Turnabout

“This is a problem I didn’t anticipate,” he said, almost as if speaking to himself. “I don’t know what to do. If I save her, I betray the rest of you. It’s protecting one person versus protecting forty-nine.”

  People began squirming in their chairs. Nobody seemed to understand.

  Dr. Jimson stood watching Dr. Reed coldly from across the room.

  “Fifty lives,” she snapped. “We are responsible for fifty lives. You find a way to protect them all.”

  “I-I don’t know,” Dr. Reed repeated.

  Amelia felt like a little kid watching her parents fight. Except her father had been the strong one, not her mother.

  Dr. Jimson threw up her hands. “I have had it with you!” she exploded. “What is this—you do one nervy thing in your whole life, and then you’re paralyzed with fear forever after? We did this!” She swung her arm in a broad sweep that indicated the entire crowd. “These are our people, like it or not. And we have to take care of them all!”

  She spun on her heel. Afterward everyone would debate about whether she would have really done it, stormed into the office, picked up the phone, and called the number on the TV screen. But Dr. Reed stopped her with a single question.

  “Why don’t we ask them what they think?” He pointed at the crowd.

  Dr. Jimson slowly turned around. But she didn’t move any closer to Dr. Reed.

  “Fine,” she said. “Go ahead.”

  Her words fell into silence. Amelia waited for someone else to speak. Of course it was Mrs. Flick who rolled forward.

  “Maybe it’s just me,” she started, “but I don’t rightly understand what all the fuss’s about. What’s stopping you from just going and picking her up?”

  “I’d have to explain,” Dr. Reed said weakly.

  Mrs. Flick shrugged. “Just say you run a funny farm and she escaped.”

  “I’d have to show ID,” Dr. Reed said. “Credentials.”

  “Fake ’em,” Mrs. Flick said. “How close they gonna look? They’re probably dying to get rid of her.”

  But nobody was watching Mrs. Flick and Dr. Reed anymore. Mrs. Swanson’s face had shown up on another TV screen, and now the anchor was clearly making an effort to look mournful. Dr. Jimson picked up a remote and turned off the mute button.

  “—sad ending to the strange disturbance in a swank Bedford Hills neighborhood this afternoon. A woman claiming to be the mother of prominent attorney Morton Swanson stormed his home and had to be taken into custody. His real mother is dead—and now so, too, is the impostor.” The crowd’s collective gasp drowned out the anchor’s next few words. Then Amelia heard, “—committed suicide—” before her ears seemed to stop working. Before, when she’d thought she was on the verge of death, she’d done that a lot, shut out the outside world without even trying. She’d been living mostly in her own mind, in her memories. But she wasn’t on the verge of death anymore. If the doctors were right, she was on the verge of a new life, and she’d have to face whatever that meant. She opened her eyes—not having been conscious before that they were even shut—and looked around.

  On TV the anchor had moved on to a new story, something about a fire in the bad section of the city. But no one was paying attention to the TV. Everyone looked as if a bomb had been dropped in their midst. Up at the front Dr. Reed had his face buried in his hands and was weeping. Amelia wasn’t used to seeing men cry. It disturbed her. If he couldn’t stop himself, she wanted someone else to lead him away, make him do it privately. After a long while Dr. Jimson went over to him, but all she did was lay her hands comfortingly on his shoulders. Dr. Reed began burbling, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault—”

  “Don’t say that,” Dr. Jimson said. “You kept her alive longer than she would have lived otherwise—”

  “But the way she died, by her own hand, feeling betrayed . . .”

  Dr. Jimson nodded, as if agreeing on his guilt. Everyone sat in silence for a long time, listening to Dr. Reed cry. Then Mrs. Flick spoke up.

  “Reckon it won’t do Louise any good now,” she said. “But seems like you’ve got some explaining to do to the rest of us.”

  Dr. Reed nodded but was too choked up to speak right away. Afterward, when Amelia asked Mrs. Flick how she’d known Dr. Reed was hiding something, she said, “Honey, I’ve seen a lot of guilty men in my day. And he was acting the guiltiest.”

  Dr. Reed blew his nose and began talking. “I lied,” he confessed softly.

