Her voice goes quiet, not in love, but in hardness. “I won’t allow you to speak of him that way.”
To push or not to push, that is the question. I’m me, so here goes nothing… “The man is dead to me. Not interested in you being so too.”
Her swift intake of breath rattles around my helmet and settles hollow in my bones.
“Mom, our choices are we never speak of him, or we agree to disagree but value each other more than we dislike the situation. You choose.” That whole free flow of information thing be damned.
It’s the sound of her tears that does me in. I pull the throttle and pick up speed. I’m out of the curve of the mountains for now with a straight-away laid out before me. Thank God. I love this woman. She needs love. She needs someone to have her back. Lord knows what she’s dealt with over the last forty years.
But the idea that she’s been a victim and has no agency is abhorrent to me. She got to choose. She gets to choose. She’s stayed with someone who bullied, bellowed, and belittled to get what he wants.
I couldn’t deal with it. Ayla cut ties long after I did. Cian… Ci did everything right. He did everything that was expected until finally he walked away too. And well after anyone would think anything poor of him.
So Mom gets to choose, but she has a hell of a lot hanging in the balance.
“I love you, Liam. I don’t want to lose you… Any of you. And, before you say anything, I made a vow to your dad. In sickness and health. In good times and bad.”
In abuse and gaslightingI want to say, but don’t and let her continue.
“How do I honor my promises while not losing you and your brother and sister?”
I won’t answer that for her. It’s a cop-out. We both know it. “That’s on you, Mom. I just wanted you to know I love you.”
Her sobs meet my ears. We say little else, and by the time we disconnect, I’m glad the road has begun its snake up through Monarch Pass because I need to revel in the ride, focus on the hairpins, and leave that shit on the other side of the continental divide.
I keep trying. At some point, it’ll stop. I just really hope it’s because my dad isn’t his larger-than-life self and not because I’ve given up my attempts.
Lorien
They can’t be serious. Can they?
There’s no way in hell I’m shelving this research or the cures it could bring.Cures!
Treatment would be incredible, but from what I’m seeing with the genomic biomarker data, this isn’t treatment, it’s remission. We’re talking AIDS gone. Celiac healed. Arthritis alleviated. Not a Band-Aid fix, which would be incredible enough and so worth the time and research dollars. It’s genetic therapies that restore patients to original health.
Who wouldn’t want that?
In fact, the more I think about it, I’m sure I misunderstood the directive to focus my efforts on the topicals in clinicaltrials. The topicals team is first class. I’d be lucky to work with them.
But if I didn’t misconstrue the expectation, I’ll do something I’ve never done—I’ll go rogue. If I have to do the testing after hours, or early mornings or hide the results until they’re indisputable, I’ll do that too.
My brother deserves it. So do the countless numbers of people living in fear and pain around the world. And their families.
Before I forget, I grab the flash drive out of my desk and stash it inside my wallet. All the while, I make a show of withdrawing a dollar bill in case the cameras are watching—and they’re always watching—and head to the vending machine. Those dry, powdered-sugar Donettes are the only thing not priced above my lone bill, so I grab them and drop them in the same drawer where the drive and my wallet were, keeping up the ruse.
I’m not about to go against a multi-million-dollar company with multiple billions in IP and throw chum in the water for the shark attorneys who would have the rights to my internal organs if I crossed them. I’m not foolish enough to think I can take them on. Honestly, I don’t want to. I want to partner with them to bring a world-rocking cure to the modern conditions that wreck our friends.
And there’s money to be made doing it. The state of our national and global health care systems proves that. Don’t even get me started on that.
But the investors and the board control the projects. Lawyers, billionaires, and random corporations with interest determine how we research disease, how we test, and how we offer the solutions. There are no NIH dollars here. This isn’t a government contract thing.
Science and scientists are way down the list of who gets a say.
But not this time.
Not on my watch.
Like hell am I sitting back when my brother’s life is in the balance.
