Excerpt: The Dark Spiral

The last photograph made Adair want to cry. It was one of her, standing with the stethoscope that her grandfather had given her, holding it to James’s chest, the earpieces were too big to fit in her ears, but she had an imperious, sure expression on her face. On the back Adair found nothing more then a number written in pencil.

Sighing she gathered the photos together and put them back in the envelope before turning to the note book. She flipped it open, curious as to what her grandmother had been keeping in there besides old pictures.

At the top on the left the date, seven years old now, was written. Adair stared at it, before noticing the page numbers that were written in the same pencil as the last image she had found. Flipping through the pages she came to a date. May 16th, the heading said.

"Adair came to me three days ago to ask me for the money to go to medical school."

The first sentence made Adair freeze. She remembered that conversation. It had been the closest thing she had ever had with her grandmother. She remembered standing on the other side of this desk and telling her grandmother that she had no choice. She just thought it would be easier to let her know and then if she felt she could support her it would be nice.

"I said no, of course not. She is to be the heir of the Thompsons and she knows that as well as I do. She stormed out like a petulant child denied a treat, and I thought no more of it. She would get over her desire to enter a world of men only and instead take up politics like me so she could make the difference for other people she claims to want.

“But the next day, Fred came to me and told me that Adair was looking for grant money and he didn’t understand why. I had thought the threat an idle one. Peta’s tempestuous fits, I thought, were similar to Adair’s. But then I have underestimated Adair, as I always do. Which is the point. She will make the best heir as she will not be flighty and without purpose.

"I found the photograph of Adair at age three giving James a physical with that ridiculous toy that Leonard gave her after she visited him in the hospital. She was so happy about it I remember. She wanted to listen to everyone’s hearts, to see what they sounded like. When she listened to mine, she looked up at me and told me that my heart was good, because it sounded like a baby rabbit, I thought my heart would break with love for her.

"She has not changed her mind since then. I know Peta and Anna’s illness’s have effected her deeply in her decisions, but it was not them that was the main cause of her wish to become a doctor. She has wanted this since she came home from the hospital with Leonard with the stethoscope. She saw him saving someone’s life, Leonard said, and instead of being scared, she had wanted to see more.

"I had forgotten the impetuous nature of childhood until Peta and Anna were born. Both James and Adair were quiet and calm. The girls were rash and so full of life. I believe I had put Adair into that category as well – forgetting that Adair is not like her sister. She may have her careless wants and needs, but she has earned this. Years of study to break into a field that is all men, and she is looking for a way to fulfill her dream of so long ago.

"Who am I to deny it? I will bring her back and give her the money, and give her the opportunity to fulfill her dreams. They will eventually have to be put on the back burner for a time while she learns the concepts of governance, but I cannot hold back a dream nineteen years in the making. "

Adair stared at the words, in surprise. She remembered her grandmother’s call, her father telling her to go and see her grandmother, and finally approaching her, where upon Adeline had given her the blessing and the money that Adair had needed to go to medical school. Adair had never found out why. And here it was.

She couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t want to be a doctor, but she hadn’t thought about the moment when she had decided. And this photograph was the moment, or very close to it. Adair stared at it. Her dreams that her grandmother had refused to let die.

And now it was all over because of Raynaud, sitting in state without being elected to office. Adair put the photo down, her fingers shaking as she rose again. Her grandmother had left her many things – charge of the family, the house, this study, but she had also left her rage, the quiet, not obvious rage, at a world that was not fair.

“Okay,” Adair said, looking around the study. “Okay,” she said again, as if she was announcing her intentions to the world. Then she went over to the bookcases and ran fingers over the spines of the books. She knew she had been told to read a specific book, if only she could remember which one. Her fingers slipped over the spines until she found the book on law she had been supposed to be studying the night before the pharmacology midterm. She hadn’t touched it – didn’t have time.

Now she opened it. The spine cracked as Adair brought it back to the desk, leaning back in her grandmother’s chair – her chair – put her feet up on the table and began to read. She wasn’t going to let the world walk all over her. She was going to fight.