Shay - Delphine AU | Part 13* (Rough Draft)
Could Shay and Delphine have been a thing in a different universe?
Prev: 1-5 (edited), 6-8, 9*, 10*, 11*, 12*, 13*
Curiosity embarked Delphine on the journey through Jennifer's video diaries, apprehension kept her viewing companion, and, by the time she tuned into new entries week by week as to a show in syndication, masochism fueled her dedication.
The videos weren't edited. Not in any professional or intentional sense. No second party sensibility distinguished the notable from the inconsequential. Nothing was shortened for convenience or framed for variety and interest. Just . . . Jennifer.
Some were mere seconds of footage, the record button hit, the scene introduced in a flash, Jennifer sometimes already centered and present or shuffling into frame, where she sat in a block of silence that ended in reconsideration and a scramble toward the camera or a signal--then abrupt blackness. She recorded sometimes at stretches, so that these blanks sometimes reopened on a minute later or an hour or a day, as marked by timestamps and corroborating clues: the amount of light in a room, the type of lighting, the direction and length of shadows, her outfit--or Greg's.
He was there. Usually. Mostly implied. The hand operating the camera. A voice that might answer a question or provide a comment or offer a prompt. The off-screen target toward which Jennifer glanced or to whom she spoke or at whom she smiled or laughed to gauge her performance.
The diary was a performance. Improv without a script. The early entries meandered hesitant and empty as Jennifer searched for subjects to expound on. She presented dread facts frankly. She didn't cry. She didn't verbalize her emotions. But Delphine saw the fear and uncertainty. In the way Jennifer's eyes bounced around the room avoiding the gaze of the camera. How she hung her head with furrowed brow. The silences that buffered the relation of prognoses. If she viewed her video diary as a way to cope, it wasn't a medium to vent.
If Jennifer cursed her circumstances or fate, it wasn't on camera.
Wilful ignorance didn't buttress her composure. Nor did hope. Denial, then, perhaps, or a lack of understanding the depth of "unidentified polyps." Or maybe Jennifer had nerves honed through years of high-stakes competition.
Brought into relief by the ebullience--and pride of Greg--that colored the unveiling of DYAD's offer of aid.
The move to Canada was announced soon after and in the next clip they were there, Jennifer and Greg in the surroundings of a foreign apartment that was whiter and brighter than their previous accommodations, Delphine watching in the comfort of hers. The anxious excitement of just a video before gave way to discomfort of upheaval. Jennifer fidgeted in a new chair, as if she couldn't adjust to its dimensions or texture. This place wasn't home and it wasn't meant to be. It was temporary housing until they could wing south back across the border. Delphine noted that in the small snatches of the apartment that she saw, the couple didn't settle in. The walls didn't acquire the flourishes of posters and paintings. Instead. over time the unadorned surface sprouted and bloomed cards and tissue paper flowers, a string of colorful origami cranes, the occasional balloon of well wishes that floated and deflated in the background.
All was disorientation in Jennifer's narrative. A city of unfamiliar streets down which she and Greg took wrong turns. Impressions of buildings and facilities she didn't have the clarity or words to paint. Lament for the faces to which Jennifer had forgotten all the names. All but one:
"Finally got to meet Dr. Leekie in person today. He's . . . he's an amazing man. Now that we've seen DYAD, I don't know how we can thank him for his help. He seems really--" Jennifer gazed off into the distance. "I think he really cares."
Delphine couldn't contradict Jennifer's assessment. Aldous did care. In more ways than Jennifer could have intuited.
Like Delphine herself.
She, too, played a character in Jennifer's account, lumped with the rest who took shape over time.
"Dr. Estrada is my primary physician. He seems nice? He tries to talk to me directly and explain things in terms I understand, which I like. The only weird thing is that I feel like I need to smile around him because he's always smiling? Like I see him smile so I have to smile back. I wonder if I look weird. Like I'm not sure if I should be smiling?" A laugh answered off-screen. "No, seriously! Do I look as overwhelmed as I feel? I keep thinking that he's going to think I'm an idiot." Jennifer sighed. "Dr. Estrada's got great teeth, though. Like the whitest teeth. Right?"
"Gina is my favorite nurse. She has really gentle hands; I barely feel it when she takes blood. She's so funny, too! She's always telling me stories about her Pomeranians and showing me pictures of them. I only found out today that she has a son! I know, right? Did you have any idea?"
"Kelly never smiles. Did you notice that? It's weird because Dr. Estrada is always smiling. Do you think she's always like that? Maybe she hates her job? But no one else is so . . . serious. I mean, everyone is serious, but not like . . . I hate to say it, but, like, dour. Maybe it's me? Maybe I pissed her off at some point and didn't even know it." ("Nah, impossible, babe. I doubt it's you. She looks at me the same way.")
"I always feel so weird going into the DYAD buildings. Like everyone else obviously works there and there I am . . . totally out of place. Henry, though, one of the security guards, is really sweet. When he sees me, he's always like, 'Good morning, Ms. Fitzsimmons!' One time I said, 'Is it a good morning?' And he said, 'Mine is now!'" ("He's hitting on you, babe?") "He's not hitting on me! He's probably like ten years older than I am. At least. He's just being sweet." ("I don't know . . . He's one of the younger guys, right? If you're trying to make me jealous . . .") "Stop it." ("I wouldn't blame him . . .") "Greg!"
"There's this other doctor who works with me--I haven't really mentioned her before because I mostly speak to Dr. Estrada--but today we talked and it was . . . nice. Normal. I don't know what I was expecting. She's this . . . gorgeous French woman." ("Hey, don't look at me like that. You know I've got eyes only for you.") "Look, babe, it's easier to understand that you noticed her rather than you didn't." Jennifer gazed straight into the camera. "Yeah, that kind of beautiful. Anyway, I thought it would be awkward or hard to talk with her--I don't know why. If I think about it, it's not that she was standoffish or anything. I think she just looks so . . . sophisticated. I mean, she is. But she's also nice."
Such were the simple early days.
Vibrancy still radiated from Jennifer then. Even a hint of excitement, the thrill of being in a new city to explore--and they did, she and Greg, starting with tourist attractions that Jennifer reviewed favorably. There was energy in her movements, wholeness and substance in her limbs, that startled Delphine to remember. She witnessed again the encroaching diminishment of passing weeks, the sloughing off of weight and the muscular definition of an athlete, the jut of bones and joints becoming prominent, eroding in the double time of time-lapse.
As did the exuberance.
The treatments weren't working.
They were many and changing and ceaseless and beyond the scope of probably even the doctors' reason or rationality and, inevitably, bound to exhaust the realm of possibility.
And one after another they made Jennifer feel like shit.
She didn't actually use those words. Not once. She felt nausea, ill, under the weather, not so hungry, tired, unable to sleep, unable to keep meals down, dizzy, bloated, headachy, gross. All on top of her body's own manufactured betrayals, the shortness of breath, the puss and the blood she constantly coughed up, the cramps and the spotting like an unpredictable menstrual cycle, the ebb and flow of aches and weakness.
The outings about the city dwindled. Tapered. Stopped. Jennifer didn't have the energy. Or the will. Even though the world constricted to the white walls of sterile rooms. At the apartment. At DYAD.
The complaints were familiar to Delphine, though recounted with the bowed shoulders of defeat and the edge of a bleak, caustic sarcasm that could descend into long, unbroken silences where Jennifer gazed off camera, face sometimes pinched, sometimes smooth with a blankness of vacancy, as if she were in the midst of abandoning her body and leaving behind an unanimated shell.
Yet life went on. Particularly those of the people she'd left behind. Jennifer related all the minutiae of the news she received from them. As if the recounting could assuage the awareness that she was removed from events that would have included her, as if her inclusion in being informed painted a space for her in their passage, a spot that was being held in reserve.
They were normal, mundane things, but it was the normality that Jennifer craved from her entrapment in isolation.
There weren't two sides to Jennifer Fitzsimmons. There weren't the videos and the person Delphine saw face-to-face. There was only one woman, with whom Delphine had limited contact in person. Delphine recognized the woman projected through pixels on her monitor. She read as a natural extension of the woman who could wield a sharp look or a droll comment or who preferred a nurse's touch over Delphine's or who could establish easy connections with other people and interest in their affairs.
She appeared exactly like the woman who had no idea that she was the valuable subject of a monumental undertaking or that Delphine and others were viewing these videos courtesy of her boyfriend.
Greg.
