Healer (41 page)

From up here the rolling slope of yellow green grasses looks like an
untouched prairie, patchworked with snowberry and chokecherry and elderberry, the way it must have looked when the Blackstocks grazed their cattle or the Indians traded skins and beads, or even a time before any human had seen this land. The heat gives it all a magical, shimmery quality and she finds herself unwilling to think about anything but the beauty of this day. She does a dancy little spin and plants her hands on her knees, then dances again, this time because the stone is almost too hot to bear against her naked soles.

“Dare you to jump from that rock.” She points to one farther away than her own launch site.

Addison takes off his shoes and tosses them onto the higher ground behind him, rolls up the legs of his khakis. “And what’s the bet?”

She sits down, tucking her sandals under her buttocks. “Seven million. I’ll bet seven million. Give or take a few bucks.”

He studies her for a minute, like he’s trying to decide which way to respond to this figure, equal to their lost savings. The heat makes his face shimmer, like the grass and the long blue sky behind him. It blurs the edges of his shape so he looks like some transient spirit that might disappear if she turns away.

“I have a better idea,” he says.

“What?”

He wades out to the middle of the shallow stream, wobbling like a top with each alternating foot, and then, after rescuing himself from each of those possible spills, he puts his wallet in his shirt pocket, loops his belt around his neck and sits down in the water. “Come down here and meet me.”

His pants are already soaked, and water is wicking up his shirt. Claire strips her T-shirt off over her head and tosses it onto the rock before she climbs down in her bra and shorts. The water cools her whole body instantaneously and the blistering temperature becomes a pleasure. She tips her head back, not caring what the sun will do to her skin.

Addison spreads his palms flat against the surface of the water, fingers splayed to catch the leaves and bits of grass pushed along by the slow current. “Has anyone answered the ads you’ve put in for a new doctor?” he asks.

“A few. It’s early still. I don’t want to rush it. Evelyn said she can help out while Dan is still strong enough to be alone.”

“You’ve liked it, haven’t you. You bring that home with you. I can see it.”

She floats on her back for a moment, suspended on her hands so only the prominences of toes, knees, hips, breasts break the surface. “Are you asking me if I know how to swim?” Addison looks confused and she smiles, glad that the reference was missed. “I’m not sure what you’re really asking me.”

“Well. Me neither. So I have another question for you.” He trails his fingers along her left arm until they reach her hand and he grasps it, tipping her off balance. He holds her left hand up between them. “Where’s your ring?”

Claire looks at the solitary wedding band on her finger as if the missing diamond surprises her. “Hmm. Not there! In a good place, though. Trust me.”

He is suddenly less playful, holds her left hand in his right and twists the gold band in a circle. Then he looks at her closely. “Did you give her the ring or the money?”

Claire answers in nearly a whisper. “I didn’t think she could sell it in Nicaragua.” She pauses, waits for his reaction to become clearer in his blank face. “I kept some for us, too. Are you furious?”

“Furious?” He shakes his head. “No. It was yours. Your choice.” He turns and walks down the stream, still holding her hand, almost as if he’s already forgotten it.

They reach a broad delta just before the stream flows into the pond and sit down again. “Okay, my turn,” Claire says. “What are the chances you can fix vascumab? Figure out what caused the liver damage and try again.”

Addison takes a minute to answer, submerges his face until all she can see is a pink glob underneath the clouded water, marked by an explosion of bubbles just before he comes up and wipes the water off his face. “About seven million to one. With any luck at all.”

There is nothing in this that surprises Claire. The differences between vascumab and the multitude of other failed drugs was minuscule
to begin with. She had hardly realized she still hoped for it until now. And even within the disappointment, part of her welcomes the end of the waiting, the space it opens up. But still, the blow of hearing him say it makes her turn away. She stumbles to her feet again, almost slipping on the slick, river-polished stones. She hears Addison splashing behind her, falling once with a groan of surprise and possibly pain but she doesn’t wait. The bottom becomes muckier sand and she wades in to her knees before he catches up and turns her by her shoulders to face him.

