The Clay Lion (3 page)

I decided that I would start in the only place
that made sense.  The bus dropped me off at the pulmonary clinic where
Branson was diagnosed.  It was several moments before I could encourage my
feet to walk into the building.  Returning to the place that stripped my
life of hope was like entering a viper’s den.  Once bitten, twice
shy.  I knew the clinic had the ability to strip me of my hope yet again. 
I almost turned around and got back on the bus.  When the bus pulled away,
I contemplated running home.  When the snow began to fall, I took it as a
sign from God.  “Go inside,” He said.

The building was sterile, just as I remembered
it.  Only then did it occur to me that I had no appointment.  I did
not even know if Branson’s doctor was still with the practice.  A glance
at the directory confirmed that he was still there, right on the third floor,
his life unchanged by the events in mine.

At that moment, all of the waiting,
all of the
nothing that I had been doing for so long was too
much to bear.  I could not stand the thought of waiting for the elevator
and instead took the stairs two at a time.  Winded by the third floor, I
arrived at the office.  I approached the receptionist’s desk and tapped
gently on the glass partition.

“I’d like to see Dr.
Rudlough
,”
I said.

“Name?” the receptionist asked, without taking
her eyes off the computer screen in front of her.

“Brooke Wallace.  I’m Branson’s sister,” I
replied, as if the mention of his name would elicit a golden ticket.

“I don’t have your name on the list.  Do you
have an appointment?”

I hesitated.  “No.  But it’s kind of an
emergency,” I said by way of explanation.

“If you don’t have an appointment, I can’t help
you.”  She handed me a card.  “Call the scheduling office.  The
number’s on the card.”  With that, she closed the glass window between us,
effectively ending our conversation.

I knocked on the glass a second time.  She
slid the window open.

“Yes?” she asked, unable to hide her annoyance.

“I’m just going to wait here for him, if that’s
okay.  Maybe he’ll get a break.”

“He’s booked for the day Miss,” she replied
dryly.

“I’ll wait,” I said.

Six hours later, at 4:07 PM, the receptionist
turned out the light in the waiting room.

“You need to leave now, Miss Wallace,” she said.

“Is Dr.
Rudlough
still
here?” I asked.

“He’s already gone for the day.  I told you
to make an appointment…”

I ran from the office without so much as a
goodbye and found myself in the parking lot, scanning the cars for one
containing Branson’s doctor.  After several moments, I saw him appear out
of a door on the side of the building.  I began running, but slowed my
pace to a brisk walk as I approached him.

“Dr.
Rudlough
?”  I
gasped.

“Yes?” he turned around confused, “Can I help
you?”

“My name is Brooke.  Brooke Wallace. 
I’m Branson’s sister.  Or, I was.  He died in July.  You were
his doctor.  He had pulmonary fibrosis.  Anyway, I saw a story on the
news about a doctor who used his trip to save his patient.  I don’t need
you to do all that, but I think I need your help.  I want to try to fix it
myself, but I can’t figure out what caused Branson’s disease.  I need more
information.  Information that I think you might have access to. 
Please.  Please say you’ll help me.”

Before I realized what I was doing, I told him
everything.  A man I barely knew.  In the cold and snow, in the
middle of the clinic parking lot, I implored him to help me figure out what had
caused my brother’s illness.

We stood there, me shivering in my too thin
jacket, him looking as if he had been punched in the gut.  There was
silence as I waited.  In that moment, it was as if I was balancing on the
tip of a pin.  I would either fall forward into the hope of my future or
backward into the despair of my past.  But I was going to fall.  And
Dr.
Rudlough
would decide in which direction I would
be going.

He looked at his watch.  “I’ve got a few
minutes,” he said.  “It’s cold.  Why don’t we go back inside?”

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

Dr.
Rudlough
, or Bill
as I would come to call him, spent the next several weeks with me at his side
scouring all available resources in the search for the source of Branson’s
disease.  My first order of business was to go through Branson’s medical
records with a fine tooth comb.  I made a note of every sneeze, sniffle,
and infection from birth on.  I traced the origin of each vaccination by
lot and serial number.  I made lists of every medication he took and each
bump, bruise, and scratch for which he was seen by a physician.  I also
rummaged through family calendars and photos in an attempt to correlate times
and dates of any “medical experience.”

It took weeks to accumulate a full picture of
Branson’s medical history.  My days were spent pouring over old files. 
I made lists of the places we had traveled and the possible contaminants to
which he had been exposed.  I compiled lists of water toxicity from the
municipality, air quality reports from the local power plants, and soil samples
from our property to be tested for trace elements.  I left no stone
unturned.  I rarely slept.  I barely ate.  My parents watched me
from afar, pleased that I was moving through the world with purpose, yet
concerned that the purpose was consuming my every waking moment. 

For his part, Dr.
Rudlough
devoted his personal time to researching the disease itself.  As a
physician, he had access to databases and medical documentation that were
restricted to me.  He compiled lists of the known causes of pulmonary
fibrosis and reached out to other physicians who had experience treating the
disease.  Many were willing to share information about their deceased
patients’ exposures and histories.  Together, over the weeks, with the
help of others in the field, we began to put together a skeleton outline of
exposures that kept reappearing.

Finally, we made a list of each event in
Branson’s history that could have possibly led to the scarring of his
lungs.  Unfortunately for me, it was extensive.  Of those patients
that had a known cause for the disease, the time between exposure and the onset
of symptoms was relatively short.  It was the only detail I had going for
me.  The odds were that whatever caused Branson’s lungs to destroy
themselves initiated the progression of the disease fairly late in his
life.  The law only allowed me to spend six months with him in the
past.  The timing of exactly which six months to choose would be crucial
to Branson’s survival.  Out of all the possible exposures in the last year
of Branson’s life, we narrowed the best cases down to merely two. 