At first, with the knowledge of what he did and what he provided--how wrong she had been to think he didn't know what service to render--anchored in the back of her mind, Delphine couldn't look at him whenever they occupied the same room. A part of Delphine attempted to willfully ignore him. His presence. His role. His nervousness and agitation. His affection. The deceit.
Her complicity in the charade.
Then Delphine couldn't stop looking at him. In the videos. In person. Studying his actions and expressions, how he made sure to conduct Jennifer to and from DYAD, how he gave the staff wide berth to conduct their business, how he attempted to soothe Jennifer in the distress of affliction, how he looked lost, how he appeared afraid.
Delphine watched and dissected and weighed.
She couldn't determine if there were two Gregs.
That was the problem. Delphine couldn't have said with a certainty beyond a shadow of a doubt that Greg's care and attention weren't genuine, even as she knew objectively and rationally that Greg compromised Jennifer's privacy (and body) to people who were strangers to him.
Sometimes she wondered what Aldous could have possibly offered Greg that kept him tethered--and eager--in his place beside Jennifer. Sometimes her mind whispered that Greg's true motivator might have been fear and self-preservation. Sometimes she hazarded that maybe it was a selfish bent of a different sort, that Greg remained voluntarily in the name of boyfriend.
One morning, standing before the mirror in her bathroom, Delphine proposed to the woman gazing back at her, "Il peut y avoir plus d'une raison."
Her reflection nodded. "Comme pour Aldous."
Delphine leaned in close and whispered, "Comme pour toi."
*
A miasma engulfed Delphine across the threshold into the treatment room. It wasn't medicinal or disinfectant smells--Delphine was accustomed to those--but an intangible sense of gravity that acted like a coagulant of somberness. Jennifer and Greg sat huddled together, Jennifer doubled over, Greg leaning down with his head bowed over the crown of her head, one hand laid flat upon Jennifer's back and moving in ceaseless circles. Soft murmurs emanated from their bubble.
Not the retching that Delphine expected. Such as when Jennifer expelled a clot.
Lead settled in Delphine's feet, slowing her down as she crossed in front of them.
Jennifer rocked slightly, all but curled into Greg's torso. On her lap, arm tucked close across her middle, one hand clenched in a white-knuckled fist. From between the cracks curled and dangled strands of hair. A veritable clump.
When Jennifer turned to look up at Delphine, the doctor easily discerned the bald patches across her scalp.
Beneath the blank surface of Jennifer's penetrating gaze, Delphine thought she saw a smolder.
Rasping, Jennifer said, "What is it that they say, Dr. Cormier? It's gonna get worse before it gets better?"
*
Aldous wordlessly held out a folder to Delphine when she entered his office. The sight of the slim offering slowed her pace to a rhythm more reserved, ending in a crawl that brought her right to the edge of Aldous's desk. With a flick of his wrist, he waved the file at her. Delphine took it. Holding it loosely between her hands, she glanced at its blank cover. "What's this?"
Aldous indicated the file with a thrust of his chin.
Delphine swallowed, noting how inconsequential the weight of the folder was in her grip, and flipped open the cover. The first page was a summary of identification information.
"Katja Obinger?" she said aloud, hesitantly. "Another subject?"
Aldous tapped at his lips, quiet.
Delphine turned to the next item.
Chest X-rays.
Delphine didn't need to hold them up to the light. She could guess what she would see. They probably could have been mistaken for Jennifer's, from months earlier.
Delphine's shoulders slumped. She looked down at Aldous over the top of the file.
"Another one?"
Aldous frowned and gazed off at the far wall. "It's too early to draw any definitive connection or conclusion between the two cases. But . . . a preliminary scan is very . . . reminiscent."
Delphine gave the remaining pages a cursory glance and shut the file. "Will she be brought here?"
Aldous held out his hand expectantly. "Katja is in Germany."
Delphine tapped the edge of the file against her palm before she handed it back. "What will be done for her? We know what didn't work for Jennifer and we're close to exhausting--"
"Katja is not your concern," Aldous said with leisure frankness.
Delphine paused mid-word, mouth agape. After a second, she collected herself. "Then why did you show me that?"
"Because this is the work we do, Delphine," Aldous said. "We need to maintain perspective. It's good to have reminders of what's at stake."
A seething anger and indignation took to a low simmer in Delphine's gut. Flexing her jaw to loosen taut muscles, she asked, "What if Jennifer dies?"
Aldous sat back in his chair and regarded Delphine coolly. If he discerned her anger, he gave no sign. Even the whiff of perturbation evaporated. "I wasn't aware we determined this affliction was fatal."
Delphine shook her head minutely. "Might not be what kills her. What if Jennifer dies?"
Aldous spread his hands. "What if Jennifer dies?"
Delphine stood quiet.
Aldous cocked his head. "What are you asking, Delphine? Do you want a distinction? Between Jennifer Fitzsimmons, teacher, swim coach, daughter, girlfriend and the subject you and I know, a wholly unique specimen that is one of the major steps in the next phase of human evolution?"
Is that what she wanted to know? What it would mean for the Project? What the Project's priorities were?
Or was she asking after Aldous? How it would affect him? If it would affect him?
Aldous took a deep breath and folded his hands across his middle. "She wouldn't be the first. We've lost subjects here and there throughout the years to accidents and disease. It's reality, Delphine. Human reality. For now."
Aldous studied her. "The thought of the possible death of any subject pleases no one. All of us would like to see her through this."
Because Jennifer--this Katja or any other subject--was worth more to them alive?
It was true.
Objectively, as a scientist, Delphine knew it was true. Just as she knew that even dead Jennifer would provide them with a case study. Information that would contribute to understanding the other subjects. Future subjects.
But what did that mean to people who knew Jennifer? Her students? Her friends? Her family? The man who was her lover and her keeper both?
People who made promises to do yoga with her?
*
From Delphine [10:19]: I'm looking at a bottle of wine and a bottle of whiskey. I plan to drink them. Care to help me?
To Delphine [10:20]: Whiskey not rly my thing.
From Delphine [10:20]: Would you prefer vodka?
To Delphine [10:21]: Not rlly.
From Delphine [10:21]: Whiskey, then. I can finish that.
To Delphine [10:21]: What? Are u serious???
To Delphine [10:22]: What's going on???? Are u alright?
From Delphine [10:22]: Will you join me?
From Delphine [10:22]: Or not?
To Delphine [10:23]: That doesn't sound like a good idea Delphine.
To Delphine [10:25]: Delpine????
To Delphine [10:27]: Delphine? Where are u?
To Delphine [10:28]: Come over, ok? We can talk.
From Delphine [10:35]: I'm here.
*
Delphine turned up stone-faced, completely serious and deadset on her stated plans, and uninterested in talking, much less being deterred by entreaties and cajoling. Honestly, she didn't even need a bottle opener or a drinking glass for the whiskey, so the prospect of withheld tools wasn't a viable tactic to stop her.
So Shay didn't.
She put ice in the tumbler, handed it to Delphine, and sat down with her guest in her living room.
Shay perched on the single seater. Delphine eyed the couch, features smooth and impassive.
She lowered herself down, reclined slowly, crossed her legs, and sipped.
They were quiet.
For a very long time.
It took a long time for Delphine to manage about half of the bottle.
"What if," Delphine said, slumping in a list over the armrest, and immediately Shay could tell she was drunk, truly and actually well beyond tipsy, which, why not, this whole evening had been strange, unpredicted, and unpredictable, what was Delphine sloshed and finally talking any more remarkable than her being drunk on Shay's couch, "what if we could engineer humans to be--to be re . . . resistant to disease and . . . and free--of mental ailments?"
That . . . was certainly unexpected.
Shay interlaced her fingers and leaned forward, elbows on her thighs. "You mean like depression?"
"Yes."
Shay sat on that. "Can we do that?"
"Not yet," Delphine breathed. "Not yet. But maybe. Probably. One day."
"That's . . . that's crazy."
Delphine turned bright eyes on her. "Should we?"
"What?"
"Should we, if we could? Like a form of . . . preventive medicine."
"I don't--" Shay shook her head. "I don't know."
Delphine's head fell back over the top of the couch. "Would you consider such people human beings still?"
Shay's brow crinkled.
"No one would have to know they were different," Delphine breathed. "No one would know."
Delphine said nothing else for long enough afterward that Shay thought she might have, mercifully, fallen asleep.
