Turn 167 of 228

Tell Billy Jo about the NIH response

Lena calls Diane first. The phone is pressed between her yellow-nailed fingers and the shelf of her belly, the speaker warm against the unwashed skin. Diane picks up on the second ring. The voice is low, the stretched vocal cords, the nine-foot-six frame still at the desk.

"Did you read the whole thing?" Lena says.

"Three times," Diane says. "The facility provision is the part that matters. They're not just funding research — they're funding infrastructure. Physical infrastructure. A building, Lena. A building we design."

"I know. Marcus is standing in front of the blueprints right now. He hasn't moved since I told him."

"Has he blinked?"

"I don't think so."

Diane breathes. The 980 pounds in the chair. The pause is the kind of pause that means the person on the other end is thinking about something larger than the sentence they're about to say.

"Call Billy Jo," Diane says. "She needs to hear this from you. Not from an email. Not from me. From you. She's been waiting eleven weeks for this and she's been writing the best work of her life and she doesn't know yet. Call her."

Lena hangs up. She scrolls to Billy Jo's name. The thumb on the green button. The phone rings.

Billy Jo picks up on the first ring. The voice is alert — the drawl flat, clipped, the voice of someone who has been awake for hours or never went to sleep.

"Lena," Billy Jo says. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Lena says. "Everything's wrong in the opposite direction."

"I don't know what that means."

"The NIH responded."

Silence. The kind of silence that has weight. Lena can hear Billy Jo breathing — the quick, shallow breaths of someone whose body has just received information that the brain hasn't processed yet.

"Say that again," Billy Jo says.

"The NIH responded to the supplement. Full funded research expansion. Four point two million annually. You're the PI, Billy Jo. Principal investigator. Direct access to all subjects and proximity cases. That's me, Marcus, the triplets, Diane, Carl. All of us. You."

"Four point two million," Billy Jo says. The drawl coming through now, the southern vowels stretching, the voice cracking at the edges.

"A year," Lena says. "And there's a facility provision. They want to build a dedicated research facility. Billy Jo — they said we can spec the building. Non-standard architectural requirements. Marcus has been designing for months. He has a wall of blueprints. Doorframes for twelve-foot bodies. Reinforced floors for 2,000-pound loads. Ceiling heights mapped to growth curves. No bathrooms. Anywhere. He crossed out every plumbing fixture and wrote NOT NEEDED."

Billy Jo is quiet for a long time. Lena can hear something on the other end — a chair moving, a pen clicking, the sound of someone standing up in a small room.

"I submitted that supplement on a Tuesday," Billy Jo says. "Eleven weeks ago. I submitted it and I told myself it would disappear. I told myself the data was too clean and too impossible and they would bury it because data that clean doesn't exist in real research and when it does, the institution panics. I told myself they would bury it and I would publish independently and the journal would carry it and that would be enough."

"It wasn't buried," Lena says.

"It wasn't buried," Billy Jo says. "They want more. They want a facility. They want — Lena, they want direct access to the triplets. To you. To Diane. They want longitudinal data under funded conditions. They want Iris's notebooks. They want Mae's growth curve. They want June's speed metrics. They want everything I've been collecting for a year and they want it institutionalized."

"Is that good?" Lena says.

"That's — yes. That's good. That's the best thing that's ever happened to my career. That's the best thing that's ever happened to this research. But Lena, they're going to want terms. Access terms. Frequency of assessment. Protocols. They're going to want to put their people in the facility. They're going to want to observe. And I am going to push back on every single term that treats you like a subject instead of a person. You are my friend. You are my subjects. Both things are true. And I will not let the institution forget the second thing."

"You're the PI," Lena says. "You decide."

"I decide," Billy Jo says. The drawl full now. The voice steady.

"I decide who comes in and what they see and how close they get. The grant says principal investigator and that means the door is mine."

Lena looks across the warehouse. Marcus is still at the blueprint wall. His hand is on the printout of the corridor design — the wide corridor, the one that accommodates a body that fills a standard doorway. The 760 pounds. The bare feet on the concrete. The face of someone whose dream just became an institution.

"Billy Jo," Lena says. "Marcus has blueprints. Real blueprints. He's been designing for months — the whole building, the whole facility. Living spaces, research spaces, communal areas. Reinforced everything. No bathrooms. Growth-curve ceiling heights. He designed climbing spaces for June. He designed writing platforms for Iris. He designed eating spaces for Mae. He designed the world that fits us and the NIH just said they'll build it."

"Send me the blueprints," Billy Jo says. "All of them. I'm putting them in the facility proposal. If the NIH wants non-standard architecture, they're getting non-standard architecture from the man who lives in the body the architecture is designed for."

"I'll have him send them today," Lena says.

"Lena," Billy Jo says.

"Yeah."

"Thank you for calling me first."

The line is quiet. The warehouse hums. Marcus turns from the blueprint wall and looks at Lena — the yellow-nailed hand holding the phone, the 1,498 pounds on the concrete, the morning light through the bay window, the three small bodies on the platform above her. The explorer. The scientist. The one who wants more.

"You're welcome," Lena says. "Now get over here. Diane's at the office. Carl's asleep on my floor. Marcus is about to vibrate out of his skin. The triplets are awake and Mae is eating everything in the fridge and Iris is going to want to document this conversation in the notebook and June is going to want to run the bay to celebrate. Get over here. We need to talk about the building."

"I'm leaving now," Billy Jo says. "I'm naked and I haven't showered and I'm leaving right now."

"Good," Lena says. "That's how we all go."

She hangs up. She looks at Marcus. Marcus looks at her. The blueprints on the wall behind him. The morning light. The hum.

"She's coming," Lena says. "Send her the blueprints. All of them."

Marcus nods. He sits at the workstation. The laptop opens. The files upload. The yellow nails on the keys. The 760 pounds in the steel chair. The face of someone whose designs — the world that fits them, the world that doesn't exist yet — are about to become real.