A Heartbeat Away - Michael Palmer [46]
After waiting more than a week for him to return or at least to make contact, Angie finally left for the States. Friends told him that she did so hurt and angry, and never knowing why he had taken off the way he did.
Griff was dozing on the stern deck of Sanctuary when she came aboard carrying a houseplant, and knocked on the wall of the cabin.
“ ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ ” she said. “Couldn’t you have come up with a little more inventive note than that?”
Griff felt his throat close.
“Creative writing was never one of my strong suits,” he managed, grateful that there was a half-filled glass of Jack Daniels on the table.
“I guess it wasn’t,” she said.
“It’s a little late, I know, but for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
She sat down next to him. Her scent was dizzying.
“Just a few months ago I was working on a story about an Ebola accident, and I heard from one of the cowboys I interviewed about what happened to you.”
“Tweren’t nothin’.… You married?”
“Engaged. You?”
“I like to sit here and fish and drink, and watch the sun pass by. Women tend to want more out of a husband than that, I think.”
“You were afraid you were going to die. That was the reason you took off on me, wasn’t it.”
“Almost. I was never afraid of dying. I was afraid of what my dying would do to you. You didn’t deserve that.”
“You might have let me in on the decision.”
“I didn’t feel I could. I was always going to lose, Angie. It was just a matter of where and when, and how much of me was left when the battle was over.”
“You once said you were going up against near-perfection. I never quite knew what that meant.”
“But you do now.”
“I think so, yes.”
“I should have been a matador, Ange,” he said, absently tossing a pebble into the still water. “Bigger opponents.”
“But you’d have to kill the bulls and you don’t kill animals.”
“I’d sing them to sleep.”
They talked through the night and into the next day. Angie was working on an article for The Post on researchers who were bypassing animal experimentation and testing, but still getting answers. Griff’s seminal paper on the subject was referenced more than any other.
By the time she had gathered her notes and prepared for the drive back to the airport in Miami, he had given her enough material for a whole series. In between scribbling page after page in her remarkably illegible shorthand, she had managed to clean the galley, change the sheets, catch a fish, clean it, and poach it, accompanied by the contents of what seemed like a bunch of near-empty boxes, and a mélange of refrigerator leftovers.
“Why have you stayed away from the lab for so long?” she asked, packing her briefcase.
“Too dangerous. Them viruses never forget. Like elephants.”
“Come on, Griff. I’m serious. People need you. Science needs you.”
“Do you need me?”
“Dammit, Griff, don’t make this difficult. I love the memories of what we had. I don’t want to have to shut them out.”
“Sorry.”
“You can get back to your research. I know you can do it. Why can’t you see how much you have to offer to the world?”
“I don’t know. I guess nearly dying has a way of getting inside a man. Every day while I was in Africa I felt as if I were totally prepared for the inevitable. I guess I wasn’t.”
“You weren’t meant to spend your life this way. If you need help, then dammit, go and get it. Take meds if you have to. But don’t deprive us all of what you have inside you—especially your fearlessness.”
Griff thought about her visit every day after she left. He had promised to call her and let her know what was happening, but he never did. Still, the moment she stepped off his boat and drove away, he had sensed something inside him begin to change.
“I’ll take that backpack, Angie,” Griff said.
The pack, filled with blood-collection gear, was light, but the decreased mobility of the biosuit made it cumbersome to tote. Angie followed him through Emancipation Hall, with the soldiers close behind. Aliens on the move. As they walked, Griff did his best to explain the circumstances