The Heiress Of Water_ A Novel Part 4

Adam raised one palm and then the other. "Sylvia has been researching the venom treatment. They think we have a shot."

"Who's 'they'?" Will asked, knitting his brows at Sylvia, his voice sharp.

"The people at Clinica Caracol," Sylvia said.

"Clinica what?" Bruce said, c.o.c.king his head.

"Caracol. It means 'seash.e.l.l' in Spanish," Sylvia said.

"I know what it means. Where is it?"

"El Salvador," Sylvia said. "Do you have a fax? I'll send you a copy of the article tonight."

Will interrupted, "Sylvia, you haven't mentioned anything about any experimental clinics."

"I'll give you both a copy," Sylvia replied.

Adam turned to Will. "She figured you'd balk. Besides, it's frightfully expensive to transport Yvette to El Salvador."

"El Salvador?" Will scoffed. "As in the country? country? Might as well be five billion bucks and the moon. Why are we even talking about this?" Might as well be five billion bucks and the moon. Why are we even talking about this?"

"Because it's an exciting new treatment," Sylvia said, her eyes lighting up. "And I wouldn't have discovered it if it wasn't for your daughter, Bruce."

"My Monica?" Bruce said, pulling his chin back. "Why Monica?"

"She had those cone sh.e.l.ls on display in her office," Sylvia said, "and she told us about some of the medicinal uses of their venom. I was intrigued."

Will left the conversation and walked to Yvette's bedside. Hope, in her case, was an exhausting and expensive business that never paid off. Theirs was a case of damage control. How to stop this tragedy from devouring the rest of their lives, the rest of their youth, energy, money? The lifetime treatment cost for Yvette was projected to be in the millions of dollars.

He looked up at a pewter cross that hung above the bed. On the bottom, in tiny print, it said MADE IN MEXICO MADE IN MEXICO. He felt the overwhelming desire to pull it off the wall. He imagined what it would feel like to sweep his forearm across the shelf above Yvette's bed; to clear it of the pitying stares of all those saints, the creepy gla.s.s eyes of the ceramic Virgin Mary, the dried-out Easter palms, the gaudy rosaries wrapped around a lampshade like Mardi Gras beads, all of it cheesy, all of it dusty and plastic and depressing.

Will collapsed over Yvette and sank his head into the crook between her head and her shoulder, shook his head slightly, and dug his nose into the little s.p.a.ce behind her earlobe. She didn't even smell like the same person. Some medication, he couldn't remember exactly what, gave off that weird metallic smell. He told himself it was what had driven away his physical desire for her. He was still able to feel it a year or so ago, back when her flesh still smelled like the woman he loved, before the medication with the metal smell robbed him of even that detail. He pulled away, closed his eyes. He wound his fingers into hers instead. They were so white, so skinny, so cold. He half opened his eyes to look at them.

And that's when he saw it. Between his half-closed eyes he saw her lips move. Not a twitch, but lips deliberately mouthing something, wrapping themselves around each letter of a word, something like wather wather or perhaps or perhaps other other. He saw the tip of her tongue press against front teeth to p.r.o.nounce the th sound, which seemed to him to be somewhat of a sophisticated sound to produce involuntarily.

His entire body p.r.i.c.kled and he held his breath. He stared at her lips, pale and thin and dry. He ran a finger over them and whispered her name, his own lips bearing down on the soft cartilage of her ear. He suddenly became aware of the others, talking excitedly to each other at the other side of the room. He looked away just a second, just long enough to see that Bruce Winters looked mesmerized as he read the article out loud with Adam and Sylvia looking over his shoulder. Will turned back to Yvettte, squeezed her hand once, staring at her lips, waiting for the slightest repet.i.tion of movement. He waited and waited, wondering and doubting if he had seen anything at all. He squeezed her hand in pulses, whispering, "Can you squeeze back?" over and over. He blew gently into her eye. Nothing.

He remembered his mother's words: Tour dad says she mumbled when he put a bunch of lilacs from his garden under her nose Tour dad says she mumbled when he put a bunch of lilacs from his garden under her nose. Will took a deep breath and decided to discreetly inform Dr. Bauer. The key was to avoid getting Sylvia all riled up over nothing. Will already knew what the doctor would say about Yvettte's vocalization-something about spasms, vocal chords, air pa.s.sages, sounds that seem like words, but aren't. Still, it was unnerving to witness those occasional gestures that seemed to contain meaning. Behind him, Bruce, Adam, and Sylvia were still deep in conversation about the clinic in El Salvador, which vaguely angered him and stirred his sense of territoriality. Will excused himself and went into the hall. His hands trembled as he dialed the numbers of the doctor's pager. It was the only outward sign that the armor that guarded his heart from false hope now bore an invisible, hairline crack.

chapter 5 JIMMY BRAY.

