State of Wonder - Ann Patchett [145]
“It might not work at seventy-three. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t work at fifty. This isn’t the time to throw everything away.”
“Let the fifty-year-olds console themselves with in vitro as they have in the past. I have no intention of unleashing this misery on the world because I trust women to stop trying at a sensible age.” She shook her head. “So it’s good then,” she said, “it’s good. I’m going to go to sleep now. I want you to get some sleep, too. We’ll do this tomorrow in the afternoon when everyone has left and there’s plenty of light. Do your best to get them off early. Milton and Barbara would swim out of here, I feel sure of it, but Mr. Fox may try to linger. Once you get them on the boat, go and ask Dr. Budi to assist you. There’s no sense in telling her tonight.”
“Alright,” Marina said. She pulled the mosquito netting down over the bed. She turned down the flame in the lantern but she couldn’t seem to make herself go.
“You’re still here,” Dr. Swenson said finally.
“I thought I’d wait until you fell asleep.”
“I know how to sleep, Dr. Singh. I don’t need you to watch me unless it is something you are trying to learn to do yourself.”
When Marina got back to the lab, Dr. Nancy Saturn was explaining the relationship between the Martin trees and the purple martinets to Mr. Fox, and Thomas Nkomo was showing him the charts of pregnancies, birth weights, live births, and they were all lying to him in everything they chose not to tell. Milton and Barbara made sandwiches out of the store-bought bread they had brought with them. Everyone was helpful. Everyone was getting along.
“Have you seen all of this?” Mr. Fox said to Marina when she came over to them.
“I have,” she said. “I’ve been here a long time.”
“It’s remarkable work. Truly remarkable work.” He was smiling at her now without the slightest trace of collusion. He was simply happy. The drug would soon be in hand, the stock would exceed expectations, his risk would be lauded by generations of board members to come.
Dr. Budi handed her a sandwich on a plate, potted chicken after so many weeks of potted ham. “Dr. Swenson?” she asked.
“Her blood pressure is high,” Marina said.
Mr. Fox looked up and Marina shook her head. “She’s tired. She just needs rest, that’s all. There should be as little stress as possible.” It was a line of dialogue she remembered from meeting with patients years ago. It always comforted them. Anyone could embrace the idea that the answer was rest.
“We’ll leave in the morning,” Milton said.
“After we’ve seen the trees,” Mr. Fox said.
Marina waited another minute for old time’s sake. Mr. Fox bent back over the data and she wanted very much to put her hand on the crown of his head. It was probably better that he didn’t look at her, that he didn’t take her aside and whisper his true plan in her ear. If he loved her now, it would only be sadder later on when he realized that she had lied to him along with all the others. He would leave her once the whole thing fell apart. It might be years, but once he understood that he was holding a malaria vaccine instead of a drug for fertility and that she had known it and done nothing to stop it, nothing to save him, he would break with her in every possible way. That loss would be infinitely harder to take if he had ever loved her. “Let’s go to bed now,” she said quietly. Then he did raise his head, looking at her as if to say that surely he misunderstood.
“I’m with you,” Barbara Bovender said, slipping the second half of her sandwich into one of the many pockets on her dress. The two of them took Easter with them while the rest of the