“Claire, what matters is that we stopped this drug. Stopped
my
drug. If you hadn’t learned what happened to Esperanza and Rubén it could have hurt a lot more people.”

“I know. That’s good. More than good. So now you spend another twenty years of your life trying to invent another cancer test? Another vascumab?”

“No. I go back to doing the work I’m good at and see where it leads. Ron is willing to help me start something in Wenatchee.”

She scans the burning white blue sky. “I knew better than to think it might still work out.”

He is quiet for a long time, then: “We have to both decide what it is we really want to still work out, Claire.”

She turns to him, sees the solemn look on his face and feels the blood rush out of her head, feels the surge of water rising, swelling underneath them. “Are we really there? Is that something you’re trying to decide?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “No. I know what I want. But what I want isn’t behind us. I can’t take us back there.”

She is about to cry, holds her breath for a moment to fight it. “Then we won’t. We won’t go back there.”

Addison’s eyes are filling now, a thing she has only seen twice in their marriage—the day they wed, and the day Jory was born and almost died. “Okay. I heard the word I needed to hear.”

“What?” she asks, too emotional to even remember precisely what she’d said.

“We.”

She lets out a small laugh that turns into a choked sob, waits for
the surge of anchoring security that should follow—the attaching force between them, as reliable as gravity, that has always followed their impassioned reunions after discord. Waits and knows at the same time that she can only expect half to come from him. “So is it too soon to talk about where we
can
go?”

He shrugs, but after a pause adds, “No. Not too soon. I have a great idea.” He strips off his clothes and wades into the middle of the stock pond, and when the water reaches his pale white chest he dives under, comes up and shakes the water from his eyes. “It’s perfect. Come on.”

Claire tosses her bra and shorts and panties on the nearest rock and wades in after him. When she moves, the ripples spread in such a way the rocks appear arranged in perfect, concentric circles, some miraculous natural order, until the water goes clear again and they settle into chaos before her. The pockets of colder water break against her skin, the muddy bottom oozes between her toes until she tucks her feet up and swims to him. A small fish nips at her leg and she screams, then screams once more when she realizes it’s Addison’s hand. He wraps his body around hers, their naked skin sliding slick and smooth, impossibly young again. And when his hands begin to move over her, without thinking, without planning, they are both surprised, as seduced by the illicit setting as teenagers. They have stumbled through confessions and apologies for eight months trying to claw their way back. Only now, at this inevitable point of giving up, does she understand how these new, raw surfaces bind them. As if the wounds torn through both of them might, finally, scar their flesh together.

Acknowledgments

A book doesn’t really come to life until someone besides the author opens the cover and steps inside the dream. I am grateful to you, the reader, for spending hours inside these pages, and to the booksellers who helped bring us together.

If there is any task more daunting than writing a first novel, it is the work of writing a second novel. The scope of research for this book stretched far beyond the eventual storyline, and many people contributed time and information that isn’t written in these pages but which still shaped the characters and plot. Indeed, the most valuable lesson I discovered by talking to people on opposite sides of such complicated issues as immigration, healthcare access and biopharmaceutical research is that the gray zones are always more fascinating and true than the black and white. My eternal thanks for the many individuals who volunteered their valuable time to help me understand worlds well beyond the one in which I live and work.

For their personal and medical experiences and expertise, I thank Siri Kushner and Hector Guillen, Gabriel Solano, Julian Perez and Antoinette Angulo, Ann Diamond, Tamara Merritt (who answered all my endless emails!), Steve Brown and the staff at the Brewster Family Health Center, medical social worker Jeff Harder, Jorge Baron of Norwest Immigration Services, Angela Macey-Cushman and financial consultants Dan Nelson, Rick Thomas and Deb Hiss. Thanks to physicians Anna Beck, Karen Hanten and Dana Lynge. Though I never got to make the visit you so kindly offered, thanks to border agents Daryll Griffin, Mike Fisher and Richard Barlow. For their amazing patience in guiding me through the science, business and regulations of drug development I thank Ann Miller and Alex Burgin (how many times did I promise you both this was ‘one last question?’), Nancy Salts, Joe Neal, Chris Bernards, Cheryl Weaver, Mette Peters, Pam Witte Gallagher, Dan Gallagher, Jim Bredfeldt and the thoughtful observations of bio-ethicist Carl Elliott. Thanks to naturalist Dana Visalli for his detailed knowledge of the Okanogan.

