Mark Gimenez - The Common Lawyer

Her leg had a nasty bit of road rash.

"I fell at recess last week, scraped my leg. It's scabbing up now."

"So you've never been to a doctor?"

"Oh, I've been to lots of doctors."

She was picking at the scab.

"If you pick at it, it'll bleed."

"It is bleeding."

"So you were sick?"

"No, I was at a hospital."

She reached to her neck and held up a pendant on a silver chain. Andy's twelve years of Catholic school qualified him to identify it.

"Saint Aloysius, the patron saint of children."

"That was the name of the hospital."

"So you were really sick?"

"No, I wasn't sick."

"Then what were you doing in a hospital?"

"They were experimenting on me."

"Were those doctors called 'psychiatrists'?"

"I'm not crazy, Andy."

She was now digging in her mother's purse.

"But you weren't sick?"

"No."

"So why'd they put you in a hospital?"

"To study me."

"Why?"

"Because I can't get sick."

"You mean, like research?"

"Unh-huh. It was a research hospital."

She pulled something from the purse.

"And what did they find out?"

"I'm immune."

"To what?"

She secured a big Band-Aid over her scab-the same kind of Band-Aid Andy had found in their trash-then she looked up at him.

"Everything."

Andy yanked open the wood door to the shower. Frankie was wet and naked. She didn't flinch or try to cover up. She just stood there in the steam.

"That blood on the Band-Aid, it was hers. Russell's not after you. He's after her."

She turned off the water.

"My towel."

Andy tossed the towel to her.

"Why'd you lie, about the Band-Aid?"

"So you'd tell Reeves and he wouldn't take her."

"Why does he want her?"

"To save his son."

She dried off.

"How can she save his son?"

"Because she's immune to all known illnesses."

"She can't die?"

"No, she can die-of old age, or a crime, or a car accident, or if you kill us on your motorcycle. But she won't die of cancer or AIDS or the flu. She's Baby X… and I'm the Virgin Mary."

"The Virgin Mary?"

"The mother of the savior."

"The savior of what?"

"Mankind. They thought her stem cells would be the cure."

"For what?"

"Everything. Every disease known to man. They wanted to clone her, make a guinea pig out of her. I wanted her to live a normal life… be a regular kid."

"Russell thinks her stem cells can save Zach."

She nodded and pointed.

"My undies."

He tossed the black underwear at her, took once last look, and walked out.

"I was worried about her. I mean, she was five and had never been sick. Kids are supposed to get sick, right?"

Andy tossed another dry branch onto the fire. Jessie was sound asleep in the sleeping bag. Frankie was smoking a cigarette.

"One time, all her friends got strep throat, but not her. Then half her class went out with the flu, but not her. I started wondering if something was wrong with her."

"She's never been sick?"

"Not even a cold. So I took her to the pediatrician. He said he'd never had a five-year-old patient who'd never been sick, not an ear infection or pink eye or a runny nose. He asked if he could take blood samples, send them off to a friend, an immunologist at a research hospital in upstate New York. I said okay. I wish I hadn't."

"So what happened?"

"A few months later, the doctor called and asked me to bring her in. His friend was there."

"Mr. Doyle, Mrs. Doyle, this is Dr. Tony Falco."

They shook hands and sat around a small table, like when they had gone to the lawyer's office to sign their wills. Dr. Falco smiled at them.

"I'd like to study your daughter."

"Why?" Frankie said.

"Because she might be an anomaly."

"You mean a freak of nature?"

Mickey Doyle laughed. "Like Shaq, only smaller."

"Mr. Doyle, your daughter is far more special than any athlete. She could save the world."

"What are you talking about?" Frankie said.

"I'm talking about a perfect immune system. I'm talking about stem cells that might cure every disease. I'm talking about changing the world."

"You're talking about making her a guinea pig."

"No, ma'am. We just need to study her. And both of you. Have you ever been sick, Mrs. Doyle?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Doyle?"

"Hung over." He chuckled. "Yeah, I been sick."

"And after you test us… her, then what?"

"If she's what I think she is, we would use her stem cells to create a new line-"

"You mean, clone her?"

"Yes."

"No."

"Mrs. Doyle, the curative properties of her stem cells might be unlimited."

"But you don't really know? It's all just an experiment?"

"So was going to the moon, until we did it. Mrs. Doyle, imagine a world without disease. Without young children dying of leukemia and other childhood diseases. Without children in Africa dying of AIDS. Without pharmaceutical companies controlling who lives or dies. Your daughter can change all that."

"Will there be enough stem cells for everyone?"

"No."

"Who will decide who lives or dies? You?"

"Yes."

"And what happens to her when all this becomes public?"

"It won't. It will all be anonymous. I guarantee it."

Frankie shook her head.

"No one can keep that kind of secret. It'll get out. And when it does, the media will descend on her. She'll be turned into a freak show. She'll never live a normal life. She'll never go to college or get married or have children. She'll always be a freak."

"Mrs. Doyle, I'll be the only person at the hospital who knows her real name. I'll admit her as 'Baby X.' Her name will not be on any hospital record or in the computer. I can keep a secret."

"And you won't want to tell the world? Write about your great discovery? Of course you will. You'll want to share it with the world. You'll want the credit. The glory."

A faint smile. "I've already thought about that. I'll write up the research as if you're the patient. Patient X, not Baby X. Twenty-five to thirty-five-year-old woman. No one will know the patient is really a child."

"They'll know you're the author."

"I'll write the research anonymously."

"They'll find you. And when they find you, they find her."

"We can pay."

Frankie looked up from the fire.

"So we did it."

"Why?"

"We owed thirty thousand to the IRS-Mickey played games with the shop's taxes. They were threatening to take our home and Mickey's shop."

"How much did Falco pay you?"

"Fifty thousand. To start."

"That's a lot of money."

"Not with Mickey spending it. We paid off the taxes, Mickey gambled the rest away. Drinking, gambling, fighting-you marry the wrong man, it's like a bad dream you never wake up from."

"So you took her to the hospital?"

She nodded. "In Ithaca. She was so scared. I knew it was wrong. Mickey went back home, I stayed with her. They ran tests on her every day, confirmed that she was 'the cure.' That's what they called her. They wanted us to move, live there so they could study her the rest of her life. She'd be like an animal in a zoo. I said, What about school? They said, No, she can't go back to school. She's too important to take that risk. The world needed her. They'd have tutors for her at the hospital. Scientists from all over the world would come there to study her. Baby X."

Andy looked over at Jessie.

"She cried every day, begged me to stop the tests. She wanted to go home. Mickey wanted the money."

"What'd you do?"

"I knew it would never end as long as they were paying Mickey. They said there would be lots of money for us once we moved there-a house, cars, everything we needed or wanted. Of course, Mickey, he was all for it. Said it was like she had won American Idol. So I had to get Mickey out of her life. I went home and when Mickey got drunk, I taunted him until he hit me. He beat me up pretty good. I called the cops and pressed charges, filed for divorce. He'd been convicted twice before for assault, bar fights, so this time he would go to prison. Three strikes. To stay out of prison, he agreed to give up his parental rights. Then I took her from the hospital and we vanished."