Andrew Gross - The Blue Zone

She leaned on the green nurse’s button. Tina squeezed her hand again, motioning Kate to come close again. Her eyes darted around, struggling to sort out where she was, why the tubes were in her arm. Clutching Kate’s arm, she mouthed, “You still watch them? All day? ”

“Yes.” Kate nodded, her eyes filling up with tears. “All fucking day!”

Tina blinked at her and whispered, “You gotta get a life, Kate.”

She was all right! Kate could see it in her eyes.

Her friend was going to be okay!

THE FOLLOWING OCTOBER…

“Life is not fixed or owned. Our bodies are merely rented for a short while. When the time is up, like all things, they must be returned.”

The rabbi’s voice wound through the sanctuary. It was a Friday-night memorial service. The rows were dotted with a few, mostly older worshippers. Kate sat in a seat near the rear, Justin and Em by her side.

None of them had been here since the funeral.

Their mom had died a year ago.

“Oh, Lord, let us be truthful and worthy,” the rabbi intoned. “Let us see who we really are through your watchful light.”

He smiled, catching Kate’s eye.

Kate’s work on the stem-cell research project had landed her a couple of full-time prospects. Greg was doing well at the hospital. But he was right-one science geek in the family was quite enough. Emily had applied for early admission-to Brown-and planned to play squash there. The coach was hot on her tail.

And the best news-Kate smiled silently under the prayers-Tina was back at work full-time. She and Kate took coffee breaks together. Kate promised she wouldn’t freak out at the sight of strangers across the cafeteria.

In the past year, Kate had struggled to come to terms with all that had happened. She wore her pendants close to her heart. Both of them. And now they meant more to her than ever. A few months back, she’d received an envelope sent through the WITSEC office with no return address. All that was in it was a card-half a card, actually-intentionally torn in two. There was no message. No address.

It didn’t need any words.

On the other side was a halved picture of a golden sun.

It was okay. Better to think of him that way. She didn’t have to see him. Just to know that he was alive. “I had to make a choice,” he’d said. Kate would remember that choice for the rest of her life. And when she did, there was no way she could think of him as anything other than her father. A bearded man in a flat hat whom she’d met only a couple of times. Because that was the truth. He was her father. He had proven that. And the truth was something she couldn’t hide from anymore.

Kate kept the locket, too. In a drawer by her bed. From time to time, she opened it and looked at the pretty face inside. The caring green eyes and the light brown hair in braids. And Kate realized how much a person must have loved her to give her up. And how much of her birth mother she carried in her own blood.

She realized it every day. Twice a day.

They were connected. That was something that could never be reversed. That would always be true.

Kate looked up. Greg was standing at the end of the aisle. He’d said he would be there as soon as he could break away. He came and sat beside her and reached for her hand. She smiled. He winked and mouthed under the rabbi’s voice, “Pooch…”

The service had arrived at the closing prayers. The rabbi asked the congregation to rise. He recited the Mourner’s Kaddish, the hallowed memorial prayer for those who were gone. Greg squeezed her hand.

Then the rabbi said, “We think on those who have recently departed or been taken at this time in past years. Or those who just need our prayers, relatives and loved ones who have meant so much to us and remain part of our lives.” He looked out. “Feel free to honor them now by speaking their names.”

Someone in the second row stood up. “Ruth Bernstein,” he said. Then someone in the rear, “Alan Marcus.” And a woman near the side with a shawl draped over her shoulders, in a hushed voice, “Arthur Levine.”

Then there was silence. The rabbi waited. He looked around to see if there were any more.

Kate stood up. She took Em and Justin by the hand.

Sharon would always be that to her. No matter what had taken place. No matter whose blood ran through her.

“Sharon Raab,” she proclaimed loudly. “Our mother.”

Because that was the truth, too.

They say that every person has a story inside them. The problem sets in when they actually begin to believe it.

And when my first story, written after fifteen years in business in an unrelated field, made a final clunking sound on the last publisher’s floor, a senior editor whom I had never even heard of happened to pass it along to their top-selling author with a note: “Read this.”

Thank God, he did! I figured I would do one book with Jim Patterson-I’m sure he thought the same thing too-and hoped it would leave me off somewhere inside the circle I was peering into, unable to nudge my way in. But the one turned into many, all number one bestsellers, and I got to catch murderers in San Francisco, find holy relics in fourteenth-century France, chase bad guys from Palm Beach to Tierra del Fuego-the greatest postgraduate degree a thriller writer could have.

So here at last is my chance to say thanks to a few of you, some unsuspecting, who guided me along the way.

To Gerry Friedman, a friend who convinced me over lettuce wraps, in what now seems a lifetime ago, that I’d be chasing that dream the rest of my life if I didn’t, like the commercial says, just do it!

To Hugh Sidey, senior editor at Random House UK. Everyone needs a first believer. A long-overdue case of wine will be at your door!

To Holly Pera, homicide sergeant of the San Francisco Police Department, my real-life Lindsay Boxer, who so graciously shared her time and experience, and taught me to think like a female cop.

To Dr. Greg Zorman, my brother-in-law and chief of staff at Lakeside Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, my medical editor-upon-demand who, for years, has been making me appear a whole lot smarter and medically savvier than I really am.

To Amy Berkower and Simon Lipskar of Writers House, who took an outline I had noodled together in the lull between Patterson books and transformed it into a full-fledged career. Simon, your keen insights for what is on the page and steady advocacy for what is beyond it made this transition a fabulous ride.

To Lisa Gallagher and David Highfill of William Morrow/HarperCollins, for believing so strongly in that outline-and in me ! David, The Blue Zone is a far better story for its ebb and flow along the way. And thanks most of all for, I hope, permanently taking the prefix “ co -” out of my job description for the rest of my career. Also to Lynn Grady, Debbie Stier, and Seale Ballenger, for their commitment and energy in advancing the book along the way.

To my sister, Liz Scoponich, and my friend Roy Grossman, early readers of The Blue Zone , for taking that responsibility seriously and for your truly constructive thoughts. The same to Maureen Sugden, copy editor par excellence , a person I’ve never met, yet whose imprint found its way in big, red ink onto every page. (Every goddamn page!)

And a long-overdue thanks to Maureen Egen, former deputy chairman and publisher of the Hachette Book Group, USA, for seeing something in that first heavily rejected manuscript and passing it along to Jim, almost ten years ago.

But mostly this book contains the spirit and belief of three people who set me on the road and kept me there solidly-in books and in life: