Chapter 2
“Where’s Daddy?” eight-year-old Sherry Birkin asked over breakfast, digging her spoon into an overflowing bowl of Lucky Charms. She knew the answer, but like most intelligent children, she asked the question just to see how her mother would respond. With the uncomfortable truth, or a convenient lie. To her mother’s credit, she usually told the truth, since like most parents of intelligent children, she knew when her daughter knew more than she let on.
“He stayed at work all night,” her mother said, making Sherry’s school lunch. A peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, a fruit cup, and a thermos of chocolate milk.
“He does that a lot,” Sherry said.
“He’s a very busy man,” her mother replied. “You know he comes home and spends time with us as often as he can.”
“If his work is so hard, he should just quit and find a new job.”
“He loves his job, honey. It means a lot to him.”
“His family should mean a lot to him, too.”
With a sigh and a sideways glance in her direction, Sherry’s mother placed her lunch in her pink lunch box and clicked it closed. “Please don’t start on that this morning.” She set the lunch box on the kitchen table and glanced at her watch. “Now hurry up, honey. It’s almost time to go.”
Sherry obediently finished her cereal and grabbed her lunch box as she left the table. She was dressed in a dark blue shirt and checkered skirt, her school uniform. She wished that she could attend the local public school, where she wouldn’t have to wear a uniform and could dress however she wanted, but her parents insisted on the so-called advantages of a private school. She knew that both of them had attended public elementary schools and they turned out just fine.
Annette Birkin grabbed her white jacket off the coat rack by the front foyer and opened the door. Sherry ran out the door and quickly got into the car. It was only early October, but the wind was numbingly cold this morning. Annette wrapped her arms around herself as she walked to the car, a shining black luxury coupe. Her blonde hair whipped around her face as she got into the car, relieved when she closed the door and got out of the biting wind.
Her husband had never liked the house. Birkin firmly proclaimed his opinion when they first bought it seven eight ago, but Annette refused to raise their daughter in the lab. They had a child and they needed to buy a house like a normal married couple, she told him at the time. Their combined salaries added up to well over three-hundred-thousand dollars a year, so they could easily afford to get financing for an upper-class home in the hills on the north side of Raccoon City. It was a residential area composed of beautiful two-story homes, well-manicured lawns, and overgrown pine trees, populated by millionaires and wealthy business owners and the spoiled rich children of millionaires who looked down at Annette because she chose not to employ a butler or a nanny. Birkin probably wouldn’t have cared, because it would have made his life easier, but Annette refused to hire someone else to raise their child or manage their household. She took on those jobs herself, taking time away from her work at the lab and creating more distance between her and her husband.
“Do you think Daddy will come home tonight?” Sherry asked.
“I hope he does. I’ll talk to him at work and see if he can come home, okay?”
“Thanks, Mommy.”
The drive through the city was uneventful. Annette would have preferred moving to a bigger city, like New York or Boston, but that would mean leaving behind the Umbrella facilities in Raccoon City, which Birkin was not willing to do. Raccoon City was nice enough, but after thirteen years, Annette found the city rather dull and pedestrian.
She pulled the car into the school’s driveway. Parked in front of her were expensive luxury cars and monstrous sport-utility vehicles, all shiny and new, since none of the wealthy parents would dare drive an old car. Children in the same dark blue uniform as Sherry hurried across the sidewalk to the large front doors. The school did not draw much attention when viewed from the street, but it looked like a historic European government office, built of austere gray marble and stone.
“Have a good day, honey,” Annette said, touching Sherry’s shoulder. Sherry leaned up and kissed Annette on the cheek. She got out of the car and ran to the school’s entrance, turning back once to wave before she disappeared inside. Annette pulled the car out of its parking space and circled around the driveway to head back down the street.
She became pregnant not long after the hasty marriage, and she worked in the labs right up to the minute her water broke. But after that, things were undeniably different. The birth of their first child unintentionally and irrevocably caused a rift in their marriage, even if Birkin refused to admit it. Even Sherry seemed to sense it, but she was very bright for a second grader.
Annette forced herself not to judge Birkin too harshly. His first love had always been science and his work, regardless of what he said to her in their tender moments, and their marriage had not changed that. She knew that one of the things Birkin loved about her at the time was that her dedication to science nearly matched his own. But having a child altered her priorities. When she began spending less time at the labs, Birkin grew distant. He never said anything out loud, he was too stubborn to, but Annette would have to be blind not to see it. The baby took her away from the work, and Birkin loved her because of the work. Since her dedication to the work faltered, so did his feelings for her.
Convincing him to buy the house was another fracture in the relationship. Before the baby, Annette and Birkin spent all their time at the lab together, since they both lived and worked there. But when Annette bought the house and began spending most of her time caring for their new baby, Birkin’s feelings for her faded. In a way, Annette knew that she should have seen it coming. Men like Birkin love their work, and they love people who love their work as well. Once you stop loving their work, they stop loving you.
It wasn’t fair, though. It wasn’t fair to her, and it certainly wasn’t fair to Sherry, who saw her father only a few times a week, usually when he was too overworked to really spend quality time with her. It wasn’t even fair to Birkin, who was missing out on his own daughter’s childhood.
