“I don’t understand,” said Cathryn. “I thought you’d taken Michelle and run away. They’ll find you here!”
For the first time Cathryn took her eyes off Charles. She noticed the living room had been totally changed. The gleaming, high-tech instruments from the Weinburger were grouped around the wall. In the middle of the room, in a makeshift hospital bed, Michelle slept.
“Michelle,” cried Cathryn, running over and grasping the child’s hand. Charles came up behind her.
Michelle’s eyes opened and for an instant there was a flicker of recognition, then the lids closed. Cathryn turned to Charles.
“Charles, what in heaven’s name are you doing?”
“I’ll tell you in a moment,” said Charles, adjusting Michelle’s intravenous flow. He took Cathryn’s arm and urged her to follow him back to the kitchen.
“Coffee?” he asked.
Cathryn shook her head, keeping her eyes riveted on Charles as he poured himself a cup. Then he sat down opposite Cathryn.
“First I want to say something,” began Charles, looking directly at Cathryn. “I’ve had a chance to think and I now understand the position you were in at the hospital. I’m sorry my own indecision about Michelle’s treatment was inadvertently taken out on you. And I, more than a layman, know how doctors can bully patients and their families to get their own way. Anyway, I understand what happened in the guardianship situation. I understand there was no one at fault and there was no malevolence on anyone’s part, least of all yours. I’m sorry that I reacted as I did, but I couldn’t help it. I hope you’ll forgive me. I know that you were trying to do what was best for Michelle.”
Cathryn didn’t move. She wanted to rush to Charles and throw her arms around him because all at once he sounded so normal, but she couldn’t move. So much had happened and there were still unanswered questions.
Charles picked up his coffee cup. His hand shook so much he had to use his left hand to steady it.
“Deciding what was best for Michelle was a very difficult problem,” continued Charles. “Like you, I hoped that orthodox medicine could give her more time. But it got to the point where I knew that they were failing and I had to do something.”
Cathryn could sense Charles’s sincerity. What she couldn’t decide was his rationality. Had he cracked under the strain as everyone suggested? Cathryn realized that she wasn’t equipped to decide.
“All the doctors agreed that the medicines were her only chance to get a remission,” said Cathryn, feeling defensive about her actions. “Dr. Keitzman assured me that it was her only chance.”
“And I’m sure he believed what he said.”
“It’s not true?”
“Of course she has to get a remission,” agreed Charles. “But their chemotherapy, even in the experimentally high doses, was not touching her leukemic cells. At the same time they were destroying normal cells, particularly her own immune system.”
Cathryn wasn’t sure she fully understood what Charles was saying but at least it sounded consistent. It didn’t sound like the product of a deranged mind.
“And I feel,” continued Charles, “that if she has a chance, she has to have an intact immune system.”
“You mean you have another treatment?” asked Cathryn.
Charles sighed. “I think so. I hope so!”
“But all the other doctors agreed that chemotherapy was the only way.”
“Of course,” said Charles. “Just like a surgeon believes in surgery. People are biased by what they know. It’s human. But cancer research has been my life for the last nine years, and I think there’s a chance I can do something.” Charles paused.
Obviously he believed what he was saying, but was it based on reality or on delusion? Cathryn wanted desperately to believe also, but under the circumstances, it was difficult. “Do you mean there’s a chance you can cure her?”
“I don’t want to get your hopes up too high,” said Charles, “but I think there is a chance. Maybe small, but a chance. And, more important, my treatment won’t hurt her.”
“Have you been able to cure any of your laboratory animals that had cancer?” asked Cathryn.
“No I haven’t,” admitted Charles, but then he added quickly, “I know that makes it sound unrealistic, but I think I didn’t have luck with the animals because I was working so slowly and carefully. The purpose there was pure research. But I was just about to try a new technique to use healthy mice as an intermediary to cure the diseased mice.”
“But you don’t have any animals here,” said Cathryn, remembering Detective O’Sullivan’s questions.
“Not true,” said Charles. “I have one large experimental animal. Me!”
Cathryn swallowed. For the first moment in the conversation a red flag went up, questioning Charles’s state of mind.
“That idea surprises you,” he said. “Well, it shouldn’t. In the past most great medical researchers used themselves as experimental subjects. Anyway, let me try to explain to you what I am doing. First of all my research has advanced to the point where I can take a cancerous cell from an organism and isolate a protein, or what is called an antigen, on its surface, which makes that cell different from all the other cells. That, in itself, is a major advance. My problem then was getting the organism’s immune system to react to the protein and therefore rid itself of the abnormal cancerous cells. This, I believe, is what happens in normal organisms. I think cancer is a fairly frequent occurrence but that the body’s immune system takes care of it. When the immune system fails, that’s when a particular cancer takes root and grows. Do you understand so far?”
Cathryn nodded.
“When I tried to get the cancerous animals to respond to the isolated protein, I couldn’t. I think there is some kind of blocking mechanism and that’s where I was when Michelle got sick. But then I got the idea to inject the isolated surface antigen into well animals to make them immune to it. I didn’t have time to carry out the tests but I’m certain it would be easy because the well animal will recognize the antigen as being very foreign to itself whereas in the sick animal the antigen is only slightly different from its normal proteins.”
Cathryn’s comprehension faltered, though she tried to smile.
Charles impulsively reached across the table and grasped Cathryn’s shoulders. “Cathryn, try to understand. I want you to believe in what I’m doing. I need you to help me.”
Cathryn felt some inner bond loosen and fall. Charles was her husband and the fact that he needed her and admitted it was a tremendous incentive.
“Do you remember that horses were used to make diphtheria antiserum?” asked Charles.
“I think so,” said Cathryn.
“What I’m explaining to you is something like that. What I’ve done is to isolate the surface antigen of Michelle’s leukemic cells that makes them different from her normal cells, and I’ve been injecting the antigen into myself.”
“So you become allergic to Michelle’s leukemic cells?” asked Cathryn, struggling to comprehend.
“Exactly,” said Charles with excitement.
“Then you’ll inject your antibodies into Michelle?” asked Cathryn.
“No,” said Charles. “Her immune system wouldn’t accept my antibodies. But luckily modern immunology has found a way to transfer what they call cellular immunity or sensitivity from one organism to another. Once my T-lymphocytes are sensitized to Michelle’s leukemic antigen, I will isolate from my white cells what is called a transfer factor and inject that into Michelle. Hopefully that will stimulate her own immune system to sensitize against her leukemic cells. In that way she’ll be able to eliminate her existing leukemic cells and any new ones that evolve.”
“So she’d be cured?” said Cathryn.
“So she’d be cured,” repeated Charles.
Cathryn was not sure she understood everything Charles had said, but his plan certainly seemed sound. It didn’t seem possible that he could have figured it out if he were in the midst of a nervous breakdown. She realized that from his point of view, everything he’d done had been rational.