Generation M (34 page)

“The wildflower unit,” Abby replied.

Doctor Ramanathan smiled, but her eyes were looking sadder and sadder.

As they headed to her room, Abby was glad she was holding Touk’s hand, because of the incredibly warm feeling it gave her inside, but also because it helped her walk in a straight line. Abby’s heart was pounding because she hoped Toucan was about to remember she had a sister and brother who both loved her more than anything in the world.

When they entered the room, Abby pointed to the poster. “See, wildflowers.”

“Where do your friends sleep?” Touk asked.

“It’s just me here. It’s too small for anyone else to stay.”

Touk pouted. “Where does Jordie live?”

Abby thought fast. “He lives in the Mystic unit.”

“Do you get lonely without friends?”

Abby shrugged. “Sometimes.”

Touk’s face lit up. “Want to be my best friend?”

“What about Molly and Zoe and Lexi?”

“They’re my best friends too.”

“Lisette, I’d love to be your best friend.”

Touk held out her baby finger. “Pinky swear.”

Abby had to sit as she locked pinkies with her sister. She, Touk, and Jordan had lived by the pinky swear code. It was the most important promise you could ever make. If you broke your promise, rumor had it your baby finger fell off. Abby was quite certain that the CDC scientists had not introduced the concept of a pinky swear into the Generation M curriculum. Maybe not all of Toucan’s past had been erased.

Abby took the Emotion Meter devices from her pocket and gave one to Toucan. Touk clipped it onto her index finger without a word, and Abby did the same. The tiny lights on each meter were glowing green.

Just then, Abby’s blinked yellow.

“Are you sad?” Touk asked.

“I’m a little nervous,” Abby replied. “I’ve never used an EM before.”

“Watch this!” Toucan closed her eyes, and soon her light had turned red. She held her finger out. “I thought about Charlie. He pulled Molly’s hair the other day.”

“My turn,” Abby said and closed her eyes, picturing the cabin on the lake in Maine. Some ducks flew through the trees and splashed down close to the dock where she, Jordan, and Touk were sitting cross-legged. The Leigh family was finally together again.

“It’s green,” Touk squealed. “What did you think about?”

Abby opened her eyes. “A make-believe place. Have you ever squiggled your EM in the dark?”

Touk grinned. “Turn out the big light.”

Abby flicked out the light, and Touk waved her arm, making figure 8’s and random squiggles of green in the darkness.

“Does it remind you of anything?” Abby asked, barely hearing her voice above the blood pounding in her ears.

“A star!” Touk held her arm straight up.

Abby’s EM light flashed yellow. “Anything else?”

She felt the weight of silence crushing her. Then her light turned red.

“Are you mad at me?” her sister asked.

Abby heard the quaver in Touk’s voice, and she turned on the overhead light. “No.”

“Are you still my friend?” Touk asked.

Abby felt a hitch in her chest. “Yes.”

Soon, her EM light was green again.

“Friends forever,” Toucan said with a grin that kept spreading wider.

Abby unclipped the device from her. “Yes, forever.”

Doctor Ramanathan looked surprised to see they had returned so soon.

“Lisette, I need to talk to Chandra for a minute,” Abby said.

Touk skipped into the Generation M living quarters.

“My friend Toby and I are leaving tomorrow.” Abby paused and swallowed hard. “Please have Toucan ready to leave with me in the morning.”

The scientist nodded. Her smile was gone, and the sadness had drained from her eyes. Her eyes held only emptiness, a feeling Abby knew too well.

Abby crawled out of bed at six a.m. A day like no other, she was about to take the first step toward piecing her family back together.

She played out the upcoming events in her mind. She’d get Touk at nine o’clock, and the two of them would meet up with Toby in the staging area. They would board the pill convoy headed for Boston, scheduled to leave at noon, and sometime tomorrow morning, after traveling through the night, the driver would drop them off in Mystic, where they’d move into the clinic with Jordan, Wenlan, and Cee Cee.

In the shower, Abby shampooed twice and stood in the warm water for a long time, thinking it might be her last hot shower for a long time.

In the cafeteria, she poured a bowl of cereal, added soymilk, and took a seat. She pushed the cereal bowl away after taking three bites, her stomach in knots.

