_Wednesday, April 8
1O:15 A.M._
Ally was walking down the second-floor marble hallway of the Dorian
Institute, feeling a mixture of hope and dread. She'd parked her blue
Toyota in the same slot she'd done the day before, and then she'd gone
through the security check at the front entrance, which included
verifying (again) a solid ID and a check for any kind of camera or
recording equipment. Maria did not come along; she was using this as an
occasion to have some well-deserved time off with her grandchild. The
caregiver was giving herself some care.
The downstairs foyer had been empty except for security and staff, and
she'd paused just long enough to sign in and ask the receptionist at
the central desk which room Nina Hampton was in. Was her mother going
to be as enthusiastic about being here today as she'd been yesterday?
Truthfully, just to see her spirits immediately improve yesterday was a
high in itself. But who knew? Maybe she could be helped.
"I think she's . . . Let me check." She'd pulled up a computer screen.
"Right. Mrs. Hampton is in room two-thirteen, second floor." She'd
looked up and smiled. "Your mother, I assume. She's quite a card. I
hear she's doing very well. You can use the elevator over there."
"I'll take the stairs," Ally had said. They were wide and blue marble
and had a kind of splendor as they seemed to literally flow down from
the upstairs landing. "I didn't have my run this morning."
The marble hallway upstairs showed no signs of use. The place felt more
like a grandiose palace from another time than a hospital doing
cutting-edge research. There was a nurse's station at the far end of
the hall and two women were there in blue uniforms. Other than that,
however, there was nothing to suggest the Dorian Institute was a
medical facility. It could easily have been an exclusive resort hotel.
It didn't feel medical or aseptic in any way.
Stone should see this, she thought. He'd definitely be impressed.
Driving out this morning, alone, she'd been thinking about him a lot.
There was something about him that was different from what she'd
remembered over all the years. He was as serious as ever about his
work, but she suspected he might possibly be more fun now that he
seemed to have lightened up some. He used to be wound extremely tight.
In any case, she was finding herself surprisingly happy to talk to him
again, whether or not it went any further.
But was his concern about the mysterious terminated patient justified?
And what, if anything, did that have to do with her?
She was still musing about that when she heard the Spanish- language TV
going in room 213, even before she touched the doorknob. That's a good
sign, she thought.
She pushed open the door and strode in. The room was decorated in earth
tones, including a lovely brown hand-woven carpet, which had Indian
symbols in it, probably Navajo. The bed was a single, but it was faux
Early American, not a hospital bed. Again the place felt more like a
resort than a research institute.
Nina was sitting up, leaning against the headboard, and wearing blue
silk pajamas underneath a white bed coat.
"Mom, how're you feeling? You look great."
It was true. She was wearing a lull complement of makeup and her hair
looked like it'd been newly washed. Whatever else was going on, the
Dorian Institute was making sure patients looked their best. Do they
have a beautician on staff ? she wondered. Also, there was a sparkle in
her mother's eyes that she hadn't seen since before her father died.
"How does it look like I'm feeling?" Nina reached for the remote and
muted the sound from the TV
Yes, that old twinkle is definitely there.
"Gee, I have to say that you seem a lot better than you did yesterday."
It was true, thank goodness. She was having one of those supercogent
days.
She laughed deep and resonant. "Ally, you have no idea. He started in
with the injections yesterday evening, after you left. When I woke up
this morning, I could remember everything that happened yesterday. I
even remembered why I was in this strange place. Try me. Ask me
something and see if I can remember it. Go ahead. Ask me anything."
"Okay." She thought a moment. It should be something easy. "When was
Dad's birthday?"
"March twelfth." She didn't even hesitate. "You'll have to do better
than that."
"How about my birthday? You couldn't remember it last week."
Nina paused and looked disoriented for a moment. Uh-oh, Ally thought, I
pushed her too hard.
"It was October third." A smile abruptly took over her face, as though
she was experiencing a live breakthrough. "You were born at Roosevelt
Hospital, at three-forty in the afternoon."
"Mom, this is incredible." She was joyously stunned though it felt like
something resembling shock. "It's a miracle."
"Your mother's responsiveness is impressive," Karl Van de Vliet said as
he strode through the open door, startling her. "Ellen will run the
first battery of monitoring tests later this morning. Short-term memory
and the like. But from all appearances, there's been a lot of tissue
regeneration under way overnight."
"Is . . . is this permanent?" Ally asked, not wanting to let herself
get her hopes up too soon. And what is he doing?
