“Why?” I said. “Why would you do such a thing?”
He grimaced. “I don’t know. It was like she was evil. She had to be stopped before she did irreparable harm. It wasn’t rational; it was just this powerful feeling. The idea of killing her felt so right, so clear. Like if it were the last thing I did before I died, it would make my whole life worthwhile. I knew that if she came back, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from cutting her throat. So I left.”
The temperature had dropped since the sun set. I pulled a knitted blanket off of the bed and wrapped it around my dad’s shoulders while I tried to process what he had said. I thought of Mariana de Andrade and her attempted assassination of the Brazilian vice president. She had shown no regret, no sense that the decision hadn’t been hers. And yet it went against everything she had apparently dedicated her life to up until that moment. I had no doubt that it was the influence of the fungus in her brain that had prompted her actions.
My father, however, had apparently been able to resist the urge to kill. More to the point, he’d been aware of the compulsion as something outside of himself. What was different? Was it his Alzheimer’s that altered the equation? Or did he just have a particularly strong will? Obviously, the fungus had been able to create the connections that Alzheimer’s had previously robbed from him. But now he was losing those connections again, presumably because the fungus was receding. Was it my father’s resistance of the fungus that caused its integration with his brain to reverse? Could the physical growth of mycelia in the brain really be affected by a frame of mind?
I tried to think, but my exhausted brain just traveled in circles without getting anywhere. I needed to sleep.
“We can’t do anything until the morning,” I said. I pulled a pair of pajamas out of a drawer. “Put these on,” I said. “Sleep. We’ll figure it all out in the morning.” I headed for the hallway.
“I’ll try,” my dad said. “I haven’t been sleeping well lately. Too many dreams. And Neil?” I stopped in the entranceway and turned to face him. The anguished expression on his pale face combined with the hospital gown to give him a spectral appearance. “Lock your door.”
CHAPTER 22
I locked my door.
Despite everything on my mind, I slept like the dead, and when I woke light streamed through the window, illuminating my bedroom. It was almost as if none of it had happened: my father’s Alzheimer’s, my brother’s infection, the deaths of thousands in Brazil. I dragged myself out of bed, afraid I would discover my father gone, or worse.
Instead, I found him downstairs at the breakfast table, dressed in jeans and a brown sports coat over a clean white t-shirt, eating a mix of scrambled eggs and potatoes with his usual liberal dose of malagueta hot sauce. I was no stranger to spicy food but just smelling his plate made my eyes water.
“If you can survive that breakfast, you can survive anything,” I said.
My dad harrumphed. “I just wanted to be ready.”
“Ready for what?”
He cut his eyes at me over a forkful of eggs. “You want to get me checked out. You want me poked and prodded and scanned five ways from Tuesday. It’s inevitable, I suppose. So, I’m ready. If we have to do it, let’s do it.”
“I’ll have to call Mom, too,” I said. “We can’t keep it from her. She’s afraid you’re dead.” In fact, I felt guilty for not calling her the night before.
“One step ahead of you,” my dad said. “Already rang her this morning. She’s on her way.”
I bit my lip. “There’s someone else coming over this morning,” I said. “Somebody to help with the poking and prodding. Or at least the scanning.” I swallowed. “The thing is, it’s Dr. Chu.”
“No.” He dropped the fork with a clang against the porcelain bowl. “No, Neil. Didn’t you hear what I told you? I tried to kill her. I still want to kill her. It’s like, I don’t know, an alcohol addiction, or gambling, or something like that. I can’t stop thinking about slitting her throat.” He spread his fingers like a helmet over his head. “It’s in here, and I can’t get it out. She can’t come here. It’s like putting a bottle of whisky in front of an alcoholic and expecting him not to drink it.”
I sat down in the chair next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll sedate you, if that’s what it takes,” I said. “But she’s the only person I know with both the knowledge and willingness to figure this out.”
The house phone rang. I crossed to the kitchen counter and picked it up.
“Hello,” I said. “Mom?”
“Neil!” It was a man’s voice.
“Yes?” I said.
“This is Andrew. Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you since yesterday morning.”
“Sorry,” I said. “My phone is gone. I lost it in Brazil.”
“Well, you’ve got to get in here. We’ve got all kinds of things going down, and we could really use your help.”
“Are Melody and Shaunessy all right?”
“As of five minutes ago, they were alive, but it’s looking touch and go. You were the guy who cracked this whole Johurá thing, and we could really use another miracle right now.”
A key turned in the front door, and my mom entered. She looked both relieved and angry to see my father sitting at the breakfast table. I gave her a short wave.
“I’m a little tied up right now,” I said into the phone. “My dad…”
“I’m not kidding about this, Neil. This is life or death. It’s all falling apart over there.”
“I’ll get in as soon as I can,” I said.
“We’ll be waiting for you.”
Just as I hung up the phone, the doorbell rang. I opened the front door. Mei-lin stood on the stoop, her dark hair pulled back, looking trim and professional.
I hesitated. “My father is here,” I told Mei-lin.
“That’s great,” she said. “I need to get a look at him.”
“There may be a problem with that,” I said. “He’s been having some trouble with violent thoughts. Honestly—”
“It’s okay,” my father said.
“What?”
“It’s okay. She can come in.”
In retrospect, I should have seen it coming. He’d warned me, after all. And I knew how crafty an addict could be. It’s just that I didn’t associate those things with my father.
I beckoned Mei-lin through the door and introduced her to my parents, even though they had met her previously at the hospital. My dad put his breakfast dishes in the sink, and came around the table to shake her hand.
“Now, what I really want to know is how you are feeling, Mr. Johns,” Mei-lin said. “A fungal infection can be—”
I didn’t see the knife until it was too late. My father must have slipped it out of the dish drainer when he put his plate and fork in the sink. I wasn’t expecting deception, despite his warnings of the night before. Mei-lin was quicker than I was. As my dad slashed the blade up toward her rib cage, she brought her left forearm down to deflect it. The blade cut through her blouse and instantly drew blood.
I launched myself across the room, toppling a chair, and tackled him. He went down easily, a bundle of cloth and bones, and the bloody knife skittered across the floor. My mom screamed, but she had the presence of mind to snatch up the knife. Mei-lin left me to control my father, and rushed to the sink, pulling back her ruined sleeve and sluicing the wound with water from the tap. She swore as bloody rivulets ran down her arm.
I hauled my dad to his feet and pushed him into the chair, where, for lack of a better idea, I sat on him.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” my father said, over and over.
I bound his wrists and ankles with duct tape. I felt like some kind of psychopathic kidnapper, but my father kept urging me to use more and to make it tighter. My stomach rose when I saw his face, so helpless and horrified by his own violence. I wanted to comfort him, and at the same time, I wanted to shake him. He didn’t struggle as I carried him out to my mom’s car.