The history of Kim Murphy's life was stored in eight cardboard boxes in the garage of her condo in Charlotte.
With an increasing sense of unreality, Kim carried the heavy boxes into her living room, one by one. She shouldn't be doing this—she wouldn't be, if Dr. Peterson hadn't extracted a promise that she would acknowledge somehow, if only to herself, the seriousness of her condition. "Put your affairs in order," he'd said. His other suggestion—that she tell her father the latest prognosis—wasn't going to happen.
There's nothing to tell. Because for the first time in her life, Kim had chosen not to believe scientific evidence.
"I feel as healthy as a horse," she announced out loud, as she walked from the garage to the living room for the eighth time. She propped the last box against the doorway to steady herself. As healthy as a horse that had just run the Kentucky Derby. Twice. Okay, so she was breathing a little heavily as she set the box down on the cream-colored carpet…but that wasn't unexpected for a person whose major form of exercise was lifting a cup of coffee to her mouth.
Another pleasure those darned doctors were determined to deny her.
Kim pffed her irritation as she cut through the tape sealing a carton labeled High School/Correspondence. Thankfully, she was naturally well-organized, so Dr. Peterson's little face-up-to-reality exercise wouldn't prove as cathartic as he doubtless hoped.
Why should it? She might not have a medical degree, but she was a scientist, highly respected in the field of stem cell research. She was eminently qualified to analyze data and draw her own conclusions. Which just happened to differ from the medics'.
Before she could dig into the box, the cordless phone rang on the coffee table beside her. Her father's phone number showed on the display; Kim pressed to answer.
"I've been calling since yesterday, where have you been? What did the doctor say?" Hugo Murphy's gruff manner was off-putting to people who didn't know him well. But it wasn't personal, he just didn't express his feelings—affection in particular—very well. Kim was used to having to second-guess her dad's state of mind, though even after so many years it wasn't easy.
She sat back on her heels and ignored the question as to why she hadn't returned her father's call. "Dr. Peterson said, and I'm quoting him here, 'the disease is progressing as expected.'"
"That's all?"
"Pretty much." Half the truth, anyway.
"What are you doing now? It sounds mighty quiet there." Dad always acted as if he'd rather she was having a raucous party. Of course, if she was, he'd fret about her getting overtired. His protective instincts worked 24/7, and they never took a vacation.
"I'm tidying." She figured tidiness was a learned behavior, rather than genetic, because in this regard, she took after her adoptive father.
Hugo made an approving sound, then launched into a familiar refrain. "It's time you moved in with me. You're sick, you're alone, you need company."
"But, Dad, who would look after these hundred cats?" Kim tucked the phone under her ear so she could pull a folder from the carton in front of her.
"Huh?"
She put a smile in her voice. "You make me sound like one of those old ladies with piles of garbage around the house and cats everywhere."
Hugo barked a reluctant laugh. "Dammit, Kim, would you just let me look after you?"
"No." She didn't embellish her refusal with arguments; plain speaking worked best with her dad. She flicked through the folder, then set it aside to form the basis of her discard pile. No one would want a bunch of twelfth-grade exam papers from seventeen years ago.
"I'm worried about you."
He sounded almost pleading, which disconcerted her so much that before she could think better of it, she said, "I'm worried about me, too."
Silence. Uh-oh.
"That's it, you're moving in." Hugo's voice took on the implacability that commanded instant obedience from the mechanics and over-the-wall guys at Fulcrum Racing, where he was the team's top crew chief.
"I'm worried—" she backpedaled furiously "—that I don't have a date for the silver anniversary party at work next month, and Jerry will think I'm a loser."
Her father took the bait. "You're not seeing him anymore? What happened?"
"We just…broke up," she said vaguely, aware that her colleague hadn't given her much of a reason, and she hadn't pressed him.
Hugo harumphed. "Let me guess. He couldn't handle that you're so much smarter than he is."
"Dad," she protested, "Jerry's one of the brightest guys in the lab."
But there was a kernel of truth in Hugo's words. Though Kim never talked about her genius-level IQ, her inability to speak any language other than Science Geek when she was nervous—as she invariably was on a date—didn't make for a fabulous love life. Of course, she wouldn't have the job she loved if she wasn't smart…but momentarily, her mind drifted to the advantages of cute and funny over brainy.