Something nagged her. She had so much to be thankful for, but she couldn’t ignore the feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

Abby had ninety long minutes to wait before she could get her sister. She tried to kill time by watching adults drag themselves in and out of the cafeteria. Staring at the clock on the wall, she watched as the seconds turned into minutes, and the minutes piled up.

She got up at 8:50 and washed her bowl and spoon in the sink. She selected from the bowl of sweets two butterscotch candies and three chocolates and put them all in her pocket. With her heart racing, she left the cafeteria.

If only the three-minute walk to Doctor Ramanathan’s office took three hours. Better yet, she wished for thirty miles of hallways that would require three days to walk. Abby couldn’t understand how a moment of joy had turned into a moment of such dread.

She knocked on Doctor Ramanathan’s door, and when the scientist opened it, Abby took a step back, startled to see she had let her hair down. The long black hair fell elegantly below her waist. Her puffy, red-rimmed eyes revealed that Doctor Ramanathan had been crying.

Abby’s throat pinched. What she gained by Touk joining her and Toby, Doctor Ramanathan lost.

“Lisette wanted me to let my hair down,” Doctor Ramanathan said. “She loves to run her fingers through it.”

Abby stepped into the office and saw Touk’s pack on the floor. On the pack was a crumpled piece of paper.

“I’ll get your sister now,” Doctor Ramanathan said and exited through a side door.

Abby sat in a chair but popped up immediately to pace, brewing with fear, excitement, and doubt. What was best for her sister?

She uncrumpled a wad of paper on Touk’s pack, thinking it might be a note, some message that would tell her the right thing to do. Seeing it was just a sheet of paper with a stick figure drawing of a duck, she crumpled it up again and tossed it into the wastebasket.

Doctor Ramanathan returned with Touk and said in a shaky voice, “She’s ready for her big adventure.”

Touk didn’t look ready for an adventure. Instead, she looked ready to run and hide. Her lower lip trembled, and from the way she was scrunched up her eyes, Abby could tell she was fighting back tears.

“Where’s my duck?” Touk cried.

Doctor Ramanathan scanned the area and removed the crinkled paper from the wastebasket. She handed it over to Touk.

“They play a game called Duck,” the scientist said to Abby. “It’s really a silly game, but Lisette’s friends wanted to give her something as a goodbye present, so they gave her the duck.”

Touk squeezed the paper in one hand and wrapped her other arm around Doctor Ramanathan’s leg.

“Lisette, you are going to be fine, I promise,” the scientist said.

“Touk, we have to go now,” Abby said. “Do you want some candy?”

“No,” she said.

Doctor Ramanathan sniffled. “You have to go with your sister.”

“She’s not my sister,” Touk cried and threw her arms around the scientist’s waist, her head disappearing behind a curtain of Doctor Ramanathan’s long, silky, black hair.

“Lisette, stop that.” Doctor Ramanathan’s tone was gentle, but firm.

Touk let go and lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Listen to Abby,” she said and then looked up at Abby.

Whatever words she was going to voice, Doctor Ramanathan caught herself and said nothing. For a moment, Abby thought the scientist would burst into tears, but she managed to hold them back. She gave her the saddest smile Abby had ever seen and then left the room.

Abby approached Touk and held out her hand. “Can I see the duck please?”

It seemed to take forever for Touk to give her the crumpled paper.

“Do you ever win the duck game?” Abby asked.

Touk nodded.

“I knew it. Leigh’s have always been very good duck game players.”

Touk crinkled her nose, a sign she was curious and wanted to know more. The normal Toucan would have blurted out a question or five by now. Abby, more than anything, wanted to see the normal Toucan again.

Abby sat cross-legged on the floor and looked up at Lisette. “My family is the most important thing in the world to me. Sometimes we argue and fight about silly things. Sometimes we go our separate ways. But we always love each other very much.”

Abby took Lisette’s hand and pressed her palm against her chest and held it there. “Can you feel my heart beating?”

Touk nodded, her nose still crinkled.

“Every member of my family lives in my heart. Mom and Dad. Babka and Babki.” Abby smiled through tears as she listed the adults who had died on the night of the purple moon. “Everyone is there, especially my brother and sister.”