"Mutations occur all the time, naturally," Delphine said, dispelling that notion. "Nature . . . editing . . . the combinations and features of our genes. It's . . . beyond our control. Well. Not beyond. We do it, too. Gee. Em. Ohs," drawled Delphine. "But you don't like that, do you? I bet . . . you don't. But it's not bad. You know? It's about taking control. About understanding . . . how everything works at the most . . . most basic level." She paused and whispered, "Most basic? Basicest? Yes, most basic. Most basic." She exhaled heavily. "Genetic profiles wouldn't have to be left to chance anymore." She shook her head, head lolling from side to side atop the couch. "Mais si il y a un problème, c'est de notre faute. Ce serait de notre faute, non?"
The switch to French was new. Delphine rarely, if ever in full sentences, spoke in her native French. She didn't need to with her fluency in English. Shay's knowledge of French, on the other hand, comprised a smattering of vocabulary here and there and picking out Spanish cognates.
Shay sat glued to her seat. She wanted, she would have, she should have gotten up, and retrieved a blanket, draped it over Delphine and told her to sleep. But. But she felt a little afraid, of what Delphine was saying, why she was rambling on, tossing out incomprehensible French, what it could mean, if it even meant anything.
As Shay sat frozen and uncertain, Delphine hauled herself into an upright sitting position and declared, "I should go."
"Whoa, whoa, no, no," Shay sang as she darted propelled out of her seat and bounded over to lay a hand on Delphine's shoulder to restrain the wobbly scientist.
In a heartbeat, Delphine grabbed Shay's forearm with her free hand and gazed earnestly into her eyes. With newfound energy, Delphine claimed, "No one would have to feel sad again. Sad like you do."
"That's just human," Shay said, pitching her voice low to sound soothing.
"Only because we let it be," Delphine countered, voice hard with insistence. "Only because social constructs say it is. What about those people who don't feel fear or pain or compassion? Are they not human?"
"It's human to be different, too," Shay attempted to cajole Delphine. "We all look different, see things differently, have different opinions, have different experiences and different perspectives."
"We could be better. Stronger. Shouldn't we try to become better?"
Shay took a steadying breath.
"When we have nothing left to fear, when we make ourselves everything we imagine we want to be," Shay said, putting her free hand atop Delphine's on her arm, "will we even want it? If shorter people could be just a little taller, then would everyone else want to be just a little bit taller than that?"
Delphine's eyes narrowed on her. "You are saying that the only way to be satisfied is to let go of desire. But maybe that's a coward's way out. An excuse not to try and reach beyond limits, so as not to fail."
"I'm a simple person, Delphine," Shay said softly. "I don't know what the answers are, just what works for me. The only thing I know right now is that you're not going home like this. I'm going to get you a glass of water, and after you drink that then you can sleep here. You can sleep on the bed and I'll sleep on the couch. Okay?"
Delphine's grip tightened on her arm.
"Delphine," Shay breathed, taking hold of Delphine's hand and trying to gently remove it.
"They hate us."
Shay shook her head. "No one hates you."
"You don't hate me?" Delphine asked, faintly muddled with puzzlement, most likely clouded by alcohol.
"Why would I hate you?"
Delphine's eyes lost their focus. "Si elles savaient, elles nous détesteraient." Delphine released Shay. "I should go."
"No," Shay said sternly. "You're not going anywhere." She took a tentative step back, keeping a finger pointed at Delphine. "Stay."
She kept an eye fixed on Delphine the entire trip to the kitchen and back. Delphine traded her tumbler for the glass of water with docile obedience.
"This wasn't supposed to happen," Delphine said as she sat holding the glass in both hands.
That was the last substantial thing of the night she said.
*
Dryness in her throat and the cotton furriness lining her tongue and mouth dragged Delphine to growing consciousness. Forcing her eyes open brought a stab a pain as brightness--daylight, sunlight, did she not close the blinds?--filtered through the crack between her eyelids, followed by a second assault when she flinched.
"Ah, merde," moaned Delphine under her breath, turning to lie on her back and raising a hand to cover her eyes.
The sound of water running through a faucet nearby gave Delphine pause.
She cautiously removed her hand and, squinting, raised her head enough to look over the blankets piled atop her. In the diluted illumination Delphine made out a figure at the kitchen sink. With a twist of the handle, the water shut off and Shay hauled a watering can from out of the sink basin.
Delphine was in Shay's apartment. In Shay's--Delphine glanced down and balked at the bright sheets--bed, yes. Shay was--the speed at which Delphine attempted to shift her focus brought her up short with another pang--fully dressed and attending to the plants, testing soil with her fingertips, gently blowing at accumulated dust, rubbing leaves between her fingers and breaking off shriveled ones.
Shay glanced over at the bed briefly, then looked again. The water can tipped back to stem the flow.
"Hey," Shay called softly. She swiped her hand open-palmed across the bottom of the can and set it down on the nearest surface. Wiping her hands on the back of her jeans, she took a few steps toward the bed. "Good morning. You awake?"
Delphine dropped her head back atop the pillows and crossed her forearms over her eyes.
Shay giggled. Lowly. "Let me get you some water. Then I'll whip you up a smoothie. Great for hangovers. It'll be loud but you'll thank me later."
Delphine heard the whoosh of water spilling into a glass, then shortly thereafter a plunk upon wood closeby. "Here's the water. Now you might want to cover your ears."
After a bit of listening to a knife smack against a cutting board, Delphine rolled onto her side and wrangled a pillow around her head. In time a blender whirred with enthusiastic determination, stopped, pulsed, and fell into blessed silence.
A hand alighted gently on Delphine's shoulder. Delphine unfolded with reluctance and, on her back again, squinted up at Shay and the vibrant green substance in the glass. Shay smiled.
"Want a straw?" Shay asked.
"Wh--" Sound barely emerged from Delphine's parched throat. She swallowed a few times to generate moisture. "What happened?"
Shay shook her head. "Nothing happened. You came over last night, drank half a bottle of whiskey--maybe more than that--and then I refused to let you go home."
Delphine closed her eyes against the rush of regret. "Sorry."
"it's okay," Shay said. "Do you want to try sitting up?"
Delphine gingerly scooted and pushed herself up against the headboard, then finally accepted the glass from Shay. She eyed it. "What is this?"
"Salts, minerals, electrolytes, all the things your body is craving right now."
Delphine sipped and chewed at leafy bits and seeds that mashed into the crevices between her molars. There were notes of coconut, something tart, perhaps a berry, and . . . cinnamon?
Under Shay's keen eyes, Delphine nodded in consideration.
"Okay?" Shay hazarded.
"Tart," Delphine said with a little smile to show she was only teasing. She winced against the dull pounding in her skull.
"Probably the yogurt and the blueberries. I'll add more honey next time," Shay noted. "For now, let me get you some aspirin."
As she turned to go rummage in a cupboard, Delphine muttered, "I hope there isn't a next time."
Shay returned and dropped two white pills into Delphine's palm. Delphine promptly tossed them into her mouth and chased the pills down with the smoothie concoction. The mixture sat uncertainly in her roiling stomach. Delphine held herself still. She wasn't sure her body wouldn't outright reject everything.
Biding time, Delphine asked, "You had all of these ingredients sitting around?"
Shay shook her head and lowered herself to sit on the edge of the bed. "Not all of them. I made a run when I woke up."
Delphine closed her eyes again, to ward off embarrassment. "I'm sorry. You didn't have to go through the trouble."
Shay patted Delphine's knee. "It's fine. I think it was a pretty fair guess that you be feeling that whiskey when you woke up."
"Was I sick?" Delphine asked.
"No," Shay assured her. "You don't remember?"
Delphine shook her head. "Not clearly."
Shay studied her with kind eyes. "Did you forget what you wanted to forget?"
Delphine met her eyes. "No."
Shay nodded. Her gaze dropped to study the duvet. When she raised her head, her lips curved in a small smile. She rubbed Delphine's knee. "Take your time. I don't have plans for today."
Delphine was out of bed within five minutes--to appease her bladder--and discovered she'd slept fully clothed but for her shoes. Splashing cold water on her face helped, but mostly it was sitting in the single seater, nursing the smoothie, and allowing the aspirin to disperse into her bloodstream over the following forty-five minutes that brought her closer to functional.
Shay disappeared to shower for most of Delphine's recuperation time. Sitting with the bathroom door in her line of sight, Delphine was idly struck how every door in the space was fitted with windows, as if privacy were an afterthought of choice rather than a priority.
