“What are you doing?” Ellen followed all his movements.
“Michelle has myeloblastic leukemia,” said Charles. He spoke evenly, like he was giving the weather report.
“Oh, no!” gasped Ellen. “Charles, I’m so sorry.” She wanted to reach out and comfort him but she restrained herself.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” laughed Charles. “If the day’s disasters had remained localized to the problems here at the Weinburger, I’d probably just cry. But with Michelle’s illness, everything is a bit overwhelming. Christ!”
Charles’s laughter had a hollow ring to it but it struck Ellen as somewhat inappropriate.
“Are you all right?” asked Ellen.
“Wonderful,” said Charles as he opened their small refrigerator for clinical reagents.
“How does Michelle feel?”
“Pretty good right now but she has no idea of what she’s in for. I’m afraid it’s going to be bad.”
Ellen found herself at a loss for words. She blankly watched Charles as he went about completing his test. Finally she found her tongue. “Charles, what are you doing?”
“I have some of Michelle’s blood. I’m going to see if our method of isolating a cancer antigen works on her leukemic cells. It gives me the mistaken impression I’m doing something to help her.”
“Oh, Charles,” said Ellen sympathetically. There was something pitiful about the way he acknowledged his vulnerability. Ellen knew how much of an activist he was and Charles had told her the feeling of powerlessness was what had been the hardest for him when Elizabeth was ill. He had been forced to just sit and watch her die. And now Michelle!
“I’ve decided we aren’t going to stop our own work,” said Charles. “We’ll continue while we work on Canceran. Work nights if we have to.”
“But Morrison is very insistent about exclusively concentrating on Canceran,” said Ellen. “In fact, he came by while you were out to emphasize that.” For a moment Ellen debated about telling Charles the real reason Morrison stopped by, but with everything else that had happened, she was afraid to.
“I couldn’t care less what Morrison says. With Michelle’s illness, cancer has, once again, become more than a metaphysical concept for me. Our work has so much more promise than developing another chemotherapeutic agent. Besides, Morrison doesn’t even have to know what we’re doing. We’ll do the Canceran work and he’ll be happy.”
“I’m not sure you realize how much the administration is counting on Canceran,” said Ellen. “I really don’t think it’s advisable to go against them on this, particularly when the reason is personal.”
For a moment Charles froze, then he exploded. He slammed his open palm against the slate countertop with such force that several beakers tumbled off the overhead shelves. “That’s enough,” he yelled to punctuate his blow. “I’ve had enough of people telling me what to do. If you don’t want to work with me, then just get the fuck out of here!”
Abruptly Charles turned back to his work, running a nervous hand through his disheveled hair. For a few moments he worked in silence, then without turning he said, “Don’t just stand there; get me the radioactive labeled nucleotides.”
Ellen walked over to the radioactive storage area. As she opened the lock, she noticed that her hands were trembling. Obviously Charles was just barely in control of himself. She wondered what she was going to say to Dr. Morrison. She was certain she wanted to say something, because as her fear abated her anger grew. There was no excuse for Charles to treat her as he did. She wasn’t a servant.
She brought the chemicals over and arrayed them on the counter.
“Thank you,” he said simply, as if nothing had happened. “As soon as we have some B-lymphocytes I want to incubate them with the tagged nucleotides and some of the leukemic cells.”
Ellen nodded. She couldn’t keep pace with such rapid emotional changes.
“While I was driving over here, I had an inspiration,” continued Charles. “The biggest hurdle in our work has been this blocking factor and our inability to elicit an antibody response to the cancer antigen in the cancerous animal. Well, I have an idea; I was trying to think of ways of saving time. Why not inject the cancer antigen into a related, noncancerous animal where we can be absolutely certain of an antibody response? What do you think about that?”
Ellen scrutinized Charles’s face. Within seconds he’d metamorphosed from an infuriated child to the dedicated researcher. Ellen guessed that it was his way of dealing with the tragedy of Michelle.
Without waiting for an answer, Charles went on: “As soon as the noncancerous animal is immune to the cancer antigen, we’ll isolate the responsible T-lymphocytes, purify the transfer factor protein, and transfer sensitivity to the cancerous animal. It’s so fundamentally simple, I can’t believe we didn’t think of it before. Well… what’s your impression?”
Ellen shrugged. In truth she was fearful of saying anything. Although the basic premise sounded promising, Ellen knew that the mysterious transfer factor did not work well in the animal systems they were using; in fact, it worked best with humans. But technical questions were not foremost in her mind. She wondered if it would be too obvious if she excused herself and went directly up to Dr. Morrison’s office.
“How about getting the polyethylene glycol?” said Charles. “We’re going to want to set up the equipment to produce a hybridoma with Michelle’s T-lymphocytes. Also call the animal room and tell them we want a fresh batch of control mice, which we’ll inject with the mammary tumor antigen. God, I wish there were more than twenty-four hours in a day.”
“Pass the mashed potatoes,” said Jean Paul after debating with himself for several minutes whether to break the silence that had descended over the dinner table. No one had spoken since he announced that the duck he’d put in the garage was “deader than a doorknob, stiff as a board.” Ultimately his hunger had decided the issue.
“I’ll trade you for the pork chops,” said Chuck, tossing his head to remove some stringy hair from his eyes.
The boys exchanged platters. There was the clink of silver against china.
Gina Lorenzo, Cathryn’s mother, eyed her daughter’s family. Cathryn resembled her. They each had the same bony prominence on the bridge of the nose and the same large, expressive mouth. The major difference, other than the obvious twenty-plus years, was that Gina was so much heavier. She admitted she was twenty pounds overweight but in actuality it was more like sixty. Pasta was Gina’s passion and she was not one to deny herself.
Lifting the bowl of fettucini, Gina gestured as if she were about to add to Cathryn’s untouched plate. “You need some nourishment.”
Forcing a smile, Cathryn shook her head no.
“What’s the matter? You don’t like it?” asked Gina.
“It’s wonderful,” said Cathryn. “I’m just not very hungry.”
“You gotta eat,” said Gina. “You, too, Charles.”
Charles nodded.
“I brought fresh cannolis for dessert,” said Gina.
“Oh, boy!” said Jean Paul.
Dutifully Charles took a bite of the fettucini but his stomach rebelled. He let the pasta sit in his mouth before trying to swallow it. The reality of the day’s disasters had hit him with hurricane force once he’d left the frenzied environment he’d created in the lab. Work had been an emotional anesthetic and he had been sorry when it was time to pick up Chuck and drive home. And Chuck hadn’t helped. Charles had waited until they were out of the Boston rush hour traffic before telling his son that his sister had a very serious kind of leukemia. Chuck’s response had been a simple “Oh!” followed by silence. Then he had asked if there was any chance he might catch it.
At the time Charles did not say anything; he just gripped the steering wheel harder, marveling at the unabashed depths of his oldest son’s selfishness. Not once did Chuck ask how Michelle was doing. And now as Charles watched Chuck gobble his pork chops, he felt like reaching over and throwing the selfish kid out of the house.