“Juan, I can’t have my brother paying my bills for me. I’m getting a part-time job so I can help and you don’t have to kill yourself.”
With his cell phone to his ear, Juan Gutierrez took a deep breath and silently prayed for patience. Miguel had only just started his first year at Georgia Tech, and now he was thinking about taking a job? Juan looked around the research lab. He didn’t make great money here, but he made enough to keep Juan in school. Barely.
“Miguel, I told you I have it covered. I want you to focus on your studies, that’s it. Besides, Mom’s life insurance left enough to just cover your expenses.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” Juan lied.
The truth was, the life insurance money had run out years ago. But if Miguel knew that, the kid would probably drop out of college altogether. Juan hated lying to his little brother, but if that was what it took to keep him focused on school…
“Still,” Miguel said, “I can handle a part-time job. It’s no big deal.”
Taking a deep breath, Juan spoke as calmly as he could. “Trust me, Miguel. You’ll have more than enough on your plate without having to worry about catching the bus to some dead-end job. And you know as well as I do that you finishing school was Mom’s biggest wish. Just let me make the monthly payments for school, and you worry about your grades. You’ll help out more by keeping that scholarship.”
Miguel had secured a partial academic scholarship—contingent on good grades—and without it, Juan wasn’t sure how he’d afford Georgia Tech’s tuition.
Miguel sighed. “Well, okay. I’ll do the best I can. And thanks.”
A voice in the background said, “Hey Miguel, you up for some hoops?”
“Juan, I’ll talk to you later. Love you, bro.”
“Love you too.”
Just as Juan hung up, the badge reader at the lab entrance beeped, and a gray-haired security guard walked in and scanned the room. When his gaze landed on Juan, his eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”
The man’s suspicious tone sent heat rising up Juan’s neck. It was as if this rent-a-cop expected Juan to be emptying the trash cans instead of sitting in front of a lab bench.
“Excuse me?” Juan snapped indignantly. “I happen to work here.”
The security guard frowned. “Sir, where’s your employee badge?”
Juan rotated in his seat, unclipped the badge from the lab coat he had draped on the back of his chair, and wordlessly held it up for the man to see.
The guard nodded. “Thank you, sir. I’m just doing the rounds.” He turned and walked out of the lab.
Juan scowled. He knew the guard was just doing his job, but he couldn’t help but wonder if the man would have been as brusque if Juan’s skin hadn’t been brown.
Juan had long ago understood just how lucky he was. Not only had he managed to escape the projects of East LA—a rare feat—but he had completed both college and medical school, and now here he was doing cancer research for one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.
He looked at the picture of his mother he kept on his lab bench. She’d gotten pregnant with him when she was very young, and as a result, she’d never had the chance to build her own career. But she’d dedicated herself to being the best mother Juan could have hoped for. And it was she who instilled in him the idea that education was the only way out of the projects.
With a dull ache crawling up his neck, Juan felt the beginning of a headache.
He’d had a hard life—and it got even harder when Juan’s father died. Juan was thirteen, and his mother was pregnant with Miguel, when one day Dad simply fainted on the living room floor. He’d been suffering from what everyone assumed was a hard-to-shake flu.
His father was only thirty-one years old when he died.
Juan still remembered the smell of the exhaust coming from the heavy traffic as Mom followed the ambulance. She had one hand on the steering wheel, the other patting his shoulder reassuringly as she said, “Mijo, it’ll be all right.”
It wasn’t all right.
Dad never regained consciousness.
It was late on a Sunday evening, over eighteen years ago, when Juan first heard the word “cancer.”
Juan heard the tremor in her voice as she repeatedly whispered a prayer to a God he wasn’t sure existed.
After that, Juan began lashing out in school, arguing with his teachers, getting into fights. Impotently venting his rage at everyone around him. He was angry at his father for not having gone to the doctor earlier.
He was a teenager who’d lost a parent. He was just… angry.
If it hadn’t been for his mother’s strong hand, his life would certainly have taken a turn in a very bad direction. It almost did. But she stood strong, and she saved him from the gangs and the dangers of the streets.
She was his savior. And now she was gone, too.
Feeling a hollowness in the pit of his stomach, Juan closed his eyes as the painful memory bubbled to the surface.
“Ay ay ay, mijo… el dolor…” Mom moaned in Spanish as the pain wracked her body.
Tears blurring his vision, Juan watched over her. He knew she had little time left. Despite the strong odor of camphor coming from her nebulizer, her breathing was shallow and strained. She’d refused hospice care, preferring to stay at home until the very end.
With a sudden inhalation, Mom grimaced and squeezed Juan’s hand. He clasped her hand in both of his.
And then her grip loosened. The grimace disappeared. And she closed her eyes.
A tear ran down the side of her face. “I’m sorry, mijo… I can’t fight anymore…”
Juan softly whispered the words aloud. “I can’t fight anymore.” His mother’s last words. Eight years later, those words still haunted him.