  “Speak up!” someone yelled from the back.

  “I lied,” he repeated, his voice louder but not stronger. “I lied to all of you, and I lied to Dr. Jimson and all our research assistants.”

  “So we’re not going to live forever,” someone grumbled. “Should have known.”

  “No”—Dr. Reed raised his head—“I didn’t lie about that. It’s true enough, as far as I know. It’s just that I only gave PT-1 to one bunch of lab rats before I gave it to you. I didn’t get FDA approval for this experiment. This is totally illegal.”

  “So?” Mrs. Flick asked.

  Dr. Jimson bit her lip. “They don’t understand,” she told Dr. Reed. “They’re not scientists.” She turned back to the crowd. “There are certain, uh, protocols that must be followed for experiments on human subjects. Things to protect you. We have to be as sure as possible that an experiment is likely to be beneficial, not harmful. I won’t go into all the details, but only testing a drug on a hundred lab animals before introducing it to humans is akin to”—she glanced at Dr. Reed with an unusual show of compassion—“plotting murder.”

  “Aw, don’t be so hard on yourself, Doc.” It was Mr. Johnson. Somehow the excitement had made him more articulate. “We was all going to die anyway.”

  Dr. Jimson shook her head. “That doesn’t matter,” she said. “Rules are rules. And in this case there were lots of ethical issues that needed to be worked out.”

  “But you signed on too.” Amelia couldn’t see how Dr. Jimson could be innocent if Dr. Reed was guilty. “Weren’t you worried about those ‘ethical issues’?”

  “I gave her extensive fake documentation,” Dr. Reed said without looking up. “I convinced her I had all my ducks in a row—”

  “And I was eager to participate in the most momentous scientific experiment of my lifetime,” Dr. Jimson admitted. “I’m guilty too.”

  “We hadn’t figured out what your lives would be like as you unaged. We didn’t think about the need to keep secrets from your families. We didn’t think about what could or couldn’t be revealed to the media,” Dr. Reed said.

  “I don’t get it,” Mrs. Flick said. From all the puzzled expressions in the room, Amelia thought Mrs. Flick spoke for everyone. “You didn’t know any of us from Adam. Right? It didn’t matter to you if we lived or died. Why was you in such a dad-blamed hurry?”

  “My grandmother—” Dr. Reed choked up again. “My grandmother was dying. She was very dear to me—I couldn’t not try to save her. . . .”

  Everyone looked around, as if wondering why Dr. Reed’s grandmother hadn’t claimed kinship before. Dr. Reed answered the unspoken question.

  “She died anyway,” he said softly. “There were originally one hundred of you. But no one pulled through who had had certain types of health problems—a history of stroke, heart disease, and diabetes, among other things.”

  It was hard not to get sucked in by the grief in his voice. But there was too much else to figure out to take time feeling sorry. Amelia looked around, wondering if everyone was as confused as she was. Her brain hadn’t had such a workout in years, if ever. Only Mrs. Flick looked up to ask another question.

  “I’m sorry about your grammy and all,” she said, “but I still don’t get it. Maybe you’ll have to talk a little slower. I only went up to fifth grade before I had to drop out, so this science stuff is kind of too much for me. Why didn’t you just sneak into your grandmother’s room in the dark of night and inject some of that PT-1 in her butt? Why mess with the rest of us and a
ll your lies?”

  “I needed Dr. Jimson,” Dr. Reed admitted. “I won’t go into all the technicalities, but I didn’t trust myself to figure out how to translate PT-1 to human conditions. She’s more experienced than I. And I knew she was too ethical to sign on to an experiment just for emotional reasons. So . . . I needed the rest of you to get her.”

  “I didn’t know Dr. Reed’s grandmother was one of the subjects,” Dr. Jimson said self-righteously. “That was unethical too.”

  The room was silent again, except for the TVs babbling. Then Mrs. Flick rolled over and turned all of them off. She waited until all eyes were on her.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ve had enough of this bellyaching and hand-wringing. Dr. Reed, Dr. Jimson, you got to quit letting that guilt eat you up. What’s done’s done. So some people died. So what? Their number was up. So that weasel Morty Swanson got a little shaken up. I’d say he deserved it for never visiting his mother in the nursing home. Didn’t even recognize her . . . So Louise didn’t exactly die a Christian death—I’d say that’s between her and God, and we can’t worry about it. I say it’s time we get grateful for what these doctors did, whether they feel good about it or not. They worked a miracle. I’m here to tell you I messed up my first life right bad, and I’m tickled pink to get another chance. I plan to enjoy it.”