In the middle of the tenth grade, Branson
developed an extensive rash on his shins.  We assumed it was a reaction to
wearing his soccer shin guards, and the doctor prescribed a medication called
methotrexate sodium to help clear it up.  One of the listed possible side
effects of the drug included lung problems or lung infections, so as small as
the possibility was that the medication caused his disease, we kept it on the
list. 

The second possible contaminant was the hardware
store where Branson worked on and off during the year.  During his final
months working there before he got sick, the building had the roof
replaced.  In the process of removing the shingles, it was discovered that
some of the plywood underlayment needed replacing as well, so Branson and some
of the other boys were sent into the attic to clear out excess inventory so the
work could be done.  Branson came home every evening freezing and
exhausted from the cold of the unheated attic space, but those nights were full
of stories about the ridiculous and unusual items the boys discovered while
they were cleaning up.  Dr.
Rudlough
surmised
that with the age of the building, there was possible asbestos exposure during
that time.

That was all I had to go on.  I had three
goals to accomplish on my journey back.  Keep Branson from using the
methotrexate sodium cream on his shins, convince him not to work at the
hardware store, and avoid changing too much in the past so as to not convolute
the future beyond recognition.

Armed with my theoretical agenda, I headed to the
local branch of the government bureau in charge of travel, the United States
Department of Traveling Service, early on a Tuesday morning.  Like any
government agency, the employees were overworked and understaffed, and
therefore, each step of the process was excruciatingly slow.  I waited
several hours to be seen by my assigned caseworker, Gina.

When my name was called, I was ushered into what
amounted to a warehouse divided into dozens of cubicles.  Each caseworker
had his or her own cube, and as far as I could see, each cube housed a would-be
traveler.  I had no idea how prevalent traveling actually was in our
society. 

In my family, only my great uncle had ever used
his trip.  He returned to be with his wife on the day he had asked her to
marry him.  The Christmas after she died of pancreatic cancer, he arranged
to use his trip as a present to himself, to see her one last time.  He
followed every rule established by the government to the letter and returned
home to the world just as he had left it.  He died before Valentine’s Day
of a massive coronary.  I believed his heart had broken.

I had never entertained thoughts of using my trip
later in life as I was growing up.  We were taught about the early trials
in school.  We all knew how badly things could end up if the rules were
not followed.  We also knew just how difficult those rules were to
follow.  My parents rarely discussed the issue.  They were not risk
takers and were content with what they were given by grace in the present
day.  They believe there was a reason for how and why things were the way
they were. There seemed nothing in their linear lives that would be worth
risking for the chance to travel back into the past. 
And
so, none of us ever had.
 
Until now.

Gina was slender, in her mid-thirties, with dark
roots and spectacle glasses.  She sat at her desk and silently motioned
for me to sit in the seat adjacent to her.  There were no
formalities.  Hundreds of muffled voices filled the room as she reviewed
my file.  She thumbed through hastily.  After several minutes, she
paused to read a section that seemed to hold her interest.  She looked up
to meet my gaze.

“It says that your only brother recently passed
away.  Is this correct?” she asked.

“Last July,” I confirmed.

She read further into my file.

“Is your desire to travel at this point a direct
result of your brother’s death?” she asked bluntly.

My breath hitched and my voice caught in the back
of my throat.  I mentally encouraged myself to take air into my lungs and
reply with the answer I had prepared.

“My brother’s sudden death has caused me to
reevaluate my own life’s path and focus on not missing out on any of the
opportunities this world has to offer.  I have always been fascinated by
the prospect of traveling and feel that there is no time like the present to
take advantage of the valuable option presented to me by the government. 
So to that end, yes, my brother’s death has compelled me to want to travel at
this time.”

Gina considered me over her glasses.  I
could not tell if she was considering the sincerity of my answer or whether she
was thinking about how much longer it was until lunch.  My stomach
lurched. 

I could have very well been denied.  People
were. 
Criminals.
 
The
mentally challenged.
  Those people who the government deemed “unfit
for travel.”  Anyone who they thought might use their trip as an attempt
to change the past.  They could not take that chance.

Again, I waited.  I heard Gina’s watch
ticking off the seconds.  I had not let myself consider failure.  Not
until that very moment.  I held my breath.  Gina closed my
file.  She took out a stamp pad and a stamp, and with a thud, placed the
word “approved” on my folder. 

She handed me a packet of papers. 
Lists of meetings and classes to attend.
 
Final paperwork to sign.
 I took the papers and fled
the building so as not to give her a chance to change her mind.

The mandatory classes reminded me of driver’s
education.  No one wanted to be there but everyone suffered through, a
means to an end.  There were quizzes on the equipment that would be
sending us back.  There were releases to sign.  There were rules upon
rules to be memorized and recited.

Many of the people in my classes became friends
with one another.  I was not there to make friends.  I overheard them
sharing their stories of when they were returning to and why.  There were
those who wanted to relive favorite memories.  Some who had forgotten
something important that needed to be remembered.  A few were just looking
for something to do.  I wondered how many were actually on a mission like
I was but were choosing to keep it to
themselves
. 
I rarely spoke to anyone during the instructional period, lest I give up too
much.  I did not want to spoil my only chance before I even took it.