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Dr. Sam Mayfield was a demon sent straight from hell, I was sure of it. You’re being ridiculous, I told myself, but every time Sam made a loop and pulled the torn edges of my skin back together, I was back to cursing her in my head.
Nataliya had offered me one of Elias’s pain pills, but Sam looked at the bottle and shook her head. It could make him bleed worse, she’d said. She’d offered me Tylenol instead. Nataliya had been hovering ever since. Elias was with Owen in the kitchen, struggling through a snack. The kid had almost wailed when he was separated from his mother; it was only Nataliya’s promise that she would look after me that made him capitulate.
“Is he going to be okay?” Nataliya asked. “There was so much blood.”
“I’m fine,” I reassured her, but she never took her eyes off Sam. The reassurance would have to come from her.
Sam understood and offered her a smile. “He might be lightheaded for the next day, but everything looks okay. He didn’t lose as much blood as you think he did; your bandage kept pretty good pressure on things.” She pulled another suture tight, and I hissed through my teeth. “You’re as bad with pain as Owen is,” she teased.
Fingers threaded through mine, and I looked down at Nataliya’s hand in mine. “Squeeze when it hurts,” she said. “It helps.”
I didn’t have to ask who she’d done that for, and she was right, having her hold my hand helped me focus on something other than the stabbing pain from the sutures. Then, I remembered my other promise. “Sam, this is Nataliya Koza.”
“I know,” she said. “Owen already told me.”
“Her son has Loorer’s.”
Nataliya made a soft sound in the back of her throat. “We don’t need to worry about that right now,” she said, and it was like she had grown a second head right in front of me. When was anything ever more important to her than Elias? “Let her take care of you first, okay? Then, she and I can talk.”
Oh. The corner of my lip raised in a smile. “Are you that worried about me?”
Her expression was stormy. “You could have bled to death. Of course, I was worried.”
A few moments later, Sam stood up and took the sterile gloves off. “It’s going to scar,” she said, “and I have no idea whether you’re likely to end up with nerve damage, but I’m done.”
What was one more bit of nerve pain? My knee and my back needed another friend to keep them company. My job was sixty percent desk anyway. “Thanks, Sam.”
“You’re just lucky I know first aid,” she said. “I’m a researcher with a PhD, not a patient care doctor.”
“I know.” I nudged Nataliya in her direction. “Speaking of research?—”
Both women laughed. “You’ve emailed me before about your son,” Sam said. “You signed it ‘NK,’ right?”
Nataliya’s eyes grew bright. “You read my email.”
“I did,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t respond, but it’s hard with the amount that I get in a day.”
“I read the article you published about your vaccine. It sounded like the initial trials went well.”
I watched as they started talking about the nuts and bolts of Sam’s research. The vaccine that she’d created wasn’t meant to prevent a child from being infected with Loorer’s; it was meant for a child who was already sick. Rather than stalling the disease’s progression—which was what the current treatment did—it actually had the ability to reverse some of the damage, letting the body heal and grow stronger, more able to fight the disease. It was interesting stuff, for sure, but I was more fascinated by the aura of hope that clung to Nataliya. She practically radiated with it. “He’s three years post-prognosis, right? You said he was diagnosed early.”
Nataliya nodded. “His first muscle spasm was right after his fifth birthday. Since then, I’ve tried just about everything to manage them. With the medication he’s on now, we only have one or two big spasms a month.”
“And that’s been for how long?”
“A little over a year,” she said.
“So, he’s stable. Why go looking for an experimental treatment?” Sam asked. A harsh question, but I could understand why she needed to know. “It may not be a miracle fix, and it’s still very new—we can’t guarantee that there won’t be unanticipated side effects.”
Nataliya nodded. “I’ve thought about that,” she said. “Currently, Elias is in a best-case scenario situation for living with the disease. He could carry on like this for years. He’d survive…but could you really call it living? He barely eats, he gets tired easily, and even if he doesn’t have constant spasms, he’s in pain a lot of the time. That’s not a life, especially for a little kid.” She took a breath, and it was shuddery in her chest. “I don’t want to outlive my son, but even more than that, if I’m going to lose him early, I want the life he does have to be one he can enjoy.”
Whatever Sam was looking for with her questions, she must have found it, because she broke into a big smile. “I can’t make any promises,” she said. “The trial vaccine has done wonderfully so far, but there’s no guarantee.”
“Of course,” Nataliya nodded.
“And I would need to be able to take him to a hospital for treatment,” Sam said. “I would need to have him monitored and observed for my research.”
Like a lab rat, I thought. I wasn’t wild about the idea, but at the same time, that was how medicines and vaccines were tested, wasn’t it? Researchers needed volunteers so they could know, definitively, whether what they created worked. “Is it safe?” I asked. “Even if it doesn’t work?”
