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on the edge of the bed, twirling her hair around her index finger as she told her the story. She had tried not to look at her mother’s face, sunken amid all those pillows, half-buried already.
    “I hate to see you give up on yourself, and not just because you’re my daughter. I know you don’t want to hear this, but you have a gift.” Her mother held up a hand to stop her from protesting. “I know I’m not as smart as you and your father, with your little private science club, but I do know this: Everyone makes mistakes. And scientists, they
must
make mistakes. This is how they learn, how they make important discoveries. Where would medicine be today if every researcher gave up after just one science project gone wrong?”
    “Mom, two judges ended up in the hospital.”
    “Your father says that type of snake bite wouldn’t have killed them. And he says your antivenin could still work.”
    “What I did was
reckless.
That’s the word the judges used, and they’re
scientists
.”
    Her father had walked in and continued the conversation. “Okay, maybe it was reckless to try such a thing without clinical trials, but it was a stroke of brilliance to administer the dose with an inhaler! It’s still a brilliant idea—just needs tweaking.” Morton’s eyes got that faraway look they always got when he was working out a problem. She often wondered if he’d ever had ambitions to be more than a pharmacist. He picked up a book off his nightstand and wandered out of the room, muttering to himself: “Perhaps the concentration of the antivenin was just a bit too high …”
    She and her mother shared a knowing look and laughed. That was the last time she ever heard her mother laugh. “You see, you can never keep a good scientist down.”
    “Mom, do you know what kids at school say whenever they feel like they’re going to yak after they eat? They say, ‘I got Jonesed.’ My name is now slang for food poisoning.”
    “But it wasn’t food poisoning, it was snake poisoning.”
    “You’re missing the point.”
    “I don’t think so. You have an opportunity to make a difference in the world, maybe even save lives. Why throw all of that away?”
    “I’m not throwing it all away. I can still save lives. I’ll become a doctor instead. An oncologist.”
    Her mother’s eyes had filled with tears then, and she had shaken her head. At the time Julia had thought the gesture was one of disappointment, but now it occurred to her that it may have been pride. She’d reached out and pulled Julia’s head toward her, pressing chapped lips against her daughter’s silky hair.
    Julia had thought that helping cancer patients would fulfill her and that working on Dr. Bertel’s research was a step on that path. Had she only been kidding herself? Even though it was an expert’s research project this time, they were definitely dabbling in risky territory.
    “Mom, are you here?” Julia shifted her legs into a kneeling position facing the headstone. “I really need to talk to you. I’m afraid that … that Dr. Bertel tried to kill himself. And I’m not sure, but he might have done it because he thought he’d get to see his son again. I can’t talk to Dad about this. You know I can’t. He wouldn’t understand. Is it possible to see the dead again, Mom? Is it?”
    A cool breeze rattled the fronds of the nearby palm, and Julia half-expected her mother to appear from beyond the grave. She listened carefully for an answer. Then she heard the faint sound of muffled footsteps. Julia bolted upright. Adrenaline surged through her body as she scanned her surroundings, timidly calling, “Who’s there?” Suddenly, she saw a dark shadow sprinting towards her.
    Julia sprang from the headstone and darted through the thick black of night, her heart piercing her chest with repeated blows. The footsteps accelerated, echoing loudly in the silence of the graveyard. She risked a glance over her shoulder and tripped over a gravestone that sent