"No one can answer that question." He looked at Nina and smiled. "But
this is not some drug regimen to trick the brain's chemistry, Mrs.
Hampton, you have my word. In Alzheimer's, tissue responsible for the
production of certain neurotransmitters dies. What we're doing here is
enabling your brain to regrow healthy, long-lived tissue to replace
what has become damaged and destroyed by an excess of the wrong . . .
Let's just say we're not trying to salvage damaged tissue. We're
actually replacing the dysfunctional tissue in the cortical and
hippocampal regions of the brain, so we're working with the body. And
you're responding wonderfully." He turned back to Ally. "I've got to
get back to the lab now. Come on down when you're ready, and we'll
finish the paperwork."
She started to say she wanted to ask him to linger a moment and answer
a few questions, but before she could, he'd disappeared into the
hallway.
"Ally, I haven't felt this alive in months," Nina bubbled on. "Dr. Vee
did a minor procedure late yesterday afternoon, using local anesthesia.
Then he did something in his laboratory and came back and gave me an
injection. Then there was another one this morning. It's supposed to
continue for a week or two. Ellen said she'll be giving me one of those
little memory tests every day to see if I'm improving, but you know, I
already know I can tell a difference. It's just been overnight, but I
swear some of the haze is already gone."
"I'm so happy for you." Ally felt a surge of joy. Already she was
thinking about some new trips they could take together.
"Come over here and sit by me," she said, patting the bed. "I was
thinking about Arthur again this morning. If Doctor Vee can do
something for your heart, it would be a miracle that would have meant
so much to him. It's just so sad he can't be here to see this."
As Ally settled next to her, Nina reached over and took her hand. "I
want to ask you something, darling. Just between us. Why do you think
Seth . . . Grant is doing this for me, for us?"
"What do you mean?" Ally was trying to read her thoughts, wondering
where the topic was headed. Nina had declared on Sunday that she
thought there was something evil about Grant. Now this.
"I hate to say it about my own son, but caring is not his first
nature."
"Mom, we see him so seldom, do you really think either one of us still
understands him?"
Nina and Grant had never been all that close. In fact, he'd always been
something of a secretive loner within the family, even though he was
very much an extrovert with his friends, of which he had many, or at
least used to. Ally had left for college just as he reached high
school, which meant she wasn't around during his impressionable teen
years. And when she came back to take over CitiSpace, he was virtually
a fugitive from the family.
"I remember plenty about him. You think I don't know my own son, Lord
help me."
"Well, Mom, I'm not really prepared to talk about him. It was so
upsetting just to see him, I couldn't really take everything in." She
smiled and touched Nina's brow, which felt warm and flush. "But I'll
tell you something I am taking in. You're really looking great. I don't
know what he's doing, but--"
"Hope, darling. It's the greatest tonic in the world even if there's no
good reason for it." She squeezed Ally's hand. "And I do so wish Arthur
could be here now. I miss him so much."
"I know, Mom. He was as much a friend to me as he was a dad" She
thought back fondly over her father's many passions and how she'd
shared a lot of them with him. One had been the nineteenth-century
Romantic poets, particularly Wordsworth and Shelley. Then he'd had his
astronomy period and they'd spent a lot of time together at the
planetarium. But he took an interest in her passions as well. When at
age eight she decided to collect coins, he went to the bank and brought
back rolls and rolls of dimes and nickels for her to go through. And
during the summertime he'd take her and Grant on the LIRR to Long
Beach, every other Sunday, all summer long.
That was why the pain, the personal loss, of his horrible death had
never fully subsided. Perhaps it never would. But the difference
between them was that he had finally lost his will to live, whereas
Ally found her own will growing all the more with every new adversity
she faced. The weaker her heart got, the more determined she was to
exercise, whatever it took, to make it strong again.
"He would be so proud of the way you pulled CitiSpace back from the
brink." She let a tear slide down her left cheek, smearing her makeup.
"And I'll tell you something else, young lady. You take after us both
when it comes to guts. My memory may be slipping, but I remember you
were always willing to take chances. And I guess that's what we're
doing here now. Both of us. We're gambling on life. In your case,
you've got a lot to lose."
Ally looked at her. Nina was having one of her moments of incredible
lucidity, but how did she know so much about what was really going on.
