We Own the Sky(69)

“Wow, what a skillful boy,” the doctor said, and Jack smiled proudly. “Now, we’re going to start. You can be my helper if you want, Jack. Or you can be the doctor and I can be your helper. Would you like that?”

Jack shrugged and looked at me as if I had an answer. A nurse came in and they put a cannula into his arm. Jack stared at a calendar on the wall with beach scenes from Thailand. A woman wearing a long white dress looking out to sea.

I looked at my phone to see if Anna had called or texted, but there was

nothing. Perhaps I should tell her now. Instead of her discovering the note on the hall table.

“Okay, Jack, that was the worst part. You won’t even feel it going in now,” Dr.

Sladkovsky said, taking off his gloves.

“So,” he said, turning to me. “First of all, we’re going to do a little injection of the blood.”

“This is the blood that has been engineered with the vaccine?” I said.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“From the blood that the nurse just took?”

“Yes, exactly. We don’t want to keep pricking him, so we just use the blood we took when we did the readiness tests.”

“It...it just...it all just seems so quick,” I said, and I was sure that I had once read something about that on  Hope’s Place, about how quickly the clinic accepted patients.

Dr. Sladkovsky shrugged. “We treat over one hundred people a day. It’s very normal for us.”

A nurse wheeled in a drip stand with three large bags of a urine-colored liquid.

“And this is the second part,” Dr. Sladkovsky said, wheeling the cart closer to him. “These are the various compounds and minerals that allow the blood to settle and disperse properly.”

“It’s a lot of liquid,” I said, unable to imagine it all going through Jack’s body.

“Yes, it is. Don’t be alarmed, though. We have found that patients tolerate it better when it’s more diluted. As Jack is being infused, you will find that he needs to go to the bathroom a lot...

“Jack,” the doctor said, picking up two syringes full of blood from a cooling container.

“Is that mine? Is that my blood?”

“Yes, it is, and this is what’s going to help you get better. Now, it might feel a little cold but it won’t hurt. I promise.”

“Ooo, it’s cold. The blood is cold,” Jack said excitedly, as Dr. Sladkovsky injected the first syringe into the cannula.

“And does it hurt?”

“No,” Jack said. “Doesn’t hurt.”

“You see, I told you,” the doctor said. “It’s not like that nasty chemotherapy.”

Soon Jack had fallen asleep, and I listened to the sound of the pump,

imagining his T-cells rallying, steeling themselves for one final battle.

I looked at my phone again, but there was still nothing from Anna. I wasn’t sure what she would do when she found out. I hoped she would come to Prague, that she wouldn’t call the police or get the embassy involved. That wasn’t her style, though, to make a fuss, to make a public show of things.

What else could I do? After all those endless conversations, I knew she

wouldn’t change her mind. But if she were here, forced by my hand, she could meet Dr. Sladkovsky, she could see how the clinic worked. In London, it was an option too abstract to be considered.

I wouldn’t tell her yet. I would wait just a little longer. I needed more time, to get Jack properly started on the treatment. I looked at my phone again. It was seven o’clock in Prague, and the UK was an hour behind, so I texted her: Everything  is  fine  here.  Jack  is  happy,  taking  a  nap  now.  How  is  your mom? x I waited for a response but it didn’t come. It had always been a joke between us: how quickly Anna would respond to text messages. Why wait? she would say. You only forget to answer. Jack was still sleeping, so I checked my email on my phone and there was a message from Nev.

Subject: Re: Jack

Sent: Tue Dec 16, 2014 1:05 am

From: Nev

To: Rob

Dear Rob,

Just  a  quick  e-mail  to  wish  you  all  well.  Hope  you  arrived  safely  and everything is going as well as can be expected.

I  told  Josh  that  Jack  was  going  for  treatment  in  Prague  and  he  drew him a little picture. I scanned it and am attaching it to this email.

Take care of yourselves and let me know if there’s anything I can do.

Nev

I opened the attachment. There was a drawing of a little boy, with a bandage around his head, sitting in a hospital bed. Next to him, two dinosaurs dressed as nurses were carrying a tray. All of this was happening outside on the grass, under a blazing yellow sun.

  *

Jack stayed the night at the clinic for observation. It was a precaution, they said, something they did with all their new patients. Anna had called last night and I closed Jack’s door, in case she would hear the unfamiliar sounds of the clinic in the corridor outside. Jack was in bed asleep, I said, which wasn’t actually a lie.

The next morning, I woke in a chair next to the bed, still drowsy and stiff, and saw Dr. Sladkovsky standing over Jack, his finger pushing a pill onto his tongue.