,” she said, her voice welcoming and warm. “I can save you.”

From the edge of sleep, he forced his eyes back open. “How?” he asked.

“We just need to find another donor.”

Acknowledgments

This book would not exist at all if not for the assistance and support of so many people who were always there to answer random questions, or read out-of-context chapters, or, really, just always there for me. I will try not to leave anyone out of these thank you's!

As I struggled to write convincingly of medical and psychological processes, much is owed to Dr. David Alexander and Dr. Robert Bachner. Any errors are mine alone.

Special thanks to my wonderful alpha reader and editor, Terri Molina (a fantastic author well worth looking up), as well as my beta readers: Meg Stocks, Jon Cohen, and Staci Carson. Also, I would be remiss if I didn't mention two other early readers who read numerous versions of this book and never wavered in their encouragement,
enthusiasm, and very constructive criticism: My uncle Ken
Salomon and my sister's mother-in-law (yes, really) Elaine Steinfeld.

This writing career of mine simply would never have been possible without the steadfast support of my parents, Robert and Claudia Salomon, and my sister Shayna Steinfeld (as well as her husband, Bruce, and my nephews Justin, Zachary, and Dylan).

Most of all, so much is owed to the encouragement and support of my wife and children! Thank you so much, for everything. I love you more than words.

I also want to recognize Darin and Kate Martin for web and computer support above and beyond the bonds of family (and to thank Kate for blessing me with her daughter's hand in marriage). To Jillian Boehme: you helped start this ball rolling down the hill and I wish you the greatest success. You do a great good in this world. And to Jeannie Mobley, fellow debut author, who has unlimited karma on the way.

To my wonderful agent, Ammi-Joan Paquette: thank you, thank you, a thousand times thank you. Thank you as well, of course, to my editor, Brian Farrey-Latz! To the Gango and the EMU's Debuts, thank you for the never-ending support, encouragement, and incredible capacity for putting up with my personal brand of insanity. To Authoress and the rest of the Miss Snark's First Victim community (and Success Stories): Never stop helping others learn that dreams come true!

Finally, I write because of my grandfather, Andre Scara Bialolenki. I am following his legacy with every word. He brought harmony to the world and I am forever grateful for everything he shared with me. I wrote a poem for him the day he died and read it in the rain at his funeral. One line is worth sharing as I acknowledge his contribution to my life and this book: “He was composer and conductor/finding symphonies and poetry/where others heard only silence.” He taught me how to listen. I spoke of him when I first announced that this book would be published and always promised myself that my first novel would be dedicated to him.

Grandad, thank you, I love you, I miss you. This book is for you.