"Mom, did the doctor tell you what I--"
"The head nurse, Ellen, told me that you're going to undergo a
procedure for your heart. That you're going to start today." Her eyes
darkened. "She also admitted he'd never used the procedure on a
condition like yours. It's completely experimental."
"You talked to her this morning?"
"She took me downstairs, where they did my hair. She said Dr. Vee
thinks it's important for everyone here to have a positive attitude.
They ask you what you'd like and then they try to do it. Now I'm ready
for whatever comes next." She stared directly into Ally's eyes. "But
that doesn't mean I still can't be nervous about all this untried
stuff."
"Mom, don't worry about me. I'm going to get through this. If you'll be
strong for me, I promise I'll be strong for you."
She got up and walked to the window. From this vantage she could just
see the lake down through the trees. They were starting to put out
leaves, but it was still early spring and nippy here, so they mostly
had just buds. All the same, there was a sense of renewal about them,
which made her think of her own body.
"Life is so bittersweet." Nina sighed. "But you still want to go on
living, even when it's a daily struggle. Either I'm an optimist or I'm
pigheaded."
"You're just wonderful," Ally said. "That's what you are."
She glanced down at her watch. She was scheduled to meet Ellen O'Hara
downstairs at ten forty-five, to fill out the paperwork that formally
entered her into the clinical trials. If she decided to go ahead and
enroll, this would be her last day of freedom. Tomorrow she would have
to begin the intense phase of the therapy. Did she really want to do
that? She wanted to talk to Van de Vliet one last time. "Look, Mom, I'm
going to be downstairs for a while now, but I'll come back up later."
"All right. Ellen said there's a little library here somewhere, so I
may go down and look. I might even get something in Spanish, to try and
keep my mind alert." She sighed. "Oh, Ally, I so want to be the way I
was again. Pray for me."
Ally knew prayer wasn't something her mother engaged in a lot. In fact,
she'd always been a fervent agnostic. What had brought about the
change? Was it that she'd finally discovered that both her body and
mind had limits and wouldn't do what she wanted forever?
"I'll pray for us both, Mom. But we're going to be okay. I have faith."
"Good for you." She looked away. "I'll try to have it too."
Ally walked over and kissed her, then turned and headed out the door.
Where was this all going to end? She had absolutely no idea. But with
Nina's miracle change overnight, the concern she'd heard in the voice
of Stone Aimes seemed a million miles away.
As she walked down the marble stairs, she tried to take the measure of
the place. The Dorian Institute did inspire you with its look of utter
perfection. It was an appropriate setting for miracles.
When she got to the lobby, she saw Ellen stepping off the elevator,
coming up from the basement.
"All set to get going?" she asked, walking over. "Before we start any
procedures, anything at all, we've got to fill out the forms for the
NIH. Technically, what is going on here is a clinical trial, a very
detailed study in which we constantly monitor the patients and try to
measure their progress objectively. So we'll have to take some time and
establish a very thorough baseline. We began that yesterday when you
went to the clinic in New York for a stress test. Among other things,
we'll be running an EKG on you here on a daily basis."
"And all this goes into my NIH files?" Ally asked. They were getting on
the elevator to go down.
"Not the raw data. It's our job to structure our patients' files in
ways that will permit the NIH monitor, or other third parties, to
assess our results quickly."
They were getting off now, entering the starkly lit hallway that
connected the laboratory and Dr. Van de Vliet's office with the
examination rooms.
"Dr. Vee is working in the lab this morning, so we can use his office
to fill out all the forms."
Ally could see Dr. Van de Vliet and three other people, members of his
research team, all dressed in white, clustered around a blackboard,
where he was drawing some kind of flowchart. Again she was struck by
his youthful appearance. He surely did not look a day older than forty,
or forty-five tops.
This was the first time she had been in his office, and she paused to
look around. As was usual, he had a wall of framed diplomas and
certificates. From her cursory checkout, they seemed to correspond to
the educational history she remembered from his CV. It was a spacious
room, with an executive feeling, and he had an expensive fiat-screen
nineteen-inch monitor sitting on the left-hand side of his desk. Next
to it was a wooden table and chairs. A pile of NIH forms was there,
along with a green _raku _mug, filled with ballpoint pens.
"He likes to let people use his office whenever possible," Ellen
explained. "It's a lot less institutional than the conference room."
Ally settled at the table and picked up the form.
"They want a lot of personal information," Ellen went on, "but your
mother and I filled out her items yesterday and it wasn't too hard.
Needless to say, all personal information is completely confidential.