Abby pressed her palm against Lisette’s chest. “Lisette, your family is in your heart, too. Will you give me a hug?”

Lisette stood before her with her shoulders slumping, the life draining from her face.

“Please,” Abby said.

Slowly, her sister inched forward and rested her cheek on Abby’s shoulder. Abby gently encircled her with her arms, as if she was embracing something fragile that could shatter at any second.

Abby recalled one time when the family had been together. It was on Castine Island, in their kitchen, during a weekend when her mom had come to visit. Toucan was two years old, sitting in her highchair, eating Cheerios. Giggling, Touk started throwing Cheerios on the floor and shouting, “Cheeries, cheeries.”

Dad was washing dishes while Mom was cooking something, and Jordan was sulking, likely because Abby had beaten him to the bathroom to take a shower first. At the time, Abby wanted to get as far away from her family as possible and go visit her friends in Cambridge. But now, looking back, she came to view those times in the kitchen as some of the happiest moments of her life.

She pulled Touk closer until she felt their hearts beating together as one.

Abby leaned back. “Your mother loves you, and you have so many good friends. This is where you belong.”

Lisette’s eyes widened with hope. “So, I can stay here?”

Abby nodded.

She gave one of the biggest grins Abby had ever seen and threw her arms around Abby’s neck.

A small smile played on Abby’s lips. She may not have gotten quite what she’d dreamed of, but at least one of her wishes had come true — to see the normal Touk just once more.

Abby stood and opened the side door. Doctor Ramanathan was staring out the window.

“Lisette belongs here,” she said.

When Doctor Ramanathan hugged her, Abby knew she had better leave or her legs would buckle.

She headed for the door that led to the hallway a thousand miles away.

“Abby!”

Abby froze. Her heart stopped. Hoping for the impossible, she swallowed hard and turned.

“Can I have the candy?” Lisette’s eyes gleamed.

“Three pieces,” Abby said in a shaky voice.

“Five,” her sister shouted loudly.

Her eyes blurring with tears, Abby grabbed the candy and gave it to her sister. She left without uttering another word.

Abby fractured into tiny parts and floated toward the staging area like a cloud of bees, her body disconnected from gravity, thoughts disconnected from her mind.

The din of voices, rumbling truck, motorcycle engines, and blaring horns grew louder as she approached the area.

She stopped before the organized chaos and frenzied effort to save as many lives as possible.

Pills arrived from the Alpharetta plant by the truckload. Here, at the staging area, the pills were packaged into smaller containers and then shipped to various destinations across the country.

Toby appeared out of the crowd, wearing a big grin and dark circles under his eyes from days on end with little sleep. “Where’s Touk?”

“She’s staying here.”

He turned red with anger. “Just when I thought I could trust adults!”

“I want her to stay. The adults will take good care of her. Chandra loves her. Touk’s safe here, and she’ll get the best education ever. My sister will grow up to be a leader.”

Toby persisted. “We love her more. Abby, we’ll be her teachers. We’ll keep her safe.”

Abby’s brain was as conflicted as ever, but deep in her heart, she felt she had never been more right about anything. “If we took her to the lake in Maine, I’d be doing it for me. Leaving Touk here, I’m doing it for her.”

“So we’ll stay here,” he said. “You can be around her.”

Abby lowered her eyes. “I thought about that, but it might confuse Touk, and it would definitely confuse me. I have to go.”

Toby put his arms around her, and as Abby pressed her cheek against his shoulder, she gazed at people helping people and felt something inside of her awaken.

She gently pushed back, keeping her hands on Toby’s shoulders. “I don’t want to go to the cabin in Maine.”

He narrowed his eyes. “First, you’re leaving Touk. Now you don’t want to go to the place you’ve been telling me about for days. I’m worried about you, Abby.”

“I don’t want to go to Mystic, either,” she said. “At least not right away.”

Toby’s jaw dropped. “Abby?”

“Jordan and Wenlan will be there to help the kids in Mystic. Kids are dying and frightened in other cities and towns. We know what they’re going through. They need our help. I have to try to do something.”

Toby took a deep breath and finally gave a nod. “That sounds like someone I used to know on Castine Island.”

“I knew that person, too,” she said with a little grin. “Does that mean you’ll join me?”