At five thirty in the morning Monica had a Salvadoran breakfast ready for her father: coffee, eggs scrambled with onion and tomato, sweet ripe plantains, refried beans, and some authentic corn tortillas she'd bought from a Hispanic grocery in a not-quite-gentrified section of New Haven.

"A nutritionally ideal breakfast if you're going to spend twelve hours under the sun chopping sugarcane," Bruce said, as he dug into the basket of warm tortillas.

"I don't remember signing up to chop sugarcane," Monica said. "I thought we were going fishing."

"You'll need the protein in those eggs to pull up all those monster fish we're going to catch today."

Monica poured the coffee and sat down across from him. "Let's get back in by ten. There's a front coming in."

Bruce took a sip of the coffee and closed his eyes for a moment, allowing the steam of the mug to rise up along his face. He sat back, eyes still closed. "Now that's real Salvadoran coffee." Bruce smiled a little, lifted the mug, and took another whiff. "Reminds me of your grandmother. Dona Magnolia had her coffee brought out to her at two o'clock in the afternoon, every day."

Monica took a sniff, inviting memories of times past, but it only smelled like coffee. "I always regret that I never got to go to her funeral. It just seems wrong. I was her only grandchild, after all."

"I regret it as well," Bruce said, holding his chin up with the palm of his hand like a little boy. "The Borreros called to inform me of her death after she had been buried for a month. It's part of how they managed to cheat you out of your inheritance. b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

"It's too early in the morning for that," Monica said, waving one hand. "All I'm saying is that I wish I was able to attend my mother's and my grandmother's funerals. Most people need ceremony to get a sense of closure. Otherwise, it's just like the person is away on a long trip or something."

Bruce chewed faster, driving his fork through the plantains with unnecessary force. "Alma's memorial service lasted less than fifteen minutes. We all knew that anything reeking of tradition would be an insult to her memory. If we had been able to recover her body, your grandmother and I would have cremated her and scattered her ashes at sea." He filled his lungs up and burped into his closed fist, then pointed at his plate. "This is all very authentic."

"I want to know where Mom's marker is. I need to know so I can lay you to rest next to her when you die."

Bruce choked on the last of his coffee, fumbled for some napkins, and covered his mouth as he coughed. He pounded his chest, and his eyes reddened. Finally, he cleared his throat and said in a strained voice, "I'll be with Ma and Pa in the East Hampton Cemetery, thank you very much. Besides, what would be the point? You'd be burying me all alone, because your mother's grave is empty."

"Hmm. Good point." Monica considered, rubbing her chin.

Bruce looked at his mug. "Did you poison my coffee or something? If you need cash, just ask, for G.o.d's sake, no need to murder me."

Monica looked hard to the left. "I guess I'm just looking for an excuse to go back to El Salvador. I know I say that every year, but I've been thinking that maybe it's time to actually do it."

"Oh, I get it. You're trying to give me a heart attack."

"Dad, the war's over. What's the big deal?"

He looked at her sideways. "I find it disturbing that you should be interested in traveling to El Salvador. That place was very bad to you, Monica."

"It wasn't personal," Monica said. "There was a civil war going on."

Bruce folded his arms and looked away. "I may be going to El Salvador in the next month."

Monica laughed, shook her head. "What are you talking about?"

"Research."

"What?" Monica tilted her head and pulled on her earlobe, as if she were trying to shake water out of her eardrum. "I'm sorry. I must have misunderstood. I thought I just heard you say you're going to the bad bad place. You know, the one I shouldn't be allowed to even think about." place. You know, the one I shouldn't be allowed to even think about."

"May be going. May be."

Accustomed to having to pry information out of her father, Monica took a few seconds to calculate the degree of delicacy required to get the full picture. She stood up and consolidated the food remains on both their plates. She strolled over to the sink, dumped the food, and briefly ran the garbage disposal. "So you're writing an article," she said. "Tell me more."

Bruce cleared his throat. "Well, I got a nibble from Urban Urban Science Science and the and the Cutting Edge Cutting Edge on the brain-injury article I told you I was pursuing. But it wasn't until after I had ended the interview with the Lucero crew and we were sitting around gabbing that I realized that something far more interesting was going on. Yvette's mother is willing to give any kind of superst.i.tious voodoo a chance. Did you see Yvette's hospital room? It's full of religious paraphernalia. What's interesting to me now is the extremes we go to when conventional medicine fails to deliver." on the brain-injury article I told you I was pursuing. But it wasn't until after I had ended the interview with the Lucero crew and we were sitting around gabbing that I realized that something far more interesting was going on. Yvette's mother is willing to give any kind of superst.i.tious voodoo a chance. Did you see Yvette's hospital room? It's full of religious paraphernalia. What's interesting to me now is the extremes we go to when conventional medicine fails to deliver."