When Shay emerged, dressed and ready for the day, Delphine asked, "Hungry?"
Shay did a little stutter step. "Are you? I can whip something up."
Delphine shook her head. "I was thinking lunch."
Shay's head canted to an angle of doubt. "You mean go out? Don't you want to . . . rest?"
Delphine smiled and filled in the blank of Shay's protracted pause. "Or at least go home and make myself presentable?"
Shay crossed her arms. "Seriously? The only thing you might need is an iron, and even then you'd surpass presentable. I have an iron, if you want, and you're welcome to use the shower."
"Not the bathtub?" Delphine inquired innocently.
Shay's complete, unguarded stupefaction nearly justified the poor judgement and mortification of the last thirteen hours. Shay recovered with a small shake of her head. "Okay, I see that you're feeling almost back to normal." She unfolded her arms and trekked into the living room quadrant. "And if the bathtub weren't in the middle of my living room--or even if the folding screen provided enough cover--I'd say go for it. But . . . yeah, probably not the best idea."
Delphine smiled. "So . . . lunch?"
Shay subjected Delphine to a lengthy consideration. "Are you sure you're feeling up to it? You don't have to force yourself." She placed a hand atop the back cushion of the couch and picked at the fabric. "And if you feel like you need to--make up for last night or whatever--don't."
Delphine acknowledged to herself that her proposal did derive in part from similar sentiment--similar but not identical, not an obligation to make amends, but a desire to express gratitude--and that Shay's deduction made her uneasy--raising the prospect that she could be so transparent--and swaddled with warmth.
Buoyed by the burst of relief, Delphine gave Shay honesty.
"Nothing like that. Though thank you. For everything. I'm feeling much better." Delphine took a breath. "I'm . . . I'd rather not go home at the moment. I'd rather go to lunch with you. If you don't mind."
Shay tapped out an agitated rhythm upon the couch. But she nodded. "Okay. Do you want to shower first?"
Delphine chuckled. "That's the second time. Are you asking me or telling me?" She arched a pertinent brow. "Can you smell me from over there?"
Shay grinned, eyes alight with amusement and exasperation. "No, but you're probably still oozing whiskey through your pores. C'mon, let's go put something more substantial in you."
*
"Are you afraid to die?" Delphine asked Shay while she idly spooned the remnants of broth in her bowl.
Shay didn't drop her spoon into her own bowl at the sudden introduction of such a grave topic, but managed to set it carefully balanced upon the lip. She'd expected they were going to have a light lunch, both in fare and conversation given the circumstances that had brought them to the little Vietnamese diner. Delphine had smiled to herself at the suggestion as she adjusted the passenger seat in the Volkswagen to accommodate her legs and wrestled with the seatbelt.
"You don't like Vietnamese?" Shay had asked.
"I've never had . . . phở?"
"It's noodles and meat in a beef broth. Normally. The place I'm thinking of serves a vegetarian version, if that's okay."
"Sure."
"I've heard it's good hangover food," Shay had added, unsure if Delphine was just agreeing to her suggestion to placate her. Especially given that smile, almost a laugh.
The expression had reappeared right after. "I was just thinking--once I went to eat Vietnamese food because I thought--there is a part of their cuisine that is inspired by French culinary culture. So I thought: Oh, it might be similar to food from home."
"Was it?"
Delphine had laughed. "Not at all."
The cheeriness of an hour ago had since faded and Shay wondered if Delphine's question was an extension of the previous night's conversation. When they'd started meeting outside of Shay's office, Shay would have considered Delphine perhaps one of the last people due for an existential crisis. But the scientist's moods as of late seemed poised on a slope sliding her backwards, pulling her down.
Shay took her time weighing the question.
"Yeah?" she said at last. Shifting in her seat, she quickly added, "I mean, less in the sense of being afraid of . . . what comes next or whatever, like being punished for eternity, and more like . . . Well, I want to live. I don't want to die now."
She considered Delphine, her slumped posture, the ceaseless but listless stirring of the remainder of her lunch, the slight bruising beneath her eyes that served as testament to last night, the dent in her brow that was distant pensiveness.
"Are . . . you afraid to die?" Shay asked cautiously.
Delphine was quiet for some time. When she spoke, she seemed to address the general vicinity. "I see what you mean." Which wasn't quite an answer until she said, "I also feel like there are many things I still want to do. I wouldn't be . . . I wouldn't be ready at this moment."
"Is something . . . wrong?" Shay asked delicately.
Delphine snapped to attention, focusing on her. "Excuse me?"
"Is something wrong?" Shay repeated, with less hesitation.
Delphine looked confused for a second, then surprised. "You mean with me? No. No, no, no. I'm fine. I was . . . just thinking about it."
About death.
"Okay," Shay afforded softly. Between yesterday and today Delphine was thinking about a lot of things. Maybe she always was. Shay nudged the small tea cup by her hand. "You know, I think we mean it differently."
"Hm?" Delphine hummed, still lost half in her thoughts.
"When I say that I'm not ready to die and you say it, I think we mean it differently."
"What do you mean?" Delphine asked gamely, rallying greater attention to bear on the conversation.
"When I say it," Shay said measuredly, "I mean there's still so much I want to experience. Places I want to see. Foods I want to try. Books I want to read. Things like that. When you say it, it's like . . . it's like you have a list of things you need to accomplish and you haven't checked off all the items yet."
Delphine frowned for a beat. Radiating the doubt of someone answering a tricky question on an exam, Delphine said, "Yes?"
Shay laughed. "I'm just saying. It's . . . an observation."
"Now you are becoming a scientist," Delphine said with approval, mien lightening.
Shay threw up her hands half-heartedly. "Oh no. Though maybe it was bound to happen." She squashed the impulse to poke Delphine and resorted to propping her chin in her hand. "Something up? You're not usually so . . . grim."
"Or prone to drinking excessively and passing out in your apartment?" Delphine said drily, an eyebrow quirking. She exhaled heavily through her nose and answered, more seriously, "No. No, nothing--" She sat, seeming to search for an adjective for a long time, then settled on, "Nothing."
"You seem . . . more stressed out lately," Shay said.
Delphine shook her head. "Work."
Shay nodded. The word always served as a wall over which no further conversation could hurdle. They descended into silence.
Abruptly Delphine said, "I'm sorry. Am I being boring?"
Shay grinned, caught off guard by Delphine's self-consciousness. "No. I'm fine if you're fine."
Delphine's eyes narrowed with skepticism. "Really?"
Shay shrugged. "Yeah. Of course. Are you trying to tell me that I talk too much and that it's weird if I'm quiet?"
Delphine smiled in lieu of the laughter Shay hoped for. Still better than her earlier mood. "No. I just don't want you to be uncomfortable. Or to . . . feel like you're wasting your time with me here when I was the one to drag you out."
"Well, I guess I could be taking a nice long bath," Shay sighed, "reading Jeanette Winterson."
"Oh, yes, now I feel very sorry," Delphine opined, drizzling on the mortification. Shay smiled. Delphine smiled back, gaze growing gradually shrewd. "May I--may I ask a very personal question?"
"Okay," Shay said warily, "sure."
"I think . . . I thought your answer would be different. That with your . . ."
Shay leaned forward, as if proximity would divine Delphine's unvoiced thoughts. She offered a guess. "Rough patches?"
Delphine nodded. "I thought that with your rough patches, your answer might be different."
Shay nodded slowly. "I get it. You--we sort of mentioned it last night. Depression, anyway. And, yeah, I . . . I can get depressed--like low energy, no motivation--but," she shook her head, "not suicidal." She hesitated then gambled, "Not anymore."
Delphine nodded with the deliberation of consideration. "I see." She sat breathing evenly, then asked, "Do you think you could feel that way again?"
"Suicidal?"
Delphine nodded.
"It's possible," Shay allowed. "Nothing says I couldn't. I hope not."
"But you didn't give into it, back then," Delphine said.
"No," Shay said softly. "I don't know if I ever came close to anything like actually--" She took a steadying breath. "I thought about it, yeah, but--"
Delphine observed her closely, then said, "Life is resilient. From single-celled organisms to humans, everything struggles to live."
"Yeah," Shay agreed.
"Even when it's hopeless," Delphine said, but not to Shay, mostly under her breath.
Even so, Shay said, "Isn't that the most important time to struggle? Why else did we develop remedies and medicine, if not because we wanted to fight and live?"
