Gary Braver - Elixir

Then his mind was full of death.

Now it was aswirl with forever.

Because of the epidural Wendy had slept most of yesterday afternoon, so Jenny had managed to get in a couple hours shopping. Along with her luggage she had two large bags of stuff she'd bought for Abigail from FAO Schwartz. She had spent another fortune. It was bizarre the way Jenny had taken to her own new motherhood-a near-maniacal compensation. When Chris asked how Kelly was getting along, she offered a chirpy "Just fine" which ended the discussion. Yet she talked about Abigail all the way to the airport and showed him a stack of recent photographs. "I'm so much in love with her," she confessed, "it almost scares me."

Probably scares her too, Chris mused.

Because Wendy would be discharged later that day, he returned to the hospital. But the moment he entered her room he sensed something was wrong. Her face had that strained look that even the painkillers couldn't mask.

His first thought was the baby. Yet he was peacefully curled up in her arms. And it couldn't have been complications from the delivery or Wendy wouldn't be dressed and sitting in a chair with Adam. A new bouquet of flowers sat in a vase on her table.

"Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine." Her voice was flat.

"You don't look it. Who brought the roses?"

"Betsy Watkins."

"That was nice of her."

"Yes, it was."

There was a gaping silence that seemed to suck the walls in.

"Wendy, what's the problem? And don't tell me 'nothing' because I can see it in your face."

Wendy looked up at him. "She said that she proposed calling in an ethical review board, but you were opposed."

Instantly he felt defensive. "I don't know what she's trying to prove, but she had no right to say anything. And we don't need an ethical review board."

"She asked me to convince you to put a hold on the project until one could be set up."

"Wendy, you're not part of the equation. This is Darby business, not a family forum."

"What you're doing is dangerous."

"Can we talk about this some other time? You've just had a baby, for God's sake." He got up and went to the window.

"It has everything to do with the baby," she said angrily. "You're obsessed with this, Chris, and it scares me."

"I'm not obsessed, just busy."

"No, obsessed, and you've been like this for months. I feel as if I'm married to you by remote control. I don't see you anymore, and when I do you're distracted all the time."

He sighed audibly. Betsy had gotten to her with both barrels, and she wasn't going to let up. "I'm just swamped, that's all-neck-deep in setting up protocols and all."

"Chris, what you're doing scares me."

"I'm doing what all of medical science does-including every doctor and nurse in this hospital. My goal is no different."

"Medical diseases are not the same."

"Not the same as what?" he shot back. "Death is the ultimate medical disease-100 percent fatal."

"I mean viruses and bacteria. They come from the outside. Death is built in."

"So is Alzheimer's." The moment the word hit the air, he wished he could retract it.

The effect was instant. "Is that what this is all about?"

"It's too late for Sam."

"I'm not talking about saving Sam. I mean you."

Chris made a move to leave. "I've got to do the paperwork to check you out."

"Chris, you know what I'm talking about."

He flashed around. "No I don't, Wendy," he said. "Corny as it is, what we're doing is in the name of science and humanity, nothing less." He put his hand on the door handle to leave.

"Think of him," she said. "Think of how you'd relate to your son if he grows up to be older than you. Think about the day your child dies of old age and you're still going strong at forty-two." Her eyes were huge. Like Jenny's when crazed.

"Wendy, what the hell are you talking about?"

"You're thinking of taking it yourself."

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" he exclaimed. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard you say." His reaction was exaggerated not in anger at Wendy but at himself for appearing so transparent. "This is scientific inquiry of the highest order, not a Robert Louis Stevenson story."

"Promise me you won't."

"You can't be serious."

Tears filled her eyes and splashed onto the baby. "For his sake, promise me you won't. Promise me!"

"I don't believe this!"

"Promise me."

Chris stood at the door unable to move, transfixed by the desperation in his wife's voice. "I promise," he said.

Then he opened the door and left, wondering if she really believed him. Wondering if he really believed himself.

He returned later to drive Wendy and the baby home. She was still sullen. They put Adam into the crib for the first time in his life. And for the second time in their lives a newborn little boy slept in their home.

Wendy was exhausted, and after Adam went down, she went to bed and was out almost immediately. They did not discuss Elixir again.

Usually Chris drank a couple beers at night to settle his brain for sleep. But tonight he wanted a fast buzz. So, he poured himself some vodka over ice and felt the heat spread throughout his head. On his second glass he slipped into the nursery to look at his son. The small table lamp fashioned in a big red and yellow clown's head lit the room in soft glow. Adam was asleep on his back, his head to the side, the tip of his finger in his mouth.

Chris raised the drink to his eyes and studied it for a moment. The vodka was clear and colorless. Like Elixir.

Obsessed.

She was right.

And not just scientific inquiry.

Right again.

His mind turned to Sam, and he felt a deadly logic nip him. Wasn't he becoming more forgetful? Sometimes fumbling for words? Sometimes stumbling on pronunciations? Sometimes forgetting the names of colleagues' spouses? Forgetting what month it was? Forgetting to book the Caribbean?

Wendy had said it was distraction. Distraction, stress, anxiety. What anybody experienced when riding command. Sure.

Then from the sunless recesses of his brain shot up a couple bright red clichés:

Like father, like son.

The spitting image of his dad.

And soon, coming to a theater near you, he thought sickly: The drooling image of his dad.

The room seemed to shift, like that moment of awareness with Iwati by the fire. What if it were beginning-the great simplification-the convolutions of his brain puffing out in micro degrees? He could read the signs-forgetfulness, confusion, repetitious gestures. Those moments when his brain felt like a lightbulb loose in its socket.

Nerves? Distraction? Stress? Maybe. Maybe not. He could see a doctor, but at his age there was no definitive test. Not until it was too late-when you looked in the mirror and you realized what a frightening, unfamiliar thing your face was.

Sure, he was only forty-two, but Alzheimer's could work its evil early. The doctors had said that Sam had an unusually virulent case. Accelerated was the term. If it had already started in himself, there was no known cure. No salve for the terror and the horror. Nothing but nothing.

Except, perhaps, Elixir. It preserved brain cells too. Chris swallowed the rest of his drink, and calculated the dosage necessary for a 170-pound man.

The morning was appropriately cold and raw. It was the day Jimbo would die.

Phase One of the testing had been completed. With no standard procedures to guide them, Chris and his team had worked out the minimum dosage-to-body weight ratios to maintain a steady state for the animals-levels where chemistry and behavior plateaued, where test-culture cells replicated indefinitely, and where Elixir maxed out, the excesses passing through their systems unabsorbed.