Sister

“Your viewers are blessed with brains, are they not? My artificial chromosome can safely transport a new healthy gene into the cells with no risks.”

I thought that someone probably had had to coach him in how to present his science in noddy language. It was as if Professor Rosen himself were dismayed by it and could do it no longer. “The human artificial chromosome not only introduces but also stably maintains therapeutic genes. Synthetic centromeres were—”

She hurriedly interrupted him. “I’m afraid we’ll have to skip our science lesson today, Professor, because I’ve got someone who wants to say a special thank you.”

She turned to a large TV screen, which had a live feed from a hospital. A teary-eyed mother and proud new father, cuddling their healthy newborn, thanked Professor Rosen for curing their beautiful baby boy. Professor Rosen clearly found it distasteful and was embarrassed by it. He wasn’t reveling in his success and I liked him for it.

“So you trusted Professor Rosen?” asks Mr. Wright, without volunteering his own impression, but he must have seen him on TV during the media saturation of the story.

“Yes. In all the TV interviews I watched of him he came across as a committed scientist, with no media savvy. He seemed modest, embarrassed by praise and clearly not enjoying his moment of TV fame.”

I don’t tell Mr. Wright this, but he also reminded me of Mr. Normans (did you have him for math?), a kindly man but one who had no truck with the silliness of adolescent girls, and used to bark out equations like firing rounds. Lack of media savvy, wire-rimmed glasses and a resemblance to an old teacher weren’t logical reasons to finally accept the trial was safe, but the personal nudge I’d needed to overcome my reservations.

“Did Tess describe what happened when she was given the therapy?” asks Mr. Wright.

“Not in any detail, no. She just said that she’d had the injection and now she’d have to wait.”

You phoned me in the middle of the night, forgetting or not caring about the time difference. Todd woke up and took the call. Annoyed, he passed the phone to me, mouthing, “It’s four- thirty in the morning, for chrissakes.”

“It’s worked, Bee. He’s cured.”

I cried—sobbing, big-wet-tears crying. I had been so worried, not about your baby, but about what it would be like for you looking after and loving a child with CF. Todd thought something terrible had happened.

“That’s bloody wonderful.”

I don’t know what surprised him more, the fact I was crying over something wonderful, or that I swore.

“I’d like to call him Xavier. If Mum doesn’t mind.”

I remembered Leo being so proud of his second name, how he’d wished it were what he was called.

“Leo would think that really cool,” I said, and thought how sad it is that someone dies when they’re still young enough to say “really cool.”

“Yeah, he would, wouldn’t he?”

Mr. Wright’s middle-aged secretary interrupts with mineral water, and I am suddenly overwhelmed by thirst. I drink my flimsy paper cupful straight down and she looks a little disapproving. As she takes the empty cup, I notice that the insides of her hands are stained orange. Last night she must have done a self-tan. I find it moving that this large heavyset woman has tried to make herself spring pretty. I smile at her but she doesn’t see. She’s looking at Mr. Wright. I see in that look that she’s in love with him, that it was for him she’d made her arms and face go brown last night, that the dress she’s wearing was bought with him in mind.

Mr. Wright interrupts my mental gossip. “So as far as you were concerned, there weren’t any problems with the baby or the pregnancy?”

“I thought everything was fine. My only worry was how she would cope as a single mother. At the time it seemed like a big worry.”

Miss Crush Secretary leaves, barely noticed by Mr. Wright, who’s looking across the table at me. I glance at his hand, on her behalf—it’s bare of a wedding ring. Yes, my mind is doodling again, reluctant to move on. You know what’s coming. I’m sorry.

3

For a moment the doorbell ringing was part of my color-red dream. Then I ran to the door, certain it was you. DS Finborough knew he was the wrong person. He had the grace to look both embarrassed and sympathetic. And he knew my next emotion. “It’s all right, Beatrice. We haven’t found her.”

He came into your sitting room. Behind him was PC Vernon.

“Emilio Codi saw the reconstruction,” he said, sitting down on your sofa. “Tess has already had the baby.”

But you would have told me. “There must be a mistake.”

“St. Anne’s Hospital has confirmed that Tess gave birth there last Tuesday and discharged herself the same day.” He waited a moment, his manner compassionate as he lobbed the next hand grenade. “Her baby was stillborn.”

I used to think “stillborn” sounded peaceful. Still waters. Be still my beating heart. Still, small voice of calm. Now I think it’s desperate in its lack of life, a cruel euphemism packing nails around the fact it’s trying to cloak. But then I didn’t even think about your baby. I’m sorry. All I could think about was that this had happened a week ago and I hadn’t heard from you.

“We spoke to the psychiatry department at St. Anne’s,” DS Finborough continued. “Tess was automatically