There my brother stood, without a mask. Breathing real air.
“I’m worried about who loosened the valves on my tanks and let all the oxygen out,” Patrick said, striding forward. “I couldn’t have this conversation with you before, Ben. I was in too much of a rush to save my life. But turns out I don’t need the tanks after all.”
Ben looked shaken. Forgetting he was in the bleachers, he tried to take a step back, the bench behind him catching him at the calves. He sat down hard in the footwell.
At the sight of my brother, Alex stood, bearing most of her weight on her good leg. “Patrick? How are you breathing?”
As my brother threaded his way through the kids, they gazed up in wonderment. He reached the bleachers, and Alex threw her arms around his neck, squeezing him hard. They kissed.
I stood to the side, doing my best not to look.
Patrick and Alex broke apart, and he turned to face the others, his arm around her. Everyone clapped. I could feel heat rise to my face; I only hoped it didn’t show.
“I’m lucky to be alive,” Patrick said. “And I’m even luckier Chance is my brother.” He dipped his head, a rare show of embarrassment. “Thanks for bringing Alex back.”
Everyone’s attention swung to me. Eve watched me very closely.
I gave a dumb little wave because I didn’t know what else to do. Then I took the black cowboy hat off my head.
And put it back on Patrick’s where it belonged.
ENTRY 41
Moths swirled in the shafts of light falling through the windows of the biology lab. Once Dr. Chatterjee had examined Alex’s leg and prescribed ice, Advil, and rest, she’d curled up on her cot and fallen asleep. Then he’d asked to meet with me and Patrick privately. He’d led us to his old classroom. Sitting behind his dusty desk now, he played with a DNA model made of rubber.
“The unidentified-particulate readings haven’t diminished since your eighteenth birthday, Patrick,” he said. “Not one bit.”
“Do you think he might have passed some window of vulnerability or something?” I asked.
“I don’t think that’s likely.”
“Why not?”
“Because so far everything about these spores, these … beings, has been maximally aggressive and effective. A brief infection window is neither. Plus, Occam’s razor dictates that the simplest solution is often the correct one.” Chatterjee spun the rubber ladder in his hands. “Which in this case would be genetic immunity.”
“If I have it, then Chance has it, too,” Patrick said. “I mean, these things are hereditary, right?”
The hope in his voice was so clear. As was the desperation.
“We won’t know for two and a half more years,” Chatterjee said, “when Chance turns eighteen. But I don’t think it’s as likely as in … other families.”
Watching that genetic model rotating in his hands, I felt my heart pounding. “What do you mean?” I said.
Patrick drew himself upright. “What are you talking about?”
“Your parents wanted to keep it all quiet for some reason. I counseled them against it, but I couldn’t say anything due to medical confidentiality. But now I don’t really see the point anymore, since everyone’s gone. You’re the only ones who … who…”
“Dr. Chatterjee,” Patrick said, his teeth clenched. “Will you please get to the point?”
Chatterjee set the DNA ladder down on his desk, finally looking up at us. “Your mother had some fertility issues. For a time she thought she couldn’t have kids. But your parents wanted children very badly. And your mother wanted to be pregnant, to carry you both. They kept trying to find a way. And finally they did.” He took a deep breath. “You were both born by embryo transfer.”
You could have knocked Patrick and me over with the tap of a finger.
The bags beneath Chatterjee’s eyes made clear what a toll these past weeks had taken on him. Bad news piling on top of bad news, and him the only adult in sight.
“So that means…” My brain was still a half step behind. “Patrick and I might have had different biological mothers?”
“Yes,” Chatterjee said. “If the genetic code that makes Patrick immune is from the maternal side—”
Patrick looked crestfallen. “Then Chance wouldn’t be immune like I am.”
For a moment silence reigned.
I thought about how much bigger than me Patrick always was. Stronger, too. The way everyone joked about how little family resemblance we had. And our personalities also had been different from the gates. Our interests and talents seemed to pull us in different directions from the beginning.
“Wouldn’t you know if the egg donor was the same?” Patrick asked. “I mean, you were our doctor. You delivered us. Wouldn’t that be in a file somewhere?”