“Multivitamins then,” she said.
“Well, yes.” He was mildly surprised by her ability to connect the dots.
Hammer had been buying vitamins for years and failed to see anything special about the suggestion. Dr. Cabel started to walk off. She snatched him back by his greens.
“Let’s cut to the chase,” she said.
“Seth has had strep throat a dozen times in his life. Why has it turned into this now?
Aside from his lousy immune system. ”
“It’s not exactly the same thing as the strep that causes a sore throat.”
“Clearly.”
This lady was not going to let him go. Dr. Cabel felt sorry for Seth in a different way, now. Living with this woman would wear out anybody.
Imagine asking her to fetch coffee or take your word for it? When all else failed, Dr. Cabel switched to the language that only his super race understood.
“It’s quite possible strep has acquired new genetic information, picked up genes. This can happen through infection by abacteriophage,” Dr. Cabel informed her.
“What’s abacteriophage?” She wouldn’t give up.
“Uh, a virus that can incorporate its DNA into abacterial host,” he said.
“The hypothesis is, that some Ml strain of group A strep, in approximately forty percent of recent invasive infections, seems to have acquired genetic material from a phage. This is according to
WHO. ”
“Whoi’ Hammer frowned.
“Exactly.” He looked at his watch long enough to give her a broad hint.
“Who the hell is wboY She would get an answer.
“World Health Organization. They have a strep reference laboratory.
The long and short of it, this may all be connected to a gene that encodes a toxin called super antigen which is widely believed to be connected to toxic-shock syndrome. ”
“My husband has the same thing you get from a tampon?” Hammer raised her voice.
“A distant cousin.”
“And since when do you amputate for that?” she demanded as passerbys glanced curiously at the two people in greens arguing in the spotless, well-lit corridor.
“No, no.” He had to get away from this woman, so he, the English major, threw Shakespeare at her.
“Ma’am, with what your husband’s got, surgery remains the most effective treatment.
“Be bloody, bold and resolute,” he quoted.
“King Lear.”
“Macbeth,” Hammer, who loved the theater, said as Dr. Cabel hurried off.
She lingered long enough to see her husband wheeled back to the OR, then Hammer went home. By nine o’clock, she had collapsed in bed, too exhausted and distressed to remain in a conscious state effectively.
She and her deputy chief, in their respective homes, one with a pet, one without, slept fitfully the rest of the night.
Brazil tossed and yanked sheets this way and that, over his feet, under them, back over them again, on his side, on his belly. Finally, he lay on his back, staring up into the dark, listening to the TV murmur through the wall as his mother lay passed out on the couch again.
He kept thinking about what West had said. He should move out, find an apartment. Yet whenever he followed this scary, exciting path a few steps further, he always ran slam into the same scarecrow that sent him fleeing the other way. What was he supposed to do about his mother? What would happen to her if he left her alone? He supposed he could still bring by groceries, stop in to check on her, fix things, and run errands. Brazil worried as he thrashed in bed, listening to the eerie strains of what must have been some three a. m. half-a-star horror flick. He thought about West and felt depressed again.
Brazil decided that he did not like West in the least.
She was not the kind, enlightened woman that Hammer was. One day, Brazil would find someone like Hammer. They would enjoy and respect each other, and play tennis, run, work out with weights, cook, fix the cars, go to the beach, read good fiction and poetry, and do everything together, except when they needed space. What did West know about any of this? She built fences. She cut her own grass with a rider mower because she was too lazy to use a push one, and her yard was barely half an acre. She had disgusting eating habits. She smoked. Brazil turned over again, hanging his arms off either side of the mattress, miserable.