Chapter 2

I was five the first time I had to drink that tonic.

It was so bitter that I burst out crying, spraying the tonic all over the table.

Mom slapped me.

It wasn't hard, but I never forgot it.

After that, every morning at 6:30, I'd be sitting at the table, right on time, eyes shut, head tipped back, gulping it down in one go, like I was forcing myself to swallow poison.

Later, I realized that comparison wasn't funny at all.

Michael was five years younger than me.

The year he was born, my daily dose went from one cup to two.

Mom said my health was getting worse, so I needed more tonic.

But the strange thing was, before Michael was born, I was skinny, but at least I could run and jump.

After he came along, I started getting dizzy all the time, and my hands and feet often went numb. White stripes started showing up across my nails.

When I went to the Willow Creek Health Clinic, the doctor said it was malnutrition.

Mom's eyes went red right there in the clinic. "Doctor, look at her. I make her soup and tonic every day, but she's so weak."

"She was born weak. It's her fate." The doctor gave me a pitying look.

I believed that I really was weak and I was unlucky.

When Michael was seven, something happened that summer.

One day, I came home from school, ready to drink my tonic. As I picked up the cup, Michael darted out and elbowed my wrist.

The liquid spilled all over the floor.

Mom lost it. She chased Michael around the house with a broom, yelling at him, "Do you know how expensive this tonic is? You little troublemaker."

Michael crouched in the corner, clutching his head and bawling.

I felt bad for him, so I crouched down and shielded him. "Mom, stop hitting him. He didn't mean it."

After that, stuff like this kept happening.

Michael was always clumsy, either knocking over the tonic cup or kicking the pot.

One time, he secretly dumped the whole pot of tonic down the drain.

Mom was furious and locked him in the storage room for two hours. It was the middle of winter, and he got cold after that.

Dad worked out of town and only came home once a year for Christmas.

Every time he came back and heard Michael had messed up again, he'd sigh. "Mike, Mel's not well. Your mom works so hard making her tonic. Why do you always make things harder?"

Michael kept his head down, silent. His eyes were red.

I always thought he was just being a kid. Boys were always clumsy, right?

When I turned eighteen, I got into the College of Physicians and Surgeons in the city.

After I left home, the biggest change was that my health actually started getting better, and everyone could see it.

The white lines on my nails slowly faded away. My hands and feet stopped going numb. The dizzy spells went from three times a week to once a month. I could go upstairs without getting out of breath.

My roommate said I looked way healthier.

I figured it was the new environment, better air, better water. But every time I came home for winter or summer break, within a week, all those symptoms came back. Numb hands, dizzy head, stomach churning.

Mom would say, "See? As soon as you leave home, you stop taking your tonic properly. Now you need to get back on track."

I believed her. But every time I drank it like I was supposed to, my symptoms got worse.

I thought I really was born to be weak, and there was no cure for it.

I almost accepted it until that medical report slammed down in front of me.

*****

The first thing I did after getting back to the city was head straight for the lab.

I had a key to the analytical chemistry lab at the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

I pulled out the sample tube of tonic, labeled it, and slipped it in with the other samples for testing.

For the next three days, I couldn't do a thing but wait.

My mind wandered in class. My advisor had to call my name twice before I realized he was talking to me.

On the fourth morning, the results finally dropped.

I stared at the chromatogram on the computer screen, heart pounding.

The main ingredients in the formula looked totally normal.

Astragalus, black cohosh, milk thistle, elderberry, dandelion root, and echinacea.

A lot of people used them to make herbal drinks.

But at the far end of the chromatogram, there was a peak that had no business being there. Realgar, also known as arsenic sulfide.

The amount wasn't huge, about 0.01 ounce per cup.

0.01 ounce of realgar in one dose wouldn't kill me.

In some cultures, realgar was considered a legit ingredient.

But 0.01 ounce, every single day, for twenty-three years. The arsenic kept piling up inside me, quietly wrecking my liver and kidneys, year after year.

That was why I was always so frail as a kid, and those white stripes showed up on my nails. Now I understood why my hands and feet went numb, and I was dizzy all the time.

It wasn't some genetic weakness. It was chronic arsenic poisoning.