Cancer had taken both his parents from him, and those deaths had shaped the man he was today. His father’s death had filled Juan with an unstoppable drive, and his mother had given him the desire to prevent others from suffering from the same hideous disease.
He was driven by a single-minded obsession.
To find a cure for cancer.
###
Juan glanced up at the clock and groaned. He’d promised Lisa that he’d be home hours ago. Glancing around at the lab bench scattered with his notes, printouts and then at various other computer terminals, Juan shook his head and announced to nobody in particular, “Okay, that’s enough for today.”
But before he could close his laptop, it dinged with an e-mail from AgriMed’s HR department.
To all North American employees:
As many of you know, the pharmaceutical industry has been experiencing an economic downturn. We have weathered such events in the past by increasing our investments in research and development so that we can come out stronger when the economy improves.
Unfortunately, our forecasts show that the economic malaise is spreading across Europe and Asia. Therefore, it has been decided that we will take a closer look at our investments, and in some cases, separation from the company will be the result.
All employees should expect to have one-on-one meetings with their immediate supervisors on whether or not they are affected.
Further details on separation packages will be made available within the next week.
Juan read the e-mail a second time, glanced at the disorganized mess of notes and partial results scattered across his workspace, and groaned.
He noted that they didn’t say how many people would be “affected.” He was hopeful that he’d be spared—cancer research was supposedly a priority at AgriMed—but he couldn’t help the anxiety that tightened his chest.
Because if they were going to trim back in cancer research, he might be on the chopping block. The truth was, he hadn’t made any breakthroughs yet, while others had come up with new protocols, had written extensively in peer-reviewed journals, or were even in the midst of administering large clinical trials.
“I’m screwed.”
###
“Don’t you dare call and try to make up with me this time. I’m sick of your shit, Juan!”
Lisa put emphasis on his name any time she was especially upset, and tonight, she was pissed. This wasn’t the first time he’d lost track of time in the lab and had come home hours later than promised. And this time, he even had a good excuse, what with the HR announcement and him scrambling to organize his papers.
But she didn’t want to hear it. She had made a surprise dinner for their six-month anniversary.
Who the hell celebrates six-month anniversaries?
Now she was shoving armfuls of her clothes into her fake Louis Vuitton suitcase. Juan couldn’t help but stare at Lisa’s rear as she tried to press the suitcase shut. She was wearing black yoga pants and a hot-pink halter top that exposed her trim midriff.
He sighed. At the same time that his libido was telling him how much fun it was to be with a nineteen-year-old—a woman more than a decade his junior—his brain was arguing that maybe her leaving him was a good thing. He needed to be with someone more mature.
She glanced at the table laden with food and growled, “I hope you choke on it.” Turning with a huff, she threw her apartment key at Juan’s feet, and stormed out, slamming the door behind her. Her lingering perfume and the cold dinner were the only hints that she’d ever been there.
Juan shook his head. “One of these days, I need to reevaluate my priorities.”
###
Frank smiled as he watched Megan standing at the kitchen sink filling a basin with warm water. Ever since the dog had come into their lives, something had changed about his wife. She was whistling a random tune and bustling about with a purpose that he hadn’t seen since… since Kathy, their only child, had lived with them.
The dog sat at her feet, watching attentively as she poured some salt into the bowl and explained to him, “Jasper, Dr. Dew said we need to keep your stitches clean, so no fussing, you hear?”
The dog woofed his agreement.
Carefully placing the bowl on the floor, Megan sat cross-legged next to it and dipped a washcloth into the salted water. “Okay, give me your paw.”
Jasper lifted his front right paw, and Megan carefully held it with one hand, dabbing at the shaved area where the veterinarian had stitched the wound. When it was cleaned to her satisfaction, she let go of Jasper’s paw, but the dog continued to hold it up, as if knowing she wasn’t done yet.
Frank set his newspaper aside and watched his wife carefully apply the antibiotic ointment to the wound.
As she finished, she leaned close and gave the dog a kiss on the top of his nose. “Good boy, Jasper. Now don’t lick that stuff off just yet. Let it do its job.”
The dog glanced at the wound and gave an affirmative bark.
Megan rubbed the side of Jasper’s neck and stood. “After I clean up in here, I’ll go turn on Clifford for you, okay?”
The dog wagged his tail, sauntered off to the living room, and lay down with his head facing the TV as if waiting for Megan to keep her promise.
Frank shook his head. “Megan, did it ever strike you as odd that you’re talking to this dog like it’s a kid, and the damned thing seems to understand everything he’s being told?”
Megan shrugged as she washed her hands. “He’s a good boy, and smart.”
Too smart, Frank thought. But at least the animal was well behaved. As Frank settled back onto his recliner, he put his face back into the newspaper and grumbled to himself, “I wish Kathy had listened as well as that damned dog does.”