  In the back someone started clapping. The applause spread. Dr. Reed and Dr. Jimson looked around in astonishment. Dr. Jimson even blushed.

  “But what about Louise? And our families—,” someone half whined. It was Mrs. Rivers, who’d spent a lot of time with Mrs. Swanson.

  “Louise made her choice, and we’ve got to make ours. I say we agree none of the rest of us are going to contact our families. I’ll tell you why. We tell our kids, and our kids’ kids, and maybe their kids, and that’s too many people knowing. They’ll want some of this PT stuff too, and the docs ain’t handing it out to all comers, right?” Behind Mrs. Flick, Dr. Jimson shook her head in an emphatic no. Dr. Reed joined in a second later, looking regretful. Mrs. Flick went on. “If you worried about your kids fighting over who got Aunt Mary’s good china, and who got Uncle George’s gun collection, think about what this battle’d be like! Who’s with me on this?”

  Amelia thought about saying, “Wait a minute. You don’t even like your family. What right do you have to tell the rest of us to give up the people we love most?” But for that moment, at least, she could see Mrs. Flick’s point. She thought back decades to the time one of her boys, Burrell, had got his hand caught in a corn picker the autumn he was twelve. The hand got infected, and the doctor who rode out to look at it said he’d have to cut it off; otherwise, the infection would spread and Burrell might die. Amelia thought she wouldn’t be able to bear it, but she heard Roy say, “Then do it.” And after that Amelia never looked back, never wondered if the hand might have healed, if it should have been saved. She cleaned and bandaged Burrell’s stump every day for weeks, answering every one of his complaints, “Well, it had to be done. God let you live, so you’ve got to live the best you can.” This was the same kind of decision, requiring a clean cut, no regrets.

  “I’m with you,” she announced.

  Around her others began to mumble agreement too. At last only Mrs. Rivers hadn’t spoken. Everyone looked her way.

  “Oh, all right,” she grumbled. “I’m with you too.”

  A cheer went up, and Dr. Reed went around thanking everyone and shaking hands. Later Amelia would remember the next hour in the meeting room as one of the happiest in her entire life—her second life. People hugged one another. Dr. Reed and Dr. Jimson started kissing, right in front of their patients. Everyone danced, with or without wheelchairs. Nobody cared. Someone brought out champagne, and they all toasted Dr. Jimson and Dr. Reed and one another. A few people also toasted the memory of Louise Swanson. That reminded Dr. Reed to toast his grandmother as well, “whose death led to the second lives of all these people.” Amelia thought that was simplifying things too much, but she didn’t say so. She wasn’t used to champagne. The bubbles tickled her nose. As everyone around her pledged eternal loyalty to Dr. Reed and Dr. Jimson and the agency and one another, Amelia leaned over and whispered to Mrs. Flick, “I thought you said this thing was a curse.”

  Mrs. Flick shrugged. “Maybe I changed my mind.”

  “Only ‘maybe’?” Amelia asked. “You’re not sure?”

  But Mrs. Flick was swept away onto the dance floor before she could answer.

  April 22, 2085

  Melly tried to fight the rising tide of panic as she stared at the glowing E-mail. Someone wanted to find her. Someone doubted the official records saying she had died. Soon her name and likeness would be splashed on computer screens across the world as a freak. She wouldn’t have to look for parents—all those 500,000 weirdos would come after her, beseeching her to be their child.

  “Oh, no,” she repeated. “Oh, no.” She felt too dizzy to think clearly.

  “Will you just chill out?” Anny Beth muttered. “This may be totally innocent. . . .”

  In a daze, Melly watched Anny Beth punching buttons on the computer.

  “Recent newscasts,” Anny Beth muttered. “Something connected to genealogy.”

