The Vines by Shelley Nolden (ebook and pdf reader .TXT) 📕

the conversation. She was certain Otto hadn’t abandoned his life’s work for an affair, but at least the ladies had turned to the only topic she cared about. If anyone at Riverside knew of his whereabouts, it would eventually be dissected over tea and wafers in this lounge.

Each afternoon, the construction crew renovating the nurses’ home and dormitories took their break and the women gathered to enjoy a half hour of tranquility.

“More sugar, dear?”

The nurse sighed. “Aren’t we almost out?”

“Dee says that with the patient count so low, she’s got extra. Eggs, too.”

“Mmm. A nice country omelet.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice?” A plume of cigarette smoke wafted from the window.

Cora willed them to return to the matter of Otto’s disappearance. In retrospect, she should have seen it coming ten years ago, when Ulrich had first arrived.

Initially, he hadn’t believed his father’s claims. But by the time Ulrich had finished interrogating Cora and studying specimens under the microscope, his blue eyes had gleamed with curiosity. Mere weeks later, he’d requested a transfer from Bellevue to Riverside so he could serve as Otto’s assistant in his free hours.

Unable to stifle his proclivity for grandstanding, a trait not tolerated by his father, Ulrich had resorted to sharing his theories with “the mutt,” as he often called her. He’d explained that he thought she might have inherited her unique abilities. He was fascinated—and frustrated—by the question mark of her father, and he believed that if they could map her “impure” bloodline, they could “breed” her with other descendants. According to his hypothesis, offspring with a more concentrated version of the attribute would be able to safely leave the island.

Once, she’d summoned the courage to ask him if removing her gallbladder might eradicate her pests. He’d scoffed at the hypothesis, calling it scientific chicanery. “Mary may be an obtuse, ornery broad, but she was right to refuse the procedure. You, on the other hand, have no rights.”

Around the onset of the Great Depression, Ulrich became equally obsessed with testing her resilience at a cellular level. Over the years, the uncomfortable silences between father and son had morphed into hushed academic arguments that could span several days. Although Otto’s experimentation on her had been torturous, his research had always maintained its noble purpose, and he’d never derived pleasure from her pain. The same did not hold true for his son.

Recently they’d become so absorbed in their ethical debates that they’d stopped bothering to even lower their voices in her presence, as if she were just another lab mouse who couldn’t understand.

And then, last Friday, before the pair had left the lab to board the ferry, Otto had given Ulrich an ultimatum: either adhere to the project’s original objectives or quit.

Through what they’d left unsaid over the years, Cora had surmised that they spent their time away from Riverside apart. Yet they’d always returned together on the Monday morning ferry. Except this last time.

Ulrich had stepped onto the dock alone, carrying his father’s black medical kit with Ingrid’s wristlet still looped around its handle. He’d informed the head nurse that Otto had quietly retired to avoid a big send-off party, then he’d shown her the papers from the Health Department that outlined his promotion to chief resident physician.

Concerned about what Ulrich’s new position would mean for Cora, Mary had vigorously stirred the rumor pot from her sickbed.

Although Cora couldn’t prove it, she’d always suspected that Ulrich had somehow caused the stroke that had paralyzed Mary in 1933. Frequently Mary had threatened both Gettlers, but the way she growled at Ulrich had reminded Cora of a mastiff who could sense evil in a man. Worried that he might similarly hurt O’Toole or his wife, she’d stopped confiding in the man who’d been so good at repairing her confidence and inner strength.

Yesterday one of the mechanics had approached Cora to ask if the doc had gotten mixed up with the Mafia. Because of her routine visits to the lab, the staff assumed she was supposed to care for the animals in addition to her responsibilities as sole gardener following Canne’s retirement four years earlier. And so, the machinist, like all the others, was oblivious to the germs she exhaled with each breath, trapped by the wide-brimmed hat and neckerchief she always wore across her lower face as a “sun shield.” Leaving her spade and shovel in the planting bed, she’d run from him, further cementing her reputation as the island hermit.

With Otto gone, Cora expected Ulrich to begin conducting the experiments he’d so carefully mapped out in the journals he kept within a locked filing cabinet in the lab. Did he kill his own father? she wondered again.

Careful not to bump any of the raw incisions that ran down her thighs, she disentangled the clippings from the bush.

Monday evening, after his first day as head physician, Ulrich had summoned her to his father’s lab, tied her to a table, and roughly taped her mouth shut. Without first giving her local anesthesia, he punctured her skin, like he was marking a yardstick, and smeared a different emulsion onto each of the wounds. He’d said he was starting small, with everyday microbes that most any immune system could handle. “Not yet should you worry.”

Now, cowering in the dirt, hoping to catch tidbits from the nurses, Cora was worried.

A stray tabby, which often trailed her while she worked, sidled up to Cora. Purring, he nosed her bag in search of scraps of meat.

“Jeepers, get lost.” She shooed him away to prevent the women from turning their attention outward.

“He might have been arrested,” said a silky voice. “Those animals in his laboratory; the Gettlers have been doing terrible things to them.”

“Or he has—had—a gambling problem and his debts cost him his life.”

Cora shook her head. Otto had viewed gambling as a sin. She tugged on her trousers to air the wounds. While she still had to be careful, advances in germ prevention theory and antiseptics allowed her slightly more freedom.

“Maybe he’s simply Gone with