Monica blinked and turned to look at her father. "What does this have to do with El Salvador?"

Bruce pursed his lips and stared down at the table, as if trying to decide what to say, or what not to say. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, then looked up at her. "Sylvia found a clinic in El Salvador that promises to 'fix' her daughter."

Monica shook her head. "Fix?"

"The Salvadoran government doesn't consider this natture-based treatment a narcotic, so therefore it's not regulated. In theory, that means that if there's something out there that can help someone like Yvette, these folks can isolate the solution a lot faster than we can here. That's the sliver of hope." He paused and held up a finger. "Now here's the interesting part, Monica."

Monica bounced on her heels. "Tell me. You're driving me crazy," she said, forgetting her resolve to approach him gingerly.

"This clinic is using cone toxins to attempt to jolt the injured brain into regenerating new cells." He opened his eyes even wider. "Cone venom, Monica. Cone venom Cone venom. The same d.a.m.n snail juice your mother drowned over."

"Is it the Conus furiosus Conus furiosus?" she whispered.

"Yep. And Sylvia found this program because of you." He pointed at Monica. "Said you you gave her a minicourse on the miracles of cone venom the other day." gave her a minicourse on the miracles of cone venom the other day."

Monica dropped a handful of the silverware into the suds. She blinked several times and put her wet hands together, as if in prayer. "You've got to be s.h.i.tting me."

She never swore, and so Bruce raised his eyebrows and gave her a half smile. "Nope," he said, as he poured himself more coffee. "I admit that fact has added a personal touch to my curiosity."

Monica had to blink several times before she could even speak. "How could you sit across from me and discuss the authenticity of these refried beans when you knew someone found the Conus furiosus? Conus furiosus? Are you from another planet or something?" Are you from another planet or something?"

Bruce shrugged and looked away. "I wasn't sure if you wanted to know that you're causing huge arguments between Will and Sylvia."

"Where on G.o.d's earth did they find it?"

Bruce turned his back to her and walked toward the living room and the picture window that, at this early hour, only reflected back his own image. "Mexico. Apparently mollusks can be declared extinct for a half century, then pop up in droves somewhere."

"The Conus gloriamaris Conus gloriamaris," Monica said, following him into the room. "Abuela paid thousands of dollars to have an officially extinct seash.e.l.l in her collection; now you can get one for thirty bucks."

"The truth is, I don't know if it's really the Conus furiosus Conus furiosus, but it sure sounds like it. They're very secretive about the source for this treatment. The woman I talked to on the phone down there claims that the treatment is a 'blend' of venoms."

"What, like cheap wine?"

"All she would say was that one of the cones in the 'blend' was considered extremely rare to extinct, but that a small colony of them was discovered on the Pacific coast, near Oaxaca. Someone was stung, and the subsequent effects imply that the substance was chemically able to break the blood-brain barrier."

"Sounds like the furiosus furiosus to me," Monica said. "So what do they claim they're going to do for Yvettte? Restore dead brain cells?" to me," Monica said. "So what do they claim they're going to do for Yvettte? Restore dead brain cells?"

Bruce nodded. "They have her mother convinced that they can offer some level of improvement."

"That just seems so far-fetched."

"That's what I say, but they claim that they have advanced lucidity in some cases like Yvette's."

"What does Will say about it?"

"He thinks it's ludicrous and dangerous. So do the doctors."

"Poor Will. It can't be easy to manage Sylvia on top of everything else. He seems like a nice guy. Patient. Kind," Monica said, and looked away.

"He's a h.e.l.l h.e.l.l of a guy. I can't begin to tell you how impressed I am by him." Bruce took a few steps forward, put his hands squarely on Monica's shoulders. "But don't you go setting him up with Paige. Will is married, after all." of a guy. I can't begin to tell you how impressed I am by him." Bruce took a few steps forward, put his hands squarely on Monica's shoulders. "But don't you go setting him up with Paige. Will is married, after all."

"I wasn't going to set them up. Paige Paige is a handful." is a handful."

Bruce turned to scoop up his UConn baseball hat. He put it on, checked his reflection in the mirror above the fireplace, and rubbed his morning stubble. "Ready?"

Monica nodded, willing to let the conversation go for a minute while she allowed her mind to race. She went into the kitchen to grab the thermos of coffee and an old sweatshirt, then walked down to the water. Long Island Sound was still, making the water look thick and metallic, like liquid mercury. Bruce had already pulled the rowboat out of the garage, and it rested on the tangle of seaweed and rocks beyond the seawall. They loaded bait, rods, and a tackle box. Bruce rowed the boat across the silent, ethereal surface of the water. The morning fog concealed the low, flat arm of Long Island across the water.

