State of Wonder - Ann Patchett [66]
“Tell me you’re fine,” he said.
“Some blisters,” she said, gently pushing at one of them on her toe, “but absolutely fine. I found Dr. Swenson.” She said it straight out. She did not wait for him to ask her because he had asked her every time they spoke, as if finding Dr. Swenson was something that might have happened and then slipped her mind. She told him about the opera house, about Easter and the dinner. She told him what had been said about Anders and, in trying to recreate the conversation, she realized how little of a conversation it had actually been. She could report that the project was behind but moving forward. Even if she lacked the details she was sure about the essential fact: Dr. Swenson wanted to see this done more than anyone, and she would get it done, on that point she had been very convincing, though she had neglected to say when she projected the drug might be submitted to the FDA.
“No time line?” Mr. Fox said.
“Nothing absolute,” Marina said, but in truth she hadn’t asked. Why hadn’t she asked? All these years later, she still listened to Dr. Swenson as a student listens to a teacher, as a Greek listens to an oracle. She didn’t question her, she simply committed the answers to memory.
“Don’t worry about that,” Mr. Fox said. “It was a preliminary meeting. You’re smart not to push her yet. Do you think you’ll leave tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow or the next day. It depends on tickets. I’ll be on the first plane that has a seat.”
“You’ll take a plane?” Mr. Fox asked.
“To come home.”
The line was quiet, and into that silence Marina did not extend herself. Even as she realized the error of her assumption she wanted to stay with it for as long as possible. Her hopeful imagination had let her drift all the way home. She had no luggage. They had never found her luggage. Everything she had acquired in Manaus would be left behind, save the little white heron and the red beaded bracelet that was knotted to her wrist. Through the window of the Minneapolis–St. Paul airport she saw white blossoms. She drank the honeyed breeze as she stepped outside.
“Don’t quit this now,” Mr. Fox said. “Not after all the time it’s taken to find her.”
He would still be saying this after six months, after a year, Don’t quit this now. Maybe he wanted her to stay until she could promise she was bringing back the chemical compound for fertility in her pocket. “I delivered the message,” Marina said. In retrospect she was not entirely sure that she had said anything but she was certain that any message she delivered to Dr. Swenson would never be listened to anyway. Dr. Swenson didn’t listen to Marina, or Anders, or Mr. Fox. Listening was not Dr. Swenson’s habit. Marina was not going to change the course of the river. “Anders delivered the message. She told me that. She understands exactly what it is you want and I believe she will get it to you as soon as is humanly possible.”
“It isn’t the sort of thing you can take someone’s word on. The drug could be finished or she could never have started it. This is a project of enormous importance and expense. You need to find out where we are in development,” Mr. Fox said, and then he added the word “exactly.”
She looked at her feet, bright and raw in the overhead light, slick with Neosporin. “You’ll have to find somebody else.”
“Marina,” he said. “Marina, Marina.” He said it with tenderness in his voice, with love.
She could smell her own capitulation coming on from a mile away. It was her nature, her duty. She told him good night and hung up the phone. She couldn’t blame him much. Inside the envelope of his own warm, dry sheets, he really couldn’t understand what he