The Last Mountain Gorilla(6)
“I can change.”
Claire had heard those empty words before. Jenson had enough patent money coming in to allow them to retire years ago. There was no reason for anything outside of his obsession.
“Dr. Jenson,” a female voice called from the doorway. “They’re waiting for you.”
Jenson whimpered. Claire rubbed his back and acknowledged his assistant with a nod.
“What are you going to tell them?” Claire asked.
Jenson took a deep breath and stood back. “I don’t know. I thought we’d have heard from the FDA by now.”
“You can cancel.”
“No. That’ll only give them incentive to fill the gap with something negative.”
Jenson kept an even gaze on her eyes. “They’re a beautiful shade of hazel.”
“That’s cheating.”
Jenson forced a meager smile. For a moment the silence seemed natural.
You know,” Jenson said, “we still have our dreams.”
“Dreams don’t count. You have to live your life today. You can’t spend decades living for tomorrow.”
Jenson bent over the sink and splashed water on his face. When he stood he was back in scientist mode. “I need to go.”
Claire nodded.
Jenson started to leave, then turned. “Are you going to be here when I’m through?”
Claire shrugged. “I’ll be there for Billy. He’ll always need me.”
“Dr. Jenson?” his assistant’s face returned to the doorway.
“I’m on my way,” Jenson said. He held Claire’s shoulders and stared into her eyes. “What if I needed you more?”
They stood there and stared at each other. A stalemate of emotions hung between them. When Jenson didn’t get what he wanted, he nodded a discouraging nod, dropped his hands from her shoulders, and quietly exited the lab.
Claire stood in the back of the room and watched the reporters crowd the small University auditorium. Brian Jenson stood behind the wooden podium just as he did five years earlier when his nomination for the Nobel Prize in Medicine was announced. It was a happier and less stressful Jenson back then, who smiled and answered questions as if he were a Hollywood star. Now tension drenched his face. He squinted past the glare of the high-powered lights and appeared to search for Claire among the pack of journalists hungry for a story.
“Dr. Jenson,” one reporter called out, “have you truly discovered the cure for mental retardation?”
The question got Jenson’s attention. “No, no, let’s not get ridiculous. Specifically, with the aid of gene therapy, I’ve been able to reverse certain genetic disorders. One of those disorders is called ornithine carbamoyltransferase deficiency, or OTC for short.”
“How does it work?” another reporter asked.
“Well,” he smiled a confident smile, which Claire knew meant his stomach was turning. “I replace the abnormal gene with a normal one.”
“How is that done? Through injection?”
“Yes, I inject the normal gene within the confines of a virus. The virus is sort of the transportation for the new gene. To discover the specific gene, I actually had to work in reverse. I synthetically created the abnormal gene, then injected primates to create a test subject.”
“So you are able to actually give someone mental retarda—”
“OTC,” Jenson snapped. “And yes I can inject the virus into a primate and create a home for the disease.”
“These primates. Were you able to cure them?”
“Yes, we had a ninety-five percent success rate.”
“How prevalent is this OTC?”
That was the question that always brought tension to his face. Years of hunching over a microscope, crunching data into a computer, monitoring mice and eventually working around the clock with primates. All for just one person.
Jenson cleared his throat. “Well, it’s believed that one in every eighty-thousand—”
“Excuse me, Dr. Jenson, did you say one in every eight thousand, or eighty- thousand?”
“That would be eighty. But I must say that ultimately there will be testing done to treat other diseases, such as Downes Syndrome and others more common.”
This answer seemed to slow the buzz that was going around the hall. A couple of reporters were busy tapping their miniature computer screen, while others were scribbling notes.
From behind him, Jenson’s assistant approached the podium apprehensive, her head down, a piece of paper in her hand. She handed the sheet to Jenson and his face went cold as he read the page. His assistant gave him a look of consolation and stood next to him until he shooed her away.
“What is it, Dr. Jenson?” a reporter asked.