  In seconds Anny Beth had some TV show up on the computer screen. A blow-dried anchor type was confidently asserting, “People of all walks of life are trying to find out whose footsteps they’re walking in, so to speak—”

  “Why is it,” Anny Beth asked, “that with everything else that’s improved in the last eighty years, TV news still stinks?”

  Melly didn’t answer. The anchor was talking about how interest in genealogy was overwhelming once again, surpassing even the Roots craze of the late 1900s.

  “The information about your family history is out there,” he said solemnly. “You just have to find it.”

  The shot cut to a gray-bearded expert who began describing a popular method of searching: “It’s called saturation. You just tell your computer to E-mail everyone in the world with the same last name as you.”

  Anny Beth zapped the TV broadcast off the screen, and the E-mail reappeared. It didn’t look quite so threatening anymore, especially when Anny Beth asked the computer, “Sender?” and the computer replied, “A. J. Hazelwood. Do you need to know more?”

  “Nope,” Anny Beth said.

  “How did you know?” Melly asked.

  Anny Beth shrugged. “I watch a lot more TV than you do. And you know my memory—steel trap. At least for this lifetime.” She slapped her hands together. Melly wondered if there were a single other person alive who could watch that motion and bring up a mental picture of metal teeth clamping down on a raccoon’s leg. More and more she felt like she was living in a foreign land, because her most vivid memories were of a different time and place. Oh, well, she’d forget hunting and trapping soon enough.

  “Want to get rid of it?” Anny Beth asked, her finger hovering over the delete button for the E-mail.

  “Shouldn’t we tell the agency?”

  “And have them bring out the E.T. SWAT team? I don’t think so.” Decades ago, not long after they left the agency, Anny Beth had fallen in love with the movie E.T. She’d watched it over and over, until one day she quit, cold turkey. She confessed the reason only to Melly: that she’d begun having nightmares that she was on her own, living a normal life, when suddenly scientists in space suits swarmed her home and hooked her up to monitors, just like E.T. Only in her nightmare the scientists were followed by TV journalists thrusting microphones in her face. Anny Beth and Melly had done their best to turn their fears into jokes. They didn’t think the agency would ever whisk them away against their will, but they could never laugh wholeheartedly at each other’s “E.T. SWAT team” jokes.

  “All right,” Melly said. “But leave the message. I still want to think about it.”

  “Don’t answer it,” Anny Beth warned.

  “Do you think I’m crazy?” Melly asked. But she couldn’t expl
ain to Anny Beth why she wanted to hold on to the message. Just a few more hours, just a day—now that she wasn’t frightened by it, the message made her feel good. She liked the thought that someone she was related to wanted to remember who she’d been.

  “See, what’ll happen is, one of your descendants will write back to this A. J. person and tell her all about being dragged to her great-grandmother’s funeral when she was only six or seven, and about how scary you looked in that coffin—”

  “I wasn’t in any coffin,” Melly said sharply. “Remember, all our families agreed to donate our bodies to science? They knew they weren’t burying us.”

  “Yeah, but they never said whether they had us posed at the funeral beforehand. And think about it—in Kentucky? Back then? Got to have an open casket.”

  Melly knew Anny Beth was just teasing, but it still disturbed her. From the beginning the agency had discouraged curiosity about how the fake funerals had been conducted, how the families had handled the details. Once everyone had agreed not to contact their children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren, Dr. Reed and Dr. Jimson wanted all their patients to forget their families entirely. They even brought in a psychologist to counsel them. The psychologist was told only that she was dealing with a bunch of elderly people who were irreversibly estranged from their offspring. Melly had hated that meeting. She would have sobbed if she’d been that kind of a person.

  Now Anny Beth was warming up to an imitation of Melly’s supposed great-grandchild. “And my mamaw took me up to the casket and made me look in, and I tell you, I was so scared I thought I’d pee my pants. Then I saw this face that was like wax, except someone put too much makeup on it. Then I started giggling so hard I did pee my pants, and my mamaw tanned my hide, right there, for disrespecting the dead—”

  Melly couldn’t help laughing.

  “I think you’ve got my funeral mixed up with your own,” she taunted. “But you do a great old-lady imitation.”

  Anny Beth backed away from the computer desk to give a fake bow.