BooksBarbecue
Back 3 a.m.
Chapters (67)
  1. :01
  2. :02
  3. :03
  4. :04
  5. :05
  6. :06
  7. :07
  8. :08
  9. :09
  10. :10
  11. :11
  12. :12
  13. :13
  14. :14
  15. :15
  16. :16
  17. :17
  18. :01
  19. :02
  20. :03
  21. :04
  22. :05
  23. :06
  24. :07
  25. :08
  26. :09
  27. :10
  28. :11
  29. :12
  30. :13
  31. :01
  32. :02
  33. :03
  34. :04
  35. :05
  36. :06
  37. :07
  38. :08
  39. :09
  40. :10
  41. :11
  42. :12
  43. :13
  44. :14
  45. :15
  46. :16
  47. :00
  48. :01
  49. :02
  50. :03
  51. :04
  52. :05
  53. :06
  54. :07
  55. :08
  56. :09
  57. :10
  58. :11
  59. :12
  60. :13
  61. :14
  62. :15
  63. :16
  64. :17
  65. :18
  66. :19
  67. 3:46 a.m.

“The next letter I received from Elena came three weeks later. She detailed that the testing of Compound-23 had been a success. For a week she slept for twenty-three hours a day, waking only at 3 a.m., then falling asleep precisely an hour later.” He breathes heavily through his nose before adding, “The letter also said that she’d just found out she was eight weeks pregnant.”

:08

An invisible fist clamps down on my chest.

My mother was pregnant with me when she tested out Compound-23 on herself.

My emotions are a whirlwind. In some ways, I am relieved. Relieved that my mother hadn’t intentionally experimented on me. Also, in the back of my mind, I always wondered where my father was when, and if, my mother was experimenting on me. Why wasn’t he there to protect me? Well, for one thing, he didn’t know.

I gaze over at my father.

His eyes are moist.

I reach out and pat his leg softly.

“You couldn’t have known,” I tell him, though it doesn’t appear to melt away any of his agony, or perhaps, anger.

“She must have known,” I find myself saying. “That first night, when I was only awake for an hour, she must have known what she did to me.”

“She did know,” Ewen says. “The next letter I received from your mother came nearly ten months later. She detailed your condition. She feared she must have taken the compound during a vital part of your brain’s formation and it hardwired a sleep-wake cycle of twenty-three hours.”

“Can it be fixed?” I ask, the question jumping off my tongue nearly of its own accord.

“I fear there is only one person who can answer that question.”

I nod.

But if my mom could have fixed me, she would have, right? Or did she view me as the greatest unintentional experiment of all time?

“I need to find her,” I tell him.

I spend the next several minutes detailing my kidnapping by my mother, my twenty-three day nightmare, the White Room, and my mother’s request.

“Tortured by your own mother,” Ewen says, shaking his head. “The Elena I knew would never do such a thing. She was the ultimate patriot. The Elena I knew would lay down her life for the country that rescued her from a miserable existence on the other side of the globe. Everything she did, every experiment, every interrogation, she did to protect the country she loved.”

My mother the ultimate patriot?

Sure, she came from a life of poverty in her youth. The divided nation of Yugoslavia was in the midst of a civil war at the time. Coming to the United States to live with her uncle must have been a godsend for her.