Delphine looked at her intensely, appearing on the verge of a question. Yet she only said, "Yes."
//
Next
Prev: 1-5 (edited), 6-8, 9*, 10*, 11*, 12*, 13*
Curiosity embarked Delphine on the journey through Jennifer's video diaries, apprehension kept her viewing companion, and, by the time she tuned into new entries week by week as to a show in syndication, masochism fueled her dedication.
The videos weren't edited. Not in any professional or intentional sense. No second party sensibility distinguished the notable from the inconsequential. Nothing was shortened for convenience or framed for variety and interest. Just . . . Jennifer.
Some were mere seconds of footage, the record button hit, the scene introduced in a flash, Jennifer sometimes already centered and present or shuffling into frame, where she sat in a block of silence that ended in reconsideration and a scramble toward the camera or a signal--then abrupt blackness. She recorded sometimes at stretches, so that these blanks sometimes reopened on a minute later or an hour or a day, as marked by timestamps and corroborating clues: the amount of light in a room, the type of lighting, the direction and length of shadows, her outfit--or Greg's.
He was there. Usually. Mostly implied. The hand operating the camera. A voice that might answer a question or provide a comment or offer a prompt. The off-screen target toward which Jennifer glanced or to whom she spoke or at whom she smiled or laughed to gauge her performance.
The diary was a performance. Improv without a script. The early entries meandered hesitant and empty as Jennifer searched for subjects to expound on. She presented dread facts frankly. She didn't cry. She didn't verbalize her emotions. But Delphine saw the fear and uncertainty. In the way Jennifer's eyes bounced around the room avoiding the gaze of the camera. How she hung her head with furrowed brow. The silences that buffered the relation of prognoses. If she viewed her video diary as a way to cope, it wasn't a medium to vent.
If Jennifer cursed her circumstances or fate, it wasn't on camera.
Wilful ignorance didn't buttress her composure. Nor did hope. Denial, then, perhaps, or a lack of understanding the depth of "unidentified polyps." Or maybe Jennifer had nerves honed through years of high-stakes competition.
Brought into relief by the ebullience--and pride of Greg--that colored the unveiling of DYAD's offer of aid.
The move to Canada was announced soon after and in the next clip they were there, Jennifer and Greg in the surroundings of a foreign apartment that was whiter and brighter than their previous accommodations, Delphine watching in the comfort of hers. The anxious excitement of just a video before gave way to discomfort of upheaval. Jennifer fidgeted in a new chair, as if she couldn't adjust to its dimensions or texture. This place wasn't home and it wasn't meant to be. It was temporary housing until they could wing south back across the border. Delphine noted that in the small snatches of the apartment that she saw, the couple didn't settle in. The walls didn't acquire the flourishes of posters and paintings. Instead. over time the unadorned surface sprouted and bloomed cards and tissue paper flowers, a string of colorful origami cranes, the occasional balloon of well wishes that floated and deflated in the background.
All was disorientation in Jennifer's narrative. A city of unfamiliar streets down which she and Greg took wrong turns. Impressions of buildings and facilities she didn't have the clarity or words to paint. Lament for the faces to which Jennifer had forgotten all the names. All but one:
"Finally got to meet Dr. Leekie in person today. He's . . . he's an amazing man. Now that we've seen DYAD, I don't know how we can thank him for his help. He seems really--" Jennifer gazed off into the distance. "I think he really cares."
Delphine couldn't contradict Jennifer's assessment. Aldous did care. In more ways than Jennifer could have intuited.
Like Delphine herself.
She, too, played a character in Jennifer's account, lumped with the rest who took shape over time.
"Dr. Estrada is my primary physician. He seems nice? He tries to talk to me directly and explain things in terms I understand, which I like. The only weird thing is that I feel like I need to smile around him because he's always smiling? Like I see him smile so I have to smile back. I wonder if I look weird. Like I'm not sure if I should be smiling?" A laugh answered off-screen. "No, seriously! Do I look as overwhelmed as I feel? I keep thinking that he's going to think I'm an idiot." Jennifer sighed. "Dr. Estrada's got great teeth, though. Like the whitest teeth. Right?"
"Gina is my favorite nurse. She has really gentle hands; I barely feel it when she takes blood. She's so funny, too! She's always telling me stories about her Pomeranians and showing me pictures of them. I only found out today that she has a son! I know, right? Did you have any idea?"
"Kelly never smiles. Did you notice that? It's weird because Dr. Estrada is always smiling. Do you think she's always like that? Maybe she hates her job? But no one else is so . . . serious. I mean, everyone is serious, but not like . . . I hate to say it, but, like, dour. Maybe it's me? Maybe I pissed her off at some point and didn't even know it." ("Nah, impossible, babe. I doubt it's you. She looks at me the same way.")
"I always feel so weird going into the DYAD buildings. Like everyone else obviously works there and there I am . . . totally out of place. Henry, though, one of the security guards, is really sweet. When he sees me, he's always like, 'Good morning, Ms. Fitzsimmons!' One time I said, 'Is it a good morning?' And he said, 'Mine is now!'" ("He's hitting on you, babe?") "He's not hitting on me! He's probably like ten years older than I am. At least. He's just being sweet." ("I don't know . . . He's one of the younger guys, right? If you're trying to make me jealous . . .") "Stop it." ("I wouldn't blame him . . .") "Greg!"
"There's this other doctor who works with me--I haven't really mentioned her before because I mostly speak to Dr. Estrada--but today we talked and it was . . . nice. Normal. I don't know what I was expecting. She's this . . . gorgeous French woman." ("Hey, don't look at me like that. You know I've got eyes only for you.") "Look, babe, it's easier to understand that you noticed her rather than you didn't." Jennifer gazed straight into the camera. "Yeah, that kind of beautiful. Anyway, I thought it would be awkward or hard to talk with her--I don't know why. If I think about it, it's not that she was standoffish or anything. I think she just looks so . . . sophisticated. I mean, she is. But she's also nice."
Such were the simple early days.
Vibrancy still radiated from Jennifer then. Even a hint of excitement, the thrill of being in a new city to explore--and they did, she and Greg, starting with tourist attractions that Jennifer reviewed favorably. There was energy in her movements, wholeness and substance in her limbs, that startled Delphine to remember. She witnessed again the encroaching diminishment of passing weeks, the sloughing off of weight and the muscular definition of an athlete, the jut of bones and joints becoming prominent, eroding in the double time of time-lapse.
As did the exuberance.
The treatments weren't working.
They were many and changing and ceaseless and beyond the scope of probably even the doctors' reason or rationality and, inevitably, bound to exhaust the realm of possibility.
And one after another they made Jennifer feel like shit.
She didn't actually use those words. Not once. She felt nausea, ill, under the weather, not so hungry, tired, unable to sleep, unable to keep meals down, dizzy, bloated, headachy, gross. All on top of her body's own manufactured betrayals, the shortness of breath, the puss and the blood she constantly coughed up, the cramps and the spotting like an unpredictable menstrual cycle, the ebb and flow of aches and weakness.
The outings about the city dwindled. Tapered. Stopped. Jennifer didn't have the energy. Or the will. Even though the world constricted to the white walls of sterile rooms. At the apartment. At DYAD.
The complaints were familiar to Delphine, though recounted with the bowed shoulders of defeat and the edge of a bleak, caustic sarcasm that could descend into long, unbroken silences where Jennifer gazed off camera, face sometimes pinched, sometimes smooth with a blankness of vacancy, as if she were in the midst of abandoning her body and leaving behind an unanimated shell.
Yet life went on. Particularly those of the people she'd left behind. Jennifer related all the minutiae of the news she received from them. As if the recounting could assuage the awareness that she was removed from events that would have included her, as if her inclusion in being informed painted a space for her in their passage, a spot that was being held in reserve.
They were normal, mundane things, but it was the normality that Jennifer craved from her entrapment in isolation.
There weren't two sides to Jennifer Fitzsimmons. There weren't the videos and the person Delphine saw face-to-face. There was only one woman, with whom Delphine had limited contact in person. Delphine recognized the woman projected through pixels on her monitor. She read as a natural extension of the woman who could wield a sharp look or a droll comment or who preferred a nurse's touch over Delphine's or who could establish easy connections with other people and interest in their affairs.
She appeared exactly like the woman who had no idea that she was the valuable subject of a monumental undertaking or that Delphine and others were viewing these videos courtesy of her boyfriend.
Greg.