Annette arrived at the lab and made her way down into the lower levels, where Birkin always worked. The hallways were spotless white tile and stainless steel, and the scientists she passed in the halls wore white gowns, white slippers over their shoes, and white face masks. Annette had worked there too long to care about such things; she knew that if the virus escaped, a white face mask wasn’t going to save her life. She wore comfortable black sneakers, gray slacks, and a blue shirt under her unbuttoned lab coat.
Birkin was in the central lab, hunched over his desk, scanning a pile of detailed image print outs. He glanced up as she entered and did not bother to say “Good morning” before he waved her over to the desk and began talking about work. His hair was a black tangle on his head, looking as if birds had recently nested there, and his eyes were deep with lines. He wore the same shirt and pants as he’d worn the day before.
“If we can isolate the VN-68 protein here,” he said, pointing at one of the pictures, “we can splice it with the enhanced Progenitor-K. I think that it might solve, or at least delay, the nerve damage in the test subjects.”
Annette pulled up a chair and sat down, examining the pictures, letting him rant for a few moments before interrupting him. VN-68 was just one of thousands of different enzymes and proteins and related biological products that the lab experimented with.
Birkin was like this every morning, going on about whatever minor aspect of the Progenitor he wanted to work on that day, and it changed every single day. He was too scattered, too frazzled. It was apparent in every movement of his hands, every twitch of his eye.
“Did you sleep at all last night?” she asked, cutting him off.
“Did I ...?” He seemed lost for a moment, and looked at her curiously. “
Yes, I slept a few hours. Three or four. I spent all night calibrating one of the chemical analyzers and didn’t get to bed until about three-thirty.”
“Looks like you slept in your clothes.”
Birkin scoffed and returned his attention to the print outs. “Please. I don’t have to keep up appearances for anyone. I can look however I want.”
“You look awful,” Annette said bluntly.
“Yes, well, that’s your opinion. I don’t hear anyone else complaining.”
“That’s cause everyone else here works for you. It’s not a good idea to criticize your boss. But I’m your wife, and I can say whatever I want.”
Birkin put the images back into a neat pile and set it in front of him. He folded his hands and sat straight in his chair, staring forward. “Well, go ahead and say it then.”
“You’re never home. Don’t you think it would be a good idea to spend a night at home with your family once and awhile? Your daughter misses you.”
“Please, Annette,” he said, putting his face in his hands. “Don’t start nagging me about that again. I come home as often as I can, you know that. But I have things to do here, and I can’t just leave after eight hours like some normal worker.”
“Things to do? Like adjusting a chemical analyzer? That’s what you have assistants for, Will. They do all the stupid grunt work.”
“But no one else was here –”
“Exactly,” Annette said forcefully. “They were all at home with their families and friends, while you abandoned yours to fix some machine that could have stayed broken until today. You don’t have to spend every waking moment here, Will.”
“But,” Birkin started weakly. “You know how important this is.”
“Your family is important, too. But your work will always be here waiting for you,. One of these days, your family might not be.”
That got to him. He recoiled in the chair as if she had punched him in the face. He stared at her in shock, and she saw the frailty in his tired eyes. There it was again, his dependency, his weakness. Every time she saw him like this, she could not stay angry no matter how hard she tried. He was exposed, he was vulnerable, and she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him in this state. He just couldn’t help himself. He was like a drug addict who kept going back to the addiction even when everything else fell apart around him, even when he knew he was throwing his life away for a worthless cause. But that’s the way addictions were; you couldn’t help but submit to them even when you knew better.
“Annette, please don’t say that,” he whispered meekly, reaching for her arm.
She pulled away to enforce the point. “You come home tonight. No later than seven. And you spend a few hours with Sherry while she’s still young enough to appreciate your attention. This is not negotiable.”
Birkin swallowed hard and nodded in helpless agreement. He looked like a dog that had just been whipped into submission, and Annette hated herself for it. But it had to be done.
“Every day, I feel like I’m on the verge of figuring it all out,” he said, and Annette wondered if he was talking to her, or just talking out loud to himself. “Like I’m about to unlock its secrets. It always feels in my grasp.”
He held out his hand in front of him and closed his fist, as if he was actually holding intangible secrets there. “And I want it so much, no matter the cost. I’ve made so many sacrifices already, you know that. It always seems like the big discovery is right around the corner. I never want to stop working, because I’m afraid I might miss it.”
Annette finally reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. “You won’t miss it. I promise.”
He collapsed into her open arms and gasped, trying to hold back tears. “I’m so sorry, I just can’t let it go. I can’t let the work go.”
Annette embraced him lovingly, stroking his hair. He was still a child, still this naive boy trapped in the body of an adult. Ever since she entered his lonely life, he had lost the ability to care for himself. She had become his wife, his mother, and his guardian all at the same time. And she couldn’t be mad at him, not for long. He needed her so badly, she could not hold a grudge against him. He would always come running back to her, even in the worst moments, and she would accept him without reserve. It had always been that way.
“It’s all right,” she said soothingly. “It’s all right.”
“I’ll come home tonight, I promise.”