Even your name. After the first week, we only identify you with a
coding system."
As Ally was reaching for a pen, a petite blond woman with a smashing
figure strode through the door. She was wearing a lab coat, not a
nurse's uniform, but it still showed off her curves. She was carrying a
stainless-steel tray containing a hypodermic needle and three glass
vials.
"Hi," she said with a smile, "I'm Dr. Connolly. Welcome to the Dorian
Institute. We're all very excited about having you here."
"Deb, come in," Ellen said seeming slightly startled "Is there
something we forgot to--"
"No, I just need to take one hundred fifty milliliters of blood. We've
got to get started on the cultures we'll be using
ASAP."
"Hang on a second" Ally said. "I was hoping to talk this over a bit
more with Dr. Van de Vliet before I take the final leap."
"You're free to dither as much as you like," Dr. Debra
Connolly said, her smile vanishing, "but our programs are on a
schedule."
"I'd still--"
"I'll just be taking a small amount of blood. We can then get started
on the cultures while you talk." She was already swabbing Ally's arm
and feeling for a vein. "Now make a fist."
Ally hated giving blood and to distract herself she glanced around the
office, trying to construct a life story for Dr. Karl Van de Vliet.
Then she noticed a photo of him and a woman standing together on a
bridge, next to a sign that said CHARLES RIVER, which meant Boston, and
they were holding hands and smiling.
The odd thing was, the cars behind them were models at least fifteen
years old, yet he looked just the same as he did today.
Whoa. There it is again. That odd age thing. There is something very
strange about this man. She finally got up her courage to ask.
"Dr. Connolly, do you know how old Dr. Van de Vliet is? He looks so
young."
"There are some things it's not polite to ask." She was capping off the
vial and reaching for a second. Her voice had grown genuinely frosty.
"Frankly, I don't see why. He knows everything there is to know about
me. He has all my files."
"You could ask at the front desk for one of our brochures. I'm sure it
would clear up any questions you have." She attached the second vial to
the needle.
"I've seen it. I know when he went to school and all that. But still--"
"If you really want to know personal things, you might just ask him
yourself. You two seem to get along so well."
What is with her? Ally puzzled. Why is she being so hostile and
negative? And why that little jab about "getting along"? The truth was,
Debra Connolly could have been a runway model, but in a lab coat her
blondness and figure just intensified her bitchiness.
Okay, maybe the question about his age wasn't overly relevant, more a
matter of idle curiosity. But how did he do it? Every woman alive would
like to know. Maybe the story Grant had told about Van de Vliet and his
experimental skin treatment was actually true. She hadn't put much
stock in it at the time, but seeing him out here in the flesh . . ."
"There's actually something else I was curious about. Was a patient
dropped from the trials a few months back? I was wondering if you could
tell me anything about that."
"What have you heard that would make you ask such a question?" Debra
Connolly's face went blank, but her blue eyes registered alarm. "No one
here is allowed to discuss specific cases. That would be a violation of
NIH rules and highly unethical. What made you ask that question?"
Hey, why so defensive? Could it be Stone is on to something that needs
more daylight?
"I did a little research on the Gerex Corporation and . . ." Then she
had an inspired hunch. "You know, the NIH has a Web site where they
post all the clinical trials they have under way." This was actually
something she knew to be true. She had used the site to look up
information about possible clinical trials for Alzheimer's patients
that might accept her mother. But she never could find any in the New
York area that seemed to offer any hope. "So naturally, your study was
there. I like to know as much as I can about what I'm getting into."
"I've been to that Web site many times. The public part doesn't
include--"
"So, has a patient ever been terminated?" Ally cut her off, hoping to
avoid being caught in a lie. "If so, I'd really like to know why."
"No one is allowed to discuss any details of the clinical studies." She
was capping off the last vial of blood the three cylinders of red
against the steel.
"I think I'm going to have a talk with Dr. Van de Vliet before I go any
further with this program," Ally said feeling her temper and her
warning instincts both ratchet up. "I feel like I'm being stonewalled."
"You're free to think what you like." Debra Connolly had turned and was
brusquely heading for the doorway when it was blocked by another blonde
this one in her late fifties, who was standing in the threshold and
brandishing a black automatic pistol. Her eyes were wild. The security
guard from the entrance and the nurse from the front desk upstairs were
both cowering behind her.
"Where's Kristen?" she demanded. "Where's my daughter? I know she's
alive, goddam you. I've come to take her home."