At first, with the knowledge of what he did and what he provided--how wrong she had been to think he didn't know what service to render--anchored in the back of her mind, Delphine couldn't look at him whenever they occupied the same room. A part of Delphine attempted to willfully ignore him. His presence. His role. His nervousness and agitation. His affection. The deceit.
Her complicity in the charade.
Then Delphine couldn't stop looking at him. In the videos. In person. Studying his actions and expressions, how he made sure to conduct Jennifer to and from DYAD, how he gave the staff wide berth to conduct their business, how he attempted to soothe Jennifer in the distress of affliction, how he looked lost, how he appeared afraid.
Delphine watched and dissected and weighed.
She couldn't determine if there were two Gregs.
That was the problem. Delphine couldn't have said with a certainty beyond a shadow of a doubt that Greg's care and attention weren't genuine, even as she knew objectively and rationally that Greg compromised Jennifer's privacy (and body) to people who were strangers to him.
Sometimes she wondered what Aldous could have possibly offered Greg that kept him tethered--and eager--in his place beside Jennifer. Sometimes her mind whispered that Greg's true motivator might have been fear and self-preservation. Sometimes she hazarded that maybe it was a selfish bent of a different sort, that Greg remained voluntarily in the name of boyfriend.
One morning, standing before the mirror in her bathroom, Delphine proposed to the woman gazing back at her, "Il peut y avoir plus d'une raison."
Her reflection nodded. "Comme pour Aldous."
Delphine leaned in close and whispered, "Comme pour toi."
*
A miasma engulfed Delphine across the threshold into the treatment room. It wasn't medicinal or disinfectant smells--Delphine was accustomed to those--but an intangible sense of gravity that acted like a coagulant of somberness. Jennifer and Greg sat huddled together, Jennifer doubled over, Greg leaning down with his head bowed over the crown of her head, one hand laid flat upon Jennifer's back and moving in ceaseless circles. Soft murmurs emanated from their bubble.
Not the retching that Delphine expected. Such as when Jennifer expelled a clot.
Lead settled in Delphine's feet, slowing her down as she crossed in front of them.
Jennifer rocked slightly, all but curled into Greg's torso. On her lap, arm tucked close across her middle, one hand clenched in a white-knuckled fist. From between the cracks curled and dangled strands of hair. A veritable clump.
When Jennifer turned to look up at Delphine, the doctor easily discerned the bald patches across her scalp.
Beneath the blank surface of Jennifer's penetrating gaze, Delphine thought she saw a smolder.
Rasping, Jennifer said, "What is it that they say, Dr. Cormier? It's gonna get worse before it gets better?"
*
Aldous wordlessly held out a folder to Delphine when she entered his office. The sight of the slim offering slowed her pace to a rhythm more reserved, ending in a crawl that brought her right to the edge of Aldous's desk. With a flick of his wrist, he waved the file at her. Delphine took it. Holding it loosely between her hands, she glanced at its blank cover. "What's this?"
Aldous indicated the file with a thrust of his chin.
Delphine swallowed, noting how inconsequential the weight of the folder was in her grip, and flipped open the cover. The first page was a summary of identification information.
"Katja Obinger?" she said aloud, hesitantly. "Another subject?"
Aldous tapped at his lips, quiet.
Delphine turned to the next item.
Chest X-rays.
Delphine didn't need to hold them up to the light. She could guess what she would see. They probably could have been mistaken for Jennifer's, from months earlier.
Delphine's shoulders slumped. She looked down at Aldous over the top of the file.
"Another one?"
Aldous frowned and gazed off at the far wall. "It's too early to draw any definitive connection or conclusion between the two cases. But . . . a preliminary scan is very . . . reminiscent."
Delphine gave the remaining pages a cursory glance and shut the file. "Will she be brought here?"
Aldous held out his hand expectantly. "Katja is in Germany."
Delphine tapped the edge of the file against her palm before she handed it back. "What will be done for her? We know what didn't work for Jennifer and we're close to exhausting--"
"Katja is not your concern," Aldous said with leisure frankness.
Delphine paused mid-word, mouth agape. After a second, she collected herself. "Then why did you show me that?"
"Because this is the work we do, Delphine," Aldous said. "We need to maintain perspective. It's good to have reminders of what's at stake."
A seething anger and indignation took to a low simmer in Delphine's gut. Flexing her jaw to loosen taut muscles, she asked, "What if Jennifer dies?"
Aldous sat back in his chair and regarded Delphine coolly. If he discerned her anger, he gave no sign. Even the whiff of perturbation evaporated. "I wasn't aware we determined this affliction was fatal."
Delphine shook her head minutely. "Might not be what kills her. What if Jennifer dies?"
Aldous spread his hands. "What if Jennifer dies?"
Delphine stood quiet.
Aldous cocked his head. "What are you asking, Delphine? Do you want a distinction? Between Jennifer Fitzsimmons, teacher, swim coach, daughter, girlfriend and the subject you and I know, a wholly unique specimen that is one of the major steps in the next phase of human evolution?"
Is that what she wanted to know? What it would mean for the Project? What the Project's priorities were?
Or was she asking after Aldous? How it would affect him? If it would affect him?
Aldous took a deep breath and folded his hands across his middle. "She wouldn't be the first. We've lost subjects here and there throughout the years to accidents and disease. It's reality, Delphine. Human reality. For now."
Aldous studied her. "The thought of the possible death of any subject pleases no one. All of us would like to see her through this."
Because Jennifer--this Katja or any other subject--was worth more to them alive?
It was true.
Objectively, as a scientist, Delphine knew it was true. Just as she knew that even dead Jennifer would provide them with a case study. Information that would contribute to understanding the other subjects. Future subjects.
But what did that mean to people who knew Jennifer? Her students? Her friends? Her family? The man who was her lover and her keeper both?
People who made promises to do yoga with her?
*
From Delphine [10:19]: I'm looking at a bottle of wine and a bottle of whiskey. I plan to drink them. Care to help me?
To Delphine [10:20]: Whiskey not rly my thing.
From Delphine [10:20]: Would you prefer vodka?
To Delphine [10:21]: Not rlly.
From Delphine [10:21]: Whiskey, then. I can finish that.
To Delphine [10:21]: What? Are u serious???
To Delphine [10:22]: What's going on???? Are u alright?
From Delphine [10:22]: Will you join me?
From Delphine [10:22]: Or not?
To Delphine [10:23]: That doesn't sound like a good idea Delphine.
To Delphine [10:25]: Delpine????
To Delphine [10:27]: Delphine? Where are u?
To Delphine [10:28]: Come over, ok? We can talk.
From Delphine [10:35]: I'm here.
*
Delphine turned up stone-faced, completely serious and deadset on her stated plans, and uninterested in talking, much less being deterred by entreaties and cajoling. Honestly, she didn't even need a bottle opener or a drinking glass for the whiskey, so the prospect of withheld tools wasn't a viable tactic to stop her.
So Shay didn't.
She put ice in the tumbler, handed it to Delphine, and sat down with her guest in her living room.
Shay perched on the single seater. Delphine eyed the couch, features smooth and impassive.
She lowered herself down, reclined slowly, crossed her legs, and sipped.
They were quiet.
For a very long time.
It took a long time for Delphine to manage about half of the bottle.
"What if," Delphine said, slumping in a list over the armrest, and immediately Shay could tell she was drunk, truly and actually well beyond tipsy, which, why not, this whole evening had been strange, unpredicted, and unpredictable, what was Delphine sloshed and finally talking any more remarkable than her being drunk on Shay's couch, "what if we could engineer humans to be--to be re . . . resistant to disease and . . . and free--of mental ailments?"
That . . . was certainly unexpected.
Shay interlaced her fingers and leaned forward, elbows on her thighs. "You mean like depression?"
"Yes."
Shay sat on that. "Can we do that?"
"Not yet," Delphine breathed. "Not yet. But maybe. Probably. One day."
"That's . . . that's crazy."
Delphine turned bright eyes on her. "Should we?"
"What?"
"Should we, if we could? Like a form of . . . preventive medicine."
"I don't--" Shay shook her head. "I don't know."
Delphine's head fell back over the top of the couch. "Would you consider such people human beings still?"
Shay's brow crinkled.
"No one would have to know they were different," Delphine breathed. "No one would know."
Delphine said nothing else for long enough afterward that Shay thought she might have, mercifully, fallen asleep.
