Chapter 7 Chum in the Water
chum in the water
Liam
The open road is calling my name. And Briggs Barnett is one of the reasons why. While I can access his system via a master control override I installed as an emergency measure, he’s old school and likes the face-to-face.
It gives me hours on my bike. I’ll never argue that.
The open road, the clear deep blue skies, the freedom.
It’s the way life was meant to be lived.
The weird thing is where my mind goes. Usually, it creates, or blanks, or relaxes until little connections and threads weave themselves into beautiful knots.
Today, though, my mind is on Wills and Sophia. A whole new generation of Murphys.
It’s also on my fuckface father who I cut out of my life more than seventeen years ago without a backward glance or a second thought.
And it’s on my mom.
Mom, who failed in so many ways, while also giving us what she could. Mom, who raised three of us, all the while being the dutiful wife, the philanthropic volunteer, and the woman who was safe for us.
Almost.
My mother has Primary Lateral Sclerosis, a neuro-muscular condition that if left unguarded could have dire consequences.
We’ve walked through hell as a family in the last two years. Ayla’s accident, the amnesia, Cian and Sariah’s journey, and Dad. He’s enough drama on his own.
But Mom had all that while dealing with a degenerative condition and hiding it.
I want to give her the benefit of the doubt.
To believe she wants what’s best for her kids and grandkids.
The fact that in my visits to my brother and sister and my new niece and nephew I haven’t seen her means something.
Is it that she’s avoiding groups or just me?
Is she avoiding us as a unit? Or worse, avoiding her grandchildren?
God help her if she hasn’t visited her grandbabies because my father is unwelcome. If she’s avoiding them because of that man—
Benefit of the doubt, Liam. Benefit of the doubt.
I press the button on the side of my helmet and wait for the beep. “Call Mom.”
It rings and rings, and I’m fairly certain it’s going to roll to voicemail when I hear her. “Liam?”
“Hey, Mom.”
“Are you on that bike?” Her voice registers that tone of disapproval that used to let her get her way.
As if I give a shit one way or another for her approval. I moved out at eighteen and never looked back. But she’s still my mom.
“I am. How are you?”
“Are you safe, Liam? You know I worry.”
“Asshole drivers are the same whether I’m on my bike or in my SUV, but yes, I’m safe.” I rev the engine so she can hear the pipes. “But how are you?”
A deep sigh comes through the line and swirls around my mind. “I’m okay.”
Is that physical or mental? “Yeah? You feel okay?”
“I feel fine. You worry too much. You all do. Stop fussing.”
“Then why are you just okay?”
“Your father is…”
I don’t want to know how my father is. I don’t give a fuck how my father is. But I’d be foolish to stop the free flow of information about a topic that can so easily derail my family.
“Well, he’s hard to live with, right now.”
That’s saying something. He’s never been easy to live with and, left alone at his whims and again after the last year, I can see where it could be worse.
“Are you safe, Mom?”
“Of course.” Her back is up. “Don’t you dare insinuate that—”
“I’m not insinuating anything. I’m straight out asking. I care if you’re not safe to be alone with that fucker.”
Her voice goes quiet, not in love, but in hardness. “I won’t allow you to speak of him that way.”
To push or not to push, that is the question. I’m me, so here goes nothing… “The man is dead to me. Not interested in you being so too.”
Her swift intake of breath rattles around my helmet and settles hollow in my bones.
“Mom, our choices are we never speak of him, or we agree to disagree but value each other more than we dislike the situation. You choose.” That whole free flow of information thing be damned.
It’s the sound of her tears that does me in.
I pull the throttle and pick up speed. I’m out of the curve of the mountains for now with a straight-away laid out before me.
Thank God. I love this woman. She needs love.
She needs someone to have her back. Lord knows what she’s dealt with over the last forty years.
But the idea that she’s been a victim and has no agency is abhorrent to me. She got to choose. She gets to choose. She’s stayed with someone who bullied, bellowed, and belittled to get what he wants.
I couldn’t deal with it. Ayla cut ties long after I did. Cian… Ci did everything right. He did everything that was expected until finally he walked away too. And well after anyone would think anything poor of him.
So Mom gets to choose, but she has a hell of a lot hanging in the balance.
“I love you, Liam. I don’t want to lose you… Any of you. And, before you say anything, I made a vow to your dad. In sickness and health. In good times and bad.”
In abuse and gaslighting I want to say, but don’t and let her continue.
“How do I honor my promises while not losing you and your brother and sister?”
I won’t answer that for her. It’s a cop-out. We both know it. “That’s on you, Mom. I just wanted you to know I love you.”
Her sobs meet my ears. We say little else, and by the time we disconnect, I’m glad the road has begun its snake up through Monarch Pass because I need to revel in the ride, focus on the hairpins, and leave that shit on the other side of the continental divide.
I keep trying. At some point, it’ll stop. I just really hope it’s because my dad isn’t his larger-than-life self and not because I’ve given up my attempts.
Lorien
They can’t be serious. Can they?
There’s no way in hell I’m shelving this research or the cures it could bring. Cures!
Treatment would be incredible, but from what I’m seeing with the genomic biomarker data, this isn’t treatment, it’s remission.
We’re talking AIDS gone. Celiac healed. Arthritis alleviated.
Not a Band-Aid fix, which would be incredible enough and so worth the time and research dollars.
It’s genetic therapies that restore patients to original health.
Who wouldn’t want that?
In fact, the more I think about it, I’m sure I misunderstood the directive to focus my efforts on the topicals in clinical trials. The topicals team is first class. I’d be lucky to work with them.
But if I didn’t misconstrue the expectation, I’ll do something I’ve never done—I’ll go rogue. If I have to do the testing after hours, or early mornings or hide the results until they’re indisputable, I’ll do that too.
My brother deserves it. So do the countless numbers of people living in fear and pain around the world. And their families.
Before I forget, I grab the flash drive out of my desk and stash it inside my wallet.
All the while, I make a show of withdrawing a dollar bill in case the cameras are watching—and they’re always watching—and head to the vending machine.
Those dry, powdered-sugar Donettes are the only thing not priced above my lone bill, so I grab them and drop them in the same drawer where the drive and my wallet were, keeping up the ruse.
I’m not about to go against a multi-million-dollar company with multiple billions in IP and throw chum in the water for the shark attorneys who would have the rights to my internal organs if I crossed them.
I’m not foolish enough to think I can take them on.
Honestly, I don’t want to. I want to partner with them to bring a world-rocking cure to the modern conditions that wreck our friends.
And there’s money to be made doing it. The state of our national and global health care systems proves that. Don’t even get me started on that.
But the investors and the board control the projects. Lawyers, billionaires, and random corporations with interest determine how we research disease, how we test, and how we offer the solutions. There are no NIH dollars here. This isn’t a government contract thing.
Science and scientists are way down the list of who gets a say.
But not this time.
Not on my watch.
Like hell am I sitting back when my brother’s life is in the balance.
By lunch time, I’m vibrating with anxiety and unease. Anger and righteous indignation are ping-ponging along my nerves.
I use the time to find a national bank with a local branch that hasn’t given up the idea of safe deposit boxes.
My last bits of cash buy one in my name along with the name of my dissertation advisor.
The box will have exactly one item inside—the flash drive with data that shows there’s a pattern.
And exactly what needs to be addressed for a cure.
I need to let my advisor know. He could argue it’s unfair to bring him into this kind of war without some heads-up or choosing to be a part.
But he’s tenured. And nothing worries a tenured professor. They’re bulletproof.