Filter~Chapter 1

Nashville, Tennessee

2010

Kevin looks at me and I know he isn’t seeing the little girl I use to be, all pigtails and gangly limbs. He isn’t seeing my mother’s daughter or even my mother anymore. As his eyes linger over me, stopping here and there in the most uncomfortable places, I know he isn’t really even seeing me as I am. The bloodshot eyes staring out of the alcohol-flushed face are seeing a girl, nearly of age, who owes him a tremendous debt of gratitude.

He has had no shortage of women over the years. He kept them from me at first, being careful of what I saw and, disturbingly, heard. But, as I grew older, and he saw that I was not growing into a refined young lady but that the poverty and desperation of our lives has made me something harder, coarser, he stopped caring. There were one-night stands and those who didn’t bother staying more than a few hours; those who got what they wanted, just as he had, who used him just as he used them, and left promptly after. Occasionally one might last a few weeks, but rarely. They didn’t want a man with responsibilities.

I.e. me.

A man with responsibilities and no car and an address that changed at least every fifth month depending on the compassion of our landlord at the time.

I was the only unchanging factor in his life and knew he blamed me for his lack of constants. If he hadn’t done the right thing, if he hadn’t been so good to me and true to the promise he had made to my mother then his life would be different.

But he had been true to my mother’s wish.

She had been obviously pregnant when he had taken her in. And when she had asked him to care for me, he had agreed.

They had pulled me from the hemorrhaging, dying body of my mother and turned me over to the care of the man who was not my father. He had taken me home to their tiny apartment above the old hardware store and done what little he knew to take care of me.

It took less than six weeks for him to realize his mistake. Maybe even less than six hours, but he never abandoned me. He clung to me as though I was the last remnant of some great and powerful love.

And that gave me hope that maybe my mother was really something else and not just some girl who got knocked up by a guy whose name she didn’t even know. She was something special, someone worthy of a man’s loyalty and devotion.

(c)2010 Gwenn Wright

Library of Congress

Filter~Prologue

Prologue
Vienna, Austria
1866

“That monk is a doddering fool.”

He remained bent over the microscope, speaking more to his Petri dish than the imbecile who had come to question him.

“Yes Doctor, but what you’re working on…”

“Will ensure Austria’s power for eternity.”

The man scoffed. He had heard of the scientist’s maniacal zeal. His mother had warned him that being intelligent was admirable and, if utilized properly, profitable but there came a point when it was nothing but a detriment. Genius was often followed by madness, she had said. Looking at the frenzied younger man, Dr. Rochenstein fully appreciated the wise woman his mother had been.

“The University,” he continued. “Needs more assurance of the potential success of your work.”

A bitter laugh resonated within the form hunched over the microscope. “You mean they would like to know when my work will begin repaying their generosity.”

It was not a question.

Everyone knew of the lavish expenses of the professor, but no one was certain of what the money was being spent on. There was gossip and speculation that perhaps he was building some great invention, but this was circulated only among those who did not know his particular field was biology.

(c) 2010 Gwenn Wright

Library of Congress