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And so I passed my days streaming movies on my tablet or trying to amass enough concentration to read. But mostly I obsessed over what Scythe might be doing to me.

The hospital had resisted letting my wife and daughter suit up and visit me inside the bubble, but after a week in bed, I insisted that I be allowed to see them.

My fourteen-year-old strode through the plastic partition in full hazmat gear that swallowed her whole, a canvas bag slung over her shoulder.

I laughed when I saw her—my first real laugh since waking up in the ICU five days ago. But with my cracked and broken ribs, the joy turned instantly to agony.

“Hey, Dad,” Ava said, her voice emitting through the built-in speaker. Then she leaned over the bed and gave me the greatest awkward hug I’d ever received, my face pressing into her plastic face shield. Even though it was through latex gloves and a Tyvek suit, the touch of someone I loved, and who loved me, brought me to tears again.

“You okay, Dad?”

“I’m fine.” I wiped my eyes.

She pulled the chair over and reached down into the bag she’d brought with her, lifting out a chessboard.

“Want to play?”

“God, yes. I’m so sick of staring at screens.”

I sat up, groaning as I tried to get the pillows comfortably arranged behind me. Ava opened the chessboard, placed it on the bed, and began setting up the pieces.

It moved me that Ava would suit up to spend time with me inside my bubble. If you weren’t used to them, a hazmat suit could be a claustrophobic experience. They were hot and bulky, and inevitably your face would begin to itch the moment you had entered the quarantine area. And, of course, looming over all of the inconvenience was the very real threat of a breach.

She held out both hands and I tapped the right one, which she opened to reveal a white pawn.

I would go first.

I had taught Ava chess when she was five. She took to it immediately and soon developed an innate understanding not just of how the pieces moved but of the need for a broader strategy to win.

We tried to play a game every day, usually sitting at the wrought-iron table in the backyard or, if the weather was inclement, in front of the fire with the board set up on the brick hearth.

By the time she was ten, she had become a formidable player.

By twelve, we were equally matched.

By thirteen, she had surpassed my skill level with a great opening repertoire and a strong endgame. I could only beat her by playing flawlessly and hoping she’d make at least one mistake. But that combination was rare.

Sometimes I wondered if she’d been gifted with my mother’s intellect.

I made my opening move.

“Hey, Dad?” she said as she responded—queen’s knight to F6. “Five hundred and sixty-one. Just wanted to make sure you knew.”

I rolled my eyes.

She was grinning through her face shield.

Five hundred and sixty-one days is what she meant.

She was reminding me of how long it had been since the last time I’d checkmated her.



* * *



—

We played every day for the next week.

Each time she won, and it was never even close.

Beth would also suit up to come sit with me, and removed from the routines and distractions of daily life in Virginia, we talked more than we had in years.

One afternoon, she looked down at me through her face shield and took my hand in hers, our skin separated by the layer of latex.

“When will it be enough?” she asked.

She meant my job. We had this fight often.

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve been shot. Now add almost-blown-up to your scorecard.”

“It’s not a scorecard.”

“Sure it is,” she said. “Please look at me. If I thought you loved this job, then as much as I hate the danger it constantly puts you in, I would never say a word to you about it. But I know you don’t love it. It isn’t who you are. You do this out of obligation and guilt, and maybe that made sense in the beginning, but it’s been fifteen years since you were pardoned. Maybe it’s time to forgive yourself and do something you actually love.”

What I really loved, what I really wanted—had always wanted—was to be a geneticist. To understand and wield the power of the source code of life to make the world a better place. I blamed that on growing up in my mother’s orbit. She was a juggernaut, and her influence had burdened me with outsize ambitions.

But I didn’t live in a world where any of my dreams were possible anymore.

And the hardest truth—the one that had been eating me slowly from the inside for most of my adult life—was that even if it was, I didn’t possess a fraction of the raw intelligence of an Anthony Romero or a Miriam Ramsay.

I had extraordinary dreams and an ordinary mind.



* * *



—

Exactly two weeks after my admittance to Denver Health’s ICU, the door to my bubble unzipped and Dr. Singh walked in with a broad smile on her face and a cascade of dark hair flowing past her shoulders.

“You have hair,” I said.

“I do. Quite a lot of it.”

“Where’s your suit?”

“Don’t need it.”

She came over and sat in the chair beside my bed—a bit younger than I would’ve guessed based on the huskiness of her voice.