A Fierce Radiance by Lauren Belfer Read Free Book Online Page A

and heart damage. With help, Charlie had managed to catch up in school, and he hadn’t needed to repeat the grade.
    Claire and all the parents she knew defined the seasons based on the diseases that preyed upon their children. In this neighborhood, generally one child went deaf or died from meningitis each winter.Last year it was Danny, the younger brother of Charlie’s friend Ben, made deaf overnight from meningitis; his parents were grateful that he’d survived. Several children struggled with pneumonia each winter. When Charlie was in second grade, his classmate Rebecca died from pneumonia. Her wooden desk with its attached chair remained empty for the rest of the school year. Early spring was the time of septic sore throat and scarlet fever. Every summer, two or three children—in the bad years many more—were crippled or killed by infantile paralysis. Guilio down the block now walked with leg braces and crutches. Like Danny, he was considered one of the lucky ones: he was alive. As a parent, you could never let down your guard. Measles, whooping cough, diphtheria…. Some children survived, some didn’t. The luck of the draw. Nature’s way. God’s will. Claire never took Charlie’s life for granted.
    She thought of Edward Reese and of the story she would continue today. She tried to comprehend James Stanton’s hopes and ambitions, and the sense of futility he must sometimes experience. Doctors could do nothing, or next to nothing, to help their patients. Serum treatments. Several vaccines, including those to fight diphtheria, tetanus, and smallpox. Recently (too late for Emily) sulfa drugs, with their toxicity and limited effectiveness. Pneumonia could put an otherwise healthy adult in the hospital for a month. Claire’s colleague Jen, one of the reporters she worked with, still hadn’t returned to work after contracting double pneumonia in August. President Coolidge’s son had died from a blister he developed while playing tennis in new shoes. A scratch from a rosebush could kill you. Three summers ago, a rose-thorn scratch had killed Andrew, the gardener at St. Luke’s church down the block; he’d left four young children, and the church raised money to help his widow. Tuberculosis was rampant and contagious. Last May, Claire walked Charlie to school and learned from the other parents that Miss Robertson, his art teacher, had been “sent to Saranac.” Claire knew what that meant; everyone knew what it meant.Saranac was a village in the Adirondacks where TB patients received treatment in isolation from their families and friends, so they couldn’t infect them. Some patients stayed for decades. A wave of fear had passed through Claire for Charlie, but the doctor said Charlie appeared to have escaped TB infection—this time, at least.
    Could a medicine made from green mold fight all that? The idea was outlandish. Incomprehensible. Nonetheless Claire was determined to capture the drama of the attempt. And if the attempt succeeded? Well, penicillin would transform the nature of life itself. Imagine Emily alive, right now. Dressed for school and sitting at the kitchen table having breakfast. Teasing her younger brother. She’d be eleven years old. In sixth grade.
    Abruptly Claire rose to pour herself another cup of coffee. She returned to the table and warmed her hands around the mug. Upstairs in the formal dining room, directly above the kitchen, Maritza was Hoovering, pursuing her daily, futile battle against dog fur. Meanwhile their golden retriever, Lucas, lay beneath the kitchen table stretched out on his back, four legs spread wide, tummy revealed, as he indulged his personal version of bliss. Pushing off her slippers, Claire rubbed her cold feet into Lucas’s thick fur. His warm silkiness soothed her. He still gave off an uncharacteristically sweet scent from the bath Claire and Charlie had given him the previous weekend.
    After breakfast, Charlie gathered his books, and he and Claire left for