Sister

“But it was also all over the Net, which meant I could research it thoroughly. I found out that the trial had met all the statutory checks, more than the statutory checks, actually. Twenty babies in the UK had so far been born free of CF and were perfectly healthy. The mothers had suffered no ill effects. Pregnant women in America who had fetuses with cystic fibrosis were begging for the treatment. I realized how lucky Tess was to be offered it.”

“What did you know about Chrom-Med?”

“That they were well established and had been doing genetic research for years. And that they had paid Professor Rosen for his chromosome and then employed him to continue his research.”

Allowing your ladies in tweed skirts to stop shaking buckets.

“I’d also watched half a dozen or so TV interviews with Professor Rosen, the man who’d invented the new cure.”

I know it shouldn’t have made a difference, but it was Professor Rosen who changed my mind about the therapy, or at least opened it. I remember the first time I saw him on TV.

The morning TV presenter purred her question at him. “So how does it feel, Professor Rosen, to be the ‘man behind the miracle,’ as some people are dubbing you?”

Opposite her, Professor Rosen looked absurdly clichéd with his wire glasses and narrow shoulders and furrowed brow, a white coat no doubt hanging up somewhere off camera. “It’s hardly a miracle. It’s taken decades of research and—”

She interrupted. “Really.”

It was a full stop, but he misinterpreted her and took it as an invitation to carry on. “The CF gene is on chromosome seven. It makes a protein called the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator, CFTR for short.”

She smoothed her tight pencil skirt over her streamlined legs, smiling at him. “If we could have the simple version, Professor Rosen.”

“This is the simple version. I created an artificial microchromosome—”

“I really don’t think our viewers …” she said, waving her hands as if this were beyond mortal understanding. I was irritated by her and was glad when Professor Rosen was too.

“Your viewers are blessed with brains, are they not? My artificial chromosome can safely transport a new healthy gene into the cells with no risks.”

I thought that someone probably had had to coach him in how to present his science in noddy language. It was as if Professor Rosen himself were dismayed by it and could do it no longer. “The human artificial chromosome not only introduces but also stably maintains therapeutic genes. Synthetic centromeres were—”

She hurriedly interrupted him. “I’m afraid we’ll have to skip our science lesson today, Professor, because I’ve got someone who wants to say a special thank you.”

She turned to a large TV screen, which had a live feed from a hospital. A teary-eyed mother and proud new father, cuddling their healthy newborn, thanked Professor Rosen for curing their beautiful baby boy. Professor Rosen clearly found it distasteful and was embarrassed by it. He wasn’t reveling in his success and I liked him for it.

“So you trusted Professor Rosen?” asks Mr. Wright, without volunteering his own impression, but he must have seen him on TV during the media saturation of the story.

“Yes. In all the TV interviews I watched of him he came across as a committed scientist, with no media savvy. He seemed modest, embarrassed by praise and clearly not enjoying his moment of TV fame.”

I don’t tell Mr. Wright this, but he also reminded me of Mr. Normans (did you have him for math?), a kindly man but one who had no truck with the silliness of adolescent girls, and used to bark out equations like firing rounds. Lack of media savvy, wire-rimmed glasses and a resemblance to an old teacher weren’t logical reasons to finally accept the trial was safe, but the personal nudge I’d needed to overcome my reservations.

“Did Tess describe what happened when she was given the therapy?” asks Mr. Wright.

“Not in any detail, no. She just said that she’d had the injection and now she’d have to wait.”

You phoned me in the middle of the night, forgetting or not caring about the time difference. Todd woke up and took the call. Annoyed, he passed the phone to me, mouthing, “It’s four-thirty in the morning, for chrissakes.”

“It’s worked, Bee. He’s cured.”

I cried—sobbing, big-wet-tears crying. I had been so worried, not about your baby, but about what it would be like for you looking after and loving a child with CF. Todd thought something terrible had happened.

“That’s bloody wonderful.”