"It won't take five minutes to move your things in here." Hugo renewed his attack on her independence. "I could come over now."
A tiny part of her was tempted to say yes. But the minute she moved in with Dad, he'd be scrutinizing her every move, pressuring her to do things his way. As stubborn as they both were, they'd be at loggerheads in forty-eight hours. And if arguing didn't finish them off, the deterioration in her health might. She'd resolved more years ago than she could remember that she would never be a burden to her father.
"I'm too busy," she said. "My place is much nearer my office—" Booth Laboratories was on the west side of Charlotte, just ten minutes from her condo "—and I need every minute I can get in the lab. I've already cut back my hours."
"There's more to life than work."
Kim grinned. Her father devoted almost every waking hour to his job as a NASCAR crew chief. She stood, crossed her small living room to gaze out the window at the busy street below. "I also have a few social engagements coming up in this part of town."
Now that was an outright lie. But when Hugo's voice gladdened and he said, "That's nice, honey. I'm pleased you're seeing your friends," she ditched the guilt. Then he said abruptly, "I haven't heard from her."
Kim groaned inwardly. She'd steered her way through one minefield, only to be pitched into another. Her. Kim's mother. She said carefully, "I didn't expect you would."
"She would come back, if she knew you needed her," Hugo said stubbornly.
"I don't need her."
"She might be a match."
"She might not." Kim doubted Sylvie Ketchum would donate a dollar, let alone a kidney, to Kim.
"I'd give you both my kidneys, if it would do any good," Hugo said fiercely.
When he said things like that, she felt horrible for ever doubting his affection. But there was no escaping that when Sylvie left, he hadn't had a choice about looking after his adoptive daughter. And Hugo was not a man who shirked his responsibilities, no matter what his feelings.
"Thanks, Dad," she said.
"Will you be at the race this weekend?"
"You know I can never resist a trip to Indy." Kim seldom attended the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races, even though she loved the intense action. NASCAR was her father's world, and her cousins', and whenever she went she was reminded that she didn't fit in. She watched the races on TV, from a distance.
But she never missed a race at Indianapolis. She loved the track for its history, as well as for the roller-coaster ninety-degree turns that made both drivers and spectators feel as if the cars might plow right into the grandstands.
"If Justin wants to win, he'll have to stop driving too hard into the turns," Hugo said. Kim's cousin Justin Murphy drove the No. 448 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series car, and Hugo was his crew chief. "And Wade Abraham's going to have to stop feeding Justin ideas that don't fit with our setup."
It wasn't the first time Hugo has grumbled about Wade Abraham, Justin's new car chief. Kim hadn't met the guy, but she had a sneaking admiration for the way he'd reportedly withstood several run-ins with her father. Most men caved under Hugo's steely command.
"You tell him, Dad." Kim was smiling when she ended the call, and she finished emptying the first carton with more enthusiasm than the contents warranted.
Letters from a pen pal in New Zealand, a correspondence Kim had maintained diligently long after the letters coming the other way had ceased. A sheaf of straight-A school reports reflecting her accelerated progress through high school. She'd graduated at fifteen, moved on to Duke University. No prom photos, no pressed corsages, no love letters. She sighed, then gave herself a short, sharp shake. She'd never written a love letter so why should she regret not having received any?
Methodically, she progressed through several other boxes, all equally inoffensive.
As she worked, she was acutely aware of one carton that she'd instinctively placed a little apart from the others. The Mom Box. It held photos of herself as a toddler, then as a preschooler. Photos of Sylvie, and of Sylvie and Dad's wedding, at which Kim had been a flower girl. Kim gave the box a little shove with her foot. She didn't plan to open it.
The last three cartons held notes, folders, textbooks from her college studies. She didn't really need to go through them, but nostalgia had her opening one. She pulled out a binder of notes from her sophomore cellular biology class. This class had given her what she thought of as her calling—her fascination with the stem cells whose ability to regenerate tissue over a lifetime assured them of a vital role in treating medical conditions once deemed hopeless. The class had inspired her choice of postgraduate study, and her thesis had won her the job at prestigious Booth Laboratories.
Kim opened the binder and inspected her meticulously organized notes. In that sophomore year, she'd been seventeen going on thirty.
She flipped to the section on stem cell differentiation, the focus of her work today.
"What's this?" Her own voice startled her in ...
