He looked in the corner where a pair of Skyler's pants — Jude's, actually — lay crumpled on a chair. They had bloodstains.
"It must have been hard on him," said Tizzie. "You know how much he hates doctors, how much they frighten him — all those memories from his childhood."
At that moment, as if on cue, in walked a young man, nattily dressed, with a friendly-looking, freckled face. He put out his hand.
"Dr. Geraldi. I'm glad to see our patient here has visitors. We don't know anything about him. Not even who he is."
They shook hands. The doctor looked searchingly at Jude.
"Yes," said Jude. "We're related."
"Brothers."
"Yes."
The doctor looked at Skyler and, with a quick tilt of the head, summoned them outside into the corridor. They followed him to an office, where he gestured for them to sit down.
He peppered them with questions: Skyler's age, medical history, recent symptoms. Any known drug abuse? Any signs of strange behavior? They provided him with as much information as they could, which was little indeed, but they told him nothing about Skyler's true past.
Dr. Geraldi kept shaking his head.
"I've just never seen anything like this. I don't know what it is."
"He's lost a lot of blood," offered Jude.
"No, that's not it. He's got a mean little cut there on his hand, but that's not the main problem. I'm using the transfusion to give him urokinase."
"What's that?"
"It's for thrombolytic therapy."
"What?"
"The heart."
"Are you telling us he had a heart attack?"
"That's just it — it's hard to say. I'm not really sure."
"What do you mean?"
"Certainly some of the presenting symptoms were there — nausea, dizziness, pallor, shortness of breath and, of course, chest pains. At least from what I could gather. He was hysterical when he was brought in, by the way. I took an EKG — it showed Q waves. That's another sign."
"But you're not sure?"
"No. AMI is common in older people, but someone his age—"
"AMI?"
"Sorry. Acute myocardial infarction. A narrowing of coronary artery from atherosclerotic plaque formation — it's just not… well, common. You say he's twenty-five?"
"Yes."
"But when I look into his eyes, I can already see some signs of calcification. That leads to cataracts. Has he reported any blurring of vision?"
"No."
"And you say there's no history of heart trouble in your family?"
Jude squirmed. "Not that I know of."
"Well, you would surely know it. People don't just carry on."
"No, of course not."
Dr. Geraldi gave a wan smile. "But there are other symptoms I don't understand. It's as if his whole body is fighting off some raging infection, but I can't find what it is. I took a quick look at his blood and it's… it's just strange. I'll know more tomorrow — maybe. I've ordered a complete workup on it. In the meantime…"
"What?"
"We'll carry on with this."
"Will he be all right?"
"Oh, I think so. I see an improvement already in his vital signs. We may give antihypertensive and cholesterol-lowering agents, maybe antianginal drugs. I'd just like to know what it is. The symptoms are confusing."
"Will it reoccur?" she asked.
"It could. I can't rule out that possibility. You're sure he never had anything like this before?"
Jude shook his head no — but he was hardly sure at all.
"Well, I just can't say. I wish I could tell you there'll be nothing to worry about. Of course, it could be some obscure virus. These things happen, you know. They appear out of nowhere, make you sick as a dog for a while and then disappear."
That evening, Tizzie and Jude unwound over dinner at the Big Bull Steak House. The table they were shown to contained dirty dishes, and a Mexican busboy came carrying a plastic bin to take them away. Jude engaged him in conversation; they talked in Spanish before the place settings were laid.
Jude asked for a J&B as soon as the waitress brought them water, and another when they placed their order. Both drinks came quickly and did their work; before he had taken his first forkful of meat, he was feeling no pain. Tizzie was abstemious.
Skyler's illness cast a cloud over the dinner. But still, for the first time in weeks, they talked openly. No more secrets or unfinished sentences or long silences.
Amazing what honesty can do, Jude thought. And it did something else, too; as he looked across the table at her in the flickering candlelight, at her strong chin, her blazing eyes, her rounded shoulders, he realized how much he wanted her and how long it had been since they had slept together.
He reached across the table and she took his hand.
"I know how hard this is on you," she said.
He smiled.
"It all seems to fall on your shoulders. You're the one who figures out what to do, who plans ahead… you're the one who keeps us going." She looked him in the eye and added: "I want you to know that I see that."
She patted his hand — not a good sign, he thought.
She looked away and was silent, and he tried to imagine what she was thinking.
"I can't imagine another person looking like you," he said abruptly.
He had hit the mark. She leaned forward.
"Neither can I. That's what so strange about this whole thing. All your life you think you're unique… and then you learn there's somebody out there who looks just like you — or at least a lot like you. Somebody who maybe thinks like you do, feels what you feel. I would have given anything to meet her and to see… I don't know…"
"What?"
"I don't know. Everything. What I'm like from the outside. How I strike someone else. How I might have been different. What I would have been like growing up under totally different circumstances."
"I don't think you would have learned any of that. She wouldn't have been like you—you more than anyone should know that."
"I do, of course. But it's strange — all those twin studies. I've read them and understood them. But when it happens to you, it's different. It's not science anymore. It's personal. It goes right to the core of who you are."
She played with the wax from the candle, peeling it off and rolling it into a ball in her fingers. It reminded him of the cave — could that have been only five hours ago?
"You know what I've been thinking? My parents — they love me a lot. They would do anything for me. They clearly thought that what they were doing was wonderful — doubling my life span. But all those years, they didn't tell me the most important part — about Julia — and there was a reason."
She took a sip from Jude's scotch before continuing.
"They didn't know how to tell me. They were ashamed on some level. They were ashamed because they knew it was wrong. They're not… you know, they're not immoral people. They did leave the Lab. What's going to happen to them now?"
"Maybe they can help us somehow. They know more than they told you."
"They're not well. It's not going to be easy."
She threw the ball of wax down on the table. "God, why did they do it? Didn't they think it through? I feel so used, so violated. I feel like one of those primitive people you hear about — someone's taken my photo and I feel they've stolen my soul."
"But they haven't."
"But I feel it."
Jude's words came out in a sudden rush, like a declaration.
"It's not the same. There's no one else like you, Tizzie. You're unique, your soul is intact and… and you also just happen to be extraordinarily beautiful."
She looked at him and smiled — a wonderful smile that cracked wrinkles around her mouth.