To the people of Nicaragua, a country rich in open hearts and open doors: I only scratched your surface and found great friends and natural wonders. I’m coming back! Thanks to the board of BOSIA for building the bridge between Bainbridge Island, Washington and Ometepe Island, Nicaragua.

In this era of ebooks and downloads it becomes easy to assume a book magically zips from my computer straight to the printer or the reader’s electronic device. Nothing could be further from the truth. Innumerable people have invested time, creative guidance and wise advice to carry this story from my imagination to yours. My great thanks to my editor Marysue Rucci, who recognized the heart of this novel long before I did, and my publisher, David Rosenthal. Thanks also to Kerri Kolen, Kate Ankofski, Sophie Epstein, Jonathan Evans and Judy Steer, Julia Prosser and Leah Walielewski, and the many others at Simon & Schuster working behind the scene. Thanks to my agents at Inkwell Management, David Forrer and Kimberly Witherspoon. You gave me critiques, opened doors and held my hand when I needed it.

Dennis O’Reilly gave me the honest feedback I needed through more drafts than any human should tolerate. Thank you to the best writing brainstormers I know: Susan Wiggs, Suzanne Selfors, Sheila Rabe, Elsa Watson, Anjali Banerjee. Thanks to the Seattle7writers, laughing with you may have saved my sanity: Stephanie Kallos, Erica Bauermeister, Jennie Shortridge, Garth Stein, Randy Sue Coburn, Mary Guterson, Kit Bakke, Maria Semple. Several brave friends accepted my request to read the manuscript and tell me the truth, not an easy assignment. Thanks to you, Zan Merriman, Pam Shor, Marc Shor, Martha Burkert and Martha McLaughlin.

An entire page should be devoted to my family for their endurance and unwillingness to let me sink into despair, even when my floor was buried in paper and my brain began to blur; even when the cat walked out the door with my sticky notes stuck in its fur. Kathie, Ray, Ellen and Marilyn, thanks for the readings, the research, and the faith. And to the family I have made, Steve, Sara, Will, Julia and Elise, how many hours this took me away from you! The five of you are my center of gravity and horizon of hope. Forever.

If you are interested in learning more about Nicaragua or would like to contribute to an organization working to build relationships between the peoples of Nicaragua and the U.S., visit
www.BOSIA.org
.

HEALER

Claire Boehning’s life of privilege and ease in Seattle comes crashing down, thanks to her husband Addison’s gamble on a biotech venture. Now they must retreat, with their fourteen-year-old daughter, to a bare-bones ranch house in rural Washington, where Claire struggles to revive a long-dormant medical career in order to support her family. The follow-up to Carol Cassella’s national bestseller
Oxygen, Healer
explores the fallout of broken trust, the ongoing struggle to be truly understood, and the ultimate redemption of love and family.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Claire’s new life in Hallum seems a cold reality compared to her wealthy life in Seattle—a perception only compounded by the harsh winter weather. She feels out of touch with her husband, who spent their life savings without telling her, out of touch with her teenage daughter, Jory, who is much less communicative with her than with Addison, out of touch with her profession, where she experiences both a language barrier and a lapse in practice of several years. At one point, she even explains that she, along with the rest of her family, “had forgotten how heartless the universe could be” (p. 70). In a sense, Claire had been living in a protective, sheltered bubble, cut off from reality. How do you think this bubble was created? How does she deal with her new life?