"Mutations occur all the time, naturally," Delphine said, dispelling that notion. "Nature . . . editing . . . the combinations and features of our genes. It's . . . beyond our control. Well. Not beyond. We do it, too. Gee. Em. Ohs," drawled Delphine. "But you don't like that, do you? I bet . . . you don't. But it's not bad. You know? It's about taking control. About understanding . . . how everything works at the most . . . most basic level." She paused and whispered, "Most basic? Basicest? Yes, most basic. Most basic." She exhaled heavily. "Genetic profiles wouldn't have to be left to chance anymore." She shook her head, head lolling from side to side atop the couch. "Mais si il y a un problème, c'est de notre faute. Ce serait de notre faute, non?"
The switch to French was new. Delphine rarely, if ever in full sentences, spoke in her native French. She didn't need to with her fluency in English. Shay's knowledge of French, on the other hand, comprised a smattering of vocabulary here and there and picking out Spanish cognates.
Shay sat glued to her seat. She wanted, she would have, she should have gotten up, and retrieved a blanket, draped it over Delphine and told her to sleep. But. But she felt a little afraid, of what Delphine was saying, why she was rambling on, tossing out incomprehensible French, what it could mean, if it even meant anything.
As Shay sat frozen and uncertain, Delphine hauled herself into an upright sitting position and declared, "I should go."
"Whoa, whoa, no, no," Shay sang as she darted propelled out of her seat and bounded over to lay a hand on Delphine's shoulder to restrain the wobbly scientist.
In a heartbeat, Delphine grabbed Shay's forearm with her free hand and gazed earnestly into her eyes. With newfound energy, Delphine claimed, "No one would have to feel sad again. Sad like you do."
"That's just human," Shay said, pitching her voice low to sound soothing.
"Only because we let it be," Delphine countered, voice hard with insistence. "Only because social constructs say it is. What about those people who don't feel fear or pain or compassion? Are they not human?"
"It's human to be different, too," Shay attempted to cajole Delphine. "We all look different, see things differently, have different opinions, have different experiences and different perspectives."
"We could be better. Stronger. Shouldn't we try to become better?"
Shay took a steadying breath.
"When we have nothing left to fear, when we make ourselves everything we imagine we want to be," Shay said, putting her free hand atop Delphine's on her arm, "will we even want it? If shorter people could be just a little taller, then would everyone else want to be just a little bit taller than that?"
Delphine's eyes narrowed on her. "You are saying that the only way to be satisfied is to let go of desire. But maybe that's a coward's way out. An excuse not to try and reach beyond limits, so as not to fail."
"I'm a simple person, Delphine," Shay said softly. "I don't know what the answers are, just what works for me. The only thing I know right now is that you're not going home like this. I'm going to get you a glass of water, and after you drink that then you can sleep here. You can sleep on the bed and I'll sleep on the couch. Okay?"
Delphine's grip tightened on her arm.
"Delphine," Shay breathed, taking hold of Delphine's hand and trying to gently remove it.
"They hate us."
Shay shook her head. "No one hates you."
"You don't hate me?" Delphine asked, faintly muddled with puzzlement, most likely clouded by alcohol.
"Why would I hate you?"
Delphine's eyes lost their focus. "Si elles savaient, elles nous détesteraient." Delphine released Shay. "I should go."
"No," Shay said sternly. "You're not going anywhere." She took a tentative step back, keeping a finger pointed at Delphine. "Stay."
She kept an eye fixed on Delphine the entire trip to the kitchen and back. Delphine traded her tumbler for the glass of water with docile obedience.
"This wasn't supposed to happen," Delphine said as she sat holding the glass in both hands.
That was the last substantial thing of the night she said.
*
Dryness in her throat and the cotton furriness lining her tongue and mouth dragged Delphine to growing consciousness. Forcing her eyes open brought a stab a pain as brightness--daylight, sunlight, did she not close the blinds?--filtered through the crack between her eyelids, followed by a second assault when she flinched.
"Ah, merde," moaned Delphine under her breath, turning to lie on her back and raising a hand to cover her eyes.
The sound of water running through a faucet nearby gave Delphine pause.
She cautiously removed her hand and, squinting, raised her head enough to look over the blankets piled atop her. In the diluted illumination Delphine made out a figure at the kitchen sink. With a twist of the handle, the water shut off and Shay hauled a watering can from out of the sink basin.
Delphine was in Shay's apartment. In Shay's--Delphine glanced down and balked at the bright sheets--bed, yes. Shay was--the speed at which Delphine attempted to shift her focus brought her up short with another pang--fully dressed and attending to the plants, testing soil with her fingertips, gently blowing at accumulated dust, rubbing leaves between her fingers and breaking off shriveled ones.
Shay glanced over at the bed briefly, then looked again. The water can tipped back to stem the flow.
"Hey," Shay called softly. She swiped her hand open-palmed across the bottom of the can and set it down on the nearest surface. Wiping her hands on the back of her jeans, she took a few steps toward the bed. "Good morning. You awake?"
Delphine dropped her head back atop the pillows and crossed her forearms over her eyes.
Shay giggled. Lowly. "Let me get you some water. Then I'll whip you up a smoothie. Great for hangovers. It'll be loud but you'll thank me later."
Delphine heard the whoosh of water spilling into a glass, then shortly thereafter a plunk upon wood closeby. "Here's the water. Now you might want to cover your ears."
After a bit of listening to a knife smack against a cutting board, Delphine rolled onto her side and wrangled a pillow around her head. In time a blender whirred with enthusiastic determination, stopped, pulsed, and fell into blessed silence.
A hand alighted gently on Delphine's shoulder. Delphine unfolded with reluctance and, on her back again, squinted up at Shay and the vibrant green substance in the glass. Shay smiled.
"Want a straw?" Shay asked.
"Wh--" Sound barely emerged from Delphine's parched throat. She swallowed a few times to generate moisture. "What happened?"
Shay shook her head. "Nothing happened. You came over last night, drank half a bottle of whiskey--maybe more than that--and then I refused to let you go home."
Delphine closed her eyes against the rush of regret. "Sorry."
"it's okay," Shay said. "Do you want to try sitting up?"
Delphine gingerly scooted and pushed herself up against the headboard, then finally accepted the glass from Shay. She eyed it. "What is this?"
"Salts, minerals, electrolytes, all the things your body is craving right now."
Delphine sipped and chewed at leafy bits and seeds that mashed into the crevices between her molars. There were notes of coconut, something tart, perhaps a berry, and . . . cinnamon?
Under Shay's keen eyes, Delphine nodded in consideration.
"Okay?" Shay hazarded.
"Tart," Delphine said with a little smile to show she was only teasing. She winced against the dull pounding in her skull.
"Probably the yogurt and the blueberries. I'll add more honey next time," Shay noted. "For now, let me get you some aspirin."
As she turned to go rummage in a cupboard, Delphine muttered, "I hope there isn't a next time."
Shay returned and dropped two white pills into Delphine's palm. Delphine promptly tossed them into her mouth and chased the pills down with the smoothie concoction. The mixture sat uncertainly in her roiling stomach. Delphine held herself still. She wasn't sure her body wouldn't outright reject everything.
Biding time, Delphine asked, "You had all of these ingredients sitting around?"
Shay shook her head and lowered herself to sit on the edge of the bed. "Not all of them. I made a run when I woke up."
Delphine closed her eyes again, to ward off embarrassment. "I'm sorry. You didn't have to go through the trouble."
Shay patted Delphine's knee. "It's fine. I think it was a pretty fair guess that you be feeling that whiskey when you woke up."
"Was I sick?" Delphine asked.
"No," Shay assured her. "You don't remember?"
Delphine shook her head. "Not clearly."
Shay studied her with kind eyes. "Did you forget what you wanted to forget?"
Delphine met her eyes. "No."
Shay nodded. Her gaze dropped to study the duvet. When she raised her head, her lips curved in a small smile. She rubbed Delphine's knee. "Take your time. I don't have plans for today."
Delphine was out of bed within five minutes--to appease her bladder--and discovered she'd slept fully clothed but for her shoes. Splashing cold water on her face helped, but mostly it was sitting in the single seater, nursing the smoothie, and allowing the aspirin to disperse into her bloodstream over the following forty-five minutes that brought her closer to functional.
Shay disappeared to shower for most of Delphine's recuperation time. Sitting with the bathroom door in her line of sight, Delphine was idly struck how every door in the space was fitted with windows, as if privacy were an afterthought of choice rather than a priority.
When Shay emerged, dressed and ready for the day, Delphine asked, "Hungry?"
