Part 43
Alexis had seen enough pictures of Sergei in his files to recognize him when he came into her office.
"You know you shouldn't be here," she said. Oksana called her once, and told her she was finding out a lot, and that she'd return with all the information in a few days. "Oksana will be back in a few days," she informed him.
"I just talk to this doctor Quarter, you know, you gave me her name and her number. She want me to come here for EKG and go talk to her. I come up to ask you to help. I pay for your time, no problem. Exactly why I ask you to help is, get me in and outta hospital without violating these damned things." He put a copy of the orders on the table.
"So far, I find out some wonderful stuff," he said. "Like my mother perish in the gulag, and they gonna send me another letter of apology. My father have two brothers, and a sister, every one, they die in Siberia, no way to find out how, but probably even if their heart give out it could have happen without having this disease. My grandparents, I got even death certificates. They die of old age. Likely broken heart, too."
"You've found out a lot," Alexis said, sympathetically. "Thank you."
"They keep working on it. I got a teacher of Aleksander's in Moscow, he like history and that kinda stuff, some of the same happen in his own family. He call me every day with more interesting stuff. No diseases, though."
Zander was sitting in the lounge, green robe on again (he favored the green one at the total expense of the red one, to Quinn's great amusement), reading "Family Breakdown." A woman came into the lounge. She saw him and ran over to him. He seemed to recognize her and stood up. "My baby!" she said and flew into his arms.
She stepped back after a second, crying, tears running down her cheeks. "What are you doin' in a hospital, Sandy?" she demanded. "You sick?"
"No, Rosa, just an injury. I'm much better." She hugged him again. He hugged her back. "It's really ok, Rosa," he said.
Quinn was struck by how mature he acted in those few seconds. Such contrast from one situation to the next.
"Peter called me. Finally! I almost had a heart attack you might be found dead, but I really knew you were not. Always knew you were not, I promise, Alejandro."
Quinn went to them. "Would you like to come with us?" she said to Rosa. "He's got to go for a test on another floor."
Zander followed Quinn, and brought Rosa along with his arm around her. The three of them went to the elevator and down to the lab - he was touchingly attentive to Rosa, as if she were the one who was going for a medical test.
Quinn sat Rosa down in the lab's waiting room and brought the chart to the technicians. They took Zander off for the test.
Rosa sensed that Quinn knew about his condition, and she asked fifty questions as they waited. "Like the normal mother," Quinn thought to herself. She explained the situation a little bit, and Rosa thought the worst. "Mr. Sergei, and Ms. Oksana never had a single relative come around," she said. "It's just like Cuba, where they came from. But worse. Cubans come as whole families. It's not that far away, either."
Quinn smiled. "Your family came from Cuba."
"Oh, yes," she said. "Back in 1959, and all my uncles and aunts eventually came, all my cousins," she said. "Not nearly so cut off as they get from their family in that horrible Russia."
"Did you know Mr. Sergei had taken them there?" Quinn asked.
"Yes, I cried so hard. Miss Oksana looked and looked. Police, detectives, everyone, looking all over. And when she finally gets them back - by then I was working in Miami - she and Pedro - I called them by their name in Spanish, they thought it was funny - came to see me one day. Alejandro already gone again, this time on his own decision. We looked and looked and looked."
"I know a little about that," Quinn smiled gently.
When Zander came out from the test, Quinn got the charts and the three of them went out into the hall. "Feeling ok?" Quinn asked Zander. "I can get you a chair."
Rosa took his right arm. Quinn was standing on his other side, and took the other, shifting her chart to her left arm. She looked up and saw, about 30 feet away across and big hall, Alexis and a good-looking older man. She felt Zander's left arm harden into stone.
She looked up at Zander. He was glaring at the man.
Then she heard Peter's voice. "Man, Mom, you got a lot of stuff in that folder."
Horrified, Quinn looked to her left to see Peter and Oksana - she held a thick folder, like a schoolgirl's notebook, almost - stop, cold, both walking and talking, when they saw Zander. Quinn looked back at Zander. Now he was glaring at Oksana.
"Well, OK," Alexis said. "This is my doing, and not Sergei's at all, so there's no violations. We're on our way to Dr. Quartermaine's office, and we're going to go there now, if you'll excuse us." She took Sergei's arm. Zander switched back to glaring at Sergei as they moved down the hall.
"Dad!" Peter said. Joyfully, he ran up to Sergei and hugged him. "Oh, no," Quinn thought.
Sergei hugged him back, quickly, but as if he figured that he was doomed anyway. "Ok, my boy," he said. "It is good to see you. You've grown. I gotta go for now, though." He walked off with Alexis.
"Aw, heck, Mom," Peter said. "It's only Dad. Can't I go talk to him? Sander and I," he said, seeing his brother.
"It is not so easy, Peter," she said. "We have to talk about it, figure it out, legally. If you want to," she looked at Zander, "we will."
Her eyes were big and wide as she stared back at Zander. She swallowed hard, and she looked pale. Quinn felt bad for her.
Quinn looked back at Rosa, and as if their minds were connected, they agreed silently to move their charge on.
They got into the elevator. His arm was still like a stone, and he said nothing. "Of all the luck," Quinn fumed, fingering the green robe a second.
Unintentionally, she had grabbed his attention. She looked up expecting that glare on her now, but it wasn't - he just looked at her tiredly. He closed his eyes then and leaned against the back of the elevator.
