Nothing under C for Cayman , either.
Strange.
Neat stacks of paper lie on his desk. I go sit in his swivel-back chair. The macaroni-decorated pencil cup I made for him in elementary school is right there next to the phone. A delighted laugh bursts from me; I can’t believe he kept it.
Now I really feel guilty. I hate to imagine his face if he found me going through his private drawers.
He must have some file on Hunter.
The bottom drawer is bigger than the rest. Locked. I try the keys. None fit.
A sound outside makes me freeze. I hold my breath.
Just the wind.
Whatever’s important is hidden away. I go through the top drawer one last time. My heart leaps when my fingers touch something hard and square, tucked at the very back. I drag it out onto the desktop. It’s an ancient, scuffed photo album.
The cover opens with a papery creak.
Mom looks up at me. My breath catches and my fingers go to her face.
Why would Dad keep this out here, and not in the house? Does he think this holds some key to her death? Is there something inside he’s been studying?
I turn a page. It’s another picture of Mom; she looks around five years old. She’s wearing such a funny, endearingly serious expression that my stomach twists. I’d forgotten about these photos. I remember seeing them when I was little. I never noticed where she was. Now, after all these years, I see the picture for what it is. She’s in an airport. There’s a baggage carousel behind her. I wonder where she’s going. Somewhere very snowy and cold, obviously. She’s wearing winter boots and a giant, fur-lined parka, and has one small arm wrapped protectively over a dog carrier crate. The dog inside, a black Labrador, peers up at her through the bars with trusting eyes.
I imagine her alive in that moment and breathe her in.
Unable to fully catch my breath, I bend forward and give her a kiss, trying to hold on to the ghost of Mom.
I flip through the pages.
Tucked into the back is a notebook.
This I’ve never seen before. The rise and fall of my chest escalates.
There’s only one entry. It’s in Mom’s small, slanted scrawl. What’s strange is that the first paragraph starts right in the middle of a sentence. Was there a notebook before this one, and she’s simply carrying on here, having run out of space in the first book? What's happened to it? Does it still exist somewhere? I flip through the rest of the book, yet it really is empty apart from this. So why only one page? Is it possible this was . . . her last entry?
It’s too real, these pen strokes, this physical evidence of her. My fingers grow damp, and I blink hard against the threat of tears. I can almost hear her voice as I read.
and I can only now conclude that it is the height of human folly to tamper with the human code at such a minute yet critical level. Humans are not made to be divine. And doctors are not meant to play God. It is only by divine intervention, that I stumbled upon the way to correct what’s been done.
I have inherited this legacy, and I will never shy away from the blame. It lies heavily upon me. After this, I cannot in good conscience contribute further, and caution all those mad enough to do so. Pray all goes well.
I read the baffling words several times. I knew, even as a small child, that her work consumed her, but what could she possibly have done to feel such guilt? Mom was incredibly caring and conscientious of others. So what made her write that?
And what did she mean, humans were not made to be divine? As in godlike? That doesn’t make sense. But could this be a clue? Is this strange legacy the reason why people chased her down and killed her? What happened that made fate tear her away from me? From us?
I stare at the door. Mom had her secrets. Dad used to question me about them. They never married, even though I’m sure they loved each other. I lived with Mom, and she worked at a lab outside Washington, D.C. Dad mostly lived in New York. We only saw
Strange.
Neat stacks of paper lie on his desk. I go sit in his swivel-back chair. The macaroni-decorated pencil cup I made for him in elementary school is right there next to the phone. A delighted laugh bursts from me; I can’t believe he kept it.
Now I really feel guilty. I hate to imagine his face if he found me going through his private drawers.
He must have some file on Hunter.
The bottom drawer is bigger than the rest. Locked. I try the keys. None fit.
A sound outside makes me freeze. I hold my breath.
Just the wind.
Whatever’s important is hidden away. I go through the top drawer one last time. My heart leaps when my fingers touch something hard and square, tucked at the very back. I drag it out onto the desktop. It’s an ancient, scuffed photo album.
The cover opens with a papery creak.
Mom looks up at me. My breath catches and my fingers go to her face.
Why would Dad keep this out here, and not in the house? Does he think this holds some key to her death? Is there something inside he’s been studying?
I turn a page. It’s another picture of Mom; she looks around five years old. She’s wearing such a funny, endearingly serious expression that my stomach twists. I’d forgotten about these photos. I remember seeing them when I was little. I never noticed where she was. Now, after all these years, I see the picture for what it is. She’s in an airport. There’s a baggage carousel behind her. I wonder where she’s going. Somewhere very snowy and cold, obviously. She’s wearing winter boots and a giant, fur-lined parka, and has one small arm wrapped protectively over a dog carrier crate. The dog inside, a black Labrador, peers up at her through the bars with trusting eyes.
I imagine her alive in that moment and breathe her in.
Unable to fully catch my breath, I bend forward and give her a kiss, trying to hold on to the ghost of Mom.
I flip through the pages.
Tucked into the back is a notebook.
This I’ve never seen before. The rise and fall of my chest escalates.
There’s only one entry. It’s in Mom’s small, slanted scrawl. What’s strange is that the first paragraph starts right in the middle of a sentence. Was there a notebook before this one, and she’s simply carrying on here, having run out of space in the first book? What's happened to it? Does it still exist somewhere? I flip through the rest of the book, yet it really is empty apart from this. So why only one page? Is it possible this was . . . her last entry?
It’s too real, these pen strokes, this physical evidence of her. My fingers grow damp, and I blink hard against the threat of tears. I can almost hear her voice as I read.
and I can only now conclude that it is the height of human folly to tamper with the human code at such a minute yet critical level. Humans are not made to be divine. And doctors are not meant to play God. It is only by divine intervention, that I stumbled upon the way to correct what’s been done.
I have inherited this legacy, and I will never shy away from the blame. It lies heavily upon me. After this, I cannot in good conscience contribute further, and caution all those mad enough to do so. Pray all goes well.
I read the baffling words several times. I knew, even as a small child, that her work consumed her, but what could she possibly have done to feel such guilt? Mom was incredibly caring and conscientious of others. So what made her write that?
And what did she mean, humans were not made to be divine? As in godlike? That doesn’t make sense. But could this be a clue? Is this strange legacy the reason why people chased her down and killed her? What happened that made fate tear her away from me? From us?
I stare at the door. Mom had her secrets. Dad used to question me about them. They never married, even though I’m sure they loved each other. I lived with Mom, and she worked at a lab outside Washington, D.C. Dad mostly lived in New York. We only saw
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