When they settled on a spot, Monica said, in a hushed voice so as not to scare away the fish, "I feel really bad if my comment triggered more tension between Sylvia and Will. G.o.d, it was just an offhand comment. Will was the one who noticed the cone collection on my office shelf and asked me about them."

Bruce shook his head and tossed his line. "You shouldn't feel responsible, you didn't know. But I think those two are in for a battle if Sylvia decides to pursue it."

Monica's shoulders slumped and she stared out at the water. Bruce glanced at her and said, "Oh, h.e.l.l. I doubt she has that kind of cash anyway. We're talking big bucks to transport Yvette."

"Who has more of a right to make these types of decisions, a spouse or a parent?" Monica asked.

"In their case he does. Yvette would have had to have signed a legal doc.u.ment a.s.signing Sylvia."

"Do you think there's a chance the venom treatment is a hoax?" Monica said, crinkling her nose as she wrapped a night crawler onto a fishhook. She held her hook out to Bruce for inspection. He nodded, and she cast her line.

"A hoax? Maybe. But not necessarily. An impulsive, irresponsible, unmonitored experiment is more like it," Bruce said. "But you might call me a pessimist or a skeptic for saying that. Who knows, Monica, maybe it's something brilliant and fantastic and we're all going to be surprised. But I doubt it." Something disturbed the gla.s.sy surface and he gave Monica the thumbs-up.

Monica thought, what if Alma's beloved sea snails could turn out to be medicinal after all? And what a joyous miracle if their venom could help Yvette. Monica thought about the day she had ma.s.saged her, remembering the weird sensation that someone was in there in there.

Out of the blue, Bruce declared, "The thing I admired about your mother, in retrospect, was her devotion to nature. She was an environmentalist in a country that as a whole was ruthlessly ambitious. It wasn't a popular point of view."

Monica didn't answer, and they were silent for a while. Perhaps suspecting what Monica was thinking, Bruce raised one eyebrow and switched the conversation back to where he was comfortable. "What's weird is that I haven't found any other information published on the furiosus furiosus. You'd think this would be big news even if its success was doc.u.mented on rats. I need to dig deeper, I guess."

"Paige can help. You know she has access to all those expensive academic Web sites through work."

Bruce nodded and tugged on his line.

"So who's paying for the cost of your research, Dad?"

"There's a budget for this kind of thing."

Monica got her first nibble, then a pull, and she began to reel in whatever was on the end of her line. Bruce whooped as she pulled up a striped ba.s.s. He unhooked it for her and threw it in the cooler.

As usual, they had succeeded in circ.u.mventing mention of Alma's partner in the quest for the Conus Conus. Years ago, even the most casual mention of Maximiliano Campos could bring on a silence and melancholy that lasted for days. But the morning's talk of El Salvador naturally made her thoughts return to the man who had ruined life as they knew it, and the idea of her father reentering that world made her a bit uneasy, as if Maximiliano were still alive and waiting to wreak more destruction. But Max was dead, after all, and as she herself had said, the twelve-year civil war was over, the peace accords signed back in 1992. If anything, a trip down memory lane might make the past appear less overbearing, as a house appears smaller when a child returns to it as an adult.

Monica was twelve when her father put her on a Pan Am flight destined for Hartford. Sh.e.l.l-shocked and motherless, she sank into a silent depression during that first, long, rainy spring at Grandma Winters's house. It wasn't until the season warmed into summer that the nightmares began. Perhaps it was the silence of the forest with its trees as tall as cathedrals that invited the confessions of her soul. It was the safety of a nowhere New England town that finally allowed her mind to unburden itself in the darkness of her bedroom.

She dreamed of children running and shouting as they were hunted by unseen shooters; people in ski masks, armored trucks flying by, shouting warnings, telling everyone to run. Always there were black dogs in the background, and the recurring image of a village procession, painted faces floating by, a wooden Virgin Mary as big as a department store mannequin, with bright pink cheeks, carried on a makeshift float. In the dream Alma's hand is slippery as a wet fish, and Monica loses her grip on her mother and is lost in the crowd. Alma disappears, but the hem of her yellow dress is still visible, a handful of it pinched between two bodies. Monica reaches for it, but in a moment, it too slips away. Monica wanders through the crowd, crying and calling for her mother. She pa.s.ses street vendors selling ribbons of green mango soaking in salt and lime juice. She smiles when she comes upon a man peddling live chicks dyed green, pink, and sky blue. Alma is standing before the vendor, scolding him for cruelty to the chicks, many of which will absorb the coloring through their skin, poisoning them to death. The wind picks up and Alma evaporates; like the sawdust art on the sidewalks, she blows away, bright and colorful and fragmented into too many pieces to catch.

In the morning, the only evidence of Monica's nightmares was fatigue and sweat stains on the sheets.

"What was that sound?" Monica asked her father, wrenched from the memory of the dream.

"What was what?" Bruce said without turning away from his fishing.