Shay did a little stutter step. "Are you? I can whip something up."
Delphine shook her head. "I was thinking lunch."
Shay's head canted to an angle of doubt. "You mean go out? Don't you want to . . . rest?"
Delphine smiled and filled in the blank of Shay's protracted pause. "Or at least go home and make myself presentable?"
Shay crossed her arms. "Seriously? The only thing you might need is an iron, and even then you'd surpass presentable. I have an iron, if you want, and you're welcome to use the shower."
"Not the bathtub?" Delphine inquired innocently.
Shay's complete, unguarded stupefaction nearly justified the poor judgement and mortification of the last thirteen hours. Shay recovered with a small shake of her head. "Okay, I see that you're feeling almost back to normal." She unfolded her arms and trekked into the living room quadrant. "And if the bathtub weren't in the middle of my living room--or even if the folding screen provided enough cover--I'd say go for it. But . . . yeah, probably not the best idea."
Delphine smiled. "So . . . lunch?"
Shay subjected Delphine to a lengthy consideration. "Are you sure you're feeling up to it? You don't have to force yourself." She placed a hand atop the back cushion of the couch and picked at the fabric. "And if you feel like you need to--make up for last night or whatever--don't."
Delphine acknowledged to herself that her proposal did derive in part from similar sentiment--similar but not identical, not an obligation to make amends, but a desire to express gratitude--and that Shay's deduction made her uneasy--raising the prospect that she could be so transparent--and swaddled with warmth.
Buoyed by the burst of relief, Delphine gave Shay honesty.
"Nothing like that. Though thank you. For everything. I'm feeling much better." Delphine took a breath. "I'm . . . I'd rather not go home at the moment. I'd rather go to lunch with you. If you don't mind."
Shay tapped out an agitated rhythm upon the couch. But she nodded. "Okay. Do you want to shower first?"
Delphine chuckled. "That's the second time. Are you asking me or telling me?" She arched a pertinent brow. "Can you smell me from over there?"
Shay grinned, eyes alight with amusement and exasperation. "No, but you're probably still oozing whiskey through your pores. C'mon, let's go put something more substantial in you."
*
"Are you afraid to die?" Delphine asked Shay while she idly spooned the remnants of broth in her bowl.
Shay didn't drop her spoon into her own bowl at the sudden introduction of such a grave topic, but managed to set it carefully balanced upon the lip. She'd expected they were going to have a light lunch, both in fare and conversation given the circumstances that had brought them to the little Vietnamese diner. Delphine had smiled to herself at the suggestion as she adjusted the passenger seat in the Volkswagen to accommodate her legs and wrestled with the seatbelt.
"You don't like Vietnamese?" Shay had asked.
"I've never had . . . phở?"
"It's noodles and meat in a beef broth. Normally. The place I'm thinking of serves a vegetarian version, if that's okay."
"Sure."
"I've heard it's good hangover food," Shay had added, unsure if Delphine was just agreeing to her suggestion to placate her. Especially given that smile, almost a laugh.
The expression had reappeared right after. "I was just thinking--once I went to eat Vietnamese food because I thought--there is a part of their cuisine that is inspired by French culinary culture. So I thought: Oh, it might be similar to food from home."
"Was it?"
Delphine had laughed. "Not at all."
The cheeriness of an hour ago had since faded and Shay wondered if Delphine's question was an extension of the previous night's conversation. When they'd started meeting outside of Shay's office, Shay would have considered Delphine perhaps one of the last people due for an existential crisis. But the scientist's moods as of late seemed poised on a slope sliding her backwards, pulling her down.
Shay took her time weighing the question.
"Yeah?" she said at last. Shifting in her seat, she quickly added, "I mean, less in the sense of being afraid of . . . what comes next or whatever, like being punished for eternity, and more like . . . Well, I want to live. I don't want to die now."
She considered Delphine, her slumped posture, the ceaseless but listless stirring of the remainder of her lunch, the slight bruising beneath her eyes that served as testament to last night, the dent in her brow that was distant pensiveness.
"Are . . . you afraid to die?" Shay asked cautiously.
Delphine was quiet for some time. When she spoke, she seemed to address the general vicinity. "I see what you mean." Which wasn't quite an answer until she said, "I also feel like there are many things I still want to do. I wouldn't be . . . I wouldn't be ready at this moment."
"Is something . . . wrong?" Shay asked delicately.
Delphine snapped to attention, focusing on her. "Excuse me?"
"Is something wrong?" Shay repeated, with less hesitation.
Delphine looked confused for a second, then surprised. "You mean with me? No. No, no, no. I'm fine. I was . . . just thinking about it."
About death.
"Okay," Shay afforded softly. Between yesterday and today Delphine was thinking about a lot of things. Maybe she always was. Shay nudged the small tea cup by her hand. "You know, I think we mean it differently."
"Hm?" Delphine hummed, still lost half in her thoughts.
"When I say that I'm not ready to die and you say it, I think we mean it differently."
"What do you mean?" Delphine asked gamely, rallying greater attention to bear on the conversation.
"When I say it," Shay said measuredly, "I mean there's still so much I want to experience. Places I want to see. Foods I want to try. Books I want to read. Things like that. When you say it, it's like . . . it's like you have a list of things you need to accomplish and you haven't checked off all the items yet."
Delphine frowned for a beat. Radiating the doubt of someone answering a tricky question on an exam, Delphine said, "Yes?"
Shay laughed. "I'm just saying. It's . . . an observation."
"Now you are becoming a scientist," Delphine said with approval, mien lightening.
Shay threw up her hands half-heartedly. "Oh no. Though maybe it was bound to happen." She squashed the impulse to poke Delphine and resorted to propping her chin in her hand. "Something up? You're not usually so . . . grim."
"Or prone to drinking excessively and passing out in your apartment?" Delphine said drily, an eyebrow quirking. She exhaled heavily through her nose and answered, more seriously, "No. No, nothing--" She sat, seeming to search for an adjective for a long time, then settled on, "Nothing."
"You seem . . . more stressed out lately," Shay said.
Delphine shook her head. "Work."
Shay nodded. The word always served as a wall over which no further conversation could hurdle. They descended into silence.
Abruptly Delphine said, "I'm sorry. Am I being boring?"
Shay grinned, caught off guard by Delphine's self-consciousness. "No. I'm fine if you're fine."
Delphine's eyes narrowed with skepticism. "Really?"
Shay shrugged. "Yeah. Of course. Are you trying to tell me that I talk too much and that it's weird if I'm quiet?"
Delphine smiled in lieu of the laughter Shay hoped for. Still better than her earlier mood. "No. I just don't want you to be uncomfortable. Or to . . . feel like you're wasting your time with me here when I was the one to drag you out."
"Well, I guess I could be taking a nice long bath," Shay sighed, "reading Jeanette Winterson."
"Oh, yes, now I feel very sorry," Delphine opined, drizzling on the mortification. Shay smiled. Delphine smiled back, gaze growing gradually shrewd. "May I--may I ask a very personal question?"
"Okay," Shay said warily, "sure."
"I think . . . I thought your answer would be different. That with your . . ."
Shay leaned forward, as if proximity would divine Delphine's unvoiced thoughts. She offered a guess. "Rough patches?"
Delphine nodded. "I thought that with your rough patches, your answer might be different."
Shay nodded slowly. "I get it. You--we sort of mentioned it last night. Depression, anyway. And, yeah, I . . . I can get depressed--like low energy, no motivation--but," she shook her head, "not suicidal." She hesitated then gambled, "Not anymore."
Delphine nodded with the deliberation of consideration. "I see." She sat breathing evenly, then asked, "Do you think you could feel that way again?"
"Suicidal?"
Delphine nodded.
"It's possible," Shay allowed. "Nothing says I couldn't. I hope not."
"But you didn't give into it, back then," Delphine said.
"No," Shay said softly. "I don't know if I ever came close to anything like actually--" She took a steadying breath. "I thought about it, yeah, but--"
Delphine observed her closely, then said, "Life is resilient. From single-celled organisms to humans, everything struggles to live."
"Yeah," Shay agreed.
"Even when it's hopeless," Delphine said, but not to Shay, mostly under her breath.
Even so, Shay said, "Isn't that the most important time to struggle? Why else did we develop remedies and medicine, if not because we wanted to fight and live?"
Delphine looked at her intensely, appearing on the verge of a question. Yet she only said, "Yes."
//
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