“I’ve offered them a king’s ransom, and they said no. That was last year. This year I asked a biology professor to appeal to them on humanitarian reasons. Healers have used date palms since antiquity for their medicinal properties. The seeds the monks have are from an extinct palm, so we might glean new medicines from them. I expect to hear back from them soon.”

The mention of the college’s medical research prompted him to ask what was in the lifesaving serum given to his mother.

“Do you know what white blood cells are?” Gwen asked.

“There are only two kinds of blood in the world,” he replied. “Red like mine and blue like yours.”

There was a time when pointing out their disparity in wealth was a touchy subject, but not anymore. They’d grown so close over the past few weeks that he teased her without restraint.

“Blood has different types of cells,” she explained. “Most are red, but about one percent of our blood cells are white. They are part of our immune system and fight infection. The serum is developed from the white blood cells of horses that have been exposed to a mild form of tetanus.”

He was aghast. “You gave my mother horse blood?”

She nodded and told him how the college owned a research lab and a stable of horses in Queens. The horses were given a tiny injection of tetanus bacteria, and in time their blood developed antibodies to the disease. The blood was then harvested, spun to separate the white blood cells, and then developed into a serum. It sounded like a mad scientific experiment, but Patrick thanked God for it and would add those horses to the list of things he prayed for each night.

The only niggling detail of this dazzling relationship with Gwen that bothered him was where they met each evening. Huddling on the fire escape wasn’t the proper place to court a woman, making him wonder if she was ashamed of him. She had yet to step out in public with him where others could see them together. There were going to be snooty people who slammed their doors in Gwen’s face if they learned she was consorting with an Irishman, and he needed to know if she was up for that. He was searching for a wife and couldn’t lay his heart on the line if this was no more than a fling for her.

They’d been out on the fire escape for almost an hour, and Patrick had been trying to work up the courage to ask her to go with him to a baseball game, but it was hard. If she said no, they’d have to stop these daily meetings, and he didn’t want to give them up.